N e w s l e t t e r o f E n g i n e e r i n g S c i e n c e P r o g r a m m e

Sponsored by Phoenix Solar Pte Ltd, 3rd year Engineering Science and Mechanical Engineering students worked on a proof-of-concept for a solar-powered, eco-friendly golf buggy. The buggy should be at least 1/6th of a typical commercial golf buggy and the total weight of buggy should be within 3 kg to 4 kg.

Engineering Science students belonging to the energy systems specialization figured out a suitable power generator and designed an energy storage system capable of operating the buggy, whereas those belonging to the computational engineering science specialization and mechanical engineering students performed the analysis, design and fabrication of the miniaturized golf buggy body to accommodate the power system and the motor requirements.

C o n t e n t s

Solar Powered Golf Buggy

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ESP Design Studios 3,4

Semi-underground Fuel Storage Tanks

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Participation of ESP Student in Seminar

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Visitors to ESP 6

Student & Staff Achievements Awards 2008

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ESP Sub Club 8

ESP Matters 9

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Engineering Science students visited Keppel Club to view the golf buggies and the golf course

The challenges faced by the students include ensuring the stability of buggy in motion and its ability to negotiate slopes, sharp corners and uneven terrain. The buggy design should also be visually pleasing and possess innovative features. As for the power generation, students have to deliberate on the appropriate kind of solar-cells to convert the solar energy to electricity. With regard to the energy storage system, students have to choose between the following devices: super-capacitors or lithium-ion batteries or lithium polymer batteries.

This interdisciplinary, hands-on design project has been an enjoyable learning opportunity for students to integrate their knowledge in various disciplines such as mechanics, electronics, thermodynamics, solar energy, storage systems etc to come up with their buggy designs. Students also got to learn about project management, engineer-ing drawings, finite element software package ABAQUS, fabrication techniques, photo-voltaic devices and batteries.

E d i t o r i a l

C o m m i t t e e

Editor: Prof CM Wang Secretary: Ms Flora Wang Contributors: Prof CM Wang Dr Jeroen Anton Van Kan Dr Andrew Bettiol Dr Palani Balaya Dr Pang Sze Dai Miss Ang Qiu Xiang Miss Ma Yiwen Mr Low Han Wuen Ms Khor Shu Heng

Engineering Science Programme students get a crack at designing solar-powered golf buggies

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Solar-powered golf buggies (contd…)

Siew Wei’s group won the Solar-Powered Buggy Competition.

Actual golf buggy fitted with a solar module roof that costs 1800 Euros

Testing the Solar Buggy

Reflections from ESP students on the buggy project Yi Han: A great learning experience and intellectually challenging. More importantly, I learn the importance of teamwork, leadership and over-coming the odds. Kevin: What I've taken away from this project is the bond that I forged with my team mates. We've all had our fair share of differences and arguments. And in spite of them, in a way I'd say because of them, I've gotten to know all of them much better. Hafiiz: I must say this design project has been the most time-consuming but also the most fun project ever.

Making Batteries

A fun competition for the best buggy design was organised to spur the teams to innovate and produce rather outstanding buggy designs. The designs were judged according to (a) the distance covered by the golf buggy in 8 minutes in a specially designed golf course circuit by Mr Tay Peng Yeow and Mr Thomas Ang, (b) the stability and maneuverability of the buggy, and (c) the aesthetics and innovative features. Interesting design features include buggy seats that prevent golfers from falling of the buggy when negotiating corners, wider spacing for the back wheels for greater stability and retractable front screen to provide thermal ceiling barrier.

Ms Chee Yeen Yee (Commercial Director of Phoenix Solar) was the guest of honor at the competition and she presented the Book Coop voucher prizes to the runner-up team comprising Eunice Koh, Muhd Ariff, Kee Chee Yun, Adiraj Saxena and Chua Meng Kiat and the champion team comprising Chow Siew Wei, Kevin Pye, Wang Pai, Dilip Joy Thekkoodan and Foo Ce Yang. The buggies were also displayed to the public at the Keppel Club on its Earth Day, 15-16 November 2008.

