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(2009)Conference PaperThe non-intrusive measurement of the condition of blades within a gas turbine would be a significant aid in the maintenance and continued operation of these engines. Online condition monitoring of the blade health by non-contact measurement methods is the ambition of most techniques. The current dominant method uses proximity probes to measure blade arrival time for subsequent monitoring. It has recently been proposed however, that measurement of the turbine casing vibration response could provide a means of blade condition monitoring, and even give the prospect of providing an estimation of the blade modal parameters. The casing vibration is believed to be excited pre-dominantly by (i) the moving pressure waveform around each blade throughout its motion and (ii) the moments applied by the stationary stator blades. Any changes to the pressure profile around the rotating blades, due to their vibration, will in turn affect these two dominant excitation forces, such that there will be some correlation between the casing response and blade vibrations. Previous work has introduced an analytical model of a gas turbine casing, and simulated pressure signal, associated with the rotating blades. The effect of individual rotor blade vibrations has been developed in order to understand the complex relationship between these excitation forces. A simplified turbine test rig has been constructed. Various aspects of the previous analytical modelling are presented, and then investigated and verified using results from the experimental program with this simplified test rig.
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(2009)Conference PaperThe non-intrusive measurement of blade condition within a gas turbine would be a significant aid in the maintenance and continued operation of these engines. Online condition monitoring of the blade health by non-contact measurement methods is obviously the ambition of most techniques, with a number of methods proposed, investigated and employed for such measurement. The current dominant method uses proximity probes to measure blade arrival time for subsequent processing. It has been recently proposed however, that measurement of the turbine casing vibration response could provide a means of blade condition monitoring. The casing vibration is believed to be excited pre-dominantly by (i) the moving pressure waveform around each blade throughout its motion and (ii) the moments applied by the stationary stator blades. Any changes to the pressure profile around the rotating blades, due to their vibration, will therefore in turn affect these excitation forces. Previous work has introduced an analytical model of a gas turbine casing, and simulated pressure signal associated with the rotating blades. The model has been extended in this paper to more closely represent a commercial gas turbine with experimental verification being presented for various aspects of the analytical modelling procedure.
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(2009)Conference PaperThe effect of introducing combinations of spherical dimples and protrusions in a shallow rectangular channel on the flow and heat transfer in the laminar regime has been studied numerically. Four different cases were investigated. These consisted of: an isolated dimple, an isolated protrusion both placed on the centerline of one of the wide face of the channel, a combination of a dimple located on the centerline of the wide face of the channel and a protrusion located downstream but shifted to the side, and finally, a combination in which the protrusion and the dimple are reversed. The resultant, very complex flow structure and thermal fields in the channel are presented. The introduction of a single dimple results in a small enhancement of heat transfer and a very small reduction in pressure drop relative to those obtained in a smooth channel. However, a significant enhancement in heat transfer obtained from a single protrusion is associated with marginal increase in pressure drop. The addition of a protrusion downstream of the dimple leads to an increase of 30% in heat transfer augmentation above that which pertains for the isolated protrusion without any increase in the pressure drop. With the reversal of the positions of the protrusion and the dimple no effect on either the pressure drop or the heat transfer has been observed.
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(2009)Conference PaperAustralia leads the world in some areas of photovoltaic technology development, yet current innovation system limitations have seen local innovation overtaken by more rapid international development, or local product development moving offshore for commercialisation. Innovation is traditionally viewed as a linear progression through phases of early research, demonstration, commercialisation and market uptake, and this traditional view strongly emphasises the importance of the early phases. The latest thinking on innovation suggests that technological learning occurs not only through R&D, but also through manufacturing and marketing activities and through the interactions of actors within networks. In this paradigm, technology diffusion, as well as invention and adoption, plays a role in determining the direction of technological change. Organisational change and institutional change, which are critical in determining which technologies become established, are considered to be as important as technical change. This paper proposes the use of an innovation systems framework to assess the characteristics of the Australian PV innovation system, such as the type and number of actors, their linkages, and the resources available to them. Where much of the past support for the PV industry in Australia has been directed towards early research or market development, this research will provide information that could enable the design of policies that better facilitate innovation throughout the value chain and thus improve the impact of future policies on innovation.
