Going Global - Proceedings 2013

E WB- U K & E AP Research and L earning C onference 2 013 Going Global: s us tainable human development in engineering education 1 2 th A pril
2 013
Conference Agenda
Time 09:30 10:00 10:00 10:20 Item Registration Welcome and introduction Skills for the Global Engineer Professor Anthony Finkelstein (Executive Dean UCL Engineering) G06 Speaker Room
10:20 11:30
Joanne Beale (WaterAid & Coventry University) Katy Liddell, Peter Santamaria-Woods, Robert Frostick, Lorraine Blanks & Rebecca Rabjohns (Coventry University) Inspiration and Information quick-fire session
G06
11:30 13:00
Morning Research Panel Education for global challenges Workshop sessions Renishaw Pico-Hydro Innovation Competition Finals (closed session)
G08 110/ 310
13:00 14:00 14:00 15:30
Buffet Lunch & Exhibition
Afternoon Research Panel Re-learning the rules Workshop sessions
G08 110/ 310 G06 G06 G06
15:30 16:00
Renishaw Pico-Hydro Innovation Competition Ceremony Water for People Sanitation Innovation Competition Launch
16:00 17:30
Training the Global Engineer
Michael Shaw (Royal University of Phnom Penh & EWB Australia) Professor Robert Kalin ( David Livingstone Centre for Sustainability University of Strathclyde)
16:30 18:30
Drinks reception
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E WB- U K & E AP Research and L earning C onference 2 013 Going Global: s us tainable human development in engineering education 1 2 th A pril 2 013
Welcome to the Engineers Without Borders UK & Engineers Against Poverty Research and Learning Conference 2013
Going Global sustainable human development in engineering education

On behalf of Engineers Without Borders UK and Engineers Against Poverty, we are very pleased to welcome you to this event following the success of C hanging C ourse, our conference in 2012. The organisers, speakers, presenters, facilitators and participants come from diverse institutional and geographical backgrounds, but we are all united by one thing: a commitment to ensuring that the next generation of engineers are equipped with the skills, knowledge and attitudes that are needed to help them fight poverty and build a better life for all people. We have developed a programme that will help us to understand better both the scale of the challenges and the practical measures needed to overcome them. We hope that if you are an academic staff member or a student, a policy-maker or a practitioner, that you will be inspired by this event and encouraged to back to your workplace with renewed energy and commitment. Today would not have been possible without the support and generosity of numerous individuals and organisations. We are particularly indebted to Professor Anthony Finkelstein and his colleagues at University College London who have once again made their facilities available to us today at no cost. We are also grateful to Renishaw and Water for people for their continued support to both our research programmes and innovation competitions. The most important factor in determining the success of this event is the energy and ideas of the participants. We urge you to engage critically with what you see and hear above all to have your say on the things that are important to you. It is only through listening to each other and sharing our knowledge that we can develop solutions that will make a difference. Wishing you all the best in your future endeavours, Your organising team Alistair Cook Head of Learning - alistair.cook@ewb-uk.org Lizzie Norris Workshop and Events Coordinator lizzie.norris@ewb-uk.org Alex Buckman Research Coordinator alex.buckman@ewb-uk.org Siobhn McGrath Academic Community Coordinator siobhan.mcgrath@ewb-uk.org Chloe Underdown Innovation Engagement C oordinator chloe.underdown@ewb-uk.org Nicola Greene Materials Development C oordinator nicola.greene@ewb-uk.org Emily Mattiussi EWB C hallenge Manager emily.mattiussi@ewb-uk.org Lincoln Smith Training Coordinator Lincoln.smith@ewb-uk.org Emma Thomas Outreach Coordinator emma.thomas@ewb-uk.org Ben Phelps Innovation Hub C oordinator ben.phelps@ewb-uk.org Sean Murray Innovation Competitions Manager sean.murray@ewb-uk.org Emma Crichton International Education Coordinator emma.crichton@ewb-uk.org Muhammad Tahir Communities of Practice Coordinator muhammad.tahir@ewb-uk.org
Contents
About Engineers Without Borders UK Research and Education Programmes.................................................. 2 About the Engineers Against Poverty Research and Education Programmes .................................................. 4 Speakers for the day ................................................................................................................................... 6 Sustainable Low Cost Rickshaw Miriam Kennedy .............................................................................................10 The Role of Structural Engineers in Disaster Mitigation Joshua Macabuag............................................................16 Innovative designs and approaches in sanitation when responding to challenging and complex humanitarian contexts in urban areas Andy Bastable, Jenny Lamb and Angus McBride .............................................................................25 Using inertial maps for stakeholder mapping A mini-case of RFID rollout by Tesco Faran Mahmood & Heather J. Cruickshank..............................................................................................................................................31 Examining the use of anaerobic digestion outputs from human waste in low income countries C. M. Rose, A. H. Parker, E. Cartmell...............................................................................................................................................37 Expandable Modular Pico-Hydro Off-Grid Networks Sam Williamson....................................................................41 Development of a Pay as you go Solar Home System for Rural Areas Ashley Grealish ............................................45 Development of synthetic pit latrine sludge and investigation into the effects of fluidisation Chloe Underdown and Richard Fenner..........................................................................................................................................51 Participatory Manufacture of Small Wind Turbines: A Case Study in Nicaragua J. Sumanik-Leary, L. Marandin, M. Craig, C. Casillas, A. While, R. Howell.....................................................................................................................57 Investigation into the stabilisation of compressed earth blocks Victoria Bullen ......................................................69 Research Poster Papers ............................................................................................................................ 71 The C ontext of Construction in North Cyprus and its impact on Project Management Practice Balkiz Yapicioglou and Therese Lawlor-Wright ...............................................................................................................................73 Crowd modelling for a crisis Bharat Kunwar, Anders Johansson..........................................................................75 Understanding how knowledge and attitudes of key stakeholders may affect the success of sanitation interventions in practice - A case study of Lusaka, Zambia R Kennedy-Walker, J.M. Amezaga, and C.A.Paterson..............................79 Design and optimisation of a Turgo turbine for use at low head and low flow sites Joe Butchers, Marco Guerrini, Matthew Kujawski, Lloyd Randall..................................................................................................................85 Background Papers ................................................................................................................................... 89 The Global Dimension to Engineering Education Project Nina Neeteson ...............................................................91 Community led technology co-creation in engineering education Alistair Cook & Ashley Thomas ..............................93 Changing Mindsets in International Development - or how did we get to where we are today? Hayley Sharp..............99 The EWB Challenge & EWB-UK: Global Education for Global Engineers Alistair Cook & Hayley Howard .................... 103 Notes ..................................................................................................................................................... 107
About Engineers Without Borders UK Research and Education Programmes

Engineers Without Borders UK
To empower human development through engineering www.ewb-uk.org Engineers Without Borders UK (EWB-UK) is an international development organisation that removes barriers to development through engineering. Our programmes provide opportunities for young people in the UK to learn about engineerings role in poverty reduction. We support partner organisations by providing young engineers to help them with their projects. We have a vital network of branches at universities across the UK, where volunteers run events and activities for their members and communities. Professional engineers get involved to lend their expertise to our work. By taking part in our activities, our members are making a difference to people's lives around the world.
The EWB-UK Research Programme

Linking Students and Academic Institutions with Development and Humanitarian Organisations through Research Projects www.ewb-uk.org/programmes/research In brief, the EWB-UK Research Programme provides the research skills of our volunteers and hence the facilities of the institutions they study at as a resource for development organisations. By working with them to turn identified technical issues into research briefs, we can offer research projects that are useful, exciting and relevant and that fit into the engineering degrees. Once the research is complete, we ensure that the findings are communicated back to our partners and also disseminated through the knowledge section of our website. We provide research bursaries, where possible, to our researchers to help them purchase resources and materials, help towards the cost of field work study or implementation after the research is complete this greatly increases the effectiveness of the research so that it can make a practical difference where it is needed most. Whether you are a researcher looking for an available project, a partner organisation looking for completed research, an organisation looking to work with us to develop a long lasting research relationship or an academic looking to discover how EWB-UK Research can work more closely with your university, please do see our website and get in contact if you wish.
The EWB-UK Innovation Hub

Linking Innovators with opportunities and support www.ewb-uk.org/innovation The EWB-UK Innovation Hub was launched at the Small is Festival in 2012 and is an integral part of EWB-UKs new strategy. The Hub is a new way of doing development for EWB-UK, with a focus on social enterprise and fostering an active online community. This community is made up of three groups of people. These are: Innovators : People or organisations with ideas they want to develop. Hub Consultants : Experts who are willing to share their knowledge with innovators. Hub Support team: Volunteers from EWB-UK who try to ensure that Innovators are getting the support they require from Hub C onsultants, and work to develop and improve programmes for the Hub.
Many members will identify with more than one of these groups; this is actively encouraged, and it is hoped that Innovators who have been helped by the Hub will remain a part of the community, either helping out other Innovators by sharing their experiences as a Hub C onsultant, or by joining the hub support team. Likewise, Hub C onsultants who want to take a more active role in the Hub are encouraged to join the Hub Support team. The Hub also sets challenges for people without their own ideas to work on real development issues. For example the pico in Nepal competition challenged teams to design a pico hydropower system to deliver electricity for a rural nursery school. If you are interested in becoming part of the Innovation Hub community than please do get in touch.
The EWB-UK Education Programme

Expanding coverage of global issues in undergraduate engineering curricula www.ewb-uk.org/programmes/education In brief, the EWB-UK Education Programme supports academics and students to embed global issues into university engineering curricula. We provide advice on course and module content, example lectures delivered through our university branches, access to our central library of development engineering resources and grants of up to 200 to help set up specialist libraries at your university. The Education Programme also provides extra-curricular educational opportunities for students such as bi-annual courses with the C entre for Science and Environment in New Delhi and workshops with the Royal Academy of Engineering.
How do I become involved?

