Managing Well Integrity using Reliability Based Models

Imperial Users onl

(MU-CTL-01-12) Towards Model Driven Game Engineering in SimSYS: Requirements for the Agile Software Development Process Game

Software Engineering (SE) and Systems Engineering (Sys) are knowledge intensive, specialized, rapidly changing disciplines; their educational infrastructure faces significant challenges including the need to rapidly, widely, and cost effectively introduce new or revised course material; encourage the broad participation of students; address changing student motivations and attitudes; support undergraduate, graduate and lifelong learning; and incorporate the skills needed by industry. Games have a reputation for being fun and engaging; more importantly immersive, requiring deep thinking and complex problem solving. We believe educational games are essential in the next generation of e-learning tools. An extensible, freely available, engaging, problem-based game platform that provides students with an interactive simulated experience closely resembling the activities performed in a (real) industry development project would transform the SE/Sys education infrastructure. Our goal is to extend the state-of-the-art research in SE/Sys education by investigating a game development platform (GDP) from an interdisciplinary perspective (education, game research, and software/systems engineering). A meta-model has been proposed to provide a rigourous foundation that integrates the three disciplines. The GDP is intended to support the semi-automated development of collections of scripted games and their execution, where each game embodies a specific set of learning objectives. The games are scripted using a template based approach. The templates integrate three approaches: use cases; storyboards; and state machines (timed, concurrent, hierarchical state machines). The specification templates capture the structure of the game (Game, Acts, Scenes, Screens, Challenges), storyline, characters (player, non-player, external), graphics, music/sound effects, rules, and so on. The instantiated templates are (manually) transformed into XML game scripts that can be loaded into the SimSYS Game Play Engine. As a game is played, the game play events are logged; they are analyzed to automatically assess a player’s accomplishments and automatically adapt the game play script. Currently, we are manually defining a collection of games. The games are being used to ensure the GDP is flexible and reliable (i.e., the prototype can load and correctly run a variety of game scripts), the ontology is comprehensive, and the templates assist in defining well-organized, modular game scripts. In this report, we present the initial part of an Agile Software Development Process game (Act I, Scenes 1 and 2) that embodies learning objectives related to SE fundamentals (requirements, architecture, testing, process); planning with Gantt charts; working with budgets; and selecting a team for an agile development project. A student player is rewarded in the game by getting hired, scoring points, or getting promoted to lead a project. The game has a variety of settings including a classroom, job fair, and a work environment with meeting rooms, cubicles, and a water cooler station. The main non-player characters include a teacher, boss, and an evil peer. In the future, semi-automated support for creating new game scripts will be explored using a wizard interface. The templates will be formally defined, supporting automated transformation into XML game scripts that can be loaded into the SimSYS Game Engine. We also plan to explore transforming the requirements into a notation that can be imported into a commercial tool that supports Statechart simulation

Characterization of a 50kW Inductively Coupled Plasma Torch for Testing of Ablative Thermal Protection Materials Using Non-Air Gases

Thermal protection systems have been a major area of study since the advent of space flight, but recent efforts towards crewed spaceflight missions have placed a new importance on the development of such systems. The 50 kW Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP) Torch Facility at The University of Texas at Austin allows for rapid testing of high-temperature aerospace materials essential to the development of thermal protection systems in planetary re-entry applications. This ICP Torch Facility has been previously characterized using air as the test gas. However, planets of interest for future exploration have atmospheric compositions that differ from air, so testing heat shield materials in the presence of other gases is critical. To address this disparity between tested and actual environment, the current work characterizes the torch using various combinations of argon, CO2, and N2 by determining its operational range at various power settings, mass flow rates, and mixtures these gases. At each setting, the cold-wall heat flux is also measured to determine the range the torch is able to provide. Measurements indicate that using pure Ar gives the torch the largest operating range with regard to power setting and gas injection mass flow rate, and mixing argon into other gases drastically increases the stable operating range compared to the pure gas. Pure CO2 does not form a stable plasma discharge, but a mixture of 50% argon and 50% CO2 (by mass) provides stable operation up to 40 slpm total gas flow rate with a maximum heat flux of 98 W/cm2. Smaller percentages of CO2 allow the cold-wall heat flux to be increased to 110 W/cm2. Pure N2 forms a stable plasma discharge, but the operating range is very limited, providing stable operation up to 20 slpm total gas flow rate with a maximum heat flux of 110 W/cm2.Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanic

2003 Coastal Illicit Connection Identification and Elimination Grant Project

This final report describes a grant program funded by NHEP and administered by DES. A Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between NHEP and DES created a grant program to provide assistance to coastal communities to identify and eliminate illicit discharges into the storm drain system. A total of $80,000 was made available for assisting municipalities with illicit discharge correction and storm sewer mapping projects. DES issued a request for proposals (RFP), chose grant recipients, and managed the grant agreements. This report provides details on the illicit discharge detection and elimination projects completed by Dover, Somersworth, and Hampton. The deadline for completion of all grant projects was December 31, 2004

Flow control of agricultural spraying machines : a thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering in Mechatronics, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

New Zealand relies heavily on its agricultural industry. A large portion of this industry is pastoral farming, where livestock are raised to graze on pasture. This includes beef, sheep and dairy farming. An important aspect of this style of farming is maintaining pasture quality. In order to increase growth fertilisers are often applied to the pastures. This increases yields in both meat and milk production. However, the increased application of fertiliser is linked with diminishing water quality. While the effects of nitrogen leaching and the best ways to manage fertiliser use are still being investigated, it is clear that control over the application will become more and more important. The Tow and Fert is a range of fertiliser machines designed and built in New Zealand by Metalform Dannevirke. The Tow and Fert range is capable of spraying a wide range of fertilisers including both soluble and non-soluble fertilisers. The Tow and Fert is unique in its ability to spray fertiliser slurries consisting of mixture ratios of up to three-parts fine particle fertiliser to one-part water. This is achieved by the use of a recirculating system. Currently there is next to no control on the flow rate of the machines and the application rate is determined by the speed the operator maintains. The purpose of this thesis is to design and build a flow control system for the Tow and Fert product range and investigate the effect of the changing flow rate on the spray characteristics. The ability to spray such a wide range of fluids with drastically different properties presents many challenges. Many flow meters were considered and a low cost ultrasonic sensor (TUF2000M) was installed and investigated. After limited success of the ultrasonic sensor, a simple turbine flowmeter was installed. A flow controller was developed and tuned. Based off a PID control loop, the controller was able to maintain flowrate well between 10 L/min and 25 L/min depending on the installed nozzle. After flow control had been achieved, methods for assessing the impact of flow rate on spray characteristics and specifically spray distribution were investigated. Several prototypes were created and tested. A stationary patternator capable of continuous measurement was developed and tested. The patternator does not correctly measure the flowrates in low flow sections. Only half of the flow being applied to the platform is being measured. This causes highly nonlinear results in spray distribution measurement. The testing did show an increase of spray area with increasing flowrate. However, the true distribution can be improved when the low flow issues have been resolved