Master of Professional Engineering & Bachelor of ... · Engineering Research Project Descriptions...

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FACULTY OF ENGINEERING AND MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES

ENGINEERING AND MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES

Master of Professional Engineering & Bachelor of

Engineering

GENG5511/GENG5512

Engineering Research Project Descriptions

Semester 2, 2018

To find a project description, search (Ctrl + F) using the Supervisors surname. The project

title and description are listed below each Academic’s name. Please ensure that the project is

applicable to your discipline.

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Aman, Zach, Assoc./Prof. Co-supervisors: May, Eric, Prof; Metaxas, Peter, Dr

Flow Assurance and Natural Gas Hydrates

Disciplines: Chemical, Mechanical, Oil & Gas

Prerequisite skills:

Natural gas hydrates are ice-like solids that form and can often suddenly stop the flow during

oil and gas production. The cost of their prevention during design and production is high and

the removal of hydrate plugs is expensive and dangerous. Today hydrates are still a major flow

assurance concern especially as production moves to deeper water, and many of Australia’s

major new gas field developments are considering innovative approaches to this long-standing

problem. These projects aim to provide the knowledge needed for a risk-based approach to

hydrate management by establishing quantitative model to assess plugging potential, optimize

inhibitor doses, and develop methods to detect hydrate formation and location. The outcomes will help reduce chemical use by the industry, provide better methods to locate plugs and

provide safer methods for their remediation, ultimately allowing for the reliable and economic

development of marginal oil and gas fields. Students working on these projects will measure

and/or model hydrate formation, agglomeration and dissociation processes. Naturally-

occurring gas hydrates also represent a tremendous energy reserve: in 2013, first production

was reported from a naturally occurring hydrate reserve located offshore the coast of Japan.

Projects will also be available in which various properties of these natural hydrates are

quantified, such that more informed decisions regards the exploitation of natural hydrates can

be made.

An, Hongwei, Dr Co-supervisors: Dr. Mehrdad Kimiae

Hydrodynamic force on a ROV umbilical cable

Disciplines: Civil, Environmental, Mechanical, Mining, Oil & Gas


The umbilical cable is an important part for a Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) for transmitting

power and control signals. The hydrodynamic force coefficients of the umbilical cable is an

important design information for ROV. In this project, a series of physical model tests will be

conducted using the O-tube facility to measure the hydrodynamic force on umbilical cables.

The force coefficients and vortex shedding frequency will be examined.

This project gives students an opportunity to access to multi-awards winning research facility

(the O-tube) and to gain experience on research about hydrodynamics on bluff body.

An, Hongwei, Dr

Hydrodynamic behaviour of a circular cylinder covered with

marine growth

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Disciplines: Civil, Environmental, Mechanical, Mining, Oil & Gas


The influence of marine Growth (MG) on hydrodynamic properties of marine bluff structures

remains as a significant uncertainty in the design of new and maintenance of existing marine

structures. The issue is relevant to many practical applications such as oil and gas industry, renewable wave, tidal and wind energy devices, aquaculture infrastructures and marine biology.

MG forms due to the accumulation of micro-organisms, plants, algae, or animals on wet

surfaces and occurs almost everywhere in the ocean.

This project aims at improving the understanding of hydrodynamic characteristics of a circular

cylinder covered with MG under steady currents and waves and providing quantitative basis

for the design of new structures and maintenance of existing structures.

This project gives students an opportunity to access to multi-awards winning research facility

(the O-tube) and to gain experience on research about hydrodynamics on offshore structures.

Arami Niya, Arash, Dr Co-supervisors: May, Eric, Prof

Alternative refrigerants



A new generation of refrigerants known as hydrofluoroolefins (HFOs) have much lower global

warming potential (GWP) compared to traditional refrigerants. However, due to their lower

coefficients of performance (COP), blending HFOs with others refrigerants such as

hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) is recommended for many industrial cycles. To design and simulate

these applications, industry needs property data for these mixtures to be measured at relevant

conditions of pressure, temperature and composition so that equations of state and transport

property models can be anchored to them.

Aslani, Farhad, Dr Co-supervisors: Chakrabortty, Anup, Dr

New types of self-compacting concrete (SCC)

Disciplines: Chemical, Civil, Oil & Gas


Self-compacting concrete (SCC) can be placed and compacted under its own weight with little

or no compaction. It is cohesive enough to be handled without segregation or bleeding.

Modifications in the mix design of SCC may significantly influence the material’s mechanical

properties. Therefore, it is vital to investigate whether all the assumed hypotheses about

conventional concrete also hold true for SCC structures. This project is particularly examining

the effect of fly ash, ground granulated blast-furnace slag and micro silica content on strength

and the durability of the concrete.

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Aslani, Farhad, Dr Co-supervisors: Gunawardena, Yas, Mr (PhD Student)

Hollow and geopolymer concrete-filled GFRP tubes columns

Disciplines: Civil, Materials, Mechanical


Deterioration of the Australian’s infrastructure has been well documented and publicized. Glass

fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP) composites have emerged as a potential solution to the

problems associated with the infrastructure. An economic application of GFRP materials is in

the form of composite construction with concrete, such that GFRP could act as load-carrying

partner and protective measure for the structural members. And also the concrete industry is

responsible for a significant proportion of world greenhouse gas emissions. Indeed,

manufacture of Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) is carbon intensive. An increase in research

activities related to the development of low carbon concrete technologies, namely Geopolymer

Concrete (GC), has occurred in recent years in Australia. GCs result from the reaction

between fly ash and/or slag with an alkaline liquid. There is no Portland cement clinker in GC.

GC exhibits many of the characteristics of traditional concretes, despite their vastly different

chemical constituents and reactions.

As the first experimental study reported in the literature on the axial compressive behaviour

of normal and high-strength box and circular hollow and geopolymer concrete-filled GFRP

tubes columns, this study will present the results of a test program that was aimed at

investigating the influence of GC, GFRP Tubes, and critical confinement parameters on the

performance of normal and high-strength box and circular hollow and geopolymer concrete-

filled GFRP tubes columns.


Hollow and concrete filled spiral welded steel tube columns

Disciplines: Civil, Mechanical, Oil & Gas


Spiral welded tube (SWT) structures have found worldwide application in pipeline

construction, wind turbine towers, foundation piles, and columns in tall buildings. Despite this,

the understanding of SWT structures fundamental behaviour is still insufficient and efficient

analysis and design methods have not been developed owing to the lack of experimental and

numerical research on these types of structures. In this project, SWTs will be used in a new

and innovative approach for both hollow and concrete filled steel columns, and the research

will be conducted to characterise the engineering and manufacturing properties of SWTs. The

goal of this project is “to provide insight into the ultimate strength and ductility of hollow and

concrete filled SWT columns subjected to concentric axial loading, eccentric axial loading and

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pure bending loading through a comprehensive experimental study and theoretical model for

adoption by engineers and Standards bodies”.

Aslani, Farhad, Dr Co-supervisors: Liu, Yinong, Prof

Superelastic SMA reinforced concrete beams

Disciplines: Civil, Mechanical


The use of superelastic shape memory alloys (SMAs) as a reinforcing material in concrete

structures is gradually gaining interest among researchers. Because of SMAs’ different

mechanical properties compared to regular steel, use of SMA as reinforcement in concrete

may change responses of structures under seismic and repeating loads. The objective of this

study is to investigate the structural performance of superelastic SMA reinforced concrete

beams under repeating loads and to develop a preliminary understanding of these beams.


Behaviour of reinforced concrete bridge beam joints



Bridge beam joints or 'half-joints', which are located away from the bridge supports , are

typically used in pre-cast concrete bridge construction. This project proposes to investigate

the behaviour of a unique reinforced concrete half-joint located on an in-service bridge,

through an experimental programme using scaled test specimens, which will be the first time

the joint detail of interest will be investigated experimentally.

Basarir, Hakan, Assoc/Prof

An experimental study: The effect of admixture/s (AMX) on

the strength properties of cemented paste backfill

Disciplines: Civil, Mining

Prerequisite skills: Experimental study.

The strength of CPB, jeopardized by the high fines content of tailings, high processing water

salinity, is crucial for overall mine stability. Moreover, the cost of CPB is one of the main items

in overall mine cost and therefore even minor efficiency improvements can have significant

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positive effects on mining costs and safety. Therefore many studies have been conducted to

improve the strength of CPB, mine economy and safety.

Most of the studies concerning with CPB focused on the recipe optimisation i.e. use of cement

alternatives or substitute materials (Ercikdi et al., 2010a, 2009) addition of ground waste glass

(Archibald et al., 1999), addition of fiber to mix (Banthia et al., 1994; Denney and Hagan, 2004; Mitchell and Stone, 1987; Yi et al., 2015). On the other hand, the effect of admixtures (AMX)

on the quality of CPB, has remained unexplored for many years. More recently, the effect of

AMX on the quality of CPB has been investigated (Ercikdi et al., 2010b; Huynh et al., 2006;

Salter and Woolley, 2017; Zheng et al., 2016). It was suggested that the use of different

admixtures may reduce cement cost, increase durability and early strength of concrete.

As evidenced by the short background, the use of admixtures seems to be a strong alternative

for the improvement of the quality cemented paste backfill (CPB), affected by high water salinity

and fine contents of tailings.

The overall objective of this project is to laboratory scale investigation of the use of admixtures

on the quality of CPB, premier components of underground support systems.

Archibald, J., Chew, J., Lausch, P., 1999. Use of ground waste glass and normal cement mixtures

for improving slurry and paste backfill support performance. J. Can. Inst. Mining, Metall. Pet.

(CIM Bull. 92, 74–80.

Banthia, N., Trottier, J., Beupre, D., 1994. Steel-Fiber-reinforced wet mix shotcrete:

Comparisons with cast concrete. J. Mater. Civ. Eng. 430–437.

Denney, J., Hagan, P., 2004. A study on the effect of changes in fibre type and dosage rate on

Fibre Reinforced Shotcrete Performance, in: Bernard, E. (Ed.), Proceedings of the Second

Interantional Conference on Engineering Developments in Shotcrete. AA Balkema, Cairns,

Queensland, Australia, pp. 103–108.

Ercikdi, B., Cihangir, F., Kesimal, A., Deveci, H., Alp, I., 2010a. Effect of natural pozzolans as

mineral admixture on the performance of cemented paste backfill of sulphide-rich tailings.

Waste Manag Res 28, 430–435.

Ercikdi, B., Cihangir, F., Kesimal, A., Deveci, H., Alp, I., 2010b. Utilization of water-reducing

admixtures in cemented paste backfill of sulphide-rich mill tailings. J Hazard Mater 179, 940–

946.

Ercikdi, B., Cihangir, F., Kesimal, A., Deveci, H., Alp, I., 2009. Utilization of industrial waste

products as pozzolanic material in cemented paste backfill of high sulphide mill tailings. J Hazard

Mater 168, 848–856.

Huynh, L., Beattie, D., Fornasiero, D., Ralston, J., 2006. Effect of polyphosphate and naphthalene sulfonate formaldehyde condensate on the rheological properties of dewatered tailings and

cemented paste backfill. Min. Eng 19, 28–36.

Jewell, R., Fourie, A., 2015. Paste and Thickened Tailings - A Guide, 3th ed. Australian Centre

for Geomechanics, Nedlands, Western Australia, Australia.

Mitchell, R., Stone, D., 1987. Stability of reinforced cemented backfills. Can. Geotech. J. 24,

189–197.

Salter, R., Woolley, C., 2017. Optimising cemented paste fill at Darlot Gold Mine through the

use of BASF product MasterRoc MF 505C, in: Proceedings of the 20th International Seminar

on Paste and Thickened Tailings. pp. 180–189.

Yi, X., Ma, G., Fourie, A., 2015. Compressive behaviour of fibre reinforced cemented paste

backfill. Geotext. Geomembranes 43, 207–215.

Zheng, J., Zhu, Y., Zhao, Z., 2016. Utilization of limestone powder and water-reducing

admixture in cemented paste backfill of coarse copper mine tailings. Constr. Build. Mater. 124,

31–36.

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Basarir, Hakan, Assoc/Prof

The effects production process on the strength properties of

cemented paste backfill Disciplines: Civil, Mining

Prerequisite skills: Experimental study.

To access viable ore bodies, underground mines in Australia uncover deep mining

environments which presents special challenges such as high in-situ stresses and weak rock

masses. In addition to such challenges, in Australian underground metallic mines mine safety

and economy are jeopardised as the strength development and curing times of pastefill are

hampered by different factors. From the economical point of view, the cost of pastefill is one

of the main items in overall mine cost and therefore even minor efficiency improvements can

have significant positive effects on mining costs and safety.

Most of the studies concerning with pastefill focus on the mix optimisation (Kermani et al.,

2015; Kesimal et al., 2005; Mgumbwa and Nester, 2014). On the other hand, a possible

alternative improvement method, related with production process, has remained unexplored

for many years.

The overall objective of this project is to investigate the effect of production process i.e. mixing

method on the strength properties of CPB, premier components of underground support

systems.

REFERENCES

Kermani, M., Hassani, F., Aflaki, E., Benzaazoua, M., Nokken, M., 2015. Evaluation of the effect

of sodium silicate addition to mine backfill, GelFill - Part 2: Effects of mixing time and curing temperature. J. Rock Mech. Geotech. Eng. 7, 668–673.

Kesimal, A., Yilmaz, E., Ercikdi, B., Alp, I., Deveci, H., 2005. Effect of properties of tailings and

binder on the short-and long-term strength and stability of cemented paste backfill. Mater. Lett.

59, 3703–3709. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matlet.2005.06.042

Mgumbwa, J., Nester, T., 2014. Paste improvement at La Mancha’s Frog’s Leg underground

mine, in: Potvin, Y., Grice, T. (Eds.), Proceedings of the Eleventh International Symposium on

Mining with Backfill. Australian Centre for Geomechanics, Perth, WA, pp. 281–294.

Bekki, Kenji, Dr Co-supervisors: Liu, Wei, Dr

Conversion of galaxy animation into sentences with neural

network

Disciplines: Software

Prerequisite skills: Knowledge about neural network

Galaxies are formed through various physical processes, such as galaxy merging, tidal

interaction, and galaxy collisions. It is an important task for astronomers to classify these

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processes using the results of computer simulations on the processes. The goal of this

project is to (i) classify animations of galaxy formation processes into several categories and

then (ii) convert the animations into sentences (e.g., “two galaxies are merging each other to

form a new galaxy”). In these classifying and converting processes, convolutional neural

networks and LSTM (long short term memory) will be used. This is a part of the long term

project “Can AI write a scientific paper?”

Bennamoun, Mohammed, Prof Co-supervisors: Boussaid, Farid, Prof

Virtual reality (VR) based training

Disciplines: Electrical & Electronic, Software

In this project, you will develop a virtual reality simulator to provide a cost effective yet

authentic and immersive training experience to users for an application of your choice.

The project will provide you with an opportunity to engage with relevant stakeholders and

experience VR hardware and software technologies.

Bosveld, Joel, Dr Co-supervisors: Wen, Linqing, Prof.

Optimising filters for gravitational wave template matching. Disciplines: Electrical & Electronic, Mechatronic

Prerequisite skills: If you enjoy programming or mathematics that should be sufficient.

The inspiral and merging of a compact binaries (such as a binary neutron star system) can be

detected through their emission of gravitational waves, as has recently been achieved by the

LIGO and Virgo collaborations. This was done through the correlation of whitened templates

and strain data from the interferometers. In order to improve the computational cost of this

search, the SPIIR pipeline approximates the template waveforms by a sum of exponentially

damped sinusoids, whereby the correlation is given by the sum of parallel infinite impulse

response (SPIIR) filters. By optimising the parameters of the filters, we can improve the

sensitivity of the search and reduce computational cost. A closed-form solution is available

for some of the optimal filter parameters; however, for the remaining parameters a heuristic

approach is used, with further local optimisation to improve a subset of these. Projects

include extending the local optimisation to all remaining parameters, incorporating gradient

information into the local optimisation, using global optimisation techniques, considering

other possible heuristic approaches, evaluating performance of different approaches on test

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data sets and so forth.

Bourhill, Jeremy, Dr

Dark Matter Detection with Capacitive Sensors Disciplines: Electrical & Electronic

Prerequisite skills: Familiarity with finite element modelling, but this can be learned in the

process, and a sound understanding of electrodynamics and Maxwell’s equations.

We’ve known for decades that we are surrounded by dark matter, which is five times as

abundant as the regular matter that we understand. The properties and composition of dark

matter remain unknown, presenting one of the greatest mysteries in science today. One of

the best dark matter candidates, a particle known as the axion, is expected to couple to

photons in the presence of a strong DC magnetic field, and generate a small AC electric field.

We wish to design capacitive sensors to detect this small electric field and thus detect or

exclude the presence of axionic dark matter. The design of these detectors requires

electrical engineering principles, which is where your skills will be applied. Skills that would be

beneficial for the project would be a familiarity with finite element modelling, but this can be

learned in the process, and a sound understanding of electrodynamics and Maxwell’s

equations.

Bourhill, Jeremy, Dr

Design and Construction of Electronic Cryogenic Hardware Disciplines: Electrical & Electronic

Prerequisite skills: Familiarity with soldering and designing Printed Circuit Boards.

To improve Signal to Noise ratios of extremely weak quantum phenomena, amplification and

signal generation at cold temperatures offers great advantages. We form a node of the ARC

Centre of Excellence for Engineered Quantum Systems, and run many cryogenic experiments

whose sensitivities could be improved through the development of this type of hardware.

This project will focus on the design of cryogenically capable hardware elements such as

amplifiers and low phase noise oscillators, which will have applications in a raft of fundamental

and applied experiments, such as dark matter detection, quantum sensing and quantum

information processing. Skills required will be familiarity with soldering and designing Printed

Circuit Boards.

Boussaid, Farid, Professor

Camera on a chip

Disciplines: Electrical & Electronic

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The current trend in Digital Imaging Technology is towards building camera-on-a-chip imaging

systems, i.e., CMOS imagers. The fully integrated product results in significant manufacturing

cost savings, reduced system size, but also in lower power consumption. The unique concept

of CMOS imagers offers the opportunity to integrate photo-sensing array and signal processing circuitry on a single silicon chip, enabling the development of a new generation of smart mobile

imaging systems. Half the size of a small postage stamp, a CMOS imager chip can even be

swallowed (pill-camera) to transmit images from inside the body. Besides biomedical, CMOS

imagers have numerous commercial applications in cell phones, PC notebooks or any

application for which a “micro-camera” can be requested. Proposed final year projects will

involve building such a camera, and optimize its performance in terms of dynamic range,

resolution and/or power consumption.

Boussaid, Farid, Professor

Bio-inspired gas recognition for electronic noses Disciplines: Electrical & Electronic


Sniffing-dogs are able to detect thousands of chemicals with high sensitivity and selectivity using

only biological components. These nasal powerhouses have been successfully used to search

for pipeline leaks, drugs, or explosives. In this project, you will investigate the potential

application of biologically inspired machine learning methods (e.g. deep learning, evolutionary

algorithms) for the task of gas recognition. The project will give you the opportunity to discover

and apply advanced machine learning techniques to automatically extract features and train

classifiers. Projects offer an opportunity to discover and apply neuroscience principles into

made-made engineering systems. Projects will be tailored around your interests.