If the EWB-UK Research & Education Programmes sound of interest to you whether you are from an organisation working in the development sector, a potential researcher, academic or professional please visit our web pages for more information or send your enquiry to research@ewb-uk.org or education@ewb-uk.org .
The EWB Challenge

Innovative design programme for undergraduate students www.ewb-uk.org/ewbchallenge The Engineers Without Borders (EWB) C hallenge is an design programme for first and second year university undergraduates. It seeks to improve the ability of engineering students to address global challenges by providing them with real-life engineering design projects identified by EWBs community partners. Their designs contribute towards the sustainable development of disadvantaged communities in developing countries and give them the opportunity to develop teamwork, communication, and design skills. This programme is designed to provide students with the chance to develop skills that they will use throughout their future careers. Working in teams to solve complex problems, students learn effective teamwork, communication, and leadership skills, as well as the ability to design sustainable solutions with limited resources and information. An international context for their design problem increases students capacity to work effectively across cultural, economic, and geographical boundaries, a skill highly valued in increasingly international industry placements. The EWB C hallenge has clear links to the Engineering C ouncil's learning outcomes for accredited degree programmes, helping your institution deliver some or all of the General and Specific Learning Outcomes. There are also aspects of the C hallenge which prepare students for eventual engineering chartership. This year, the Challenge will reach approximately 2,500 students at universities in the UK and Ireland. If you are interested in joining the growing group of higher education institutions signing up for the EWB C hallenge, please get in touch.
The EWB-UK Academic Community

Supporting the educators of tomorrows engineers www.ewb-uk.org/academic-community The EWB-UK Academic Community is a group for anyone who delivers teaching at university level and who shares EWBUKs values. We want to contribute to massive small change by preparing future engineers to address global challenges. We support academics through training, networking and peer learning. Group members are also part of the EWB-UK Professional Network.
About the Engineers Against Poverty Research and Education Programmes

Engineers Against Poverty
www.engineersagainstpoverty.org Engineers Against Poverty (EAP) is a specialist NGO working in the nexus between engineering and international development. EAPs development perspective is shaped by a firm belief in the critical role of Science, Engineering, Technology and Innovation (SETI) in meeting the challenges of poverty and inequality. It works with partners in industry, government and civil society to identify innovative ways to enhance the contribution of SETI policy and practice to addressing these global challenges. EAP has developed a reputation for producing cutting edge action research and it is regularly consulted by leading international agencies. It demonstrates a high level of innovation both in terms of its programme content and in the range of partners it has mobilised in support of its efforts.
Engineering Education
Engineering education must develop to keep pace with challenging global issues such as poverty, conflict, climate change and sustainability. Forward-thinking higher education institutions (HEIs) are already adapting courses to equip graduates with the skills, knowledge and attitudes that are necessary to maximise the positive and far-reaching impact of engineering on society. But constraints exist that must be overcome if these improvements are to be scaled-up and maintained over time. Importantly, there is often a lack of knowledge of global issues amongst teaching staff and resistance to what is seen by some as a dilution of core engineering content.
EAPs Programme
EAP works with UK based HEIs, regulatory bodies and specialist research institutes to strengthen the commitment and capacity of engineering faculties and staff members to embed global issues within the learning of engineering undergraduates. It does this through a range of activities including research, advocacy, policy analysis, and supporting professional development. The cornerstone of EAPs engineering education work is the Global Dimension for Engineering Education programme funded by DFIDs Development Awareness Fund. This project brought together for the first time the leading organisations in the UK responsible for curriculum review, professional development and accreditation in engineering education to focus on global issues. They include the Engineering C ouncil, Engineering Subject C entre, Engineering Professors C ouncil, Engineers Without Borders UK and the Development Education Research C entre of the Institute of Education. The purpose of the project was to build the knowledge and understanding of the challenges and prospects for development amongst academic staff and enable them, through embedding global issues in the curriculum, to impart this knowledge and understanding to engineering undergraduates. Key is helping undergraduates to understand that for engineering knowledge to be effective, it must be integrated into the social, economic and institutional aspects of development and that they must join their knowledge with that of other specialists through interdisciplinary approaches. The Global Dimension for Engineering Education programme is nearing completion, but the stakeholders involved will remain in action as advocates of change in the higher education sector. This conference marks a welcome opportunity to look back on the programmes achievements in the last three years, as well as focusing on the future.
Publications
An evidence base was required to inform the Global Dimension for Engineering Education programme, so a report was prepared in partnership with the Development Education Research Centre at the Institute of Education. It was based on the knowledge generated through a series of workshops and stakeholder dialogues to better understand the current practice and thinking within engineering higher education about global skills. Global skills equip engineering graduates to negotiate major issues shaping the profession e.g. globalisation, rapid technology advances, climate change and poverty. The publication presents a framework of approaches for embedding global skills into the engineering curriculum and highlights examples from current practice to illustrate these approaches in action. You will find a complimentary reprinted copy of the report included in your delegate conference pack we hope that it provides a useful reference.
Speakers
Speakers
Speakers for the day

Host Professor Anthony Finkelstein University College London
Speakers Joanne Beale Katy Liddell, Peter Santamaria-Woods, Robert Frostick, Lorraine Blanks & Rebecca Rabjohns Michael Shaw Professor Robert Kalin WaterAid & C oventry University
C oventry University
Royal University of Phnom Penh David Livingstone Centre for Sustainability - University of Strathclyde
Morning Research Panel Miriam Kennedy Josh Macabuag Angus McBride Faran Mahmood C hristopher Rose Sustainable Low-cost Rickshaw Engineers in Disaster Mitigation Innovative designs and approaches in sanitation when responding to challenging and complex humanitarian contexts in urban areas Using inertial maps for stakeholder mapping - A mini case of RFID rollout Examining the use of anaerobic digestion outputs from human waste in low income countries Imperial College London University College London Oxfam GB University of Cambridge C ranfield University
Afternoon Research Panel Sam Williamson Ashley Grealish C hloe Underdown Jon LearySumanik Victoria Bullen Expandable Modular Pico-Hydro Off-Grid Networks Development of a pay as you go solar home system for rural areas Development of synthetic pit latrine sludge and investigation into the effects of fluidisation Participatory Manufacture of Small Wind Turbines - A C ase Study In Nicaragua Investigation into stabilisation of compressed earth blocks University of Bristol Imperial College London University of Cambridge University of Sheffield Brunel University
Speakers
Speakers
Research Panel
Papers
Res earch P anel Paper A uthor: M iriam Kennedy I nstitution: I mperial C ollege L ondon 9
Sustainable Low Cost Rickshaw Miriam Kennedy

