Unlocking Australia's offshore gas endowment. This project aims to develop practical new methods of predicting and detecting the formation of solids in gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG) production. Australia has large offshore reserves of natural gas and has made the investments necessary to help fuel the global transition to cleaner, reliable energy sources. However, conventional engineering approaches of producing gas from deep-water reserves have reached the limits of viability because of t ....Unlocking Australia's offshore gas endowment. This project aims to develop practical new methods of predicting and detecting the formation of solids in gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG) production. Australia has large offshore reserves of natural gas and has made the investments necessary to help fuel the global transition to cleaner, reliable energy sources. However, conventional engineering approaches of producing gas from deep-water reserves have reached the limits of viability because of the costs required to prevent solids forming in subsea pipelines or cryogenic LNG plants. The project’s expected outcome include sophisticated tools in open-access software based on these new predictive methods, and a step-change in Australia’s ability to access its offshore gas.Read moreRead less
A System Behavioral Approach to Big Data-driven Nonlinear Process Control. This project aims to develop a novel process control approach that utilises big process data to improve the cost-effectiveness of industrial processes. Existing monitoring systems in the industry have been collecting a tremendous amount of process operation data but little effort has been made to use the big process data to enhance process operations. Based on the system behavioural approach and dissipativity theory, inte ....A System Behavioral Approach to Big Data-driven Nonlinear Process Control. This project aims to develop a novel process control approach that utilises big process data to improve the cost-effectiveness of industrial processes. Existing monitoring systems in the industry have been collecting a tremendous amount of process operation data but little effort has been made to use the big process data to enhance process operations. Based on the system behavioural approach and dissipativity theory, integrated with machine learning techniques, this project expects to develop a novel framework for data-driven control using big process data. The outcomes are expected to benefit the Australian process industry, where many processes are controlled by inadequate logic controllers, by improving their operational efficiency.Read moreRead less
Big Data-based Distributed Control using a Behavioural Systems Framework. With Industry 4.0 turning into reality, industrial processes are becoming distributed cyber-physical systems which generate, process, store and communicate large amounts of data. Using the behavioural systems framework, this project aims to develop a novel distributed control approach for complex processes directly based on big process data. A new model-free framework will be developed to represent and analyse the process/ ....Big Data-based Distributed Control using a Behavioural Systems Framework. With Industry 4.0 turning into reality, industrial processes are becoming distributed cyber-physical systems which generate, process, store and communicate large amounts of data. Using the behavioural systems framework, this project aims to develop a novel distributed control approach for complex processes directly based on big process data. A new model-free framework will be developed to represent and analyse the process/controller networks and interaction effects, and determine the feasibility of desired control performance under distributed control. Novel big data-based distributed control design approaches will be developed by extending the dissipativity, contraction and differential dissipativity conditions for behavioural systems.Read moreRead less
Model studies of Australian lump ore applied to blast furnace ironmaking. Ore lump use in ironmaking blast furnaces (BFs) requires no preprocessing and has a lower carbon footprint. However, it suffers various technical problems. This project aims to understand and optimize the conditions for such operations. This will be achieved by means of a combined theoretical and experimental program, involving the use of state-of-the-art multiscale computer modelling and simulation techniques. The researc ....Model studies of Australian lump ore applied to blast furnace ironmaking. Ore lump use in ironmaking blast furnaces (BFs) requires no preprocessing and has a lower carbon footprint. However, it suffers various technical problems. This project aims to understand and optimize the conditions for such operations. This will be achieved by means of a combined theoretical and experimental program, involving the use of state-of-the-art multiscale computer modelling and simulation techniques. The research outcomes will be tested in the design and control of lump charging operations in practice through collaboration with the industrial partner. This will ultimately increase Australian ore lump usage in BFs, leading to significant financial and environmental benefits to Australia and the entire steel industry worldwide.Read moreRead less
Data-based Control of Process Feature Dynamics through Latent Behaviours. This project aims to develop a novel data-based approach to control the feature dynamics of complex industrial processes. The dynamic features of desired process operations (leading to high energy and material efficiencies and good product quality) are often not directly measured but can be distilled from high-dimensional big process data. However, little effort has been made to develop process control approaches to achiev ....Data-based Control of Process Feature Dynamics through Latent Behaviours. This project aims to develop a novel data-based approach to control the feature dynamics of complex industrial processes. The dynamic features of desired process operations (leading to high energy and material efficiencies and good product quality) are often not directly measured but can be distilled from high-dimensional big process data. However, little effort has been made to develop process control approaches to achieve desired dynamic features. This project aims to develop such a data-based approach by controlling latent variable dynamics, using the behavioural systems framework integrated with big data analytics and artificial neural networks. The outcomes are expected to help build a cornerstone for future smart manufacturing.Read moreRead less
