Library: Engineering

This document shows the current state of the research work done around the SmartSpectra project. The SmartSpectra project is a Research, Technological development and Demonstration (RTD) project funded under EU’s Fifth Framework Programme (FP5) by the Information Society Technologies (IST) Programme. The project pursues the development of a Smart Multispectral System for Commercial Applications. SmartSpectra is an acronym of "Smart Multispectral System for Commercial Applications." In this project, a Smart Multispectral System will be designed and implemented. The system will allow multisp...

(Dissertation is written in Spanish.) Using PSpice of MiscroSim to simulate power converters sometimes brings awkward complications such as the simulation of real magnetic components. It deals a little bit of work to bring a good agreement between experimental and simulated results. Simulation with linear inductors or transformers does not produce good results. The reason is that real magnetic components present saturation and hysteresis, a phenomenon that characterises magnetic materials. The hysteresis or B-H loop of a magnetic component is highly dependent on frequency, waveform (not very ...

This thesis (written in Spanish) presents the analysis, design and implementation of a four-quadrant power supply with high-frequency isolation, which is expected to be used to feed the low-energy correction magnet of a particle accelerator. In particle accelerator applications the magnetic field during beam acceleration may be either positive or negative, and true bipolar power converters are needed. The selected bipolar topology consists of a bidirectional three-phase to single-phase reduced matrix converter (RMC) with power factor correction and a bidirectional active rectifier. Main featur...

The management of hazardous and toxic waste projects in Asia (especially that related to intractable chemicals) has had a less than acceptable performance profile during the last 20 years. There have been numerous documented cases of management and systems failures in intractable chemical recovery projects, despite the establishment of global conventions designed to avoid such problems. A research programme was undertaken with the aim of producing a management model for companies to help prevent such failures in the future. The research began in the field with an exploration of management ...

Data assimilation of satellite-based observations of hydrological variables with full numerical physics models can be used to downscale these observations from coarse to high resolution to improve microwave sensor-based soil moisture observations. Moreover, assimilation can also be used to predict related hydrological variables, e.g., precipitation products can be assimilated in a land information system to estimate soil moisture. High quality spatio-temporal observations of these processes are vital for a successful assimilation which in turn needs a detailed analysis and improvement. In this...

Many company slogans and mantras profess that passion is part of the way they work and that it is important to them. Passion over the centuries has been defined as something that makes humans slaves to their emotions and exerts an almost overwhelming compulsion to participate in an activity or relationship. In a profession such as consultant civil engineering that is so strongly anchored in the objective and scientific, what place has a motivator such as passion? This research takes a sample of consultant civil engineers and assesses two types of passion, harmonious passion and obsessive pa...

The Arabian Gulf oil and gas production reserves have made it one of the world's strategic producers since the early 1960s, with many of the existing platforms stretched beyond their original design life. Advances in drilling technology and reservoir assessments have extended the requirement for the service life of those existing platforms even further. Extension of the life span of an existing platform requires satisfactory reassessment of its various structural components, including piled foundations. The American Petroleum Institute Recommended Practice 2A (API RP2A) is commonly used in ...

The aim of this project is to start creating awareness and to convey the idea that optical sensor technologies are now technically and economically mature enough to provide safety enhancement features in the residential environment and market. A first application of these technologies can be that of real time building structural health diagnosis: a utility company or telecommunications operator is in a position to provide it as a service by means of its urban optical fiber infrastructure and service management expertise. There are several advantages accruing from continuously monitoring the...

Before the seismic events of Northridge (Los Angeles, 17 January 1994) and Hyogoken-Nanbu (Kobe, 17 January 1995), MRFs were supposed to be the most reliable seismic resistant systems due to the high number of dissipative zones that are able to develop. Before these earthquakes, especially in the United States, MRFs were realized, generally, by adopting fully welded connections, which, at the time, were retained to perform better compared to other joint typologies. In addition, the economic advantages deriving from the adoption of field fully welded connections strongly influenced choices of b...

This thesis focuses on the development of an artificial intelligence system for a heterogeneous ensemble of mobile robots. Many robots in the ensemble may have limited processing, communication, sensing, and/or actuation capabilities. This means that each robot may not be able to execute all tasks that are input to the system. A hierarchical system is proposed to permit robots with superior processing and communication abilities to assign tasks and coordinate the less computationally able robots. The limited processing robots may also utilise the resources of superior robots during task execut...