Control: A perspective

The present Energy Analysis and Diagnostic Centers program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy is in transition from providing industrial energy audits to providing industrial assessments. This paper presents the perspective of one of the centers which is currently undergoing this transition. This process of transition includes a change from the point of view of training future energy engineers. Currently, the focus is on energy management engineering for the U.S. manufacturing sector. The new focus will include multi-facet assessments for energy savings, waste minimization, and process improvements. The expanded role of the newly-converted centers combines an interdisciplinary approach of engineering analysis which includes the traditional engineering disciplines of electrical, mechanical, chemical, and industrial engineering. These newly-converted centers have the responsibility to perform industrial assessments, hence the new name for these centers is Industrial Assessment Centers indicating the transition from recommending energy conservation opportunities to broader-based assessments. This paper will give examples of the expanded scope in assessments for various technologies showing the role of each of the three facets, i.e. energy savings, waste minimization and process improvements. The technologies include alternative refrigerants, reclamation & recycling, pollution prevention technologies, natural gas opportunities and new high-efficiency products. Illustrations from future casemore » studies might show some compounding effects for opportunities which were not previously diagnosed as economically feasible, which are now becoming more attractive. The compounding effects are not limited to the interdependence of energy savings and waste minimization but also the improved process gains.« less

Arora’s introduction of a much-anticipated second edition of Introduction to Optimum Design will not only satisfy established users of his well-received first edition, but moreover, significant updates, supplementary material, and fine-tuning of the pedagogical aspects of the presentation will certainly broaden its appeal. For those unfamiliar with the book, Introduction to Optimum Design is one of a number of contemporary works that provide a basic to intermediate introduction to the theory of optimal design with engineering applications. However, among some of the distinguishing characteristics of Arora’s book are its adaptability to audiences with diverse backgrounds, as well as the extent to which it makes the topic clear and approachable. The minimum mathematics prerequisites would include multivariate calculus and some exposure to linear algebra; as such, the book can readily be used with third-year or fourth-year undergraduates in most engineering disciplines. On the other hand, selected topics are treated with sufficient depth and rigor that, when covered at a faster pace, the book is equally well-suited for use at the introductory graduate level. The book would also be excellent as a self-study reference for the practicing engineer. Although perhaps the majority of the applications used in the book are drawn from problems in the civil and mechanical engineering disciplines including a good sampling of structural optimization examples , most examples are framed in such a way that the key concepts can be understood by students from other engineering disciplines. As such, in this reviewer’s personal experience, students from chemical, electrical, and industrial engineering have found the book equally useful. In fact, students from industrial engineering often find the presentation of key mathematical concepts much clearer than what is customarily given in most operations research and quantitative analysis texts. The layout of the first 12 chapters of the second edition consists of: “Introduction to Design,” “Optimum Design Problem Formulation,” “Graphical Optimization,” “Optimum Design Concepts,” “Linear Programming Methods for Optimum Design,” “Numerical Methods for Unconstrained Optimum Design,” “Numerical Methods for Constrained Optimum Design,” and “Introduction to Optimum Design with MATLAB.” Following the basic introduction and description of nomenclature in Chapters 1 and 2, many of the key concepts are introduced for two-variable optimum design problems in Chapter 3 “Graphical Optimization” , which is now an expanded, separate chapter in the revised edition. Improvements in this chapter include examples involving the use of Mathematica and MATLAB for generating graphical solutions. In Chapters 4–11, the basic theoretical and computational aspects of optimization are given in a fashion similar to that of the first edition; however, the key concepts of existence and uniqueness of unconstrained and constrained solutions now Chapters 4 and 5 , umerical methods for linear programming now Chapters 6 and

