Damage Tolerance Approach in Designing and Maintaining Truck Trailers. This project aims to develop a damage tolerance approach in designing and maintaining truck trailers. Combined with field test and computational simulation, machine learning will be used to generate loading spectrums. Following the damage tolerance philosophy, a mature approach in aerospace industry, the fatigue crack growth and the fatigue life will be predicted. In addition, structural optimisation will be applied in traile ....Damage Tolerance Approach in Designing and Maintaining Truck Trailers. This project aims to develop a damage tolerance approach in designing and maintaining truck trailers. Combined with field test and computational simulation, machine learning will be used to generate loading spectrums. Following the damage tolerance philosophy, a mature approach in aerospace industry, the fatigue crack growth and the fatigue life will be predicted. In addition, structural optimisation will be applied in trailer design. This project expects to revolutionize the design and maintenance practices in Australian truck trailer industry. It should provide significant benefits, such as prolonging the life cycle of truck trailers, reducing the tare weight and increasing operating profit, to both trailer producers and users.Read moreRead less
Controlling coastlines while generating power. The Project aims to produce strategies for protecting coasts from storms using farms of wave-energy machines, which also generate electricity. Increasing lengths of coast need protection as the climate changes, but conventional barriers create permanent environmental impacts and are a sunk cost usually borne by the taxpayer. The Project expects to derive a strategy for the setting of each machine in the farm, so that they collectively absorb or refl ....Controlling coastlines while generating power. The Project aims to produce strategies for protecting coasts from storms using farms of wave-energy machines, which also generate electricity. Increasing lengths of coast need protection as the climate changes, but conventional barriers create permanent environmental impacts and are a sunk cost usually borne by the taxpayer. The Project expects to derive a strategy for the setting of each machine in the farm, so that they collectively absorb or reflect damaging waves under severe conditions. Under normal conditions, enough wave energy to sustain environmental processes would pass through. Sales of electricity would help to pay back the capital cost. Outcomes would include reduced coastal-erosion costs and a low-intermittency energy supply.Read moreRead less
Empowering next-generation sea-ice models with wave–ice mathematics. Sea ice is a crucial part of the Australian and global climate systems, and the most sensitive indicator of the alarming climate changes in motion. This project aims to deliver a vital component in next-generation sea-ice models, by modelling ocean waves in the ice-covered ocean, and implementing it in the leading large-scale sea-ice model. The waves-in-ice model will be accurate for the range of possible wave–ice conditions, u ....Empowering next-generation sea-ice models with wave–ice mathematics. Sea ice is a crucial part of the Australian and global climate systems, and the most sensitive indicator of the alarming climate changes in motion. This project aims to deliver a vital component in next-generation sea-ice models, by modelling ocean waves in the ice-covered ocean, and implementing it in the leading large-scale sea-ice model. The waves-in-ice model will be accurate for the range of possible wave–ice conditions, using understanding derived from state-of-the-art experimental measurements. Powerful mathematical approximation methods will be developed to generate model efficiency. The outcomes will create a new standard in sea-ice modelling, with significant benefits for sea-ice forecasting and climate studies.Read moreRead less
Commercial scale production of biocrude by hydrothermal liquefaction. The project aims to develop new understanding and tools to support commercial-scale production of biocrude from microalgae or biosolids and enable a breakthrough in cost-effective production of sustainable fuels. A novel hydrothermal liquefaction reactor has been developed that has strong potential to overcome the limitations of Muradel's existing demonstration reactor which, while world-leading, is uneconomical at commercial ....Commercial scale production of biocrude by hydrothermal liquefaction. The project aims to develop new understanding and tools to support commercial-scale production of biocrude from microalgae or biosolids and enable a breakthrough in cost-effective production of sustainable fuels. A novel hydrothermal liquefaction reactor has been developed that has strong potential to overcome the limitations of Muradel's existing demonstration reactor which, while world-leading, is uneconomical at commercial scale. The project aims to develop design tools to optimise the new reactor, comprising a chemical model of the complex, multi-component hydrothermal liquefaction reactions, a computational model of the mixing and heat transfer within it and a network model of the energy and exergy flows.Read moreRead less
A spatio-temporal partitioning approach to colloidal flows in porous media. This project aims to develop an efficient multi-scale laboratory-based modelling framework for colloidal suspensions flow in porous media by utilizing recent advances in 3D/4D image-based geometrical/topological analysis. Regional partitioning techniques based on local structural measures are used to observe the penetration/retention of colloids into identified zones. Zone-dependent colloid interaction probabilities for ....A spatio-temporal partitioning approach to colloidal flows in porous media. This project aims to develop an efficient multi-scale laboratory-based modelling framework for colloidal suspensions flow in porous media by utilizing recent advances in 3D/4D image-based geometrical/topological analysis. Regional partitioning techniques based on local structural measures are used to observe the penetration/retention of colloids into identified zones. Zone-dependent colloid interaction probabilities for computational modelling are derived from fundamental relationships. Expected outcomes of this project include a full-scale modelling capability for heterogeneous samples validated by experiment and the extraction of robust model coefficients for newly developed theory for colloid-suspension transport through porous media.Read moreRead less