issue 26 october 2012 - unsw faculty of engineering · 6 ⋅ unsw engineers ⋅ issue 26 ⋅...

PLUS: paralympics medal + big toys: f/a-18s and formula 1 cars

Inside Twitter

Cleaning Sydney Harbour

Never Stand Still Faculty of Engineering

Issue 26 ⋅ october 2012

IS THe reSoUrCeS bonanza over?

More than big projects...

With over 10,000 employees and around $10 billion of work in hand, our business is stronger than ever. As we grow and evolve, it’s our values that drive our culture and make our people unique.Leighton Contractors. More than you’d imagine. www.leightoncontractors.com.au/careers

We’re big on our people.(All 10,000 in fact).

up frontMany people have been saying the resources boom is finished. We don’t think it is. Mining companies are still investing in the work we are doing here in the Faculty of Engineering. We have new chairs being established, and new links with minerals and petroleum industries. We are increasing the number of Mining and Petroleum Engineering students, and still can’t keep up with industry demand.

Meanwhile UNSW researchers continue to be at the forefront of world’s best practice, as we solve issues of accessing new resources. Mines are becoming deeper and steeper, and often closer to existing infrastructure, so we need the best positioning, mapping and guiding systems, as well as greater safety, reliability and sustainability in all operations. UNSW remains committed to achieving this, as the recent establishment and growing international reputation of the Australian Centre for Sustainable Mining Practices shows.

In whatever field of engineering you are practising, I hope that you find plenty that is of interest in this latest issue of UNSW Engineers.

In thIs issue 4 Making News 8 Profile: Adam Schuck 10 Where are they now? 12 Resources boom 17 Schools of thought 22 Inbox, Top Gear

Our cover Abbot Point Bulk Coal, Queensland, courtesy of Xstrata Coal

unsW engIneers Is publIshed by the Faculty oF engIneerIng ⋅ unsW sydney 2052 australIa

phone +61 2 9385 4023 ⋅ Fax +61 2 9385 5456 ⋅ emaIl [email protected]

edItor Ken eastWood ⋅ desIgner Fox oWens creatIve ⋅ prInter rostone prInt ⋅ Issn 1442-8849

Professor GrAHAM DAVies

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unsW engIneers ⋅ Issue 26 ⋅ october 2012 ⋅ 3

Turning on recycled water

In a multi-million-dollar, multidisciplinary project, UNSW is leading a consortium

to research the barriers to the acceptance of recycled water as drinking water.

Australia’s Water Recycling Centre of Excellence granted $3 million to the project, and some 35 partners have contributed $7 million in cash and in-kind funding. The project has attracted significant international interest, with partners from the USA and Singapore.

“The research will be used to develop a national education, demonstration and engagement program to enable recycled water to become acceptable as a source of drinking water,” says Associate Professor Greg Leslie, Deputy Director of the UNESCO Centre for Membrane Science and Technology in the School of Chemical Engineering.

There are three main strands to the project, which will involve chemical and civil engineers, community medicine researchers, journalists, social researchers and communication specialists. UNSW is leading the technical research strand, which will determine the mechanical

reliability of water purification technologies, and assess the sustainability of these facilities. A second strand, also undertaken at UNSW, will study community attitudes and the language that is used to explain water recycling to the public, and develop future communication strategies. A third strand will look at developing education tools and websites.

Greg says that currently in Australia there is no uniform approach to developing facilities and systems to use recycled water as drinking water. “There are two states [Queensland and WA] that have invested money to make it happen and one state [Victoria] that says ‘no way, it won’t happen at all’.”

Photo by Julie Ward

4 ⋅ unsW engIneers ⋅ Issue 26 ⋅ october 2012

maKIng news

Is it possible that the shock waves produced by low-flying supersonic aircraft could be powerful enough to extinguish bushfires? This is the question being asked by Associate Lecturer Dr Graham Doig in the School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, supported by fellowship funding from the American Australian Association. “It’s loud and dangerous, and therefore fun to research,” he says. “It’s a

bit out there, and while it’s looking like it may be physically possible, in practice it’s not particularly feasible with aircraft currently available in Australia. It would work in a similar fashion to the way in which the shock and expansion waves from explosives can be used to extinguish a fire.” Graham is collaborating with the United States Navy on this project and this picture illustrates flow features around an F/A-18.

Renewable interestAn ongoing interest in renewable energy and a desire to have contact with today’s young engineers motivated Darcy Wentworth to donate time and money to the Faculty of Engineering.

Starting last year, Darcy and his wife Patricia sponsor an annual prize of $1,000 for the best group in a second-year project in the School of Photovoltaics and Renewable Energy (SPREE). As a Visiting Fellow, Darcy also donates about 15 hours a week. “I give the occasional lecture and supervise some thesis students,” he says. “I’ve always been interested in renewable energy and photovoltaics and I wanted to do something voluntary.”

With a background in mining engineering, and science before that, Darcy worked in the resources industry for most of his professional career before deciding to do a Masters in Renewable Energy at UNSW.

“I think a lot of engineers at this end of their working life, want to do some voluntary work,” he says. “I was fairly keen to have something that would stretch me mentally a bit,

and have contact with the people. Patricia and I also make regular donations to SPREE for student projects selected by the School that require additional funding to produce useful results, for example equipment for a micro-hydro project in Vanuatu.”

Darcy says that he enjoys the structure of the second-year project in which teams of students make a module with raw solar cells, then design and build a concentrator to maximise light on the cells, and then run an electric motor from it. “In the past some of the students were graduating without hardly touching a solar cell at all,” he says. “This project, which we’re running again this year, gives the students the sort of practical background they need, not just the theoretical.”

Darcy says he also likes the group work, where the groups of four to five are picked for the students, and they get no say in who they work with. “It’s a bit like real-life engineering, where you have to work with a group who are not necessarily your friends – they are picked for you.”

If you would like to donate your time or a prize to the Faculty, please contact Stephen Wooldridge, Alumni and Development Manager, T: 02 9385 5985, E: [email protected]

Fire away

Photo by Graham Doig


robert Care, aM Alumni Dr Robert Care was awarded an Order of Australia (AM) in this year’s Queen’s birthday honours. Robert is Chairman and Chief Executive of ARUP and has been a Visiting Fellow at the Faculty of Engineering. His award

was for “service to engineering through a range of executive roles, to the business sector, to international humanitarian programs and to the sport of athletics”.

Top 100 engineersAccolades keep pouring in for UNSW staff. Scientia Professor Rose Amal, Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Functional Nanomaterials, and Professor Stuart Wenham were recently named by Engineers Australia in its annual Top 100 influential engineers. Stuart and Professor Martin Green also won the prestigious Australian Collaborative Innovation Award in May.

Green wins bronze at ParalympicsMechanical and Manufacturing Engineering student Alex Green (featured last issue) won a bronze medal at the London Paralympics Games. She came third in the Women’s 3,000m C4 Individual Pursuit and fourth in the Road Individual Time.

AcHieVeMents

CEO urges students to play as a team“Engineers are known to be logical, task-oriented and solution-focused. But they also need to be good people managers and leaders,” Hamish Tyrwhitt, CEO of Leighton Holdings, Australia’s largest construction company, informed students of the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. “Just as importantly, a good engineer needs to have a clear set of values and a vision for themselves, their companies and their society.”

As part of an occasional series of addresses by industry figures, Hamish was speaking to a packed class of third-year students studying Civil Engineering Practice – a project-based course designed to assist students develop their research, teamwork, managerial and self-directed learning skills. Hamish impressed upon the students that the key to success is teamwork. “Get involved in university team activities, be it sport or student organisations or other collective community efforts,” he said. “You have to be comfortable with supporting and with contributing, as part of the team, as well as being able to lead and manage. The important thing is that on any job or project, you are part of the solution, not part of the problem.”

