Books/Book chapters

Industrial and Agricultural Applications of Solar Heat

Brian Norton — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 06:02:11 PDT

Mankind’s earliest use of solar energy was probably the drying of food crops to aid their preservation. Open sun drying of fruit, vegetables, fish and meats often improved or enhanced particular flavors and textures such that solely because of those attributes many dried products remain in culinary use today, as examples, dried seaweed, sun-dried tomatoes, raisins and dried pistachio nuts. Open sun drying is displaced increasingly by glazed solar dryers that (i) enable equilibrium moisture content to be reached sooner and (ii) avoid losses of the crop to insects and rodents.

A further agricultural application, the greenhouse extended the use of solar energy from post-harvest to crop-production. Today greenhouses are ubiquitous with a huge variety of designs providing a wide range of modified climates for plant growth. Solar energy also finds use in agriculture in solar water pumping for irrigation and in the desalination of brackish water.

Solar cooking has taken the use of solar energy in the food production chain directly to the end-user. Broader industrial uses of solar energy have also tended to be linked to food and beverage production because the temperatures required can be satisfied readily in many climates by a well-designed solar thermal system. Non-agricultural technologies such as solar furnaces have considerable potential but have had limited practical use to-date.

This chapter discusses the attributes, contexts and applications of the full range of industrial and agricultural applications of solar heat.

Design for Dementia

Gregor Timlin — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 06:32:15 PDT

This book describes a two-year collaborative research project between the Helen Hamlyn Centre at the Royal College of Art and Bupa. It explores how better product and environment design can improve quality of life for care home residents with dementia. The design ideas developed are a practical response to the challenge of congnitive decline and can be retrofitted to existing care homes as well as applied to new developments.

Engineering Education in the US and the EU

Eugene Coyle — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 08:19:37 PST

Systems for the education of engineers in the US and the EU differ in significant ways. In this chapter we describe and reflect upon differences in accreditation policies and procedures, curriculum structure and content, admissions criteria and student mobility. Within the US there is a surprising uniformity among both private and public university programmes in engineering education, due in large part to the acceptance of ABET’s (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology) authority in setting standards for curriculum content. Within the EU there is greater programme variety, although some degree of harmonization is in the works due to the Bologna Declaration. We describe and analyze current efforts in Europe aimed at establishing a pan-EU authority for accreditation - the EUR- ACE Framework. One topic in curriculum structure draws our attention - the perceived value of liberal studies in engineering and the potential for significant reform of the engineering curriculum in this regard. Criteria for admission to university study in engineering differ among the different members of the EU. In the US, criteria are more or less the same whether the student applies to MIT or the University of Michigan. Understanding these differences is essential if transatlantic cooperation in higher (and vocational) education is to be achieved as is the intent of a new EU-US programme - The Atlantis Programme (2006-20013).

Sustainable Design:a Case Study in Energy Systems

Eugene Coyle et al. — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 08:10:08 PST

Since the publication of the UN climate report in 2007, most countries now agree that recent climate change has occurred as a result of human intervention and that it will require fast and profound measures to reduce this negative imprint imposed upon nature. Central to this is the need to radically reduce CO2 emissions resulting from combustion of carbon-based energy resources to meet global energy demands. Greater measures must be taken to develop new non-combustion based technologies, in addition to using low-carbon energy resources. Increasing energy efficiency and using energy wisely will also feature in reducing emissions. Sustain-able Energy is now to the fore in both Europe and the United States of America; with government core research agencies developing strategy and preparing scholar-ship research programmes, with invite to develop new ideas and provide innovative solutions to the needs of the energy sector. There is also evidence of greater critical self awareness by academics and researchers of the need to be more actively en-gaged in finding new solutions through interdisciplinary research. The terms ‘sus-tainable development’ and ‘sustainable design’ have become part of our everyday vocabulary, and there is now an active trend towards development of new curricula and degree programmes in sustainable energy. In this chapter we discuss the princi-ples of sustainable development and sustainable design, and explore a range strate-gies and tools for the provision of engineering education. We provide some exam-ples of syllabi and curricula developments in sustainable design, and we invoke a spirit of engagement in helping create a sustainable future.