Imperial College London
Abstract
This project has the aim of producing a more sustainable low-cost design of rickshaw in comparison to the traditional rickshaws used in Bangladesh and South Asia which is in keeping with the theme of the research conference as sustainable transport. To this aim, I have chosen a simple design to prototype using bamboo and hemp fibre as the main structural materials in order to prove the concept that this versatile and locally sourced material could be used as an alternative to current methods. Stress modelling, testing of the prototype, cost analysis and business model analysis will also be completed as part of the project. To date, the frame is in the process of being built and will be completed by the end of April ready for testing.
Introduction
This report has been written to present the progress of the project so far including the achievements to date and future work that will be undertaken for submission to EWB-UKs research and learning conference 2013. In keeping with the theme of the conference Going Global: Sustainable Human Development in Engineering Education this project is a master final year project produced for the Imperial College MEng degree with a focus on sustainable transport methods. Project Brief Designing a sustainable, low-cost rickshaw with a focus on: Sustainability, including the use of materials which have been sustainably and locally sourced (within the region of Bangladesh and South Asia) and a focus on a design which can be repaired or recycled A design cost at a suitable level for a labourer in Bangladesh
Project Objectives Research into existing rickshaw designs and recent design improvements made Analysis of areas of the design which could be further improved including sustainability of design Evaluation of local materials which could be used in the design Research into economics of rickshaw manufacturing and business models used Make and test a new rickshaw design C ost analysis of new design
Progress
Gathering information The project began in October and since then I have spent a large part of my time on the project collecting information about rickshaws and the environments they are commonly used in. This largely replaces a traditional literature review as there are few academic papers on the subject. The information I have collated can be split into 3 groups:
1. 2. 3.
Rickshaws in general; how they are used, who uses them, where they are used Materials; those used traditionally for rickshaws and materials native to South Asia Designs
Rickshaws in General In order to begin designing a new model of rickshaw, it is important to first understand where it is being targeted. There are over 500,000 rickshaws in use in Dhaka, Bangladesh, of which, only 13% are owned by the rickshaw puller. Elsewhere in Bangladesh there are over 2.5 million rickshaws. 90% of rickshaw drivers come from small villages outside of Dhaka and 58% of them are uneducated. Their average age is 38 years and they earn on average Tk 143 (~1.16) per day, according to a study carried out in 2005. Its clear from this information that the target market is extremely poor and will need a rickshaw that is not only low-cost but also highly reliable with minimal maintenance in order to avoid frequent costs for repairs. The average speed a rickshaw will travel at is 5-12 km/h and, while it travels mostly short distance, a driver can be expected to cycle up to 40 km. Typically, a rickshaw will carry 2-3 passengers or approx. 250 kg freight. In addition to these significant difficulties, a gradient of just 2% or wind speeds of 10 mph will double the power required to maintain speed. Worn tires, rough roads and repeated stopping in busy traffic can increase the power required by 100% (1).
Materials Traditionally, rickshaws have had some parts made from wood, but the main frame and supports have been made out of steel. Modern rickshaws are for the most part made from steel or carbon fibre because of its obvious advantages in strength. A large part of this project is to assess the alternative materials that could be used for a rickshaw, which may offer a reduction in weight and a more environmentally friendly rickshaw. This environmental aspect covers both the material itself and how it can be used or processed at the end of its life and if it can be locally and sustainably sourced within the region of South Asia. To this end, I spent some time researching into materials which are native to South Asia; I focussed my search on Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Bhutan. Of the materials I found, the most promising are cotton, rubber, jute (a vegetable fibre), rattan (a reed plant superficially similar to bamboo) and bamboo. According to a national report on bamboo and rattan development in Bangladesh, 90% of the needs of the rural populace for construction, thatching, household articles and fuel wood are served by bamboo and rattan. More than 33 species of bamboo grow naturally in C hittagong, C hittagong hill tracts, C oxs Bazaar, Sylhet and northern Mymensingh(2). Bangladesh is the largest exporter of jute in the world (3). Of these materials native to South Asia, bamboo, rattan and jute are the most promising in terms of use for construction. As well as having comparable strength to composites such as glass fibre(4), bamboo is also extremely versatile; it can be used in its raw form, as a composite or a laminate(5) and is much lighter than steel. Given rattans common use in furniture, it may be ideal for constructing the seat of the rickshaw and jute can be used for lashing together the joints of the frame. Designs Rickshaws are used all over the world and can be seen in many varied traditional designs. However there has been a revival of rickshaws in the west in large cities, particularly in London, LA and New York as a novel way to travel around the city without producing any carbon emissions. It is clear that the modern rickshaw has become considerably more comfortable both for the passenger and the driver and in general and a more robust frame is preferred. To compare the designs I found, I created a comparison table which uses 3 designs and compares them across a range of features. This table can be found in the appendix. To complete the table, I needed to speak directly to the rickshaw manufacturers. I was able to talk directly to the manufacturers for two of the main companies in the UK; MaxPro Ecotaxis and C ycle Maximus. In addition, I have had some email correspondence with a businessman, Tadib Muqtada, who imports rickshaw parts from C hina to be assembled in Bangladesh. Finally, whilst I was visiting Dhaka, I spoke to a local rickshaw business owner who owns 15 rickshaws and has a small workshop, the Takka Mistree Workshop, where they are assembled. As well as this, I was able to speak to a local rickshaw driver and ask about the things he would like to improve his rickshaw. The driver I spoke to was called Abdul Kuddus and he explained to me that he hires a rickshaw every day for 110 Tk (~89p) and makes 400-500 Tk (3.25-4.00) per day. He spoke about how difficult driving a rickshaw all day is because it is heavy and difficult to manoeuvre. He also said that it was difficult to get moving and bad road surfaces made things worse. When I spoke to him, he needed a new tyre but did not have the money for it yet as it would cost him 410 Tk (~3.30). Using this information, combined with the objectives of the project to design something low-cost, lightweight, sustainable and locally sourced, I was able to draw up a Design Specification shown inp.
Aspect
Objective Possibility of adverts or pictures
Criteria Area clear for pictures/adverts or fittings for optional attachment C olourful/patterned design
Aesthetics Appealing aesthetics Good brakes Safety Road safe Safe for passengers Weight Lightweight Large passenger car C omfortable seat Comfort for passenger Space for passenger's belongings C overed seat Robust frame Strength Robust seat Able to carry typical loads Minimise materials and manufacturing costs Minimise maintenance costs Cost Minimise import costs Minimise operating costs Manoeuvrability Sustainability Sustainably sourced materials Long lifetime Impact on environment 'Green' manufacturing methods Low emissions from use Design for use Adaptable for other uses Efficient transmission Ergonomical design Rider Comfort Adjustability C overed/protected seat Ease of manufacture Manufacturing time Readily available spare parts Ease of Maintenance Low frequency of maintenance Reliable Table 1: Design Specification
Res earch P anel Paper A uthor: M iriam Kennedy I nstitution: I mperial C ollege L ondon
Lights, bell and reflectors included Seatbelts Less than 50kg total 300-400mm space per passenger C ushioned seat area Fittings to carry passenger's bags or storage compartment Option to cover seat Strong frame material Strong seat material Designed to carry 150kg + driver <150
Locally sourced materials and parts No operating costs Less than 1.5m wide Reusable materials Local, readily available materials 10-20 year life Minimal C O2 emissions during manufacturing No emissions from use Option to attach other bodies or conversion from passenger carrying to load carrying Low friction
Appropriate road vehicle size Recyclable parts
Adjustable seat and handlebars for driver Option cover for driver Less than one day for one person C ommon parts used Maintain once a month Tested on different surfaces
12
Developing a design
Given the potential benefits of incorporating bamboo into my design, I started to look at bamboo bikes which had been constructed. There are several examples easily found of bamboo bikes being constructed by amateurs (5,6) and even a company called Calfee Design that offers bamboo bikes made to order (for approximately $5,000). Calfee design lists the benefits of a bamboo bike as crash tolerant, vibration damping, stiffer than some carbon frames and a low carbon footprint (7). After reading about bamboo bikes, it was clear that while steel lugs could be used, the frame would benefit from a natural fibre composite due to the nature of the bamboo which may cause it to change its shape over time and with constant use. I found several examples of hemp composites which have been used for bike frames but I decided to use jute which is one of the natural products of Bangladesh and has similar properties to hemp. In order to develop a working prototype of a rickshaw from bamboo, I have pursued a simple design which can be seen modelled in Figure 1.
Figure 1: CAD model of rickshaw design; modelled using SolidWorks
Construction
In order to start experimenting and constructing a model, I ordered 10 culms of bamboo of varying diameters and lengths. Before they could be used they had to have the rings punched through at every node and to be heat treated, using a blow torch. Each culm took approximately 1 hour of heat treating, using the blow torch to brown one section (between two nodes) of the culm evenly so as not to cause any splitting. Following this, I produced a sample joint of two bamboo pieces meeting at 45. To join the bamboo together, one piece was cut and sanded into a shape so as to mate closely with the other and then the edges of both were sanded by hand to leave a rough surface. They were then stuck together with epoxy resin and left over night. Following that, strips of jute were used to lash the joints together securely and epoxy was dabbed onto the jute to produce a strong composite. This joint was put together as a sample; for the joints in the model will need several layers of jute-resin composite to ensure their strength. Figure 2 shows the joint. Although no formal tests were carried out, the joint appeared strong to manual attempts to break it and the technique appears sound. Figure 2: Sample bamboo joint
Following this, I began construction on the rickshaw prototype and am currently in the process of completing the frame work. The rickshaw should be completed before the 30th of April. The current stage of construction as of March 21st can be seen in Figure 3.
Figure 3: Construction of frame completed on March 21st
Future Work
Once the frame is completed, I will be able to carry out some simple tests on the frame by holding it static at the three points where the wheels will attach and loading it with weight. According to the specification, it should be able to carry at least 150 kg as well as the drivers weight. At the same time, I further develop theoretical stress analysis for the frame, both by hand and using ANSYS. It will be interesting to compare the results between my own calculations, the ANSYS model and the experimental data. Following the testing of the frame I am aiming to fully assemble the rickshaw with working parts so that it can be tested in motion. This testing can be done with a range of weights and over a range of surfaces. The surfaces I would like to include in this testing are smooth road, cobbles, gravel and grass. This range of surfaces should be representatives of some of the poor road conditions expected in reality. Before the end of the project, I will analyse the cost involved for such a design against the benefits and this will contribute to an analysis of the different business models present in the UK and Bangladesh. Finally, I would like to develop alternative methods of producing some parts of the rickshaw, for example the fork, so that it can also be made from bamboo rather than using a typical bike fork which I have decided to do for the sake of time.
References
(1) Begum S. Pulling rickshaws in the city of Dhaka: a way out of poverty? Environment and Urbanization 2005;17(2) 11. (2) Mohammad Z. BANGLADESH COUNTRY REPORT ON BAMBOO RESOURCES. [null] Beijing: Forestry Department, FAO; 2005. (3) Thomas V. Price elasticities of demand for Bangladesh's jute. The Bangladesh Development Studies 1979;7(2) 101106. (4) Yamaguchi H, Fujii T. Bamboo Fiber reinforced Plastics. In: Wallenberger FT, Weston NE. (eds.) Natural Fibers, Plastics and Composites Boston, Mass.: Klewer Academic; 2004. pp. 305. (5) Vittouris A, Richardson M. Designing Vehicles for Natural Production: Growing a Velomobile from Bamboo. Australasian Transport Research Forum (ATRF), 34th, 2011, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia, ; 2011. (6) de Oliveira FH, Garay AC, Amico SC. USE OF BAMBOO CULMS IN BICYCLE FRAME C ONSTRUCTION. (7) C alfee Design. [Online] Available from: http://www.calfeedesign.com/products/bamboo/# [Accessed 25/11/12].
15
The Role of Structural Engineers in Disaster Mitigation Joshua Macabuag

