Jim McGovern's Research Blog

This project was submitted unsuccessfully for consideration for funding under the DIT Fiosraigh Research Excellence Award scheme. Perhaps I did not provide sufficient detail or maybe it was not clear what I was trying to achieve and, of course, I was up against very strong competition.

Abstract

The objective of the proposed PhD project is to develop a novel decoupled Stirling Engine for sustainable energy applications. The concept has been described at an international conference and in a journal publication by Barry Cullen and Jim McGovern. This project will refine the concept and develop a prototype. Many sustainable energy applications could benefit from a heat engine of the type that is proposed. The expected benefits, compared to other Stirling engines, are significantly enhanced efficiency over a wide range of operating conditions and greatly enhanced flexibility of operation. These will be achieved through a novel heat-transfer-enhancement process and the decoupling of the thermodynamic cycle from dependence on any fixed-geometry mechanical linkage. The novel Stirling engine will be applicable to power production from low-to-moderate-temperature heat sources and will also be applicable to heat-pump or refrigeration installations. Potential application areas include solar thermal power production, waste-heat to power applications, micro-CHP (domestic scale), and thermally driven heat pumps or refrigerators.

Yesterday I published a document in the ARROW@DIT archive with the title ‘A Suggested Building Block Geometry Without Continuous Radial Joints of Possible Relevance for Particle Detectors’. It is a hand-written document that I wrote while on holidays in Germany in 2009. It is available at this link http://arrow.dit.ie/engschmecart/16/.

SEAWAVE stands for Simulation Engineering Applied to Wave Analysis, Validation and Estimation. I put forward this proposal in 2009 under the Enterprise Ireland Commercialisation Fund Proof of Concept scheme. It did not proceed, partly because there was a view in my own institute that the idea was not sufficiently developed and that adequate groundwork in seeking commercial backers had not been done.

The concept to be analysed is a proposed camera that would operate somewhat like the human eye. Rather than capturing an image on a rectangular flat surface, as is common in current cameras, the image would be captured on the inside surface of a sphere or spheroid.

This project will develop new methods of characterising and simulating components, machines, plant or systems that involve heat transfer, mechanical operations, energy conversion, cycles or flow processes (thermo-mechanical components, systems or machines) through discrete characterisation (the use of arrays of numerical data), topological network models (characterising components, systems or assemblies by what-is-connected-to-what in a physical or functional sense), lumped elements (simplifying, where possible, by replacing something that is non-uniform or rather complicated by a simple lump that can be easily described yet adequately represents that something) and the characterisation of interaction interfaces (bringing the way a component or subsystem interacts with things outside itself to the simplest form to represent each significant interaction it can have with its outside world). In effect, what is proposed is the engineering equivalent of object oriented programming. Generic models will be developed for common, or uncommon, components, systems and assemblies that capture the essence of those things in the simplest and most compact form and also define how the represented item can interact with generic models of other items that might be introduced to it, brought into contact with it or connected to it.

Symmetry in engineering, science and mathematics—a study of the fundamentals with a view to developing new cross-disciplinary methodologies and applications—MPhil or PhD project by research

It is well recognized that symmetry underlies the processes and laws of nature. Developing an understanding of symmetry has already helped engineers, scientists and mathematicians to make significant advances in their respective fields. This research project will be characterized by the fact that the study will be undertaken within a Department of Mechanical Engineering and making use of some of the approaches, tools and techniques that are used by engineers, but yet also reaching out to other disciplines.

A summary of what I have learned is that solar energy engineering is in a phase of rapid development. It is profitable business and there is still quite a way to go before plateau performance levels will be reached. Real progress is being made in reducing the costs of photovoltaic collectors. Issues of inverting and cleaning up the power produced and integrating it with the grid appear to me to have been largely solved. Reliability and durability of photovoltaic panels seem to be very satisfactory. Costs of these units appear to be decreasing quite rapidly. Efficiency values are still increasing, but are already at levels that I consider very good. Furthermore, concepts such as combining photovoltaic collection and thermal collection or using concentration with photovoltaic collectors are subjects of current research.

The ASME Energy Sustainability conference was a co-located conference with the annual National Solar Conference of the American Solar Energy Society. I found it an excellent conference, although for me it was rather impersonal.

Tomorrow morning, Thursday 20th May, 2010, I present a paper at the 4th ASME Energy Sustainability Conference, which is co-located with the American Solar Energy Society National Solar Conference, at the Phoenix Covention Center, Phoenix, Arizona, USA. This is certainly the place to be to find out what is going on in relation to solar energy. The sun shines a lot on Arizona.

It would be pi-in-the-sky for a researcher to expect that they could spend research money as through it were their own. Regulation and accountability are necessary and there must be a full audit trail for all research expenditure. As research, in a sense, is about daring to make mistakes and learning from them, mistakes can and will be made with expenditure too. Research money can easily be spent too hastily or without sufficient consideration. This is why a researcher must be entrusted with spending decisions and must be fully answerable for all decisions made. The track record of a research leader should testify to their batting average in the use of precious research funds. Those who fund research do not seek perfection in expenditure decisions any more than in other aspects of research. Research funders are seeking value for their research investment.