CFD Modeling of Complex Chemical Processes: Multiscale and Multiphysics Challenges

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD), which uses numerical analysis to predict and model complex flow behaviors and transport processes, has become a mainstream tool in engineering process research and development. Complex chemical processes often involve coupling between dynamics at vastly different length and time scales, as well as coupling of different physical models. The multiscale and multiphysics nature of those problems calls for delicate modeling approaches. This book showcases recent contributions in this field, from the development of modeling methodology to its application in supporting the design, development, and optimization of engineering processes

DYNAMIC MODELING OF TUNNEL SURVEY SPATIOTEMPORAL DATA

Currently, for tunnels, the design centerline and design cross-section with timestamps are used for dynamic three-dimensional (3D) modeling. However, thisapproach cannot correctly reflect some qualities of tunneling or some special cases,such as landslips. Therefore, a dynamic 3D model of a tunnel based onspatiotemporal data from survey cross-sections is proposed in this paper. Thismodel can not only playback the excavation process but also reflect qualities of aproject typically missed. In this paper, a new conceptual model for dynamic 3Dmodeling of tunneling survey data is introduced. Some specific solutions areproposed using key corresponding technologies for coordinate transformation of cross-sections from linear engineering coordinates to global projection coordinates,data structure of files and database, and dynamic 3D modeling. A 3D tunnel TINmodel was proposed using the optimized minimum direction angle algorithm. Thelast section implements the construction of a survey data collection, acquisition, anddynamic simulation system, which verifies the feasibility and practicality of thismodeling method

Fire Safety and Management Awareness

To ensure a healthy lifestyle, fire safety and protocols are essential. The population boom, economic crunches, and excessive exploitation of nature have enhanced the possibilities of destruction due to an event of a fire. Computational simulations enacting case studies and incorporation of fire safety protocols in daily routines can help in avoiding such mishaps

With Chinese Characteristics: Documenting Patterns of Cultural Implantation, Intersection and Infiltration

This thesis explores the global traffic in culture and its effects on the urban environment. Two overlapping forces are documented: first the proliferation of Western models and cultural signifiers in China and second the emergence of corresponding patterns resistance. Both these forces are explored on the global and urban scale as they affect the shaping of Shanghai and Toronto. The profusion of Western culture into China has reshaped the country through various periods in its history. Most recently, the whole scale application of Western aesthetics to the built environment has given rise to numerous anomalous places that border on the absurd. This act of cultural erasure has also given rise to a new population, an informal floating population that exists outside of the prevailing system of “progress”. Their forms of habitation and cultural transaction are articulated by informal and non-conforming patterns of development—an underground world. This represents a reaction to marginalization and cultural disenfranchisement. When looking at the formation of Toronto’s own Chinese community, similar patterns of marginalization have promoted the constitution of ethnic enclaves, first in the traditional sense of the urban Chinatown and more recently in the forms of suburban ethnic enclaves. In both cases, the proliferation of these subversive patterns offers a form of reverse colonialism. The thesis parallels the tension of these two forces as they are played out in the formation of the new suburban Chinatown, exploring how this phenomenon is redefining the traditional parameters of Asian Diaspora communities and how these new patterns challenge the traditional model of the suburb. In the last part of the book a speculative proposition is made about the intersection of these two worlds, a world where the thresholds between official and unofficial have been blurred, where they are now coincidental. Throughout the body of research offers a broad sampling of past trajectories and the meeting of current trends. It is an incomplete road map that traces the pathology of cultural exchange in the past and projects their intersection in the future. It offers a way of navigating through the emergent transnational territories engendered by cultural trafficking, documenting anomalies, phenomena and emergent patterns that renegotiate our traditional ideas of the nationality

Tunnel Engineering

This volume presents a selection of chapters covering a wide range of tunneling engineering topics. The scope was to present reviews of established methods and new approaches in construction practice and in digital technology tools like building information modeling. The book is divided in four sections dealing with geological aspects of tunneling, analysis and design, new challenges in tunnel construction, and tunneling in the digital era. Topics from site investigation and rock mass failure mechanisms, analysis and design approaches, and innovations in tunnel construction through digital tools are covered in 10 chapters. The references provided will be useful for further reading

