scholarly journals Meander Designer: Automatically Generating Meander Channel Designs

Micromachines ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. 625 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Grimmer ◽  
Philipp Frank ◽  
Philipp Ebner ◽  
Sebastian Häfner ◽  
Andreas Richter ◽  
...  

Microfluidics continues to bring innovation to the life sciences. It stimulates progress by enabling new ways of research in biology, chemistry, and biotechnology. However, when designing a microfluidic device, designers have to conduct many tasks by hand—resulting in labor-intensive processes. In particular, when drawing the design of the device, designers have to handle re-occurring entities. Meander channels are one example, which are frequently used in different platforms but always have to fit the respective application and design rules. This work presents an online tool which is capable of automatically generating user-defined, two-dimensional designs of fluidic meander channels facilitating fluidic hydrodynamic resistances. The tool implements specific design rules as it considers the user’s needs and fabrication requirements. The compliance of the meanders generated by the proposed tool is confirmed by fabricating the generated designs and comparing whether the resulting devices indeed realize the desired specification. To this end, two case studies are considered: first, the realization of dedicated fluidic resistances and, second, the realization of dedicated mixing ratios of fluids. The results demonstrate the versatility of the tool regarding application and technology. Overall, the freely accessible tool with its flexibility and simplicity renders manual drawing of meanders obsolete and, hence, allows for a faster, more straightforward design process.

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 141-150
Author(s):  
Honorine Harlé ◽  
Pascal Le Masson ◽  
Benoit Weil

AbstractIn industry, there is at once a strong need for innovation and a need to preserve the existing system of production. Thus, although the literature insists on the necessity of the current change toward Industry 4.0, how to implement it remains problematic because the preservation of the factory is at stake. Moreover, the question of the evolution of the system depends on its innovative capability, but it is difficult to understand how a new rule can be designed and implemented in a factory. This tension between preservation and innovation is often explained in the literature as a process of creative destruction. Looking at the problem from another perspective, this article models the factory as a site of creative heritage, enabling creation within tradition, i.e., creating new rules while preserving the system of rules. Two case studies are presented to illustrate the model. The paper shows that design in the factory relies on the ability to validate solutions. To do so, the design process can explore and give new meaning to the existing rules. The role of innovation management is to choose the degree of revision of the rules and to make it possible.


Author(s):  
Ehud Kroll ◽  
Lauri Koskela

AbstractThe mechanism of design reasoning from function to form is suggested to consist of a two-step inference of the innovative abduction type. First is an inference from a desired functional aspect to an idea, concept, or solution principle to satisfy the function. This is followed by a second innovative abduction, from the latest concept to form, structure, or mechanism. The intermediate entity in the logical reasoning, the concept, is thus made explicit, which is significant in following and understanding a specific design process, for educating designers, and to build a logic-based computational model of design. The idea of a two-step abductive reasoning process is developed from the critical examination of several propositions made by others. We use the notion of innovative abduction in design, as opposed to such abduction where the question is about selecting among known alternatives, and we adopt a previously proposed two-step process of abductive reasoning. However, our model is different in that the two abductions used follow the syllogistic pattern of innovative abduction. In addition to using a schematic example from the literature to demonstrate our derivation, we apply the model to an existing, empirically derived method of conceptual design called “parameter analysis” and use two examples of real design processes. The two synthetic steps of the method are shown to follow the proposed double innovative abduction scheme, and the design processes are presented as sequences of double abductions from function to concept and from concept to form, with a subsequent deductive evaluation step.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ayman Ahmed Ezzat Othman ◽  
Fatma Othman Alamoudy

Purpose This paper aims to develop a framework for optimising building performance through the integration between risk management (RM) and building information modelling (BIM) during the design process. Design/methodology/approach To achieve this aim, a research strategy consisting of literature review, case studies and survey questionnaire is designed to accomplish four objectives. First, to examine the concepts of design process, building performance, RM and BIM; second, to present three case studies to explain the role of using RM and BIM capabilities towards optimising building performance; third, to investigate the perception and application of architectural design firms in Egypt towards the role of RM and BIM for enhancing building performance during the design process; and finally, to develop a framework integrating RM and BIM during the design process as an approach for optimising building performance. Findings Through literature review, the research identified 18 risks that hamper optimising building performance during the design process. In addition, 11 building performance values and 20 BIM technologies were defined. Results of data analysis showed that “Design budget overrun”, “Lack of considering life cycle cost” and “Inefficient use of the design time” were ranked the highest risks that affect the optimisation of building performance. Respondents ranked “Risk avoid” or “Risk transfer” as the most risk responses adopted in the Egyptian context. In addition, “BIM As Built” was ranked the highest BIM technology used for overcoming risks during the design process. These findings necessitated taking action towards developing a framework to optimising building performance. Originality/value The research identified the risks that affect optimising building performance during the design process. It focuses on improving the design process through using the capabilities of BIM technologies towards overcoming these risks during the design process. The proposed framework which integrates RM and BIM represents a synthesis that is novel and creative in thought and adds value to the knowledge in a manner that has not previously occurred.


