Micro-manufactured Rogowski coils for fault detection of aircraft electrical wiring and interconnect systems (EWIS)

Aircraft wiring failures have increased over the last few years resulting in arc faults and high-energy flashover on the wiring bundle, which can propagate down through aircraft Electrical Wiring and Interconnect Systems (EWIS). It is considered cost prohibitive to completely rewire a plane in terms of man hours and operational time lost to do this, and most faults are only detectable whilst the aircraft is in flight. Temperature, humidity and vibration all accelerate ageing and failure effects on EWIS. This research investigates methods of in-situ non-invasive testing of aircraft wiring during fight. Failure Mode Effects and Analysis (FMEA) was performed on legacy aircraft EWIS using data obtained from RAF Brize Norton. Micro-Electro-mechanical- Systems (MEMS) were evaluated for use in a wire monitoring system that measures the environmental parameters responsible for ageing and failure of EWIS. Such MEMS can be developed into a Health and Usage Monitoring MicroSystem (HUMMS) by incorporating advanced signal processing and prognostic software. Current and humidity sensors were chosen for further investigation in this thesis. These sensors can be positioned inside and outside cable connectors of EWIS so that arc faults can be reliably detected and located. This thesis presents the design, manufacture and test of micro-manufactured Rogowski sensors. The manufactured sensors were benchmarked against commercial high frequency current transformers (HFCT), as these devices can also detect high frequency current signature due to wire insulation failure. Results indicate that these sensors possess superior voltage output compared to the HFCT. The design, manufacture and test of a polymer capacitive humidity sensor is also presented. Two different types of polymer were reviewed as part of the evaluation. A feature of the sensor design is recovery from exposure to chemicals found on wiring bundles. Current and humidity sensors were demonstrated to be suitable for integrating onto a common substrate with accelerometers, temperature sensors and pressure sensors for health monitoring and prognostics of aircraft EWIS

Micro-manufactured Rogowski coils for fault detection of aircraft electrical wiring and interconnection systems (EWIS)

Aircraft wiring failures have increased over the last few years resulting in arc faults and high-energy flashover on the wiring bundle, which can propagate down through aircraft Electrical Wiring and Interconnect Systems (EWIS). It is considered cost prohibitive to completely rewire a plane in terms of man hours and operational time lost to do this, and most faults are only detectable whilst the aircraft is in flight. Temperature, humidity and vibration all accelerate ageing and failure effects on EWIS. This research investigates methods of in-situ non-invasive testing of aircraft wiring during fight. Failure Mode Effects and Analysis (FMEA) was performed on legacy aircraft EWIS using data obtained from RAF Brize Norton. Micro-Electro-mechanical- Systems (MEMS) were evaluated for use in a wire monitoring system that measures the environmental parameters responsible for ageing and failure of EWIS. Such MEMS can be developed into a Health and Usage Monitoring MicroSystem (HUMMS) by incorporating advanced signal processing and prognostic software. Current and humidity sensors were chosen for further investigation in this thesis. These sensors can be positioned inside and outside cable connectors of EWIS so that arc faults can be reliably detected and located. This thesis presents the design, manufacture and test of micro-manufactured Rogowski sensors. The manufactured sensors were benchmarked against commercial high frequency current transformers (HFCT), as these devices can also detect high frequency current signature due to wire insulation failure. Results indicate that these sensors possess superior voltage output compared to the HFCT. The design, manufacture and test of a polymer capacitive humidity sensor is also presented. Two different types of polymer were reviewed as part of the evaluation. A feature of the sensor design is recovery from exposure to chemicals found on wiring bundles. Current and humidity sensors were demonstrated to be suitable for integrating onto a common substrate with accelerometers, temperature sensors and pressure sensors for health monitoring and prognostics of aircraft EWIS.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC

Using Sentiment Analysis to track reaction to the Global Game Jam Theme published in Proceedings of the International Conference on Game Jams, Hackathons, and Game Creation Events

In this paper, we examine the Global Game Jam Theme and the reaction of the 'jammers' to the release. The Theme is one of the main drivers for creative aspect of the Game Jam, it sets the tone of the games that are developed at the Jam. This paper introduces an experiment which uses 'sentiment analysis' to gauge the positive or negative reaction to the theme over the last 7 years of the Global Game Jam. The results of this study show that the 2012 theme had the the highest sentiment. Finally, we suggest that the 'sentiment analysis' or 'context analysis' could be used to gather data sets for other studies such as development practices

Film boiling heat transfer and vapour film collapse on spheres, cylinders and plane surfaces

Copyright @ 2009 Elsevier B.V. The final version of this article may be viewed at the link below.An experimental study of transient film boiling was conducted, with different coolant velocities, on two spheres with different diameters, two cylindrical specimens of different lengths in parallel flow, a cylinder in cross flow and two flat plates with different lengths. A frame by frame photographic study on the nature of the vapour/liquid interface and the collapse modes has revealed a new mode for film collapse, in which an explosive liquid–solid contact is followed by film re-formation and the motion of a quench front over the hot surface. Steady state tests were carried out on a plate similar to the short plate used in the transient experiments and the heat transfer, film stability and collapse results are compared with those of the transient investigation. Heat transfer coefficients and heat fluxes during film boiling were found essentially to depend on specimen temperature and water subcooling. In contrast, the influences on heat transfer of specimen size and water velocity were relatively small for the ranges studied. A theoretical model predicted heat transfer coefficients to within 10% of experimental values for water subcoolings above 10 K and within 30% in all cases

