10 research outputs found
Emotional Durability Design Nine—A Tool for Product Longevity
This is the final version. Available from MDPI via the DOI in this record.How can we develop products that consumers want to use for longer? The lifetime of electrical products is an ongoing concern in discussions about the circular economy. It is an issue that begins at an industry level, but that directly influences the way in which consumers use and discard products. Through a series of workshops and knowledge exchange sessions with Philips Lighting, this paper identifies which design factors influence a consumer’s tendency to retain their products for longer. These were distilled into a guiding framework for new product developers—The Emotional Durability Design Nine—consisting of nine themes: relationships, narratives, identity, imagination, conversations, consciousness, integrity, materiality, and evolvability. These nine themes are complemented by 38 strategies that help in the development of more emotionally engaging product experiences. We propose that the framework can be applied at multiple points during the new product development process to increase the likelihood that ‘emotion building’ features are integrated into an end product.Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Collaborative Doctoral Awar
Self-healing materials and products survey and workshop data
This data set are the results of: an online survey distributed to manufacturers and a workshop carried out with industry participantsThis is the dataset used for the Haines-Gadd et al. (2021) article "Self-healing materials: a pathway to immortal products or a risk to circular economy systems?" published in the Journal of Cleaner production
A new method for dating tree-rings in trees with faint, indeterminate ring boundaries using the Itrax core scanner
Haines, HA ORCiD: 0000-0003-0019-4151© 2018 Eastern Australia is known to experience multi-decadal periods of flood and drought. Subtropical Southeast Queensland is one region where these devastating extreme events occur regularly yet a full understanding of their frequency and magnitude cannot be determined from the short duration (100 years) proxy rainfall information but locating suitable forest stands is difficult due to extensive land clearing by European settlers. Another factor deterring the use of trees as proxy data sources is that longer-lived species frequently contain anomalous rings, particularly faint rings, hindering their use for paleoclimate study. Here we present a method which overcomes the problems of identifying faint ring boundaries in trees by using X-radiographs and density patterns developed on the Itrax core scanner. We analysed 39 tree cores from 20 trees at a site in D'Aguilar National Park located just north of Brisbane city in Queensland, Australia. Each core had a 2 mm lath cut perpendicular to its rings which was then passed through an Itrax core scanner. The tree-ring boundaries were identified on the image by both the visual features in the radiograph and the change in density observed between rings. From this information we developed a tree-ring chronology. The chronology was checked using bomb-pulse radiocarbon dating on five trees to confirm the annual nature of the rings, and to correct dating errors in the chronology due to false rings which are common in this species. Climate response function analysis showed Austral annual rainfall (June–May) was the dominant environmental variable driving tree growth. Finally, a 69-year statistically significant reconstruction of Brisbane precipitation was produced showing that this non-destructive Itrax ring identification technique together with age validation by bomb-pulse radiocarbon dating is useful for dendroclimatological studies of trees with faint ring boundaries.Associated Grant Code:LP120200093; ALNSTU1138
The evolution of Thirlmere lakes: a long-term sedimentary record of climate and fire dynamics in the Sydney Basin
The Thirlmere lakes are located 40 km from the coast and are at ~300 m elevation and fall within the
Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage area. The series of five lakes sit within a narrow and sinuous
former river valley within the Hawkesbury sandstone with surrounding dry sclerophyll forest. Recent
declines in water levels have prompted the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage to fund
research about the history of Thirlmere lakes, the sub-surface characteristics and the potential
frequency of past drying. This research builds on some existing work and has highlighted the
extraordinary potential for the region for a long-term archive for palaeoenvironmental research.To
date we have taken multiple vibracores across three lakes to depths of 7 m and we have
supplemented this with some preliminary deep drilling to depths of 14 m. Our initial chronology is
based on radiocarbon and OSL and we have employed a raft of geochemical and palaeoecological
techniques to investigate changes through time. The lakes contain excellent organic preservation
with deposition of the ‘modern’ peat environments commencing ~11 ka across two of the lakes
investigated. This phase is represented by the upper 2 -3 m of organic rich peat (50% TOC). The
underlying sediments are a mix of weakly bedded organic clays and oxidised clay facies that
represent lake-wide drying intervals, a sequence that is repeated down profile. All five lakes are
separated by alluvial sills that are comprised of medium to well-sorted sands, interbedded with
organic ‘marker’ horizons that indicate these separate lakes were once joined, prior to the Last
Glacial Maximum. The sandy sills that separate the lakes are derived from tributary alluvial fans
accumulating progressively over the Holocene and effectively blocking and separating the lakes into
their current configuration. This paper provides a preliminary overview of the chrono-stratigraphic
history of Thirlmere lakes. © The Author