114 research outputs found
«Å nei, det ordet er ikkje lov på nynorsk!» Eller ...? Om parallell redigering av to norske ordbøker
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Design for refurbishment of child car seats – Towards circular safety critical products
No full textThis graduation project investigates the challenges of designing a safety critical consumer product suitable for the refurbishment loop of the circular economy through a case study on child car seats. Currently when child car seats are reused or resold on the second-hand market, their safety cannot be guaranteed as it is unknown whether the child car seat has previously been involved in a car accident. When child car seats are integrated in a refurbishment system, their safety can be guaranteed and thus their lifespan of safe use can be elongated. The refurbishment of child car seats starts with determining whether the child car seat has been in a crash, for example by integrating impact sensors in the child car seat through which the history of a child car seat can be known. Subsequently, it consists of inspecting all priority parts of the product; those are the parts most relevant for refurbishment because of their functional importance, failure frequency, and economic and environmental value. Based on these aspects, the priority parts of baby car seats are determined. The parts with the highest functional priority in child car seats are the parts that fulfil a safety critical function: either the part is responsible for the absorption of the crash impact, or the part contributes to the correct installation of the child in the child car seat or of the child car seat in the car. Three existing baby car seats and ISOfix bases are assessed on their ease of disassembly following the Hotspot Mapping method and the results are visualised in a Disassembly Map showing their disassembly sequence and product architecture. Based on this analysis it can be concluded that currently not all priority parts of both baby car seats and ISOfix bases are removable and that the product architecture of these product can be further improved for ease of disassembly and thus for refurbishment. The Disassembly Depth Index is developed to illustrate the level of parallelism within a product’s disassembly sequence. A set of guidelines is established which can be used to design safety critical consumer products tailored to refurbishment. This set of guidelines firstly incorporates guidelines specifically for safety critical products and furthermore consists of guidelines for product architecture, materials, and fasteners. To illustrate these guidelines a redesign of a baby car seat and of an ISOfix base has been made. These products are improved for refurbishment through the elimination of non-priority parts, by making safety critical parts removable and bringing them to the surface, by increasing the level of parallelism in the disassembly sequence, and by substituting materials with alternatives better suited for refurbishment.Integrated Product Desig
A 2D Modeling Study on the Heat Generation within Carbon Dioxide Electrolysis Systems for Different Geometries
No full textAn energy transition is needed in order to combat climate change. With the rise of intermittent renewable energy, a need for energy storage is also inevitable. Carbon dioxide electrolysis is a potential solution as CO2 emissions can be recycled and subsequently converted for energy storage. However, the technology is rather new and research has yet to be conducted in this field. An important aspect is the temperature within an electrochemical cell, especially when scaling up. An increase in temperature can benefit the performance of the cell, but it also has downsides. Hot-spot formation with non-uniform reaction kinetics and thermal sensible components can have a great influence on the life-time of the cell. For that reason, a modeling study on the heat generation within carbon dioxide electrolysis systems is done. Different volumetric gas flow rates of carbon dioxide have been considered for two geometries: the membrane electrode assembly (MEA) and the gas diffusion electrode (GDE). The model considers three separate models: a mass model, electrochemical model and thermal model, and operates at a fixed current. The finite difference method is applied using Python 3.0 to solve the relevant conservation equations. Furthermore, the model includes different material layers, where the materials and dimensions are based on recently done experiments. The model showed that irreversible losses caused by the activation overpotentials are the biggest contributor to the total heat generation. Reversible heat also contributes to the heat generation, where heat is required in the anode and heat is generated in the cathode. Furthermore, within the cathodic catalyst layer most heat is generated. Joule heating caused by ohmic losses has proven to have negligibly impact on the total heat generation. As a result, the hot-spot is located within the cathodic catalyst layer for both geometries. Due to the additional electrolyte in the GDE, the hot-spot does not reach the membrane, in contrast to the MEA. Besides, different results in the y-direction are observed for the volumetric flow rates. For both geometries, the hot-spot is located at the inlet for 10 ml/min and in the middle for 100 ml/min. From the analysis, the GDE is more favorable as less heat is expected and the hot-spot does not reach the membrane. The sensitivity analysis showed that the thermal conductivity is of great importance
The effect of excessive medio-lateral trunk movements on ankle plantar flexor work during gait in healthy individuals