Exploring a looping path - a design art practice in landscape architecture

The research undertaken in this PhD has entailed the close scrutiny of a personal design method that has propelled more than twenty years of design/art practice in landscape architecture. The original research through typological models gave way to a more specific understanding of my design methodology as one that loops around diverse references, operations and site qualities. It is a method that explores a variety of divergent ideas through drawing, one that loops between different positions, pursuing new directions as they reveal themselves, retreating, revisiting and testing options against project realities and my imagined mentors. The looping method is as much a process of elimination as it is of selection. This PhD has brought to light the importance of my sketchbooks as the site of my design research and methodology, and has given them a central position in my practice. It is here that the looping method makes itself evident and reveals a number of recurrent operations that are used to engage with, manipulate, heighten, reinforce, ennoble and or challenge context. This research implicitly builds an argument for an approach to the sites of landscape architecture that celebrates the particular and embraces the discontinuities, missed beats and contradictions of sites as they are here and now

The auditory centre : research and design of acoustic environments and spatial sound projects

Design culture is tentatively embracing the acoustic conditions and auditory awareness of spaces and objects, thus creating new opportunities for spatial sound practitioners. This thesis examines the making of seven spatial sound design projects in diverse milieux and an eighth project - the establishment of an electroacoustic studio within a school of architecture and design. The projects and the studio are considered models for the ways in which electroacoustic practices might advance the auditory spatial awareness of students and researchers in the academy, and the general community through an interlocking program of teaching, research and events. The creation of the projects and establishment of the studios also articulate a transformation in my own practice from composer to design researcher. Five of the projects are intended to engender in listeners a greater awareness of the acoustic environment and the auditory spatial qualities of those environments, which listeners daily inhabit. Supporting these project studies is a discussion on issues and conditions of making and materials to elucidate my approach to creating spatial sound designs in diverse milieux. Two of the projects investigated the auditory spatial awareness of different communities in Melbourne, with the view of establishing ideas about the auditory culture and the actual environments of that experience. The final project is a facility to house a community of practitioners who aspire to privilege the auditory design and experience of space, through a series of research, teaching and performance activities. While evaluating just how my practice transformed over the course of the projects, I also propose that the combination of the Studio's main elements is critical to the advancement of sound-based research and design as a design discipline. Note to audio and visual materials - This thesis was accompanied by a custom-built multi-channel sound playback environment using Max/MSP and Flash. For further details on this player and Quicktime files, contact [email protected]

The Fictional and The Real

The impetus of this thesis arose from an unfound text and the unsatisfied questions regarding the profession of architecture when I first entered the school. What exactly is an architect? What exactly does an architect do? These are questions that the young have when they consider pursuing an education in architecture - questions that are not always well answered by the media, which they are most familiar with - film. The characterization of architects in cinema continues to provide lay people with a skewed caricature of the architect - this is misleading and not the correct basis for considering a career in this field. This thesis seeks to reconcile the fictional/cinema architect with the real life practitioner. Throughout the past half-century the characteristics of fictional architect Howard Roark have been perpetuated in cinema architects creating an erroneous impression of the practitioner. Through a series of interviews with Toronto architects, a documentary film was created. Analysis of the interviews provided the basis for a comparison between the actual practice of architecture and the fictional impression provided by film architects. The thesis is constructed in two parts. The documentary film relates interwoven stories of seven architects. Twelve hours of interviews has been distilled down to a fifty-minute narrative revealing key common characteristics and views held by the architects. The text reviews the key content of the discourse with real life practitioners, their common characteristics and views, relating to the fictional cases. It is the intention of the author that the documentary film created at the centre of this thesis could provide potential architects and the layperson with a more accurate understanding of the actuality of the profession of architecture