Archives: Projects

Introduction

Communication in design is a very important in the design world, as the vision of the designer and their client may not be alike verbally. Therefore, the other alternative to allow both sides to understand each other through visual aspects, as it is bi-lingual.

As well it is good, as it provides a visual representation it would be good for the enhancement of presentation and prototyping.

What

The type of communication which would be focused in this project will be sketching and Computer Aided Design (CAD) on SolidWorks.

 

Introduction

To be a true engineer, first we would need to resolve and improve on the current solutions. In this current project what we had to do was create the outer shell and consider the driving mechanism of Lifting Hoist,

Introduction

Polymers is one of the most dominant material used in the industry as majority of the products today uses polymer, However the resources is limited and each time polymers is recycled it degrades in quality so it is not a sustainable resource. So a replacement material is absolutely required to replace plastics.

Another material that is high on demand is aluminium, there is a large abundance in Aluminium but the ore is processed from is bauxite and that uses a lot of energy to achieve to the aluminium form.

The goal is to be able to locate a material, which will have versatile properties, which can replace both materials.

 

Research

When selecting a material to replace the current, I have come across Shrilk which is a material made of crustacean shells, so I had got in contact with the scientist Dr Javier Fernandez, which designed this material.

Background

The history of Shrilk is that it originally started out of people using Chitin (glucose from crustacean shells) as a fertilizer produce. However, scientist in Harvard University had taken interest of the molecular structure of Chitin as it has a very strength and toughness, which is comparable to Aluminium Alloys and the flexibility of most plastics. Therefore, the aim that was set for them is to try to harness the raw material and make it a mass produced industrial material.

If the scientists are able to reproduce the structure of the insect shell, it would be able to achieve certain heights as it will be able to replace a lot of materials used in society today. Also there will be a large abundance of chitin available as there are many shrimp farms in the world and even though it is bad for the environment to create Shrimp farms, it is still needed as there is a large demand of shrimps worldwide in the food industry. Therefore if Shrilk can be produced, it will lessen the negative impact of Shrimp farms as it will be used to reduce the use of polymers.

Insect cuticles, crusta­cean shells, and other chitin-containing living materials have an unusual strength and toughness and it is because of the complex structural interactions between chitin polysaccharides and proteins in these materials. Chitin is also second most abundant material in the world as it is the glucose molecule found in exoskeleton.

It has been difficult to engineer artificial materials that reproduce the exact properties of the Crustaceans because during the moulding of Chitosan the processed version of Chitin, the material had no 3D structure and could not hold itself up. However, soon Fibroin, which is a protein like structure found in silk, was used in Chitosan to give it a more 3D physical structure, however, it did not display the desired strength properties instead was weaker than Chitosan.

The reason for the poor material properties of chitosan-silk composites is that they are disorganized con­glomerates, that is, they fail to regenerate the phase-separated laminar arrangement of the closely apposed chitin and protein found in natural cuticle.

Life Cycle Assessment

To show that Shrilk is a versatile material and is able to replace a current product that uses polymers and aluminium, the LCA assessment have been made for the Paraglider which will be manufactured for a batch production in industry, and there will be comparison between the two material selections.

Production with Material A
Material or Processes	Amount		Indicator	Result
Aluminium 100% Recycled	1000		60	60000
PVC (Flexible)	1000		240	240000
Total	2000		300	300000
Use with Material A
Process	Amount		Indicator	Result
Bending Aluminium	7000		0.000047	0.329
Extrusion Aluminium	7000		72	72000
Spot Welding	21000		2.7	56700
Shearing/Stamping Aluminium	15000		0.000036	0.54
Calandering PVC Foil	1000		3.7	3700
Heat Coal	10000		4.2	42000
Truck 40T	400000		15	6000000
Total	461000		97.600083	6174400.869
Disposal with Material A
Material and types of processing		Amount	Indicator	Result
Recycling PVC	1000		-250	-25000
Total	1000		-250	-25000
Total	464000		147.6	6449400.869

Shows the LCA for material A’s Paraglider

 

 

 

