analysis
Waste is a Failure, Part 1: Heat
Monday, December 15th, 2008Waste is a terrible thing. At best, it connotes something that has performed no good for anyone. At worst, it is something disgusting that we avoid at all costs. But, nonetheless our lives are filled with waste. It is the rare person or circumstances that allow one to go through a [...]
A Proposal for an Integrated Risk Management Application
Sunday, December 7th, 2008Introduction
Analyzing and controlling risk is one of the most important aspects of the engineering design process. These risks include health and safety, design robustness and reliability, maintainability, marketability, cost, schedule, and performance.
Yet, many of these risks are managed only by the intuition of the project manager or management team. While many are skilled [...]
Population Growth, Land, and You, Part 2
Monday, October 6th, 2008So much for the problems- what are some of the solutions?
A number of options exist or are being developed on the alternative energy front. Purely from an energy standpoint, renewable sources are more than capable of providing our energy needs; the issue at this point is refining our alternative energy technologies to the point where [...]
Population Growth, Land, And You
Monday, October 6th, 2008Thomas Malthus, an English economist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, is famous for prophesying doom in the form of excessive population growth and the resultant crash that would follow; though he’s been dead for the better part of two centuries, his ideas still inform a number of prominent figures to this day. [...]
A Careful Look at Green Advertising
Wednesday, September 24th, 2008Increasingly, green advertising has become much more important among manufacturers and retail businesses. It seems many consumers would prefer given many options to select a product that is less stressful on the environment than another equally functional product. While the degree to which this is influencing each person today varies widely, it is [...]
Monoculture vs. Polyculture Farming Methods
Sunday, August 31st, 2008Sustainability has become a buzzword- it’s used in reference to energy policy, abiotic natural resources, and cultural practices. It’s also being used in reference to agricultural practices. Though we’ve improved on crop yields through modern farming methods, there are still ways in which we can increase our efficiencies while simultaneously providing a place for nature [...]
Aviation Sustainability?
Sunday, August 31st, 2008Much of the transportation talk these days revolves around finding more efficient ways to fuel our vehicles, for obvious reasons. Eventually, fossil fuels will run out, and we need to have an alternative in place long before we reach that point. As Italian air marshal Giulio Douhet was quoted as saying back in 1928, “Victory [...]
Rates Can be Deceiving
Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008This article recently brought up an excellent point on how some rates can be deceiving, and even reduce the likelihood that we will make the right decision. The example involved comparing impressions of fuel efficiency in miles per gallon versus gallons per mile, or gallons per ten thousand miles. While identifying the better of two [...]
The Aim of Science
Monday, June 16th, 2008Good Science? Bad Science? What do these mean? How do we know the difference? We throw these terms around especially in political and policy arguments as if we all understand what they mean. Exceptions. Uncertainty. Facts. Theory. Bias. These ideas seem to determine whether or not we think any particular scientific idea is good or [...]
Reliability is Not a Constant
Tuesday, June 10th, 2008Often as a reliability engineer, or anyone responsible for researching the reliability of an item, or calculating it, you will find oversimplified published data giving you the impression that reliability is an unchanging physical property like mass or volume, something intrinsic to the materials included in it. This is actually the common sense approach; we [...]
Review - Modern Compressible Flow with Historical Perspective
Thursday, June 5th, 2008Modern Compressible Flow with Historical Perspective by John D. Anderson provides an excellent resource for studies in advanced fluid mechanics. In a field where many texts provide useful content in an entirely unmemorable fashion, this text is an exception. Theory, History, Applications, and other interesting information and stories make this book a beneficial addition to [...]
Zero-Failure Reliability Testing
Wednesday, June 4th, 2008So, you’ve got a design that you want to prove is better than the existing design from your own or another company. What’s the most efficient, fastest way to get to that answer with a very small sample size? Whle there may be several options you have, including accelerated testing, they each can have their [...]
Review - Microscale Heat Transfer - Fundamentals and Applications
Wednesday, May 21st, 2008This review concerns a niche of mechanical engineering that involves heat transfer at very small scales. Understanding this phenomenon, which is considerably different from typical heat transfer and thermodynamics experienced in the everyday world, is critical to the advancement of nanotechnological machines and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS).
Energy Efficiency: Good News onto Deaf Ears ?
Tuesday, May 20th, 2008Energy efficiency is a wonderful investment both for businesses and consumers often paying far better returns than the stock and bond markets. If so, then why don’t we take advantage of it? Increases in efficiency can reduce energy consumption for the same or increasing amount of output. All the while, pollution is reduced and money [...]
Calculating Reliability with Partial Test Results
Wednesday, May 14th, 2008Getting answers before you are finished. Why are people always so impatient? Why can’t they just wait until testing is complete before they ask for answers? I suppose it is just human nature, as I have heard that question any time I have been involved in reliability testing programs. And, although we would know much [...]
Convert B10 or L10 Bearing Life to MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures)
Thursday, May 8th, 2008As a reliability analyst, sometimes none of your data matches the form you are interested in. It all comes in different collections of units, statistical distribution parameters, failure rates, environments, MTBF, MTTF, and on and on. In this article, let’s consider one common conversion for which my research found too little information available [...]