Students asked many questions, ranging from general careers advice to specifics on Leighton procedures and performance. Leighton Holdings employs 55,000 people around the world and annually recruits 400 Australian graduate engineers to its operating companies, including John Holland, Thiess and Leighton Contractors.

Three courses of memoriesIn August, James O’Loghlin, former host of ABC TV’s The New Inventors series, provided the keynote address at the Faculty’s 10th Annual Dinner. The night brought alumni from graduating years 1962, 1972, 1982, 1992 and 2002. Guests were treated to wine tasting and a three-course meal.

Ken Coad and Tony Robinson, engineering graduates from 1962, were among the attending guests. Their friendship pre-dates their time at UNSW; however, both have fond memories of the “old days” when the University was split between the Ultimo campus and the now main campus at Kensington. “We had to travel to Ultimo for maths and at the Kensington campus there was just the building that is now known as the Old Main Building,” Tony said. “We are exceptionally proud of what the University has become.”— Nicole Stinson

Dr Tony Robinson (left) and Mr Ken Coad reminisced about uni days gone by at the Faculty of Engineering 10th Annual Dinner.


maKIng news

Although this scene at Avarua in the Cook Islands appears tranquil, it is in the constant path of destructive cyclones. In 2005, it copped five cyclones in a row. The UNSW School of Civil and Environmental Engineering’s Water Research Laboratory recently began an eight-month project to analyse and predict wave patterns in Avarua’s extreme events in order

to help protect vital infrastructure. Within the study area are most government offices, the international airport, the main fuel stores, and Avatiu harbour, which processes all incoming freight to Rarotonga and the other Cook Islands. The project is being undertaken for the Climate Change Cook Islands division within the Office of the Prime Minister.

The calm before the storm

Forty Year 10 students from 26 secondary schools recently participated in an exciting work experience program designed and organised by the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, in which they toured construction sites, major roads, quarries and the UNSW Water Research Laboratory at Manly Vale. They were also given inspirational presentations and support from academic staff, young alumni and industry representatives. They spent time on the UNSW Kensington campus, exploring the School’s Design studio, computer labs and UNSW iCinema.

Students were generous in their praise and appreciation of the week, one writing that “the week as a whole was one of the best experiences I’ve had in my life”. Another noted “I have learnt so much … a great insight into the different aspects of engineering. Thanks so much for this opportunity UNSW.”

Associate Professor Ron Cox, Co-Chair of the External Relations Committee that helped organise the week, said: “With so many excellent students taking part in this program the future looks bright for us continuing to attract top-quality students to the School and to the engineering profession.”

our future engineers

Summer school for womenAn exciting four-night residential experience for women is being planned for 14–18 January next year to encourage more women to take up engineering. Open to females currently in Years 10 and 11 with an aptitude for maths and science, the experience will include site visits that

show engineering in action, as well as some team projects, lectures, workshops, social events, including a reception hosted by the Governor of NSW, Her Excellency Professor Marie Bashir, and an opportunity to meet the NSW Chief Scientist and Engineer, Professor Mary O’Kane.


Long-term doyen of the School of Petroleum Engineering, Henry Salisch passed away in Sydney earlier this year, aged 85.

Henry was born in Berlin and went to boarding school in England. During the bombing of London, he was evacuated to Ecuador, where he gained a Bachelor’s degree in Geological Engineering. Later he gained

Master’s degrees in both Petroleum Engineering and Business Administration in the USA. For the first 28 years of his

career he worked at oil-well sites in the Caribbean and South America. After that, he was Exploration Manager and a researcher for Petroleos de Venezuela. In 1986, he moved to Australia and worked for 26 years with the School of Petroleum Engineering at UNSW, in Sydney.

He was a president of the local Society of Petroleum Engineers, and remained a member of that organisation for 63 years. At UNSW he saw one of his key roles as recruiting people into the industry, visiting 40–50 schools a year.

Outside his career, he was a dedicated member of Rotary, and twice received one of Rotary’s highest honours, the Paul Harris Fellowship Award. He leaves behind his wife Barbara, and daughters Diana and Mariela.

Obituary: Henry alfred Salisch

Climate Change Minister Greg Combet officially opened the Tyree Energy Technologies Building (TETB) on 3 September.

Mr Combet, who has a degree in mining engineering from UNSW, said the research and learning that will happen inside the TETB will make a huge contribution to meeting the challenges of reducing emissions and improving energy efficiency.

“People are starting to think much more about how we can use energy far more efficiently and this building is not only an example of some of the contemporary thinking, but will also be a great place for collaborative efforts in this field for many years to come,” he told more than 100 leaders in the energy field who came to the opening ceremony.

Named after industrialist, engineer and philanthropist Sir William Tyree, who donated millions to help finance the building, the TETB will be the centre of cross-faculty research and studies of energy technologies including ground breaking photovoltaic panels, sustainable clean fuels, smart grids, energy storage as well as energy economics and policy analysis.

The building was awarded a 6 Green Star rating – making it one of the world leaders in environmentally sustainable building practices including a gas-fired tri-generation plant for power, heating and air conditioning, a roof-mounted solar panel array using UNSW photovoltaic cell technology and green steel using recycled materials.

Sir William said the building had gone way beyond what he had originally envisaged. “It is the most outstanding building on all university campuses I have seen around Australia and it contains many innovations developed here at UNSW. It will go a long way to building up our standards in engineering in this country.

“But it is what goes on inside a building that is important. Here we have a showcase building as well as state of the art facilities. It’s an honour for me to be part of the innovation that will go on here.”

Vice-Chancellor Professor Fred Hilmer said the building was completed on time and on budget. “UNSW has by far the biggest and best engineering faculty in Australia. This is a big building for big research.”

Located at the Anzac Parade entrance to UNSW, the Tyree building is home to energy research across all faculties of UNSW. It houses the University’s Australian Energy Research Institute (AERI), School of Photovoltaics and Renewable Energy Engineering, Centre for Energy and Environmental Markets, School of Petroleum Engineering, the new Cooperative Research Centre for Low Carbon Living, ARC Photovoltaics Centre of Excellence and the ARC Centre for Functional Nanomaterials.— Frank Walker

From left: Mr Greg Combet, Sir William Tyree OBE, Mrs Robbie Fennell and Mr Peter Tyree at the official opening of the TETB.

Climate Change Minister opens TETB


It’s still relatively early in his career, but Adam Schuck has

already kicked more key goals than many of his computer science colleagues.He has worked for Google and Twitter and been part of a start-up company that was bought by Twitter after a year. With top PhD graduates working for him, Adam now has the ear of Twitter’s CEO or Vice-President whenever he wants. On top of that, he is married and living in the Big Apple. “The New York tech scene is really exciting now,” Adam says. “Everyone’s ‘Oh Silicon Valley this, Silicon Valley that,’ but New York is where the action is.”

Adam graduated computer science with honours in 2005, gaining the University Medal, primarily for a thesis on reinforcement learning. “I was teaching a racing car to drive all by itself,” he says. Early on in his final year, he lined up a job with Google, after a scary interview. “At that stage Google

Alumni Ron Ward has published an interesting new novel loosely based on some of his experiences in engineering. Part comedy, part tragedy, it involves a team of misfits working together to impede progress, while their boss valiantly tries to get a factory built. In the course of this large engineering project a site accident causes the death of a worker, resulting in some interesting ethical dilemmas along the way.

Ron, who is a Visiting Fellow at UNSW, has previously written a couple of textbooks, and has been working on this novel for some time.

“Oh heavens, it goes back over 20 years,” he says. “I’ve had several goes at publishing it. One agent accused it of being of mixed genres. Apparently the literary people don’t like that. I don’t understand it, because so many novels are of mixed genre.” With a recommended retail price of $24.95, A project in ammonia has been published by Sid Harta publishers in Melbourne.

Ron says that most engineers will find much in the book that rings true, about unattractive people who want to fight among themselves and prevent progress. “The whole point is the whole office wants status quo,” he says. “It’s only mad people who want to make progress.”

