Welcome to the December-February newsletter for The Warren Centre. The theme for this newsletter is aerospace and the wider aviation industry. Recent events in the aviation industry in Australia make this a perfect time to get a better view on this interesting field of engineering. As the following reports suggest, aerospace engineering has far more scope and potential than might be considered in the wider community. It is an exciting field offering many opportunities for career development, both in Australia and internationally.
Introducing Our New Chief Operating Officer
Alexandra (Alex) McKenna was appointed as the new chief operating officer (COO) of The Warren Centre in October. Before taking up as COO she was based in Sydney as sustainability manager for DEXUS property group. In this role she has worked extensively with engineers, including with The Warren Centre on Stage One of its Low Energy High Rise project.
McKenna brings a fresh perspective to The Warren Centre, as she has a background in building sustainability and prior to that in occupational health and safety in the beef cattle industry.
Celebrating Our Engineering Heroes
Since 2003 our most creative and inspirational engineers have been honoured with The Warren Centre Innovation Awards. This continues to be one of the most important tasks of the centre – highlighting the work of true exemplars of engineering in Australia.
Why Bother Studying Aerospace Engineering in Australia?“
Glad you asked the question!” Dr K C Wong replies cheerfully.
As Aeronautical Engineering Program Coordinator in the School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering (AMME) at Sydney University, he has a well informed and enthusiastic perspective on the industry.
450 Mirror Solar Facility Under Construction In Newcastle
OK, here it is – a solar power facility here in Australia to generate electricity at the same or less cost than fossil fuel powered power stations – after cost of carbon is taken into account. Under construction now.
Advanced Maintenance Capabilities Essential
An effective maintenance industry is fundamental for a safe and efficient national aerospace and aviation capability. The industry has to stay on top of a wide range of capabilities and skill sets to maintain genuine international relevance in a very competitive global marketplace.
Aerospace and Aviation Great Economic Growth Drivers
Airports are key indicators of the vital importance of aviation in any advanced economy. They are huge and complex business and engineering endeavours. More can be done to use them as hubs for further encouragement and development of aerospace and associated engineering capabilities.
Empowered Engineers Needed To Make The Difference For A Profession That Matters
Constant improvement of aerospace engineering skills is essential to maintain global competitiveness in this crucial industry. Cultural factors are important to maintain meaningful national policy engagement
Global Networks And Real Time Connectivity Now Essential for Aerospace Success
Design development and manufacture of complex equipment like aircraft and aerospace systems has been transformed by the capabilities of the web in just a few short years. Such complex systems are now designed, developed and manufactured in a fast moving international context where real time, global collaboration is an operational necessity in a relentlessly competitive environment. Opportunities for innovative Australian engineering in this space are both hindered and enabled depending on the entrepreneurial response of local participants – “clever, shrewd, nimble and global” are essential operating characteristics of successful players in the business today.
Kiwis More Super Powerful Than Oz?
Can this be true, or is the scoring dodgy (again)? According to the “Twenty Technologies That Can Give You Super Powers” feature on the Bloomberg Business Week website, Kiwis scored for two commercially inventions, Australia scored none. Go figure…
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Introducing our new chief operating officer
McKenna brings a fresh perspective to The Warren Centre, as she has a background in building sustainability and prior to that in occupational health and safety in the beef cattle industry.
She completed a degree in Agricultural Science, majoring in animal production, at the University of Sydney and later pursued a Masters in Environmental Law, Business and Management at the Australian National University. However, in common with engineers, she has a background in using her knowledge and experience to solve problems.
Before taking up as COO she was based in Sydney as sustainability manager for DEXUS property group. In this role she has worked extensively with engineers, including with The Warren Centre on Stage One of its Low Energy, High Rise project.
“I have worked a lot with engineers and enjoy doing so. At DEXUS I engaged many engineers and I like the way engineers think and like working with them to achieve good outcomes,” she told the newsletter.
DEXUS is a $13 billion company and has the largest commercial property portfolio in Australia. The driver of her work there over the past few years was developing a $41 million energy upgrade plan for the group to deliver an office portfolio average of 4.5 star NABERS (National Australian Built Environment Rating Scheme) Energy rating by 2012.
“This involved setting a budget for each building, based on optimising its mechanical services, while reducing inherent operational problems.
“Part of the project was to develop a strategic improvement plan and this is where I made a lot of good contacts with engineers.
“The strategic improvement plan was a new way of looking at office buildings where specific inefficiencies were targeted. So instead of adopting a traditional approach, based on say chiller performance, the plan involved taking a step back and looking at the total building services and at the design and construction of the building.
