SYNTHESIS OF A NANO-STRUCTURED TITANIA SURFACE AND ITS APPLICATION IN PHOTOCATALYTIC OXIDATION FOR WATER TREATMENT. Australia is facing severe freshwater crisis. Although there is an increasing public awareness of saving and using water efficiently, re-using water/wastewater has been neglected. In Australia, 97% of city runoff and 86% of effluent water is unproductive. How to recycle and re-use them becomes an urgent issue. This project attempts to develop novel titania based photocatalysts to c ....SYNTHESIS OF A NANO-STRUCTURED TITANIA SURFACE AND ITS APPLICATION IN PHOTOCATALYTIC OXIDATION FOR WATER TREATMENT. Australia is facing severe freshwater crisis. Although there is an increasing public awareness of saving and using water efficiently, re-using water/wastewater has been neglected. In Australia, 97% of city runoff and 86% of effluent water is unproductive. How to recycle and re-use them becomes an urgent issue. This project attempts to develop novel titania based photocatalysts to convert organic contaminated water into reusable/potable freshwater. The project's innovation lies in the synthesis of highly reactive nano-structured titania surfaces in fixed form to solve downstream separation problem. Successful development of such photocatalysts will show significant environmental and socio-economic benefits to Australia.Read moreRead less
Tough bio-derived and biodegradable wood plastic composites. This project aims for the development of tough bio-based and biodegradable wood plastic composites (WPCs), directly addressing a key end-user demand that performance of bio-WPCs must be at least comparable with existing commercial WPCs. The project expects to generate key innovations such as developing a new, high performance, bio-based and biodegradable WPC by incorporating native spinifex-derived nano-cellulose fibres, ensuring excel ....Tough bio-derived and biodegradable wood plastic composites. This project aims for the development of tough bio-based and biodegradable wood plastic composites (WPCs), directly addressing a key end-user demand that performance of bio-WPCs must be at least comparable with existing commercial WPCs. The project expects to generate key innovations such as developing a new, high performance, bio-based and biodegradable WPC by incorporating native spinifex-derived nano-cellulose fibres, ensuring excellent, molecular-level dispersion with a novel low-cost and energy-efficient wet-mix technology. This will provide significant benefits as it will lead to new products and markets for the Australian forestry industry and for rural and indigenous Australia, maximising Australia’s competitive advantage in biomass-derived products.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE140100212
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$393,229.00
Summary
Behaviour and reliability of Veneer Based Composite structures manufactured from waste hardwood plantation thinning. This project will investigate the structural behaviour, strength and reliability of innovative veneer based composite structures manufactured from waste hardwood plantation thinning. Unlike sawn timber, these structures have efficient cross-sectional shapes and can be made in sizes currently not available in timber. Yet due to the proportion of natural singularities in the materia ....Behaviour and reliability of Veneer Based Composite structures manufactured from waste hardwood plantation thinning. This project will investigate the structural behaviour, strength and reliability of innovative veneer based composite structures manufactured from waste hardwood plantation thinning. Unlike sawn timber, these structures have efficient cross-sectional shapes and can be made in sizes currently not available in timber. Yet due to the proportion of natural singularities in the material, the variability in their mechanical properties is not fully understood and their actual strength cannot be accurately predicted. Additionally, their exact structural behaviour and failure modes require attention. This project aims to fill these gaps in knowledge and ultimately establish probability-based limit state design criteria for these sections.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE150101512
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$360,000.00
Summary
Behaviour of novel FRP-timber composite thin-walled structural members. This project aims to investigate the structural behaviour of innovative hybrid Fibre Reinforced Polymer - Timber Composite (FRPTC) sections manufactured from small 'sawlog' timber. These FRPTC sections are made by taking advantage of the orthotropic material properties and, unlike sawn timber, these structures have efficient cross sectional shapes and can be made easily in different sizes to match the requirements. Even thou ....Behaviour of novel FRP-timber composite thin-walled structural members. This project aims to investigate the structural behaviour of innovative hybrid Fibre Reinforced Polymer - Timber Composite (FRPTC) sections manufactured from small 'sawlog' timber. These FRPTC sections are made by taking advantage of the orthotropic material properties and, unlike sawn timber, these structures have efficient cross sectional shapes and can be made easily in different sizes to match the requirements. Even though preliminary studies have shown promising results, behaviour of these FRPTC sections are not yet fully understood. This project aims to investigate the behaviour of these novel FRPTC sections and to develop numerical models to allow wide usage of these sections.Read moreRead less
Behaviour of novel FRP-timber ultralight thin-walled structural members. This project aims to investigate the structural behaviour of innovative hybrid fibre reinforced polymer–timber composite (FRPTC) thin-walled members which could be used as structural members in roof systems, façade systems, floor systems, etc. These FRPTC sections are made by taking advantage of the orthotropic material properties. Unlike sawn timber, these structures have efficient cross-sectional shapes and can be made ea ....Behaviour of novel FRP-timber ultralight thin-walled structural members. This project aims to investigate the structural behaviour of innovative hybrid fibre reinforced polymer–timber composite (FRPTC) thin-walled members which could be used as structural members in roof systems, façade systems, floor systems, etc. These FRPTC sections are made by taking advantage of the orthotropic material properties. Unlike sawn timber, these structures have efficient cross-sectional shapes and can be made easily in different sizes to match the requirements. Preliminary studies have shown promising results, however the behaviour of these novel FRPTC members is not yet fully understood. This project aims to investigate the behaviour of these novel FRPTC thin-walled members, specifically Cee-section members.Read moreRead less