The post-September 11 events have caused many people to reassess interests, goals, and activities. In the particular sphere of protecting against bioterrorism threats and mitigating their effects, there is a particular role for environmental engineering researchers and practitioners. A useful definition of environmental engineering is ‘‘the application of engineering principles to improve and maintain the environment for the protection of human health, for the protection of nature’s beneficial ecosystems, and for environment-related enhancement of the quality of human life’’ ~Bylaws of the American Academy of Environmental Engineers!. The autumn 2001 anthrax events have caused the threat of bioterrorism to gain increasing recognition. However, this has not been the first realized or threatened malicious use of biological agents. At least 200 such situations have occurred worldwide since 1900. The understanding of and response to a threat posed by a malicious biological release definitely involves the use of ‘‘engineering principles to improve and maintain the environment for the protection of human health.’’ Particularly, this requires skills that are in the toolbox of environmental engineers, including risk assessment ~dose-response modeling, exposure assessment!, cleanup technologies, and design of systems to reduce vulnerability. The question of ‘‘what is a safe level’’ poses questions in the context of bioterrorist events that are quite analogous to the question ‘‘how clean is clean’’ in the context of site remediation. It is entirely possible to develop dose-response relationships for pathogens that could potentially be used. From this, with the usual exposure calculations we perform ~how much air is breathed, water or food consumed, etc.!, one can arrive at an answer ~with input from decision makers as to acceptable risk!. The question of how to remediate a site where exposure occurs may involve technologies that are quite familiar ~albeit in other contexts! to environmental engineers. For example, in the remediation of the Hart Senate Office Building, the use of chlorine dioxide, which is used in drinking-water disinfection, played a significant role. We have learned particularly over the past 25 years how to design water and wastewater disinfection systems to achieve public health protection, and more recently how to apply UV to treat infectious agents in air. The development of rational standards for remediation of spaces contaminated with infectious agents is amenable to similar approaches, and environmental engineers should be central to this activity. There are interesting and complex issues with respect to the design of facilities resistant to contamination ~or spread of contamination! from malicious use of microorganisms and to the remediation of spaces in which such use has occurred. When the problem focus is on the ~indoor! air or contact surfaces with air ~e.g., HVAC ducts!, the spread of contamination and the rate at which remediation can occur ~due to penetration of any chemical agents that may be used in the gas phase! can be limited by transport through this complex environment. Lessons that have been learned in the field of indoor air pollution and industrial hygiene have direct relevance. Many of the facilities that could be targets for malicious use of microorganisms are directly within the purview of frequent environmental engineering activity. These include drinking-water systems, wastewater collection, and treatment systems. These must be looked at in detail on a site-specific basis to assess whether additional barriers ~in the form of treatment, monitoring, site modifications or security! need to be put in place to reduce vulnerability. Environmental engineers will need to work in close collaboration with colleagues in mechanical, architectural, civil, and other engineering disciplines in these tasks. Environmental engineers design systems and processes to protect against and cleanup after the release of contaminants into air, water, and land environments. These activities are equally necessary and appropriate when the contaminants are microbial and are released as a consequence of deliberate malicious activity. Vulnerability assessments of these systems to potential threats can be conducted by environmental engineers applying tools perfected in such disciplines as nuclear or mechanical engineering ~failure analysis, event-tree analysis, probabilistic safety, and reliability analysis!. Hence, there is no question that there is a link between environmental engineering and bioterrorism. As there are new challenges to the public health and the environment, our profession must rise to the occasion and show our strength in new applications. But one of the strengths, and joys, of the profession has been the historic incorporation of new skills to meet newly recognized challenges.

Food industry and engineering—Quo vadis?

Deployable lightweight structures are studied in the disciplines of architecture, civil engineering, aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering and other fields of their application. The research into these structures in individual fields resulted in a large amount of data sorted out by numerous classifications. The previously made classifications proposed by different authors are presented in this paper by the usage of reasonably unified tables that enabled a direct insight into the essential characteristics of these structures, their analysis and mutual comparison. One of the results of these analyses is the proposal for the unified classification given in a separate table in this paper. The results of interdisciplinary studies have been collected into a unified classification which could be applied for the research in different scientific fields, presenting the basic types of these structures, including individual elements and details with their characteristic features. The proposal of the unified classification of deployable structures is made according to the application of the basic elements used for structure forming. The suggested classification, with the review of the results of the present research, is a significant starting point for the scientists in different disciplines and it provides a detailed insight into the studied characteristics of these structures.