Production with Shrilk
Material or Processes	Amount	Indicator	Result
Chemical Organic	1000	99	99000
H2SO4	7000	22	154000
Water Demineralized	14000	0.026	364
Total	22000	121.026	253364
Use with Shrilk
Process	Amount	Indicator	Result
Heat Coal (Industriale Furnace)	6000	4.2	25200
Extrusion -Aluminium	3500	72	252000
Injection Moulding – 2	1000	44	44000
Truck 40T	175000	15	2625000
Total	185500	135.2	2946200
Disposal with Shrilk
Material and types of processing	Amount	Indicator	Result
N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Total	N/A	N/A	N/A
Total	207500	256.226	3199564

Shows the LCA for Shrilk’s Paraglider

 

As shown from the facts and figures from the LCA, material A uses more energy compared to Shrilk as well as, there is more needed processes for material A, meaning that if both material had to build a factory and all the set up costs for the equipment, Shrilk would be more cost effective as the processes are less plus the size of the factory would not be required to large compared to material A which needs more room to house the manufacturing tools and equipment.

Another benefit is the disposal stages as when recycling the material A parts it will require a lot of energy to return the parts in to mouldable form. Whereas Shrilk can be thrown in landfill or used as fertilizers and it will break down by itself over time as it is 100% biodegradable.

Introduction

Many Lower Economically Developed Countries (LEDCs) do not have the basic standard of living such as water, the example which have been selected for this case study is Nepal, near the west area as the main focus is the poor mountain areas, where villages have to walk regularly to replenish their water source.

Solution 

The main focus is to provide these villages, the basic needs and also help provide them a steady stream of electricity that can be used to light up there homes at night.

So the design that had been created involves transferring water using a pump action system that would be situated next to the stream. Whilst the water is displaced from the river to the bucket it will pass through a mini generator system which will spin turbines to power up the whole community.

This will be a sustainable process as the whole community will be using the unit. Therefore, there will be a constant flow of energy be inputted to charge the generator, which will be enough to power the electricity around the village as it is used for the most basic privileges such as lights which does not require much energy.

Introduction 

Bicycles are regularly robbed as some bicycles have locks which is not as secure, and in the urban city, is fast paced environment which may cause some people to forget to bring their Bike Locks and may not have the time to return and collect it.

Therefore, what will be looked in to is integrating the lock in to the bike, so that would be one less thing for the commuter or cyclist to worry about.

Solution

What have been looked in to is magnetic technology as a lock as they currently used for secured doors which require code access. However in keep costs down for the manufacturing, only the fundamental basics of the technology will be integrated in to the system.

The advantages of having a magnetic lock is that, each magnet have a different polaroid field and that the key would be customised to have a opposite polaroid field which will cancel out the lock’s magnetic field. This would mean that the thieves will struggle to break the lock.

How the lock is integrated, is that the lock will be placed inside the pedal and the pedal can be detached and twisted to lock the bike pedal, which a magnetic pad will connect both pedals together, securing it in place.

To unlock the lock, the key will be placed over the magnetic pad, where you can lift and extract it from the pedal and position it back to pedal format.

Introduction

The aim is to test all the skills and creativity that have been gathered from all the previous projects, and to utilize them to generate a chair, which can be used as a representation of myself.

 

Outcome

When designing the chair I use the aesthetics of the chair as a more philosophical approach to demonstrate what my mindset is like.

The use of leather and high class material represents me as I like my luxuries and quality goods. The curves and the organic forms that have been selected represents my originality and uniqueness in everything I do.

There is no arm rest added on to the chair, which symbolise philosophically life challenges. Sometimes you should take risks even when you don’t know the outcome or have no support, and the high backrest shows that risks does pay off as you would reach up to the top.

The angular leg symbolises that even if everything seems like it is going well, the foundation is not as strong as it may seem, this shows I am a naturally cautious person and only take calculated risks and not recklessness.

Introduction

Around ten years ago a huge amount of interest and funding went into the African PLAY-PUMP. However, the broad ethos of deriving a useful product from the energetic play of children has some potential.

The task is to investigate this scheme and propose a more appropriate piece of play equipment that can be incorporated into the existing layout.

Solution 

The new system is not trying to replace the current system but instead focus on retaining the interests of the children and reduce the usage of standard hand pump, in having this focused mind set the design will be more achievable and realistic. Furthermore, the system will be more sustainable.