“The buildings studied were typically 20 years old and were fully tenanted. We looked at the buildings’ designs and how they had been operated since construction,” she said.
McKenna said the Low Energy High Rise project has shown that there are significant statistical differences in the way buildings are operated which correlates to energy efficiency and NABERS Energy ratings. The project has identified that changes in the way a building is managed can deliver significant improvements, in fact around 1 star, with minimal expense.
The Low Energy High Rise project has adopted some of these concepts for its current Stage Two study.
McKenna, who has farmers on both sides of her family is proud of her background in agriculture. Her father is a surgeon, and initially she was attracted to veterinary science, but decided on agriculture instead.
“Agriculture is a largely unprescribed environment where each operation is often very different from the preceding one. Tradition is strong; there are no set formulas and you are working in small groups. You need to master a number of divergent skills, but nevertheless, may need to deliver a result down to an exact level of detail.
“This gives you a full appreciation of the upstream and downstream consequences of your decisions – aspects which are also beneficial in engineering.
“As with engineering, in agriculture you need to ask; what is the end goal? Who are the key players? Who will be using the solution? Does the solution meet your needs or does it fall short? Is there a better way of reaching the end goal?”
Her first role in agriculture was at Meat Standards Australia which required her to work with beef producers on quality assurance and supply chain management, from the paddock through to the abattoir and consumer, to establishing a brand and consistent product offering.
“Part of this work would mean taking beef producers through abattoirs so they could understand how critical well finished cattle are to the meat processing operation.”
Later she worked as the environment and safety manager on properties belonging to the Colonial Agricultural Company, a fund managed then by Colonial First State Global Asset Management. There she travelled extensively on its properties around Australia investigating occupational health and safety concerns, environmental legislation and permits, vegetation records and environmental compliance. This work involved an 8500km round trip using small planes and cars, mostly in Queensland, but also in New South Wales and the Northern Territory.
She said the Queensland legislation, in particular, on environment and health and safety was extremely complex and it was hard to get good guidance, so she undertook further postgraduate study in environmental law and business management at ANU. She tailored her studies to environment and health and safety, completing a commercial law module of her course at Sydney University’s law school.
“Because you are working with large animals, the cattle industry is one of the most dangerous industries in the country. There are a lot of horse-fall injuries and crush injuries through working with cattle in yards.”
Much of McKenna’s career has centred on bringing people together in working groups to solve particular problems and then to reach agreement on particular outcomes.
“With the farm safety work we cooperated closely with the Queensland Department of Health and Safety on draft codes of practice for farm safety. In the property sector the work concentrated on getting working groups together to manage reporting obligations under the National Greenhouse Reporting Act.
“Actually, there is a lot of overlap between environmental sustainability and risk management
“This sort of project work, of collaborating and sharing ideas – of getting on the same page – has been a common theme in my career, and I think this will be an important aspect of my work with the Warren Centre.”
By Bob Jackson, a former journalist with Engineers Media, is a Warren Centre volunteer.
Celebrating our engineering heroes
Since 2003 our most creative and inspirational engineers have been honoured with The Warren Centre Innovation Awards. This continues to be one of the most important tasks of the centre – highlighting the work of true exemplars of engineering in Australia.
This year they included:
Dr Simon Poole and Dr Steven Frisken of Finisar Australia, which designs, develops and manufactures optical communications & instrumentation equipment (From left: Dr Simon Poole, Dr Steven Frisken and Professor Michael Dureau)
Professor Gernot Heiser of Open Kernel Labs, a leading computer operating systems research group (500 million mobile phones use their L4 microkernel product)
(From left: Professor Gernot Heiser and Professor Michael Dureau)
Alexander Gosling, co-founder, director and chief executive of Invetech, a company focused on product development.
(From left: Alexander Gosling and Professor Michael Dureau)
Dr Bob Johnson, who pioneered Maptek’s innovative software technology & laser imaging hardware for the mining industry,
(From left: Dr Bob Johnson and Professor Michael Dureau)
• Neil O’Sullivan and the Management Team, for the design & commercialisation of leading edge switchgear. Significant environmental benefits result from NOJA Power’s products which eliminate sulfur hexafluoride, a severe greenhouse gas.
(From left: Professor Michael Dureau, Neil O'Sullivan, Professor Hugh Durrant-Whyte)
A 2003 Warren Centre Innovation Hero Award winner, Professor Durrant-Whyte, presented this year's Innovation Lecture. He spoke about his work in Field Robotics and their importance to the Australian economy. Durrant-Whyte, who gave a stimulating and highly informative lecture, is Professor of Mechatronic Engineering at the University of Sydney and Director of the Australian Centre for Field Robotics (ACFR).