Sketches of Buggy

Judges finalizing results for buggy competition

Prof Wang briefed Mr Fock Siew Wah, Chairman of PSA International, on the solar powered golf buggies at Keppel Club on its Earth Day

Engineering Science student testing the buggy in the competition

Project Supervisors

Engineering Science Prof Wang Chien Ming Dr Palani Balaya Dr Erik Birgersson

Mechanical Engineering A/Prof Lu Wen Feng A/Prof Ian Gibson

The facilities available in the ESP design studio include

⇒ Fume chamber, tube and box-type furnaces with programmable temperature controllers for both solid state reaction as well as calcination under vacuum/inert atmosphere up to 1200oC.

⇒ Combined thermo-gravimetric/differential scanning calorimetry facility which can be operated up to 1600oC under different atmospheres for investigating the weight loss during heat treatment and the enthalpy as well as temperature of any phase transition. This facility is also used for teaching thermodynamics and to perform heat capacity measurements on solid materials.

⇒ Solar simulator which is used to measure the current-voltage characteristics of any solar cell to determine its efficiency. Students can make their own nanostructured solar cells and investigate their performances.

⇒ Glove box system to assemble lithium batteries using Sweglock as well as coin cells. The glove box provides an inert (argon) atmosphere so that air-sensitive lithium or non-aqueous electrolytes could be handled safely dur-ing the fabrication of lithium battery cells.

ESP Design Studio

Students working on their design projects in ESP Design Studio

Combined TG/DSC system

Solar simulator for solar cell testing

Since August 2008, third year Engineering Science students get to have their own ESP Design Studios. One of the design studios is housed in the Engineering Block E3, Level 5, Room 19, occupying a floor area of 112 sq m. This design studio can accommodate about 30 students. Recently the 3rd year students who are specializing in Energy Systems and Computational Engineering Science have used this design studio to complete their solar powered golf buggy design project.

Glove box system For more details on ESP Design Studio at E3-05-19, please contact Dr Palani Balaya at esppb@nus.edu.sg or Tel: +65 6516 7644

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⇒ Another advantage of this glove box system is that it has dual access on both front and opposite sides so that two students could assist each other during a group project.

⇒ An Arbin MT2000 battery tester with 16 channels, that enables to test 16 lithium batteries simultaneously.

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Nano-Fabrication/Bio-imaging facilities at ESP design studio based in Faculty of Science

Nanofabrication Lab (left) and Laser writer (right)

Cr mask on a soda lime quartz substrate fabricated in the ESP nanofabrication lab, featuring details down to 1-2 um level.

New ESP bioimaging inverted fluorescence microscope.

From left to right, Spin coating / resist development station, RF-plasma cleaner and oven.

3rd year students working on their design projects in the ESP imaging lab.

The Science ESP design laboratories are located in Block S7 01-01 (nanofabrication) and S11 02-09 (bioimaging and optics) in the physics department. They occupy about 27.5 sq m and 80 sq m respectively. These laboratories are used by 3rd year ESP students who opted for design projects related to nanoscience, nanotechnology, bioimaging and optics fields.

In the nanofabrication laboratory students design and fabricate advanced chips for (1) Templated bottom up nanofabrication for the students working on field emission studies (located in the Engineering faculty and (2) Advanced microfluidic lab on chip devices for the students focusing on bioimaging.

The laboratory is furnished with the latest state-of-art equipment such as a Laser writer for the fabrication of masks which can

be used for i-line resist exposures. These masks are then used to expose SU-8 resist which after resist development forms a mold for PDMS casting. For this process we use SU-8 chemical development, plasma cleaning and curing in an oven.

Yiwen was under the mentorship of Diana Buchwald, Professor of History and General Editor of the EPP, and Ze’ev Rosenkranz, Historical Editor of the EPP and past Curator at the Albert Einstein Archives in Jerusalem.

More than 200 SURF students gave oral presentations during the seminar day. The audience comprises peers, mentors, faculty, alumni, parents, staff, and donors of SURF. The presentations were divided into 21 sessions according to different topics in the areas of science, engineering, and humanities and social sciences. Specifically, these topics include biology, chemistry, chemical engineering, engineering and applied science, applied andcomputational mathematics, Caltech energy conservation projects, aeronautics and mechanical engineering, applied physics, electrical engineering, computer science, geological andplanetary sciences, humanities and social sciences, astrophysics, physics, and mathematics. There was also a poster session and a reception at the San Pasqual Mall following the oral presentations.

Prof C.M. Wang and Engineering Science students Hafiiz Osman and Liew Jen Hong filed for a US provisional application on a new semi-underground fuel storage tank (SUFST) design for deployment in both existing and new construction of oil tank farms. This invention was prompted by the need to increase oil storage capacity in land-scarce Singapore.