Authors

Throughout Europe and the USA, Electrical Engineering (EE) suffers from an underrepresentation of women even when compared with most other engineering disciplines. This study uses a Varge multi-institution longitudinal dataset, the Multiple-Institution Database for Investigating Engineering Longitudinal Development (MIDFIELD) to examine engineering student outcomes in the USA. This work considers undergraduate student outcomes for women and men in EE and compares them to those in the other four largest engineering disciphnes in the USA: Chemical (ChE), Civil (CVE)? Mechanical (MCE), and Industrial (ISE) Engineering. This research focuses on over 94,000 men and 24,000 women who ever enrolled in one of these five disciplines. This includes first-time-in-college as well as transfer students. Analysis shows that EE has fewer women than men at enrollment and graduation and the percentage of women is comparable to MCE but lower than the other engineering disciplines. Students graduate in EE in six years at lower rates than ISE, CVE, and MCE and comparable rates to ChE. Women in EE graduate at slightly higher rates than men. Stickiness is the number of students who graduate in a major divided by the number who ever declared that major. EE has the lowest stickiness of the disciplines studied. In comparing the net population change of students from start to graduation, EE loses about 22% of the women and men. Only ChE has higher percentage losses. MCE has comparable losses, CVE loses about 10% of its student population and ISE gains students from start to graduation. This work contributes to the literature by examining engineering students disaggregated by gender, discipline, and entry point. This study can inform studies in other countries.

In response to the article Undergraduate control education: an ME perspective, by Agrawal, this article presents the author's view on several key issues in control engineering education, some are pertinent to electrical engineering (EE), some are more general. These issues include: 1) in comparison to mechanical engineering (ME) and other engineering disciplines, what does EE have to offer in control engineering education? and 2) does an undergraduate control curriculum have to start from LTI system theory? The author proposes some radical thoughts about fundamental changes in the infrastructure and pedagogical structure for control engineering education with ramifications to control engineering practices. These suggestions include: 1) seriously considering the advantages and drawbacks of centralized and independent control and systems engineering program, and 2) changing the entry point to control engineering curriculum from LTI to nonlinear system theory.

Authors

<i>Selected Bibliography of Engineering Subjects. Section I, Mathematics, Mechanics, Physics; Section II, Aeronautical Engineering, Civil Engineering; Section III, Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Industrial Engineering; Section IV, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering; Section V, Metallurgy, Mineralogy &amp; Geology, Mining Engineering</i>.

NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract Session 1432 A Combined Electrical and Mechanical Engineering Senior Design Laboratory M. E. Parten and D. L. Vines T. T. Maxwell and J. C. Jones Electrical Engineering Mechanical Engineering Texas Tech University Lubbock, TX 79409 Abstract This paper describes a multidisciplinary capstone design laboratory course offered in the Electrical and Mechanical Engineering Departments at Texas Tech University. The course uses projects from industry, research efforts and other faculty initiatives. The projects for the course come from industry, research efforts and other faculty initiatives. The courses are team taught by both departments. This paper describes the structure of the program along with example projects and results. Both positive and negative aspects of the program are presented. Introduction In the fall semester of 1994 the Electrical and Mechanical Engineering Departments at Texas Tech University began a multidisciplinary senior design project laboratory program. Two courses were established by integrating the Electrical Engineering Department's Senior Project Laboratory courses (two 3-semester credit hour courses) with the Mechanical Engineering Department's Design I and II capstone design courses (two 3-semester credit hour courses). The Electrical Engineering Department has a long history of project laboratories.1-5 The Mechanical Engineering Department has been involved in alternative fueled vehicles for a number of years. Both departments had worked together on a number of special projects and felt the need, as have many others6-11, for an increased interdisciplinary program for engineering students. The goals of these new courses were: to have the students develop an understanding of engineering design projects from recognition of a need and definition of design objectives through completion of the project to foster student creativity to broaden the students concept of engineering problems to include other engineering disciplines and other nonengineering factors that have an impact on the final problem solution to provide a unique educational experience for students on project teams to enhance the students communication skills The projects for the course come from industry, research efforts and other faculty initiatives.