2011 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-75
Author(s):  
Dr. Anke Iman Bouzenita

The current discourse on bioethical questions often reveals a certain patchiness or seeming inability to answer contemporary bioethical problems within an Islamic epistemological paradigm. Attempting to analyze the causes of this phenomenon, the author describes the decontextualization of Islamic concepts from a background of secularized medical care and the ethics in the Islamic world—as well as the estrangement due to these questions of Islamic law from its holistic framework of application as a pervasive phenomenon, which brought about the dilemmas of bioethics in the twenty-first century. The author discusses chosen bioethical case studies in this light, with a focus on the concept of brain death. Doing so, the author takes into consideration the paradigmatic relationship between science, bioethical models, and the implications of the relevant different worldviews. The author shows how constructed realities related to the life sciences have been imported from the secular setting into an already estranged Islamic context to be answered, and describes the evolving dilemmas that make Islamic bioethics appear like a stranger moving in a strange land.


2016 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 206-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renato L. Bergamo ◽  
Leonardo N. Romano

ABSTRACT This study aims at presenting the process of machine design and agricultural implements by means of a reference model, formulated with the purpose of explaining the development activities of new products, serving as a guideline to coach human resources and to assist in formalizing the process in small and medium-sized businesses (SMB), i.e. up to 500 employees. The methodology used included the process modeling, carried out from case studies in the SMB, and the study of reference models in literature. The modeling formalism used was based on the IDEF0 standard, which identifies the dimensions required for the model detailing: input information; activities; tasks; knowledge domains; mechanisms; controls and information produced. These dimensions were organized in spreadsheets and graphs. As a result, a reference model with 27 activities and 71 tasks was obtained, distributed over four phases of the design process. The evaluation of the model was carried out by the companies participating in the case studies and by experts, who concluded that the model explains the actions needed to develop new products in SMB.


2012 ◽  
Vol 212-213 ◽  
pp. 1177-1181
Author(s):  
Yan Hua Yang ◽  
Xiao Qiang Liu ◽  
Ming Jin Zhang

In this paper, we adopt theoretical method to study the evolution characteristic of the two dimensional turbulent vortex structures in a meander channel. The disturbance growth rates under different bank curvatures are simulated. The result showed that the change of growth rate of smaller vortices is more intensive than bigger vortices. Future more, we consider the coherent vortex structure as a kind of disturbance to study the evolution characteristics of multi-scale turbulent structures in a meander channel, make basis for finding “meander channel-forming vortices” which is controlling the river shape and adapt to the meander river in theoretic.


2014 ◽  
Vol 137 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin N. Goodhand ◽  
Robert J. Miller ◽  
Hang W. Lung

An important question for a designer is how, in the design process, to deal with the small geometric variations which result from either the manufacture process or in-service deterioration. For some blade designs geometric variations will have little or no effect on the performance of a row of blades, while in others their effects can be significant. This paper shows that blade designs which are most sensitive are those which are susceptible to a distinct switch in the fluid mechanisms responsible for limiting blade performance. To demonstrate this principle, the sensitivity of compressor 2D incidence range to manufacture variations is considered. Only one switch in mechanisms was observed, the onset of flow separation at the leading edge. This switch is only sensitive to geometric variations around the leading edge, 0–3% of the suction surface. The consequence for these manufacture variations was a 10% reduction in the blade's positive incidence range. For this switch, the boundary in the design space is best defined in terms of the blade pressure distribution. Blade designs where the acceleration exceeds a critical value just downstream of the leading edge are shown to be robust to geometric variation. Two historic designs, supercritical blades and blades with sharp leading edges, though superior in design intent, are shown to sit outside this robust region and thus, in practice, perform worse. The improved understanding of the robust, region of the design space is then used to design a blade capable of a robust, 5% increase in operating incidence range.


2018 ◽  
pp. 31-36
Author(s):  
Balázs Matolcsy ◽  
Attila Zólomy

During the analytical design process of wideband impedance matching major problems may arise, that might lead to non-realizable matching networks, preventing the successful impedance matching. In this paper two practical design rules and a simplified equation is presented, supporting the design of physically realizable impedance matching networks. The design rules and calculation technique introduced by this paper is summarized, and validated by microwave circuit simulation examples.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Filippo A. Salustri ◽  
W. Patrick Neumann

The design experience of 3rd year undergraduates in Mechanical Engineering at Ryerson University, and the assessment of student design work, was found to be disjointed and highly variable across the program. To attempt to address this, the authors are constructing courseware to help instructors of non-design engineering courses embed rich and consistent design projects into their courses. A “lightweight” Fast-Design process was developed. Course-specific design project examples of the process are being developed for five 3rd year courses using this design process. Current versions of all courseware are freely available. This paper details the nature of the courseware and how it was designed, developed,and deployed for the project. To date, one case has been deployed, two developed, and two more are under development. While results are so far only anecdotal, there is reason to believe that our approach can noticeably improve the design experience of students in non-design engineering courses.


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