Bräunl, Thomas, Professor

Electric Jetskis, Vehicle Tracking and Water Quality Sensing Disciplines: Electrical & Electronic, Software

Prerequisite skills: Completion of ELEC4403 Digital and Embedded Sys. or

CITS2200 Data Structures with 75+; Good programming skills in C or C++ are

essential.

Two new electric jetskis will be built externally to UWA, following the REVski prototype.

Task 1 will be to equip the new jetskis with GPS loggers, develop a web-interface that shows

the jetski paths and calculates statistics on usage, current, temperature, charging data, etc.

Task 2 will be the addition of water sensors for temperature, salinity, general water quality and

generate an environmental map along the areas that both jetskis have travelled.

Goals:

GPS Tracking of electric jetskis

Information on charge status, range, charging events

Jetski-specific sensors for current, charge, temperature of core components

Web-based front end with map and evaluation graphs

Selection and installation of water quality sensors

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Transmission of GPS-based water quality data + entering on web-based map graph

Further Details:

http://revproject.com/vehicles/jetski.php

http://revproject.com/telemetry/data-logging-overview.php

Bräunl, Thomas, Professor

Autonomous Solar Boat Disciplines: Electrical & Electronic, Software

Prerequisite skills: Completion of ELEC4403 Digital and Embedded Sys. or

CITS2200 Data Structures with 75+; Good programming skills in C or C++ are

essential.

We have just completed the hardware for an electric solar boat, which can potentially

circumnavigate the world autonomously. It uses a solar panel with battery backup, two thruster motors, a Ardupilot controller and a 3G modem (upgradable to a satellite modem).

The tasks for this project include the establishment of data communication between the boat

and the UWA server as well as to visualize the boat's GPS position and its sensor values.

Goals:

GPS Tracking of solar boat

Setting of GPS way-points

Selection and integration of sensors for water quality

Graphically mapping of water quality from sensors

Integration of camera (possibly using Raspberry Pi Zero)

Cense, Barry, Associate Professor Co-supervisors: Gong, Peijun, Dr

Measuring blood flow in the retina using speckle

decorrelation Disciplines: Electrical & Electronic, Software

Prerequisite skills: Matlab

Measurements of blood flow in the human retina (back of the eye) are important for the early

detection of various diseases. A new algorithm for blood flow measurements was recently

developed based on speckle decorrelation. We would like to use it to visualize blood flow in

the human retina and to get a better understanding of retinal architecture.

Cense, Barry, Associate Professor

Measuring retinal blood vessel wall birefringence Disciplines: Electrical & Electronic, Software

Prerequisite skills: Matlab

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By measuring the birefringence (an optical property) of blood vessel walls in the human

retina, in vivo, we can quantify the health of the vessel wall non-invasively. This will be

beneficial for screening of patients with circulation problems. We will record and analyze data

from healthy human subjects and patients with hypertension to quantify their health.

Chow, Shiao Huey, Dr

Assessing the riverbed strength of Swan River using a free-

fall cone penetrometer

Disciplines: Civil, Oil & Gas

Prerequisite skills: Coastal course Would you like to participate in the Woodside FutureLab RiverLab working on an innovative

engineering solutions? This RiverLab project aims to unlock the potential of free-fall penetrometers in

assessing the riverbed strength of Swan River. Free-fall penetrometers are instrumented projectiles that

are deployed by allowing them to free fall and embed into the target sediment. The use of freefall

penetrometers in offshore geotechnical site investigation has gained increased interests, particularly in

characterising the soil strength of shallow seabed crucial for applications such as pipeline design and

submarine landslide survey. Compared to the conventional approach of using a large survey vessel and

a mechanical system for pushing a penetrometer into the seabed, free-fall penetrometers offer a

cheaper and quicker way to survey the seabed, with potentially equal accuracy if the tools are

designed and interpreted correctly.

A prototype free-fall cone penetrometer (FFP) has been developed at the Centre of Offshore

Foundation Systems, UWA. Following on from a successful Riverlab FFP project completed in 2017,

this project will further optimise the design of the FFP, upgrade the instrumentation of the FFP, assess

the performance of the new FFP, and validate the FFP interpretation method by conducting field trials

in the Swan River. The scopes of the proposed project involve:

Upgrade of the FFP to include more advanced instrumentation (Figure 1a)

Field tests by dropping the FFP into Swan River from a jetty or research vessel (Figure 1b)

Interpretation of the test results to estimate the riverbed strength

Interested students are encouraged to contact Dr Shiaohuey Chow ([email protected])

for more information. More details about the Woodside FutureLab RiverLab program can be found

here: http://www.oceans.uwa.edu.au/collaborations/woodside-futurelab/riverlab

Chow, Shiao Huey, Dr Co-supervisors: Bienen, Britta, Assoc. Prof.

Rapid penetration of spudcan footing in sand

Disciplines: Civil, Oil & Gas


The motivation for this study emanates from the lack of understanding in rapid penetration of

spudcan footing in sand for offshore renewable energy application. Offshore renewable

energy devices are typically located in shallow water (< 30 m) that predominates with sandy

sediments. The renewable energy devices, particularly wind farms are installed and serviced

using mobile jack-up rigs. A jack-up rig may experience dynamic leg loading during the set

down of its spudcan footing into sand. The current inability to predict the penetration

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.oceans.uwa.edu.au/collaborations/woodside-futurelab/riverlab

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resistance under dynamic or rapid penetration of spudcan footing in sand has introduced

substantial risk. Inaccurate prediction of sand resistance at high penetration rates may cause

premature refusal for the spudcan, or potential damage to the jack-up rack-and-pinion

systems and legs due to high moments and vertical loading introduced by spudcan-seabed

impact. Economic consequences are severe (loss in productivity, property or even life), which could amount to tens of millions of dollars. Hence this project aims to provide better

understanding of rapid penetration of spudcan footing in sand using laboratory model tests.

The laboratory model tests will involve pushing an instrumented model spudcan footing into

sand covering a range of penetration velocities. The project will quantify the change in

spudcan penetration resistance with the change in penetration velocity. This project will

require a team of two students, one looking at rapid penetration of spudcan in dry sand and

another in saturated sand. Interested students are encouraged to contact Dr Shiaohuey

Chow ([email protected]) for more information.

Chua, Hui Tong, Prof.

High flux bright light synthesis of valuable nanomaterials

Disciplines: Chemical


This project makes use of a first-of-its-kind high flux bright light facility to synthesise valuable

nanomaterials. For example, we aim to synthesise MoS2, WS2 nanoparticles from their

naturally occurring precursor materials. The former materials have phenomenal applications

in engine and medical applications. They are mainly used as advanced lubricants in those

applications, but are also very promising as materials for supercapacitors as well.

We will also work on synthesising graphene from graphite particles, which has great

applications in batteries, supercapacitors and membranes, as well as boron nitride nanoparticles from boron nitride.

This project will be conducted in collaboration with colleagues at the Ben Gurion University

of the Negev, Israel and the Taiyuan University of Technology, China.


Geothermal energy applications

Disciplines: Chemical, Mechanical


1. Modelling and Controlling geothermal swimming pool - this is an ongoing topic to work with

the local councils on managing geothermal swimming pools and specifically the Beatty Park

Leisure Centre and possibly Scarborough Beach Pool. The student needs to physically visit the

Pools and even other swimming pools to collect pool data - 1 student. This project will inform

the design/consulting sector in terms of the proper sizing of the heating capacity of swimming

pools, which has a huge ramification in terms of the adoption of renewable energy.

2. The Cool Earth Project - this is an exciting project in partnership with LandCorp,

Geoexchange, ABN builders, AIRAH, Carbonomics and other agencies to monitor the

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performance of two occupied properties at Craigie, with one being fitted with a ground source

heat pump and another with a conventional air source heat pump. - 1 student.


Sub-topic 1 Industrial waste heat distillation, desalination,

Sub-topic 2 bauxite residue remediation

Disciplines: Chemical, Mechanical, Mechatronic


This topic will have 2 sub-topics.

Sub-topic 1 - 4 students. Reconcentrating spent liquor using waste heat from an alumina

refinery - 4 students. Students will get to build and operate an actual pilot plant in collaboration

with South32 and making use of actual spent liquor. Students need to travel to Worsley

Alumina and Rockingham, Murdoch Uni campus for the actual test. Students will also get to

be trained to the safety standard of South32 - a fantastic project to prepare for a career. Chemical engineering students are required. Students need to have available transport access

and are able to frequently visit the Rockingham site. They should preferably be available 2

weeks before the commencement of Semester 2 to be able to complete safety induction and

partake in plant pre-commissioning operations (around 16th July). They should be be available

to take both day and night shifts during the two week trial period in early August in

collaboration with South32.

Sub-topic 2 1 student. Bauxite residue remediation - using centrifuge to dewater mining

residue, an exciting technology - 1 student. This project is to be co-supervised by Prof. Andy

Fourie of Civil Engineering. We are investigating the prospect of substituting the traditional

impoundment method as practiced by the industry. A mechanical/civil engineering student is

good for this project.

Coward, David, A/Prof Co-supervisors: Burrel, Andrew, Mr (Zadko Systems Manager)

Environmental protection of a remotely controlled CCD

camera Disciplines: Electrical & Electronic, Mechanical, Mechatronic

Prerequisite skills: Electronic, some mechanical engineering also

The Zadko Telescope is a sophisticated research intensive robotic telescope operating

remotely and with minimal human intervention. It uses a very sensitive ccd camera to image

space debris. The project will design an external electronic temperature controlled cooler for

the camera. Must be light weight and encapsulates the camera to prevent moisture and dirt

ingress, ie no fans.

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Doherty, James, Dr Co-supervisors: Watson, Phil, Prof; Guevaracastill Mariajose

Strength and fatigue assessment of well conductors

Disciplines: Civil

Prerequisite skills: Soil mechanics

The soil lateral stiffness (p-y response) has a strong influence on the overall strength and fatigue

response of well conductors used for offshore oil and gas developments. Current API/ISO

guidance is provided only for generic “sand” and “clay” soils and recent research by BP indicates

that they are too soft for small amplitude well conductor motions. This project will involve the

review of centrifuge tests conducted at UWA on a model conductor and the development of

guide lines to better predict fatigue life of conductors.

Doherty, James, Dr

Improved foundation models for offshore wind turbines

Disciplines: Civil


Offshore wind energy is now cost competitive with some traditional forms of energy, thanks

to the development of new design and construction technologies. The aim of this project is to

develop improved foundation models for large diameter mono pile foundations for offshore

wind turbines by combining m-theta springs with tradition p-y soils springs.

Doherty, James, Dr

Image analysis of triaxial testing

Disciplines: Civil

Prerequisite skills: Matlab or Python, or willingness to learn

The project will use advanced image analysis and cloud computing technologies to replace

manual, timeconsuming and subjective geotechnical engineering practices with a rapid,

automated, and more rational approach. A new geomaterials testing system based on the

existing triaxial apparatus will be developed that employs 3D image capture hardware and

advanced image analysis techniques. The data measured over the entire sample surface will feed

into an automated, intelligent parameter selection procedure combining finite element analysis

with numerical optimisation techniques. Application of the proposal’s findings will allow more

accurate and efficient engineering design of transport and energy infrastructure that supports

modern economies.

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Doyle, Barry, Dr

Vascular engineering in heath and disease 1

Disciplines: Chemical, Mechanical


From the most basic engineering point of view, the cardiovascular system is a pump connected

to a series of elastic pipes. However, this system is prone to sub-optimal performance and even

failure; otherwise known as cardiovascular disease (CVD). CVD is the world’s biggest killer

and currently takes 1 Australian life every 12 minutes! It kills far more people than cancer and

with the shifting trend in the world’s population (people are living a lot longer nowadays), is

becoming a huge burden on health care systems.

At the Vascular Engineering Laboratory (VascLab) we perform both computational and

experimental research into CVD with an overall aim of creating new and innovative ways to

save lives and reduce the impact of this disease. We work very closely with scientists and

surgeons across UWA, Perth, nationally and internationally, to ensure our research is clinically-

relevant.

All projects will run within the Vascular Engineering Laboratory (VascLab) at the Harry Perkins

Institute of Medical Research - the premier medical institute in WA – and are in collaboration

with our partners in the local hospitals and research institutes. We now have access to the

most powerful supercomputer in the Southern Hemisphere – Magnus – at the Pawsey

Supercomputing Centre, so for projects requiring significant computational resources, you will

be running simulations on this world-class machine.

It is expected that each project will form a publication in a journal upon completion.

For more info on VascLab, visit:

http://vasclab.mech.uwa.edu.au

https://www.perkins.org.au/our-research/divisions/clinical-science/vascular-engineering/

We have two projects on offer in this round:

Flow dynamics in vascular access catheters:

In medicine, a vascular access catheters are flexible tubes placed into an artery or vein to

administer medication or fluids or even other devices. The most common example is a

peripheral venous catheter used to draw blood. This is the most commonly used vascular

access technique in medicine and in the USA alone more than 25 million patients receive a

peripheral venous line each year. The technique suffers from many complications, ranging from

bruising of the arm due to poor insertion, to catheter occlusion. Despite being a common

procedure, 25-50% fail and there is little data on the flow dynamics which undoubtedly

contributes to flow related problems, such as occlusion and dislodgement. We have recently

http://vasclab.mech.uwa.edu.au/


17


published (Russell et al., Sci Rep 2018;8:3441) the first data on how the fluid mechanics within

these devices and have shown why we believe so many of these devices may fail. We now need

to test our methods on more geometric configurations and also extends to other types of

catheters such as central venous catheters and peripherally inserted central catheters. This

project will be a parametric study using CFD where several variables will be modified and the

fluid dynamics computed. Through this project we hope to create enough evidence to change

clinical practice and is in conjunction with the Alliance for Vascular Access Teaching And

Research (AVATAR) Group (http://www.avatargroup.org.au/) at UWA, Queensland University

of Technology and Griffith University.

Airway modelling in the lungs of healthy and diseased children:

Medical imaging technologies such as Computed Tomography (CT) scans are critical tools for

the diagnosis and management of lung disease. Not only can these scans provide insights into

the disease and throughout image analysis techniques, can help predict clinical outcomes. But

these scans can be used to reconstruct the airways of the lungs into 3D for sophisticated

computational biomechanics modelling.

In this project you will use CT scans to create 3D reconstructions and then use computational

fluid dynamics (CFD) to simulate the movement of air down through the trachea and into the

major bronchi. Once the computational framework is built, you will analyse a series of healthy

and diseased lungs from children with cystic fibrosis, ranging from mild to severe. The data

from this project will be used to develop a larger scale effort aimed at building fast and efficient

methods to compute airflow and lung performance in cystic fibrosis.

This project is in collaboration with Dr Tim Rosenow at Telethon Kids Institute.

Doyle, Barry, Dr

Co-supervisors: Green, Daniel, Prof

Vascular engineering in heath and disease 2

Disciplines: Chemical, Electrical & Electronic, Mechanical, Software

Prerequisite skills: This project requires extensive programming knowledge including

labview. This is a software development project. You must have suitable background skills.

From the most basic engineering point of view, the cardiovascular system is a pump connected

to a series of elastic pipes. However, this system is prone to sub-optimal performance and even

failure; otherwise known as cardiovascular disease (CVD). CVD is the world’s biggest killer

and currently takes 1 Australian life every 12 minutes! It kills far more people than cancer and

with the shifting trend in the world’s population (people are living a lot longer nowadays), is

becoming a huge burden on health care systems.

18


At the Vascular Engineering Laboratory (VascLab) we perform both computational and

experimental research into CVD with an overall aim of creating new and innovative ways to

save lives and reduce the impact of this disease. We work very closely with scientists and

surgeons across UWA, Perth, nationally and internationally, to ensure our research is clinically-

relevant.

All projects will run within the Vascular Engineering Laboratory (VascLab) at the Harry Perkins

Institute of Medical Research - the premier medical institute in WA – and are in collaboration

with our partners in the local hospitals and research institutes. We now have access to the

most powerful supercomputer in the Southern Hemisphere – Magnus – at the Pawsey

Supercomputing Centre, so for projects requiring significant computational resources, you will

be running simulations on this world-class machine.

It is expected that each project will form a publication in a journal upon completion.

For more info on VascLab, visit:

http://vasclab.mech.uwa.edu.au


We have one project on offer in this round:

Real-time image processing software for arterial assessment:

The response of an artery to changes in flow provides direct insight into the functional

performance of the vessel. A healthy artery will increase diameter in response to increase in

flow. This is a relatively simple technique to perform and uses ultrasound to simultaneously

measure the diameter change and the flow within a superficial artery (e.g. the carotid artery in

the neck or the brachial artery in the arm). However data from such as test is extremely useful.

Not only does it inform about the general condition of the artery in question, and provide a

way to measure response under different conditions (such as exercise, gravity, heat, stress,

etc). The functional performance of a specific artery can also provide insight into the general

vascular health of the subject as cardiovascular disease is a systemic problem; poor vascular

health in one artery often reflects poor vascular health throughout.

In order to measure these parameters in real-time, approximately 15 years ago our

collaborators in the Cardiovascular Research Group in the Faculty of Science (led by Prof.

Danny Green), together with medical physicists at the Royal Perth Hospital, developed a

labview-based software package that analyses .avi files derived from arterial duplex ultrasound.

This software has become a very widely adopted tool, used in both research groups and clinics.

We now seek to upgrade various aspects of the software and increase its reach and impact.

This project requires extensive programming knowledge including labview.


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Some of the specific aspects are as follows:

1. Create a free vision library that interfaces with an existing labview-based software package

that assesses blood flow from duplex ultrasound avi’s. Must work with latest codecs.

2. Develop vision analysis tools for edge detection, wall tracking and waveform analysis that

interfaces with labview.

3. Consolidate existing software packages that analyse arterial images (intima medial thickness

of artery walls, diameter change of arteries, velocity and blood flow analysis).

This is a software development project. You must have suitable background skills.

Draper, Scott, Assoc. Prof.

Effect of the environment on open water swimming and

rowing Disciplines: Civil, Environmental, Mechanical

Prerequisite skills: Fluid Mechanics, Coastal and Offshore Engineering

This project will consider (in collaboration with the Western Australian Institute of Sport) the

effect of the environment on two different aquatic sports: (i) open-water swimming and (ii)

rowing. (If both students would like to work on the same sport, that is also possible).

Open water swimming: Whilst much is known about swimming in still water conditions, very

little research has considered the effect of surface waves on swimming performance. This

project will undertake human experiments in a newly commission 54 m long wave flume located

at UWA's Shenton Park campus. Swimmers will be monitored whilst swimming into and with waves of period and amplitude typical of open water swimming conditions. Theoretical models

will be developed to interpret the experimental results.

Rowing: This project will aim to systematically measure key properties of a lake/river prior to

a rowing event, and use these measurements to better interpret variations in race speed.

Interpretation will include correlating physical parameters such as density and viscosity with

race speed, and developing simplified theoretical models to estimate the effect of these physical

parameters on race speed.

