Category / General Engineering

Sustainable Design Research Centre Research Seminar # 2

Research themes

Date: 10/12/2012

Time: 15:30 (usually 40 minutes presentation followed by 20 informal discussions)

Venue: Coyne Lecture Theatre

 Topic: Water and Sediment Flow Simulations through Reservoirs and Tunnels

Abstract:

Tarbela dam is one of the largest earth filled dams in the world. It is used for water storage and electric power generation. It comprises of six tunnels, three of which are used for power generation and three for irrigation purposes. Sediments inflow in Tarbela reservoir has resulted in reduction in water storage capacity and damage to the tunnels and plant equipment. It is also the backbone of Pakistan (water, food and energy). In this presentation, results of numerical simulations carried out for the very first time to study sediment and cavitation erosion rate through reservoir and tunnels for different seasons (summer, winter and average), for different outflow combinations and sediment delta movement in the reservoir. In addition, studies regarding velocity and pressure profiles vary with and without sediments. Sediment and cavitation erosion with one way and two way coupling at all heads, for different turbulence models (K-ε and RSM) and injection techniques with two way coupling are carried out. More results will be in the presentation.

The above seminar will be delivered by Professor M. Abid who is visiting the School of Design, Engineering & Computing at BU on Monday 10th and Tuesday 11th December. His visit to BU is externally funded by the British Council Knowledge Exchange Grants for International Strategic Partnerships in Research and Education. Prof. M. Abid received his PhD degree from University of Strathclyde, Glasgow and presently working as Dean Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, GIK Institute, Pakistan. His research interests are in the areas of Renewable Energy Systems, Structural Mechanics, Welding Mechanics and Computational Fluid Dynamics. During his two day visit he will be meeting several staff to identify opportunities of research collaborations and exchanges, staff/students mobility in education related activities and will be participating in teaching activities within the Design & Engineering Framework at Level C, I and H.

SDRC Seminar Series # 1 – ‘Tribological Aspects and Applications of Metal Matrix Composites’

Please consider attending the second research seminar of the Sustainable Design Research Centre Seminar Series entitled ‘Tribological Aspects and Applications of Metal Matrix Composites’ and delivered by Prof. Chinnakurli S. Ramesh from the PES Institute of Technology, Bangalore, to be held  today at 4pm in P335. Attendance is free and all are very welcome to attend!

 

Prof. Chinnakurli S. Ramesh

Prof. Chinnakurli S. Ramesh received his PhD in Metallurgical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras and also holds a Bachelors Degree in Mechanical Engineering. He is currently working as a Professor in the Mechanical Engineering department at PES Institute of Technology, Bangalore. His main interests are in the processing and characterization of metal matrix composites, nanotechnology and their tribological applications, and the finite element analysis of bio-implants.

Professor Ramesh has also successfully completed several Govt. agencies funded projects, published over 50 journal and 75 conference papers, and has successfully supervised several PhDs projects. He is on the review panel of many leading International Journals  and is a recipient of the prestigious Prof. Satish Dhawan Award for the outstanding Contributions in Engineering Sciences, Awarded by the Govt. of Karnataka. He is also the recipient of Sudharshan Bhat Award from IIT Madras for the best PhD thesis.

 

Sustainable Design Research Centre (SDRC)

The Sustainable Design Research Centre coordinates research into sustainability related subjects within the school of Design, Engineering and Computing and this seminar series is intended to highlight some of this ongoing research at Bournemouth University and to showcase the related research of guest speakers and visiting lecturers.

EPSRC Sandpit: More with Less: Engineering Solutions for Resource Efficiency

Funding opportunities

The EPSRC has announced a call for Expressions of Interest for attendance at their Sandpit for ‘More with Less: Engineering Solutions for Resource Efficiency’.

The UK is a small nation with limited resources that has a high material dependency. With the ever growing concern of material and resource scarcity we look to the ingenuity of the research base to find long-term sustainable solutions.

The Engineering theme will lead a sandpit in response to the challenges raised by the research community in the Resource Efficiency Scoping Workshop in April 2012 and in line with EPSRC strategy. The primary aim is to invest in ambitious, engineering-led, cross-disciplinary research with the potential for long-term transformation across many and diverse sectors, especially among those that have yet to embrace these concepts.

