A treatise on order in engineering design research

Engineering design research shows a rather fragmented, if not a chaotic, picture. But does it have a hidden order? Can we explore it, or should we impose a reasoning model? This paper looks for the answer in the purpose of engineering design. It is destined to sustain human existence and well being by virtual creation of artifacts and services for the society. To this end, the engineering design discipline should provide a proper body of knowledge. The design knowledge obtained by empirical exploration and/or rational comprehension should be transformed for practical/pragmatic deployment. It was assumed that this purposely streaming of design knowledge gives a unique rationale for engineering design research. Based on this, a framework of reasoning was constructed, including source, channel, and sink categories of knowledge and research of engineering design, respectively. Within each category, research domains, trajectories, and approaches were identified. The semantic relationships of domains, trajectories, and approaches form a hierarchical structure. The proposed framework enables a grounded argumentation about the order of engineering design research, as well as about the articulation of the engineering design knowledge.     

Proton transfer reaction mass spectrometry, a tool for on-line monitoring of acrylamide formation in the headspace of maillard reaction systems and processed food

The formation of acrylamide was measured in real time during thermal treatment (120-170 degrees C) of potato as well as in Maillard model systems composed of asparagine and reducing sugars, such as fructose and glucose. This was achieved by on-line monitoring of acrylamide released into the headspace of the samples using proton transfer reaction mass spectrometry (PTR-MS). Unambiguous identification of acrylamide by PTR-MS was accomplished by gas chromatography coupled simultaneously to electron-impact MS and PTR-MS. The PTR-MS ion signal at m/z 72 was shown to be exclusively due to protonated acrylamide obtained without fragmentation. In model Maillard systems, the formation of acrylamide from asparagine was favored with increasing temperature and preferably in the presence of fructose. Maximum signal intensities in the headspace were obtained after approximately 2 min at 170 degrees C, whereas 6-7 min was required at 150 degrees C. Similarly, the level of acrylamide released into the headspace during thermal treatment of potato was positively correlated to temperature.     

Characterization and lime treatment of olive mill wastewater

Seventeen olive mill wastewater (OMW) samples were characterized. For characterization of the samples, amount of total, fixed, volatile, suspended, volatile-suspended solids, COD, oil-grease, polyphenol, volatile phenol, nitrogen and reducing sugar were determined. Effects of lime treatment on the waste samples were investigated. Reduction of contents of the samples treated with the lime was described. The effect of the addition of lime on an artificial phenolic mixture was also examined.     

Constrained surface interpolation by means of a genetic algorithm

We propose an evolutionary technique (a genetic algorithm) to solve heavily constrained optimization problems defined on interpolating tensor product surfaces by adjusting the parameter values associated with the data points to be interpolated. Throughout our study we assume that the functional, which operates on these types of interpolating surfaces, is described by a surface integral and fulfills the following conditions: it is not necessarily a smooth functional (i.e., it may have vanishing gradient vectors), it is bounded (i.e., the optimization algorithm can converge in a finite number of steps), it is invariant under parametrization, rigid body transformation and uniform scaling (i.e., different surface parametrization at different scales should generate the same optimized shape). We have successfully tested the proposed algorithm for functionals that involve: minimal surface area, minimal Willmore, umbilic deviation and total curvature energies, minimal third-order scale invariant weighted Mehlum–Tarrou energies, and isoperimetric like problems. In general, our algorithm can be used in the case of any kind of not necessarily smooth surface fairing functionals. The run-time and memory complexities of the suggested algorithm are reasonable. Moreover, the algorithm is independent of the type of tensor product surface.     