Draper, Scott, Assoc. Prof. Co-supervisors: Hansen, Jeff, Dr

Detecting and Predicting wave over-topping onto the

Kwinana Freeway, Como Disciplines: Civil, Environmental, Mechanical, Software

Prerequisite skills: Detection: Image analysis, machine learning; Prediction:

Coastal and Offshore Engineering

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Wave over-topping from the Swan River onto the Kwinana Freeway at Como can result in

dangerous driving conditions. This project will be undertaken in collaboration with Main Roads

WA to detect and predict when waves over-top onto the Kwinana Freeway at Como. One

student will use video data, together with water level and wind records, to automatically detect

(using machine learning approaches) when over-topping is occurring. The second student will use a combination of coastal engineering models to predict what combination of wind and

water level conditions are most likely to result in over-topping.

Durham, Richard, Prof

Industry topic (usually based on your vacation work)

Disciplines: Mining


During your vacation work, you should ask your employer if they have any topic(s) suitable for

your thesis. Ask them at the beginning, and then again towards the end. You need to write up

the topic on <1 page, and send it to me. There might be a little negotiation whilst I ensure the

topic is suitable (basically not too small, not too big, and involves some research type analysis),

but once we've agreed on the scope and objectives it's all fine.

Durham, Richard, Prof Co-supervisors: French, Tim, Dr

VR Applications in Mining Engineering


A previous thesis by a student loaded a mine design into a VR environment, and showed how

that would be useful to engineers. More work is required to use “off the shelf” packages (and

the latest cordless headset, or Hololens) to take a design into VR, and apply textures, queries

etc.


Improving the Nicholas UG Mining method tool

Disciplines: Mining Prerequisite skills: MINE5502

Probably only 1 student.

The Nicholas spreadsheet for helping select an UG stoping method has many flaws, making it

of very limited real use. This project seeks to replace it with more modern approaches, more

modern methods, and fuzzy logic

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Improving Taylor’s Rule

Disciplines: Mining Prerequisite skills:

Probably only 1 student.

The decision for selecting the production rate of a new deposit is sometimes guided by Taylor’s

rule. However, this is based on data that is decades old, so this project seeks to replace it with

more modern data, and more criteria

Elchalakani, Mohamed, Dr Co-supervisors: Meek, Alexandra, Ms

Rebuilding the Egyptian pyramids

Disciplines: Chemical, Civil, Materials

Prerequisite skills: Chemical knowledge a benefit but not required.

Many conspiracy theories exist regarding the origins of the Egyptian pyramids, one of which is

that they were constructed in situ using rammed earth stabilised with sodium carbonate.

Students will aim to find some potential mixes that could have been used to build the pyramids.

It will involve both individual research and trialling potential mixes in the lab. Specimens are

manufactured using a jackhammer - students will need to be comfortable with physical work.

Elchalakani, Mohamed, Dr Co-supervisors: A/Prof Ali Karrech; Ahmed Tanvir

The development of ultra high performance concrete for

high rise buildings

Disciplines: Chemical, Civil, Electrical & Electronic, Environmental, Materials,

Mechanical, Mechatronic, Mining, Oil & Gas, Petroleum, Software

Prerequisite skills: do not mind to get their hand dirty

This project aims to develop ultra high performance concrete for the construction of high rise

buildings in Australia. Ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) which is characterised by high

strength and, when reinforced with steel fibres, high ductility, has the potential to revolutionise

the construction industry. The application of UHPC is currently mainly limited to landmark

projects due to the high cost of manufacture, which often involve specialist materials such as

specially graded sands and the need for complex mixing and curing regimes. Moreover, mix

designs are commonly proprietary information or incompletely reported.

As a result of the complexity of material requirements and the restricted nature of complete

mix design details it can be difficult to reproduce reported results. This project aims to address

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these issues by investigating the potential for producing UHPC using widely available fine and

coarse aggregates.

Elchalakani, Mohamed, Dr Co-supervisors: A/Prof Ali Karrech

Numerical Modelling of Concrete Filled Tubular Columns




In Australian modern construction, concrete filled steel tubular columns are becoming a

popular method of construction particularly for high rise buildings. Limited experimental tests

showed that concrete filling may delay or fully prevent local buckling of the external steel tubes.

The main factor affect the response is the diameter-to-thickness ratio of the steel tubes and

the strength of concrete. The full range of D/t ratios was not tested. Wide variations among

the international design codes such as AS3600 to predict the strength of such columns. This

project will focus on the use of the Finite Element method an an effective approach to provide

design models for such composite columns and to provide valuable information on their

response. The results will be recommended as a future amendment for AS3600, the Australian

Concrete Design Code.

Elchalakani, Mohamed, Dr Co-supervisors: A/Prof Ali Karrech; Fraser Tonner

Development of Glass Fibre Reinforced Concrete [GFRC]

Disciplines: Chemical, Civil, Environmental, Materials, Mechanical, Mining, Oil &

Gas

Prerequisite skills: do not mind getting their hand dirty

Glass fibre reinforced concrete (GFRC) which is characterised by high strength and durability

when reinforced with steel fibres, has the potential to revolutionise the construction industry.

The application of GFRC is currently limited to replace traditional steel bars with Fibre

Reinforced Bars. Producing Concrete this way has its own limitations because the FRP bars

have potential problems like fracture of the resin and debonding from the concrete matrix

surrounding the bar. The present innovative GFRC is produces in such away that the glass

fibres are used without the week resin. An investigation of the axial and compression, tensile

and bending strength of the GFRC will be compared with normal concrete. It is expected that this concrete will have a significant impact on the construction industry.

Elchalakani, Mohamed, Dr Co-supervisors: A/Prof Ali Karrech; Minhao Dong

Durability Geopolymer concrete

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Disciplines: Chemical, Civil, Materials, Mechanical, Mining

Prerequisite skills: do not mind getting their hand dirty

Geopolymer concrete is a new concrete which does not have any cement but made of recycled

material such as slag and fly ash. It is more environmentally friendly than traditional cement concrete and more durable. The durability of such new concrete needs to be investigated and

this is among the aims of this project.

Geopolymer has emerged as a ‘green’ binder with high potential for manufacturing sustainable

concretes. This innovative material can use industrial wastes, such as fly ash and metallurgical

slags, as raw materials. Because the formation is usually completed at room temperature or

slightly elevated temperature (40-80°C), and because it does not need the high temperature

calcination and milling processes required in Portland cement clinker manufacturing, the

emissions reduction compared to Portland cement can be up to 80%, greatly depending on the

geopolymer mixture formula and materials supply [1, 2]. In the past decade, geopolymer

concretes produced on laboratory scales have been widely reported to display similar

engineering properties to OPC concretes, in many cases with superior mechanical properties

when subjected to high temperature and highly corrosive media. However, using geopolymer

to fabricate concretes is still rare in the real-world compared to normal Portland cement

concretes. The slow commercialization of geopolymer relates to many technical issues,

practical costs and durability considerations.

Elchalakani, Mohamed, Dr Co-supervisors: Ms. Alexandra Meek

Mechanical properties of geopolymer-stabilised rammed

earth



Prerequisite skills: highly motivated

his project will study the mechanical properties of newly developed geopolymer-stabilised

rammed earth. Students will determine properties such as compressive, tensile and bond

strengths in various environments. Mixes will largely be composed of industrial waste products

and there will also be the opportunity to investigate materials used to construct Egyptian

pyramids.

Specimens are manufactured using a jackhammer - students should be comfortable with

physical work.

Contact: [email protected] with any queries.

Faiello, Cosimo, Associate Professor

Sustainability applied to project management & engineering

practice

24


Disciplines: Chemical, Civil, Electrical & Electronic, Environmental, Mechanical,

Mechatronic, Mining, Oil & Gas, Petroleum

This topic will introduce students to the field of project management and engineering practice

with a focus on achieving sustainable results based on a “triple bottom line” (TBL) approach:

That is, achieving project objectives, while taking into account the societal and environmental implications of a project. A sustainable approach to project management and engineering

practice is recognised globally by many organizations, as being vital to achieving their strategic

objectives. By researching this topic students will learn how to apply theoretical concepts and

frameworks to ‘real world projects’ in order to achieve sustainable outcomes using a TBL

strategy.

Fourie, Andy, Prof Co-supervisors: Dr David Reid

A reassessment of the Mt Polley tailings dam failure in

Canada


Prerequisite skills: ENSC 3009

The Mt Polley tailings dam in Canada failed in 2014. A failure investigation published in 2015

suggested that the mechanism of slope instability was undrained shearing of a layer of clay

below the embankment. Two dimensional stability analyses carried out during the investigation

gave a reasonable indication of the mechanism of failure based on laboratory test data and the

embankment geometry. However, a three dimensional analysis - which conceptually should

give the most accurate result - did not agree well with the failure that occurred. This study will

involve constructing a three dimensional stability model of the Mt Polley tailings dam failure area and assessing various factors that could improve the alignment of the three dimensional

result and the actual failure.


Critical assessment of brittleness in stability analyses of sand Disciplines: Civil, Mining

Prerequisite skills: ENSC3009

Assessing the stability of slopes in highly brittle materials is difficult owing to the limitations of

limit equilibrium stability software. In particular, a loose, saturated sand may rapidly lose

strength when sheared, whereas “standard” models used in stability software do not allow for

such rapidly changing material properties. To improve on this process, a number of methods

to account for strength loss have been developed. However, they are relatively new and have

not been thoroughly tested. This project requires carrying out back-analyses of a number of

historic failures of embankments constructed of brittle materials to assess the performance of

available methods.

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Rapid determination of consolidation properties of super-

soft sediments


Prerequisite skills: ENSC3009

Consolidation of very soft clays and tailings can be a very slow process, up to decades even.

Obtaining relevant consolidation properties in the laboratory is therefore also usually a slow

process. Recently at UWA we have developed a desktop centrifuge for accelerated

consolidation testing. Tests that previously took three weeks can now be completed within 48

hours. This project will carry out comparative tests on a range of mine tailings using the desktop

centrifuge as well as conventional techniques, plus develop a suitable technique for analyzing

the centrifuge data using recently purchased software

Fridjonsson, Einar, Dr. Co-supervisors: Johns, Michael, Prof.

Industrial and Oilfield Water Management

Disciplines: Chemical, Environmental


Projects are available across a range of industrial and oilfield water management topics:

(i) Natural gas and oil extraction results in the production of substantial quantities of (mainly

formation) water which needs to be discharged back into the sea. We are currently developing

NMR-based technologies to both monitor ppm oil contamination of this discharge water such

that it is compliant with environmental legislation, as well as multi-phase flow metering methods

for oil/gas/water production flow quantification.

(ii) Desalination and waste water treatment are areas of growing global importance (47% of

Perth’s water now comes from desalination!). Membranes are important for the separation of

contaminants from liquids across a range of industrial processes. A critical issue with membrane

separation is fouling, projects are available on membrane fouling, forward osmosis and the

development of an NMR-based clamp-on monitoring technology.

(iii) Project are available on Nanofluids which have the potential to substantially reduce both

the OPEX and CAPEX and water usage of heat exchange processes for LNG production

facilities.

(iv) Magnesium hydroxide recovery from the concentrated discharge water from desalination

plants is a potentially valuable by-product. This project will consider the viability of using local

lime sources to effect the Mg(OH)2 precipitation and look to opimise and evaluate the overall

process.

Fridjonsson, Einar, Dr. Co-supervisors: Metaxas, Peter, Dr.; Johns, Michael, Prof.

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Development of medical bench-top detection technologies

Disciplines: Chemical

Prerequisite skills: NB: this project DOES NOT require biomedical experience

The intended outcome of this project is to pave routes towards the development of

sophisticated technologies for rapid and economical diagnosis and monitoring of diseases (e.g.

cancer). Benefitting from links with medical scientists, the project will focus on testing and

development of bench-top NMR techniques and novel magnetic sensor devices for detecting

disease bio-markers via magnetic “tags” (functionalised nanoparticles).

Fridjonsson, Einar, Dr. Co-supervisors: Johns, Michael, Prof.

Renewable Energy (Li Battery technology – economic life

cycle analysis) Disciplines: Chemical


With immense interest in the development of the full range of the Li battery production chain

in Australia (from raw material to batteries). This project will focus on analysing the value chain

in Lithium battery technology (from mine to battery to recycling) and evaluating opportunities

for process PFD improvements to full life-cycle economic analysis.

Ghadouani, Anas, Prof Co-supervisors: Coggins, Liah, Dr

Improving performance of wastewater treatment assets

Disciplines: Chemical, Civil, Environmental, Mechanical

Prerequisite skills: Hydraulics/modelling preferable

Selected topics from industry based on-going investigations into improving performance of

wastewater treatment assets, including greenhouse gas mitigation. This may include computer

modelling or data collection and analysis.

Ghadouani, Anas, Prof Co-supervisors: Coggins, Liah, Dr

Investigating urban water quality

Disciplines: Chemical, Civil, Environmental, Mechanical


27


Longitudinal study on heavy metal contamination in urban water sources and networks.

Students will be trained in advanced analytical skills (including laboratory), and will use the

world-class facilities at UWA.

Gong, Peijun, Dr

OBEL: Methods for non-invasive optical imaging of blood

vessels

Disciplines: Electrical & Electronic, Materials, Mechanical, Software

Prerequisite skills: Materials, mechanical systems or mechatronics, OR signal

processing and computer programming OR both

In OBEL, we have been working on the development of non-invasive optical imaging of blood

vessels in humans – which is important in skin scarring and healing, diabetes, and in retinal

diseases. This project will involve the design and manufacturing of an imaging phantom to mimic

the blood flow in biological tissue, capturing images, and improving data analysis techniques to segment the blood vessels. As a step toward clinical applications, the effectiveness of the data

analysis techniques on human clinical data will also be investigated.

Students are expected to have knowledge or interest in materials, electronics or computer

programming. Come and talk to us about this project.

Hassan, Ghulam Mubashar, Dr

Deformation measurement using AI techniques

Disciplines: Civil, EE, Mechanical, and Software

Prerequisite skills: good programming skills in Matlab

Deformation measurement with high accuracy using images is a challenging task in many

engineering and other fields. The problem get more interesting when discontinuities such as

crack and crevices exist in the specimen which are undergoing deformation. Many techniques

are proposed to solve this problem which are complicated and having optimization issues. In

addition, most of the techniques are computationally very expensive to be used in real-time

scenarios.

In this research project, Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques will be investigated to replace

the existing techniques for deformation measurement. Also another aspect for investigation

can be extension of existing techniques to 3D and issues related to it.

Hassan, Ghulam Mubashar, Dr Co-supervisors: French, Tim, Dr

Tabletop model for vehicle protocol simulation

28


Disciplines: Civil, EE, Mechanical, Mechatronic, and Software

Prerequisite skills: strong programming skills is essential

The aim of this project is to utilize and improve a recently developed table top traffic testbed

for investigations of autonomous vehicle networks. The model consists of bluetooth

controlled vehicles, raspberry pi microcomputers, a data projector and a machine vision

camera.

This is a part of complex large scale project, where the first phase focused on building a basic

control loop that can detect the location of different vehicles, and based on this pass driving

instructions onto those vehicles. In this project, students will be modelling observability and

implementing traffic routing algorithms.

Hassan, Ghulam Mubashar, Dr Co-supervisors: Datta, Amitava, Prof

Detection of health related issues using social media

Disciplines: EE, Mechatronic, and Software

Prerequisite skills: strong programming skills is essential

Social media is very popular to monitor different aspects of life. It will be interesting to

analyse how health related issues can be monitored using social media data. The users of

social medial are regularly updating their status which can help to determine health issues

related to users or arising health issues.

This project will require students to use artificial intelligence and data mining techniques to

analyse data and retrieve appropriate information from the data.

Hodkiewicz, Melinda, Prof Co-supervisors: Ben Travaglione (adjunct Defence Science

Technology)

Design and Build MEMS Test Units

Disciplines: Electrical & Electronic, Mechatronic, Mechanical

Prerequisite skills: ELEC4403 or GENG5508 with >70%. Coding (experience with python,

or a willingness to learn), Scientific computing (eg Matlab, Mathematica, SciPy, R), electronics ,

CAD, microcontroller/arduino experience, general workshop skills.

The Internet-of-Things has arrived. Our world is becoming filled with vast numbers of small

sensors, capable of collecting and processing data in real time, and streaming data to the

cloud. The sensors are becoming smaller and cheaper. The wifi-enabled microcontrollers

attached to these sensors are becoming faster and more powerful. In order to explore this

new and rapidly changing landscape, the System Health Lab has developed an IoT device

called the "Blue Box". This device uses a small COTS MEMs accelerometer and a cheap wifi-

enabled microcontroller to stream data to the cloud. The student(s) undertaking this project

29


will design and build a series of test apparatus to compare the Blue Box performance to a

number of (more expensive) commercial/scientific alternatives or build MEMS for some

specific applications (one we are considering is for embedding in tailings dams for instance).

Interested students must have a strong background in the open-source software used in

programming modern single-board microcontrollers. A familiarity with electronics will also be helpful. There will also be a requirement to manipulate the collected data and build

appropriate models of the underlying physics.

Hodkiewicz, Melinda, Prof Co-supervisors: Ben Travaglione (adjunct Defence Science

Technology)

Edge Processing

Disciplines: Electrical & Electronic, Mechatronic, Software

Prerequisite skills: ELEC4403 or GENG5508 with >70%. Coding (experience with python,

or a willingness to learn), Scientific computing (eg Matlab, Mathematica, SciPy, R), electronics ,

CAD, microcontroller/arduino experience, general workshop skills.

The Internet-of-Things has arrived. Our world is becoming filled with vast numbers of small

sensors, capable of collecting and processing data in real time, and streaming data to the

cloud. The sensors are becoming smaller, cheaper and more capable. As more and more

sensors are deployed, vast amounts of data will be generated. This project will deal with

“edge processing” of the collected data. Pre-processing of the data can be done on the

sensing device to ensure only relevant and necessary information is transmitted to the cloud

for further processing. The impacts of different edge processing methodologies on factors

such as sensor battery life, reliability and quality will be explored. As part of the project the

student will gain practical experience in PCB design as well as setting up a LoRa Wireless

Network. Potential sensors of interest include but are not limited to: accelerometers, air

quality, pH, weather (temperature, humidity, pressure).

Hong, Jin, Dr Co-supervisors: Mian, Ajmal, A/Professor

Generating Malware Variants using Machine Learning

Disciplines: EE and Software

Prerequisite skills: programming (python, java), machine learning, data analysis (collection,

analysis, visualisation etc), simulations (in python, java etc).

Malware detection is becoming more effective thanks to the advancing techniques used to

identify variants. One approach is to use Locality Sensitive Hash (LSH), which allows

generation of similar hash values when two files are similar. This can be used to measure the

30


hash values of known malware binary and measure the distance to potential variants for

detection. In the same way, we can generate malware variants that would be undetected if

the detection threshold is known. To generate such malware, we can apply machine learning

techniques to generate them. The goal of this

project is to (1) malware generation using machine learning to bypass variant detection using LSH, (2) efficient malware variant generation methods, and (3) field study to test detectability

of the developed scheme.

