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UKZN School of Engineering Research Expo and Industry Awards Function:Celebrating Partnerships and Showcasing Research and Innovation

20th November 2018

By: Creamer Media Reporter

     

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This article has been supplied as a media statement and is not written by Creamer Media. It may be available only for a limited time on this website.

DATE:            Friday 23 November 2018

TIME:             Research Expo: 15h00-16h45

                       Industry Awards Function: 17h00-18h30

VENUE:          Unite School of Engineering Building, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Howard College                                        Campus

ENTRY:           UKZN Gate 8 off Rick Turner Rd.  Thereafter take first right and drive straight to the                         Unite School of Engineering parking lot.

ENQUIRIES:    Media Liaison Officer:  Ms Sejal Desai, desaisej@ukzn.ac.za, 083 284 9333

                         College PR Manager: Dr Sally Frost, frosts@ukzn.ac.za, 073 160 1409

EVENT OVERVIEW

Research and innovation to improve livelihoods is the foundation for work done in UKZN’s School of Engineering’s five disciplines, and will form the focus of the upcoming Research and Innovation Exposition and annual Industrial Awards function, taking place on Friday 23 November 2018 at the Unite School of Engineering building, Howard College Campus. 

The event celebrates the immense and essential contributions made by industry that ensure the School’s research and innovation efforts are relevant and applicable to the country’s needs. Support and partnership from industry ensure that students and staff are able to undertake research and develop meaningful solutions.

The Research Exposition was established to showcase the research and innovation pioneered over the past year at UKZN’s School of Engineering. There will be over 30 projects across the disciplines of Chemical, Electrical, Electronic, Computer, Civil, Mechanical and Bioresources/Agricultural Engineering on display.

The projects have direct bearing on some of the most challenging problems facing society, including development of effective and affordable desalination technologies to combat water shortages, innovative solutions for renewable energy using just wastewater, algae, waves and sunshine, and innovations to reduce the carbon footprint of urban infrastructure such as roads, freeways and ports. There are also projects involving improving water quality, turning waste into energy, dealing with

sanitation challenges, saving water through efficient irrigation and improving reliability of power plants.

“Industrial partnerships are the cornerstone to sustainable relevant research projects that will improve the life of all South Africans,” said Dean and Head of the School of Engineering, Professor Glen Bright.  “Engineers provide the necessary infrastructure for countries, like South Africa, to generate wealth and provide job creation. Collaboration with industry is not only vital to the economy, but also to the training of young engineers in production environments.”

The Research Expo will be followed by an Industry Awards Function where 30 industrial partners will be recognised for their contribution towards the advancement of research and innovation within UKZN’s School of Engineering.

PROJECT DETAILS

Details of some of the exciting projects include:

1.         Environmental Fluid Mechanics Lab (EFML):

Waves, Algae, Sunshine & Wastewater:   A Recipe for Renewable Energy & Improved Water Quality on our Coasts? Offshore  photo-bioreactors  for biomass  production using  wastewater as a  growth medium  are a way for  coastal  municipalities to  reduce  discharging of raw  wastewater into  the sea.  Harvesting the biomass and turning it into crude oil adds additional value. There is direct potential for commercial application (Prof Derek Stretch and Dr Justin Pringle).

2.         Environmental Engineering Advanced Pavement Design:

Environmental Life  cycle assessment  of local  desalination  processes:  this  project  investigates the  pre-treatment of  sea water and the  consequent  membrane  desalination in the  local context. For  pre-treatment the  performance of four  different systems were evaluated  and for  membrane  desalination an  energy  improvement  analysis was  performed.

Carbon footprint  of urban  infrastructure:  the  carbon footprint  of different  infrastructure  projects linked  with local roads  and freeways as  well as with the  Port of Durban  have been  modelled.  Interventions to reduce  this  footprint  have  been  evaluated  in terms of materials used as well as improving operationalenvironmental performance (Elena Friedrich, Mohamed Mustafa).

3.         Structural Engineering & Computational Mechanics Group (SECM):

Numerical methods for the investigation of composite materials and steel structures are presented.

Industrial applications in mechanical, cival and aerospace engineering (Georgios  Drosopoulos, Siphesihle Motsa, Iksha Singh).

4.         Reactor Technology Research Group:

Enhanced slurry phase Fischer Tropsch Synthesis: Liquid fuels and specialty chemicals from Coal (Dr David Lokhat).