Retired from teaching management to undergraduate engineers at the University of Technology, Sydney, Ron has been a site safety inspector for 20 years and says some of the novel’s plot has come out of case studies he wrote for the students.

A PROJECT IN AMMONIA

is an adventurein physical, management and social engineering

and contradicts Sturgeon’s Law(ninety percent of everything is crud)

by what happens when an unlikely group of four people,two Australians, one English and one French-Israeli,fight their way through the bureaucratic maze of their employer,assisted behind the scenes by the Chief Executive,and get what they want: exile to a colony,to build a fertilizer factory there.

All against the preferences of the company’s directorswho persistently do what they can to upset the exiles’ work,including adding an American colonist to the team,a person expected to be incompatible with the others.

Some of their time at work is normal boring crud.But some is fun, some brings headaches, some is heart-breaking, some is deadly.

It’s all adventurous.

There’s a lot going on in this very imaginative work…—Wendy O’Hanlon, Acres AustraliaWhat a unique, original idea for a plot…—G. Lunn, Professional Engineer, SydneyI think the book is very well written, with good believable characters.—D. Atterbury, Architect, Sydney

ISBN: 1-921829-16-8 EAN13: 978-1-921829-16-1

AUSTRALIAN FICTION

On a colony world

Project in Ammonia_cover_print edition.indd 1 04-Jun-12 8:19:23 AM

Want to become a pioneer? The UNSW Pioneers’ Group is keen for you to join. Set up for people who graduated from engineering more than 30 years ago, the group meets for a casual lunch on the Kensington campus three times a year (in the first week of March, June and September), and occasionally organises extra outings, such as a visit to the solar car workshop. Chairman for the past decade, Dr Keith Bowling, says it’s great to mix with the long-term alumni. “It’s really the people who have graduated in the past who make the university what it is today,” he said. “Graduates from UNSW Engineering have spread out all over the world.” Keith said the luncheons usually have a speaker from the university, and the group isn’t too fussy about the 30-year qualifications. “Pioneers, friends or fellow travellers are welcome.” If you would like details about the next Pioneers’ Group lunch, contact Claire Widmer on 02 9385 1690 or [email protected]

A novel idea

Become a pioneer

In response to requests from Faculty of Engineering alumni, UNSWEngineers is now available online at www.eng.unsw.edu.au/unsw-engineers-mag

We are now offering UNSWEngineers as both an e-magazine for online reading and a PDF version to download and print. You may also wish to browse through the archived copies of your alumni magazine.

If you have not yet done so, please send us an email at [email protected] and let us know if you would like to switch to the electronic version only. Please kindly state your full name and student number if you have it, or current postal address.

DIreCT To YoUr Inbox


had a reputation for being full of super-smart geeky people solving insanely hard problems,” he says. “They ripped me to pieces – they asked me insanely hard questions.”

As the first engineer to work for Google Australia, he started working on Google Maps, in an effort to “democratise” the data so anyone could correct it. “I learned an unfortunate lesson about big companies in that sometimes the projects you work on don’t see the light of day,” Adam says. But he loved the energy of the talented people he worked alongside.

“Google was a really fun company where the engineers are number one. The engineers are treated like kings – the rock stars of the company – they’re not just support staff for the salespeople.”

After that, Adam worked briefly on an application called Google Mapplets, before being recruited into a special Google project, Google Wave, which was aiming to streamline online

communication by combining instant messaging with email. “It was a top secret, hush-hush project,” he says. “We developed it in secret from the rest of Google, which was very atypical.” Adam’s team built a prototype and demonstrated it to the CEO and one of the founders of Google. “It was an amazing opportunity to present to these people – the average net worth in the room was billions of dollars.”

Although based in Australia, Adam worked in various Google offices, and during his time in the California office worked with fellow UNSW alumni Ori Allon, who had previously sold an algorithm, called Orion, to Google. In 2010, Ori was in the process of setting up his company, Julpan.

“We became good friends and we always wanted to work together,” Adam says. “The Google Wave project was nearing the end, and the timing was just right, and I had the opportunity to experience New York.

So I took the dive and changed jobs and countries.”

Julpan’s brief was to “make social networking information useful”. “What we were trying to do was take the firehose of information coming out of social networks and trying to find a way to make it useful,” Adam says. “For example, there are a lot of fires in my neighbourhood here in New York. If I hear a fire engine going past, I can’t type ‘fire in East Village’ into Google and find out where the fire is. This information is in social networks and we need to find ways to access it.”

Within a year, the 12 people in the Julpan team – half of whom had come from Google – had built a state-of-the-art system. “We knew it was better than what was out there,” Adam says. “We attracted the interest of most of the major players.”

Twitter bought Julpan in 2011, and Adam moved across to the company, where he is now an Engineering Manager working on the next generation of “Twitter Discovery”.

Adam also runs a monthly social meet-up in New York for Aussies in the technology industry, called Down Under New York (DUNY).

He keeps dreaming of the next thing though. “I love entrepreneurialism – working with really talented people to build a company from scratch,” he says. “I think that taking some big risks is a key idea. You have a much bigger appetite and ability for risk when you’re younger. If you’ve got an idea, don’t sit around and wait. Just get out there and do it.”


adam SchuckTaking a byte at the

big apple

ProfiLe


Where Are tHeY now?

It’s the classic working fairytale: someone who started near the

bottom of a large organisation, worked their whole life for that organisation and ended up the boss.

This is the story of alumni Les Wielinga, now the Director General of Transport for NSW and

in charge of all transport in the state.“It’s very significantly a management role, but I do get

involved in key milestones with our main projects,” he says. “I’m a glorified administrator really.”

Forty years ago, the (then) Department of Main Roads helped put Les through UNSW as a civil engineer, and he graduated in 1977. He then worked in many sections of the Department of Main Roads, eventually becoming CEO of the Roads and Traffic Authority, and the Sydney Metro

Authority, before taking on the Director General position in 2009. But he remains humble about his role.

“You’re in these sorts of jobs for a split second, and you need to make it count,” he says.

Currently his priorities are integrating the NSW transport system, electronic ticketing, bringing in new rolling stock, development of the rail and road network, finalising the new transport master plan and speaking at the inquiry on public transport.

“There’s a single budget now for transport,” he says. “I’m the administrator of a large agency – there’s 30,000 people in transport in the state.”

Les is also a member of the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering’s Industry Advisory Committee. “Engineers play a critical role in developing our communities and making them function,” he says. “Remember that you learn until the day you die. Develop your brain, learn from new experiences.”

In the super-fast, flashy world of Formula 1, few reach the heights of alumni Sam Michael, now the Sporting

Director of the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team.After graduating as a mechanical engineer from UNSW

in 1993, with a thesis on data acquisition systems for racing cars, he worked at Team Lotus, Jordan, Williams (for 11 years) and less than a year ago started at McLaren. “I worked my way through all the design and R&D departments of the team to build an in-depth understanding of how a race car works,” he says. “I was interested in

engineering from a young age, encouraged by my father (who also studied at UNSW) and naturally gravitated to racing through motorcycles and then cars. I knew that I wanted to work in F1 and I went to university to get an engineering degree to achieve that.”

Sam (pictured at left with driver Lewis Hamilton) says that when he started in the industry 20 years ago, typical F1 teams were about 50 people, but they now have 500 because everyone is so specialised. “However, when we go to the circuit, we can still revert to type

and solve engineering problems in extremely short periods of time when necessary – I still particularly enjoy that because it reminds me of the early days in the business.”

Sam recently became co-patron of Re-Engineering Australia (REA), which gives young people an idea of what’s involved in race-car engineering. “I have always encouraged young engineers to never underestimate what you can do with your career, particularly Australians. Your career is what you want it to be and remember that you don’t get a trial run at life!”

