NUMERICAL CALCULATIONS OF WATER DROP USING A FIREFIGHTING AIRCRAFT

The study involved a numerical analysis of the water dropping process by fixed-wing aircraft. This method, also known as air attack, is used for aerial firefighting, primarily in green areas such as forests and meadows. The conducted calculations allowed for the analysis of the process over time. The calculations were performed based on a SolidWorks model of the M18B Dromader aircraft. After defining the computational domain and setting the boundary conditions, the simulations were carried out using the ANSYS Fluent software. The resulting water dropping area was used to analyze the intensity of water distribution. The volumetric distribution and airflow velocity distribution were analyzed for specified time steps. The boundary layer where air no longer mixes with water during the final phase of water dropping was also determined. The obtained results provide an important contribution to further analyses aimed at optimizing the water dropping process by fixed-wing aircraft

A virtual reality classroom to teach and explore crystal solid state structures

We present an educational application of virtual reality that we created to help students gain an in-depth understanding of the internal structure of crystals and related key concepts. Teachers can use it to give lectures to small groups (10-15) of students in a shared virtual environment, both remotely (with teacher and students in different locations) and locally (while sharing the same physical space). Lectures can be recorded, stored in an online repository, and shared with students who can either review a recorded lecture in the same virtual environment or can use the application for self-studying by exploring a large collection of available crystal structures. We validated our application with human subjects receiving positive feedback

VR-Based Safety Training Program for High-Rise Building Construction

The rates of fatal and non-fatal accidents within the construction industry across the globe are surging despite the massive efforts that are being exerted toward maintaining a safe working environment. Past research has proved that the provision of effective safety training programs is a primary course of action that should be taken to minimize construction accidents, fatalities, and both fatal and nonfatal injuries. However, in acknowledging the limitations of traditional safety training programs within the construction industry, several researchers have addressed the urge to incorporate novel training practices that are based on the modern virtual reality (VR) technology to promote “learning by doing” and “experiential learning” in their educational approaches. Nevertheless, there is a lack of incorporating major learning theories as a solid foundation for the design and development of VR-based training programs. Also, there is a lack of comprehensive VR-based safety training programs that specifically address the safety of high-rise building construction. This research aims to develop a comprehensive, fully immersive, and interactive VR-based safety training program that addresses the hazards and risks pertaining to the construction of high-rise buildings based on major learning theories in an attempt to enhance the learning outcomes of construction workers and safety officers. To conclude, the framework developed proved its efficiency and effectiveness in achieving the desired learning outcomes using VR-based training programs

An Educational Experience to Raise Awareness about Space Debris

Space debris represents a threat to space missions and operational satellites. Failing to control its growth might lead to the inability to use near-Earth space. However, this issue is still largely unknown to most people. In this paper, we present an educational experience in virtual reality created to raise awareness about the problem of space debris. The application exploits the entity-component-system (ECS) programming pattern to manage around 20000 orbiting objects with a high frame rate to convey a fluid experience. We preliminarily validated our application, in terms of usability as well as quality of user experience, during several events involving both a broad audience (e.g., citizens of all ages, from teenagers to elders) and an experienced audience (e.g., engineering students enrolled in the aerospace degree). The results of the evaluation were extremely positive, showing once again that virtual reality can be an effective means to engage people in captivating and interactive activities, making them experience what can only be imagined - the thousands pieces of space debris surrounding our planet

e-Sanctuary: open multi-physics framework for modelling wildfire urban evacuation

The number of evacuees worldwide during wildfire keep rising, year after year. Fire evacuations at the wildland-urban interfaces (WUI) pose a serious challenge to fire and emergency services and are a global issue affecting thousands of communities around the world. But to date, there is a lack of comprehensive tools able to inform, train or aid the evacuation response and the decision making in case of wildfire. The present work describes a novel framework for modelling wildfire urban evacuations. The framework is based on multi-physics simulations that can quantify the evacuation performance. The work argues that an integrated approached requires considering and integrating all three important components of WUI evacuation, namely: fire spread, pedestrian movement, and traffic movement. The report includes a systematic review of each model component, and the key features needed for the integration into a comprehensive toolkit

Mission Assurance: A Review of Continuity of Operations Guidance for Application to Cyber Incident Mission Impact Assessment (CIMIA)

Military organizations have embedded information technology (IT) into their core mission processes as a means to increase operational efficiency, improve decision-making quality, and shorten the sensor-to-shooter cycle. This IT-to-mission dependence can place the organizational mission at risk when an information incident (e.g., the loss or manipulation of a critical information resource) occurs. Non-military organizations typically address this type of IT risk through an introspective, enterprise-wide focused risk management program that continuously identifies, prioritizes, and documents risks so an economical set of control measures (e.g., people, processes, technology) can be selected to mitigate the risks to an acceptable level. The explicit valuation of information resources in terms of their ability to support the organizational mission objectives provides transparency and enables the creation of a continuity of operations plan and an incident recovery plan. While this type of planning has proven successful in static environments, military missions often involve dynamically changing, time-sensitive, complex, coordinated operations involving multiple organizational entities. As a consequence, risk mitigation efforts tend to be localized to each organizational entity making the enterprise-wide risk management approach to mission assurance infeasible. This thesis investigates the concept of mission assurance and presents a content analysis of existing continuity of operations elements within military and non-military guidance to assess the current policy landscape to highlight best practices and identify policy gaps in an effort to further enhance mission assurance by improving the timeliness and relevance of notification following an information incident

EG-ICE 2021 Workshop on Intelligent Computing in Engineering

The 28th EG-ICE International Workshop 2021 brings together international experts working at the interface between advanced computing and modern engineering challenges. Many engineering tasks require open-world resolutions to support multi-actor collaboration, coping with approximate models, providing effective engineer-computer interaction, search in multi-dimensional solution spaces, accommodating uncertainty, including specialist domain knowledge, performing sensor-data interpretation and dealing with incomplete knowledge. While results from computer science provide much initial support for resolution, adaptation is unavoidable and most importantly, feedback from addressing engineering challenges drives fundamental computer-science research. Competence and knowledge transfer goes both ways