Recommended reading: The Trend Locality Sensitive Hash (TLSH)

https://github.com/trendmicro/tlsh

Hong, Jin, Dr

Intelligent Security for IoT

Disciplines: EE, Mechanical, Mechatronic, and Software

Prerequisite skills: Embedded programming skills (raspberry-pi), data analysis (collection,

analysis, visualisation etc.), simulations (in python, java etc.).

IoT networks change their components frequently, such as replacement of IoT devices,

protocols, mobility, software updates etc. Given uncertainties of changes in the IoT

networks, existing security solutions (e.g., patching vulnerabilities, isolation, moving target

defense etc) may not give the optimal solution. The goal of this project is to investigate: 1)

profiling IoT networks and their changing capabilities; 2) evaluating the effectiveness of

existing security solutions for securing IoT networks; 3) developing intelligent security

mechanism for adaptively selecting optimal solution for the IoT networks; 4) evaluation of the

intelligent security mechanism developed.

Recommended reading: Proactive defense mechanisms for the software-defined Internet of

Things with non-patchable vulnerabilities, Ge et al, Future Generation Computer Systems,

Elsevier vol 78, part 2 2018 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.future.2017.07.008

Hong, Jin, Dr

Security Control in Software Developments

Disciplines: EE, Mechanical, and Software

Prerequisite skills: software engineering principles

Quality of software is well discussed, but not so much for security. Although security

requirements are formulated, there is no formal way of validating the satisfiability of security

features back to the requirements. The goal of this project is to investigate: 1) the

satisfiability of security requirements using quantifiable metrics; 2) defining minimum security

threshold required by the software for achieving defined security requirements; 3)

implementing and incorporating the software security control into agile approaches for

validations. Recommended reading: Practical

Security Stories and Security Tasks for Agile Development Environments, SafeCode,

www.safecode.org/publication/SAFECode_Agile_Dev_Security0712.pdf

https://github.com/trendmicro/tlsh

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.future.2017.07.008

http://www.safecode.org/publication/SAFECode_Agile_Dev_Security0712.pdf

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Hong, Jin, Dr Co-supervisors: Li, Jianxin, Dr

Tagging Bad Rumours: Towards Context-aware

identification of False Information in Social Media

Disciplines: EE, Mechanical, and Software

Prerequisite skills: Machine learning, programming (web, mobile), data analysis (collection,

analysis, visualisation etc), simulations (in python, java etc).

Information travels at the speed of light (literally), but it is difficult to check the authenticity

of the information at the same rate. Rumours, hoax news and the sort can have significant

effects on the society: changing the public views and actions, such as voting in elections. Even

if the public discovers the truth, often it is too late to recover the damage done. This project

would provide a solution to identifying and notifying users the authenticity of the viewing

information at an early stage. The goal of the project is to

(1) develop bad rumour identification method using machine learning, (2) incorporate

contextual information in the identification method, (3) evaluate the method using publicly

available social media dataset, and (4) field test for validations. Recommended reading: The

Web of False Information: Rumors, Fake News, Hoaxes, Clickbait, and Various Other

Shenanigans, Zannettou et al.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1804.03461.pdf

Hu, Yuxia, Prof Co-supervisors: Fred Verheyde (Douglas Partners)

Characterisation of Perth Sand Disciplines: Civil

Prerequisite skills: Soil Mechanics

There are three types of local sand: Bassendean Sand, Tamala Sand and Spearwood Sand. With

different fine contents, the sand may show different cohesions. Under field and lab compactions,

sand may be crushed to contain more fines, which may change their characteristics. The project

is to study different characteristics of Perth Sands by lab tests.

Hu, Yuxia, Prof Co-supervisors: Colin Leek (Talis Consultants)

Recycling materials in road pavement and stabilised

pavement

Disciplines: Civil

Prerequisite skills: Geomechanics

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1804.03461.pdf

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Recycling water materials is important to reduce landfill, which may cause environmental

problems. Bitumen stabilisation can improve the road performance. This project will look at

different way to reduce landfill and improve road performance

Huang, David, Professor

Mining plan based wireless network design for open-pit

mines

Disciplines: Electrical & Electronic, Mining

Mine site wireless communications with seamless coverage and Quality of Service guarantees

are a key element to improving operational efficiency and employee safety of contemporary

open pit mines. The topography of a typical pit consists of benches and slopes with mineral-

rich reflective surfaces, and its size and form can change quickly during the lifetime of the mine.

This makes the radio propagation conditions of open pit mining very different from typical

commercial wireless communication systems.

Mining is a carefully planned activity. Mine planning determines the extent of the terrain profile

that will be modified and provides estimates of materials to be moved and equipment to be

deployed. From mine planning, it is possible to determine the communication requirements,

e.g. the amount of data traffic (including when and where) required to be transmitted, and the

radio propagation conditions.

Geographic Information System (GIS) has been extensively used in the mining industry for

development and production. Using the GIS and the mining plan, a quasi-deterministic

communication traffic dimensioning can be determined. It is then possible to identify a proper

combination of wireless technologies that are appropriate for the mining site. In this project,

we will investigate how to select the optimal locations of key communication nodes (e.g. access

points and base stations) and the optimal parameters associated with them, through the

simulation and modeling of the radio propagation environment and data traffic, with the aid of

GIS.

This approach includes:

• 3D radio propagation modeling for typical open pit mine structure such as benches and slopes.

• Radio coverage analysis for different antennas over typical mining pits.

• Data traffic modeling for typical devices employed in an open pit mine.

• Developing analytical models for the deployment of various wireless networks.

• Modeling and analysis of capital and operating expense of various wireless networks

Huang, David, Professor

Resource Optimization in Broadband Wireless

Communications

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For future broadband wireless communications, we need not only to build a link with the

capability of providing high data rate but also to divide the link wisely to accommodate the

various requirements of different applications from different users. From this perspective, how

to utilize a link is as important as how to build a link. In this project, you are going to investigate and propose ways to effectively and efficiently allocate resources to different users and different

applications using the principle of “opportunistic communications”. The principle of

opportunistic communications is actually simple: it always allocates the resources to the users

or applications that can best utilize them. This is somehow similar to the fact that the school

normally awards students with best performance.

Huang, Yimiao, Dr

Explosion Safety Assessment of Urban Underground Utility

Tunnel Disciplines: Civil

In order to fulfill the requirements of new-type urbanization and city modernization, the

development of urban underground utility tunnels is required. Since pipes with hazardous

materials such as natural gas and heating power are installed in the utility tunnel together with

other pipes, high confinement and congestion conditions may be formed and significant

consequences will occur if gas cloud from a leak pipe is ignited. This project aims at proposing

risk analysis and evaluation methods which consider multiple explosion risk factors based on

the specific characteristics of underground utility tunnels. Meanwhile, numerical modelling

methods will be applied to model the complicated environments of underground utility tunnels

and estimate explosion effects.

Ju, Li, Prof Co-supervisor: Winterflood, John, Dr.

Advanced Low Frequency Rotational Accelerometer

Disciplines: Mechanical

Prerequisite skills: Basic CAD, basic Knowledge of vibration and isolation

The project is to build and test a very low frequency rotational accelerometer for tilt sensing

and control of the isolation system for gravitational wave detectors. The system compose of

a mechanical bar balanced on a very fine special designed 3D flexure and an optical "walk-off"

readout system. The student will be working with our PhD student to assemble and test the

stand alone system, as well as integrate the system into the system to the high performance

multistage vibration isolator.

Ju, Li, Prof Co-supervisor: Winterflood, John, Dr.

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Advanced Isolation System

Disciplines: Mechanical

Prerequisite skills: Basic understanding of resonances, concept of vibration isolation.

This project is to test novel methods to improve the vibration isolation system for

gravitational wave detectors. These projects relate to one of the key technologies: the use of

Euler springs combined with the LaCoste isolator configuration to create very low frequency

vertical vibration isolation stages.

Karrech, Ali, Assoc/Prof Co-supervisors: Mohamed Elchalakani

Numerical modeling of rubberised concrete filled tubes

under various loading conditions Disciplines: Civil, Mechanical

Prerequisite skills: Finite Element Modelling

Concrete filled steel tubes (CFST) are increasingly used in engineering construction as support

members or barriers. In CFST, concrete provides resistance to buckling of the steel tube and

increases its strength and ductility. In addition, the steel tube provides confinement to the

concrete and increases its strength. As a consequence of composite effects, CFST can absorb

large amounts of energy.

In this project, concrete will be replaced with rubberised concrete to form rubberised concrete

filled steel tubes (RuCFST). As there are increasing amounts of waste rubber being generated

in Australia and elsewhere, there is an urgent need to recycle such materials. When compared

to standard concrete, rubberised concrete has increased ductility and energy absorption but

decreased strength.

There has been an extensive research work at the Structures Laboratory of the UWA on the

performance of RuCFST under various loading conditions. However, the generated

experimental data has not been used to conduct numerical models that can explain the

important mechanical and structural phenomena that have been observed experimentally.

Thus, the purpose of this research is to construct experimentally validated finite element

models that can explain the behaviour of RuCFST under eccentric axial loading and bending

moments.

research done into the mixture of rubberised concrete to attempt to increase the strength

however no major progress has been made [3].

Steel tubes may be filled with rubberised concrete to form rubberised concrete filled steel

tubes (RuCFST). A circular RuCFST cross section is shown in Figure 1.

The confinement of the rubberised concrete increases its strength in the same

35


Karrech, Ali, Assoc/Prof Co-supervisors: Mohamed Elchalakani

Instability of mechanically lined pipelines under large

deformation


Prerequisite skills: Finite Element Modelling

Mechanically lined pipe consists of a load bearing carbon steel outer pipe with a thin corrosion

resistant alloy (CRA) liner and is a proven and economical solution for oil and gas pipelines.

The bond between the two pipes is purely mechanical and under large bending loads plastic

deformation of the liner results in non-reversible liner wrinkling. This wrinkling impedes flow

and significantly reduces the performance of the pipeline. The purpose of this project is to use

non-linear finite element techniques to describe the wrinkling of lined pipe under combined

loading (bending and axial) and examines the effect of cyclic loading on the behavior of the

composite. This model is then used to propose a new failure criterion that can be used for the

design of mechanically lined pipelines.

Karrech, Ali, Assoc/Prof Co-supervisors: Ryan Azadi

Increasing permeability of rocks by light acids and

surfactants

Disciplines: Chemical, Materials, Mining Prerequisite skills:

In-Situ leaching is a solution mining technique that consists of injecting reactive fluids in the ore

bodies to extract valuable materials. One of the major issues with in-situ leaching is the low

permeability in certain natural materials. Creating fractures in the ore body can stimulate the

process. However, the existing methods that are used to make fractures are based on high in-

situ pressure (e.g. hydraulic fracturing) but they are difficult to control (i.e. difficult to keep

open). The purpose of this project is to conduct laboratory tests on the effect of chemical

stimulation of natural geo-materials on permeability.

Keating, Adrian, Professor

Sugar cube sized energy harvesting and wireless sensors for

the internet of

Disciplines: Electrical & Electronic, Mechanical, Mechatronic, Software

Prerequisite skills: Much of the work leverages electrical engineering, design

skills, instrumentation and data collection and analysis. Mechanical design is also

required – this is an interdisciplinary project

36


This project has significant industrial interest. Students will investigate novel energy harvesting

technologies, extracting energy from unused heat, motion or electromagnetic radiation. We

have a desire to create extremely small wireless sensors than can be used almost anywhere,

but which require extremely low power technology to work with the energy being harvested.

All students working on this project will focus on a sub-system of the overall system as there is a high degree of interconnection.

Keating, Adrian, Professor Co-supervisors: Parish, Giacinta, Professor

Writing on a grain of sand to make sensors made from thin

air

Disciplines: Electrical & Electronic, Materials, Mechanical, Mechatronic

Prerequisite skills: Modeling and experimental design skills, instrumentation and

data collection and analysis, mechanical and electrical design

This project investigates how to engineer nanometer sized pores in a silicon to alter it’s

mechanical, electrical, thermal and optical properties. We can now write features using an

inhouse built laser-writer with 3 micron linewidths. This project aims to improve the ability to

laser write into this material for a range of applications, from sensors, to cloaking devices. This

project offers opportunities for electrical, mechanical and/or material students to learn more

about this technology and it's applications. Studies include measurements of reflected light

during laser writing, the effect of heating and gas flow on the samples and improvements

(electrical and mechanical) to the laser writing system (which uses G-code).

Kimiaei, Mehrdad, Assistant Professor Co-supervisors: Elchalakani, Mohamed, Assistant Professor

Repair of corroded tubular members in offshore facilities

using composite material


Prerequisite skills: This project is suitable for final year, preferably MPE,

civil/mechanical engineering students who are interested in combination of

experimental and numerical works .

Steel members in offshore facilities are susceptible to corrosion and for aged facilities this

process could eventually lead to non-compliant members or joints against existing codes. A

possible solution for this problem is strengthening the non-compliant components by wrapping

Fibre Reinforced Polymers (FRP) around the external surface of the corroded members or

joints. In this project, corrosion of the steel tubular members will be induced either naturally

by immersing the tubular specimens in the Swan river or by using accelerated corrosion cell

electrically simulated in the lab. Following the induced corrosion, such members will be tested

in the structural laboratory under different types of loading including axial, bending and

combined loading. The experimental results for intact, corroded and strengthened members

(in air or in the river) will be compared.

37


The main reasons for selecting FRP for this project are (i) long successful history of application

for strengthening and rehabilitation of onshore steel/concrete structures; (ii) successful

application for subsea leakage prevention; (iii) recent successful application for subsea corroded

pipes. The superior mechanical, fatigue, high strength to density ratio and in-service properties of FRP composites make them excellent candidates for strengthening and retrofitting of steel

pipelines and infrastructure.

To date only a limited amount of research have been undertaken which are related to

rehabilitation of damaged offshore facilities using FRP composite sections. Main aim of this study

is to provide a better understanding of structural behaviour of composite sections in offshore

facilities. The collected experimental results will be used for further numerical studies. This

project is part of the RiverLab project financially supported by Woodside Pty Ltd.

Lehane, Barry, Prof

The performance of shallow foundations on Perth's dune

sands

Disciplines: Civil

Prerequisite skills: Geotechnical Engineering (Only 1 student -please discuss with

BL)

The project will first examine the effects of shape, grading and mineralogy on the shear

strength parameters of Perth's sands using direct shear testing. The project will subsequently

employ these results in interpretation of a series of shallow foundations tests to be

performed in a geotechnical centrifuge.

(1 student only - as has one other student continuing from sem 1 2018)

Lehane, Barry, Prof

CPT-based pile design for driven piles in sand

Disciplines: Civil

Prerequisite skills: Geotechnical Engineering

The project is divided into two components (i) re-testing of driven piles at Shenton Park to

supplement an existing study into the influence of pile age on shaft friction and (ii) use of an

existing large international database of pile load test data to derive a new method for

prediction of medium-term shaft friction for driven piles in sand.

Lehane, Barry, Prof

38


Co-supervisors: Fourie, Andy, Prof

Liquefaction resistance of silty tailings and partially saturated

sands Disciplines: Civil, Mining

The project will involve use of an existing shake table facility to examine the liquefaction

resistance of sands and silty sands with various relative densities and layering profiles. Results

will be compared with trends measured in a smaller scale separate series of cyclic simple

shear tests performed using conventional equipment.

Lei, Wen, Professor

Semiconductor Nanosensors

Disciplines: Chemical, Electrical & Electronic, Materials

Semiconductor nanostructures are semiconductor materials of nanoscale dimensions, including

zero-, one-, and two-dimensional nanostructures. They have many unique properties such as

large surface area-to-volume ratio, very high aspect ratio, and strong quantum confinement

including both carrier and photon. This leads to many unique and desirable electronic and

optical properties for semiconductor nanostructures and thus various novel devices with

superior performance over existing devices to revolutionise our technological world. These

nanodevices include transistors, light emitters, solar cells, and sensors that are used in our daily

life such as mobile phones, large-area displays, solar panels, and telecommunication systems. Apart from their super performance, these nanodevices present other advantages such as

smaller size, lower cost, and higher energy efficiency, compared to traditional semiconductor

devices with larger dimensions.

In this project, we will focus on the development of one- and/or two-dimensional

semiconductor nanosensors with numerous potential applications ranging from light sensing,

to environment sensing, and to telecommunication. This project can be divided into two main

modules in which students choose both or either modules or any aspects of each module

depending on interests of the students and duration of the program:

(1) Synthesis of high quality semiconductor nanostructures using CVD and/or MBE material

growth tools, and understand, through various structural, electrical, and optical

characterisation techniques, how to (i) improve the material quality, (ii) control the

composition and material, and (iii) to engineer the bandstructure of nanostructures;

(2) Fabrication and characterisation of semiconductor nanosensors which involve (i) the design

of the sensor structures, (ii) the use of state-of-the-art device fabrication facilities to make

nanosensor devices, and (iii) characterising the performance and properties of the nanosensors

to understand the underlying physics of the devices.

Through this project, the students will develop practical expertise and experience needed by

semiconductor and other industries, including:

39


(1) Material synthesis/growth using CVD and/or MBE material growth facilities;

(2) Design and modeling of semiconductor devices;

(3) Material processing and device fabrication technologies within a cleanroom environment;

(4) Nanoscale material and device characterisation;

Required background:

Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Material Science, Physics, and Chemistry.

Leong, Yee-Kwong, Professor

Upgrading the quality of Iron ore in slurries

Disciplines: Chemical, Environmental, Mechanical


The project looks at a range of surface chemistry means of separating iron oxide from

impurities. Surface chemistry tools such as adsorbed additives will be evaluated. The purity of

iron ore will be quantified using a density method.


Rheology of iron ore tailings: effects of water chemistry

Disciplines: Chemical, Environmental, Mechanical


The quality of borewater varies from location to location in terms of dissolved ions. The aim

of this study is to evaluate the effect of borewater from different sources on the rheology of

iron ore tailings.


Population balance modelling of fragmentation of polymer

bridged

Disciplines: Chemical, Environmental


Temporal experimental particle size distribution data for the fragmentation process in

Taylor-Couette flow are already available. Mathematica program for simulating the population

balance model is also available. The student tasks i) input PSD data at zero time ii) modify and

change the parameters of the program to compute PSD data that closely matches the

expermental PSD data.The program will only take continuous PSD data. The students will need

to convert the discrete PSD data to continuous form.

40


Li, Jianxin, Dr

Emotion learning: location-aware social media sentiment

analysis


Prerequisite skills: Significant programming skills; Python is required.

Tracking sentiment helps you understand what the individual behind a social media post is

feeling. Knowing the emotion behind a post can provide important context for how you

proceed and respond. For example, Martin sets up his Twitter mentions on Hootsuite to

scan for Tweets containing positive terms such as ‘thank you,’ ‘love,’ and ‘amazing.’ He also

makes sure to search for sentiment-indicating emojis, such as the thumbs up or smiley face.

Hootsuite Insights provides an overview of sentiment with an easy-to-read meter. This allows

you to quickly see how your brand is doing from a sentiment point of view, and monitor for any changes. Reference https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-sentiment-analysis-tools/ .

Li, Jianxin, Dr

Social media driven finance data analytics


Prerequisite skills: Python programming skills, OR have strong finance modeling

background.