SAM MICHAEL’S RACE TO THE TOP


DRIVING THE STATE’S TRANSPORT SYSTEM


Julia Leeson has just finished a Master of Science in Astronautics

and Space Engineering at Cranfield University in the UK, and now is hoping to propel Australia’s space program into the future.

“The future of Australia’s space program is definitely looking brighter than it was several years ago,” she says. “The addition of the joint SKA project [the square kilometre array – the world’s largest telescope] is fantastic. There are several very influential space enthusiasts all working together in Australia to gain government support and build great foundations for a space industry in Australia. I would like to come back and be involved.”

Having grown up in Hobart, Julia completed a Bachelor of Engineering

(Aerospace) and a Bachelor of Science (Physics) at UNSW from 2004 to 2008, then worked for Qantas before receiving a US$26,000 Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship that enabled her to continue her studies at Cranfield. “The university is based several kilometres from the nearest town of only a few thousand people and I have lived in large cities for the last eight years prior to this,” she says. “So I’ve found it quite challenging to live in such a rural and isolated environment, although the university does have an airfield and it’s cool to see the planes and helicopters fly by.”

Julia says the biggest challenges for engineers involved in space technology

in Australia is convincing the public that space activities are worth investing in. “It really is amazing how widespread different space technologies are and how they help in everyday life – use of a mobile, watching TV, using the GPS in your phone … Even many medical technologies such as MRI and kidney dialysis were developed from space applications,” she says. “We just have to hope the financial situation in the USA and Europe gets better quickly for more activities to get funding.”

SPACE IS LOOKING BRIGHTER

When Kate Fairlie went to write a Chinese visa application

recently, she couldn’t fit all the places she’s been in the past year into the space provided. It isn’t so much her job as a Project Officer at the NSW Office of Environment & Heritage that leads her to so much international travel, but a combination of her four-year role as Chair of the International Federation of Surveyors Young Surveyors Network,

and her own love of travel. In the next few months she’ll present on the youth challenges of land tenure and security to a conference in Italy; visit Ghana as part of an African taskforce to review the challenges and opportunities of surveying in sub-Saharan Africa; and attend a conference in Uruguay in order to build the network of young surveyors throughout the Americas.

“I love travelling and meeting different people in the profession throughout the world – it’s one of the big perks,” she says.

Even when she was at UNSW, Kate’s travel bug was let off the leash, with a year on exchange in Sweden in 2005. “I basically wanted to stay overseas but I needed someone to pay for it.” So, the following year she organised an internship with Shell in the Netherlands, returning to complete her degree in 2007/2008, where she was awarded the Jacobs Australia Engineering Leadership Prize.

Then it was back to Europe (the UK this time) with Shell before coming back to Australia to start her

PhD, which she is completing at the Queensland University of Technology Faculty of Law. “I’m probably about midway through,” she says. “It’s on how we manage carbon from a property perspective – how we manage land as part of an environmental system and make it less human-centric.”

In 2010, she won the Institution of Surveyors NSW Young Professional of the Year award.

Now in her third year as a Project Officer, Kate is primarily working on establishing a database of all the conservation commitments in NSW. “Most of the stuff at the council level is in a file somewhere, but it’s not easy to access,” she says. Previously she contributed to recovery plans of koala and flying-fox populations, before analysing how we match biodiversity priorities with carbon priorities.

“I tend to take on roles where I’m liaising between really technical people and more policy-minded people, and these people find it really difficult to communicate. My degree helps me to be the person in the middle,” she says.

SURVEYING THE WORLD



Heard the rumour about the demise of Australia’s natural resources

boom? As the Chinese and Indian economies slow, doomsday economists have expressed fears the bonanza is over.

But the signs at UNSW are showing the opposite. Industry is requiring more mining and petroleum graduates than we can supply, new chairs and links with industry are being established, and vital research is barrelling ahead in areas of hard-to-access resources, new mapping and positioning techniques, and long-term sustainability.

“There were a couple of articles in the financial media recently that said the resources boom was over – that things were going off the boil,” says Professor Bruce Hebblewhite, Head of the School of Mining Engineering. “But that is not the case. Yes, economies around the world are slowing and yes, that means that mining companies are probably pausing and taking a more considered point of view as to whether they should jump into a new project. But it’s not at all an end to the boom – it’s a slow-down and probably a very necessary slow-down.”

Bruce says one of the key indicators is that the school currently has the largest number of students ever – with 274 undergraduates and 276 postgraduates – and industry demand for graduates is still increasing. “We know that the current national supply is way short of demand. Even if you factor in the reduced projections by 10,

opportunities for other alternative energy sources. If you look at the financial pages to see where investment is going you will see that the major alternative is gas. At current projected rates of consumption Australia is estimated to have sufficient gas reserves to meet its energy needs for at least a few hundred years. Most of this gas will be exported and this will have a massive impact on Australia’s economy over the coming decades.”

We’ve got gasIn July this year, Professor Bob

Clark was appointed Professor and Chair of Energy Strategy and Policy at UNSW. His primary task is to explore the potential of Australia’s deep shale gas reserves. In the USA, shale gas has been tapped for some time and Bob says Australia’s resource is huge, found 1–4km underground, primarily in the Canning, Perth, Cooper and Otway basins.

“On paper, there’s 400 trillion cubic feet sitting there – the largest gas resource we have,” he says. “It may be that there is twice as much as that. Or half as much as that due to recoverability issues. We don’t know. You’ve got to get in and find out. But at first blush, if we were going to supply Australia with shale gas, it would supply our gas needs for 400 years.”

Formerly the Chief Defence Scientist of Australia, Bob describes

20, 30 percent, we’re still way short of the target.”

The School of Mining Engineering is aiming to increase intake numbers by 50 percent (to about 100 per year) by 2014. “Australia last year graduated 225 new mining engineers. And the industry’s projection is that they need 450–500 graduates a year.” One of the ways the school is addressing this shortage is postgraduate courses for civil engineers, geologists, surveyors and mechanical engineers who want to enter the mining industry.

Professor Val Pinczewski, Head of the School of Petroleum Engineering, says the petroleum industry is experiencing an even bigger boom than mining. “The investments currently being made in developing Australia’s conventional gas and coal-seam gas reserves are some of the biggest resource investments in the history of the country and are set to make Australia one of the world’s largest liquefied natural gas exporters, if not the biggest,” he says. “With massive emerging economies in China, India and South-East Asia, the demand for energy is expected to increase significantly over the coming decades and the massive investments in the development of gas both in Australia and worldwide are aimed at addressing this demand.”

Val says Australia is well on the way to becoming a “gas economy”. “All you are currently seeing is increasing oil prices, which is creating

natural resources are becoming harder to access, but the boom is far from over. UNSW engineers are creating the exciting future of the mining and petroleum industries.

cover storY


himself as a “complex problem solver” and says his role is “to provide frank and fearless advice to the government”.

“First I have to understand the nature of Australia’s end-to-end energy and its security in both a carbon-constrained economy and a global context, and then, within that framework, drill down deep to look at shale gas in the mix. Can we better gauge our capacity and can we extract it? Is it economically feasible to do so? Can we put in place environmental safeguards that will provide public confidence? How will it contribute to reducing our CO2 emissions in the medium term? How does it fit in with clean energy programs?”

Bob says it appears that the USA has been successful in tapping shale gas reserves because it has the technology, infrastructure, transport network and domestic market. However, because Australia’s shale gas is generally found “in the middle of nowhere” mining it wouldn’t face many of the community issues affecting coal-seam gas.

Bob says he is working to understand how shale gas could fit into Australia’s entire energy mix.

“I can’t look at shale gas and say ‘renewables are not my problem’, ‘nuclear is not my problem’, ‘coal is not my problem’. I think, ultimately, like everything in life, things are a compromise. There needs to be an evolutionary transition to renewables. It’s not going to happen tomorrow. Meanwhile, I am concerned about our CO

2 emissions, but I’m not taking a zealotry passage on the path to renewables.