5.         Mechanical Engineering Group 14:

Forced Convection Solar Dryer with a Pre-heater, designed and manufactured to dry faecal sludge (Travis Swanepoel).

6.         Thermodynamics Research Unit:

Novel chemical separation methods via gas hydrate technology: Gas hydrate technology is being used to effect the separation, concentration and purification of mixtures (gas-gas, desalination, juice concentration and carbon capture (Dr Prathieka Naidoo).

Supercritical fluid extraction studies. Test refrigeration rig for the evaluation of refrigerant blends (Phakamile Ndlovu).

Developing electronic waste beneficiation technologies for South Africa (Dr Mark Williams-Wynn).

7.         Thermochemical Conversion:

Biomass and non-biopolymetric resources thermochemical conversion to valuable products: The current project entails development and modification of the conversional processes to efficiently convert resources and energy using thermochemical treatment (pyrolysis, plasma, torrefaction and combustion) (Dr Malusi Mkhize, Arsene Senga).

8.         Agricultural Engineering:

  • Effect of Transportation Conditions, Pre-Storage and Storage Treatments on the Quality of Fresh Tomatoes in Selected South African Supply Chain 2:  Effect of handling conditions during long distance transport on the physicochemical and subjective quality of tomatoes in selected South African supply chains. The purpose of this study was to develop innovative integrated agro-technology for postharvest management of tomatoes in South Africa supply chain. The assessment of the impact of road surface quality on the postharvest quality and shelf life of tomatoes can be used to determine transportation routes and the findings can also assist in the development of road infrastructure to meet fresh produces transportation physiological requirements. The study provided an understanding of tomato transport conditions which can increase the know-how of the tomato industry to improve their productivity.  It has been shown that an integrated post-harvest treatment and handling techniques of tomatoes leads to the best quality tomato reach markets. The outcomes of this project provides information on combined best transportation, packaging and storage of tomatoes that both large-scale and emerging farmers can use to improve their post-harvest operations. A quality deterioration model was also developed that can be used as a tool to support decision-making in the tomato supply chain, and may be adapted to other fruit and vegetables supply chains.
  • Assessment of Trends in Rainfall and Runoff at the La Mercy Catchments (South Africa) under Bare Fallow Conditions and Sugarcane Production: This research is a component of a wider study whose aim is to update design norms for soil and water conservation structures in the sugar industry of South Africa. Purpose of study is to increase understanding of hydrological processes from catchments under bare fallow and various sugarcane production management practices. This will be done by assessing the trends and relationships between rainfall and runoff data at the La Mercy catchments under bare fallow conditions and sugarcane production and for different management practices. The results will inform verification of runoff with an event based hydrologic model under similar conditions.

  • Performance of Cowpea under Moisture irrigation: Moisture irrigation is new water saving technology. It saves between 10 – 40% of water than conventional irrigation. The yield and biomass was same as that of drip irrigation. It is a low-pressure irrigation technology and therefore minimum energy requirements (Professor Tilahun Seyoum)

9.         Research and Development of a Parallel Kinematic Architecture CNC Milling and Gripping System:

A machine had to be designed to have 5 degrees of freedom through a parallel kinematic architecture with a reconfigurable end effect that had both milling and gripping capabilities (Dashlen Naidoo).

10.       Umgeni Water Supports Water Resource Capacity Building via UKZN Research:

Various projects that are supported by Umgeni Water through the Umgeni Water Chair of Water Resources Management will be highlighted. These projects include: a recirculating water basin, the development of a predictive mass balance model of chlorine and flocculant consumption in water treatment, the identification of sources and sinks of sediments and nutrients in the Msunduzi catchment to guide investment in ecological infrastructure, and behavioural ecology research on Yellowfish (Susan Risko).

11.       Demonstration of How Healthy Ecological Infrastructure Can Be Utilized to Secure Water for the Benefit of Society and the Green Economy through a Programmatic Research Approach Based on Selected Landscapes:

The Water Research Commission has funded this 5-year study to identify ecological infrastructure investment areas within the uMngeni catchment to improve water security. The project approach selected four pilot study areas or catchments within the uMngeni, the Mthinzima, the Baynespruit, Mzinyathi, and the Palmiet that focused on water quality and quantity, the cost-benefits of investing in ecological infrastructure, and the benefits to society. The research aims to increase understanding of the Greater uMngeni catchment through these pilot studies. Underway from this research is the development of a catchment management plan for the uMngeni catchment (Susan Risko).