Nowadays, the use of social media has reached unprecedented levels. Among all social media,

with its popular micro-blogging service, Twitter enables users to share short messages in real

time about events or express their own opinions.

We have developed the preliminary methods to derive people’s opinions and stock data

information. Now we are looking for FYP students to further investigate the prediction

models using Machine Learning techniques or AI techniques or Finance Models.

Liu, Jishan, Professor

CO2 Sequestration in Unconventional Reservoirs

Disciplines: Chemical, Oil & Gas, Petroleum Prerequisite skills: familiar with COMSOL; basic knowledge of reservoir

engineering

The objective of this project is to understand various mechanisms for carbon dioxide (CO2)

sequestration in depleted unconventional reservoirs. These mechanisms may include (1) gas

adsorption/desorption under in-situ pressure and temperature conditions; (2) CO2-coal

(shale) interactions; (3) CO2 phase behaviors; and (4) injection pressures. COMSOL as a

commercial tool will be used to conduct the research. The research results will have significant

implications for the effective sequestration of CO2 in depleted unconventional reservoirs.

41


Liu, Jishan, Professor

Extraction of Unconventional Gases

Disciplines: Chemical, Oil & Gas, Petroleum

Prerequisite skills: familiar with COMSOL; basic knowledge of reservoir

engineering

The objective of this project is to understand various mechanisms for the extraction of

unconventional gases (coal seam gas and shale gas). These mechanisms may include (1)

evolution of shale or coal porosity; (2) evolution of shale or coal permeability; (3) effects of

coal and shale deformation; (4) effects of hydraulic fractures. COMSOL as a commercial tool

will be used to conduct the research. The research results will have significant implications for

the effective extraction of unconventional gases.

Liu, Wei, Professor

Co-supervisors: Hodkiewicz, Melinda, Prof; French, Tim, Dr

Cognitive Computing of Maintenance Records


Prerequisite skills: Requires >75% in any of CITS2200, CITS3001, CITS3002 or

CITS4404

There is a huge interest from major manufacturing and resource companies in being able to

automate the processing of manually completed maintainer work orders. These work orders

capture information about the state of the equipment and work done by the maintainer. This

information is vital in assessing the reliability of the equipment.

We have been working with a major resource company for a number of years on this

exciting area. This project is for CSSE students or computing literate EE’s with the right

experience (see below) who are doing MPE. We are looking for someone interested in

ontology development, text mining, and other cognitive computing methods and their

application to an important industry problem.

Male, Sally, Associate Professor

Development and trial of virtual work integrated learning

modules

Disciplines: Chemical, Civil, Electrical & Electronic, Environmental, Mechanical,

Mining

Prerequisite skills: An interest in engineering practice, good communication skills

42


Students of accredited engineering programs in Australia must engage with engineering

practice. This project will contribute to an overarching project on virtual work integrated

learning (WIL) for engineering students. In the overarching project, learning modules are being

developed to expose students to practice without real work placements. Previous final year

students have investigated learning outcomes and learning activities for virtual WIL in engineering. Current and new final year students will develop and test virtual WIL modules,

building on the work of the previous students. Students will collaborate with the Virtual WIL

Project Team which includes researchers from UWA, CingleVue International, Curtin

University, The University of Queensland, Murdoch University, Engineers Australia, and the

Australian Council of Engineering Deans. Students will select modules on which to focus.

Topics taught in the modules include tendering, roles of engineers, engineering communication,

and safety in design, among others. Some of these projects use virtual reality or immersive

environments.

Male, Sally, Associate Professor Co-supervisors: Hassan, Ghulam Mubashar, Dr

Development and trial of virtual work integrated learning

environments

Disciplines: Civil, Electrical & Electronic, Environmental, Mechanical, Mining,

Software

Prerequisite skills: An interest in engineering practice, good communication skills

Students of accredited engineering programs in Australia must engage with engineering

practice. This project will contribute to an overarching project on virtual work integrated

learning (WIL) for engineering students. In the overarching project, learning modules are being developed to expose students to practice without real work placements. Previous final year

students have investigated learning outcomes and learning activities for virtual WIL in

engineering. New final year students are will develop and test virtual WIL modules, building on

the work of the previous students. Students will collaborate with the Virtual WIL Project

Team which includes researchers from UWA, CingleVue International, Curtin University, The

University of Queensland, Murdoch University, Engineers Australia, and the Australian Council

of Engineering Deans. Students will select modules on which to focus. Topics taught in the

modules include tendering, roles of engineers, engineering communication, and safety in design,

among others. These projects involve developing virtual reality or immersive environments.

Martyniuk, Mariusz, Associate Professor Co-supervisors: Lei, Wen, Professor; Umana-Membreno, Gilberto,

Associate Professor

Investigation of mechanical properties of mercury cadmium

selenide thin films via nanoindentation

Disciplines: Electrical & Electronic, Materials, Mechanical

Prerequisite skills: physics/engineering/materials science

43


This is a hands-on project involving a series of experimental instrumented nanoindentation runs

on thin film samples. Data analysis and scientific reporting is a significant part of the project.

The outcome of the project is to report the mechanical properties (Young’s modulus, hardness,

etc) of novel thin films of mercury cadmium selenide grown by molecular beam epitaxy at the

Western Australian Node of the Australian National Fabrication Facility. The student should have a physics/engineering/materials science background, and potentially with specific prior

knowledge/experience in instrumented nanoindentation.

May, Eric, Prof Co-supervisors: Graham, Brendan, Dr; Rowland, Darren, Dr

Avoiding Cryogenic Solids Formation in LNG Production



Unplanned shutdowns of LNG plants caused by hydrocarbon solids blocking cryogenic heat

exchangers are a major, ongoing problem for the industry. Current methods of avoiding them

are costly and energy intensive. This project aims to produce the required new data and

develop new predictive models relevant to natural gas processing and LNG production to help

avoid unexpected shutdowns, improve plant efficiency, and increase safety.

May, Eric, Prof Co-supervisors: Metaxas, Peter, Dr; Arjmandi, Mosayyeb, Dr

Container-free hydrates: hydrate formation in acoustically

levitated water droplets Disciplines: Chemical, Mechanical, Oil & Gas


Gas hydrates are ice-like compounds consisting of water and gas molecules that can form

within, and block, oil and gas flow lines. In this project, students will use Australia’s first high-

pressure acoustic levitation facility to study hydrate formation in water droplets that are

suspended (via acoustic levitation) within a high pressure gas phase. This approach offers the

unique possibility to study hydrate formation in container-less conditions. By removing the

influence of the solid surface of a containment vessel (whose presence favours surface-

dependent heterogeneous nucleation), the acoustic levitator enables an exciting opportunity

to probe the fundamental processes governing hydrate formation in gas-water systems. This

information will represent a critical contribution to a wider effort aimed at developing more

economical, risk-based approaches to hydrate management and prevention which have

significant potential benefits for the oil and gas industry.

May, Eric, Professor Co-supervisors: Al Ghafri, Saif, Dr

44


Improved Viscosity Modelling for Natural Gas Mixtures


Prerequisite skills: Data analysis and literature survey

Production and optimization of natural gas process is designed using predictions of the

mixture’s thermodynamic and transport properties over wide range of pressure, temperature

and composition conditions. However, the extent to which engineering margins are used in

such designs is mainly influenced by the accuracy of the property predictions (such as viscosity)

used in the process simulation. The accuracy of the models used for predicting the fluid

properties are in turn dependent on the extent and uncertainty of experimental data used to

develop and validate the model. This project aims to explore and improve the prediction of

viscosity models for natural gas mixtures. In particular, the focus will be on optimizing the

prediction of friction theory (FT) approach against comprehensive viscosity data from the

literature.

May, Eric, Professor Co-supervisors: Al Ghafri, Saif, Dr; Perez, Fernando, Mr

Experimental Analysis and Simulation of LNG Boil-off-Gas



Natural Gas (NG) is transform into Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) to be transported in an

economic way, during which Boil-Off gas (BOG) can occur. This an important phenomenon

that affects the gas industry, specifically during the storage and transportation of LNG.

Furthermore, it can lead into the formation of stratified layers where a sudden mixing of existing stratified layers within a liquid phase occurs (Rollover). Limited data is available in

literature and models fail to accurately predict this incident. The development of reliable and

detail measurements will provide significant benefits in both transportation and storage of this

energy source.

This research mimicked the conditions of an LNG vessel by building and designing a laboratory

BOG apparatus that will allow the study of the effect of heat flux, volume, Boil-Off gas rate and

composition on the BOG. The apparatus is already built and installed where variety of LNG

mixtures will be studied during transient and steady state conditions at a temperature of -162

°C and around 1 atm. These measurements will help to design an accurate model to predict

this phenomenon and it will be compared to other models available in literature.

McCormick, Paul, E Professor

Performance and Modelling of Solar Energy Applications


Prerequisite skills: Electrical understanding, computing skills

Potential applications include solar EV modeling, hybrid storage systems and battery performance and

modelling

45


McDonald, Chris, Dr

Visualisation of C's Dynamic Memory Allocation and Data

Structures


Prerequisite skills: Strengths in C or C++ programming and a desire to improve

them

As computer hardware becomes both faster and capacious, we can investigate previously too-

expensive techniques to support novice programmers. One such technique involves capturing the

entire execution trace of a running program - its control flow and memory accesses - so that its

execution may be reviewed. The program is not re-executed; instead its prior execution may be

replayed, sped up, slowed down, and inspected. This provides great opportunity for novice

programmers - they can watch the execution of a correct program, or determine which prior action

resulted in a much later bug. It provides the opportunity to debug programs without fully knowing

what to look for! This project will identify, implement, and evalute visualisations of C's dynamic

memory allocation and data structures. This project will draw on and extend the work of Dr

Matthew Heinsen Egan who has developed a trace-based debugging environment for novice C

programmers, using Clang and LLVM.

McDonald, Chris, Dr

Modelling Connected Autonomous Vehicles and

Infrastructure



them Within 5 years years, the average consumer will be able to purchase an autonomous vehicle and drive

it on our public roads, resulting in a dramatic change to traffic patterns and travel times. Beyond the

benefits of autonomous vehicles are connected vehicles - vehicles that communicate their state,

intention, and traffic conditions to other vehicles and to road-side infrastructure. The potential

benefits of vehicle-to-infrastructure communication, particularly, are significant, including controlling

vehicles through intersections - no more traffic lights - and using current and predicted road and

congestion conditions to adjust the speed of vehicles.

Connected vehicle simulation needs to accurately simulate both the driving and route planning of

vehicles, and the wireless communication in a very crowded environment. This project will draw on

and extend the work of Jordan Hedges to develop secured communication between connected

46


autonomous vehicles and infrastructure.

McDonald, Chris, Dr

Operating System visualisation using DTrace and SystemTap



them

Computing textbooks employ many static 'before-and-after' figures, hoping to convey the interactions

between programs and operating systems, and the transitions of internal operating system structures.

Historically, Computer Science educators have hoped to breathe life into these textbook figures with

purpose-developed visualisation tools but, unfortunately, these have often required specific and

unsustainable programming, compiling, and execution practices. Moreover, many of these tools have a

constrained scope, or only support prebuilt demonstrations. These well-intentioned approaches often

increase students' cognitive load, leaving them confused as to what is to be learned. The DTrace

framework (under Apple's macOS) and SystemTap (under Linux) both enable a process's execution

and its interactions with the operating system kernel to be traced and annotated at a fine grain. They

both provide well recognized benefits for systems administration, but also a great opportunity for

Computer Science Education. This project will review and extend the project of Jurek Malarecki, to

develop visualisations to trace the execution of programs, provided by an educator, being developed

and debugged by students, or even standard system and application programs.

McFerran, John, Dr Co-supervisors: Ivanov, Eugene, Prof

Frequency comb stabilization for an optical lattice clock


Prerequisite skills: Some knowledge of electronic systems

Optical-atomic-lattice clocks are the most stable and, arguably, accurate clocks produced by

humankind so far. Their accuracy is equivalent to a few seconds disagreement over the age

of the universe. The UWA lattice clock is in a preliminary stage of operation and aims to be

part of an international network of atomic clocks. It relies on a frequency comb (a specific

type of mode-locked laser) for carrying out frequency measurements, as well as stabilizing

laser frequencies. This project will involve producing a microwave frequency link between a

cryogenic sapphire oscillator and the frequency comb. This will confer improved spectral

purity on laser signals and will help improve the performance of the lattice clock.

Spectroscopy on the clock transition in ytterbium may also be incorporated into the project.

It is part of the ARC’s Centre of Excellence for Engineered Quantum Systems (EQuS) 2018-

2024.

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Further details at: www.physics.uwa.edu.au/research/frequency-quantum-metrology

Metaxas, Peter, Dr

Magnetic nano-oscillators for biological sensing


This project is aimed at the experimental development and testing of novel magnetic

nanoparticle detectors for downstream application in biological sensing and medical

diagnostics. The student will focus on a unique frequency-based particle detection method

using nano-scale electronic devices known as spin torque oscillators. If of interest, the project

can have a simulation focus in which case the student would use graphics processing units

(GPUs) to run highly efficient micromagnetic device simulations which will complement and

support the ongoing experimental research program.

Mian, Ajmal, Assoc Professor

Co-supervisors: Gilani, Syed, Dr, Hassan, Ghulam, Dr

Automatic age and gender classification from facial images


Prerequisite skills: Computer vision, Matlab or Python, Tensorflow or Caffe

Automatic age estimation has many applications in marketing and planning of resources at

public places. Recently, deep learning has achieved higher accuracy than human observers at

estimating the age of a person from a single image. In this project, the student will use deep

neural network models to develop an end to end system that performs face detection and

age estimation classification. Existing pre-trained networks will be fine-tuned to achieve higher accuracy on video streamed from a local webcam.

Pre-trained CNN models and dataset are available at

https://data.vision.ee.ethz.ch/cvl/rrothe/imdb-wiki/ .

Mian, Ajmal, Assoc Professor

Co-supervisors: Gilani, Syed, Dr, Hassan, Ghulam, Dr

Automatic pedestrian detection in videos


Prerequisite skills: Computer vision, Matlab or Python, Tensorflow or Caffe

http://www.physics.uwa.edu.au/research/frequency-quantum-metrology

https://data.vision.ee.ethz.ch/cvl/rrothe/imdb-wiki/

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Automatic pedestrian detection is an important component of autonomous cars and is also

useful for city planning. In this project the student will use deep learning to develop an

automatic pedestrian detection algorithm. The algorithm should exploit spatio-temporal

features from moving camera and moving pedestrian to increase the accuracy of the system.

The output of the system should be the locations of all pedestrians visible in image as well as their scales. The results should be displayed as bounding boxes around the pedestrians. The

project will use existing benchmark datasets for fine-tuning CNN models and data collection

is not a part of this project. Benchmark datasets can be found at

http://www.vision.caltech.edu/Image_Datasets/CaltechPedestrians/

Miller, Karol, Winthrop Prof

Biomechanics: Stress and strain in abdominal aortic

aneurysm



This is a finite element simulation project using Abaqus and our one code BioPARR

http://bioparr.mech.uwa.edu.au/ .

This project is in collaboration with Harvard’s Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging

https://www.martinos.org/, Fraunhofer MEVIS institute in Germany

http://www.mevis.fraunhofer.de/ and Katolieke Universitat Leuven

The best students will have an opportunity to travel to collaborating labs.


Computer Simulation of breast deformation for surgical

navigation in breast cancer



Computer Simulation of breast deformation for surgical navigation in breast cancer (with

Surgical Planning Laboratory http://spl.harvard.edu, Harvard and PERK Lab

http://perk.cs.queensu.ca/ at Queens University, Canada), max. 4 students.

Projects in collaboration with Harvard Medical School. The projects are best suited for

mechanical or civil engineering students and perhaps computer science students.

The best students will have an opportunity to travel to Harvard.


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Computer simulation of brain deformations for epilepsy

treatment and tumour resection



Computer simulation of brain deformations for epilepsy treatment (with Computational

Radiology Laboratory http://crl.med.harvard.edu/, Harvard) and tumour resection (with

Surgical Planning Laboratory http://spl.harvard.edu, Harvard), max. 4 students

Projects in collaboration with Harvard Medical School. The projects are best suited for

mechanical or civil engineering students and perhaps computer science students.

The best students will have an opportunity to travel to Harvard.

Milne, George, Professor Co-supervisors: Manning, Laurens, A/Prof (Medicine)

Davies, Tim, Prof (Medicine)

Development of a Simulation Model for Malaria

Transmission


Prerequisite skills: Good C++ skills

Malaria continues to be a major health burden in tropical countries, with approx. one million

deaths due to malaria occurring each year. There is a major campaign working towards eliminating this significant insect-transmitted disease, with major funding coming from the Bill

and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Australian Government and other organisations. There is

a need to determine the most effective control and eradication strategies, such as increasing

use of bed nets or optimal use of new drug treatments. Simulation modelling technology

which captures the dynamics of infectious disease spread is being increasingly used to

determine the effectiveness of interventions which can reduce infection and disease spread.

The World Health Organisation and the Australian Department of Health now determine

vaccination policy based on modelling studies.

Modelling is necessary as it is usually infeasible and costly to introduce a new vaccine without

first determining its benefit to a country, for example. But someone needs to develop these

models and make them available to health authorities! This work has been going on in the

Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering over the past 15 years, with a

focus on influenza and dengue viruses. The approach we take is to build “virtual worlds” of

communities, capturing the movement of people (and mosquitoes) between households,

schools and workplaces; it is this movement which allows diseases to spread. So we simulate

disease spread via movement and transmission algorithms which are implemented in

software.

The project will develop a novel spatially-explicit malaria simulation model. It will build on a

dengue/Zika model previously developed at UWA and implemented in C++. This model

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captures people and mosquito movement over the landscape, and infection transmission by

mosquitoes biting humans. Our project will work through the key phases of software

development, including: requirement specification; version control; and testing against malaria

infection data from PNG. It is planned to use Atlassian tools such as Jira and Confluence

throughout the project.

Prerequisites: good C++ skills

Outcomes: skills development in teamwork; training in disease modelling; contribution to a

public good project

Milne, Ian, Dr Co-supervisors: Whelan, James, Dr (Woodside)

Predicting Mooring Line Failure of FPSOs Using Machine

Learning


Prerequisite skills: Hydrodynamics, Metocean, Matlab

Detecting a mooring line failure on Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) facilities

used in the oil and gas industry is a significant challenge faced by operators. FPSO mooring

systems typically have between 6 and 20 mooring lines. Single line mooring failures are frequent and can be costly if not detected in a timely manner and remediated. Existing systems for

monitoring mooring integrity are expensive, difficult to install, or require significant ongoing

maintenance of the instrumentation packages.

To address these challenges, a mooring integrity monitoring system based on analyzing the

statistics of the FPSO mooring turret trajectory using machine learning is proposed. The

approach analyses the statistics of the FPSO turret trajectory during a 1-hour time period of

stationary metocean conditions with expected turret trajectory statistics. Machine learning is

then used to assess whether the mooring system is intact or has experienced a single line

failure.

