Success in major transport infrastructure projects

Major transport infrastructure projects have a calamitous history of cost overruns, delays, and overestimated travel demand forecasts. Costs and construction periods for major transport infrastructure projects are frequently underestimated, and benefits overestimated. This leads to suboptimal prosperity, decreased faith in governments and...

A Practice Oriented Approach to User Centered Sustainable Design

This paper describes a method for insight generation for sustainable innovations. The method takes a practice oriented approach aiming for product ideas for practice level innovations. The method was applied in a case study on the practice of bathing. Insights on sustainable bathing innovations were gathered during a two-week period in which...

A Culture-Inspired Approach to Gaining Insights for Designing Sustainable Practices

This paper explores a design method to generate insights for designing less resource-intensive forms of everyday life. This study takes the assumption that looking at cultural diversity can widen the variety of insights which can be used as a source of inspiration for designing sustainable practices. However, there is a lack of clear-cut...

Lille Europe: A success story

Development of high-speed train station areas can provide an economic impulse to a city. The station area around Lille Europe, Euralille, is probably the project that is most often put forward as an example thereof. In reality the station area is not the success many people consider it to be, au contraire. The offices are rented out for a...

Infrastructures for natural gas: The challenges of internationalization

The European natural gas infrastructure is facing the challenge of adapting itself to an increasingly international pattern of supply and demand, while the coordination of transactions is getting more and more complex. New patterns of trade are evolving, reflecting the consequences of the gradual development of an intra-European gas market....

Computation of three-dimensional, pulsed, nonlinear acoustic wavefields from medical phased array transducers in very large domains

For the optimization and development of medical ultrasound transducers and imaging modalities, the Iterative Nonlinear Contrast Source (INCS) method has been developed. This numerical method predicts the nonlinear acoustic pressure field, generated by a pulsed, plane source with an arbitrary aperture, and propagating in a three-dimensional...

The Delfi-n3Xt nanosatellite: Space weather research and qualification of microtechnology

The Delfi-C3 nanosatellite successor, Delfi-n3Xt, is currently under development at Delft University of Technology and scheduled for launch in the first half of 2010. This improved three-unit CubeSat platform allows novel technology qualification for future small satellites and innovative scientific research. The platform is improved by...

Improved command and data handling system for the Delfi-n3Xt nanosatellite

The Delfi-C3 nanosatellite successor, Delfi-n3Xt, is currently under development at Delft University of Technology. This nanosatellite based on a three-unit CubeSat form factor has been improved through the implementation of a high-speed downlink, three-axis active attitude control and a single-point-failure free implementation of batteries in...

Performance of the flight model HIFI band 3 and 4 mixer units

We describe the performance of the Band 3 and Band 4 Flight Model mixer units for Herschel/HIFI Instrument. These units are part of the Focal Plane Unit of HIFI. The band 3 and 4 mixer units cover the 800-960 GHz and 960-1120 GHz frequency range and have a 4-8 GHz IF frequency band. The sensitivities of the mixers within the HIFI setting are...

Coal mining in the Netherlands: The need for a proper assessment

In the Netherlands several billion tonnes of mineable coal remained after closure of all mines in 1974. Mining activities in Dutch Limburg were suspended relatively early in comparison to surrounding basins, of which only DSK’s Ruhr mines are still producing. In retrospective this saved the costs of uneconomic exploitation and limited further...

Development of the HIFI band 3 and 4 mixer units

We describe the current status of the HIFI mixer units for Band 3 and Band 4. The mixer units cover the 800-960 GHz and 960-1120 GHz frequency range and have a 4-8 GHz IF frequency band. The major requirements and the design strategy are described. Functional tests of the magnet, the de-flux heater, IF-circuit, and the corrugated horn were...

Experimental research on the stability of armour and secondary layer in a single layered Tetrapod breakwater

Physical model tests were done on an armour of Tetrapods, placed in a single layer. The objective of the investigations was to study the stability of the secondary layer, and to see if the material of this secondary layer could be washed out through the single layer of Tetrapods. It was concluded that secondary armour is not washed out through...

Road pricing en bereikbaarheid: Voorstellen voor verbetering opnamen kostencomponent in bereikbaarheidsmaten en een toepassingsstudie voor de regio Utrecht

Man-made Islands in the Mackenzie river: Numerical modelling of ice jam development and release

Man-made islands in the Mackenzie river (Canada) for oil exploitation may obstruct the free flow of ice during spring break up. These ice dams may cause considerable rise of the water level in the rivers, resulting in floods. A numerical model is presented to simulate ice dam formation an river floods.