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(2009)Conference PaperThe PV Rebate Program (now the Solar Homes and Communities Program) operated from 2000 to mid 2009. Over this time, more than 40,000 PV systems were installed, about half of which were installed in the first half of 2009, and about a quarter of which were in NSW. This paper presents analysis of the characteristics of NSW PV rebate recipients, using surveys carried out by the NSW Government between 2000 and 2007, and a 2008 survey undertaken for the Commonwealth Government after it took over Program management. The surveys included questions about customer demographics, energy use and awareness, as well as PV information sources and reason for purchasing PV. The analysis in this paper is limited to grid-connected, residential rebate recipients in NSW, but the findings can be considered representative of the situation in Australia as a whole. Over the life of the Program both the grants and the customer base have changed. The most recent changes to the Program include the doubling of the grant in 2007 and the imposition of a means test in 2008. Variations to customer demographics and investment decisions are evident following these changes. The data provides a useful glimpse into Australian energy knowledge, attitudes and behaviour and hence provides useful guidance for future programs. This paper summarises a much larger report for the Commonwealth Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, funded through the Low Emissions Technology and Abatement Program.
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(2009)Conference PaperUNSW?s Faculty of Engineering is introducing a new process for designing and developing blended and fully online (distance) courses, as part of action research to support curriculum renewal. The process, referred to as CREWED (Curriculum Renewal and E-learning Workloads: Embedding in Disciplines), is being used to develop key courses that add flexibility to student progression pathways. By integrating the design of learning activities with the planning and organization of teaching and support work, CREWED addresses some of the known barriers to embedding innovative use of learning technologies within disciplines. CREWED incorporates key features of two course development models from the UK, one emphasising team building and the other emphasising pedagogical planning. It has been piloted in priority curriculum development projects, to ensure that the disciplinary organizational context is supportive. One pilot is a fully online distance version of a postgraduate course. The other is a blended version of an undergraduate course. Both are core (required) courses in accredited professional engineering degree programs and were previously available only in face-to-face mode. The UNSW pilots have confirmed the importance of articulating clear pedagogical models, and of planning ahead for the resources required to put these models into practice, as part of departmental capacity building, especially where teaching has primarily been treated as an individual classroom-based activity that competes with disciplinary research for academic staff time and resources.
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(2009)Conference PaperThe University of New South Wales introduced interviews for undergraduate admissions in 2006. This was one of several initiatives to broaden engineering study and move from focusing on traditional academic knowledge towards building ability in professional engineering design problem solving. We analysed interview and 1st year academic results for 600 FEAS applicants who subsequently became undergraduate engineering students at the University. The analyses show that that student success overall is still strongly related to theoretical skills, despite curriculum change initiatives. Other studies suggest a potential explanation: established engineering academic value systems are hard to shift. Both the interviews and undergraduate coursework assessment are conducted mainly by academic researchers who have themselves successfully come through a traditional engineering education. The results of this study have not only suggested how to improve the interview processes, but have also provided quantitative evidence of the systemic mechanisms that sustain established learning and teaching practices.
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(2009)Conference PaperThe Membrane Research Environment (MemRE) is a component research infrastructure project of the Advanced Membrane Technologies for Water Treatment Research Cluster, a research project funded by the CSIRO flagship Water for a Healthy Country. The research cluster, a nationally distributed and multidisciplinary group of researchers including computational and physical chemists, physicists, material scientists, and chemical and mechanical engineers, aims to develop novel membrane materials in order to reduce the energy associated with desalination by 40%. Common hurdles in multidisciplinary research projects include: a lack of consolidation of existing information relevant to the research from all the participating fields; an absence of information infrastructure to promote comparison of results; and the need for a common language to better enable project participants to communicate. MemRE has been designed and implemented as a solution to these hurdles, to provide an integrated research development tool and learning environment.
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(2009)Conference PaperA raft of models and definitions of SoTL exist and the best appear to transcend disciplinary contexts, and are sufficiently robust for academics to measure scholarly practices. Critical engagement with the scholarly literature is necessary for academics to gain a realistic view of where their work practices are situated within the scholarly domain. Because academic staff are disciplinary experts they are best placed to comment on whether the models of scholarship describe the scholarship of learning and teaching within the context of their own disciplines as well as within the confines of the Australian higher education sector. This paper pushes the existing debates on reconciling what evidence of scholarship in the disciplines actually is and what is considered valid, and in doing so uncovers why the process of reconciliation, between current practice and supporting evidence, remains elusive. Higher education academics need to identify and reconcile tacit disciplinary knowledge with their SoTL approach in order to unpack the complexity and value of their practices. Enabling academic staff to annotate their activities, roles and accomplishments and then map these items onto the various models of scholarship will enrich the status of scholarship of teaching and learning within the higher education sector.