This research project will investigate the performance of the machine learning approach by (i)

utilising measured turret trajectory data for an FPSO located offshore Western Australia and

comparing the predictions against numeric analysis and (ii) assessing its robustness to

uncertainty in FPSO loading conditions and metocean inputs. The project will be undertaken

using numeric mooring analysis software Arianne and MatLab machine learning modules. The

project builds on research undertaken in 2017-18.

These projects are technically challenging and previous experience with floating systems and

oil and gas operations is highly desirable.

Nener, Brett, Professor Co-supervisors: Parish, Giacinta, Professor

Advanced Sensing Technologies: Transistor-based biosensors

Disciplines: Electrical & Electronic, Materials, Mechanical, Mechatronic

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Students will work together on the one or more of following integrated project components

(and will also work alongside students working in the adjacent projects on “transistor-based

chemical sensors for contaminant monitoring”).

1. Physical, chemical, materials and biological characterisation of functionalisation methods, particularly surface and cell studies

2. Electrical, chemical, biochemical and physical characterisation and optimisation of

functionalised ion sensors

3. Mechanical, electrical and chemical characterisation and optimisation of packaging techniques

4. Design and integration of complementary sensors (pH, temperature, drift compensation) to

maximise reliability.

5. Adapt device design, packaging, measurement protocols for reliable, reference electrode

free, operation.

6. Modelling of individual devices, packaged devices and the device-functionalisation layer-

solution interface.

Orszaghova, Jana, Dr Co-supervisors: Wolgamot, Hugh, Dr; Rijnsdorp, Dirk, Dr; Ragni,

Raffaele, Dr; Chow, Shiao Huey, Dr

Studying moorings for wave energy devices using scaled field

trials

Disciplines: Civil, Mechanical, Oil & Gas

Prerequisite skills: Passed GENG5501 Coastal and Offshore Engineering unit to

be considered for the projects. Due to the nature of the project, successful

students will be encouraged to complete a UWA snorkelling course so that they

can participate fully in field tests.

Are you interested in renewable energy technology – specifically ocean wave energy? Would you like

to participate in the Woodside FutureLab-funded RiverLab working on innovative engineering

solutions? This RiverLab project will pull together a multi-disciplinary team to investigate the

suitability of suction caissons for mooring wave energy devices. This project is particularly relevant to

meeting Australia’s Renewable Energy Target (RET), with UWA located on the west coast of

Australia, which has one of the highest wave power levels in the world.

The development of offshore renewable energy, particularly wave energy, has taken off slowly due to

technical and economic challenges. One critical challenge is to produce a reliable and cost effective

foundation to moor floating energy devices to the seabed. A solution could be a suction caisson

anchor. The performance of suction caissons relies on successful installation to the required

embedment depth. Once installed, it is imperative to be able to predict the capacity of the suction

caisson when subject to environmental (i.e. wave ) loading.

This project will build upon a recently completed Riverlab project on wave energy. The Swan River will

be utilised as a model wave basin, where field tests of the complete system (anchor + mooring + floating

buoy) will be performed. The geotechnical aspects of the project will focus on design, installation and

in-service performance of the model suction caisson. A critical element will be a development of an

improved load cell for monitoring the foundation loads during operation of the system. The

hydrodynamic aspects of the project will focus on design of a scaled floating resonator optimised for

the Swan River wave climate. Study of the locally generated wind waves will be an essential part of the

52


project. More details about the Woodside FutureLab RiverLab program can be found here:

http://www.oceans.uwa.edu.au/collaborations/woodside-futurelab/riverlab

Project 1: Design and response of the resonant floating oscillator and its mooring system

(supervised by Jana Orszaghova, Hugh Wolgamot)

The student will design a resonant system comprised of a floating buoy and a taut-mooring with a

suitable restoring force. The system will be optimised to match expected wave conditions in the

River. He/she will then be involved in the deployment and field monitoring of the system. The

gathered motion and load data will be analysed and compared to theoretical predictions.

Project 2: Measuring and predicting wave climate in Swan River (supervised by Hugh

Wolgamot, Dirk Rijnsdorp, Jana Orszaghova)

The student will measure the local wave conditions in the Swan River using a sophisticated acoustic

surface tracking device (Nortek Signature), and analyse the data to define the wave climate, and to

better understand both operational and extreme conditions that the device can encounter. Modelling

tools and empirical formulations will subsequently be developed and validated based on the collected

data in order to be able to predict future wave conditions that the floating oscillator might encounter.

Project 3: Installation and performance of suction caisson under environmental loading

(supervised by Raffaele Ragni)

The student will design the model suction caisson to produce the most optimum foundation size and

the required installation system. He/she will then be involved in the

field installation and monitoring of the in-service performance of the model suction caisson under

environmental loading.

Project 4: Measuring the mooring line load (supervised by Shiaohuey Chow)

The student will design and develop a self-contained measurement unit (combining a load cell and

inertial measurement unit) that is able to measure the mooring line load and trajectory in the field

tests. He/she will conduct bench-marking tests on the prototype measurement unit in the laboratory

and the Swan River.

Parish, Giacinta, Professor Co-supervisors: Nener, Brett, Professor

Advanced Sensing Technologies: Transistor-based chemical

sensors for contaminant monitoring

Disciplines: Chemical, Electrical & Electronic, Environmental, Materials,

Mechanical, Mechatronic


Reliable, economically accessible technology for in situ monitoring of contaminants in water

has the power to transform health, industry, and society the world around. Applications of

such monitoring range from process control monitoring and optimisation for industry, to water

supply quality and wastewater monitoring, to environmental monitoring for resource

extraction, and beyond.

The microelectronics-based technology under investigation in this project will enable in situ, real-time contaminant monitoring that is accurate, reliable and low-cost. Semiconductor-based

53


technology offers high performance and can also be mass produced at low-cost with flexible

functionalisation allowing for a variety of analytes. Furthermore, it offers the ability to integrate

multiple sensors into one chip, along with wireless communication technology for maximum

benefit of the in situ monitoring capability.

Students will work together on the one or more of following integrated project components (and will also work alongside students working in the adjacent projects on “transistor-based

biosensors”).

1. Physical, chemical, materials characterisation of functionalisation methods, particularly

surface studies

2. Electrical, chemical and physical characterisation and optimisation of functionalised ion

sensors

3. Mechanical, electrical and chemical characterisation and optimisation of packaging techniques

4. Design and integration of complementary sensors (pH, temperature, drift compensation) to

maximise reliability.

5. Adapt device design, packaging, measurement protocols for reliable, reference electrode

free, operation.

The ability to monitor biological and chemical signals with an electronic device is a

tremendously innovative approach for cell research and process control in pharmaceutical and

microbiological production, and chemical sensing applications. A bio-friendly, chemically inert

and stable III-Nitride-transistor-based bio/chem-sensor will be developed to detect responses

to various specific compounds/chemicals, particularly through cell receptors. The successful

development of this electronic biosensor technology has the potential to improve health and

disease treament through major improvemements in throughput, precision, quality, speed and

simplicity of, for example, drug and disease testing methods.

Ravanbakhsh, Mehdi, A/Professor and Mapizy CEO Co-supervisors: Mian, Ajmal, A/Professor

Ramzi, Pouria, Mapizy CTO

Automatic solar panel extraction in aerial images

Disciplines: Civil, Oil & Gas, and Software

Prerequisite skills: Python Programming, image processing, computer vision

Solar power generation has emerged as one of the most rapidly growing renewable source of

electricity. There has been a significant increase in the number of installed solar panels in

recent years. However, little information on geographical distribution and density of solar

panels is available. Up-to-date maps of solar panels is a key information for effective energy

policy making and financial assessment of solar distributed generation.

The current approach for solar panels detection is manual which is time-consuming and

costly. Furthermore, manual approach cannot keep up with the demand for frequent updating

of solar panels map.

This project aims to develop an automated approach for the extraction of solar panel in

aerial images. It includes two steps: first, solar panels presence are determined through deep

54


learning technology followed by their delineation through computer vision methods and

techniques

Ravanbakhsh, Mehdi, A/Professor and Mapizy CEO Co-supervisors: Mian, Ajmal, A/Professor

Ramzi, Pouria, Mapizy CTO

Automatic swimming pools extraction in aerial images

Disciplines: Civil, Enviromental, Oil & Gas, and Software

Prerequisite skills: Python Programming, image processing, computer vision

An accurate and up-to-date map of swimming pools is needed by authorities for the

estimation of energy expenditure to maintain the pools, water volume for fire-fighting and the

potential spread of mosquito’s related diseases.

The current approach for swimming pools detection is manual which is time-consuming and

costly. Furthermore, manual approach cannot keep up with the demand for frequent updating

of swimming pools map.

This project aims to develop an automated approach for the extraction of swimming pools in

aerial images. It includes two steps: first, swimming pools presence are determined through

deep learning technology followed by their delineation through computer vision methods and

techniques.

Reynolds, Mark, A/Prof Co-supervisors: Vulpe, Cristina, Dr

Development of new software tools for mapping deep-water

environment changes

Disciplines: Oil & Gas and Software

Prerequisite skills: Data science, programming

The purpose of the project is to develop software capable of reading and interpreting large

databases of centrifuge experiments outputs.

A series of centrifuge tests has been carried out in order to characterize the changing

properties of the deep-water environment during the operating lifetime of oil&gas

infrastructure. The centrifuge tests results database tracks the changes in the soil and water

conditions under and around the deep-water infrastructure.

The new software is expected to be capable of:

- Reading large databases of centrifuge outputs concurrently

- Interpret the change in environment during the lifetime of deep-water infrastructure

operations

55


- Present in 3D graphical form changes in deep-water environment during deep-water

infrastructure operations

Excellent programming skills are required, as well as a desire to work on a multi-disciplinary

topic (i.e., geotechnical engineering and data science). Some use of AI or Machine Learning

techniques is expected to fill in for some missing data and extrapolate. Prior knowledge of fundamental soil mechanics and consolidation theory are not compulsory.

Reynolds, Mark, A/Prof Co-supervisors: Huynh, Du, Dr

Bat Call Identification via Machine Learning


Prerequisite skills: Programming (familiarity with Python would be ideal)

Bats are useful indicator species in ecological surveys. Typically, a device will record

ultrasonic echolocation calls in the field and the subsequent data will be analysed to identify

the bat species present. This is a laborious process that is amenable to machine learning. One

such proprietary system has been used successfully to classify several years of calls in the

South Coast region of WA.

However some bat species, especially of the genus nyctophilus, are not amenable to the zero

crossing techniques commonly used. McKenzie and Bullen (2003, 2009, 2012) have shown

that the sharpness quotient, Q, of the fundamental harmonic and the characteristic frequency

of the bat call cluster rather distinctly between different species of bats including nyctophilus.

The aim of this project is to examine whether similar techniques might be used for machine

learning of call identification for the bats of the South Coast region.

You would be provided with full spectrum recordings covering several years in WAC/WAV

files plus zero crossing analysis data and probable bat identification.

There would be a requirement to complete a Bush Heritage Australia research project form,

which details IP and the like.

Schediwy, Sascha, Dr

Synchronisation of the Square Kilometre Array Radio

Telescope


Prerequisite skills: Required: experience with analogue electronics and PCB design

Beneficial: experience with optical fibre systems, digital electronics

The aim of this project is to contribute to the development of the frequency synchronisation

system for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope.

The SKA will be the largest and most complex astronomical instrument to date, with

individual antennas spread over continental scales. One of the most complex technical

56


challenges will be the coherent combination of astronomical signals collected by the hundreds

of remote antennas. To achieve this, astronomical observations must be synchronised using

timing signals of exquisite accuracy and precision. The SKA will utilise the same optical fibre

network to transport the astronomical data to the SKA’s central computer and to distribute

high-quality timing signals to each antenna.

The student will work as part of the Astrophotonics Group at the International Centre for

Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) to help design, build, and test an optical fibre-based

frequency distribution system tailored to meet the scientific needs and logistical challenges of

the SKA. This system will be developed in our UWA laboratory and tested on Perth’s

AARNet fibre networks, with the aim to deploy the finished product on the MeerKAT

telescope in South Africa, and at the Murchison Radio Observatory in outback Australia.

This research will be conducted in collaboration with the international SKA Signal and Data

Transport Consortium, the University of Manchester’s Jodrell Bank Observatory, and SKA

South Africa. For more information, see: www.icrar.org/people/sschediwy/. If you have

further questions about the project or doubts about meeting the prerequisites listed below,

please contact Dr Sascha Schediwy before selecting this project.


Free-Space Laser Links for Space Applications

Disciplines:, Electrical & Electronic, Mechatronic

Prerequisite skills: Required: experience working with electronic systems

Beneficial: experience working with optical systems

The aim of this project is to further the development of ultra-precise laser timing links to

support the next generation of pioneering space missions and cutting-edge timing technology.

The pioneering mission for laser timing links is the European Space Agency’s Atomic Clock

Ensemble in Space (ACES) project. This $100M global mega-science project will compare the

time-scales of atomic clocks in the microgravity environment of the International Space

Station, against state-of-the-art atomic clocks on Earth, with the University of Western

Australia having been selected as the only ACES ground station in the Southern Hemisphere.

However, as first-generation laser timing links are simply re-purposed existing satellite laser

ranging facilities, which all use pulsed-laser systems, clock-comparison measurements can only

be made over small fractions of the total satellite transit time.


Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) and will use a new custom-built, continuous-wave laser

system with a technique to actively suppress atmospheric path-length fluctuations and test

this over a multi-kilometre laser link test facility at UWA. The work will include constructing

an adaptive optics system and incorporating this into the existing laser link. The final system

57


will then be deployed at the Mount Stromlo Satellite Laser Ranging Observatory for long-

range atmospheric trials.

This work will be conducted in collaboration with the Australian National University and the

Technical University of Munich. For more information, see: www.icrar.org/people/sschediwy/.

If you have further questions about the project or doubts about meeting the prerequisites

listed below, please contact Dr Sascha Schediwy before selecting this project.


Building the First Long-Baseline Optical Astronomical

Interferometer


Prerequisite skills: Required: physics undergraduate degree or equivalent

Beneficial: optical systems, high-speed data acquisition

The aim of this project is to take the first steps to develop a revolutionary new type of

optical telescope. What if you had a telescope with the baseline length of radio

interferometers, like the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), but with the resolving power of

optical wavelengths?

This project will explore the feasibility of optical very-long baseline interferometry, by

building on the University of California’s Infrared Spatial Interferometer at Berkeley, and

combining this with recent developments in stabilised optical frequency transfer over 100s of

kilometres of optical fibre. This work could open the door for a telescope with spatial

resolution 100s of times greater than the current best, revolutionising high-surface brightness

astronomy including the detection of Earth-like extra-solar planets, the structure of active

galactic nuclei, the formation mechanism of stars and planetary systems, and more.


Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) with a multidisciplinary team to build a three-element

interferometric optical telescope, with a baseline length of up to several kilometres.

This research will be conducted in collaboration with the University of California at Berkeley.

For more information, see: www.icrar.org/people/sschediwy/. If you have further questions

about the project or doubts about meeting the prerequisites listed below, please contact Dr

Sascha Schediwy before selecting this project.

Sercombe, Tim, Prof

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Electropolishing of 3D printed parts

Disciplines: Chemical, Materials, Mechanical


3D Printing is most ideally suited to parts with a high degree of geometric complexity. This

provides challenges when considering methods of improving surface finish. For metals, the

surface finish is similar to that of a casting and it is one area where it falls behind conventional

manufacturing technologies. This work continues on from previous students and will further

explore the electro polishing of 3D printed metal parts. It will look at optimization of the

process and the effect of the polishing on complex geometries.

Sercombe, Tim, Prof Co-supervisors: Ingliss, Tim, Prof

Recycling of plastic containers from pathology testing

Disciplines: Chemical, Environmental, Materials, Mechanical


The testing of pathology specimens creates a huge waste stream of single-use plastic containers.

Currently, these are not recycled in any way and mostly end up in land fill. The aim of this

project is to find an engineering use for this waste stream.

Silva, Dilusha, Professor Co-supervisors: Putrino, Gino, Associate Professor; Faraone,

Lorenzo, Professor

Advanced Sensing Technologies: Sensing in liquids

Disciplines: Chemical, Electrical & Electronic, Materials, Mechanical,

Mechatronic, Software


Researchers within AST are the leaders in Australia for micro machines (MEMS). One of their

recent inventions is an ultrasensitive MEMS based chemical and biological sensor. The

technology operates on a tiny cantilever that produces a tiny movement in response to a

chemical or biological agent it comes in contact with. At present, the key application of this

technology is in gas sensing, and has already demonstrated sensitivities better than parts-per-

million. However there are immense applications of this technology, if it could be used in a liquid environment. The broad objective of this project is to deploy and demonstrate this

technology in various liquid environments.


Lorenzo, Professor

59


Advanced Sensing Technologies: Absorption spectroscopy fo

r organics in solution

Disciplines: Chemical, Electrical & Electronic, Mechanical, Mechatronic, Software


Absorption spectroscopy can determine chemical components of a material by measurement

of which wavelengths of light are absorbed due to interaction with a sample. Applications of

this technology range from determining hydrocarbon contamination in water to detecting

cancer in skin.

This project will evaluate the ability of infrared (IR) spectroscopy to measure the chemical

composition of aqueous solutions. Trials with solutions containing a matrix of varying and

interfering IR-absorbing components will be performed for applications in environmental and

agricultural monitoring.

Techniques to improve the component prediction accuracy using techniques such as principle

component analysis will be investigated.


Lorenzo, Professor

Advanced Sensing Technologies: Nanotechnology Spectrom

eters

Disciplines: Chemical, Electrical & Electronic, Materials, Mechanical,

Mechatronic, Software


Infrared spectroscopy is finding increasing application in many industries including,

pharmaceuticals, agriculture, viticulture, remote sensing, and defence. IR spectroscopy has

successfully been demonstrated to detect a range of substances, including water, nitrogen and

carbon in soil, protein in wheat, and pollution in the atmosphere. Deployments of spectroscopy

range from lab-based instruments for high-precision applications, to semi-miniaturised

instruments for portable applications, to multi- and hyper-spectral imaging instruments for

airborne remote-sensing applications. In the airborne arena, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)

based deployments are looking increasingly attractive. The main limiting factors to more

pervasive deployment of infrared spectroscopy are presently, the capital and maintenance costs

of the spectroscopy equipment; size and portability; sensitivity to vibration and shocks; and

calibration maintenance. Particularly for application in Agriculture and the minerals industry,

the need for low cost, small and rugged spectroscopy instruments is immense.

Researchers within AST are the leaders in Australia for micro machines (MEMS). One of their

recent developments is a suite of nanometer-scale thin-film spectrometer technologies, which

stands to address all the requirements to turn infrared spectroscopy into an everyday tool. Just

imagine a spectrometer in your mobile phone that can tell you if your fruit is ripe enough or

your milk is turning sour. The overall aim of this project will be to assess and develop thin-film

spectrometer technologies for various applications. While these projects are highly challenging they can be immensely rewarding.

