Efficiency In Engineering Research Articles

Virtual Commissioning – Scientific review and exploratory use cases in advanced production systems

Virtual Commissioning increases quality and efficiency in production engineering whilst also decreasing required time. Even though it is a foundation for state-of-the-art production systems, it is not in widespread use yet. In this contribution, an overview of current scientific approaches and use cases for Virtual Commissioning is given. Furthermore, additional fields of interest are derived and detailed on exploratory use cases. The findings show that Virtual Commissioning is a crucial factor to engineering of advanced, sustainable production systems as well as a cornerstone of the Digital Twin.

Of balls, inks and cages: Hybrid biofabrication of 3D tissue analogs.

The overarching principle of three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting is the placing of cells or cell clusters in the 3D space to generate a cohesive tissue microarchitecture that comes close to in vivo characteristics. To achieve this goal, several technical solutions are available, generating considerable combinatorial bandwidth: (i) Support structures are generated first, and cells are seeded subsequently; (ii) alternatively, cells are delivered in a printing medium, so-called “bioink,” that contains them during the printing process and ensures shape fidelity of the generated structure; and (iii) a “scaffold-free” version of bioprinting, where only cells are used and the extracellular matrix is produced by the cells themselves, also recently entered a phase of accelerated development and successful applications. However, the scaffold-free approaches may still benefit from secondary incorporation of scaffolding materials, thus expanding their versatility. Reversibly, the bioink-based bioprinting could also be improved by adopting some of the principles and practices of scaffold-free biofabrication. Collectively, we anticipate that combinations of these complementary methods in a “hybrid” approach, rather than their development in separate technological niches, will largely increase their efficiency and applicability in tissue engineering.

Energy efficiency in civil engineering: analyzing world experience

There are consistent trends in the development of energy-saving technologies in civil engineering in almost all countries of the world. The article considers the main approaches to ensuring energy efficiency in in civil engineering, analyzes the standards of energy-efficient construction in the world in general and in Russia in particular, and gives some recommendations on increasing energy efficiency in engineering.

Survey of convex optimization for aerospace applications

Convex optimization is a class of mathematical programming problems with polynomial complexity for which state-of-the-art, highly efficient numerical algorithms with predeterminable computational bounds exist. Computational efficiency and tractability in aerospace engineering, especially in guidance, navigation, and control (GN&C), are of paramount importance. With theoretical guarantees on solutions and computational efficiency, convex optimization lends itself as a very appealing tool. Coinciding the strong drive toward autonomous operations of aerospace vehicles, convex optimization has seen rapidly increasing utility in solving aerospace GN&C problems with the potential for onboard real-time applications. This paper attempts to provide an overview on the problems to date in aerospace guidance, path planning, and control where convex optimization has been applied. Various convexification techniques are reviewed that have been used to convexify the originally nonconvex aerospace problems. Discussions on how to ensure the validity of the convexification process are provided. Some related implementation issues will be introduced as well.

Investigation of Osteoinductive Effects of Different Compositions of Bioactive Glass Nanoparticles for Bone Tissue Engineering.

Bioactive glasses (BG) is one of the well-known materials that used as dental and bone implants, for this reason it is always interesting for researchers has been to increase BG efficiency in the bone tissue engineering. The aim of this study was to evaluate the osteoinductivity of BG different composition nanoparticles with SiO2-CaO-P2O5. The 45S, 58S, and 63S compositions were prepared via the sol-gel technique. Characterization techniques such as x-ray diffraction, field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), and laser Doppler electrophoresis (LDE) were used. The osteoinductive capacity of prepared nanoparticles was investigated using unrestricted somatic stem cells (USSC). The particle size of the samples with an amorphous structure mainly ranged less than 40 nm. The zeta potential was negative for all compositions in distilled water at pH 7.4. Bioactive glass nanoparticles were shown to support proliferation of USSC, as shown by microculture tetrazolium (MTT) assay. During osteogenic differentiation, significantly highest values of alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity and biomineralization were observed on 45S BG. Subsequently, these markers were measured in higher amounts in USSC on 58S and 63S BG compared with tissue culture polystyrene. The nanometric particle size, osteoinductivity, and negative zeta potential make this material a possible candidate for bone tissue engineering applications.