No full textThe ankle plantar flexion muscles are the main contributors to the propulsion of the body during gait. Deficits in these muscles, such as reduced muscle strength, often lead to impaired walking. A characteristic widely observed in gaits arising from various pathologies is an increase in medio-lateral trunk movements. However, this is not yet identified as a compensation strategy for ankle plantar flexor weakness. A previous analysis showed a decrease in positive work generated at the ankle joint in healthy individuals walking with excessive trunk sway compared to normal walking at the same speed. This suggests that excessive trunk sway could be used to compensate for a reduction in propulsive power generated at the ankle joint. This study investigates the relationship between excessive trunk movements in the frontal plane and propulsive power generated at the ankle joint by examining the contributions of individuals muscles to the total power generation during gait. The first aim of this study is to evaluate the validity of the previous results. The second aim is to uncover the underlying biomechanical compensatory mechanisms of walking with excessive medio-lateral trunk movements. A data set consisting of marker data and ground reaction force data of healthy individuals walking with and without excessive medio-lateral trunk movements is analysed in this study. Three-dimensional muscle-actuated simulations of the recorded gaits were generated in OpenSim. A residual reduction algorithm was applied to make the kinematic outcomes more dynamically consistent with the experimentally measured ground reaction forces and moments. This is in contrast to the previous analysis, in which the residuals were not reduced. The power and work generated by the total system and the individual segments, joints and muscles were derived from the simulations. An increase in positive work at the lumbar joint was found, but no differences in positive work at the hip, knee and/ or ankle joints were found over the gait cycle. The lumbar bending muscles turned out to be responsible for the increase in positive work at the lumbar joint. In conclusion, we did not find medio-lateral trunk sway to be a compensatory mechanism for ankle plantar flexor weakness. Therefore, more research is needed to understand why trunk sway is commonly observed in patients with reduced plantar flexion muscle strength. The results of our study contrast those of the previous analysis. Our findings suggest that the discrepancy between the outcomes is caused by high residual forces and moments in the previous analysis. Hence, by revealing the discrepancy between the results of this study and the results of the previous analysis, this study highlights the importance of the validation of results before drawing conclusions.Biomedical Engineerin
Towards participation of existing businesses in the regeneration of industrial urban waterfronts: Recommendations on the participation process based on lessons learned from comparative cases in a Dutch context
No full textAs Dutch cities are increasingly looking to transform inner city industrial waterfronts into mixed-use neighbourhoods, the need for good participation processes with existing businesses increases. Although municipalities are aware of this, current participation processes often do not lead to the desired results. Therefore, a structured process approach is recommended to improve the participation process with existing businesses in industrial urban waterfront regenerations.Architecture, Urbanism and Building Science
Assessment of the reuse potential of existing concrete: Enhancing circularity in the Dutch building sector by harvesting structural elements from demolition projects
No full textAwareness about our planet is more important than ever before. Thereby, the transition towards a Circular Economy (CE) aims to keep products in use and to design out waste. In the construction industry, one way of reducing the use of raw materials is by transforming waste residuals from demolition projects into resources to be reused. By implementing these resources in new buildings, the supply of harvested (structural) elements and the demand for resources in new buildings can be matched. Due to the high amount of embodied carbon in superstructures, this research focuses on the reuse potential of harvested concrete (structural) elements in the design of new buildings. The demolition and construction of buildings are analysed from the point of view of structural engineers with an extensive literature study, interviews and a case-study. This resulted in the process of ‘Deconstruct & Reuse’, which includes all information required to assess the reuse potential. The assessment is made operational in the Decision Support Tool, which makes this research the first of its kind. For use in practice, the Decision Support Tool is validated and verified with a test-case that considers the disassembling of De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) in Amsterdam. In the Decision Support Tool, the test-case is executed by the researcher and by experts resulting in remarks, opportunities, challenges and further research. In conclusion, the Decision Support Tool has a high practical value as it stimulates the reuse of concrete elements through an operational method. The output provides valuable insights with which a structural engineer can decide if a harvested (structural) element can be reused and implemented in a new building. Hence, the assessment of the reuse potential is considered to be a step towards circularity in the construction industry
Exploring the field of Design Education: Envision a new master experience for MSc. students at the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering
No full textThis project is executed with and for the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering (IDE) of the TU Delft. Over the last half-century, IDE’s education for designers has diversified and evolved considerably, in part of art academies and technical education (Voûte et al., 2020). Societal changes, the maturing of design as an academic discipline between science and engineering and international developments of the educational system, have stimulated this growth. Now the faculty is innovating its education again. After innovating the Bachelor, the faculty is starting to look at opportunities to innovate the Master program. The initial assignment of this thesis originated from two observations: the broadening role of the designer and the changing learning behavior of students. The initial assignment includes the investigation of learning experiences that respond to the combination of the two, to investigate opportunities for IDE: design