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Novel Semi-underground Fuel Storage Tanks

Participation of ESP Student in Caltech Surf Seminar Day

Ma Yiwen with her co-mentor Ze’ev Rosenkranz

Function room

Pipe gallery

Single SUFST

Ground surface

SUFSTs in a tank group

Already Singapore is building underground-type oil storage facility and is seriously planning to construct floating-type storage facilities to augment the land based tank farms.

This novel SUFST is a hybrid of the traditional above-ground steel tanks (AST) and the state-of-the-art large-scale underground/in-ground composite tanks (UST). The depth at which an in-ground tank can be built is dependent on the subsoil conditions. Similarly the height of an above-ground tank is limited by wind loading and other ambient conditions. Being a hybrid of the AST and UST, the SUFST somewhat overcome the limitations of an individual AST and UST in its design in increasing storage capacity by making use of the underground space beneath the oil tanks.

The underground portion of the tank system increases the stability of the tanks as well as reduces the total cost of foundation. Being partially buried, the SUFST also minimizes spillages in the event of tank failure as a large portion of the stored product is confined underground. The incorporation of an individual gutter for each tank acts as a fire-breaker to delay the spread of leaked oil or fire and facilitate the response and mobility of fire-fighting services around the tank group. As all piping and bulky tank equipments such as pumps are located underground, the bund area is clutter-free to minimize hindrance to the mobility of rescue vehicles. In conventional tank farms, pumps are located outside the bund area for fire-safety reason. In this design, pumps are located within the bund area but pose no fire hazard to the surrounding tanks since they are underground. This allows for a more efficient use of land as tank farms comprising entirely of SUFSTs can be designed to be more compact that existing facilities.

The participation at the SURF Seminar Day was an enriching experience for Yiwen. It provided an excellent opportunity for her to pull together final thoughts on her summer work at Caltech. In the seminar, she received valuable feedback from the audience and met some interesting people who opened her eyes and mind. Her research and communication skills were honed as a result of participating in the summer research internship, attending such conferences and giving presentations as an undergraduate student.

Ms Ma Yiwen (3rd year ESP student) presented a paper on “Albert Einstein’s life and his trip to the Far East” at the SURF Seminar Day on 18 October, 2008 at Caltech. SURF stands for Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships. The paper is the culmination of her work as a SURF fellow in the Einstein Papers Project (EPP) Group.

Professor Ernst Rank, the Chair for Computation in Engineering, Technische Universität München, visited ESP and delivered a lecture on Numerical Simulation of Fluid Structure Interaction using High-Order Finite Element Methods. He shared with ESP students, faculty members and research engineers the partitioned solution approach, where solid and fluid simulation codes are coupled via a dynamic, iterative process. Boundary tractions are transferred from the fluid to the structural code, whereas the displacement field of the structure defines the fluid domain in the next time step. He proposed the use of a high order structural FEM-formulation suited for geometrically nonlinear computations ensuring exponential convergence rates in the strain energy for smooth problems and coupled this solver to several different fluid solvers.

Among these are the Finite Volume Method in an Arbitrary Lagrange-Eulerian formulation, the Lattice Boltzmann Method on a fixed grid and a Spectral Finite Element Method. The audience was impressed by the validation of the numerical approach using

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ESP Visitors

From Left to Right: Prof Ernst Rank and Prof Wang Chien Ming

Distinguished Visitors from Osaka University

From Left to Right: Prof Victor Shim, A/Prof Loh Han Tong, Prof Genta Kawahara, A/Prof Etsuo Kumagai, Prof Wang Chien Ming and A/Prof Ashraf Kassim

On Monday 29 September 2008, ESP hosted the visit by Prof. Genta Kawahara and A/Prof. Etsuo Kumagai from the Graduate School of Engineering Science, Osaka University. They began their visit by first meeting Prof CM Wang who briefed them on the Engineering Science Programme in NUS. Later both distinguished visitors gave a talk on the Engineering Science Programme in Osaka University and their research work to some 14 ESP students who were eager to learn more of the programme and research in Osaka University.