Comparative Integrated Manufacturing Efficiency in Production Engineering

At present a plurality of manufacturing methods, different manufacturing processes and manufacturing equipment are known in order to produce and customize work pieces and products. A new systematic approaches for the analysis and evaluation of manufacturing methods bases on the energy-information model as a conceptual approach to the comparative integrated manufacturing efficiency in production engineering. The integrated manufacturing efficiency is equal to the product of the efficiencies of matter, energy and information. The Comparative Integral Manufacturing Efficiency is the product of Quality rate, Effectiveness, Availability, devided by the product of (used Energy, used material, Emission ratio). A case study compares additive and removal process efficiencies for the production of a hollow cylinder. Proposed method for comparative integrated manufacturing efficiency will offer resource-efficient strategies for the creation and optimization of processes and technology applications.

ITeach: Evaluation of Teaching Efficiency in Chemical Engineering

iTeach: Evaluation of Teaching Efficiency in Chemical Engineering

A Para-Whole Space Model for Underground Magnetic Resonance Sounding Studies

Determining the presence of water ahead of a tunnel face or mine well is important for preventing accidents and ensuring higher efficiency in underground engineering. The surface magnetic resonance sounding (SMRS) technique can provide more direct and quantitative estimates of subsurface water variations than other geophysical methods. However, MRS is more complicated when it is performed in underground conditions (UMRS), i.e., interference water often exists and produces an SMRS signal in the opposite direction to the detection direction. Therefore, para-whole space theories are proposed to apply MRS in underground engineering to identify interference water. Singular value decomposition (SVD) inversion algorithms and a model resolution matrix in SMRS were implemented in UMRS. By using a para-whole space model, the impact of the hollow area of the tunnel is effectively removed from the calculation results to distinguish the interference water in the aquifer. A comparison of the inversion results from half space and whole space models shows that the para-whole space model can produce more accurate inversion results of the location and amount of subsurface water. Our research provides a theoretical foundation for MRS detection in tunnels or mines.

Design and operation of strategic inventory control system for drug delivery in healthcare industry

Several factors such as the raise in healthcare expenditures impose growing pressures to improve efficiency in healthcare industry Industrial engineering and operations research can be effectively used at this aim. This paper examines the optimization of a hospital’s inventory costs where the central pharmacy of the hospital assumes a role of central decision maker for drugs’ purchasing and their distribution to internal wards. Inventory control strategies integrating combinatorial based mechanisms and classical inventory control has been developed in order to optimize inventory costs of drugs logistics. The developed work includes into the decisional model also a partial decisional independence of wards and the special requirements of drugs delivery. Results and tests of the model’s implementation on real data are reported to evaluate the goodness of offered tool and to discuss of potential real application.

Challenges to increasing targeting efficiency in genome engineering.

Gene targeting technologies are essential for the analysis of gene functions. Knockout mouse generation via genetic modification of embryonic stem cells (ESCs) is the commonest example, but it is a time-consuming and labor-intensive procedure. Recently, a novel genome editing technology called CRISPR/Cas has enabled the direct production of knockout mice by non-homologous end joining (NHEJ)-mediated mutations. Unexpectedly, however, it generally exhibits a low efficiency in homologous recombination (HR) and is prone to high mosaicism. Meanwhile, gene targeting using ESCs is still being improved, as reported by Fukuda et al. in this issue. Here, we outline current gene targeting technologies with special emphasis on HR-mediated technologies, which are currently being performed using these two major strategies.

Exergy analysis of the Szewalski cycle with a waste heat recovery system

Abstract The conversion of a waste heat energy to electricity is now becoming one of the key points to improve the energy efficiency in a process engineering. However, large losses of a low-temperature thermal energy are also present in power engineering. One of such sources of waste heat in power plants are exhaust gases at the outlet of boilers. Through usage of a waste heat regeneration system it is possible to attain a heat rate of approximately 200 MWth, under about 90 °C, for a supercritical power block of 900 MWel fuelled by a lignite. In the article, we propose to use the waste heat to improve thermal efficiency of the Szewalski binary vapour cycle. The Szewalski binary vapour cycle provides steam as the working fluid in a high temperature part of the cycle, while another fluid – organic working fluid – as the working substance substituting conventional steam over the temperature range represented by the low pressure steam expansion. In order to define in detail the efficiency of energy conversion at various stages of the proposed cycle the exergy analysis was performed. The steam cycle for reference conditions, the Szewalski binary vapour cycle as well as the Szewalski hierarchic vapour cycle cooperating with a system of waste heat recovery have been comprised.