University College London
Abstract
Whilst Engineering education must concentrate on the technical aspects of the subject, the more holistic considerations of Engineering in practice are often omitted. As such the breadth of potential roles for engineers in practice is seldom understood by undergraduates. A key aspect of sustainable human development is building community resilience to disasters, an area that Engineers can contribute to strongly. This paper presents some of the practical and holistic considerations of Engineers in disaster mitigation, and highlights some of the roles that engineers can fill in this field. Structural Engineering is focussed on to highlight some of the issues common to several disciplines. The paper concludes that disaster mitigation and community resilience are key to sustainable human development and the wider considerations of this field touched upon in the undergraduate curriculum in some engineering disciplines. The paper is aimed at Engineering students and educators.
Introduction
Disaster mitigation is closely linked with the need to improve community resilience. C ommunity resilience is a facet of sustainable human development, both of which are underpinned by the provision and maintenance of critical buildings and infrastructure. At undergraduate level resilience is seldom taught in the context of practical project delivery. This paper will therefore present the practical role of the Engineer in improving community resilience to disasters. Although the lessons hold across several Engineering disciplines, in order to provide specific case studies the discipline of Structural Engineering will be focussed on, for the delivery of critical buildings and infrastructure.
Disasters
There are several ways to define a disaster, but most definitions state that an event becomes a disaster if it results in failure of a social system (i.e. people are involved). Figure 1 shows that disaster mitigation falls within the capacity building phase, suggesting its inter-relation with sustainable human development.
Figure 1: Mitigation part of the disaster management cycle (Wegsheider, 2011) There are many hazards which could lead to disaster events. The key hazards considered by the UK Government are listed in the National Risk Register of Civil Emergencies (UK Cabinet Office, 2012), and key global hazards are listed in the International Disaster Database (Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, n.d.). These risk registers aim to rationalise decision making for disaster mitigation. It is often useful to categorize hazards as natural (e.g. floods, hurricanes) and man-made (e.g. war, terrorism). Engineers certainly have a role to play in the mitigation of both categories of disaster, but this paper will focus on the mitigation of natural disasters, though many points are applicable across several hazards. The number of natural disasters is increasing due to a combination of increased frequency of extreme events and the increased vulnerability of a growing and urbanizing population. Increasing frequency of extreme weather conditions and rising sea levels are linked with climate change. Increasing vulnerability is owed to an increasing population (the Earths population has more than doubled in the past 50 years) and rapid urbanization (since 2008 over 50% of the Earths population live in cities, projected to be 75% by 2050 (Atkins, n.d.), with an associated uncontrolled use of land, overstretched services a rapid growth of poorly built and sited structures. Insurance company Munich Re estimates that up to 15 million people were killed by natural hazards in the last millennium, over 3.5 million of those in the 20th century alone (McGuire, 2006).
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Engineering Resilience
It is the role of engineers to mitigate the risk of disasters and improve resilience. For the structural engineer risk mitigation means maximizing life safety and minimizing the probability of social and economic disruption during the lifetime of a structure. This protection of the public is expressed in the Structural Engineers Code of Professional Conduct (IStructE, n.d.). Resilience is the ability of a system to absorb shocks and stresses without failure (robustness), and the ability to return to a stable state as quickly as possible following a disturbing event (rapidity) (Figure 2). To deliver resilient structures the Engineer must also consider the resilience of the wider STEEP system for which any structure is a part (Figure 3):
Figure 2: Resilience = Robustness (absorbing a shock without failure) + Rapidity (time required to return to a stable output) (Mcdaniels, Chang, Cole, Mikawoz, & Longstaff, 2008)
STEEP Framework:
Applied to the
Social Technical Environmental Economic

Figure 3: Systems Approach resilient projects must consider the wider context (Jowitt, 2010a) Disaster mitigation and resilience is linked to sustainable human development as it is the poorest in society that are often the most vulnerable (as demonstrated during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, USA, 2005). The NGO REDR (Registered Engineers for Disaster Relief) has therefore recently moved its focus towards increasing community resilience, emphasizing the importance of providing society with the skills, means and infrastructure to withstand future threats. Tangible milestones for working towards sustainable human development are outlines in the UN Millennium Development Goals (soon to be supplemented by the UN Sustainable Development Goals) which are directly linked with the provision of resilient critical infrastructure (Jowitt, 2008). It is therefore the key role of the Structural Engineer in disaster mitigation to deliver a housing stock and critical infrastructure which is sustainable and resilient to disasters when considered within the wider STEEP framework. The world's largest hydroelectric river dam, a project with very wide-ranging influences and implications
The Role of Structural Engineers