The fascinating work of several innovation heroes also featured in the August issue of this newsletter. Here, Dr Steve Frisken and Dr Simon Poole (Innovation Heroes 2010), Dr Tristram Carfrae (2008) and Dr Chris Nicol (2006) spoke about their most significant projects.
Nominations of worthy recipients for 2011 Innovation Heroes are welcome. Just click on the following link for the application form. Nominations close on the 28th February 2011.
This year they included:
Dr Simon Poole and Dr Steven Frisken of Finisar Australia, which designs, develops and manufactures optical communications & instrumentation equipment (From left: Dr Simon Poole, Dr Steven Frisken and Professor Michael Dureau)
Professor Gernot Heiser of Open Kernel Labs, a leading computer operating systems research group (500 million mobile phones use their L4 microkernel product)
(From left: Professor Gernot Heiser and Professor Michael Dureau)
Alexander Gosling, co-founder, director and chief executive of Invetech, a company focused on product development.(From left: Alexander Gosling and Professor Michael Dureau)
(From left: Dr Bob Johnson and Professor Michael Dureau)
• Neil O’Sullivan and the Management Team, for the design & commercialisation of leading edge switchgear. Significant environmental benefits result from NOJA Power’s products which eliminate sulfur hexafluoride, a severe greenhouse gas.(From left: Professor Michael Dureau, Neil O'Sullivan, Professor Hugh Durrant-Whyte)
A 2003 Warren Centre Innovation Hero Award winner, Professor Durrant-Whyte, presented this year's Innovation Lecture. He spoke about his work in Field Robotics and their importance to the Australian economy. Durrant-Whyte, who gave a stimulating and highly informative lecture, is Professor of Mechatronic Engineering at the University of Sydney and Director of the Australian Centre for Field Robotics (ACFR).
The fascinating work of several innovation heroes also featured in the August issue of this newsletter. Here, Dr Steve Frisken and Dr Simon Poole (Innovation Heroes 2010), Dr Tristram Carfrae (2008) and Dr Chris Nicol (2006) spoke about their most significant projects.
Nominations of worthy recipients for 2011 Innovation Heroes are welcome. Just click on the following link for the application form. Nominations close on the 28th February 2011.
Why bother studying aerospace engineering in Australia?
“Glad you asked the question!” Dr K C Wong replies cheerfully.
As Aeronautical Engineering Program Coordinator in the school of Aerospace, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering (AMME) at Sydney University, he has a well informed and enthusiastic perspective on the industry.
According to Wong, who prefers to be called KC, there is a very positive future for engineers in the ever more global aviation and aerospace industry. Forget that Australia has not built many complete full size aircraft within our shores over the last 30 years, KC asserts that our global involvement and export revenues earned by our aerospace and aviation activities is now greater than it has ever been.
With the internet and new software that enables global collaboration in real time, local engineering skills can be applied around the world. Global sourcing and manufacturing practices now see major aircraft being assembled from components that are designed and indeed made in many different locations around the globe. “Follow the sun engineering” now sees people around the world working on aircraft projects on a 24 hour a day basis as the work is continued by a series of collaborative teams.
KC considers that the future is looking quite positive at Sydney University’s AMME. Sydney University was the first Australian university to offer instruction in aeronautical engineering, followed by RMIT and UNSW. More recently universities across the land have entered aerospace, including QUT, Queensland, Adelaide and most recently Monash.
Reflecting the high standards and popularity of the Sydney University course, the 2010 ATAR score is 99.3 and the university is keeping its offerings innovative, practical and industry-relevant in an endeavour to keep Sydney at the forefront.
For example, students in the first year of the degree course at Sydney get hands on experience in actually building an aircraft that flies. This is not a toy, but a full size Jabiru kit that eventually takes to the air. The exercise provides students with a rapid introduction to not only design issues, but real aircraft construction and workshop challenges as well as hands-on experience, so that they begin to understand what is involved in actually making real flying machines.
Certainly there are career paths around the world, but says KC, there are also many local opportunities. Many international aerospace organisations have engineering offices in Australia and there are also an increasing number of other local opportunities.
The scope of aerospace and aviation engineering is very broad, and one area of increasing excitement is unmanned aircraft systems (UASs). These can range from designs which are little bigger than a hobby aircraft for an extraordinary diversity of more localised applications, to machines like the global hawk (about the size of a Boeing 737) which can move from continent to continent while being controlled remotely from thousands of kilometres away.