and education. However, innovating in the educational sector is something that is time consuming, with many people involved. And while investigating these new opportunities, the world outside the walls of the faculty is changing constantly by changing much quicker than we think.Based on the research of the context, it appeared that IDE, despite their high-quality education, can already see challenge in keeping its relevancy as well its position as a leader in the education for designers. This is influenced by their limited role in multidisciplinary projects, how to respond to the digital world and the broadening role of the design profession in the working field. Hence, the research question for this thesis is formulated following: What learning experiences are seen as most valuable when entering the world outside IDE and contribute to the preparation of the MSc. student? After the deconstruction of the current context, the future context of both fields of design and education is investigated with the aid of the ViP approach where “opportunities of the future” are investigated. This resulted into a two-dimensional framework, that guides as the future view of the education of the designer that was evaluated with the core competencies of design to investigate the value of possible directions that resulted into the design focus. That consisted of three different design visions resulting in three different design directions including a statement, interaction vision and experience qualities. Within the interaction visions, the relationship between an IDE student and its education were designed. Three learning experience concepts were developed and combined into a whole new Master experience of IDE that transforms the traditional structure. In short, the new Master experience includes learning experiences that focus on the individual in the whole (1), creating reciprocal learning relations (2) and aims to increase the value of designers in multidisciplinary teams (3). As this learning experience is designed from an envisioned future, supported by extensive stakeholder research and the student’s needs, it would contribute to Master innovation by offering these learning experiences that are perceived as valuable in the transformation from design student to a design professional. Also, a first validation round is held over the whole Master experience including the learning experience concepts, where the experiences were critically but positively validated. The developed final experience next to additional learnings in this thesis derived from exploring the future, made that focusing on preparing design students to work with other disciplines equally and going beyond the traditional design discipline of IDE, should be main concerns of the faculty. The design process of this thesis puts light on designing the initial interaction between students and IDE, that resulted in more recommendations. This included a focus on the wellbeing of the design student next to the future role of educators as things to take highly into account when innovating in the design education of IDE.Strategic Product Desig
Prediction of response to immune checkpoint inhibitors in solid tumours using CT-based biomarkers
No full textBiomedical Engineering | Medical Physic
Office of the Future: A Study on Office Reduction and Perceived Employee Productivity of Global Pharmaceutical companies in the Netherlands
No full textRestrictions from the covid pandemic are lifted. However, the office remains changed, the hybrid way of working seems to stick. Employees want flexibility and choose when to work from home and when they work in the office. The norm of a hybrid work week is working three days in the office and two days from home. Resulting in office space that is not used as much as before the pandemic. Therefore organizations are looking into reducing their office space (Syme, P., 2023). When considering the reduction of office space, it is also important to consider an organization’s employees. In this research, the focus lies on the impact space reduction might have on the perceived productivity of the employees. The focus on productivity is due to the impact productivity has on the performance of an organization (Aziri, 2011). If office space is reduced and the office therefore has a higher occupancy level, what does this do to the employee productivity? According to research done by Center for People and Buildings (2023), a higher occupancy level in the working environment results in employees being less satisfied with the availability of workplaces. With a higher occupancy, employees are forced to have video meetings in the open workspace, while other employees/colleagues are doing concentration work in the same space at the same time (Center for People and Buildings, 2023). Looking at these uncertainties, the main research question therefore is: ‘How can global pharmaceutical companies reduce their office space in the Netherlands while still maintaining perceived employee productivity?’. The research focuses on global pharmaceutical companies that are reducing their office space. The focus lies on these companies, in order to define the research on a specific branch and due to the timeframe. In order to answer the research question, the research starts with a literature study. After the literature study, a series of case studies including interviews are done on global pharmaceutical companies. These companies have already experienced an office reduction and are planning on implementing a second reduction within the same project or with another project. The case studies provide insight into potential challenges concerning office reduction and maintaining employee productivity. After analyzing the case studies a cross case study analysis has been done. With the insights from the cross case analysis solutions have been found on how global pharmaceutical companies have tried to successfully reduce office space while keeping employee productivity. The research can help organizations with the decision-making on their office use.Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences | Management in the Built Environmen
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