Figure 4 highlights that in the delivery of critical infrastructure for disaster mitigation decisions at the early stages have the greatest impact. Engineers have a critical role at all stages of the project delivery process but often only have
significant input at the policy and planning stages once they have become more senior in their organisations. The Structural Engineers role will first be considered at the later in-use and implementation stages before moving onto the higher level policy and planning stages.
Figure 4: Project Delivery Process decision impact is greatest at the beginning (Ainger & Macabuag, 2012) In-Use Design typically represents 1-2% of the overall life cycle cost of a project, with construction accounting for approximately 6-18% of the cost. The remainder 80-93% of the lifetime asset cost is accounted for by operations, annual and capital maintenance and decommissioning. Therefore, the in-use phase of a projects life cycle, where an asset is operated and maintained, represents the majority of the assets life cycle costs and so is crucial to determining the long-term success of a project (Jowitt, 2010b). Maintenance Engineers must factor in asset maintenance through all stages of the project delivery process, as well as carrying out or supervising some aspects of the maintenance works. Asset maintenance is a powerful tool of socio-economic growth in terms of provision of jobs, transfer of skills and preservation of asset performance. The structural engineer therefore has a responsibility to design maintenance strategies that are technologically and economically appropriate to the assets location, and allow for knowledge transfer to the local organizations responsible for the asset during its lifetime. There is substantial evidence of the economic benefits of maintenance (e.g. $1 spent on road maintenance saves $4 on rehabilitation (House of Commons: International Development Committee, 2012) but maintenance solutions are normally geared to project rather than asset life-cycles, which leaves gaps in infrastructure funding (in Sub-Saharan Africa 30% of infrastructure assets are in need of rehabilitation (ICE, 2010). This highlights that many of the key maintenance decisions must be informed by the Engineer earlier in the project delivery process (Figure 4).
Assessment, repair and retrofit Given the size of the existing population of structures currently at risk from natural disasters, one crucial role of Structural Engineers is in the assessment and retrofit of existing housing and critical infrastructure. Engineers are required to assess the hazards and the current structure resistance, and if required then decide on the mitigation strategy. Some of the factors affecting decisions as to the type and level of intervention are: Potential loss vs strengthening cost, Availability of trained workers and strengthening/repair materials/technology, The presence of critical plant (e.g. in a power station), Duration and disruption of the strengthening operation, Social, political or historical significance of the building and aesthetics of the structure, Requirements of repeatability and reversibility of the strengthening intervention, The existence of multiple hazards.
Implementation
The implementation phase is when decisions are made regarding the design and delivery of a project. Design for Resilience The responsibility of the Structural Engineer in disaster mitigation goes beyond the implementation of defence infrastructure projects (e.g. sea walls and flood defences) but is also to ensure resilience of all structures, particularly key infrastructure. For assessing potential hazards, risk registers form a standard part of the engineering design process, and Engineers have access to information such as hazard maps quantifying the location-specific exposure to key hazards (e.g. the Global Seismic Hazard Assessment Program).
Figure 5: Seismic Retrofitting - tsunami vertical evacuation structure (left) strengthened via additional bracing (right) to allow for immediate occupancy following an earthquake and tsunami (Pomonis, 2011) The Structural Engineer is then able to design a structure to not sustain permanent damage to the forces and conditions expected due to the hazard (i.e. to remain elastic at the ultimate limit state defined by the hazard). For example the original design of the structure in Figure would have accounted for inertial forces due to a design earthquake (e.g. it is standard to define an ultimate limit state based on a 1-in-475 year earthquake, which has a 10% probability of exceedence in the 50 year design life of a non-critical structure1). The subsequent retrofit shown in the images may have been required due to a revision in building codes, or the consideration of additional hazards that may not have been accounted for in the original design (e.g. a tsunami). It is often not economically viable to design structures to remain undamaged (behave elastically) in an extreme event, and so for resilience to disaster events the Structural Engineer must adopt robust strategies to: Save as many lives as possible and minimize injuries, Preserve livelihoods and maximize rate of community recovery, Minimize asset loss and loss of consumables. Structural robustness measures are prescribed in most design Codes of Practice (CoPs), incorporating standard concepts such as redundancy of vertical and lateral load paths, ductility (allowing a structure to dissipate energy through inelastic deformation via both strength ductility and cyclic load capacity) and inhibitors of progressive collapse. Some of these structural robustness measures may also be in the respective countrys legislation (e.g. disproportionate collapse requirements are stipulated in the 2004 revision of UK Building Regulations Part A3). It is therefore the responsibility of the Structural Engineer to apply this guidance for the design of resilient structures, even in countries where local legislation and C oPs do not explicitly specify measures for structural robustness. The Structural Engineer can also apply performance-based design in order to consider specific performance objectives for disaster events of varying magnitude (Table 1). The same structure can therefore be designed for different performance objectives under several different events. For example a hospital may be designed for immediate occupancy following a 1-in-475 year earthquake (in order to treat and shelter patients following a disaster), but only for life safety during an A return period (T) for an event is the reciprocal of the probability (P) that it will be exceeded in any given year: 1 The probability of exceedance over a number (y) of years is therefore: 1 1 1 1 1 So a 1-in-475 year event has a 10% chance of exceedence over 50 years: 1 1 1475 10%
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extreme 1-in-2475 year event. Note that performance-based design may go beyond code requirements and the clients brief, in which case it is the responsibility of the Structural Engineer to inform the client of this possibility so that a costbenefit analysis can potentially be carried out.
Performance Goal Immediate Occupancy Life Safety C ollapse Prevention
Earthquake Return Period ~75 years (50% probability of exceedance in 50 years) ~475 years (10% in 50 years) ~2475 years (2% in 50 years)
Table 1: Performance Based Design - seismic performance objectives for normal buildings (Booth & Key, 2006) A final note on designing for disaster mitigation is that although the Structural Engineers primary responsibility is the structural design, the wider technical and non-technical issues will need to be considered in order to provide a resilient structure. For example the Fukushima nuclear reactor had several failsafe systems but generators for the cooling water system were exposed to the tsunami hazard, which was concurrent with the initial earthquake hazard. Raising the generators could have mitigated these concurrent risks and as part of a multi-disciplinary design team all parties, including the Structural Engineer, are responsible for collaboratively ensuring resilience of an asset.
Robust Construction Practices Quality of construction (workmanship and materials) is a key factor in determining whether an asset is to be fit-forpurpose. As such it is crucial that there is Structural Engineering input throughout the construction process. Ensuring competence of the contractors (the company/persons carrying out the physical construction) is crucial in ensuring the quality of construction. The Design Engineer must be involved in the selection of the contractor and subcontractors, which should be via a thorough and transparent process, ensuring competence at all levels. During construction, the Engineer should be checking for general workmanship, as well as carrying out health and safety checks, focusing on key elements and connections, quality of welds and materials (e.g. cube tests or other simple tests to ensure good quality concrete and to safeguard against theft of concrete in parts of the world where this is common). This input can be achieved through a Site Engineer role on larger projects, and through part-time site presence roles and inspections on smaller projects.
Planning
It is during the planning phase cycle that decisions are made as to what is to be constructed or maintained and at what cost. Programme Planning Building community resilience cannot be achieved with a single project, but requires the delivery of many. It is therefore inappropriate to consider disaster mitigation in terms of a single-fix project, but several appropriate projects at the right scale. If these projects are managed with a systems view (Figure ) then each project will create a surplus of skills and resources that can be rolled out to the next series of projects, scaling up the response (Jowitt, 2008). Whether the Engineer is working directly for the client or consulting to the client, it is important to direct the clients brief so as to ensure that projects are fundamentally appropriate (i.e. assist with planning and improve the product by ensuring fitness of purpose before designing for fitness for purpose.
Resilient Reconstruction A criticism of Figure is that it suggests that resilience implies being able to return to the same state after a disaster as was present before the event. However, an important aspect of building resilience to disasters is developing a capacity to adapt to shocks and stresses, which can often mean returning to a different stable state after a disaster event. This is demonstrated by using reconstruction after a disaster as an opportunity to build back better and improve the local skills necessary to improve resilience to future disasters. The skills of Structural Engineers are particularly important where buildings and infrastructure have been destroyed by disasters. They have a key role in uncovering and raising awareness off the reasons for the original disaster, in delivering reconstruction which is resilient to future hazards, and in transferring the necessary skills and knowledge to the affected community (Figure ).
Figure 6: Resilient Reconstruction following the 2001 Peru earthquake (top-left) a reconstruction programme used lowcost, locally available materials to build homes of improved seismic resilience (bottom), and utilized training courses and supervised self-construction to pass skills to the local community (top-right) (Macabuag, 2010). Targeted Procurement Disaster resilience requires development of local professional, trade and business knowledge and skills. This can be achieved through community engagement and targeted procurement to engage local small and medium enterprises (whereby project contracts are set up to create a demand for the services of targeted enterprises (Watermeyer, 2006).
Policy
Policy sets the overriding agenda for the planning, procurement, delivery, maintenance and disposal of buildings and infrastructure that are to be resilient. The local and international disaster mitigation policy heavily influences resilience to disasters (Figure 4). For example, UK resilience is heavily influenced by the policy of improving the UKs ability to absorb, respond to, and recover from emergencies, under which disaster mitigation strategies are devised based on the National Risk Register (a risk assessment of the key hazards that may impact the UK over the next 5 years). Practicing and academic Engineers may be in a position to influence disaster mitigation policy via several routes discussed below.
Engineers in Government
Lack of Engineers in government leads to poor infrastructure policy and incapacity for policy delivery as there is insufficient confidence to take decisions on technical matters, and so holistic and long-term planning is not in place. In the UK, civil servants with engineering qualifications and backgrounds contribute to the Government Science and Engineering (GSE) community but the UK Government Chief Scientific Advisor (Professor Sir John Beddington) has recently advocated that Engineers be more directly involved in the making of disaster mitigation policy (Government Science and Engineering C ommunity, 2013). This recommendation certainly holds outside the UK and Figure demonstrates how Engineers can be involved.
Figure 7: Engineers Influencing Policy - good policies are essential to ensure appropriate, effective and efficient disaster mitigation strategies (Jowitt, 2010c) Engineers must also be involved in the delivery of disaster mitigation policy with developing countries in particular suffering from a lack of experienced engineers in local government (e.g. of 231 local municipalities in South Africa in 2008, 79 had no civil engineers or technicians, 42 had only 1 technician and 38 only had technical staff under 35) (Lawless, 2005). The core skills of Structural Engineers allow those working for public clients to play a pivotal role in defining appropriate projects for disaster mitigation, developing appropriate briefs, creating realistic budgets and programmes, as well as devising and managing an effective contractual framework.
Engineering Advice to Government External Engineering advice is provided to government from several sources. Engineering institutions (which represent the interests of the Engineering community) and organisations such as Engineers Against Poverty can influence disaster mitigation policy in several ways including writing key reports such as The SAICE infrastructure report card for South Africa: 2006 (SAICE, 2011) highlighting key deficiencies in infrastructure policy. As an aspiration of a Structural Engineers career, there are many examples of Engineers being appointed as direct advisors to Government through various routes. For example, Peter Hansford is the UKs current C hief C onstruction Advisor, is former President of the Institution of C ivil Engineers (ICE, 2011 2012) and is a trustee of Engineers Without Borders-UK.
Conclusion
Sustainable human development can be linked to community resilience to disasters. In order to highlight the broader practical issues of engineering for disaster mitigation this paper has discussed the role of the practicing Structural Engineer. This discussion has based on the premise that key to disaster mitigation is the provision of resilient buildings and infrastructure. These issues have summarized here to highlight that they often not discussed at undergraduate level. Improving a countrys long-term resilience to disasters involves investing in the engineers of the future. Practicing engineers can act as mentors and provide internships for undergrads to gain practical experience.
Students can gain experience of operating in developing countries through working with organizations such as Engineers Without Borders-UK. Engineering educators should look to incorporate disaster mitigation and community resilience into their teaching, such as the research projects proposed by EWB-UK and Developing Technologies. This learning should be linked with industry and NGOs in order to be applied, approaching disaster mitigation projects from the time-limited, output-driven perspective of the experienced practitioner.
References
Ainger, C ., & Macabuag, J. (2012). Presentation: Engineering a better world - A toolkit for delivery. Atkins. (n.d.). Future ProoFing Cities. Retrieved from http://www.futureproofingcities.com/ Booth, E., & Key, D. (2006). Earthquake Design Practice for Buildings (2nd Editio.). C entre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters. (n.d.). EM-DAT: The International Disaser Database. Retrieved from http://www.emdat.be/ Government Science and Engineering Community. (2013). The future of the Civil Service: Making the most of scientists and engineers in government. Retrieved from http://www.bis.gov.uk/go-science/publications#makingthemost Grundy, P. (2011). Disaster Risk Reduction: the Engineers Role. House of C ommons: International Development Committee. (2012). DFIDs Role in Building Infrastruture in Developing C ountries. Retrieved from http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=kBTlBx7JG2oC&pg=PA78&lpg=PA78&dq=%E2%80%9C$1+spent+on+road+mainten ance+saves+$4+on+rehabilitation&source=bl&ots=eG2gV1Vxbm&sig=RQazkwEs9soGeMEg6CI2glYRz_Q&hl=en&sa=X&ei =ljtbUfrXJIHcOc72gYgI&ved=0CEQQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9C%241 spent on road maintenance saves %244 on rehabilitation&f=false IC E. (2010). 2nd Middle East & Africa Convention Speaker Profiles. Retrieved from http://www.jointcivils.co.za/MEA2/speakers.htm IStructE. (n.d.). Code of Conduct and Guidance Notes. Retrieved from http://www.istructe.org/webtest/files/dd/dd7926b2-0487-4f20-a66c-c892fa670e11.pdf Jowitt, P. (2008). Engineering civilisation from the shadows. Proceedings of the ICE - C ivil Engineering, 161(4), 162168. doi:10.1680/cien.2008.161.4.162 Jowitt, P. (2010a). Toolkit for International Development: Meeting the MDGs effectively - adopt a systems view. Retrieved April 2, 2013, from www.engineers.org.uk Jowitt, P. (2010b). Toolkit for International Development: In-Use. Retrieved April 2, 2013, from http://www.engineers.org.uk/taxonomy/term/16/ Jowitt, P. (2010c). Toolkit for International Development: Influencing infrastructure policy. Retrieved from http://www.engineers.org.uk/content/influencing-infrastructure-policy Lawless, A. (2005). Numbers and needs. South African Institution of Civil Engineering (SAICE), 2005. Macabuag, J. (2010). Seismic reinforcement of adobe in rural Peru. The Structural Engineer, 88(23). Mcdaniels, T., Chang, S., Cole, D., Mikawoz, J., & Longstaff, H. (2008). Fostering resilience to extreme events within infrastructure systems: C haracterizing decision contexts for mitigation and adaptation, 18, 310318. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2008.03.001 McGuire, B. (2006). Global Catastrophes: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press.
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Innovative designs and approaches in sanitation when responding to challenging and complex humanitarian contexts in urban areas Andy Bastable, Jenny Lamb and Angus McBride
(Adapted from a paper of the same title published in Waterlines Volume 3, Nos. 1 & 2, January 2012.) Oxfam GB
Abstract
As recent emergencies have shown, there are still significant challenges in the timely provision of safe sanitation in natural disasters or conflict situations. In urban emergencies or areas where it is impossible to dig simple pit latrines because of high water tables, hard rock, or lack of permission, it takes agencies considerable time to construct elevated latrines or alternative designs such as urine diversion toilets. This paper describes the challenges often faced in the rapid construction of latrines in emergencies and then looks at a case study from the Haiti earthquake. It also describes a new research project by IRFC, WASTE and Oxfam GB to increase the scope of emergency sanitation equipment.
Keywords: pit latrines, urine-diverting latrines, humanitarian sanitation
Introduction
In recent years there has been an array of natural disasters which have led to massive levels of destruction, loss of life, and disorder. Humanitarian agencies are increasingly responding to more frequent disasters in urban areas, such as in Haiti and the Philippines. On the first day of the response, a humanitarian worker will review their contingency stocks, open their logistics equipment catalogue and order a cargo plane jam-packed full of water and sanitation materials. When you make your shopping list of equipment for water supply, there is an array of materials to chose from, whereas for sanitation there will simply be the squatting latrine slab, plastic sheeting, and hygiene promotion materials and equipment.
Figure 1 WASH Intervensions which reduce diarrhoea mortality. Adapted from Fewtrell et al. (2005). Fewtrell et al. (2005) provide informative conclusions on which WASH intervention significantly reduces diarrhoea morbidity. In order of significance, hand washing, has the highest impact at 44 per cent, sanitation 32 per cent, and water supply 25 per cent (Figure 1). Given the conclusions from Fewtrell et al., the lack of diversity of equipment to respond to sanitation in emergencies, and the increased challenges faced when implementing sanitation in urban areas, there is the need, now more than ever, to increase the range of appropriate sanitation equipment. However, this should not be done in isolation of hand washing, the intervention which has the greatest impact on reducing diarrhoea morbidity. For many years the major challenge for emergency sanitation was the rapid installation of raised latrines in flooded or high water table areas and hard rock sites. It takes time to source and build the raised platform, which makes each latrine twice the price of a normal pit latrine. Another common issue which delays the speedy provision of latrines is unstable soils where again it is time consuming and expensive to provide quick linings to prevent pit or trench collapse.
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The challenge in these urban areas is not only the extra time required to build raised latrines in areas where pit latrines are not feasible but also that in a dense, crowded city ensuring regular desludging can be a major challenge. Lastly, very few cities in developing countries have properly functioning waste treatment plants so by increasing the burden on the various sewage ponds there is a major risk of causing environmental pollution. While the challenges described above mainly concern the rapid installation of emergency latrines, use and maintenance are also considerable challenges in any emergency. Urban displaced populations tend to be less homogeneous, making it more difficult to set up community management committees as one would in a rural setting. While NGOs tend towards paying latrine attendants in these situations this can become difficult to sustain in the long term. Also, while people tend to expect that after the first phase of the emergency they can return to their previous practice of buying water, this is not the case for excreta disposal. Agencies in Haiti today still have huge desludging bills to support the displaced people in camps, who are clearly unable to meet these costs and cater for all their own sanitation needs. This paper discusses the challenges in responding to emergencies in urban areas, and illustrates this with a case study from Haiti. It offers recommendations for agencies, donors, local authorities, and communities on what they should be engaged with and prioritizing. The paper then discusses the major emergency sanitation gaps that have been identified and the ongoing research to fill them.
Haiti earthquake Case Study