UASs have a huge future because they can be designed to operate without the limitations of a human crew. This keeps operators safe in conflict or other extreme situations and also avoids prolonged or tedious tasks like mapping, surveillance and patrolling. Such flying machines are already working in geological and other mapping, natural resource exploration, environmental management, but mainly in defence applications.
Aviation is vital to a large nation like Australia – for economic, strategic and security reasons. It is a vital capability that must be maintained and a national policy recognising and encouraging more world class innovative aerospace engineering is somewhat overdue.
“One of our best national assets is actually the ability of our youth, and those who are inspired by the incredible opportunities in aerospace,” KC emphasises.
“As a society our educational institutions, government and industry owe our young people the best possible education and opportunities in this vital area. Only then can we make a truly significant global contribution.”
From Dan Stojanovich BE MBA
According to Wong, who prefers to be called KC, there is a very positive future for engineers in the ever more global aviation and aerospace industry. Forget that Australia has not built many complete full size aircraft within our shores over the last 30 years, KC asserts that our global involvement and export revenues earned by our aerospace and aviation activities is now greater than it has ever been.
With the internet and new software that enables global collaboration in real time, local engineering skills can be applied around the world. Global sourcing and manufacturing practices now see major aircraft being assembled from components that are designed and indeed made in many different locations around the globe. “Follow the sun engineering” now sees people around the world working on aircraft projects on a 24 hour a day basis as the work is continued by a series of collaborative teams.
KC considers that the future is looking quite positive at Sydney University’s AMME. Sydney University was the first Australian university to offer instruction in aeronautical engineering, followed by RMIT and UNSW. More recently universities across the land have entered aerospace, including QUT, Queensland, Adelaide and most recently Monash.
Reflecting the high standards and popularity of the Sydney University course, the 2010 ATAR score is 99.3 and the university is keeping its offerings innovative, practical and industry-relevant in an endeavour to keep Sydney at the forefront.
For example, students in the first year of the degree course at Sydney get hands on experience in actually building an aircraft that flies. This is not a toy, but a full size Jabiru kit that eventually takes to the air. The exercise provides students with a rapid introduction to not only design issues, but real aircraft construction and workshop challenges as well as hands-on experience, so that they begin to understand what is involved in actually making real flying machines.
Certainly there are career paths around the world, but says KC, there are also many local opportunities. Many international aerospace organisations have engineering offices in Australia and there are also an increasing number of other local opportunities.
The scope of aerospace and aviation engineering is very broad, and one area of increasing excitement is unmanned aircraft systems (UASs). These can range from designs which are little bigger than a hobby aircraft for an extraordinary diversity of more localised applications, to machines like the global hawk (about the size of a Boeing 737) which can move from continent to continent while being controlled remotely from thousands of kilometres away.
UASs have a huge future because they can be designed to operate without the limitations of a human crew. This keeps operators safe in conflict or other extreme situations and also avoids prolonged or tedious tasks like mapping, surveillance and patrolling. Such flying machines are already working in geological and other mapping, natural resource exploration, environmental management, but mainly in defence applications.
Aviation is vital to a large nation like Australia – for economic, strategic and security reasons. It is a vital capability that must be maintained and a national policy recognising and encouraging more world class innovative aerospace engineering is somewhat overdue.
“One of our best national assets is actually the ability of our youth, and those who are inspired by the incredible opportunities in aerospace,” KC emphasises.
“As a society our educational institutions, government and industry owe our young people the best possible education and opportunities in this vital area. Only then can we make a truly significant global contribution.”
From Dan Stojanovich BE MBA
450 Mirror Solar Facility Under Construction In Newcastle
Australia’s largest solar-thermal tower system designed to demonstrate that after the cost of carbon is taken into account, electricity can be generated by sun-power at the same or less cost than fossil fuel-generated electricity started construction at the CSIRO National Solar Energy Centre in Newcastle in NSW on 26 October 2010.
CSIRO started installing 450 large mirrors (heliostats) manufactured by Central Coast company, Performance Engineering Group, that will create temperatures of up to 1,000 degrees C. Creating these 2.4 x 1.8m panels of glass mirrors for a solar field is not easy... the shape has to be very accurate and the construction has to be strong enough to withstand extreme weather.
The heliostats have a lightweight steel frame with a unique, simple design, ideal for mass production. Smaller than many heliostats currently being used around the world, they are never-the-less just as efficient, more cost effective and much easier to install.