60



Lorenzo, Professor

Advanced Sensing Technologies: Multispectral Camera



Infrared spectroscopy is finding increasing application in many industries including,

pharmaceuticals, agriculture, viticulture, remote sensing, and defence. IR spectroscopy has

successfully been demonstrated to detect a range of substances, including water, nitrogen and

carbon in soil, protein in wheat, and pollution in the atmosphere. Deployments of spectroscopy

range from lab-based instruments for high-precision applications, to semi-miniaturised

instruments for portable applications, to multi- and hyper-spectral imaging instruments for

airborne remote-sensing applications. In the airborne arena, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) based deployments are looking increasingly attractive. The main limiting factors to more

pervasive deployment of infrared spectroscopy are presently, the capital and maintenance costs

of the spectroscopy equipment; size and portability; sensitivity to vibration and shocks; and

calibration maintenance. Particularly for application in Agriculture and the minerals industry,

the need for low cost, small and rugged spectroscopy instruments is immense.

This project will focus on developing a low-cost spectral imaging camera for agricultural

applications. The project will involve assembling the camera module to a Raspberry Pi single-

board-computer, incorporating the spectral selectivity elements, and deveoping the software

to acquire and process spectral images.

Smith, David, Prof Co-supervisors: Gardiner, Bruce, Prof (Murdoch)

Development of a suitable computational model of fluid flow

from the eye

Disciplines: Chemical, Civil, and Mechanical

Prerequisite skills: This project requires a willingness and the skills to develop a detailed

knowledge of the anatomy and physiology of the eye. Only then can appropriate hypotheses

be developed, and a suitable modeling approach be chosen. Computational modeling will

involve the solution of ordinary and/or partial differential equations, solved using either excel,

matlab or finite elements, depending on the model type.

Excessive pressure in the eye is the main risk factor for glaucoma, a leading cause of visual

impairment. In this project, we will attempt to develop a suitable computational model of

fluid flow from the eye, with a particular emphasis on explaining the ‘outflow resistance’ of

the eye.

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Sreeram, Victor , Prof Co-supervisors: Zulfiqar, Umair, Dr

Lower Order Controller Design for Flexible Space Structure

with Unknown Mathematical Model

Disciplines: Electrical & Electronic, Mechanical, Mechatronic

Prerequisite skills: Good mathematical background especially linear algebra

The mathematical model of the plant is required to compute a controller for the specific

control problem. If the mathematical model is not known a priori, system identification

techniques are employed to estimate the model. A large-scale model is generally constructed

to ensure the fidelity of the model. Since this model is an input to a controller design

procedure, it results in a very high controller which is not suitable for implementation.

Therefore, controller reduction techniques are used to obtain a controller of practically

acceptable dimensions. In this project, low order controller design is sought for a flexible

space structure whose mathematical model is not known a priori.

Sreeram, Victor , Prof Co-supervisors: Zulfiqar, Umair, Dr

Fast Circuit Simulation via Model Reduction


Prerequisite skills: Good mathematical background especially linear algebra

The circuit simulation of large-scale integrated circuits is a challenge because the

computational resources are limited despite significant advancement in the past few decades.

Model order reduction techniques are used to reduce the memory demand which aims to

yield a lower order model which accurately estimates the original system. However, the

essential properties of circuits like stability, passivity, and contractivity must be preserved in

the reduced model to avoid the non-physical behavior. In this project, fast and accurate

simulation of large-scale integrated circuits will be accomplished using model reduction

algorithms.

Sreeram, Victor , Prof Co-supervisors: Kharrazi, Ali, Mr

Optimal Sizing of Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) in

Microgrid

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Prerequisite skills: Power System Analysis, Power Electronics, Microgrid and Optimization

technique knowledge

A Microgrid is a small scale power system that consists of distributed generation sources; linked in an intelligent communication and control system to supply power to distributed

loads. It can operate autonomously to be part of the main grid or switch to be islanded

depending on its type and operation scenarios. With such complicated operation

requirements, microgrids’ control in general is designed to optimize their operation by

maximising their efficiency and reliability.

Operation control in microgrids including constraint dispatch/unit-commitment, ancillary

services (spinning reserve, load following and reactive support) planning, can be formulated as

a mixed linear integer problem, and can be solved using linear/non-linear solvers.

Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) can be a key player in optimising the operation of

microgrids due to its ability to perform multi-operational functions e.g. demand management,

power quality control, backup power and energy trading.

Due their high installation cost, finding their right size is an essential part of the planning and

design of microgrids’ development. Integrating BESS within the unit-commitment problem in

microgrids requires complicated decision making algorithms and can formulate another

optimization problem. The objective of this problem is reducing operation cost at minimum

BESS size.

This project investigate the art of using optimization techniques in operating microgrids, and

using BESS to reduce their operation cost. It will also cover the BESS sizing options and

highlight the role of intelligence in reducing their size and maximising their utilisation.

Stanwix, Paul, Dr Co-supervisors: May, Eric, Prof

Microwave Cavities for Phase Behaviour Sensing Disciplines: Chemical, Mechanical, Oil & Gas


Accurate knowledge of the phase behavior of fluid mixtures is crucial for the design and

operation of gas processing and transport systems. This project aims to develop innovative

fluid sensing technology using high-precision microwave cavities, which will be capable of

accurately investigating the behavior of fluid mixtures near their phase boundaries. This

technology will be used to generate reference-quality data, necessary for development and

validation of equations-of-state, and to understand the underlying mechanisms involved in phase

transitions. Students working on this project will contribute to the design and modelling of

microwave cavities, measurement of fluid mixture phase boundaries and phase fractions, and

development of automated measurement and data analysis systems.

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Stanwix, Paul, Dr Co-supervisors: May, Eric, Prof; Al Ghafri, Saif, Dr

Measuring sound speed in low Global Warming Potential

refrigerants



The growing need for low Global Warming Potential (GWP) refrigerants has motivated the

study of numerous 4th-generation refrigerants for which there is a dearth of thermophysical

data. This project will involve measuring the speed of sound in low GWP refrigerants using a

recently constructed ultra-sonic pulse-echo experiment, developing analysis tools, and deriving

further properties such as density and specific heat capacity.

Stanwix, Paul, Dr

Developing New Approaches to Skin Diagnostics

Disciplines: Chemical, Electrical & Electronic, Mechanical, Mechatronic, Software


Whilst clinical scanners have revolutionised patient outcomes with high-resolution imaging,

there are many conditions for which it is either too expensive or doesn't provide the required

sensitivity. Skin disorders, for example, are often confined to a small region extending only a

few millimetres below the surface, for which a whole-body scan would be excessive and

inconvenient for the patient.

This project will look at applying compact single-sided Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR)

and simple Dielectric Measurements to the profiling of skin and assessing its viability as a

diagnostic and monitoring tool. Please contact me if you would like to learn more about the

project and how you can be involved.

Stanwix, Paul, Dr

Signal enhancement for low-field NMR sensing

Disciplines: Chemical, Electrical & Electronic, Environmental, Oil & Gas


Low-field nuclear magnetic resonance (LFNMR) is an attractive technique for the development

of sensors to monitor environmental and chemical engineering processes as it is cheap,

compact, and portable. It suffers, however, from the small signal associated with operating at

low magnetic field. This project will implement strategies to improve the signal to noise of

LFNMR through signal enhancement techniques and control systems to reduce sensitivity to

environmental variations. The intended application will the development of a signal

enhancement module for multi-phase flow metering. Students will be involved in developing

64


hardware, performing experiments and optimising analysis of the results. Please contact me if

you would like to learn more about the project and how you can be involved.

Stanwix, Paul, Dr

Diamond sensors for investigating chemical processes

Disciplines: Chemical, Electrical & Electronic, Environmental, Materials,

Mechanical


This project will explore the application of diamond based sensors to the study of processes

that occur at the micro-scale, for example hydrate formation or gas adsorption in in porous

media. Our understanding of and ability to model these processes would be greatly improved

by the ability to perform direct measurements of pressure and temperature inside the pores,

which requires sensors with resolution below 100 nm. Diamond is a promising platform for

development of such a sensor as it is sensitive to a wide range of parameters, even at the nano-scale, and can withstand harsh environments. Students on this project may be involved in the

development of laser-based experiments to probe diamond material, software development,

and data analysis. Please contact me if you would like to learn more about the project and how

you can be involved.

Sunderland, Andrew, Dr Co-supervisors: Ju, Li, A/Prof

Airborne Gravity Gradiometer suspension


Prerequisite skills: Experience making, modelling or designing mechanical systems

Airborne Gravity Gradiometers flying 100m above the ground are used for mineral and

hydrocarbon exploration. These gradiometers are affected by aircraft motion and engine noise.

We are looking for Physics and Engineering students to help develop a new suspension system

and acoustic shield for the Falcon airborne gravity gradiometer which will reduce the noise.

This project will involve a lot of experimental work with shakers, novel materials and field

testing.

Tavner, Angus, Dr Co-supervisors:

UWA Motorsport Projects

Disciplines: Electrical & Electronic, Materials, Mechanical, Mechatronic, Software


65


The UWA Motorsport team have commenced work on the design of an electric race car for

2018. These projects are intended to support this design and construction, and to develop

technology for the team's use. Students applying for these projects are expected to be (or

become) active and engaged members of the UWAM team. A detailed list of project topics

will be provided to interested applicants.

Tavner, Angus, Dr Co-supervisors:

Fire Testing

Disciplines: Civil, Environmental, Materials, Mechanical, Mechatronic


There are various methods available to repair steel infrastructure using composite materials,

however the repairs need additional protection in the event of a fire. Recent student projects

have developed a test rig for fire testing materials to AS1530, and it can also be used for

hydrocarbon pool-fire testing. These projects will involve refining the apparatus and testing

various materials in different conditions.

Tavner, Angus, Dr

Testing of adhesive bonds Disciplines: Chemical, Civil, Materials, Mechanical, Mechatronic


Repairing infrastructure using adhesive joints is cheaper and safer than welding, but the quality

and durability of the adhesive bond is more difficult to predict. These projects will carry on

work by recent students looking at different adhesives, surface preparation and priming,

tolerance of surface contamination, and durability.

Togneri, Roberto, Professor

Defending against the Imposters: Spoofing and

Countermeasures


Prerequisite skills: MATLAB or Python Programming, Signal Processing

Voice authentication is an important tool in the cyber security arsenal when dealing with

authenticating access to personal data using biometric voice. Speaker verification technology

has matured but so have the spoofing methods which rely on sophisticated speech synthesis methods or simple replay attacks (as they do in the movies). In this project you will work with

one of the PhD research students on the design of a simple spoofing attack and investigation

of the countermeasures based on detection of anomalies in the speech spectrum

representation or recording system transfer function. Want to know more: ASVspoof2017

Challenge , Literature Survey

http://www.asvspoof.org/

http://www.asvspoof.org/

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.specom.2014.10.005

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Who are you listening to? Audio Source Separation


Prerequisite skills: MATLAB programming, signal processing

Remember the last party you went to and how noisy it was with so many people speaking? And

yet you were able to understand what the person next to you was saying. Welcome to the

world of source separation! Your microphonic ears receive a mixture of speech signals and yet

by clever use of the statistical distribution of the speech and spatial separation using both ears

(binaural hearing) you can eliminate the interference and get the clear speech. Sounds easy?

Working with one of our PhD research students or on your own find out by researching what

blind source separation is all about and explore with your own simulations. Want to know

more: SiSEC2016 Challenge , BSS Lecture Notes


No Noise please: Speech Enhancement


Prerequisite skills: MATLAB Programming, Signal Processing

You have a single recording of speech which has been degraded by background noises both

distorting the speech and making it hard to understand. Criminal forensic investigators face this

problem every day. In this project you will investigate the approaches based on manipulating

the spectrum to remove the noise and interference, from spectral subtraction to Wiener

filtering. Of course if you are up to the challenge you can consider more sophisticated machine

learning approaches. This is a fun but challenging project where you get to play out sounds and

hear for yourself whether you have succeeded or not. Want to know more: Speech

Enhancement Bible , Easy Research Paper , Patented Technique , Importance of Phase


Did you just say that? Spoken Keyword Spotting


Prerequisite skills: MATLAB or Python Programming, Signal Processing

Speech recognition has become an important means to interact with smart devices like your TV and phone. But in data analytics and cyber security it is necessary to listen to many hours

of recordings and detect and classify key words (“explode”, “bomb”, etc.) or command

sequences (“over and out”, “roger that”, etc.) of interest. In this quite challenging project you

will investigate advanced statistical estimation and detection methods applied to audio signals

and spectra based on the idea of query-by-example (which does not require a messy speech

https://sisec.inria.fr/sisec-2016/

http://www-lisic.univ-littoral.fr/~puigt/LectureNotes/Intro_BSS/Lecture_BSS.pdf

https://www.crcpress.com/Speech-Enhancement-Theory-and-Practice-Second-Edition/Loizou/p/book/9781138075573

https://www.crcpress.com/Speech-Enhancement-Theory-and-Practice-Second-Edition/Loizou/p/book/9781138075573

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2016.06.032

https://patents.google.com/patent/US9031834B2/en

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/7038277/

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recognition engine). Want to know more: Gaussian Posteriorgrams , Dynamic Time Warping

.

Wan, Zhijian, Dr Co-supervisors: Mr Zhezi (Zeno) Zhang and Professor Dongke Zhang

Spent tyre pyrolysis liquid: speciation, desulphurization,

distillation, recovery of valuable chemicals and synthetic

fuels

Disciplines: Chemical, Materials, Mechanical

The disposal of biomass and industrial wastes, such as forestry by-products, agriculture residue,

municipal wastes, spent tyre, represents a major environmental issue throughout the world.

Pyrolysis is a simple, robust, and scalable approach for simultaneous production of gas, liquid

and char. The raw pyrolysis liquid needs to be upgraded, due to presence of impurities, such

as water, particulates and sulphur, before further process and utilisation. This project will investigate the sulphur-containing species in the spent tyre pyrolysis oil and screen the methods

for the sulphur removal.

Sub-project 1: Oxidation desulphurisation

The objective of this sub-project is to investigate the sulphur removal efficiency using oxidation

desulphurisation method. The effect of oxidation agents, temperature and time on the sulphur

removal efficiency will be studied. The changes in the species and amount of the sulphur-bearing

compounds before and after the removal will be identified using advanced analytical techniques

including GC, GC-MS, ICP-AES.

Sub-project 2: Adsorption desulphurisation

The objective of this sub-project is to investigate the sulphur removal efficiency using

adsorption desulphurisation method. Adsorbents including activated carbon, biochar, alumina,

silica, molecular sieves will be tested. The effect of adsorbent loading ratio and operation time

on the sulphur removal efficiency will be studied. The changes in the species and amount of the

sulphur-bearing compounds before and after the removal will be identified using advanced

analytical techniques including GC, GC-MS, ICP-AES.

Sub-project 3: Extraction desulphurisation

The objective of this sub-project is to investigate the sulphur removal efficiency using extraction

desulphurisation method. Solvents depending on their polarity will have different affinity to

sulphur containing species. The effect of different solvents, such as ionic liquids, dimethyl

formamide (DMF), dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) on the sulphur removal efficiency will be

studied. The changes in the

species and amount of the sulphur-bearing compounds before and after the removal will be

identified using advanced analytical techniques including GC, GC-MS, ICP-AES.

Sub-project 4: fuel upgrading

The objective of this sub-project is to upgrade the spent tyre pyrolysis retort liquid suitable to

be used as fuel. The presence of organic acids and N-containing species (amines) incurs great

instability to the pyrolysis retort liquid, hindering its use as a fuel. The transformation of the

organic acids into esters and amines into surfactants will greatly mitigate/eliminate their impacts

on the oil stability. The formed surfactants can also serve as oil stabiliser. Methanol will be used

for organic acids conversion to esters. Halogenated aliphatic hydrocarbons will be used for



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amines conversion to surfactants. The stability of the oil before and after the treatment will be

studied by accelerated ageing and the changes in the acids and amines before and after the

treatment will be identified using GC and GC-MS.

While, Lyndon, Dr

Engineering Optimisation through Machine Learning and

Intelligent Search Techniques

Disciplines: All disciplines

Prerequisite skills: programming ability in Python, Java, C, or similar language

Many engineering problems involve optimising complex scenarios that are not amenable to

simple analysis. Examples are common in logistics and scheduling, in design, and in operational

settings. In this project you will apply modern computational methods to analyse an engineering

problem of your choice with the aim of developing human-competitive solutions.

Confidence in constructing computer programs involving advanced algorithms and data

structures is a requirement, either from scratch or using libraries and tools available on the

web.

Wittek, Adam, Prof.

Towards Realistic and Robust Surgical Simulations: Meshless

Algorithms of Computational Biomechanics for Predicting

Organ (Brain) Deformations Due To Needle Insertion

Disciplines: Civil, Electrical & Electronic, Mechatronic

Prerequisite skills: Excellent knowledge of numerical methods and solid

mechanics, some knowledge of and experience in computer programming,

willingness to engage in challenging tasks and move beyond the boundaries of

own discipline

Surgical tool placement/insertion in the body organs (such as e.g. needle insertion when

conducting biopsy) is a challenging task that requires to account for changes in the surgical

target position caused by organ deformation due to interactions between a surgical tool and

the tissue. One may attempt to track a surgical target (e.g. tumour) and tool using medical

imaging. However, intraoperative 3D imaging (magnetic resonance imaging MRI, computed

tomography, ultrasound US) for surgical tracking is limited using the equipment in standard

operating theatres. Predicting the intraoperative organ/tissue deformations using the methods

of computational biomechanics can augment the currently used imaging techniques for surgical

tracking. Possible applications include computer integrated surgery (CIS) systems and control

systems for surgical robots — integration of computing and robotics has been recognised as

one of the key elements of “the wave of third industrial revolution” (a term used in the article

in “The Economist” from October 4th, 2014). This project focuses on evaluation of meshless

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algorithms of computational biomechanics (that use computational grids in a form of a “cloud”

of points) for predicting deformations within the brain undergoing surgery (needle insertion)

and forces acting on surgical tools (needle) against the previously conducted (in cooperation

between UWA Intelligent Systems for Medicine Laboratory ISML and Surgical Assist

Technology Group from AIST in Tsukuba, Japan) experiments using swine brain specimens. It may involve conducting and analysis of computational biomechanics simulations using meshless

and finite element methods of computational biomechanics, analysis of previously conducted

experiments using swine brain specimens (this will include image analysis/processing), and

conducting experiments using the mechanical brain phantom (made from silicone gel). The

project will be conducted as a part of collaboration between the Intelligent Systems for

Medicine Laboratory at the University of Western Australia and Robotics Design Laboratory

at the University of Queensland.

Wittek, Adam, Prof.

Beyond Finite Elements in Surgical Simulation: Verification

of Meshless Algorithms of Computational Biomechanics Disciplines: Civil, Mechanical

Prerequisite skills: Excellent knowledge of Numerical Methods and Solid

Mechanics, willingness to engage in challenging tasks, some knowledge of and

experience in computer programming

It has been recognised that computational biomechanics models and surgical simulation my

assist surgical training, surgical planning and surgical navigation through prediction of organ

deformations during surgery and forces acting on surgical tools.

Computational biomechanics and surgical simulation have been dominated by finite element

analysis that utilises computational grids in a form of interconnected mesh or finite elements.