Engineering Education in an Industrial Context

Learning is a lifelong process, which may not end at the transition from school to work. To exploit modern software systems used in design engineering, in order to increase efficiency and stay competitive, engineers have to keep on gaining knowledge during occupation. Anyhow, employees are usually not or only insufficiently trained, as no working time shall be lost. This paper demonstrates an opportunity to implement a learning-by-doing within the development process by the utilization of a Knowledge Based Engineering System (KBES). The user is supposed to be able to improve efficiency and quality in design engineering without the need of time-consuming trainings. Instead he/she is getting a short introduction (10 to 15 minutes), which can take place anytime during work. Therefore, product- and process-knowledge is saved within a knowledge-base and provided to the user in a way allowing him/her to use the system intuitively as he/she is guided through the process. As each step of the system may be reconstructed in the structure tree of the CA-system, the user understands the basic concepts in an implicit way. An experimental study is conducted to prove the effects of the KBES. The results clearly show that the efficiency and data-quality can be raised by the usage of such a system. Furthermore the study proves that there is a learning effect as the test persons could improve their results on a more complicated task after about four to six weeks past the introduction. The results may be explained with the Cognitive-Load-theory regarding the method of Worked-Out-Examples.

Substitutions at the cofactor phosphate-binding site of a clostridial alcohol dehydrogenase lead to unexpected changes in substrate specificity.

Changing the cofactor specificity of an enzyme from nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide 2′-phosphate (NADPH) to the more abundant NADH is a common strategy for increasing overall enzyme efficiency in microbial metabolic engineering. The aim of this study was to switch the cofactor specificity of the primary–secondary alcohol dehydrogenase from Clostridium autoethanogenum, a bacterium with considerable promise for the bio-manufacturing of fuels and other petrochemicals, from strictly NADPH-dependent to NADH-dependent. We used insights from a homology model to build a site-saturation library focussed on residue S199, the position deemed most likely to disrupt binding of the 2′-phosphate of NADPH. Although the CaADH(S199X) library did not yield any NADH-dependent enzymes, it did reveal that substitutions at the cofactor phosphate-binding site can cause unanticipated changes in the substrate specificity of the enzyme. Using consensus-guided site-directed mutagenesis, we were able to create an enzyme that was stringently NADH-dependent, albeit with a concomitant reduction in activity. This study highlights the role that distal residues play in substrate specificity and the complexity of enzyme–cofactor interactions.

Die Lernfabrik – Research-based Learning for Sustainable Production Engineering

Engineering Education directed at topics like sustainable production or life cycle engineering needs adequate teaching approaches. Methods like research-oriented teaching, project-based learning or game-based learning are suitable techniques to promote a deeper understanding and develop competencies in respect to complex dynamic systems. However, providing appropriate teaching environments which allow for self dependent learning and practical experiences while making state of the art research insights available is quite challenging. Die Lernfabrik has been developed to suit these exact issues by providing a didactic framework for sustainable production engineering education in a real factory environment. This paper introduces a new didactic concept to combine the benefits of research-based learning approaches in engineering curriculum with the physical infrastructure of Die Lernfabrik. While gaining theoretical background in a related lecture, students utilize machinery and installations of the learning factory independently for experiments to solve their self-chosen research questions. Application and validation of the concept are exemplified by the TU Braunschweig course Energy Efficiency in Production Engineering, focusing on energy efficiency solutions for production systems. It could be proved that the individual learning motivation and success of the students as well as their competency to solve real engineering problems was significantly improved by the new approach.

Cross Language Query Expansion Approach for CIMS Based on Weighted D-S Evidence Theory

With the Computer Integrated Manufacturing System and Information Technology rapid development, rapid retrieval multilingual becomes one of the hot spots in Machine Translation. The cross-language information retrieval (CLIR) provides a convenient way, enabling users to use their own familiar language to submit queries to retrieve documents in another language. Basic query expansion is one of the effective methods to improve recall of information retrieval. There are many researchers have proposed many extension methods, but most methods are simply added to the query expansion terms. If we do not distinguish the original query words and extended words, expanded query may deviate from the original semantics. So, it is very inconvenience for mechanical engineer and programmer. Based on Dempster-Shafer theory of evidence, we proposed a query expansion computing model, which considered as the main evidence of the original query terms, while the extensions as a secondary evidence of the original query terms. Which method to use semantic dictionary Han and Uygur-Chinese bilingual dictionary of synonyms forest and How to get the query word synonyms, near-synonyms and hypernym. Latent Semantic Analysis is used to obtain semantic relationships query words related words the using potentially large-scale text. The combination of these two types of evidence is in order to put forward a weighted combination of the Dempster-Shafer rule. Experimental results show that this method can effectively improve retrieval efficiency in Mechanical Engineering and Information Technology. The research results can be provided a reference for CIMS multilingual quick retrieval.

