Experimental Measurements of Velocity and Pressure Distribution on a Large Broad-Crested Weir

Basic experiments were conducted in a near full-scale broad-crested weir. Detailed velocity and pressure measurements were performed for two configurations. The results showed the rapid flow distribution at the upstream end of the weir, while an overhanging crest design may affect the flow field. The study showed further that large vortical structures might be observed immediately upstream of the weir and impact adversely on the overflow.

Engineering from within: Habibie the man and Indonesia’s reformasi

Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie, even now, remains a deeply puzzling figure for scholars and commentators concerned with matters Indonesian, Western and Indonesian alike.

Personal Reflexive Instruments for Monitoring Engineering Development (PRIMED) Project

This was an early pre-Catalyst collaboration about developing reflexivity in student engineers. It was funded by (then) CUTSD.

Triple objective team mentoring: achieving learning objectives with chemical engineering students

A sophisticated style of mentoring has been found to be essential to support engineering student teams undertaking technically demanding, real-world problems as part of a Project-Centred Curriculum (PCC) at The University of Queensland. The term ‘triple-objective’ mentoring was coined to define mentoring that addresses not only the student’s technical goal achievement but also their time and team management. This is achieved through a number of formal mentor meetings that are informed by a confidential instrument which requires students to individually reflect on team processes prior to the meeting, and a checklist of technical requirements against which the interim student team progress and achievements are assessed. Triple-objective mentoring requires significant time input and coordination by the academic but has been shown to ensure effective student team work and learning undiminished by team dysfunction. Student feedback shows they value the process and agree that the tools developed to support the process are effective in developing and assessing team work and skills with average scores mostly above 3 on a four point scale.

Theory manual to OctVCE – a cartesian cell CFD code with special application to blast wave problems, Department of Mechanical Engineering Report 2007/12

OctVCE is a cartesian cell CFD code produced especially for numerical simulations of shock and blast wave interactions with complex geometries, in particular, from explosions. Virtual Cell Embedding (VCE) was chosen as its cartesian cell kernel for its simplicity and sufficiency for practical engineering design problems. The code uses a finite-volume formulation of the unsteady Euler equations with a second order explicit Runge-Kutta Godonov (MUSCL) scheme. Gradients are calculated using a least-squares method with a minmod limiter. Flux solvers used are AUSM, AUSMDV and EFM. No fluid-structure coupling or chemical reactions are allowed, but gas models can be perfect gas and JWL or JWLB for the explosive products. This report also describes the code’s ‘octree’ mesh adaptive capability and point-inclusion query procedures for the VCE geometry engine. Finally, some space will also be devoted to describing code parallelization using the shared-memory OpenMP paradigm. The user manual to the code is to be found in the companion report 2007/13.

User guide for shock and blast simulation with the OctVCE code (version 3.5+), Department of Mechanical Engineering Report 2007/13

OctVCE is a cartesian cell CFD code produced especially for numerical simulations of shock and blast wave interactions with complex geometries. Virtual Cell Embedding (VCE) was chosen as its cartesian cell kernel as it is simple to code and sufficient for practical engineering design problems. This also makes the code much more ‘user-friendly’ than structured grid approaches as the gridding process is done automatically. The CFD methodology relies on a finite-volume formulation of the unsteady Euler equations and is solved using a standard explicit Godonov (MUSCL) scheme. Both octree-based adaptive mesh refinement and shared-memory parallel processing capability have also been incorporated. For further details on the theory behind the code, see the companion report 2007/12.

Modeling ex vivo hematopoiesis using chemical engineering metaphors

Ex vivo hematopoiesis is increasingly used for clinical applications. Models of ex vivo hematopoiesis are required to better understand the complex dynamics and to optimize hematopoietic culture processes. A general mathematical modeling framework is developed which uses traditional chemical engineering metaphors to describe the complex hematopoietic dynamics. Tanks and tubular reactors are used to describe the (pseudo-) stochastic and deterministic elements of hematopoiesis, respectively. Cells at any point in the differentiation process can belong to either an immobilized, inert phase (quiescent cells) or a mobile, active phase (cycling cells). The model describes five processes: (1) flow (differentiation), (2) autocatalytic formation (growth),(3) degradation (death), (4) phase transition from immobilized to mobile phase (quiescent to cycling transition), and (5) phase transition from mobile to immobilized phase (cycling to quiescent transition). The modeling framework is illustrated with an example concerning the effect of TGF-beta 1 on erythropoiesis. (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.