Civil and Environmental Engineering Commons^™

The Impact Of Power Curve Estimation On Commercial Wind Power Forecasts - An Empirical Analysis, Gianni Goretti, Aidan Duffy, Tek Tjing Lie

Conference papers

An increasing number of utilities participating in the energy market require short term (i.e. up to 48 hours) power forecasts for renewable generation in order to optimize technical and financial performances. As a result, a large number of forecast providers now operate in the marketplace, each using different methods and offering a wide range of services. This paper assesses five different day-ahead wind power forecasts generated by various service providers currently operating in the market, and compares their performance against the state-of-the-art of short-term wind power forecasting. The work focuses on how power curve estimations can introduce systematic errors that …

Bim Innovation Capability Programme Of Ireland, Barry Mcauley, Alan Hore, Roger West

Conference papers

The Irish Government has requested that Enterprise Ireland, an organisation responsible for the development and growth of Irish enterprises in world markets to actively promote the use of BIM in Ireland. This promotion has taken the form of an opportunity for Enterprise Ireland clients to apply for a grant under their BIM Enable and BIM Implementation schemes and also through their funding of the BIM Innovation Capability Programme (BICP) of Ireland. The BICP is a two-year project (2016-2018) which seeks to capture the capability of the Irish Construction Industry and the Higher Education Institutes to respond to the increased requirement …

Bs News July/August

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

Design Of A Wear Test Machine For Diamond Saw Segment, D. Nulty, J. Dwan, Y. Blake

The ITB Journal

Diamond tools are used in a wide range of industrial areas such as construction industry, metal machining and exploration drilling. The diamond impregnated tools used in the stone and construction industry are metal matrix composites. Diamond saw blades are the most commonly used tools. The optimum operation of diamond saw blades is determined by the cutting action of the diamond grit and the bounding of the metal matrix. However the wear behavior of the diamond saw has been less studied Currently in the blade development, actual full blade tests often have to be conducted for optimization and the testing process …

Effects Of Vegetation On Slope Stability: A Review, Roberto José Marín Sánchez, Juan Pablo Osorio

Articles

Slope stability is usually affected by factors that reduce soil strength and increase driving forces acting on the slope material, sometimes generating mass movements. Among these factors, vegetation has an important role related to hydrological (e.g. evapotranspiration and infiltration) and mechanical (e.g. tree surcharge and root reinforcement provided by trees) mechanisms. In this review, vegetation influences associated to slope stability are identified, describing the mechanisms involved in the occurrence of mass movements. Finally, the way these factors affect slope stability is explained according to soil properties, climatic conditions and environmental characteristics.

Building Information Modelling In Ireland 2017, Barry Mcauley, Alan Hore, Roger West

Reports

BIM is perhaps the most topical issue in construction throughout the world at present, as it is associated with solving so many of the present concerns in our industry.

Our lack of housing, shortage of skilled workers, poor document management, overrunning project budgets and sustainability challenges are just a few of the challenges that BIM promises to assist in solving.

The increasing importance of “digitisation” to modern construction and engineering businesses is becoming more apparent as more and more clients are explicitly asking for BIM in the design and delivery of new facilities and infrastructure.

This report provides a snapshot …

Analysis Of Response Of Flexible Pavements Using Finite Element Method, R.M. Mulungye, P.M.O Owende, K. Mellon

The ITB Journal

The characteristic response of flexible pavements under traffic load depict a delayed lateral strain relaxation (Viscoelasticity), a phenomenon that may be more accurately and expeditiously analysed using finite element (FE) viscoelastic response models. In this study a flexible pavement was modelled using ANSYS/ED finite element software suite. The pavement model was subjected to cyclic loading that simulated three levels of truck loads on 10R20 tyres at four tyre inflation pressures (viz. 350,490,630 and 770 kPa). The modelled results were in good agreement with the measured in-situ full-scale test data. Therefore, for known pavement material characteristics and tyre-pavement contact regime, finite …

A Plan For Using Phenomenography To Explore Academic Conceptions Of Their Role In Developing Professional Skills In Engineering Students, Una Beagon, Brian Bowe

Other resources

This presentation presents a PhD study looking at academic conceptions of the approaches to teaching professional skills in engineering programmes in Ireland.