Prof Kawahara pointed out that Osaka University was first established as a Kaitokudo (School of General Education) in 1724. In 1931, it was established as the Osaka Imperial University and after the second world war, it was called Osaka University in 1949. Osaka University has 11 undergraduate schools with a student population of about 16000 and 10 graduate schools with about 8000 students. Both kinds of schools have an Engineering Science programme. Under the MOU signed between Osaka University and NUS early this year, NUS Engineering Science students can participate in either the Osaka University Short - term Student

exchange programme (OUSSEP), or the Engineering Science 21st Century Programme or the FrontierLab@OsakaU programme. It is worth noting that Liu Licheng and Jansen Chee will be the first NUS Engineering Science students going over to Osaka University for OUSSEP and vacation internship in 2009.

During lunch, the visitors exchanged notes with A/Prof Anne Pakir, Director of the International Relations Office, on how to encourage students to go abroad for a short-term study. In the afternoon, they made a call on A/Prof Ashraf Kassim (Vice Dean of Undergraduate Programmes) and A/Prof Loh Han Tong (Vice Dean of Graduate Studies) to discuss undergraduate and graduate student exchanges between Osaka University and NUS as well as Prof Victor Shim (Vice Dean of External Rela-tions) to discuss academic exchanges/collaborations. Prof Kawahara and A/Prof Kumagai toured the Engineering Science Laboratories before leaving for Japan.

Visit by Professor Ernst Rank

experimental benchmarks. Prof Rank will be using his technique to perform hydroelastic analysis of very large floating structures in a joint research project between his TUM team and Prof CM Wang’s team in NUS. The project is funded by the International Graduate School of Science and Engineering of TUM.

Congratulations to Prof Frank Watt and Dr Andrew Bettiol who won the annual National Instruments virtual instrumentation contest

Bridge design prize sponsored by IStructE Singapore Division

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Congratulations to our Engineering Science Students who received Student Achievement Awards 2008 at Sheraton Towers on 31st Oct 2008

Under the Group Award – Environmental Activities Teo Yu Han Ben and Low Han Wuen Howard

Ice-cream stick bridge design

Under the Group Award - Mondialogo Engineering Award Winner Muhd Ibnur, Set Ying Ting, Tan Huei Ming, Tan Yi Han

From Left to Right: Darshan Metha, Tan Huei Ming, Muhd. Ibnur and NUS President Prof. Tan Chorh Chuan

From Left to Right : Teo Yu Han Ben, Prof Wang.Chien Ming and Low Han Wuen Howard

Second year students from the Engineering Science Programme at the National University of Singapore were challenged to model, analyse, design and fabricate a 1-m long ice-cream stick bridge to carry a central point load. The prize money for the best bridge design was sponsored by the IStructE Singapore Division. The students have to first design a beam experiment to estimate the Young’s modulus of the ice-cream sticks and then to use ABAQUS to perform a static analysis on their bridge design to seek an optimal solution and determine the load for the maximum allowance deflection of 10 mm.

After 6 weeks of working on the bridge design, it was the moment of truth. It was a tense moment for the students as each bridge was loaded to the maximum allowable deflection. Some bridges failed prematurely due to connection failures while others fail by flexural-torsional buckling. The winning team comprises Mr Tan Jian Hao, Ms Rebecca Sian Shing Yin and Mr Teo Yu Han whose bridge carried a total load of 45kg. When compared to its weight, their bridge design carried a whopping 108 times its own weight which no other design teams were able to match. Congratulations to the winning team.

National Instruments is a leading supplier of test and measurement hardware and software solutions to engineers and scientists from around the world. National Instruments runs an annual contest in the ASEAN region where scientists and engineers from academic institutions and industry are invited to submit papers describing their “virtual instrumentation” designs and applications. The winner of this year’s contest in the academic category goes to a team from NUS Department of Physics that includes Dr. Chammika Udalagama (Research Fellow), Dr. Andrew Bettiol (ESP Associate) and Prof. Frank Watt (Faculty of Science ESP Coordinator). The winning entry describes a new data acquisition and imaging system for nuclear microscopy based on the National Instruments FPGA technology. The first prize will be presented to the winners during the inauguration ceremony of the new NI-ECE graphical system design laboratory in NUS, on the 24th November, 2008.

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ESP Sub Club 3rd Management Committee

After hectic preparations for the midterm tests, approximately 50 ESP students celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival together with the professors on 12th September, at E3A level 4. During the celebration, the E3A simulation lab was filled with people trying hard to solve the Mid-Autumn riddles and playing the traditional board games. Several prizes were given away to those who could solve the riddles.