The System will use a gears transmission system, which will transfer the children’s input energy in to a centrifugal pump system that will be able to transfer the water from the reservoir in to the water tank.

To retain the children’s interest, the main aspect is competitiveness, the main feature is that the gears system will control an aiming cursor that will be targeting moving projectiles each turn and the aim is to get to the closest to that target. In doing so it will focus on constant usage to generate volumetric flow rate as well, if multiple “Launchers” is set up, it will encourage more participation.

Introduction

Back pain is an ever growing problem in UK and other developed countries and is becoming ever so common as 49% of UK population would have experienced back pain at some part of their life and in the US it is a staggering 80% of the population that will experience back pain. Which means that many people suffer from all sorts back related pains such as Ruptured Disks, Sciatica and Osteoporosis and a lot of these injuries may be caused by overweight, strained muscles.

But actually research suggests that the main causes of back pain are bad posture causing an arch back and, also lifting heavy objects.

So, Handsome Ltd a consumer health care company has given us this opportunity to design and create a product that is focusing on helping or preventing back pain, and hope to be selling their products on a global scale. From the research done, it is confirmed that the market for back care products and solution are very fragmented and varied, this shows that there is no leading product in the market.

Today’s society back pain is a very common and that 1 in 2 people would have experience it sometime in their life.

Statistics shows that in UK, about 31 million days of work were lost in 2013 due to back and spinal column problems, this information show that back pain is a big problem in UK.

Statistics shows that musculoskeletal conditions are the highest reported problem that is hurting the UK economy and people.

Solution

In 2006, over $5 billion dollars (£3 billion) have been put in to researching in the magnet industry and the funding has been increasing ever since.

Therefore even though there are a lot of research funds going in to this sector, not many companies are willing to take magnet therapy seriously and see it as a lost profit or unable to market a technology that has not been backed up any real scientific evidence.

The reasons that researchers are unable to find any scientific facts is that there is a lot of anomalies as when using magnets to heal the user, there are other variation and causes for sprains to heal faster. Also measuring pain is near to impossible as pain is a matter of perspective and cannot be controlled as well as including other uncontrollable factors.

However, in 2008 a research company called National Centre for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), a company that researches on controversial medical methods to find out if the method is truly effective or if it was a myth

Magnetic Therapy have been questioned for a long time in the medical sector as there have not been any strong evidence to prove that it works. However, the medical uses of magnets have been used over thousands of years for arthritis and physical injuries. Furthermore, some cases shows that it heals diseases as well.

Technical Properties

The strength that the magnetic field has to be before it has any positive effects of healing the user is 700 Gauss. However, that does not mean that the higher the magnetic field strength, the faster and better the healing process will be, as if the magnetic field is too strong it can become dangerous for the user if worn for long periods, so it should be only used as hospital equipment and not a long-term use.

Typically a 700 Gauss magnet (10x the strength of a typical refrigerator magnet) will be able to heal sprains much quicker and either prevent or reduce arthritis.

So it has been proven that magnetic therapy does heal the injury much quicker and that it can also be used as a long term product which can improve health naturally.

How magnets actually work is that the red blood cells inside the person body’s carries nutrients around the body and one of the nutrients are iron. However, when flowing around the body the red blood cells are clustered together which is much slower and covers less surface area, so less nutrients are deposited.

However,  when a magnet is applied on, the red blood cells will travel much quicker around the body and is more spaced out meaning that more surface area is covered, which leads to more nutrients will be deposited on to the injury, which speeds up recovery.

 

Why

Over millions of people suffer from some form of blood cancer.

One of the main reason is because of the efficiency and the time taken to realize the patient has suffered from Blood Cancer, another reason why many people suffer from Blood Cancer is that lower economic developed countries (LEDCs) lack the awareness of how blood cancer can be transmitted, there is a re-use of needles for blood extraction which is unhygienic and it can spread and infect others.

What

The aim throughout this project is to try and diagnose blood cancer at a early stage before it becomes untreatable and also improving the efficiency of the diagnostics as in UK average a sample take 1-2hours to identify if they know where to identify the symptoms.

Finally, there is a large burden place on the scientists which diagnose the blood, an alternative method is proposed which can identify the symptoms using a mechanical process and not the chemical methods which have been always been favoured