Teaching Professional Skills In Engineering Programmes: The Academic Perspective, Una Beagon

Other resources

Teaching Professional skills in Engineering Programmes: The Academic Perspective

A plan for using phenomenography to explore academic conceptions of their role in developing professional skills in engineering students

Bs News May/June

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

Irish Bim Study 2017, Barry Mcauley, Alan Hore, Roger West

Articles

The Construction IT Alliance (CitA) recently published its Global BIM Study as part of its BIM Innovation Capability Programme (BICP). The study sought to identify how BIM was being currently addressed in 27 countries across the globe. The study sought to identify the presence of three key ingredients in these countries:

1. Regulatory requirement for BIM

2. Champions driving BIM

3. Noteworthy publications

The report identified a number of recurring themes that would help to shape Ireland’s BIM programme. The report concluded that Ireland should adopt a programme of partnership between industry and the Irish Government in order to affect …

Bs News March/April

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

Bicp Global Bim Study - Lessons For Ireland’S Bim Programme, Barry Mcauley, Alan Hore, Roger West

Reports

The Construction IT Alliance (CitA) has been promoting the benefits of digitisation in the construction and engineering industry in Ireland since its formation back in 2002. Whilst the Alliance has always strived to ensure that its members are exposed to a wide spectrum of contemporary digital tools and processes, the concept of Building Information Modelling (BIM) has dominated the focus of its activities over the past five years.

BIM can be described as a digital tool that facilitates everybody to better understand a building or structure through the use of a digital model which draws on a range of data …

A Review Of Approaches To Solving The Problem Of Bim Search: Towards Intelligence-Assisted Design, Hamed Khademi, Avril Behan

Conference papers

Due to the growing adoption of BIM and the rising popularity of cloud computing, BIM models are increasingly stored in central cloud repositories or Common Data Environments. Effective management and exploitation of these models creates the requirement for BIM retrieval systems. Thus far, the BIM industry has utilized general-purpose, text-based search techniques that operate on BIM metadata. This paper highlights the need for a domain-specific BIM search engine and reviews various approaches to address the problem of BIM search. Three main approaches were identified as context-, geometry-, and content-based BIM retrieval. For a comprehensive BIM retrieval system, all three approaches …

Detection Of Trends In The 7-Day Sustained Low-Flow Time Series Of Irish Rivers, Ahmed Nasr, Michael Bruen

Articles

A combination of statistical hypothesis testing methods (Mann-Whitney, Mann-Kendall and Spearman’s rho) and visual exploratory analysis were used to investigate trends in Irish 7-day sustained low-flow (7SLF) series possibly driven by changes in summer rainfall patterns. River flow data from 33 gauging stations covering most major Irish rivers were analysed, after excluding catchments where low flows are influenced by significant human interventions. A statistically significant increasing trend in the 7SLF series was identified by all three tests at eight gauging stations; in contrast, a statistically significant decreasing trend was identified by all three tests at four stations. The stations with …

Thermal Inactivation Analysis Of Water-Related Pathogens In Domestic Hot Water Systems, Liam Mccarton, Sean O'Hogain

Articles

This study aims to investigate whether hot water systems supplied with harvested rainwater present an increased risk to health over hot water systems supplied with potable mains water. It reviews previous studies investigating the health effects of utilising rainwater within domestic systems. The main risk to public health of mains-supplied hot water systems is the operation, maintenance, age, location and temperature of the system. Rainwater-harvesting systems contain an inherent water treatment train consisting of flocculation, settlement, sorption and bioreaction, and stored rainwater quality improves as metal and chemical contaminants settle to form sludge. Laboratory experiments were conducted using a variety …

Procedural Historic Building Information Modelling (Hbim) For Recording And Documenting European Classical Architecture, Conor Dore

Doctoral

Procedural Historic Building Information Modelling (HBIM) is a new approach for modelling historic buildings which develops full building information models from remotely sensed data. HBIM consists of a novel library of reusable parametric objects, based on historic architectural data and a system for mapping these library objects to survey data. Using concepts from procedural modelling, a new set of rules and algorithms have been developed to automatically combine HBIM library objects and generate different building arrangements by altering parameters. This is a semi-automatic process where the required building structure and objects are first automatically generated and then refined to match …

Strengthening The Development Of The Short-Rotation Plantations Bioenergy Sector: Policy Insights From Six European Countries, Carlos Parra-Lopez, Martin Holley, Kevin Lindegaard, Samir Sayadi, Gonzalo Esteban-Lopez, Victor Duran-Zuazo, Christoph Knauer, Hans-Georg Von Engelbrechten, Ralf Winterber, Annika Henriksson, Annette Lamley, Anders Nylander, Susanne Paulrud, Pauline Leonard, Patrick Daly, Lukasz Drzewaszewski, Wojciech Rzewuski