A large scale emergency response was launched following the earthquake in Port au Prince, Haiti in 2010. In Haiti, preearthquake, only 29 per cent of urban dwellers used improved sanitation (JMP, 2008), with open defecation and flying toilets common in high-density urban areas. The options Oxfam GB considered in Port au Prince, Haiti, were based on the ability to dig into the soil, access for desludging, existing practices, and speed of installation. The first phase options were simple pit latrines where we were able to dig into the soil, Portaloos from areas we were not able to dig, and biodegradable bags. Options which came on line a little later were the raised latrines and large volume septic tanks where we were able to dig. The information below gives some feedback on the various options. Chemical toilets (Portaloos). Chemical toilets hired from private companies were used in some camps. However, given the limited size of the storage capacity and high maintenance cost (over US$20/ day initially that went down to $9/day) for emptying/cleaning, their use was quickly discontinued. Some six months after the earthquake, Action C ontre la Faim had a monthly desludging bill for the chemical toilets of $500,000. The users expressed their aversion to using these toilets because they could see each others excreta, and the prevailing heat made them hot inside. Later on, unused Portaloo units were used as showers in C orail: toilet tanks were removed, and the super- structures were installed on concrete foundations to become shower cubicles. Raised latrine units. Fitted above plastic water tanks, these were used at sites where space was limited, where it was impossible to dig, or where landowners refused permission to dig. The raised latrines required regular desludging by vacuum tankers. Oxfam GB had lower O&M costs than other organizations that opted for Portaloos, as the raised latrine water tank units required desludging every fortnight or once per month. The best configuration was to have 34 cubicles discharging into one larger water tank. Biodegradable bags. Bags, including PeePoo, biodegradable, and simple plastic bags were piloted at two camps where it was impossible to install latrines quickly. Although there were limitations, it did build on peoples existing practices (use of plastic bags as flying toilets). The elderly, less physically able and women particularly appreciated PeePoo bags, as these could be used at night in their tents. Use of an organized bag collection system also prevented bags being discarded indiscriminately into drainage channels and ravines. In particular, PeePoo bags were liked for their ability to reduce smells, especially when used inside tents. Unfortunately, after the initial pilot, bag use was discontinued and an opportunity to provide vulnerable individuals with a safe night toilet option was lost. C onsideration of the users wishing to only urinate, and not defecate, led to some creative thinking: would they want to use a bag or urinate elsewhere? Urinals were designed and implemented for both the men and the women (Figure 2 & 3).
Figure 2 - Female Urinal