“For electricity production, 2011 Australian Treasury projections map a reduction in emissions intensity from 0.85 down to below 0.2 tonnes of CO2 per megawatt-hour by 2050, to meet our goal. Conventional gas-fired power plants can play an important bridging role down to the 0.4 tonnes CO2/MWh level.

“I believe it is very important for a mature nation to understand its resources – why are we leaving this

in the ground? Equally, in a situation where Australia is ‘awash’ with gas, why would we pull it out?

“If I find it is environmentally better than coal-seam gas, and it gets jobs and manufacturing industries in Australia, it still doesn’t mean Australia is going to do it, but it means we’re getting a better understanding of the resource. It’s all going to be down to economics at the end of the day – can we make a buck?”

For more than 20 years Professor Sheik Rahman, in the School of Petroleum Engineering, has been a passionate proponent of using Australia’s geothermal resources – underground rocks at temperatures of 300–350°C – for power. “It can support all of Australia’s energy needs for hundreds and hundreds of years,” he says. However, geothermal power is currently too expensive to produce, by a factor of 10, and so he is working on improving hydraulic fracturing – advances that will hopefully bring the cost of geothermal power down,

Courtesy of Xtrata Coal


but will also help access the shale gas resources. “Currently, jacking apart fractures takes a huge amount of energy,” Sheik says. “We need a better understanding of the geometry of fractures.”

Mine craftMeanwhile, another chair has been established at UNSW

with Rio Tinto/Northparkes. “That chair will develop and lead a growing research team in regards to the geotechnical issues of block caving,” Bruce says.

Block caving is a relatively inexpensive underground mining technique suitable for mining many large, low-grade ore bodies. It relies on natural breakage and fragmentation to get the rock continually dropping down into the recovery zone, where it is extracted. “The research challenges are in terms of rock characterisation, design and planning – how do you get continual and consistent rock breakage in a controlled manner?” Bruce says. Broad adoption of the block-caving method will require greater automation of loaders and other equipment to ensure the safety of personnel.

Bruce says there are many technical challenges as industry attempts to access resources in difficult areas. Mines are getting deeper, and a number are now near or under major existing infrastructure and townships. “There are some difficult or marginally economic mineral deposits that people might have walked away from 20–30 years ago,” he says. “In order to consider mining such deposits today we need better safety, better technologies, better predictability and better support systems.” Bruce points to the work of people such as Associate Professor Serkan Saydam and Dr Paul Hagan in the School of Mining Engineering, who are working on preventing catastrophic failure of mining bolts used for support underground, as well as some of the latest work being done with mapping and imaging, which will help with safety and the monitoring of mining’s effects.

Associate Professor Linlin Ge, in the School of Surveying and Geospatial Engineering and Dr Simit Raval from the School of Mining Engineering work in the Laboratory for Imaging of the Mining Environment (LIME). The laboratory is developing technologies that use images and information from satellites or small, low-flying unmanned aeroplanes to accurately pinpoint many aspects of a mining operation – such as surface subsidence, environmental impacts such as earth movements caused 5km away from the mine, accurate surveying of huge stockpiles, which would be too dangerous or time-consuming for a human surveyor, or surveying in rough terrain such as the Blue Mountains, NSW.

“We’re using innovative technologies to provide mining companies with better intelligence,” Linlin says. “We provide them with feedback and say ‘this is what you’ve done, and this is the impact’.”

By taking multiple images from different angles, the technology can now identify horizontal movement as well as vertical subsidence.

LIME has been approached by the Federal Government to look at the impact of fracking, as well as how much the

Locata system pole, on a mine site, helping provide centimetre-level accuracy positioning information in areas where satellite signals can’t reach.


ground uplifts during CO2 capture and storage. Linlin says one of the interesting potential uses of optical satellites is to study how vegetation changes in an area where CO2 has been stored underground – the vegetation can be a visual clue to detect if the CO2 is leaking.

Associate Professor Christoph Arns, in the School of Petroleum Engineering, is using complex imaging equipment, such as magnetic resonance and computed tomography scans, to gain more accurate and efficient models of underground geological structures. “It reduces the amount of testing, and reduces the amount of uncertainty,” he says. “We know more about what’s in space than what’s under the ground. But now if I have fancy rock, with different rock types, I can accurately work out what they are and how this affects physical measurements.”

On a mine site, rapid 3D mapping of the whole environment is becoming increasingly valuable. Professor Chris Rizos, Head of the School of Surveying and Geospatial Engineering, is quick to point out that although rapid mobile mapping wasn’t developed specifically for mines, the fact that a mine is such a dynamically changing environment makes it ideal for the technology. “In a mine you are digging up many, many tonnes per hour. That’s significantly changing your topography. Nothing is static.”

He says ultimately each mining machine will produce new mapping information while they are operating, and real-time information will be fed back to each machine. “Then it becomes a tightly coupled loop. The machines know where they are, but in addition they can work out where everything else is – where faults are, the ore body, other machines – they are getting a sense of the environment as they map the terrain,” Chris says. “The technology is already there to do this, and the new generation of mines will be implementing them as they come on stream.”

Another long-term project that Chris has been part of is the augmentation of GPS with Locata. An Australian company, Locata Corporation and UNSW have had an ongoing productive relationship for more than a decade, developing, refining and testing the technology. With a dozen mobile stations positioned around a mine site, they can provide centimetre-level accuracy positioning information in areas where satellite signals can’t reach. “So now you don’t have to trade off accuracy with availability of signal,” Chris says. “Immediately you can move drills and trucks to areas where they couldn’t get a signal before.”

Such advanced positioning will prove vital as the industry moves to more automation and remote mine operations, moving personnel away from the more hazardous zones. In the Pilbara at the moment, the West Angelas Rio Tinto mine is trialling remotely controlled automated machinery, with most personnel based in a Perth operations centre.

Bruce Hebblewhite says this will be the way of the future. “It doesn’t necessarily mean fewer personnel, but more effective and smarter use of personnel in a safe work environment. Moving people away from the more hazardous zones in a mine is a bigger driver than simply looking at any labour costs that might accrue.”


He says that the industry is also likely to see an increasing use of high-powered, high-capacity conveyor systems rather than relying as much on trucking for transport. This will mean there will need to be improvements in rock-breakage systems to create more easily handled material.

Sustainability“The power of the community has been one of the most

significant changes in mining in the last decade in both the developed and developing world,” says Associate Professor David Laurence, Director of the new Australian Centre for Sustainable Mining Practices, in the School of Mining Engineering at UNSW. “The obtaining of the ‘social licence to operate’ will become more and more critical in the next few decades.”

David says that the Centre is researching a wide range of issues in sustainable mining, including better mine closure modelling, improved environmental and social impact assessment using visualisation and virtual-reality platforms, and investigating the impact of coal-seam gas extraction on aquifers.

“We’re very interested in working on issues in Australia such as environmentally responsible mine development

and the balance of corporate social responsibility,” says Research Director of the Centre, Professor Ros Taplin.

In July last year, the Centre released a handbook of sustainability guidelines for the industry that has been endorsed and distributed by the Federal Government. “And the invitation for David to be on an interim advisory panel for the Federal Government working group on coal-seam gas is an acknowledgement of the Centre’s role,” she says.

Ros emphasises that independent researchers, such as those at the Centre, have a vital role in informing and shaping the debate about our resources. “The scientific contribution in the coal-seam gas debate is very important – there’s a tendency for the debates to become polarised.”

She highlights seabed mining and the impact mining has on aquifers, as two of the big issues the Centre will continue to address. “There’s a whole host of issues that we are really keen to look at though – and we’re keen to expand in 2013 with new PhD students.” Currently there are 10 staff and students working in the Centre.

