Lean Improvements to Passenger Departure Flow in Abu Dhabi Airport: Focus on Data from the Check-in Element

This is the second paper of three which concerns improving Passenger Departure Flow. The main aim of this paper is provide a summary of the research results, which includes both the reporting of empirical data collected at the Airport and the results obtained from simulation of existing flow for passenger departure process. The large quantity of data means this paper focuses on reporting data for the economy check-in element only. The project led towards development of rules for process of improvement for the entire departure process and explored the benefits of using the Lean philosophy for improving a range of airport processes. Airport processes are completely different than the manufacturing and other service sectors due to the complex interlinking between different stake holders such as airline regulations, national/international law etc

TUNING OPTIMIZATION SOFTWARE PARAMETERS FOR MIXED INTEGER PROGRAMMING PROBLEMS

The tuning of optimization software is of key interest to researchers solving mixed integer programming (MIP) problems. The efficiency of the optimization software can be greatly impacted by the solver’s parameter settings and the structure of the MIP. A designed experiment approach is used to fit a statistical model that would suggest settings of the parameters that provided the largest reduction in the primal integral metric. Tuning exemplars of six and 59 factors (parameters) of optimization software, experimentation takes place on three classes of MIPs: survivable fixed telecommunication network design, a formulation of the support vector machine with the ramp loss and L1-norm regularization, and node packing for coding theory graphs. This research presents and demonstrates a framework for tuning a portfolio of MIP instances to not only obtain good parameter settings used for future instances of the same class of MIPs, but to also gain insights into which parameters and interactions of parameters are significant for that class of MIPs. The framework is used for benchmarking of solvers with tuned parameters on a portfolio of instances. A group screening method provides a way to reduce the number of factors in a design and reduces the time it takes to perform the tuning process. Portfolio benchmarking provides performance information of optimization solvers on a class with instances of a similar structure

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)/American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Summer Faculty Fellowship Program, 1992, volume 1

The 1992 Johnson Space Center (JSC) National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)/American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Summer Faculty Fellowship Program was conducted by the University of Houston and JSC. The program at JSC, as well as the programs at other NASA Centers, was funded by the Office of University Affairs, Washington, DC. The objectives of the program, which began nationally in 1964 and at JSC in 1965, are (1) to further the professional knowledge of qualified engineering and science faculty members; (2) to stimulate an exchange of ideas between participants and NASA; (3) to enrich and refresh the research and teaching activities of participants' institutions; and (4) to contribute to the research objective of the NASA Centers. This document is a compilation of the final reports 1 through 12

The Robust Emotional Design: An Application of Design of Experiment incorporating with Ergonomics

When product is useful to customers and meeting customer's requirement, the product is said to be qualified. Nowadays, many products will be functional equivalent and therefore hard to distinguish between for the customers. Customers tend to subjectively choose the products that they will purchase. Robust design is important to be considered to address this today's consumer trend in the product development. One big issue for product designer today is to be able to capture the customer's considerations and feelings (emotions/Kansei) of products and translate these emotional aspects into concrete product design. This robust design could be achieved by understanding the potential sources of noise and take actions to desensitize the products or processes to these potential sources of noise. It means that it is important to understand the critical process or product parameters of a desired performance and finally to obtain the optimal value of performance and variation (noise). This paper provides 2 methodologies of emotional robust design which is inspired by previous study by Lai et al [4]. The Kansei Engineering concepts by Nagamachi [6, 7, 8], inner and outer orthogonal arrays and signal-to-noise ratio by Taguchi [19] play important role in the emotional robust design methodologies. In short, by involving the robust emotional design into the product, it will be benefiting to both consumers and manufacturers. It is hoped that the competitive value of products or manufacturers is highly sustained since the market share will increase due to the lower costs for the consumers

Moldable Items Packing Optimization

This research has led to the development of two mathematical models to optimize the problem of packing a hybrid mix of rigid and moldable items within a three-dimensional volume. These two developed packing models characterize moldable items from two perspectives: (1) when limited discrete configurations represent the moldable items and (2) when all continuous configurations are available to the model. This optimization scheme is a component of a lean effort that attempts to reduce the lead-time associated with the implementation of dynamic product modifications that imply packing changes. To test the developed models, they are applied to the dynamic packing changes of Meals, Ready-to-Eat (MREs) at two different levels: packing MRE food items in the menu bags and packing menu bags in the boxes. These models optimize the packing volume utilization and provide information for MRE assemblers, enabling them to preplan for packing changes in a short lead-time. The optimization results are validated by running the solutions multiple times to access the consistency of solutions. Autodesk Inventor helps visualize the solutions to communicate the optimized packing solutions with the MRE assemblers for training purposes

Computer program for aerodynamic and blading design of multistage axial-flow compressors

A code for computing the aerodynamic design of a multistage axial-flow compressor and, if desired, the associated blading geometry input for internal flow analysis codes is presented. Compressible flow, which is assumed to be steady and axisymmetric, is the basis for a two-dimensional solution in the meridional plane with viscous effects modeled by pressure loss coefficients and boundary layer blockage. The radial equation of motion and the continuity equation are solved with the streamline curvature method on calculation stations outside the blade rows. The annulus profile, mass flow, pressure ratio, and rotative speed are input. A number of other input parameters specify and control the blade row aerodynamics and geometry. In particular, blade element centerlines and thicknesses can be specified with fourth degree polynomials for two segments. The output includes a detailed aerodynamic solution and, if desired, blading coordinates that can be used for internal flow analysis codes

Microgravity combustion science: Progress, plans, and opportunities

An earlier overview is updated which introduced the promise of microgravity combustion research and provided a brief survey of results and then current research participants, the available set of reduced gravity facilities, and plans for experimental capabilities in the space station era. Since that time, several research studies have been completed in drop towers and aircraft, and the first space based combustion experiments since Skylab have been conducted on the Shuttle. The microgravity environment enables a new range of experiments to be performed since buoyancy induced flows are nearly eliminated, normally obscured forces and flows may be isolated, gravitational settling or sedimentation is nearly eliminated, and larger time or length scales in experiments are feasible. In addition to new examinations of classical problems, (e.g., droplet burning), current areas of interest include soot formation and weak turbulence, as influenced by gravity

Improving project management planning and control in service operations environment.

