Taste of Research Scholarships

This school has no projects.

Projects offered by other Engineering Schools that may be of interest are:

Project Title:	Software for Advanced Patent Analysis

Name of Supervisor:	Vladimir Tosic

Email of Supervisor:	vtosic@cse.unsw.edu.au

Name of Joint/Co-Supervisor:	Mark Staples

Email of Joint/Co-Supervisor:	Mark.Staples@nicta.com.au

School:	School of Computer Science and Engineering

For CSE and EET Projects:	NICTA Project

Faculty Research Area (Theme):	Management

School Research Area:	Miscellaneous

Applicable to other Engineering schools/disciplines:	Biomedical Engineering Chemical Sciences and Engineering Civil & Environmental Engineering Electrical Engineering & Telecommunications Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering Mining Engineering Petroleum Engineering Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering Surveying & Spatial Information Systems Sciences – Maths, Physics, Chemistry

Abstract:	To protect its intellectual property, it is often necessary for a company to patent its inventions. Patents are legally enforceable rights for exclusive commercial exploitation of inventions. Before patenting, patent search and analysis can uncover important facts relevant for strategic decisions about company’s intellectual property and research and development activities in general. Various software tools support patent search and analysis, from relatively simple free tools and Web sites to more powerful commercial products (e.g., for determining and visualizing various dependencies). In this research project, students will help develop novel software for advanced patent analysis, based on a new patent analysis methodology. The methodology is currently supported by software that manages patent information in Excel and uses macros for processing and visualization of patent analyses. The first aspect of this project is to support querying and analysis of patent information stored in a relational database. The second aspect of the project is to implement additional advanced patent analysis procedures. The third aspect of this project involves search and analysis of a number of real patents, determining their characteristics, and storing and managing this information using the developed software tool, to evaluate the tool’s correctness and usefulness.

Research Environment:	The students will work closely with researchers at NICTA (http://www.nicta.com.au) in a friendly mixed-gender and multicultural environment comprised of senior researchers and postgraduate students.

Novelty and Contribution:	The main novelty is the support for a unique and new patent analysis methodology. Since some aspects of the new patent procedures have not been implemented previously in other systems, non-trivial research questions (e.g., how to categorize patents in terms of relevance for company’s business strategy) will have to be considered. These patent analysis procedures will enable better decision making about a company’s patent portfolio. Another contribution is the testing process, which will result in conclusions about real patents from one market area (e.g., implant systems, business-driven IT systems management, or another area of mutual interest).

Expected Outcomes:	- Architecture of a software system that stores patent information, processes this information (e.g., to determine various dependencies), and visualizes results. - Detailed design of modules of this software architecture. - Design of database for storing patent information. - Original patent analysis procedures, which query and process the stored patent information. - Implementation of the above-mentioned designs. - Design and implementation of a simple (possibly Web) interface into the system. - Population of the database with patent information for a number of real patents from the same scientific area. - Experiments evaluating correctness and usefulness of the implemented software.

Reference Material Links:	- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent - http://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/patents/what_index.shtml - http://www.google.com/patents - http://www.patentlawlinks.com/patsearc.htm - http://www.infovis.net/printMag.php?lang=2&num=167 - D. Hunt, L. Nguyen, M. Rodgers (Eds.) “Patent Searching: Tools & Techniques”, Wiley, 2007 - J.L. Davis, S.S. Harrison “Edison in the Boardroom: How Leading Companies Realize Value from Their Intellectual Assets”, Wiley, 2001 - Course COMP9311 “Database Systems” (http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~cs9311) - http://www.edumax.com/database-basics-chapter-2-the-er-model-and-database-design.html - http://www.w3schools.com/SQl/default.asp - Course COMP9321 “Web Applications Engineering” (http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~cs9321) - For further information, email Dr. Vladimir Tosic (‘vtosic’ at the CSE e-mail system) with Subject line “UNSW Summer Scholars”.

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Project Title:	Computer simulation of cracked structures

Name of Supervisor:	Chongmin SONG

Email of Supervisor:	c.song@unsw.edu.au

Name of Joint/Co-Supervisor:

Email of Joint/Co-Supervisor:

School:	School of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Faculty Research Area (Theme):	Solids and Applied Dynamics

Applicable to other Engineering schools/disciplines:	Biomedical Engineering Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering Mining Engineering Petroleum Engineering Sciences – Maths, Physics, Chemistry

Abstract:	Under service condition, cracks develop in many structures, especially those that have passed or are approaching their design life. The crack tips are often the weakest points of a structure. For safe and cost-effective management of cracked structures, the stability of cracks needs to be evaluated. This project will be built on recent work of the group on computational mechanics to study cracked structures. The focus will be on the development of criteria for crack propagation. Strong analysis and computing skills are required for this project.

Research Environment:	The student will work with a group of active researchers on computer simulation of civil structures.

Novelty and Contribution:	It is observed experimentally that existing criteria for crack propagation depends on the size of the specimens (the so-called size effect), which hinders the application of computer simulation in the analysis of civil engineering structures. This research seeks to develop a unified criterion that does not suffer from the size effect.

Expected Outcomes:	The result will be a crack propagation criterion that can be employed to predict the stability of cracks in structure components of various dimensions.

Reference Material Links:	http://www.civeng.unsw.edu.au/staff/chongmin_song/

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Project Title:	Study of the fluid mechanics of micro/nano particle-pore interactions

Name of Supervisor:	Gary Rosengarten

Email of Supervisor:	g.rosengarten@unsw.edu.au

Name of Joint/Co-Supervisor:

Email of Joint/Co-Supervisor:	g.rosengarten@unsw.edu.au

School:	School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering

Faculty Research Area (Theme):	Water and Wastewater Engineering

School Research Area:	Thermofluids

Applicable to other Engineering schools/disciplines:	Biomedical Engineering Chemical Sciences and Engineering Civil & Environmental Engineering Petroleum Engineering Sciences – Maths, Physics, Chemistry

Abstract:	All membranes, be them biological or synthetic, involve the interaction of small particles with pores. The selectivity of the membrane depends on hydrodynamics of the particle as it approaches and moves through the pore. In this project the student will carry out fully coupled computational fluid dynamics simulations of a single particle approaching a pore under a variety of conditions.

Research Environment:	The student will work in a team in the computational fluid mechanics laboratory. They will be associated also with the experimental group and simulations will be compared to experimental results at regular meetings.

Novelty and Contribution:	This research fits into the new area of biomimetics where we are trying to learn how nature sorts particles. Results will not only help in a fundamental understanding of particle pore interactions but also have applications in the design of more efficient membranes.

Expected Outcomes:	The expected outcomes of this project are the implementation of a fully coupled particle fluid model with brownian motion into current commercial software and the analysis of results under a variety of conditions including particle size and pore shape. If all goes well we would like to be able to write the results into into a journal article.

Reference Material Links:	Contact Dr. Rosengarten: g.rosengarten@unsw.edu.au

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