Fibre-Reinforced Timber for Novel Hybrid Folded Thin-Walled Structures. This project proposes novel manufacture and analysis methods for fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) hybrid sections. FRP composites have gained wide acceptance within the civil engineering community. All-FRP systems typically use thin-walled profiles based on steel sections, but existing manufacturing technologies are unable to optimise material usage. Hybrid systems combine FRP with traditional materials for optimum structural ....Fibre-Reinforced Timber for Novel Hybrid Folded Thin-Walled Structures. This project proposes novel manufacture and analysis methods for fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) hybrid sections. FRP composites have gained wide acceptance within the civil engineering community. All-FRP systems typically use thin-walled profiles based on steel sections, but existing manufacturing technologies are unable to optimise material usage. Hybrid systems combine FRP with traditional materials for optimum structural performance and so are often more economical than all-FRP systems. This project aims to develop an effective way to analyse, manufacture, and design FRP-based hybrid thin-walled structural members and optimise performance against buckling failure modes. The technology developed in this project would support the development of advanced low-cost FRP structural systems.Read moreRead less
Enhanced Multilingual Speaker Recognition through the Incorporation of High-Level Features, Late Fusion and Discriminative Classification Methods. The development of robust multilingual speaker recognition systems will benefit the community through the elimination of fraud incurred by financial institutions and customers by enabling several person authentication applications such as: voice based signatures and document issuance; credit card verification by voice and secure over-the-phone financi ....Enhanced Multilingual Speaker Recognition through the Incorporation of High-Level Features, Late Fusion and Discriminative Classification Methods. The development of robust multilingual speaker recognition systems will benefit the community through the elimination of fraud incurred by financial institutions and customers by enabling several person authentication applications such as: voice based signatures and document issuance; credit card verification by voice and secure over-the-phone financial transactions. The technology will also assist in the protection of the community and safeguard Australia by enabling the implementation of the following: suspect identification using voice print; national security measures for combating terrorism by using voice to locate and track terrorists; preemptive criminal activity counter-measures; surveillance and secure building access by voice.Read moreRead less
Robust speaker recognition with reduced utterance duration and intersession variability. The development of robust and accurate speaker recognition systems will enable secure person authentication in over-the-phone financial transactions and benefit the community through the elimination of identity fraud incurred by customers and financial institutions. The technology will also assist in safeguarding Australia by enabling the implementation of suspect identification using voice and security meas ....Robust speaker recognition with reduced utterance duration and intersession variability. The development of robust and accurate speaker recognition systems will enable secure person authentication in over-the-phone financial transactions and benefit the community through the elimination of identity fraud incurred by customers and financial institutions. The technology will also assist in safeguarding Australia by enabling the implementation of suspect identification using voice and security measures for combating terrorism by using voice to locate and track terrorists. Our research at QUT Speech Research Lab is at the forefront of development in this field and will provide Australia with a technological advantage in the rapidly evolving global market for speaker recognition technology for person authentication applications.Read moreRead less
Robust Automatic Speaker Diarisation of Audio Documents by Exploiting Prior Sources of Information. Speaker Diarisation, the task of determining who spoke when, is a technology fundamental in deriving intelligent information from audio and multimedia resources. The requirement for efficient and accurate Speaker Diarisation systems, portable across different domains is heightened by the explosive growth of audio and multimedia archives online and throughout the world. This research will provide t ....Robust Automatic Speaker Diarisation of Audio Documents by Exploiting Prior Sources of Information. Speaker Diarisation, the task of determining who spoke when, is a technology fundamental in deriving intelligent information from audio and multimedia resources. The requirement for efficient and accurate Speaker Diarisation systems, portable across different domains is heightened by the explosive growth of audio and multimedia archives online and throughout the world. This research will provide the foundation for a commercial service of automatic Speaker Diarisation to be developed, growing Australia's impact on the information and communications technology (ICT) sector. The outcome of this research will also assist in the tracking of terrorist and unlawful activity by enabling effective intelligence gathering from different audio sources.Read moreRead less
Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE0561231
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$671,715.00
Summary
MRI GRID Computing Facility: Design, Optimisation and Image Processing. The MRI Grid Computing Facility provides the IT infrastructure to achieve effective e-research in the area of magnetic resonance (MR) imaging, a field of neuroscience research that revolutionizes the way brain diseases are identified and treated. The facility consists of a dedicated high performance grid compute engine, distributed visualisation workstations, and distributed data warehouse facilities. Software tools acc ....MRI GRID Computing Facility: Design, Optimisation and Image Processing. The MRI Grid Computing Facility provides the IT infrastructure to achieve effective e-research in the area of magnetic resonance (MR) imaging, a field of neuroscience research that revolutionizes the way brain diseases are identified and treated. The facility consists of a dedicated high performance grid compute engine, distributed visualisation workstations, and distributed data warehouse facilities. Software tools accessible through the Internet will enable researchers to archive, retrieve and exchange data and software; access distributed MR image databases and the latest MR image analysis tools; schedule analysis tasks on the grid compute engine, the outcomes of which will be visualized by the visualization workstations.Read moreRead less