Development of a data acquisition system to characterise sustainable energy technologies and to support Web-Based learning (DAQ-WBL)

Driven by concerns about rising energy costs, security of supply and climate change a new wave of Sustainable Energy Technologies (SET’s) have been embraced by the Irish consumer. Such systems as solar collectors, heat pumps and biomass boilers have become common due to government backed financial incentives and revisions of the building regulations. However, there is a deficit of knowledge and understanding of how these technologies operate and perform under Ireland’s maritime climate. This AQ-WBL project was designed to address both these needs by developing a Data Acquisition (DAQ) system to monitor the performance of such technologies and a web-based learning environment to disseminate performance characteristics and supplementary information about these systems. A DAQ system consisting of 108 sensors was developed as part of Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology’s (GMIT’s) Centre for the Integration of Sustainable EnergyTechnologies (CiSET) in an effort to benchmark the performance of solar thermal collectors and Ground Source Heat Pumps (GSHP’s) under Irish maritime climate, research new methods of integrating these systems within the built environment and raise awareness of SET’s. It has operated reliably for over 2 years and has acquired over 25 million data points. Raising awareness of these SET’s is carried out through the dissemination of the performance data through an online learning environment. A learning environment was created to provide different user groups with a basic understanding of a SET’s with the support of performance data, through a novel 5 step learning process and two examples were developed for the solar thermal collectors and the weather station which can be viewed at http://www.kdp 1 .aquaculture.ie/index.aspx. This online learning environment has been demonstrated to and well received by different groups of GMIT’s undergraduate students and plans have been made to develop it further to support education, awareness, research and regional development.

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.