Green furniture: sustainable design guidelines for the Irish furniture and wood products industry.

This thesis presents the research and development of sustainable design guidelines for the furniture and wood products industry, suitable for sustainably enhancing design, manufacturing and associated activities. This sustainable guideline is based on secondary research conducted on subject areas such as ‘eco’ design, ‘green’ branding and ‘green’ consumerism, as well as an examination of existing certifications and sustainable tools techniques and methodologies, national and international drivers for sustainable development and an overview of sustainability in the Irish furniture manufacturing context. The guideline was further developed through primary research. This consisted of a focus group attended by leading Irish designers, manufacturers and academics in the area of furniture and wood products. This group explored the question of ‘green branding’ saturation in the market and the viability of investing in sustainability just yet. Participants stated that they felt the market for ‘green’ products is evolving very slowly and that there is no metric or legal framework present to audit whether or not companies are producing products that really embody sustainability. All the participants believed that developing and introducing a new certification process to incorporate a sustainable design process was a viable and necessary solution to protecting Irish furniture and wood manufacturers going forward. For the purposes of the case study, the author investigated a ‘sustainable’ design process for Team woodcraft, Ltd., through the design and development of a ‘sustainable’ children’s furniture range. The case study followed a typical design and development process; detailing customer design specifications, concept development and refinement and cumulating in final prototype, as well as associated engineering drawings. Based on this primary and secondary research, seven fundamental core principles for this sustainable guideline have been identified by the author. The author then used these core principles to expand into guidelines for the basis of proposed new Irish sustainable design guidelines for the furniture and wood products industry, the concept of which the author has named ‘Green Dot’. The author suggests that the ‘Green Dot’ brand or logo could be used to market an umbrella network of Irish furniture designers and manufactures who implement the recommended sustainable techniques.

Optimising the design and manufacture of a customised, prescription fit, Maxillo-facial prosthesis

This thesis is a continuation of the Enterprise-Ireland Research Innovation Fund (RIF) Project entitled’ "Design and Manufacturing of Customised Maxillo-Facial Prostheses" The primary objective of this Internal Research Development Program (IRDP) project was to investigate two fundamental design changes 1 To incorporate the over-denture abutments directly into the implant. 2 To remove the restraining wings by the addition of screws, which affix the. implant to the dense material of the jawbone. The prosthetic was redesigned using the ANSYS Finite Element Analysis software program and analysed to* • Reduce the internal von Mises stress distribution The new prosthetic had a -63.63 % lower von Mises stress distribution when compared with the original prosthetic. • Examine the screw preload effects. A maximum relative displacement of 22 6 * lO^mm between the bone and screw was determined, which is well below the critical threshold of micromotion which prevents osseointegration • Investigate the prosthetic-bone contact interface. Three models of the screw, prosthesis, and bone, were studied. (Axisymmetnc, quarter volume, and full volume), a recommended preload torque of 0 32 Nm was applied to the prosthetic and a maximum von Mises stress of 1.988 MPa was predicted • Study the overdenture removal forces. This analysis could not be completed because the correct plastic multilinear properties of the denture material could not be established The redesigned prosthetic was successfully manufactured on a 3-axis milling machine with an indexing system The prosthetic was examined for dimensional quality and strength The research established the feasibility of the new design and associated manufacturing method.

Design, development and testing of a CAD integrated design for environment software tool.

The research described in this thesis was developed as part o f the Information Management for Green Design (IMA GREE) Project. The 1MAGREE Project was founded by Enterprise Ireland under a Strategic Research Grant Scheme as a partnership project between Galway Mayo Institute o f Technology and C1MRU University College Galway. The project aimed to develop a CAD integrated software tool to support environmental information management for design, particularly for the electronics-manufacturing sector in Ireland.