Articles

This paper, based on a participatory methodological framework involving expert stakeholders and researchers from six European countries (Germany, Ireland, Poland, Spain, Sweden and UK), analyses the priority issues for the development of short-rotation plantations (SRP), and proposes a series of policy strategies to strengthen this development. The results indicate that there is a lack of awareness of the multifaceted benefits of SRP at the level of farmers, policy makers and public authorities. More research is required to put a value on the multifunctionality of SRP and justify its public support. Small-scale projects using established technologies are also required with energy …

Compact Facility For Testing Steady And Transient Thermal Performance Of Building Walls, Aimee Byrne, Gerard Byrne, Anthony Robinson

Articles

Energy efficiency retrofit of buildings represents a key effort in reducing EU energy demand by 20% by 2020. However, predictions tend to overestimate savings by large percentages. The shortfall in savings can be attributed to incorrect predictive techniques, comfort takeback along with other behavioural and workmanship variables. Common predictive techniques related to heat loss tend to be based on the U-value of the building envelope. This paper presents the design of a more straightforward and compact version of the traditional Hot-Box apparatus (measures U-value) which instead determines the thermal resistance of samples of building envelope. U-value includes the need to …

Optimising The Performance Of Cement-Based Batteries, Aimee Byrne, Shane Barry, Niall Holmes Dr., Brian Norton

Articles

The development of a battery using different cement-based electrolytes to provide a low but potentially sustainable source of electricity is described. The current, voltage, and lifespan of batteries produced using different electrolyte additives, copper plate cathodes, and (usually) aluminium plate anodes were compared to identify the optimum design, components, and proportions to increase power output and longevity. Parameters examined include water/cement ratio, anode to cathode surface area ratio, electrode material, electrode spacing, and the effect of sand, aggregate, salts, carbon black, silica fume, and sodium silicate on the electrolyte. The results indicate that the greatest and longest lasting power can …

The Compartmented Alginate Fibres Optimisation For Bitumen Rejuvenator Encapsulation, Amir Tabakovic, Dirk Braak, Mark Van Gerwen, Oguzhan Copuroglu, Wouter Post, Santiago J. Garcia, Erik Schlangen

Research and Innovation - Articles

This article presents development of a novel self-healing technology for asphalt pavements, where asphalt binder rejuvenator is encapsulated within the compartmented alginate fibres. The key objective of the study was to optimise the compartmented alginate fibre design, i.e., maximising amount of rejuvenator encapsulated within the fibre. The results demonstrate that optimum rejuvenator content in the alginate fibre is of 70:30 rejuvenator/alginate ratio. The fibres are of sufficient thermal and mechanical strength to survive harsh asphalt mixing and compaction processes. Furthermore, results illustrate that zeer open asfalt beton (ZOAB) asphalt mix containing 5% of 70:30 rejuvenator/alginate ratio compartmented alginate fibres has …

A Transfer Matrix Approach To Aid In The Design And Optimization Of Hybrid Advanced Passive Structures For Enhancing Photovoltaic Efficiency, James Walshe, Sarah Mccormack, Hind Ahmed, John Doran

Conference Papers

The addition of a luminescent down-shifting (LDS) layer directly onto a photovoltaic (PV) cell introduces additional loss mechanisms within the system. The combination of non-ideal photo-luminescent materials encapsulated within a limited range of viable host materials, with the increased reflection losses arising from the newly created interface represent losses which must be overcome for LDS to offer an enhancement to the underlying cells efficiency. Exploiting the interaction between the highly enhanced electric fields established close to a metal nanoparticles (MNP’s) surface is one route aimed at mitigating the poor optical properties of the luminophore-host combinations available. Alternative approaches, aimed at …

Linking Geospatial Engineering Into Collaborative Multidisciplinary Bim Projects - An Educational Perspective, Avril Behan, Helen Murray, Jonathan Argue, Ronan Hogan, Audrey Martin, Pat O'Sullivan, Robert Moore, Malachy Mathews

Conference papers

This paper describes the background to and execution of a postgraduate project undertaken by students on DIT's MSc in Geospatial Engineering (GeoEng) in support of a project on level 2 BIM being undertaken by students on the MSc in applied Building Information Modelling & Management (aBIMM) around the retrofit of and new build extension to the Grangegorman Clock Tower Building. In support of this requirement, an external and internal survey of the existing structure and its surrounding topography was required. The aBIMM students and staff acted as the Design Team who subcontracted the Geo Eng group who were organised into …