Next generation gas separations via innovative adsorption technologies. This project aims to develop new gas separation technologies that combine novel materials and pressure swing adsorption cycles to deliver inexpensive industrial processes capable of both high recovery and high purity products. The project will advance our ability to manipulate the phenomenon of regulated guest admission into microporous materials, and integrate such materials within new types of dual-reflux adsorption cycles ....Next generation gas separations via innovative adsorption technologies. This project aims to develop new gas separation technologies that combine novel materials and pressure swing adsorption cycles to deliver inexpensive industrial processes capable of both high recovery and high purity products. The project will advance our ability to manipulate the phenomenon of regulated guest admission into microporous materials, and integrate such materials within new types of dual-reflux adsorption cycles that deliver multiple refined gas products. Successful implementation of these industrial developments will increase Australia's access to cheap supplies of natural gas, encourage the broader use of biomass, lower the carbon emissions of industrial processes, and efficiently recover high-value compounds only present at trace concentrations.Read moreRead less
Commercial scale production of biocrude by hydrothermal liquefaction. The project aims to develop new understanding and tools to support commercial-scale production of biocrude from microalgae or biosolids and enable a breakthrough in cost-effective production of sustainable fuels. A novel hydrothermal liquefaction reactor has been developed that has strong potential to overcome the limitations of Muradel's existing demonstration reactor which, while world-leading, is uneconomical at commercial ....Commercial scale production of biocrude by hydrothermal liquefaction. The project aims to develop new understanding and tools to support commercial-scale production of biocrude from microalgae or biosolids and enable a breakthrough in cost-effective production of sustainable fuels. A novel hydrothermal liquefaction reactor has been developed that has strong potential to overcome the limitations of Muradel's existing demonstration reactor which, while world-leading, is uneconomical at commercial scale. The project aims to develop design tools to optimise the new reactor, comprising a chemical model of the complex, multi-component hydrothermal liquefaction reactions, a computational model of the mixing and heat transfer within it and a network model of the energy and exergy flows.Read moreRead less
Brain-skull interface: discovering the missing piece of head biomechanics. Overall objective of this project is to measure, mathematically describe and implement in software mechanical properties of brain-skull interface – a critical component of current large and sophisticated computational models of the brain and the last missing piece of brain biomechanics knowledge. This will allow increased reliability of comprehensive biomechanical models used to simulate realistic injury and surgery scena ....Brain-skull interface: discovering the missing piece of head biomechanics. Overall objective of this project is to measure, mathematically describe and implement in software mechanical properties of brain-skull interface – a critical component of current large and sophisticated computational models of the brain and the last missing piece of brain biomechanics knowledge. This will allow increased reliability of comprehensive biomechanical models used to simulate realistic injury and surgery scenarios.
The problem is significant and urgent. Every year in Australia, there are over 22,000 cases of traumatic brain injury, some of which could be prevented by better passive and active countermeasures; and over 12,000 neurosurgical procedures that surgical simulation could make more accurate and therefore safer.Read moreRead less
Individualisation for 3D Audio. The project aim is to allow the general listener to enjoy high-fidelity 3-D sound over headphones. Such 3-D audio is of paramount importance when inter-personal communication requires situational awareness, (eg search and rescue, fire-fighting, and air traffic control). To achieve this, the project aims to address one of the toughest problems in audio signal processing: deriving high-fidelity 3-D audio headphone filters from photos and/or 3D scans of ears. The pro ....Individualisation for 3D Audio. The project aim is to allow the general listener to enjoy high-fidelity 3-D sound over headphones. Such 3-D audio is of paramount importance when inter-personal communication requires situational awareness, (eg search and rescue, fire-fighting, and air traffic control). To achieve this, the project aims to address one of the toughest problems in audio signal processing: deriving high-fidelity 3-D audio headphone filters from photos and/or 3D scans of ears. The project plans to address fundamental research questions in statistical shape and data analysis and to perceptually evaluate the 3-D audio methods developed.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE140101375
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$395,220.00
Summary
The forest and the trees: How global brain rhythms facilitate local information processing. One of the greatest challenges in understanding the brain is the enormous range of scales it operates on, from single neurons a few microns across to entire hemispheres on the scale of tens of centimetres. This project will investigate how large-scale brain rhythms influence and facilitate information processing, particularly motor control, among small networks of individual neurons. The research question ....The forest and the trees: How global brain rhythms facilitate local information processing. One of the greatest challenges in understanding the brain is the enormous range of scales it operates on, from single neurons a few microns across to entire hemispheres on the scale of tens of centimetres. This project will investigate how large-scale brain rhythms influence and facilitate information processing, particularly motor control, among small networks of individual neurons. The research questions will be addressed by combining detailed computer simulations with data-driven analyses of empirical human and monkey brain dynamics. The outcomes of this project will provide a richer understanding of how our brains encode and process information, leading to practical benefits such as improved control of artificial limbs.Read moreRead less