Anaerobic Protein Degradation for Resources Recovery from Nitrogen-Loaded Residual Streams

The demand for reactive nitrogen, i.e., ammonia (NH3), is constantly growing as the global population grows, especially in the nitrogen (N) fertiliser production sector. Simultaneously, the reactive nitrogen in residual streams, i.e., mainly ammonium (NH4+) and nitrate (NO3-), has caused serious environmental issues, e.g., eutrophication and...

Morphodynamic equilibria in double–inlet systems: Their existence, multiplicity and stability

Tidal inlet systems, which consist of back–barrier basins connected to the open sea by one or multiple inlets, are found at many places along sandy coasts. They are valuable for ecology (breeding and feeding areas), economy (gas–mining and sand–mining) and recreation, and are important for coastal safety. But they are also sensitive to external...

The Role of Algae in Fine Cohesive Sediment Flocculation

Flocculation is an important process in fine cohesive sediment transport that still requires investigation as it is a complex process, involving the aggregation, break-up and reconformation of mineral and biological particles.<br/>Fine cohesive sediments are found in rivers, estuaries and their adjacent areas. With the rapid economic development...

Optimal Decision Making for Aircraft Maintenance Planning: From Maintenance Check Scheduling to Maintenance Task Allocation

Aircraft maintenance is the process of overhaul, repair, inspection, or modification of an aircraft or aircraft systems, components, and structures, to keep these in an airworthy condition. Airlines must perform regular maintenance on their fleet to keep their aircraft airworthy and, ultimately, prevent any systems or components failures during...

Finite Element Solution of Rolling Contact and Analysis of Squats Formation

One goal of this thesis is to study the performance and accuracy of an explicit finite element (FE) method for frictional rolling contact in a wider-range of conditions. The other goal is to reveal the physical phenomena of squats and the mechanisms behind, such as cracking mechanisms and development process. The first part studies the...

Young People’s Housing Opportunity in Post-reform China

The inquiry that has culminated in this thesis was inspired by the challenges that many young Chinese people were facing when trying to gain access to affordable housing at the time of study, the early 2010s. By then, more than thirty years of housing reforms had completely changed how housing was being provided in China. The resulting structure...

Integrated 6-DoF Lorentz Actuator with Gravity Compensation for Vibration Isolation in In-Line Surface Metrology

Aerodynamics of flapping-wing Micro-Air-Vehicle: An integrated experimental and numerical study

The interest in Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) has stimulated continuous research activities, in view of their potential in civilian and military applications. An autonomous MAV with dedicated onboard sensors would be capable of executing mission in closed environments, such as surveillance, in door inspection in support of rescue operations and...

Conformal symmetries and constrained critical phenomena