There are two key challenges/obstacles preventing real world (clinical) application of the

models relying on such grids:

1) Construction of finite element meshes to accurately represent an organ of a given patient

tends to be time consuming and typically requires involvement of an experienced analysts. This

is incompatible with clinical workflow (hospitals are unlikely to hire PhDs in computational

mechanics to build computational biomechanics models and conduct the simulations);

2) Accuracy of the finite element solution tends to deteriorate when finite element meshes

undergo distortion due to large local deformations and “fragmentation”/cracks induced by

surgical procedures (including insertion of surgical tools).

Meshless algorithms that utilise computational grids in a form of a “cloud” of points have been

proposed to overcome these challenges. The purpose of this project is to verify a suite of

meshless algorithms of computational biomechanics created at the Intelligent Systems for

Medicine Laboratory at the University of Western Australia. The project may involve

development of meshless algorithms of computational biomechanics.

Xiao, Gongkui, Dr. Co-supervisors: Arami Niya, Arash, Dr.; Graham, Brendan, Dr.

Advanced Gas Separations

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Disciplines: Chemical, Materials, Oil & Gas, Petroleum, Software


Application of adsorption based gas separation processes in natural gas purification and carbon

capture can be a good alternative for the current conventional energy intensive thermal

separation processes. By development of new adsorbents and optimization of the process, non-thermal separations such as the adsorptive gas separation can offer enormous energy savings

and environmental benefits. The capture of carbon dioxide and nitrogen from natural gases are

two areas that could potentially present such savings and benefits. Carbon dioxide capture,

whether from natural gas streams or from flue gases, is an important and increasing area of

research with significant implications for our economy and environment. N2 capture from

natural gas is increasingly important in the development of LNG projects where this component

is energetically parasitic. These projects will look at the use of novel materials and processes

for improved carbon dioxide and nitrogen separation efficiency that use solid adsorbents,

including carbons, zeolites and metal organic frameworks (MOFs). Students working on these

projects will help in synthesis, development and testing the separation performance of new

adsorbents, and /or use the results of such experiments to develop advanced separation

processes via physical adsorption process experiments or numerical models. Projects will also

be available in which various literature reported adsorbents for carbon dioxide and nitrogen

capture are critically analysed and screened by our numerical models, such that promising

materials and processes could be advanced to industrial scale applications.

Zhang, Dongke, Professor Co-supervisors: Mr Zhezi (Zeno) Zhang; Mr Jorge E. Preciado

Hernandez

Preparation of activation carbon from solid residue of spent

tyre pyrolysis Disciplines: Chemical, , Materials, Mechanical





and solid residue. Pyrolysis solid residue has a high potential to be upgraded into various high

value carbon materials (activated carbon, carbon black, metallurgical reductant, soil conditioner

etc.), this project will focus on the upgrading of the spent tyre pyrolytic solid residue for

activated carbon production.

Sub-project 1: activation using CO2/N2 mixture as the activation agent

The objective of this sub-project is to produce activated carbon form the solid residue of spent

tyre pyrolysis using CO2/N2 mixture. Activation experiments will be conducted in a fixed-bed

reactor. The effect of activation temperature, particle size, activation time and molar ratio of

steam to N2 on the product yield, physical and chemical properties of the activated carbon

products will be investigated. The physical and chemical properties will include: BET surface

area, pore volume and pore size distribution, particle size distribution, reactivity, mineral form

and content and surface functional groups.

Sub-project 2: activation using steam/N2 mixture as the activation agent


tyre pyrolysis using steam/N2 mixture. Activation experiments will be conducted in a fixed-

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bed reactor. The effect of activation temperature, particle size, activation time and molar ratio

of steam to N2 on the product yield, physical and chemical properties of the activated carbon

products will be investigated. The physical and chemical properties will include: BET surface

area, pore volume and pore size distribution, particle size distribution, reactivity, mineral form

and content and surface functional groups. Sub-project 3: activation using CO2/steam/N2 mixture as the activation agent


tyre pyrolysis using CO2/steam/N2 mixture. Activation experiments will be conducted in a

fixed-bed reactor. The effect of activation temperature, particle size, activation time and molar

ratio of CO2 to steam on the product yield, physical and chemical properties of the activated

carbon products will be

investigated. The physical and chemical properties will include: BET surface area, pore volume

and pore size distribution, particle size distribution, reactivity, mineral form and content and

surface functional groups.

Sub-project 4: activation using alternating CO2/steam/N2 mixture as the

activation agent


tyre pyrolysis using alternating CO2/steam/N2 mixture. Activation experiments will be

conducted in a fixed-bed reactor. The alternating CO2/steam/N2 mixture activation

experiments will start with CO2/N2 activation for a period of time, followed by steam/N2

activation for a period time and the combinations of the two activation agents thereafter. The

effect of activation temperature, particle size, and activation time on the product yield, physical

and chemical properties of the activated carbon products will be investigated. The physical and

chemical properties will include: BET surface area, pore volume and pore size distribution,

particle size distribution, reactivity, mineral form and content and surface functional groups.

Zhang, Dongke, Professor Co-supervisors: Dr Mingming Zhu and Mr Zhezi (Zeno) Zhang

NH3 as a clean transport fuel Disciplines: Chemical, , Materials, Mechanical


In a carbon-constrained world, there are two strategies for de-carbonisation of transport: (1)

electrification and (2) carbon-free alternative fuels. In the concept of “hydrogen economy”,

hydrogen is considered as the ultimate carbon-free fuel and energy carrier for both transport

and electric power applications. However, the fact that pure hydrogen does not exist naturally

and has a low volumetric energy density, even in the liquid form under cryogenic conditions,

means that hydrogen is faced with immense technical, economical and infrastructure challenges

before it can play a major role in powering transportation. It appears that hydrogen would

require a suitable carrier. With its high content of hydrogen per unit of mass or volume,

ammonia (NH3) is an excellent H2 carrier for easy storage, transport and distribution of

hydrogen. In fact, NH3 itself is a carbon-free liquid fuel that can be used in internal combustion

(IC) engines. As a fuel for combustion in IC engines, it suffers from high ignition energy, narrow

flammability limits, low flame temperature, low burning rate, and potentially high NOx

emissions. It has been found that a small amount of H2 addition can promote combustion of

NH3. The required H2 can be obtained directly by partially dissociating NH3 in-situ to produce

an NH3/H2 mixture before injection into the engine cylinders. This project is designed to study

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the effect of H2 on the basic ignition and combustion characteristics and NOx formation and

destruction of NH3.

Sub-project 1: Effect of H2 on flame speed of NH3

The objective of this sub-topic is to study the effect of H2 on the flame speed of NH3. The

experiments will be conducted using a Bunsen burner with a Schlieren system. The effect of equivalence ratio, initial H2 concentrations in the mixtures, and initial temperature on the flame

speed will be studied.

Sub-project 2: Effect of H2 on flammability and minimum ignition energy of NH3

The objective of this sub-topic is to study the effect of H2 on the flammability and minimum

ignition energy of NH3. The experiments will be conducted using the Hartmann bomb system.

The effect of equivalence ratio, initial H2 concentrations in the mixtures, and initial temperature

on the flame speed will be studied.

Sub-project 3: Effect of H2 on NOx formation and destruction

This sub-project is aimed to study the effect of H2 on NOx formation and destruction in NH3

combustion. The experiments will be conducted using a flat flame burner. The concentration

of NOx of premixed NH3/air and NH3/H2/N2/air flames will be quantified using a NOx

analyser. The effect of equivalence ratios, initial H2 concentration in the mixtures, and initial

temperature will be studied.

Sub-project 4: Kinetic modelling of ignition and combustion and NOx formation of

NH3/H2/NOx/N2/O2 mixtures

This sub-project is designed to investigate the ignition and combustion characteristics of NH3

and effect of H2 and NOx as combustion promoters using kinetic modelling to understand

chemistry and reaction mechanisms. The student is expected to (1) conduct a detailed

literature review on the combustion characteristics of NH3, NOx formation and reaction

mechanisms of NH3/H2/N2/NOx; (2) study the effect of H2 and NOx on the laminar flame

speed, ignition delay times, flame temperature and NOx emission as a function of initial

temperature, equivalence ratio, H2 or NOx ratio in the fuel mixtures through kinetic modelling

using commercial software Chemkin Pro. The data will be validated against the experimental

results.

Zhang, Dongke, Professor Co-supervisors: Dr Mingming Zhu and Mr Chiemeka Onyeka Okoye

Manufacturing of carbon black by partial combustion of

heavy fraction of spent tyre pyrolysis liquid Disciplines: Chemical, , Materials, Mechanical





and char. After desulphurisation and extraction of high value chemicals, the remaining heavy

residue of the pyrolysis liquid still contains a high amount of PAHs, a great source material for

carbon black production. This project will focus on the manufacturing of carbon black by partial

oxidation of the heavy liquid residue.

Sub-project 1: effect of temperature on the yield of carbon black

The objective of this sub-project is to experimentally study the effect of temperature on the

yield and properties of carbon black produced. The experiments will be conducted using a

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laboratory scale burner simulating industrial carbon back manufacturing process. The burner

will burn pyrolysis gas with air to provide high temperature flame. The heavy pyrolysis liquid

fraction will be injected into the burner and pass through the high temperature flame to make

carbon black. The carbon black will be produced at various flame temperatures and then

characterised for its physical and chemical properties. In this sub-project, the yield of carbon black will be evaluated and the carbon black will be characterised for proximate and ultimate

analysis and BET surface areas.

Sub-project 2: effect of temperature on the properties of carbon black





fraction will be injected into the burner and pass through the high temperature to make carbon

black. The carbon black will be produced at various flame temperatures and then characterised

for its physical and chemical properties. In this sub-project, the carbon black will be

characterised for its pH value, loss on heating and particle size distribution.

Sub-project 3: effect of residence time on the yield of carbon black





fraction will be injected into the flue gases with the high temperature to make carbon black.

The carbon black will be produced with various residence times by varying the gas velocity and

then characterised for its physical and chemical properties. In this sub-project, the yield of

carbon black will be evaluated and the carbon black will be characterised for its proximate and

ultimate analysis and BET surface areas.

Sub-project 4: effect of residence time on the properties of carbon black




will burn natural gas with air to provide high temperature flue gas. The heavy pyrolysis liquid

fraction will be injected to locations in the high temperature to make carbon black. The carbon

black will be produced with various residence times by varying the gas velocity and then

characterised for its physical and chemical properties. In this sub-project, the carbon black will

be characterised for its pH value, loss on heating and particle size distribution.

Zhao, Chunnong, Prof.

Control and Data acquisition System (CDS) for 80-meter

suspended optical cavities


Prerequisite skills: Previous experience in Linux system and signal processing would be

helpful.

The ARC centre of excellence for gravitational wave discovery (OzGrav), UWA node is in

the process of upgrading its distributed control and data acquisition system for Gingin high

optical power facility . The project involves the setup and integration of software and

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hardware necessary to measure and control vibration isolators. The system can be set up and

integrated at UWA campus.

Zhou, Tongming, Professor Co-supervisors:

Vortex shedding from multiple cylinders at low and high

Reynolds numbers


Prerequisite skills: Fluid mechanics/Hydraulics

Vortex shedding is a phenomenon which occurs when a flow passes a bluff body. The shedding

process can induce time dependent drag and lift forces on the structure. When cylindrical

structures are arranged in a group, such as the risers in offshore oil and gas industry,

skyscrapers and offshore wind farms, vortex shedding characteristics may be influenced by the

separation between these structures.

In this project, experiments in a wind tunnel will be conducted to investigate the dependence

of vortex shedding frequency on cylinder gap ratio and on the number of cylinders. Hot-wire

techniques will be used to detect the vortex shedding frequency and flow visualization using

smoke wire technique to be used to visualize the vortex flow structures. These results will

then be compared with those reported in the literature. One student will focus on Reynolds

number of 1000 and the other will focus on Re=180.


Suppression of vortex shedding and vortex-induced vibration

of a cylindrical pipe



Vortex shedding is a phenomenon occurs when a flow passes a bluff body. The shedding

process can induce vibration of the structure, which, at resonance, can result in excessive

motion and possible structural failure. In this project, vortex shedding and vortex-induced

vibration will be controlled using passive methods by attaching elements prepared with a 3D

printer and/or by inserting a pipe filled with water inside the larger one to simulate multiphase

flow inside an oil riser. The experiments will be conducted in a wind tunnel and/or water flume

using Particle image velocimetry after the control is used and the results can then be compared

with that of a bare pipe.


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Suppression of vortex shedding and vortex-induced vibration

of a cylindrical pipe using soft marine growth



Vortex shedding is a phenomenon which occurs when a flow passes a bluff body. The shedding

process can induce vibration (which is normally termed as vortex-induced vibration, or VIV),

which, at resonance, can result in excessive motion and possible structural failure. Marine

growth, such as mussels, will develop on offshore pipelines and risers over some time of

operation in the sea. The growth may change the hydrodynamic and VIV characteristics of the

marine structures. In the present project, hard marine growth, which can be simulated using

artificial materials, will be attached to the circular cylinders and tested both in the wind tunnel

and water flume for VIV and force characteristics. Particle image velocimetry will be used to

examine the wake features after the control is used and the results can then be compared with

that of a bare pipe.

Zhao, Wenhua, Dr Co-supervisors: Draper, Scott, Dr

Hydrodynamics of a new offshore concept - subsea shuttle

Disciplines: Civil, Environmental, Mining, Oil & Gas, Software

Prerequisite skills: good knowledge on hydrodynamics or good skill in field testing

A new concept has been developed, which is used to deliver chemical products from sea

surface to sea bed. The concept will significantly save the cost of conveying chemical products

to the subsea structures, compared to conventional methods.

This project involves both numerical simulations and field testing in the Swan river. This project

require knowledge in fluid mechanics, offshore hydrodynamics. This project may also involve

communications with colleagues from industry, as we will receive a lot of input from them as

well.

Zhu, Mingming, Dr Co-supervisors: Mr Yusron Sugiarto and Professor Dongke Zhang

Two-Phase anaerobic digestion

Disciplines: Chemical, , Materials, Mechanical


Two-phase anaerobic digestion (TPAD) is expected to produce hydrogen-enriched biogas,

which has higher quality and more ideal combustion properties than biogas produced from

conventional single-phase anaerobic digestion. Biochar addition in single phase anaerobic

digestion has been proven to enhance the methane production by 32%. However, the effect of

biochar addition on TPAD has never been explored. This project will investigate the effect of

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biochar addition on TPAD under different operational conditions. This project will also

investigate biogas cleaning using biochar.

Sub-project 1: The effect of biochar on the hydrogen sulfide (H2S) removal from

biogas using bench scale and pilot scale biogas cleaning unit

The aim of the sub-project is to use biochar to remove H2S in biogas. The experiments will be conducted using both bench scale column reactor and pilot scale biogas cleaning unit. The gas

composition will be measured using gas chromatography and the efficiency of H2S removal will

be calculated. The effect of type of biochar, particle size and addition ratio of biochar and gas

retention time on H2S removal efficiency will be determined. The profile of biochar before and

after experimentation will be examined using scanning electron microscopy (SEM).

Sub-project 2: The effect of biochar on ammonia (NH3) removal from biogas using

bench scale and pilot scale biogas cleaning unit

The aim of the sub-project is to use biochar to remove NH3 in biogas. The experiments will

be conducted using both bench scale column reactor and pilot scale biogas cleaning unit. The

gas composition will be measured using gas chromatography and the efficiency of NH3 removal

will be calculated. The effect of type of biochar, particle size and addition ratio of biochar and

gas retention time on NH3 removal efficiency will be determined. The profile of biochar before

and after experimentation will be examined using scanning electron microscopy (SEM).

Sub-project 3: Commission and operation of a laboratory reactor to produce

hydrogen and methane from food waste

The aim of the sub-project is to commission and evaluate the performance of a laboratory scale

semi-continuous reactors simulating TPAD process. The system consists of a hydrogen-

producing reactor

and a methane-producing reactor. The system will be commissioned to realise biogas

production (H2 production in the first reactor and CH4 production in the second reactor).

The gas volume and compositions will be measured daily using volumetric gas gauge and GC,

respectively. Volatile fatty acid (VFA) and pH changing will also be monitored periodically.

Sub- project 4: Commission and operation of TPAD process demonstration unit

(PDU) to produce hydrogen and methane from food waste

The aim of this sub-project is to commission the TPAD PDU in the Centre for Energy. The

PDU consists of a hydrogen-producing reactor (volume: 150 l) and a methane-producing

reactor (500 l). The TPAD PDU will be commissioned to realise continuous biogas production

(H2 production in the first reactor and CH4 production in the second reactor). The gas volume

and compositions will be measured daily using volumetric gas gauge and GC, respectively.

Volatile fatty acid (VFA) and pH changing will also be monitored periodically.

Zhu, Mingming, Dr Co-supervisors: Mr Zhezi (Zeno) Zhang and Professor Dongke Zhang

Homogenous combustion catalysts in diesel engines

Disciplines: Chemical, , Materials, Mechanical


This project is designed to systematically investigate the effect of a homogenous combustion

catalyst, known as Fuel Performance Catalyst (FPC) manufactured by Fuel Technology Ltd Pty.,

on the fuel efficiency and emissions of a diesel engine fuelled with diesel and biodiesel fuels.

The catalyst will be dosed into diesel or biodiesel and play a catalytic role during combustion

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process in diesel engines to improve fuel efficiency and reduce emissions. The experiments will

be conducted using the fully instrumented diesel engine system available at the Centre for

Energy. The effect of FPC dosing ratio and engine operation conditions on the fuel efficiency

improvement and emission reductions will be quantified.

Sub-project 1: Effect of FPC on fuel efficiency of a diesel engine fuelled with diesel fuels

The objective of this sub-topic is to study the effect of FPC on the fuel efficiency of a diesel

engine. Caltex diesel, BP diesel and BP ultimate diesel will be tested. The effect of FPC dosing

ratio, engine load and speed on the fuel efficiency will be studied.

Sub-project 2: Effect of FPC on Particulate Matter (PM) emission of a diesel engine

fuelled with diesel fuels

In this sub-topic, the effect of FPC on PM will be investigated. Caltex diesel, BP diesel and BP

ultimate diesel will be tested. PM emission will be measured by monitoring the smoke opacity

of the exhaust with a Bosch RTM 430 infrared opacimeter. The effect of FPC dosing ratio,

engine load and speed on the smoke will be studied.

Sub-project 3: Effect of FPC on exhaust gas emissions of a diesel engine fuelled

with diesel fuels

This sub-project is aimed to study the effect of FPC on exhaust gas emission including unburned

hydrocarbons, CO, CO2 and NOx. Caltex diesel, BP diesel and BP ultimate diesel will be

tested. The gas emissions will be measured using a NOx analyser. The effect of FPC dosing

ratio, engine load and speed on the gas emission will be studied.

Sub-project 4: Effect of FPC on fuel efficiency and emissions of a diesel engine

fuelled with biodiesel fuel

In this sub-project, the effect of FPC on the efficiency and emissions of a diesel engine fuelled

with a biodiesel fuel will be examined. The palm oil based biodiesel provided by Wilmar

International will be used in this study. The effect of FPC dosing ratio, engine load and speed

on the fuel efficiency, exhaust emissions will be systematically studied.

Master of Professional Engineering & Bachelor of ... · Engineering Research Project Descriptions...

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