An Overview Of Dissolved Organic Carbon In Groundwater And Implications For Drinking Water Safety, S. Regan, Paul Hynds, R. Flynn

Articles

Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) is composed of a diverse array of compounds, predominantly humic substances, and is a near ubiquitous component of natural groundwater, notwithstanding climatic extremes such as arid and hyper-arid settings. Despite being a frequently measured parameter of groundwater quality, the complexity of DOC composition and reaction behaviour means that links between concentration and human health risk are difficult to quantify and few examples are reported in the literature. Measured concentrations from natural/unpolluted groundwater are typically below 4 mg C/l, whilst concentrations above these levels generally indicate anthropogenic influences and/or contamination issues and can potentially compromise water safety. …

Geospatial Drivers Of The Groundwater Δ18o Isoscape In A Temperate Maritime Climate (Republic Of Ireland), S. Regan, R. Goodhue, O. Naughton, Paul Hynds

Articles

In recent years, the concept of “isoscapes” has been used to describe spatiotemporal stable isotope distributions within natural environments including groundwater systems at multiple scales. This study presents an updated groundwater δ18O isoscape for the Republic of Ireland and describes the climatic and geological drivers influencing 18O composition. In all, 142 geographically and geologically representative groundwater installations were sampled and analysed, in addition to 35 samples from six nested boreholes. Geospatially, Irish groundwater exhibits high δ18O values in southern and western coastal regions, becoming progressively depleted inland before reaching lowest measured values along the eastern coast, equating to a national …

Uav Data For Coastal Dune Mapping, Chen Suo, Eugene Mcgovern, Alan Gilmer

Conference papers

High resolution topographic maps are critical for the development of rigorous and quantitative numerical simulation landscape models. These models can inform targeted land management actions that maintain biodiversity and ecological functions. Mapping functional vegetation communities to obtain accurate distribution and population estimates is an important element of landscape models and is a challenging task which requires a considerable investment in time and resources. A recent development in surveying technologies, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV’s), also known as drones, has enabled high resolution and high accuracy ground-based data to be gathered quickly and easily on-site. The application of UAV’s represents a new …

Smart Motorway Innovation For Achieving Greater Safety And Hard Shoulder Management, Nicola Callaghan, Thomas Avery, Mark Mulville

Conference papers

"Smart" motorways are becoming more prevalent through technology-driven approaches such as active traffic management (ATM) systems, hard shoulder management (HSM) control systems and digital enforcement cameras. Such technologies are able to monitor and respond to fluctuating traffic conditions by altering the speed limit to smooth traffic flow, activate warning signs to alert users of hazards up ahead and permit the use of the hard shoulder, either permanently or at peak times. This paper investigates smart motorways as a way of reducing congestion achieving greater road safety and improving hard shoulder management. This research is one of the first which deals …

Bs News January/February

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

A Geo-Statistical Investigation Of Agricultural And Infrastructural Risk Factors Associated With Primary Verotoxigenic E. Coli (Vtec) Infection In The Republic Of Ireland, 2008–2013, Paul Hynds, Jean O'Dwyer, Una B. Fallon, Coilín Oscar Óhaiseadha

Articles

Ireland reports the highest incidence of verotoxigenic Escherichia coli (VTEC) infection in Europe. This study investigated potential risk factors for confirmed sporadic and outbreak primary VTEC infections during 2008-2013. Overall, 989 VTEC infections including 521 serogroup O157 and 233 serogroup O26 were geo-referenced to 931 of 18488 census enumeration areas. The geographical distribution of human population, livestock, unregulated groundwater sources, domestic wastewater treatment systems (DWWTS) and a deprivation index were examined relative to notification of VTEC events in 524 of 6242 rural areas. Multivariate modelling identified three spatially derived variables associated with VTEC notification: private well usage (odds ratio (OR) …

Efficacy And Mechanistic Insights Into Endocrine Disruptor Degradation Using Atmospheric Air Plasma, Chaitanya Sarangapani, M. Danaher, Brijesh Tiwari, Peng Lu, Paula Bourke, Patrick J. Cullen

Articles

Endocrine disruptors are a class of contaminants found in water and process effluents at low concentrations. They are of concern due to their high estrogenic potency. Their presence in the environment has led to the search for effective techniques for their removal in wastewater. For this purpose, an atmospheric air plasma reactor was employed for the study of the degradation of three endocrine disruptor chemicals (EDC) namely; bisphenol A (BPA), estrone (E1) and 17β-estradiol (E2) within a model dairy effluent. Identification of the plasma induced active species both in the gas and liquid phases were performed. Also studied was the …