12.       Eskom COE, HVDC & FACTS:

Miniature models of the Vibration Research & Testing Centre & High Voltage Direct Current labs; and display of postgraduate work shown on posters.

The Centre deals with several researchers represented by each of these three displays and based mainly on the Engineering Aspects Design of (power generation), transmission and distribution, which have  decisive influences on their project planning and life expectancy consideration as they involve mainly Electrical, Mechanical, Thermal aspect design, with as extension to the economic and environmental impact aspects. However, careful consideration of each of those engineering aspects is though strictly recommended for reliable power plant in order to satisfy consumers (Daniel Kubelwa, Pravesh Moodley).

13.       Power Systems Research:

Electric generators are one of the most important equipment in electrical power industry. The project involves protection of an electric generator against 100% stator earth fault which has been implemented using real-time simulation and tested using commercial relay.

Protection and interlocking in thermal power plant operation is one of the key aspects in terms of operational practices. This project implements a small scale version of protection interlocking system for a thermal power plant.

Plotting computer graphics is very important when it comes to various designs, may it be 2D or 3D. This project uses an ordinary writing pen to draw any computer graphics. The system is implemented using motor control and a driving mechanism.

Bus transfer schemes in thermal power plant of vital importance. Each and every essential motors must be kept even if the main supply fail by transferring the motor to another live bus. This research show various methods of bus transfer implemented on a thermal power plant.

Port of Durban has been implementing development on the existing electrical power network. This research presents the work on electrical, load flow, implementation of protection, automation, control and SCADA system (Prof Akshay Saha).

14.       EECE: SASOL/ ESKOM:

ESKOM: Superconducting Series Core Reactor that is a study of improving superconductor electrical properties (Dr Leigh Jarvis).

15.       Bio-refinery Technologies:

Development of technologies to enable extraction of maximum value from bio-resources.  This minimises waste that goes to landfill and Waste becomes a valuable resource by extraction of high value materials from, e.g., sawdust, chicken feathers (Professor Bruce Sithole).

16.       Pollution Research Group:

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has reported an estimated 2.4 billion people globally had no access to improved sanitation facilities in 2015. The global sanitation community has made great efforts in trying to resolve sanitation problem. Two of the major challenges facing this quest are:

Finding effective and sustainable ways of dealing with the contents of current non-sewered sanitation options;

Developing safer healthier sanitation technologies (Rebecca Sindall, Konstantina Velkushanova, Samuel Getahun, Preyan Arumugam).

17.       SARCHI Chair in Waste and Climate Change:

The SARCHI Chair in Waste and Climate Change at UKZN has launched the "Waste to Resource Series", to showcase innovative research, development and innovation conducted at UKZN on the effective management and valorization of waste as a resource. In particular, on the 23rd of November we will be presenting five posters: 1. Waste as a Resource (Compendium of research in the group), 2. "Waste to Energy"; 3. "Waste to Green Materials"; 4. "Waste to Smart Mobility"; 5. Waste to Green Solutions". This research is conducted under the aegis of the DST National Waste Management Roadmap, the NRF, SANEDI and the International Waste Working Group (Southern Africa) (Cristina Trois).

18.  The SMRI/NRF SARChI Research Chair in Sugarcane Biorefining

The SMRI/NRF SARChI Research Chair in Sugarcane Biorefining at UKZN will present current projects which aim to increase the product portfolio of the local sugarcane industry. Using chemical and biochemical conversion technologies, sugarcane process streams (e.g. juice, sugar, molasses, bagasse) are turned into value-added products, including chemicals and bio-based materials, which can be marketed both nationally and internationally.

The presentations will highlight the following areas:  

Firstly, the general Research, Development and Innovation strategy of the Research Chair, introducing members of the research group, current projects and collaboration partners.

Secondly, the STEP-Bio programme will be presented, a private-public partnership in which a chemotechnological platform has been developed, which can be used for the extraction of fermentation products, but also certain effluent streams.

Thirdly, the Seeding Lab Donation recently received, consisting of high-tech chemical analysis and characterisation equipment, will be introduced. This equipment is available for use by  university-external and –internal parties. Furthermore, the production and market potential of  sugarcane wax, which we promote through our spin-off company Sucrochem, will be highlighted.

Edited by Creamer Media Reporter

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