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Figure 3 - Male Urinal
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Urine diversion (UD) toilets. Oxfams partner, SOIL, piloted UD toilets at 32 sites, with 194 units installed (Figure 4). The UD toilets differ from routine eco-san latrines in that the urine was diverted to a soak pit, the faeces collected in a drum, and bagasse, a waste product from a local sugar factory, is added after each use (as a drying agent). Two community composting sites were also set up. The pilot worked well owing to the partners high motivation and community mobilization work. Twelve months on, many of the units are still in operation. Paid toilet attendants, on daily labour rates, is one factor ensuring high user satisfaction with the units.
Figure 4 - Raised urine-diverting toilet units installed and operated by Oxfams partner, SOIL Regarding anal cleansing, our expectations were that Haitians used tissue paper, but where this was unavailable, or affordable, some people used stones or corn husks for anal cleansing. This caused problems with desludging, as stones and the husks damaged the inlet of the desludging hose, and resulted in the pits filling up quicker than anticipated.
Lessons Identified
Lessons learned are notoriously negative, but over the last 2 years, in view of Haiti, Pakistan, and the Philippines, humanitarian agencies have learned a great deal and in a positive way. Biodegradable bags are a good feasible option when there is no toilet option and/or in the first couple of weeks in responding to an urban disaster, until regular pit latrines are constructed. Urine diversion latrines in emergencies do have a role to play, especially as they reduce the volume of solid matter and mean that the waste is drier and easier to manage and transport. This system, however, does necessitate regular (paid) latrine attendants. Painting hygiene promotion murals on the latrines is an effective way to communicate hygiene messages, promoting ownership and use. Paid latrine attendants are a short-term measure: the allocation of family latrines with keys and padlocks helps to safeguard use and sustainability in the long term. Operation and maintenance of latrines should also include hand washing stations, particularly when these are communal. As with communal latrines, attendants should be paid to ensure water and soap is readily available and stations are cleaned and maintained.
In an urban context, the Sphere indicators for the number of latrines may not need to apply. In Haiti, camps were equipped with 1 latrine for every 100, or even 150 people. Monitoring of queue times, inflated camp populations, and people going home to their neighbours toilet, helped us come to the conclusion that number of latrines was flexible, on a case-by-case basis.
Initiatives related to emergencies
increasing our effectiveness
in responding to sanitation in
For a number of years Oxfam GB has been hosting emergency sanitation forums with a view to improving sanitation in emergencies. The Oxfam slab, which became the Interagency plastic latrine slab, was also a product of these forums. The first of these forums was held in Oxford in 1995. Since this time we have explored new ideas from the development (rather than humanitarian) field and started using C LTS (community-led total sanitation) and urine diversion in emergencies, but still, progress in the sector when compared with progress in the water sector has been minuscule. Recently there has been an upsurge of attention in the area and several projects are ongoing. One of these is being undertaken by a consortium of the IFRC, WASTE and Oxfam GB which has now begun an ODFA funded project to develop solutions to fill emergency sanitation gaps. These were identified during the last two inter-agency emergency sanitation forums: better no-toilet options biodegradable plastic bags; squatting latrine slab (cheaper, better alternative to what currently exists); urine diversion latrine slab; sitting latrine slab; latrine slab for smaller people (children); latrine slab for less-able people; latrine superstructure; raised latrine kit; latrine lining kits; hand desludging pumps; mechanical desludging options; sludge collection, treatment, and disposal; hand washing device. The design criteria and specifications for solutions to fill these gaps will be developed through a consultative process, involving the key excreta disposal in emergencies actors, design specialists, academics and the private sector. The range of materials available to build the prototypes and their cost-effectiveness will also be analysed. The outcome of this first stage will be the first prototype of each excreta disposal equipment item being developed. The first prototype will be subjected to some initial testing by the individual agency / peer group to eliminate any flaws prior to any field testing. As cultural issues often mean the difference between people using or not using the latrine, they will be considered in design criteria for toilets and slabs. In an emergency response kit we are aiming to narrow down the cultural differences that affect what kit we use to a few factors. One of the major regional differences is around the use of water, either for flushing or for anal cleansing. Therefore, we need both water washed and non water washed options to be considered for each work stream. The next large cultural issue is around the need to screen the entrance to the latrine for women's privacy / dignity issues. Therefore, we need options that include provision for this issue. Other cultural issues such as the desire for internal locking mechanisms on the doors are fairly universal whereas some of the specific regional cultural issues, such as the direction ones bottoms faces can be dealt with during the construction process on site. No latrines should ever be constructed without the minimum of community consultation whatever the emergency or kit available. Finally, the project will sponsor different design contests aimed at suppliers and students. It is hoped that this will push the boundaries of design and also contribute to advocacy goals. Design competitions for water equipment are common, sponsoring sanitation design competitions can help change the conversation to highlight the critical importance of managing human excreta. Following the initial testing, a number of prototype units will be manufactured to allow sufficient units to be deployed to different countries, contexts, and where possible synchronising with different emergencies. Protocols for the field-testing of the prototype units will be drawn up and agreed by the peer group, and the necessary logistics will be put in place to ensure the rapid deployment of the prototype units to an emergency. Based on the findings of the field testing, the feedback will infer any modifications which need to be taken into development of the prototypes. Following this, a 2nd batch of the prototypes will be manufactured, and a larger deployment of units will be sent to different countries, with different emerging contexts. Testing protocols will be modified as appropriate, and field data will be collected on the performance, acceptance and consultations with the users etc.
Conclusions
As safe excreta disposal can have such a huge impact on the health of vulnerable people affected by crises it is shocking that there is so little equipment available for sanitation in emergencies. In urban areas in particular there are extra challenges including the need to raise latrines, deal with collapsing soils and provide sustainable desludging and treatment services. In Haiti several unusual sanitation options, including chemical toilets, raised latrines, urine diversion toilets and biodegradable bags were used. Many positive lessons were learned but it also became clear that there is a need for new systems and equipment. This needs to genuinely take into account the users preference and ensure that special accommodation is made for less able people, children, and the elderly after consultation with them. Ongoing research by a consortium of IFRC, WASTE and Oxfam GB aims to fill these and other gaps by developing systems and equipment which will improve aid agencies ability to respond swiftly with high quality sanitation solutions in emergencies. Developing the solutions will require collaboration with other agencies and those inside and outside of the sanitation sector, so as to identify as wide a variety of ideas as possible. Through sponsoring design contests and by raising awareness among those with useful expertise who were previously unaware of the problem a range of solutions will be developed and trialled. This will result in a suite of quality products and systems for use by humanitarian workers in future emergencies.
References
Fewtrell, L., Kaufmann, R.B., Kay, D., Enanoria, W., Haller, L. and Colford, J.M. Jr (2005) Water, sanitation, and hygiene interventions to reduce diarrhoea in less developed countries: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Lancet Infectious Diseases 5:4252, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(04)01253-8 JMP (2008) Estimates for the use of improved drinking-water sources and improved sanitation facilities, WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation, Geneva, updated March 2010. Oxfam GB Technical Brief 2 Vulnerability and Socio-cultural Considerations for PHE in Emergencies [website], Oxfam GB http://www.oxfam.org.uk/resources/ downloads/emerg_manuals/draft_oxfam_tech_brief_sociocultural.pdf [accessed 22 November 2011]. Oxfam GB (2010a) Technical Brief 19: The Use of Poo Bags for Safe Excreta Disposal in Emergency Settings [website], Oxfam GB http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/ publications/the-use-of-poo-bags-for-safe-excreta-disposal-in-emergencyset- tings-136535 [accessed 22 November 2011]. Oxfam GB (2010b) Enqute sur les moyens dexistence et le march local de leau dans laire mtropolitaine de Port-auPrince, http://www.pseau.org/ outils/ouvrages/oxfam_enquete_marche_de_leau_port_au_prince_haiti_fr.pdf Oxfam GB (2011) Technical Brief 20: Urban WASH Lessons Learned from Post-Earthquake Response in Haiti [website], Oxfam GB http://policy-practice. oxfam.org.uk/publications/urban-wash-lessons-learned-from-post-earth - quakeresponse-in-haiti-136538 [accessed 22 November 2011]. Oxfam International (2011a) Haiti Progress Report 2010 [website], Oxfam International http://www.oxfam.org/en/policy/haiti-progress-report-2010 [accessed 22 November 2011]. Oxfam International (2011b) From relief to recovery: Supporting good governance in post-earthquake Haiti, Oxfam Briefing Paper 142 [website], Oxfam International http://www.oxfam.org/en/policy/relief-recovery [accessed 22 November 2011]. Patel, D., Brooks, N. and Bastable, A. (2011) Excreta disposal in emergencies: Bag and Peepoo trials with internally displaced people in Port-au-Prince, Waterlines 30(1): 6177, http://dx.doi.org/10.3362/1756-3488.2011.006
30
Using inertial maps for stakeholder mapping A mini-case of RFID rollout by Tesco Faran Mahmood & Heather J. Cruickshank
University of Cambridge
Abstract
Stakeholder identification, analysis and management can be recognised as a key strategic tool rather than just a soft skill. When tackling with complex problems involving stakeholder engagement and management, it is imperative to have a technique which allows visualising the situation. Traditionally power-interest matrices are used for stakeholder mapping. This work proposes a modification in these maps by incorporating the idea of inertia or flexibility of stakeholder for negotiations. The idea of inertial maps is then applied to study a case study of RFID rollout in UK by the superstore Tesco. The inertial map allows to clearly identify, a cluster of stakeholders who are against the RFID implementation.
Introduction
The term stakeholder is used to generalize the notion of stockholder as the only group to whom management need be responsive. A stakeholder is defined as persons or groups whose interests and activities strongly affect and are affected by the issues concerned, who have a stake in a change, who control relevant information and resources and whose support is needed in order to implement the change (Morgan and Taschereau, 1996). The role of stakeholder approach in strategic management and change management is becoming increasingly recognised nowadays. However identification of stakeholders, their prioritisation and visualisation to understand the overall picture is a crucial part of stakeholder analysis process. Related Work Savage et al conceived four types of stakeholders and discussed the role of management in cooperating or threatening them (Savage, Nix et al. 1991). Several authors have discussed the stakeholder identification problem in context of various industries and businesses. (Johnson and Macy 2001); (Mitchell, Agle et al. 1997); (Evan and Freeman 1998); (Somekh, McBake et al. 1999); and (Clarke 1998). Merton (1957) identified this role for individuals in society, and Evan (1966) generalized this notion for organizations. Johnson and Macy presented a seven step model which takes the view that people behave like actors within the context of nature and society (Johnson and Macy 2001). C leland (1999, p151) described the stakeholder management process and proposed a simple method to visualise stakeholders impact and influence. The idea was to list all stakeholders, their interests and assign a metric to their interests. Method Stakeholder mapping is a visual exercise which allows to analyse which stakeholders are most useful to engage with. It helps to visualize complex relationships between stakeholders under the same criteria. The most common tool used for stakeholder mapping is Power-Interest Matrix. It actually involves mapping all stakeholders according to their interest and their power to influence.
Figure 1. Power-Interest Matrix
Res earch P anel Paper A uthor: Faran M ahmood & H eather J . C ruickshank I nstitution: U niversity of C ambridge 31
However another way to map your stakeholders is to split them into three groups: Direct Stakeholders Stakeholders who have direct contact with your organisation, having an immediate effect by what you do or having a direct relationship with the organisation. Indirect Stakeholders These stakeholders will have an effect from the direct stakeholders Wider Stakeholders These stakeholders will not have a direct relationship with you or with any of your direct stakeholders; however they will be influenced by the effect of your organisations activities. Another important metric which is often ignored is the inertia of stakeholder or the willingness of a stakeholder to negotiate. A project manager may like to focus on multiple stakeholders with less inertia than a single stakeholder with large inertia as it would be a waste of her time. We propose a modification to conventional perpetual maps by incorporating a legend depicting the proximity i.e. direct, indirect or wide; and use the area of circles to depict inertia of stakeholders. As power of stakeholders is fixed, only their position regarding interest can be manipulated through negotiations. A skeleton of this inertial map is depicted below:
Figure 2. Inertial map A RFID Rollout Case Study Superstores like Tesco are currently trying to deploy RFID-based product tags for achieving sustainability in its supply chain and to add value in its retail services. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) has become a technology of choice for real-time tracking, inventory management and improving production decision processes. Unlike barcodes which identify a specific product type, the RFID tag has sufficient data capacity to store any information including the Electronic Product C ode (EPC), product price, expiry date, weight and other specifications from a database. The RFID tagged product is tracked individually throughout during various stages of supply-chain till ending up into the hands of customer. RFID systems consist of smart tags, embedded into labels and communicate wirelessly with RFID transceivers, or readers, responding with identification information that is associated with arbitrary data records. RFID is considered as the Holy Grail in supply-chains allowing a demand-based planning (pull) instead of traditional "push" strategies.
The technology will help to improve sustainability in supply chain through better inventory management, improved operational efficiency and reduced carbon footprint by cutting wastes. C urrently UK food & drink supply chain waste is costing 5bn a year (Supply Chain Waste Prevention Guide, 2013). It will also create more value for customers and give them a better shopping experience through reduced average check-out times, better shelf management and convenience in locating desired products Stakeholders and their concerns Tesco is a company of many facets, resulting in a myriad of demands from stakeholders. The national media has reported the initiatives to implement RFID technology and the reactions provoked. Here are a few examples: Tesco 'spychips' anger consumers. (BBC News, Jan 26, 2005). A consumer privacy forum asks for boycott of Tesco superstores due to potential privacy intrusion by use of RFID.
C onsumer group vows to boycott Tesco. (Food Production Daily, Jan 26, 2005). Another group C ASPIAN calls for a global boycott of Tesco (www.boycotttesco.com) in retaliation to the companys use of RFID in various processes. Tesco looks set to roll RFID out across the UK. (Food Manufacture, Apr 2, 2007). Tesco iterates that RFID will be mainly used for tracking supplies but an extension of its use in stores may follow. In order to help analyse the viewpoint of various stakeholders, we talked to them in C ambridgeshire during March 1st to March 7th. Their concerns are tabulated as below
Ser 1
Stakeholder Tesco Employees
C omplaint / C oncerns for RFID technology Possibility of lay-offs as automated check-outs will allow the company to reduce its staff Further reduction in wages Employee safety and RFID radiation concerns Decrease in student part time opportunities
Nature of C omplaints Socio-Economic Health and Safety
Tesco Suppliers
Forcing suppliers to accept Tescos contract terms Lack of trust on suppliers regarding QA
Professional Trust and Ethics
Tesco C ustomers
Intrusion on customer privacy RFID radiation concerns
Privacy/ professional Ethics Health and Safety
Labour Unions
Lay-offs, reduction in wages and possible exploitation of minority workers Fair transfer of cost savings to end-consumer Reduction of wastes in supply chain Security of databases C onsumer Privacy
Socio-Economic
Government
Professional Ethics Privacy Environmental C onsumer Protection Privacy Professional Ethics Environmental End-of Life C ycle Management
C ommunity groups Environmental / Ecology Groups
Intrusion on customer privacy Typical capitalist approach to expand business How to dispose millions of RFID chips? C arbon foot print of producing these RFID chips? Who is responsible to dispose these RFID chips, the customers or Tesco?
C ompetitors
Asda and Sainsburys have a situation similar to Tesco and are currently facing similar problems Morrisons is very cautious about RFID and has not shown interest in using tags officially
(Neutral)
9 10
Media Shareholders and top management
No response The roll out will increase the share value drastically provided that the concerns of customers are met (Very Optimistic)
11
RFID tag manufacturers
C ost and quality issues of RFID tags
Scale Economies depending on demand Quality Battery problem (in case of old active tags only)
Table 2. Stakeholder Analysis Strategically, Tescos focus is on minimizing costs so that it may offer products at lower prices than competitors, creating higher sales and trying to maximize revenues. With this in mind, when looking at the C SR activities that Tesco engages in
and the areas from which it abstains, one sees a pattern. Tesco has pushed the narrative that it is sustainable, and has been making changes that reduce environmental costs, but when evaluated critically one sees these changes also reduce costs for Tesco. Examples include working with suppliers to use less energy when producing goods, using semi-trucks that are hybrids and reducing the amount of packaging on productsall of which help Tesco spend less for the goods that it sells, which meets the needs of two particular stakeholderscustomers and stockholders. Stakeholder issues that are not being met, like low wages for employees, are in direct conflict with the business plan. To increase employee wages means that costs will go up, and thus prices will have to rise, putting the image of Tesco as a low price leader in jeopardy.
Figure 3. Stakeholder inertial map for Tesco case
Results and discussion