A High Angular Resolution Survey of Massive Stars in Cygnus OB2: Results from the Hubble Space Telescope Fine Guidance Sensors

We present results of a high angular resolution survey of massive OB stars in the Cygnus OB2 association that we conducted with the Fine Guidance Sensor 1R (FGS1r) on the Hubble Space Telescope. FGS1r is able to resolve binary systems with a magnitude difference delta-V < 4 down to separations as small as 0.01 arcsec. The sample includes 58 of the brighter members of Cyg OB2, one of the closest examples of an environment containing a large number of very young and massive stars. We resolved binary companions for 12 targets and confirmed the triple nature of one other target, and we offer evidence of marginally resolved companions for two additional stars. We confirm the binary nature of 11 of these systems from complementary adaptive optics imaging observations. The overall binary frequency in our study is 22% to 26% corresponding to orbital periods ranging from 20 - 20,000 years. When combined with the known short-period spectroscopic binaries, the results supports the hypothesis that the binary fraction among massive stars is > 60%. One of the new discoveries is a companion to the hypergiant star MT 304 = Cyg OB2-12, and future measurements of orbital motion should provide mass estimates for this very luminous star.Comment: accepted for AJ, 84 pages, 61 figure

QEYSSat 2.0 -- White Paper on Satellite-based Quantum Communication Missions in Canada

We present the white paper developed during the QEYSSat 2.0 study, which was undertaken between June 2021 and March 2022. The study objective was to establish a technology road-map for a Canada-wide quantum network enabled by satellites. We survey the state-of-art in quantum communication technologies, identify the main applications and architectures, review the technical readiness levels and technology bottlenecks and identify a future mission scenario. We report the findings of a dedicated one-day workshop that included Canadian stakeholders from government, industry and academia to gather inputs and insights for the applications and technical road-map. We also provide an overview of the Quantum EncrYption and Science Satellite (QEYSSat) mission expected to launch in 2024-2025 and its anticipated outcomes. One of the main outcomes of this study is that developing the main elements for a Canada-wide quantum internet will have the highest level of impact, which includes Canada-wide entanglement distribution and teleportation. We present and analyze a possible future mission ('QEYSSat 2.0') that would enable a long range quantum teleportation across Canada as an important step towards this vision.Comment: 108 pages, 38 figures, white paper to be submitted to CJ

On a modified-Lorentz-transformation based gravity model confirming basic GRT experiments

Implementing Poincar\'e's `geometric conventionalism' a scalar Lorentz-covariant gravity model is obtained based on gravitationally modified Lorentz transformations (or GMLT). The modification essentially consists of an appropriate space-time and momentum-energy scaling ("normalization") relative to a nondynamical flat background geometry according to an isotropic, nonsingular gravitational `affecting' function Phi(r). Elimination of the gravitationally `unaffected' S_0 perspective by local composition of space-time GMLT recovers the local Minkowskian metric and thus preserves the invariance of the locally observed velocity of light. The associated energy-momentum GMLT provides a covariant Hamiltonian description for test particles and photons which, in a static gravitational field configuration, endorses the four `basic' experiments for testing General Relativity Theory: gravitational i) deflection of light, ii) precession of perihelia, iii) delay of radar echo, iv) shift of spectral lines. The model recovers the Lagrangian of the Lorentz-Poincar\'e gravity model by Torgny Sj\"odin and integrates elements of the precursor gravitational theories, with spatially Variable Speed of Light (VSL) by Einstein and Abraham, and gravitationally variable mass by Nordstr\"om.Comment: v1: 14 pages, extended version of conf. paper PIRT VIII, London, 2002. v2: section added on effective tensorial rank, references added, appendix added, WEP issue deleted, abstract and other parts rewritten, same results (to appear in Found. Phys.

A European competence framework for industrial pharmacy practice in biotechnology

Project Report: The PHAR-IN ("Competences for industrial pharmacy practice in biotechnology") looked at whether there is a difference in how industrial employees and academics rank competences for practice in the biotechnological industry. A small expert panel consisting of the authors of this paper produced a biotechnology competence framework by drawing up an initial list of competences then ranking them in importance using a three-stage Delphi process. The framework was next evaluated and validated by a large expert panel of academics (n = 37) and industrial employees (n = 154). Results show that priorities for industrial employees and academics were similar. The competences for biotechnology practice that received the highest scores were mainly in: . "Research and Development", . "Upstream" and "Downstream" Processing', " . "Product development and formulation", " . "Aseptic processing", ."Analytical methodology", . "Product stability", and . "Regulation". The main area of disagreement was in the category "Ethics and drug safety" where academics ranked competences higher than did industrial employees

Foam process models.

In this report, we summarize our work on developing a production level foam processing computational model suitable for predicting the self-expansion of foam in complex geometries. The model is based on a finite element representation of the equations of motion, with the movement of the free surface represented using the level set method, and has been implemented in SIERRA/ARIA. An empirically based time- and temperature-dependent density model is used to encapsulate the complex physics of foam nucleation and growth in a numerically tractable model. The change in density with time is at the heart of the foam self-expansion as it creates the motion of the foam. This continuum-level model uses an homogenized description of foam, which does not include the gas explicitly. Results from the model are compared to temperature-instrumented flow visualization experiments giving the location of the foam front as a function of time for our EFAR model system