Design and Testing of Oscillating Water Column (OWC) Wave Energy Converter (WEC)
Climate change as a consequence of increased greenhouse gas emissions due to the use of fossil fuels for power generation has caused global warming and rising sea-levels. This possesses direct threat to people in many countries, especially those living in the Pacific Island Countries like Fiji. The use of renewable sources such as wave energy for power generation has become important now than ever. Wave energy is one of the promising sources of renewable energy, which is more persistent and has a high-power density compared to wind and solar energies. The ongoing work in this area focusses on the design and performance analysis of Savonius rotor employed in an oscillating water column (OWC) for wave energy extraction. The performance of the Savonius rotor is dependent on factors such as; rotor geometry, rotor orientation and OWC chamber configuration. Therefore, the research includes both experimental work, and numerical simulations to study the flow phenomena and performance in detail. The numerical work is conducted using commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code ANSYS-CFX.
Numerical and Experimental Studies on Savonius Rotors for Wind Energy
The use of renewable sources of energy for power generation has become important now than ever to mitigate the effects of global warning. Wind energy is one such alternative. It is clean, non-emitting, sustainable and environmentally friendly. This energy can be extracted using a Savonius rotor which is a vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT. There is no consensus on best rotor parameters. These are all unique to the design. Therefore, the research focuses on the design of Savonius rotor which can be manufactured locally to meet Fiji's energy demand. The work involves experimentation, numerical studies using ANSYS-CFX and finally predicting the rotor performance using machine learning (Artificial Intelligence).
Wind Loads on Low-rise Buildings
Testing of low-rise building models with different roof configurations were conducted in a boundary layer wind tunnel to obtain vital information that can be used to design houses which are safer and more resistant to adverse weather conditions such as cyclones and hurricanes. The next step forward in the research is to study the effects of building orientation, upstream boundary wall configuration and natural obstructions on wind loading. The initial work involves extensive wind tunnel testing. This will be followed by numerical simulations using ANSYS – CFX and finally predicting the wind loading on house models using machine learning (Artificial Intelligence).
Innovations in Learning and Teaching Strategies in STEM
The higher education institutions are beginning to examine learning and teaching practices more and more. This has given rise to reviewing learning and teaching strategies with the aim to promote a learner-centered classroom. The emphasis is on what the learner will do and how do we ensure that the learner is ‘learning'. As a result, classrooms around the world are experimenting and innovating their pedagogical practices. The research focuses on a pedagogical approach, which is a fairly new concept in Pacific classrooms, that is the ‘flipped classroom' (FC) model and how it can be applied in higher education institutions. The FC focuses on learner and instructions that are learner-centered. The FC is a pedagogical approach whereby the conventional notion of teaching in the classroom is flipped such that the learning material is provided to the learners before coming to the class and the classroom time is utilized in problem solving and discussions. The research presents a FC design for a mechanical engineering course at the University of the South Pacific.