ENGS 171 – Spring 2011
INDUSTRIAL ECOLOGY
Term
project
Examples of past projects
This edition of the course includes two distinct types of projects.
Project Type I – Industrial Ecology of a place
Two places:
hereafter referred to
as “the place”. One team per place.
Objectives
1.
Development
of experience in the application of industrial ecology principles and
methodologies to the operations of a specific building.
2.
Application
of project management and engineering skills to real-world problems. Emphasis placed on how to make
recommendations and present analyses when problem structure may be ill-defined
and information incomplete.
Overview
This type of project
involves making environmental performance recommendations on actual products,
services, or systems in use at the place specified. Each team of 4 students will select from a
list a general area of activity in which they are to identify and analyze a
product, service, or system in which it is thought that an
environmentally-relevant improvement can be made. Students will be given several contacts who
are familiar with the place and who will be able to provide relevant
information.
Listed below are the
general areas of activity.
1.
Energy,
all forms
2.
Delivery
of water and treatment of liquid wastes
3.
Solid
waste collection, storage, and treatment
Because the term
project involves real-world activities, students should expect that there will
be gaps in information needed on their topic, and that the criteria used to
make recommendations may be ambiguous.
Teams are expected to take full account of the uncertainty of their
recommendation by highlighting data gaps and the sensitivity of recommendations
to assumptions. In actual practice,
analyses which highlight gaps in information, identify critical assumptions,
and place bounds around a possible answer are often just as useful as analyses
which are able to provide clear-cut solutions.
Consequently, teams will be evaluated on the thoroughness and creativity
of their analyses and recommendations.
Deliverables
Students are
expected to meet the following requirements during the course of the term
project. Written and oral communications
are important skills for the successful engineer, and will be taken into
account at times of project evaluation.
1.
Environmental
performance summary for the “place” with ranking by level of impacts;
2.
Recommendations for several improvement options,
with engineering analysis and cost estimates;
3.
In-class
oral presentation near mid-term reporting on progress and outstanding issues;
4.
Oral
presentation of project results, in presence of town/campus collaborators;
5.
Final
10-20 page written report (including text, figures, and tables).
Evaluation
Instructor will
evaluate the students based on the following criteria:
-
(15
points) Appropriateness and application of industrial ecology methods
-
(10
points) Quality and reasonableness of recommendations
-
(5 points)
Mid-term progress presentation
-
(10
points) Final presentation and written report.
Total of 40 points
toward the 100 points for the entire course.
Project Type II – Co-generation at the
Two components:
(1) Harvesting of methane
from waste biomass, storage, burning in internal combustion engine, electricity
generation, and
(2) Capture of waste
heat and exhaust gases, feeding heat into greenhouse, and piping of CO2
for algae culture.
Objectives
Overview
The Dartmouth
Organic Farm wishes to explore the feasibility of a methane-capture system to
provide multiple benefits, including electricity generation, heat recovery for
a greenhouse and CO2 capture for algal culture. Students are to recommend a practical system
possibly made from existing components (such as a generator unit or combined
heat and power (CHP) unit) and adequately sized for the amount of methane
produced. The blueprint for this system
must be accompanied by a thorough engineering analysis demonstrating the
feasibility of the system, and by a cost estimate. No prototyping is necessary for this project.
Deliverables
Students are
expected to meet the following requirements during the course of the term
project. Written and oral communications
are important skills for the successful engineer, and will be taken into
account at times of project evaluation.
Evaluation
Instructor will
evaluate the students based on the following criteria:
-
(15
points) Appropriateness and application of engineering systems
-
(10
points) Quality and reasonableness of recommendations
-
(5
points) Mid-term progress presentation
-
(10
points) Final presentation and written report.
Total of 40 points
toward the 100 points for the entire course.