Its reputation is already established overseas and David has been running short courses in Mexico and Peru on leading practices in sustainable mining. “That’s pretty exciting,” Ros says. “The South American impact of the mining boom means that the leading practice on sustainable mining is coming from Australia. Our work goes beyond Australia to Asia and Africa and South America.”


Surface subsidence shown over time, as detected from satellites.


schools oF tHouGHt

School of civil and EnvironmEntal EnginEEring

Cleaning up our harbour

An efficient and inexpensive method of cleaning up polluted sediments in harbours and estuaries is being developed by researchers in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

“It’s a huge problem internationally,” says Scientia Professor and Head of School, David White. “We have so many harbours and estuaries that are contaminated in this way.”

Traditionally, benthic sediments contaminated by persistent organic pollutants such as dioxins and benzofurans – which are highly toxic and resistant to natural degradation – have to be pumped to the surface to be removed, and then the pollutants transported to a toxic landfill site. Such an operation is expensive, clumsy and requires huge treatment plants. But left in situ, the toxins can spread to fish life and into the food chain.

David and a team of researchers are developing innovative methods for in situ treatment and remediation of contaminated sediments in Sydney Harbour. Elsewhere in the world, such as San Francisco, granules of highly porous, or activated carbon, have been used to absorb ‘like a sponge’ the benthic contaminants. Although this stops them from leaching into the environment, the contaminated carbon granules still remain in situ.

The UNSW team is fixing electron-rich iron to carbon granules that are 1–3mm across. In theory, the extra

electrons in the iron will cross over into the pollutants, actively changing their chemical structure. “The iron passes the electrons on to the contaminant, making them now biodegradable,” David says. “Bacteria can then start to degrade the compounds.”

Although the work is still at the lab stage, David says it has the potential to save governments millions of dollars, as they try to remediate areas such as Sydney Harbour. “It’s a huge problem for the NSW Government. In terms of future development of legacy areas, it’s a really big problem.” Trials will be held in Sydney Harbour and in Botany Bay.

The research is partially funded by an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant with project partners Orica Australia, Sydney Ports Corporation, NSW Environment Protection Authority, Sydney Metropolitan CMA and NSW Department of Roads and Maritime Services.

School of ElEctrical EnginEEring and tElEcommunicationS

Money and power are the twin foci of the new Ausgrid Chair in Electrical Power Economics, Professor Gerry Sheblé. “One of the main things engineers are not

good at is communicating to the public, communicating to management and understanding the economics of what they’re doing,” he says. “No matter what product you make, the customer has to pay, and it has to be affordable.”

Formerly living in the USA, Portugal and France, Gerry started on 1 June this year in the newly created position.

In the USA, working for Quanta Technology, he created automated computer applications for power and gas systems in the USA, Canada, Europe and India, as well as doing economic analyses of geothermal plants, and the fluctuating price of electricity as a commodity.

One of his first tasks at UNSW is setting up a virtual market floor for electricity, where a network of computers will function as traders (either running automatically, or manually by a student or researcher) and another computer

will act as the trading floor. Gerry created something similar in the USA. “It simulates what you should see in a real market,” he says. “You can test the markets to see how they work under stress.”

The system will also be able to model carbon markets, and help economists and engineers work out how to deal with the different characteristics of renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar. For example, renewables have no inbuilt “inertia” – that is, in peak times, power may need to be saved by flywheels or other forms of power storage. “Right now, pumped hydro is probably the most effective storage for the money,” he says.

Working with others in the school, he hopes to model and develop power storage methods within the Tyree Energy Technologies Building (TETB).

Gerry’s other main task is to set up a phaser measurement laboratory which, 100 times a second, will analyse voltage fluctuations in an electronic system – initially the virtual power plant lab within the TETB and two adjacent buildings.

Money and power

Photo by Mohd Firdaus


schools oF tHouGHt

graduatE School of BiomEdical EnginEEring

The $2.5 million bionic eye laboratory was opened in May by the NSW Chief Scientist and Engineer Professor Mary O’Kane. Containing a clean room and an array of state-of-the-art equipment for building complex microscopic components and testing the performance of microelectronics, the facility will aid UNSW researchers in the international race to develop a bionic eye. They are planning to start patient tests next year.

“The new laboratory gives us the capacity to not only design and test, but

to also fabricate novel and intricate bionic implants,” says Professor Gregg Suaning from the Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering. “It will yield enormous potential and promise for future biomedical research.”

The facility will also help in the development of implantable bionics with wearable sensors for telehealth monitoring, underpinning the school’s research in personal health systems for managing a wide range of chronic diseases.

opening the bionic eye lab

School of Photovoltaic and rEnEwaBlE EnErgy EnginEEring

A senior Chinese politician visited the School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering earlier this year, touring the new Tyree Energy Technologies Building (TETB) facilities and showing great interest in the future of photovoltaics.

Wang Yang is the Chinese Communist Party’s Secretary in Guangdong Province, in the south of China. “It was an immense honour to meet Mr Yang,” said Acting Head of School, Associate Professor Alistair Sproul. “He’s a very high-up guy. Very high profile.”

During wide-ranging discussions on the future of energy, Mr Yang was interested in exploring questions regarding the future of photovoltaics. At present

90 percent of global production of photovoltaics is based on crystalline silicon wafers, while the remainder is thin film. “Mr Yang was asking questions – what’s the future? Will it be crystalline silicon or thin film? And I found out later that his province has invested very heavily in thin film. So I think he was sounding us out.”

Although only on campus for a few hours, Mr Wang was shown through the characterisation labs, the TETB and the array on top of the TETB.

“He was very well informed,” Alistair said. “I was quite impressed with the sophistication of the questions he was asking me. He knew the strengths and weaknesses of crystalline silicon quite well.”

Alistair said that as China was the world’s major manufacturer of photovoltaics, it made sense that they would look to UNSW for advice and possible

links.“In photovoltaics, this University – with names like Martin Green and Stuart Wenham – is highly, highly respected. There are decades of top-shelf research coming out of this University. That’s what you get when you do the hard yards – you get a global reputation.”

And Alistair’s answer on crystalline silicon vs thin film? “Most of the world is focusing on crystalline silicon and that’s been our focus for the last 25–30 years. If you want to build gigawatts of photovoltaics – when an industry is that big – you need to ask where is the material coming from? Is it rare? Is it toxic? Is it easily available? Crystalline silicon still seems to be the answer.”

China on the move

Vice-Chancellor Professor Fred Hilmer chats with Wang Yang.

Professor Mary O’Kane with Dean of Engineering, Professor Graham Davies


School of PEtrolEum EnginEEring

As the carbon trading market opens up investment opportunities, organisations need accurate ways to assess the financial risks of carbon capture and storage programs.

Matt Cooper, third-year student of Law and Petroleum Engineering, has analysed the “real options” assessment method, based on techniques used in commodity and futures trading, and will be presenting his research at the Society of Petroleum Engineers meeting in Perth in October.

“The option to perform an action in the future has an inherent value,” Matt says. “It’s used massively in futures and commodities trading at the moment.”

An options assessment takes into account flexibility (treating investment as an opportunity not an obligation), potential massive swings in carbon price (which, for example, could quadruple overnight) and the evolution of management decisions.

Matt’s research has shown that an options assessment provides no help in determining whether or not to go ahead with a carbon capture and storage program, partly because some of the factors it takes into account (such as a massive increase in the carbon trading price) are incredibly optimistic. “Because it’s a financial tool, it doesn’t inform the decision as to whether or not to go ahead,” Matt says. “However, it is incredibly valuable for purchase decisions – it shows you the carbon price range between which a project would become feasible.”

Although the research sounds more like the work of an economic theorist than an engineer, Matt says real-world petroleum engineering is primarily about the economics.

“Initially I was surprised how economically based the engineering is.

Just because there is a best solution, doesn’t mean it will happen unless the finances balance out.

“We have the technology tomorrow to store huge amounts of CO

2 … but no one’s going to do it unless it’s economical to do so.”