Dr Alex Wonhas, said the economical design of the heliostats will also make solar fields more cost effective to build and operate.
“It’s a local idea generated by CSIRO and manufactured by a local company, which will have global impact,” said CSIRO’s Energy Transformed Flagship Director, Dr. Alex Wonhas.
The heliostat field is part of CSIRO’s new solar Brayton Cycle project – a solar tower and field that generates electricity from just the air and sun.
Image available from CSIRO Science Image.
CSIRO’s renewable energy research
CSIRO’s solar Brayton Cycle project
Visit the Australian Solar Institute’s website
From Dan Stojanovich BE MBA
CSIRO started installing 450 large mirrors (heliostats) manufactured by Central Coast company, Performance Engineering Group, that will create temperatures of up to 1,000 degrees C. Creating these 2.4 x 1.8m panels of glass mirrors for a solar field is not easy... the shape has to be very accurate and the construction has to be strong enough to withstand extreme weather.
The heliostats have a lightweight steel frame with a unique, simple design, ideal for mass production. Smaller than many heliostats currently being used around the world, they are never-the-less just as efficient, more cost effective and much easier to install.
Dr Alex Wonhas, said the economical design of the heliostats will also make solar fields more cost effective to build and operate.
“It’s a local idea generated by CSIRO and manufactured by a local company, which will have global impact,” said CSIRO’s Energy Transformed Flagship Director, Dr. Alex Wonhas.
The heliostat field is part of CSIRO’s new solar Brayton Cycle project – a solar tower and field that generates electricity from just the air and sun.
Image available from CSIRO Science Image.
CSIRO’s renewable energy research
CSIRO’s solar Brayton Cycle project
Visit the Australian Solar Institute’s website
From Dan Stojanovich BE MBA
Advanced Maintenance Capabilities Essential
An effective maintenance industry is fundamental for a safe and efficient national aerospace and aviation capability. The industry has to stay on top of a wide range of capabilities and skill sets to maintain genuine international relevance in a very competitive global marketplace.
A complex and demanding enterprise like aviation depends upon a diversity of interconnected and sophisticated networks.
At one end of the industry leading edge design and development endeavours are exploring new aviation futures, while at the other - just as important and nothing if not crucial, keeping everything safe and efficient, is maintenance.
Fundamental for industry wide safety as well as performance, effective maintenance systems are an expensive necessity that must be kept up to date as well as carefully managed in order to protect profit margins (which tend to be wafer thin in the very competitive civil aviation industry).
John Holland Aviation Services is the largest independent in the business in Australia and effectively derives from a takeover of the former Ansett Airlines maintenance business. Based at Tullamarine in Melbourne, it employs some 400 people (Qantas has some 6,000). JHAS is the only heavy aircraft independent MRO (Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul) operator in Australia and features comprehensive EASA (European Aviation Safety Agency) coverage. It provides state-of-the-art aviation engineering facilities with a full component and aircraft servicing capabilities to deal with commercial jetliners and military aircraft from all major manufacturers, as well as new generation aircraft. JHAS also provides fully integrated airport and specialist services to support airline operators and facilities.
International competition in aviation maintenance is unrelenting - after all, in many case the client can just fly their “job” somewhere else to get the best deal. But that is not always a realistic option, and local demand is buoyant and growing – by some 15% to 30% per annum according to JHAS General Manager Andrew Henderson. This comes from a healthy base growth as fleet sizes increase, but also as a result of fleets getting older and needing more maintenance. Much of the work for JHAS comes from larger fleets like Virgin, Tiger and Skywest among others.
Australian fleets are quite young by international standards,” says Henderson, “thus we expect that maintenance work demand will keep on growing steadily.”
Much of the hands-on workforce is trade qualified, supplemented by specialist engineers in various areas.
The diversity of the demands of this highly engineering intensive industry are demonstrated by the range of services provided by JHAS, and these include maintenance management and certification services (including CASA & EASA), cleaning (aviation standard deep cleans, airframe cleans), ramp services, logistics equipment, painting, composite materials, component overhauls, special scanning and analysis, structures, hydraulics, electronics and instrument calibration among others.
As aircraft and associated systems change, required skillsets will have to adapt accordingly. Greater use of electronic systems and auto diagnosis may affect the maintenance industry in surprising ways.
Aerospace and aviation is an essential industry for any globally competitive nation, and Australia needs to involve itself as widely and deeply as possible. Advanced maintenance capabilities are an essential.
From Dan Stojanovich BE MBA
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Share this
Disclaimer
Posts