Fractal fragmentation of rocks within sturzstroms: insight derived from physical experiments within the ETH geotechnical drum centrifuge

An investigation of the behaviour and energy budget of sturzstroms has been carried out using physical, analytical and numerical modelling techniques. Sturzstroms are rock slides of very large volume and extreme run out, which display intensive fragmentation of blocks of rock due to inter-particle collisions within a collisional flow. Results from centrifugal model experiments provide strong arguments to allow the micro-mechanics and energy budget of sturzstroms to be described quantitatively by a fractal comminution model. A numerical experiment using a distinct element method (DEM) indicates rock mass and boundary conditions, which allow an alternating fragmenting and dilating dispersive regime to evolve and to sustain for long enough to replicate the spreading and run out of sturzstroms without needing to resort to peculiar mechanism. The fragmenting spreading model supported here is able to explain the run out of a fluid-absent granular flow beyond the travel distance predicted by a Coulomb frictional sliding model. This, and its strong relation to internal fragmentation, suggests that a sturzstrom constitutes a landslide category of its own. This study provides a novel framework for the understanding the physics of such sturzstroms.     

Corrosion protection of cold-rolled steel by zinc-rich epoxy paint coatings loaded with nano-size alumina supported polypyrrole

High porosity and intense galvanic function related low electrolytic barrier profile and fast delamination of zinc-rich paints (ZRPs) are addressed by the utilisation of intimately structured, highly dispersed, polypyrrole (PPy) deposited alumina particles (PDAPs) embedded zinc-rich hybrid paints. The more globular but less-packed structure type PPy-contained water-solvent-prepared PDAPs-composited hybrids comprising spherical zinc pigment at 70 wt.%, provided moderate galvanic function with enhanced electrolytic barrier properties. In addition, the less globular structured but well-packed PPy-comprised aqueous ethanol-solvent-prepared PDAPs-composited hybrid coatings indicated highly efficient suppressed galvanic function and improved barrier properties, realising solid performance improvement over conventional ZRPs in immersion and salt-spray chamber tests. Furthermore, the application of highly dispersed PDAPs at a content of 3.2 wt.% while PPy incorporated into zinc-rich hybrids at 0.16 wt.% is proposed to result in emerging additional functionalities increasing long-term anticorrosive performance of ZRPs by inhibiting sacrificial and self-corrosion of zinc and scavenging oxidative radicals thereby hindering oxidative degradation of the organic binder.     

SOLAR ASSISTED DRIER FOR SEEDS

A high performance solar assisted seed dryer has been designed and constructed at a seed processing station in Hungary.

The dryer is arranged in a building specially designed for this purpose, the roof of it serves as solar air collector field. Two drying cells with individual fans of two RPM stages are formed in the building. Drying air preheated by the collector can optionally be distributed between the two drying cells. Material to be dried can be arranged either in a static bed or in containers depending on the requirements. Moist air leaving the bed streams out of the drying cells through openings of the side walls. As auxiliary air heater a natural gas generator is used.     

Experimental and theoretical study of steam condensation induced water hammer phenomena

We investigate the steam condensation induced water hammer (CIWH) phenomena and present experimental and theoretical results. The experiments were performed in the PMK-2 facility, which is a full-pressure thermo-hydraulic model of the primary loop of the VVER-440/312 type nuclear power plant and located in the Atomic Energy Research Institute Budapest, Hungary.The present experimental setup is capable to measure CIWH phenomena in a wide range of steam pressure, cold water temperature and mass flow rate at a high level of accuracy. On the theoretical side CIWH is studied and analyzed with the WAHA3 model based on two-phase flow six first-order partial differential equations that present one-dimensional, surface averaged mass, momentum and energy balances. A second order accurate high-resolution shock-capturing numerical scheme was applied with different kind of limiters in the numerical calculations. Our study clearly shows that Relap5 and Cathare which are used in the nuclear industry to simulate nuclear power plant accidents cannot resolve the narrow pressure peaks created during a CIWH event. Only WAHA3 can model CIWH properly. Experimentally measured and theoretically calculated pressure peaks are in good agreement, however simulations always show additional pressure peaks. As a new feature in this study we present calculations without additional unphysical reflections caused by boundary conditions.