Design and loading of dragline buckets

Draglines are an expensive and essential part of open cut coal mining. Small improvements in performance can produce substantial savings. The design of the bucket and the way in which it fills with overburden are very important to the overall dragline performance. Here we use a numerical model to simulate this filling process and to differentiate between the flow patterns of two different buckets. Extensions to the model are explored

Art/Sci Nexus, 9 Evenings Revisited

Following the exhibition of Hybrid Bodies at KKW in 2016 Andrew Carnie and I were invited back to act as mentors to a group of young artists and scientists from all over Europe undertaking a week long workshop designed to lead to new art/science collaborations. We were also invited to present the Hybrid Bodies project at a one day public event preceding the workshop

PVC autoclave model

The batch reaction of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) in a pressure autoclave is modelled by considering the various mechanisms for conversion from vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) to the polymer during the middle phase of the industrial process. A key step is to determine at what stage the droplets of VCM stop contracting because of the density difference between VCM and PVC - this is known as the 'freeze point'. A model is proposed that locates the freeze point as that point where the unfavourable energy due to wetting of the PVC by water is dominated by the energy required to compress the gel network inside the droplets. Preliminary investigations support this explanation and suggest avenues for further work. A corollary of this model is an explanation of the role of 'secondary granulating agents' in controlling the porosity of the final product

Efficient homogenisation of photographic dispersions

The formation of fine droplets in a photographic emulsion which is forced through an orifice disperser consisting of a tube with one or more abrupt constrictions is considered. Some design ideas for reducing the droplet size are presented

Droplets formation inside a venturi liquid mixer

The formation of a coarse photographic emulsion by entraining a hot oil phase into a cooler aqueous phase by a Venturi device is considered. The main focus is on understanding the mechanism and site of droplet formation in the device, as well as the time-scale of heat flow, to see if it is feasible to feed this emulsion directly to a homogenizer in a continuous process

Air vehicle simulator: an application for a cable array robot

The development of autonomous air vehicles can be an expensive research pursuit. To alleviate some of the financial burden of this process, we have constructed a system consisting of four winches each attached to a central pod (the simulated air vehicle) via cables - a cable-array robot. The system is capable of precisely controlling the three dimensional position of the pod allowing effective testing of sensing and control strategies before experimentation on a free-flying vehicle. In this paper, we present a brief overview of the system and provide a practical control strategy for such a system. ©2005 IEEE

Polymath

??‘Study the science of art and the art of science’ - Leonardo da VinciPolymath: a person of wide-ranging knowledge or learning Oxford DictionaryArtists: Susan Aldworth, Andrew Carnie, Annie Cattrell, Katharine Dowson, Rachel Gadsden, David Marron, Dan Peyton, Helen Pynor and Nina Sellars.GV Art’s latest exhibition brings together ‘polymath’ works that create synergies and connect disparate ideas and different schools of thoughts. From David Marron’s Nervous Tissue installation, to Susan Aldworth’s Reassembling the Self lithographs, to Rachel Gadsden, whose Unlimited Global Alchemy will be presented as part of the 2012 Cultural Olympiad.Reassembling the Self , a new suite of 14 lithographs by Susan Aldworth made at the Curwen Studio under the guidance of the legendary master printer Stanley Jones, is the culmination of her artist residency at the Institute of Neuroscience at Newcastle University, working on a collaborative project with patients and scientists to piece together some of the narratives that inform the diagnosis and experiences of schizophrenia. Aldworth will show two of these new works for the first time at Polymath.As co-curator Dr Jonathan Hutt observes, ‘A polymath doesn’t look at what is there but uses existing knowledge to create something new and dynamic’. ‘The polymath is almost a discipline in itself’, explainsDavid Marron. ‘It aids a sensibility in attaining a reasoned level of thought.’The most famous polymath is, of course, Leonardo da Vinci, who personified the concept of ‘Renaissance Humanism’ — which held that, to realise their full potential, a human had to acquire the widest spectrum of knowledge — and was the ultimate ‘Renaissance Man’. But other polymaths have shaped the evolution of the world throughout history, including Aristotle (384-322BC), Galileo Galilei (1564-1624) and Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

Manning condensation in two dimensions

We consider a macroion confined to a cylindrical cell and neutralized by oppositely charged counterions. Exact results are obtained for the two-dimensional version of this problem, in which ion-ion and ion-macroion interactions are logarithmic. In particular, the threshold for counterion condensation is found to be the same as predicted by mean-field theory. With further increase of the macroion charge, a series of single-ion condensation transitions takes place. Our analytical results are expected to be exact in the vicinity of these transitions and are in very good agreement with recent Monte-Carlo simulation data.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Design effectiveness: Building customer satisfaction and loyalty through design

The contribution of design is regarded as one of the most crucial factors in business. However, there remains ambiguity about how design affects the building of customer satisfaction and loyalty. Furthermore, in terms of any business situation, the output of design efforts and investment should arguably be greater than management expect in order to be recognised as a worthy investment. This paper presents a novel combined conceptual framework of the design audit and value typology. By employing design embedded business theories, design value can be both assessed. Taking Freeman's stakeholder theory and conflating this with Holbrook's typology of value, a novel and more inclusive theory emerges upon which to clearly identify the scope of perspectives of value across all stakeholders within a business. Empirical findings through customer survey verify the suitability of the proposed measuring matrix used in this study. Furthermore, this empirical finding from customers can be the corner stone of determining the effectiveness of design in the food and beverage service industry by embedding design perceptions in a business theory of practice