Projects have evidently become the core activity in most companies and organisations where they are investing significant amount of resources in different types of projects as building new services, process improvement, etc. This research has focused on service sector in attempt to improve project management planning and control activities. The research is concerned with improving the planning and control of software development projects. Existing software development models are analysed and their best practices identified and these have been used to build the proposed model in this research. The research extended the existing planning and control approaches by considering uncertainty in customer requirements, resource flexibility and risks level variability. In considering these issues, the research has adopted lean principles for planning and control software development projects. A novel approach introduced within this research through the integration of simulation modelling techniques with Taguchi analysis to investigate ‗what if‘ project scenarios. Such scenarios reflect the different combinations of the factors affecting project completion time and deliverables. In addition, the research has adopted the concept of Quality Function Deployment (QFD) to develop an automated Operations Project Management Deployment (OPMD) model. The model acts as an iterative manner uses ‗what if‘ scenario performance outputs to identify constraints that may affect the completion of a certain task or phase. Any changes made during the project phases will then automatically update the performance metrics for each software development phases. In addition, optimisation routines have been developed that can be used to provide management response and to react to the different levels of uncertainty. Therefore, this research has looked at providing a comprehensive and visual overview of important project tasks i.e. progress, scheduled work, different resources, deliverables and completion that will make it easier for project members to communicate with each other to reach consensus on goals, status and required changes. Risk is important aspect that has been included in the model as well to avoid failure. The research emphasised on customer involvement, top management involvement as well as team members to be among the operational factors that escalate variability levels 3 and effect project completion time and deliverables. Therefore, commitment from everyone can improve chances of success. Although the role of different project management techniques to implement projects successfully has been widely established in areas such as the planning and control of time, cost and quality; still, the distinction between the project and project management is less than precise and a little was done in investigating different levels of uncertainty and risk levels that may occur during different project phase.United Arab Emirates Governmen

Swirl-stabilized lean-premixed flame combustion dynamics: An experimental investigation of flame stabilization, flame dynamics and combustion instability control strategies

Though modern low-emission combustion strategies have been successful in abating the emission of pollutants in aircraft engines and power generation gas turbines, combustion instability remains one of the foremost technical challenges in the development of next generation lean premixed combustor technology. Combustion instability is the coupling between unsteady heat release and combustor acoustic modes where one amplifies the other in a feedback loop. This is a complex phenomenon which involves unsteady chemical kinetic, fluid mechanic and acoustic processes that can lead to unstable behavior and could be detrimental in ways ranging from faster part fatigue to catastrophic system failure. Understanding and controlling the onset and propagation of combustion instability is therefore critical to the development of clean and efficient combustion systems. Imaging of combustion radicals has been a cornerstone diagnostic for the field of combustion for the past two decades which allows for visualization of flame structure and behavior. However, resolving both temporal and spatial structures from image-based experimental data can be very challenging. Thus, understanding flame dynamics remains a demanding task and the difficulties often lie in the chaotic and non-linear behavior of the system of interest. To this end, this work investigates the flame dynamics of lean premixed swirl stabilized flames in two distinct configurations using a variety of high fidelity optical and laser diagnostic techniques in conjunction with advanced data / algorithm based post-processing tools. The first part of this work is focused on establishing the effectiveness of microwave plasma discharges in improving combustor flame dynamics through minimizing heat release and pressure fluctuations. The effect of continuous, volumetric, direct coupled, non-equilibrium, atmospheric microwave plasma discharge on a swirl stabilized, lean premixed methane˗air flame was investigated using quantitative OH planar laser induced fluorescence (PLIF), spectrally resolved emission and acoustic pressure measurements. Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD) was used to post-process OH-PLIF images to extract information on flame dynamics that are usually lost through classical statistical approaches. Results show that direct plasma coupling accelerates combustion chemistry due to the non-thermal effects of plasma that lead to significantly improved combustor dynamics. Overall, this study demonstrates that microwave direct plasma coupling can drastically enhance dynamic flame stability of swirl stabilized flames especially at very lean operating conditions. The second part of this work is focused on the development of a stable and efficient small-scale combustor architecture with comparable power density, performance and emission characteristics to that of existing large-scale burners with reduced susceptibility to extinction and externally imposed acoustic perturbations while maintaining high combustion efficiency and low emission levels under ultra-lean operating conditions. Prototype burner arrays were additively manufactured, and the combustion characteristics of the mesoscale burner array were studied using several conventional and optical diagnostic techniques. The burner array was specifically configured to enhance overall combustion stability, particularly under lean operating conditions, by promoting flame to flame interactions between the neighboring elements. Dynamic mode decomposition (DMD) analysis based on high speed OH-PLIF images was carried out to provide a quantitative measure of flame stability. Results show a marked improvement in combustion stability for a mesoscale burner array compared to a single swirl-stabilized flame with similar power output. Overall, this study shows promise for integration of mesoscale combustor arrays as a flexible and scalable technology in next generation propulsion and power generation systems