To invest or not to invest?

School of SurvEying and gEoSPatial EnginEEring

A prototype of an indoor navigation system designed specifically for blind and vision-impaired people, has been developed.

Principal research partner Euan Ramsey-Stewart of Ramsey Stewart Industrial Design has been working with Binghao Li, in the School of Surveying

and Geospatial Engineering, to develop the Smartphone prototype, and in the process they became finalists in the UNSW Innovation Awards.

“There are talking lifts and braille on the elevator buttons, but how good is that if you can’t find the elevator?” says Euan, who himself has the late-onset degenerative eye condition keratoconus. “Social equity is what this is all about. It’s a better life change. Better

access to work opportunities. Someone who has the ability to be independent and self-sufficient has so many more opportunities to be employed.”

Although many large companies are seeking to develop indoor navigation systems, Euan says this system has been designed from the ground up with blind and vision-impaired people in mind, working with groups such as Vision Australia. “We’re not telling people what they should have, but we’re asking them what they want.” For example, they discovered that location of public services is one of the most important things that blind and vision-impaired people want in a navigation system. The system will also be designed for one-hand or voice-command operation, because many of its users will be carrying a cane or blind-dog leash, and will also be designed to conserve battery life, so that multiple batteries don’t need to be carried. “We know our target market and if we get it right from the start, the big companies like Google, Microsoft and Apple will be contacting us.”

navigation for the blind


schools oF tHouGHt

School of comPutEr SciEncE and EnginEEring

In the latest international RoboCup championships, held at the World Trade Center in Mexico City, our UNSW team came third in the world in the Standard Platform League, after thrashing many of the teams in the competition.

They were narrowly beaten 6:7 by this year’s champions, TT-UT Austin Texas.

The robots in the four-a-side competition make their own decisions about where to go on the field, and control their own movements.

Prior to 2008, the competition used a standardised dog-like robot that walked on four legs, but they now use humanoid figures that walk on two. Referees remove for 30 seconds any robots that push, repeatedly walk into other robots, can’t get up, or walk into their own goal box.

“We struggled with our stability,” said captain of the 16-member team, PhD student Sean Harris. “We fall over quite a fair amount and our walk

is very stressful on the motors. The motors get very hot and wear out the parts. One of our goals now will be to walk in a much smoother and more efficient way.”

Sean said that the UNSW team made several improvements since last

year, including developing a tricky curved kick. “The robot stops and kicks at an angle. Most teams can only kick straight.”

New technology also enabled the robots to interpret information from both their cameras (one in the forehead and one in the chin) at the same time, whereas previously there was a delay as they switched between the views. “The other big improvement was our localisation, knowing where you are on the field,” he said. “It’s much easier to make a good decision about what to do with the ball if you know where you are, and where everyone else is.”

Early rounds of the competition were beset by some wifi problems due to interference from other games, which meant the robots were often unable to communicate with each other, reducing teamwork and resulting in all the robots going for the ball. “It was a bit like an under-6 team’s soccer game,” Sean said.

UnSW kicks another goal

School of mEchanical and manufacturing EnginEEring

As part of a great new partnership with a north Indian technological institute, five Indian Mechanical Engineering students were treated to a week of lectures, field trips and workshops at UNSW earlier this year, paid for by a $30,000 Indo-Australian grant. The focus was on renewable energy, and included a visit to the solar hot water system manufacturing plant, Rheem.

Selected out of 40 applicants, the students from IIT-Ropar, in Punjab, are now involved in combined research projects with the UNSW students, including developing a nanofluid-based concentrating parabolic solar collector for use in hydrogen generation.

Ropar student Ashwanth Reddy spoke very highly of the experience. “This trip was the first time I visited another country and it has given a good exposure to the way things happen around the world,” he said. “My favourite part of the visit was the trip to the Bligh building [1 Bligh Street, Sydney]. It is one of the biggest sustainable buildings in Australia where we were shown various technical aspects.”

Dr Rob Taylor, Lecturer in the School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering and the School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering, set up the link with Ropar, through a former fellow PhD student at Arizona State University. As part of the program, Rob will travel to Ropar in November.

“For whatever reason, Australia doesn’t attract that many Indian students,” he says. (The number of Indian students visa applications to Australia has halved from more than 60,000 in 2008–09 to less than 30,000 in 2010–11.) “And so one of the ideas is that I’m going to go and market UNSW, particularly our postgraduate system.”

The students have already combined to produce conference papers, including one on using solar energy to drive a thermal-activated cooling system. Rob says such technologies have a huge potential market in India. “It’s obviously the developing world and they’re using more and more power every year. We wanted to get the students over here who are going to continue on in this area afterwards.”

Indian Pacific ties

Photo by Brad Hall


School of mining EnginEEring

Throughout the world, mining companies are becoming fair dinkum about sustainability, according to Professor Ros Taplin, Research Director of the Australian Centre for Sustainable Mining Practices (ACSMP).

In June, Ros attended the Rio +20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, in Brazil, along with 100 Heads of State, government delegates, and representatives of NGOs and industry. In 1992, a similar conference put in place many of the UN’s major environmental agreements, including the climate change convention.

“This was, 20 years later, a conference to really look back at what’s been achieved in the past two decades and to move onwards,” Ros says. “Part of my focus, coming from the Centre and our own focus of sustainability in

mining was to look at progress in the mining industry. And I really felt there’s a much more serious and deeper intent by industry to engage in sustainable development and in particular in the mining industry.”

Ros says that after about a decade of work on mining sustainability issues, there was an increasing sophistication and understanding of the environmental and community context in which mining operates. “There’s a full acknowledgement that community expectations need to be met.”

Ros will further explore mining the green economy and technology for sustainable development in her role as the guest editor of a special International Journal of Technology Management and Sustainable Development due out next year.

World standards improve

School of chEmical EnginEEring

Award-winning PhD candidate Bianca Blunden represented UNSW in July at the 76th Prague Meeting on Macromolecules. Bianca received first prize for the ATA Scientific Travel Award, helping to cover her expenses for the conference, which focused on polymer drug delivery systems from chemical, medical and biological perspectives.

“It was a small conference, which was good, because we, as young scientists, were able to meet and talk to many leading researchers in our field,” she said.

Bianca’s main area of research is on the attachment of ruthenium complexes to polymers, in order to increase the complexes’ suitability and activity as anti-cancer agents. She has recently been working in Germany on this research.

Bianca said that ruthenium complexes such as RAPTA-C have shown promise as anti-cancer therapeutics and an alternative to platinum drugs. “Ruthenium drugs potentially offer advantages as they have been shown to be active on metastases [secondary tumours]. Platinum drugs show little activity towards these and more people die from metastases than primary lesions. There is also evidence that ruthenium drugs are active on tumour types that platinum drugs are not.”

One of the main problems with existing platinum drugs is that the body quickly develops resistance to them, making them less effective. “Ruthenium drugs offer

new anti-cancer options

multiple activation pathways which makes it less likely that the body will develop resistance,” Bianca said.

Large macromolecular structures, such as polymers, have been shown to accumulate and be retained in tumour tissue, and researchers such as Bianca hope this effect can be exploited in the increased uptake of polymeric drugs to tumour tissue.

“I have now successfully attached a ruthenium complex [drug] to a simple linear polymer,” Bianca said. “I am now working on improving cell uptake efficiency and on different polymeric structures. Ruthenium complexes are unstable under numerous conditions so getting the final product out intact is challenging.”


InboxmanuFacturIng In crIsIs In response to your request for thoughts on the future of manufacturing in Australia I have the following suggestions:1. Work closely with key industry engineers to determine the range of problems and cost factors influencing existing and planned products and components, and to get an idea of what future demand and opportunities may be. 2. Select a group of keen undergraduate and newly qualified engineers to be part of a creativity workshop to explore innovative solutions to the above, preferably facilitated by a person skilled

in creativity techniques such as linear (matrix, morphological, reframing, hypotheticals, forced association), intuitive (imagery, brainstorming, analogy) and lateral thinking.