3D overlapped grouping Ga for optimum 2D guillotine cutting stock problem

The cutting stock problem (CSP) is one of the significant optimization problems in operations research and has gained a lot of attention for increasing efficiency in industrial engineering, logistics and manufacturing. In this paper, new methodologies for optimally solving the cutting stock problem are presented. A modification is proposed to the existing heuristic methods with a hybrid new 3-D overlapped grouping Genetic Algorithm (GA) for nesting of two-dimensional rectangular shapes. The objective is the minimization of the wastage of the sheet material which leads to maximizing material utilization and the minimization of the setup time. The model and its results are compared with real life case study from a steel workshop in a bus manufacturing factory. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is shown by comparing and shop testing of the optimized cutting schedules. The results reveal its superiority in terms of waste minimization comparing to the current cutting schedules. The whole procedure can be completed in a reasonable amount of time by the developed optimization program.

Продукция светотехнической промышленности России: проблемы энергосбережения и энергоэффективности

Issues of energy-saving and energy efficiency in the lighting engineering
 industry of Russia are discussed. Comparative analysis of modern light sources
 is presented and their role in energy-saving technologies is examined with
 particular emphasize put on a series of new energy-efficient luminous tube
 lamps of T5 type.

Energetic Efficiency - A New Tool, Methodology of Integrate Design for Buildings' Openings

The Residential sector in Brazil is responsible for 26% of energy consumption for illumination, refrigeration and heating, because of this there is a necessity to project in a correct way the openings and choose better materials for construction, targeting the energy rationalization. This article describes the development of a new model that uses a method where openings are represented by single glass and double glass. The model is based on a healthy balance equations purely theoretical and empirical data. Simplified equations are derived through a synthesis of the measured data obtained from meteorological stations, as well as the literature. The implementation of the model in a design tool integrated naturally lit buildings is discussed in this article, to better punctuate the requirements of comfort and energy efficiency in architecture and engineering. Assumes significant importance in studies of heatstroke buildings, aiming to guide the professionals through the process of architectural design, preliminary study and detail of construction elements. It was used a method of degree-days for an assessment of the energy performance of a building showed that the design of the architectural design should always be considered the materials used and the size of the openings. The energy performance was obtained through the model, considering the location of the building in the city of Curitiba, Foz do Iguaçu, Londrina and Cascavel - PR. Obtained climatic data of these locations and in a second step, it was obtained the coefficient of total heat loss in the building pre-established so evaluating the thermal comfort and energy performance. It was observed that heating degree days in winter are of 77.78 to Curitiba the base temperature of 14 ° C and cooling degree days in winter 30.17. For Curitiba lower air exchange, the lower the energy consumption for heating and thus the higher the intake, the greater exchange of air. This means that the more openings in buildings in Curitiba, and are installed to the east side, they may be higher because the glass added to the geometry of architectural spaces will cause the environment conserve energy.

Global optimization of reliability design for large ball mill gear transmission based on the Kriging model and genetic algorithm

This paper aims to improve the global optimization operation efficiency in engineering by establishing the Kriging model to simplify the calculated mathematics model. In the case of the large ball mill, this paper presents in detail the application of the stress–strength distribution interference theory to calculate the reliability of gear transmission, establishes the Kriging model for function fitting, and uses genetic algorithm to globally optimize the volume and reliability of large ball mill gear transmission. The optimal result based the Kriging model is contrasted with the Monte Carlo Method in terms of calculation accuracy, greatly improving the efficiency of calculation.

High Efficiency In Vivo Genome Engineering with a Simplified 15-RVD GoldyTALEN Design

Transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs) enable genome engineering in cell culture and many organisms. Recently, the GoldyTALEN scaffold was shown to readily introduce mutations in zebrafish (Danio rerio) and livestock through non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) and homology-directed repair (HDR). To deploy the GoldyTALEN system for high-throughput mutagenesis in model organisms, a simple design with high efficacy is desirable. We tested the in vivo efficacy of a simplified 15-RVD GoldyTALEN design (spacer between 13–20 bp and T nucleotide preceding each TALEN binding site) in zebrafish. All 14 tested TALEN pairs (100%) introduced small insertions and deletions at somatic efficacy ranging from 24 to 86%, and mutations were inheritable at high frequencies (18–100%). By co-injecting two GoldyTALEN pairs, inheritable deletions of a large genomic fragment up to 18 kb were successfully introduced at two different loci. In conclusion, these high efficiency 15-RVD GoldyTALENs are useful for high-throughput mutagenesis in diverse application including hypothesis testing from basic science to precision medicine.