Researchers working on real-time electricity monitoring of buildings, foundation systems for offshore wind turbines and sustainable waste water treatment were recently recognised for being ranked the top three UCD researchers who entered the Globe Forum Research competition.
Globe Forum, the marketplace event where innovators, entrepreneurs and researchers connect with international business leaders, investors and global companies, was held in Dublin in late 2010. As part of the two-day eventsix Early Stage Researchers were selected to battle it out for the title ‘Ireland’s Researcher’ at Globe Forum.
The Innovation Alliance was a key sponsor and showcased the talent of its diverse research community. As an extra incentive the Alliance partners offered an award for the top ranking researchers from each university who were shortlisted in the Early Career Researchers Competition. The competition was open to individual or team-based research that demonstrated implications for science, sustainability and society.
Anthony Schoofs, PhD student, CLARITY, short-listed for Globe-Forum, Dr Aoibheann Gibbons, UCD Research, Dr Paul Doherty, postdoctoral fellow, UCD Civil Engineering, short-listed for Globe-Forum and Professor Gerry Byrne, chair of the UCD Innovation Board. Not pictured Dr Akintude Babatunde, postdoctoral fellow, UCD Civil Engineering who was also recognised.
The research goal is to maximise the energy-efficiency of buildings by combining the areas of building automation systems and wireless energy-sensor networks. Sensor systems are a powerful tool for continuous monitoring of electricity consumption, and for pin-pointing the main sources of electricity wastage. The research has shown that the power consumption of individual appliances can be found from monitoring only the main electrical supply into a building. The technique is novel and is being patented. Having identified the ‘signature’ of individual appliances it is then possible to display the electricity consumption and cost for each and every appliance in a building, factory, house etc.
An in-depth review of all offshore wind farms constructed to date has identified trends in the foundations adopted and the design procedures commonly used by industry. Comparing the technical features of each design solution with practical constraints has allowed preferential solutions to be identified and recommendations have been made as to how existing design procedures can be improved. A test site at Blessington has been developed for field testing of prototype-scale foundations. A turbine foundation has been designed at a North Sea site, which will be instrumented with an extensive suite of geotechnical monitoring equipment. The instrumentation details are currently being finalised and the pile will be installed in early spring 2011.
Through field demonstration of the system, about 10 tonnes of alum sludge was diverted from landfills and beneficially reused in this novel system. This saves landfill space and costs and reduces green house gas emissions associated with landfills thereby contributing to sustainable development and a green economy. Furthermore, giving that the alum sludge generation is inevitable from drinking water treatment process, it is possible to continue to develop this approach as a means of beneficially reusing the alum sludge as opposed to landfilling it and compromising the ability of future generation for sustainable living. This idea has been recognized in the scientific community as a novel initiative and it has received considerable peer review in high rating journals as well as profiling in the Irish Times, Engineers Ireland and Civil Engineering-UK.