3. Use new engineers who will be less likely to be influenced by current practices and thinking.

4. Include other disciplines, especially medicine, where biological comparisons can be made.

5. At some stage introduce the materials and techniques outlined in your excellent article “Manufacturing in crisis” – not at the start, because it may narrow the thinking too much, but perhaps if a roadblock is reached.

Ron McCarthy, Dora Creek, NSWcongratulations ron – you are last issue’s editor’s choice and a bottle of faculty wine is on its way to you.

Regarding your article “Manufacturing in crisis” – we are confronted with two antagonistic aspirations: full employment versus increasing productivity.

There can never be a cure for unemployment. It is not a disease, but the natural healthy functioning of an advanced technological society. Unemployment is directly caused by the technological capacity to do more with less.

Working for wages is the modern equivalent of slavery. Unions, corporations and governments have all

tacitly agreed to slow the pace of cybernation, to drag their feet and run the economy with the brakes on. This is because they regard unemployment as a disease.

Wage work is a curse, a drag, a nuisance. It is a barrier between us and what we really want to do.

“Without working we will all starve to death,” it is said. Not at all. There are plausible plans to adapt to a society of rising unemployment. For example, the National Dividend invented by engineer Major C.H. Douglas; the Guaranteed Annual Income proposal of economist Robert Theobald and the Negative Income Tax of Nobel Economist Milton Friedman.

The work ethic and finding a master to employ you for wages or living in squalid poverty is obsolete.

Keith Johnson, BSc (Chem), Yowie Bay, NSW

more orIgInals I would like to congratulate you on a very interesting issue of UNSW Engineers.

Regarding the Original duo last issue: you may be interested to know that, at the ceremony in the University of Sydney’s Great Hall, our first higher degree in engineering was awarded to Dr Keith Bowling. He is a chemical engineer. In those days chemical engineering was in a Faculty of Applied Science. Keith came up the hard way, from Sydney Tech College to the University via a conversion course and would be familiar with the experiences of the Original Duo.

If John and Lance are looking for company from those far off days they would find some in the Pioneers’ Group which meets three times a year on the UNSW campus for an inexpensive lunch (see page 8). Keith is its chairman.

Al Willis (Em Prof A H Willis), Wollstonecraft, NSW The latest issue of the UNSW Engineers magazine was the best ever – possibly reflecting my interests. Keep up the good work.

Brian Haydon, BE (Hons) 1969, PhD (1973), Bowral, NSW

Inbox

Please keep those emails coming to [email protected]

WrITe To US

almost 30m long, 16m wide and 70cm deep, the massive Wave basin testing area at the Water research laboratory at manly vale has been used to design major infrastructure across the world over the past few decades. projects include the gorgon lng plant’s materials offloading Facility for chevron, located on barrow Island Wa; anantara resort on sir bani yas Island in abu dhabi; narrowneck artificial reef, gold coast; and bounty bay, pitcairn Island. It has two 7.25 wave paddles that can simulate uniform wave fronts, irregular waves or pre-defined and programmed wave sequences.

TOP GEAR

Shooting engineers

There are some very talented photographers among the engineering fraternity, as shown by the Faculty’s latest photo competition, which was open to all alumni and others associated with the Faculty. Judged by Associate Dean Dr David Clements, Professor Robert Burford, Head of the School of Chemical Engineering, and Myles Gough from the UNSW Media Office, the competition had two main themes – engineering in action, and engineering the future. Winner of the latter section, Billy Lai, with a contemporary photo of Falcon Street Footbridge, is an Environment and Planning Manager for Transport for NSW. “I started shooting in 2004, learning from my dad’s friend who is a retired professional photographer,” Billy said. “I usually do engineering structures, buildings and travel

landscape but I sometimes serve as the secondary photographer at friends’ and relatives’ weddings and functions.”

Although photography is mainly a hobby for Billy, shooting with a Canon EOS 7D, he also sometimes takes photos for his job, shooting completed projects for marketing and publication purposes.

The photo competition is expected to run again next year, so keep on shooting!

You can see all the best shots on the Faculty’s Facebook page, www.facebook.com/UnswFacultyOfEngineering

Winners of the Faculty of Engineering 2012 Photography Competition (from left): Billy Lai (Category: Engineering the Future), Sarah Park (Category: Engineering in Action).More photos entered in the competition below.

Photos by (from left clockwise) Yusheng Liang, Peter Roth, Billy Lai

Faculty contActs Faculty of EngineeringThe University of New South WalesUNSW Sydney 2052 AustraliaTel +61 2 9385 5000 [email protected]

Business Development and AlumniStephen WooldridgeTel +61 2 9385 5985 [email protected]

Graduate School of Biomedical EngineeringTel +61 2 9385 3911 [email protected]

School of Chemical EngineeringTel +61 2 9385 4319 [email protected]

School of Civil and Environmental EngineeringTel +61 2 9385 5033 [email protected]

School of Computer Science and EngineeringTel +61 2 9385 6625 [email protected]

School of Electrical Engineering and TelecommunicationsTel +61 2 9385 4009 [email protected]

School of Mechanical and Manufacturing EngineeringTel +61 2 9385 4093 [email protected]

School of Mining EngineeringTel +61 2 9385 4515 [email protected]

School of Petroleum EngineeringTel +61 2 9385 5189 [email protected]

School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy EngineeringTel +61 2 9385 6155 [email protected]

School of Surveying and Geospatial EngineeringTel +61 2 9385 4182 [email protected]

Great readingStock up on these School histories

19 57 – 2 0 0 7

Surveying Spatial

information SyStemS

t h e S c h o o l o f

a n d

The Faculty has published the following history books which highlight the evolution of the Faculty and its Schools, as well as the multidisciplinary world of engineering.

Faculty of engineering Plenty of copies are still available of this extensive work, which includes more than 300 photographs. Order online at www.unswpress.com.au or call 02 8778 9999.

Chemical engineering Copies are available from the School of Chemical Engineering. [email protected] 02 93854319.

Civil and environmental engineering Copies are available from the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Order online at www.civeng.unsw.edu.au/about/our_history/index.html For further information, contact Tricia Tesoriero: [email protected] 02 9385 5549.

electrical engineering and Telecommunications Copies are available from the School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications. Order online at www.eet.unsw.edu.au/HistoryBook or contact Silvia Collings 02 9385 4009.

Mechanical and Manufacturing engineering Copies are available from the School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering. Order online at www.mech.unsw.edu.au [email protected] 02 9385 4093.

Mining engineering Copies are available from the School of Mining Engineering. Order online at www.mining.unsw.edu.au For further information, contact Chris Daly: [email protected] 02 9385 4514.

Surveying and Geospatial engineering Copies are available from the School of Surveying and Geospatial Engineering. [email protected] 02 9385 4182.

school of chemical

engineering 1949-2009

The hisTory of The UnsW

b l a n c h e h a m p T o n

Blanche hampton has worked with the

University since 1988 and directly with the

Faculty of Engineering since 1996 across an

extensive range of communications projects,

including editing the Faculty of Engineering alumni

magazine, UNSW Engineers. She project managed

and edited The History of the UNSW School of

Surveying and Spatial Information Systems

1949–2007 and co-authored and project managed

The History of the UNSW Faculty of Engineering

1949–2009, The History of the UNSW School of

Mining Engineering 1949–2009, The History of the

UNSW School of Mechanical and Manufacturing

Engineering 1949–2009 and The History of

the UNSW School of Electrical Engineering and

Telecommunications 1949–2009.

The hisTo

ry of The UnsW

schoo

l of chem

ical eng

ineering

1949-2009 ha

mpTo

n

issue 26 october 2012 - unsw faculty of engineering · 6 ⋅ unsw engineers ⋅ issue 26 ⋅...

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