This paper compares rhetorical structures and citation use between seven Ph. D. students' (＂novice＂) dissertations and seven published writers' (＂expert＂) research articles in the discipline of mechanical engineering in Taiwan. We focused on the introduction sections and compared their move-step structures as well as forms and functions of citations. While the expert writing shows higher citation density, mainly adopts a non-integral format, and emphasizes Move 1 (establishing a territory) and Move 3 (presenting the present study and its purpose), the novice writing predominantly focuses on Move 1. Both groups emphasized the steps of topic generalization, literature review, and niche establishment. It is therefore shown that novice writers mainly cite sources to give credit, but experts use citation to support their claims or ideas. While novices often cite references in isolation, published writers synthesize different sources to establish links among findings. Unsurprisingly, experts know more about mechanical engineering and related topics, and can also frame their own findings in light of contributions made by other researchers. Our findings lead to a clearer understanding of the contrastive genre structure and citation practices between novices and experts, and have pedagogical implications for teaching ESP to novice engineering writers.

The study of fluid behaviors has been a challenging topic. Flow visualization enables us to visually acquire qualitative and quantitative flow information. There exist various software tools performing different flow visualization tasks. However, we lack tools that help students learn important flow field concepts. In this paper, we present a visualization app, named FlowVisual which runs on iOS devices, to illustrate basic flow field concepts in 3D. In order to meet a comprehensive learning goal for students, we integrate a number of techniques into FlowVisual design, including field-line tracing, field-line comparison, critical point detection and classification, template-based seeding, and surface visualization. We evaluate and demonstrate the effectiveness of FlowVisual by conducting a formal user study including an introduction and training session, an auto-grading test, and a post-questionnaire survey.

In recent years the need for and benefits of diverse and inclusive science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines have been highlighted by educators, industry, and governmental agencies. It has been shown that a diverse workforce is critical to the generation of new ideas, creativity and innovation [1]. It is widely acknowledged that mechanical engineering departments at the undergraduate level, in most instances, do not have a diverse student body that is representative of the general population [2]. Therefore, the development and implementation of practices and initiatives for increasing diversity of the student and faculty in the mechanical engineering discipline must be a focus. Additionally, we believe that having a welcoming, inclusive environment is a precursor to improving diversity and thus should be an important consideration in mechanical engineering education. We propose that introducing a few carefully designed practices that require very few resources and cause minimum disruption could result in a more welcoming and inclusive environment. Bringing about change for a more inclusive environment can be challenging, namely in that it can be disruptive and require resources, but careful planning and strategic use of resources can help alleviate these challenges. A more inclusive STEM environment could be created by trying to address numerous complex existing issues (such as the gender-gap or the lack of participation of underrepresented groups) individually, but multifaceted solutions are essential to address these issues as a whole. Our vision of a fully inclusive program includes students, faculty, and staff from all backgrounds who are comfortable and fully engaged in the educational process and have equal opportunities to be successful. We are working to further improve recruitment and increase retention of the best and brightest minds, regardless of sex, ethnic background, or sexual orientation by strategically focusing on several initiatives in our school. The University of Oklahoma is currently participating in a NSF funded program titled Transforming Engineering Culture to Advance Inclusion and Diversity (TECAID). In this paper we present some of the initiatives that we are undertaking as a part of this program to achieve our vision for a more inclusive environment, while minimizing disruption and strategically utilizing the limited resources available. We believe that our strategies may provide other institutions with a starting point for creating a more inclusive mechanical engineering educational experience. Lack of Diversity in Mechanical Engineering A gender and ethnically diverse engineering population has been recognized as a critical aspect for the U.S. to remain a leader in the global economy [3]. A more inclusive and diverse engineering workforce is a more innovative and productive workforce [1]. Recognizing this need, significant attention and resources have been allocated in the recent past towards increasing female and underrepresented minority student enrollment in STEM fields, including engineering. These efforts have resulted in a more diverse undergraduate population in US institutions, but overall graduation rates still do not reflect a fully diverse student body. For instance, women and underrepresented minorities earned only around 19% and 13% of the 2012

Statistical analysis finds a wide range of applications in scientific research, management, finance, and engineering. In this article, we aim at shedding some light on the significance of two tools of statistical analysis, namely ANOVA and regression, in civil (including environmental), mechanical, and architectural engineering disciplines through a short survey of recent research studies that utilized these tools to reach important engineering models or rules of interest to engineers for design or development. The studies represent diverse areas of traffic planning, residential energy, indoor air quality, and high-speed machining. We briefly present some sample selection rules and analysis outcomes in these studies.