EPSRC are looking for enthusiastic participants from a wide range of disciplines who will bring their expertise to explore the challenges of:

  • Dematerialisation (eg lightweighting, novel materials functionality, novel materials from waste products, materials security and efficiency);
  • Designing for resource sustainability (eg energy, water and materials efficiency, considerations for engineering processes, whole systems and resource flow modelling);
  • Reuseability at any scale (closed and open loop recycling, remanufacturing, extended product life).

Closing Date: 13.00 on 11 June 2012

Documents to Download:

Resource efficiency sandpit call document

Resource efficiency workshop challenge outcomes

Ideas Factory Sandpit expression of interest form: Return form to sandpit@epsrc.ac.uk

Equal Opportunities Form

A Sandpit for Ideas: The concept of the IDEAS Factory is to organise interactive workshops (sandpits) on particular topics, involving 20-25 participants. The focus for this sandpit is MORE WITH LESS: Engineering solutions for resource efficiency. Anyone eligible to apply for funding from Research Councils UK can apply.

The Sandpit Event: The sandpit will run over five days starting mid-morning on day one and finishing mid-afternoon on day five.

As the sandpit progresses, participants will build up thoughts on how the identified ‘challenges’ may be addressed and develop their innovative ideas and activities into research projects. Projects will contain genuinely novel and speculative investigations that address new approaches to resource efficiency. The sandpit will include inputs from a variety of sources.

Location and Date

The date for this sandpit is 23rd – 27th July 2012. Location to be confirmed.

DEC Post Graduate Researcher Poster Competition

PG research

The School of Design, Engineering and Computing is holding its 5th Annual Post Graduate Research Student Poster Competition Conference on Wednesday 23rd May 2012 in the Thomas Hardy Suite.  This event showcases the School’s current PhD research.  Judging will take place in the morning and then the display will be open to all at 14:00 hours. Bournemouth University Board Member, Dr Peter Barnwell MBE will officially open the conference at 14:30 p.m. and will be awarding the prizes for the best posters at approximately 15:00 pm. Students will be there to discuss their research until 16:00 hours.  All staff are welcome.

The impact of sustainable tribology

I authored a paper with colleagues from the General Engineering (Unit of Assessment 15), including Prof. M. Hadfield, Dr. B. Thomas, S. Martinez Noya, and our research sponsors Mr. I. Hensaw (Energetix Group PLC) and Mr. S. Austen (RNLI). The publication is titled “Future Perspectives on Sustainable Tribology” and was submitted to Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews Journal. It has recently been accepted (22 Feb 2012) for publication. The article is the result of a two-month support for impact (REF) exercise which took place last summer (June-July 2011) and was sponsored by the Research Development Unit (R&KEO) of Bournemouth University.

The interesting fact about the article is that the particular journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews has an impact factor of 5.367 (last five years) and is 9th out of 2009 Engineering Journals Worldwide (according to 2011 impact factor rankings) while its overall Ranking Worldwide among any Journal Indexed on Scopus is 268 out of 18854 Journals.

I would like to post this success on the Research Blog in order to show that support for impact at least in my case was worthwhile as it triggered my interest to write this “impact” paper with colleagues from Sustainable Design Research Centre (SDRC). The paper highlights the future perspectives of Sustainable Tribology by examining the economic, environmental and social impact of three tribological case studies worldwide. Each case study highlights one aspect of a number of ongoing interlinking research strands developed by the SDRC at Bournemouth University. The importance of Environmental Engineering through Sustainable Tribology solutions in our epoch is emphasized, showing that sustainability can be achieved to a significant extent through effective sustainable and environmental friendly engineering solutions, stimulating sustainable development and providing stability to our world embracing an anthropocentric and viable growth to our societies through effective sustainable solutions (figure 1).

To conclude, I would like to thank all the co-authors for their valuable help and contribution to the specific article while I would also like to express my regards to Prof. Mark Hadfield for the position he offered to me as a research assistant for REF support during that period and for his valuable guidance. I strongly believe it was a really beneficial project for myself as well as for Bournemouth University.