Chess game was probably the most interactive session during the celebration. Juniors and seniors challenged each other on the Chinese chess and Go. Even Professor Wang played a round of Chinese Chess with the 1st year students. The game was remarkable---it was filled with intense strategy planning and battle for more than half an hour.

Of course, the Mid-Autumn Festival celebration would never be complete without delicious food. The students and professors were served with moon cakes, snacks and hot Japanese tea. Dr. Pang treated us with moon cakes that he bought. Everyone had a great time during the celebration. The event has helped to forge a tighter bond among the ESP cohorts and gave them the chance to mingle around with their professors.

Engineering Science students playing a chess game along with Prof Wang’s guidance

Following the election held on 4 September 2008, members of the 3rd management committee of ESP Sub Club are:

BEST is a series of four talks organized by the ESP sub club. From this year 2008, we have successfully incorporated BEST under the Technopreneur Incubation Programme (TIP). Through the talk, we aspire to convince our fellow Engineering Undergraduates that engineering and fundamental science disciplines are interdependent, especially when it comes to cutting edge research and development. Breakthrough in fundamental science research has catalyzed the development of modern engineering. A prominent example is the application of nanoscience in fuel cell technologies.

The first of the four BEST series talk was delivered by Dr Palani Balaya on the 5th November 2008 at LT2. His talk was on the "Anomalous behaviours of nano-materials". He enlightened the participants by explaining to them how nano materials can be utilized to overcome the shortcomings of the current

lithium fuels cells, such as low efficiency in energy generation and energy storage. Dr. Palani’s talk was well received by the participants, as he skilfully delivered his talk in a simple manner without dwelling too much on the technical details. Yet, the essence of the subject itself was still preserved. The talk had successfully attracted more than 30 Engineering Undergradu-ates. The next three talks will be held in next semester.

Dr Palani Balaya giving a BEST talk

BEST (Bridging Engineering and Science Talks)

Mid Autumn Festival Celebration

Chairperson : Soong Sheng Hong (Yr 2)

Vice-chairperson Ho Chin Ann (Yr 2) Financial Controller Tan Jian Hao (Yr 2)

Vice-chairperson Foo Wei Jian (Yr1) Marketing & Publicity Dir Khor Shu Heng (Yr 1)

Secretary (Admin) Lew Jen Sern (Yr 1) Welfare Director Yu Chengsong (Yr 2)

Secretary (IT) Lim Fang Jeng (Yr 2) Special Project Director Yorivan Iliadi (Yr 1)

Logistics Officer Tan Kwee Xun (Yr 2) Special Project Director Liu Hao Hui (Yr 1)

New ESP Addendum to Exchange Agreement with University of Auckland

For any enquiry or feedback, you may contact:

Engineering Science Programme National University of Singapore 7 Engineering Drive 1, E3A #04-17 Singapore 117574

Fax No.: (65) 6775 4710 Tel No.: (65) 6516 8664 Website: www.esp.nus.edu.sg

Newcomer!

Congratulations to Dr Pang for the arrival of his daughter, Pang Hsien Chyi on 6 Nov 08

Miss Ang Qiu Xiang Administrative Officer who is in charge of general administration. Email: espaqx@nus.edu.sg Contact no: 6516 3354 Ms Angela Loke Mei Hsing Management Assistant Officer who is a secretary to the Director and is in charge of finance matters. Email: esplmh@nus.edu.sg Contact no: 6516 5408 Ms Flora Wang Caizi Management Assistant Officer who is in charge of undergraduate student matters. Email: espwcz@nus.edu.sg Contact no: 6516 8664

ESP Matters The International Relations Office informed that the exchange agreement with the University of Auckland, including the ESP Addendum, has been finally concluded and is in effect from 26 September 2008 for five years. The pertinent points in this agreement are:

1. Agreement for University-Wide Exchange Programme for Undergraduate Students Both parties agree for an exchange of not

more than twenty semester places each year. Out of these, three semester places will be reserved for exchange between the Departments of Engineering Science at University of Auckland and NUS.

2. Addendum to the Agreement for University-Wide Exchange Programme for Undergradu-ate Students Both parties agree for a fee waiver for

each University of Auckland student in an Engineering Science Vacation Internship Programme at NUS and be given a grant of S$1,000 each month from NUS during the internship period

This agreement will trigger greater student exchanges and interactions between ESP students of both NUS and University of Auckland.

A warm welcome to our new ESP staff: