Green Design Project Proposal

Project Title: Green Design

Project Description:

The concept of this project is to critically investigate and evaluate the environmental credentials of an existing product design. The project will also make detailed recommendations to the redesign of the product to ensure that it is as environmentally sustainable as is practicable and investigate design methods to ensure similar products are designed in an appropriate way.

Product Details:

Product design concepts

Resources Required:

CAD System

Novel Hard/Slippy Coatings Project

Project Title: Novel Hard/Slippy Coatings

Academic Research Areas: Surface Engineering

Project Description:

Coatings that combine high hardness and wear resistance with very low friction coefficients are very attractive for many applications, including cutting tools, punching and forming tools and bearings. Such coatings can be formed by producing a matrix of a hard material e.g. titanium nitride (TiN) in which nanoparticles of a soft lubricious material e.g. silver are embedded. The aim of this project is to deposit and test a series of novel hard/slippy materials, including TiN/Ag, TiN/Pb and CrB/MoS2.

Product Details:

Coatings will be deposited by magnetron sputtering and the tribological properties of the coatings will be investigated by micro- and nano- hardness and scratch adhesion testing and pin-on-disk wear testing. Film structures will be investigated by XRD and SEM.

Friction and Wear Characteristics of Hard Coatings Project

Project Title: Friction and Wear Characteristics of Hard Coatings

Academic Research Areas: Surface Engineering

Project Description:

Hard coatings are required on many cutting tools to reduce wear and permit higher cutting speeds. Effective coatings require high hardness, good toughness and low coefficients of friction. The pulsed magnetron sputtering process has been shown to produce titanium nitride coatings with enhanced tribological properties in comparison with tools coated with other conventional techniques. This project will extend this technique to the deposition of chromium nitride coatings.

Product Details:

CrN coatings will be deposited on tool steel samples and high speed steel twist drills by pulsed and conventional magnetron sputtering. The tribological properties of the coatings will be assessed in a series of tests, including wear testing, scratch adhesion testing and hardness testing. The structural properties will be investigated by electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction. Cutting tests will be carried out on the coated tools by drilling repeated holes in a steel sample and measuring the wear rate of the tool.

Resources Required:

Magnetron sputtering rig, tribo test rigs (Surface Engineering Lab), Electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction (JD Tower), Substrates, tools, rig consumables (Cr target, N2 gas, Solvents, process gas, etc)

Ring Rolling Machine Project

Project Title: Ring rolling machine

Academic Research Areas: Design & Manufacture

Project Description:

This project relates to a compact and low-cost, manual ring rolling machine. Ideally a wholly mechanical design is expected.

Product Details:

The project will involve the design and build of a low-cost manual ring rolling machine.

Resources Required:

CAD software, Machining facility, standard mechanical components.

Business Process Simulation Project

Project Title: Business Process Simulation

Project Description:

Industry today encounters a massive challenge in competing in the global economy. The acquisition of enabling technology involves enormous risks in financial terms. Identifying competitive strategies calls for drastic change in managing operations as efficiently as possible. Computer simulation is one tool that provides an effective vehicle for analysing the impact of various strategies before their implementation, thus allowing decision makers to carefully evaluate their options. The project is to apply computer modelling & simulation techniques to an appropriate engineering organisation with the intentions of improving operational efficiency.

Product Details:

The project will involve:
• Establishing a link with a suitable engineering organisation
• Exploring and identifying an appropriate process worthy of a simulation study
• Modelling & mapping of the process line
• Analysis of the simulation results
• Establishing different simulation configuration scenarios for process improvements

Resources Required:

Witness simulation software

Industry based:

A link would need to be established with a suitable engineering organisation that would allow access to their facility and operations. Engineering Organisations that have linkages with the department will be suggested for the student to approach.

 

New design for waste water plumbing Project

Project Title: New design for waste water plumbing.

Project Description:

Water is an increasingly precious resource, yet we throw away almost all the water in our homes. We are even more wasteful with the energy we use to heat it since, again, almost all the heat goes literally down the drain.

Product Details:

Redesign the domestic plumbing system to recover the thermal energy from waste water, and to make intelligent use of greywater. Design the products which go together to make this new system. If the savings can be shown to be substantial, then the technology used could become a justifiable investment.

Resources Required:

Digital still and video camera. Modelmaking facilities. 2D and 3D Computer aided design software.
Possibly rapid prototyping facilities.

Topologies, Routing and Multimedia Applications Project

Project Title: Topologies, routing and multimedia applications

Project Description:

The goal of this project is to configure a and implement a series of routing algorithms an Ethernet network of 4 different topologies, and to run this configuration with typical TCP/IP applications and a single multimedia application. A range of routing algorithms available in ITGURU. The routing technologies to be used are: OSPF, RIP, EIGRP, IGRP. Use each one of these routing schemes to create a distinct number of scenarios to study the performance of an homogeneous WAN. The topologies to be used are: cubic, asymmetric graph, radial, and random mesh.

Product Details:

At the end of the project simulation a number of simulation configurations scenarios will be completed and successfully tested. The implementation will use the Communications Systems and Networks simulator; ITGURU. The project will focus on a study of the performance of topologies and routing algorithms using Ethernet technology for WANs.

QoS in VoIP Networks Project Synopsis

Project Title: QoS in VoIP networks

Project Description:

Voice over IP (VoIP) technology is rapidly emerging in the telecommunication market. It enables a telecommunication company to employ a single network to transmit both data and voice traffic. The VoIP technology is gaining popularity in the enterprise and residential markets because the quality of the voice packets transmitted over the IP network is comparable to the quality of analog signals sent over the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN).

Aims and objectives:

To review, study, model and analyse some of the following:
• VoIP applications and architectures (Consumer, Enterprise, Service Provider)
• VoIP devices (telephones, gateways, servers)
• VoIP signalling protocols and codecs (H.323, SIP, MGCP, G711)
• Transport layer protocols (UDP,IP,RTP)
• VoIP performance metrics (Delay, Jitter, MOS)
• QoS mechanism for VoIP (Queueing, IntServ, DiffServ, MPLS-TE)
• Types of queuing systems (FIFO, Priority, ToS, WFQ)
• VoIP vendors and current trends

Product Details:

The primary aim of the project is use OPNET’s ITGURU modelling software to model and analyse the performance of a mixed traffic network with particular emphasis on the roll out of VoIP applications.

Resources Required:

OPNET ITGURU modelling software

Metal forming using local pressure Project

Project Title: Metal forming using local pressure

Project Description:

Converting flat aluminium alloy and mild steel sheet metal into structures exhibiting a (hemispherical) compound curve is traditionally performed by what Americans refer to the ‘English Wheel’, and what everyone else refers to as a ‘wheeling machine’. These passive machines are inherently a mature technology.

This project relates to the design of a light-weight and portable passive machine that is adaptable and capable of working in awkward locations.

Product Details:

Resources Required:

Mechanical CAD software. Machining facility. Welding facility

Load Balancing Project Proposal

Project Title: Load Balancing

Project Description:

The goal of this project is to design and implement a load balancing network for typical TCP/IP applications and offer support for the integration of a time dependent applications such as voice over IP. A range of load balancers from different manufacturers are offered as part of the Load Balancers library in ITGURU. Use each one of these devices to create a distinct number of scenarios to study the performance of a baseline networking infrastructure that is made of an homogeneous set of components from a network technology at your own choice.

Product Details:

At the end of the project simulation a number of simulation configurations scenarios will be completed and successfully tested. The implementation will use the Communications Systems and Networks simulator; ITGURU. The project will focus on the general aspect of load balancing applications for the integration of multimedia communications