By mapping the stakeholders using inertial map, we can draw some useful insights. All stakeholders who are against the rollout of RFID are actually on the right-half of the map. These stakeholders (excluding community and environmental) groups have a tendency to form a cluster. This is very alarming, as in such case the five stakeholders will act as a single entity with synergy effect and will exhibit very high net inertia. It is in favour of management to prevent clustering of these stakeholders and especially, the deadly collaboration of media, customers and competitors; who have very high inertia. The management, during negotiations, will have a tough time to arrive at a win-win situation because of little flexibility of these stakeholders. However the map also indicates that a good starting point is to first eradicate the concerns of internal employees and labour unions which are more receptive to a negotiation process. After the management succeeds to translate them to left-half of map, the potential cluster will not be as strong.
Conclusion
RFID rollout indirectly results in waste reduction, improved efficiencies, capital savings and reduction in carbon footprint. However the major challenges are the stakeholder concerns regarding privacy, reduction in jobs due to automated checkout systems, health/safety and safe disposal of these tags. The position of stakeholders was visually presented using inertial map to draw additional insights such as clustering effect of various stakeholders.
Acknowledgements The authors are thankful to Commonwealth Scholarship Commission, DFID, UK for their sponsorship.
References
BBC NEWS | Business | Tesco 'spychips' anger consumers. 2005. [ONLINE] Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4209545.stm. [Accessed 15 March 2013]. C larke, T. (1998). "The stakeholder corporation: a business philosophy for the information age." Long Range Planning 31 (2): 182-184. C leland, D. I. (1999). Project Management Strategic Design and Implementation. Singapore, McGraw-Hill, Singapore. Evan, W. 1966. "The Organization Set: Toward a Theory of Inter-Organizational Relations." In Thompson, J. (ed.). 1966. Approaches to Organizational Design. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 175-190; also in W. Evan. 1976. Organization Theory: Structures, Systems, and Environments. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Evan, W. M. and R. E. Freeman (1998). A stakeholder theory of the modern corporation: Kantian capitalism. Ethical Theory and Business. N. E. Bowie. Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice-Hall Inc. Food Manufacture Daily. Tesco looks set to roll RFID out across the UK. 2007. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.foodmanufacture.co.uk/Business-News/Tesco-looks-set-to-roll-RFID-out-across-the-UK. [Accessed 15 March 2013]. Food Production Daily. CASPIAN launches UK Tesco boycott. 2005. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/Supply-Chain/CASPIAN-launches-UK-Tesco-boycott. [Accessed 15 March 2013]. Johnson, D. B. and G. Macy (2001). "Using environmental paradigms to understand and change an organization's response to stakeholders." Journal of Organizational Change 14(4): 314-334. Merton, R. 1957. Social Theory and Social Structure. Glencoe: The Free Press.
36
Examining the use of anaerobic digestion outputs from human waste in low income countries C. M. Rose, A. H. Parker, E. Cartmell
Cranfield University
Key Words: Sanitation, faecal sludge, faeces and urine characterisation, anaerobic digestion, re-use
Introduction
Diseases that are associated with inadequate sanitation are particularly correlated with poverty and account for 5.7% of the total disease burden worldwide (Pruss et al. 2002). Poor sanitation and limited faecal sludge management in periurban areas not only present negative impacts to human health but also to the environment through the contamination of water bodies, soils and food sources (Ziegelbauer et al., 2012; Peletz et al., 2011). Faeces are the most dangerous form of human excreta and sanitation interventions are essential for the prevention of faecaloral transmission pathways (Mara et al., 2010). Onsite sanitation facilities (OSS) are the predominant form of excreta disposal in peri-urban areas of Africa and Asia (Strauss et al. 2000); however, when these facilities inevitably need emptying, this creates a major problem as there are often inadequate facilities for the disposal of faecal sludge. It has therefore become common to discharge faecal sludge into nearby rivers, ditches and open spaces leading to further health and environmental problems (Ingallinella et al. 2002). The development of a sustainable faecal sludge management cycle close to source is therefore essential. Anaerobic digestion (AD) can be used as an onsite or decentralised sanitation system and has a high potential to deal with faecal sludge management and disposal issues which are still largely unresolved (Strauss et al. 1997). AD is a sustainable sanitation solution for low income regions as it provides high potential for gas generation and nutrient recovery (Daisy and Kamaraj, 2011), which in turn gives valuable resources for these communities. In order to create a safe closed loop cycle for sanitation where energy, water and nutrients can be recovered; there is a need for sufficient planning at all stages of the process. A holistic approach is necessary from the household/community scale to the anaerobic digester, to the final output and the re-use products from the process. The correct characterisation of the faecal matter at all stages is necessary to advance technology and planning. Characterisation of the input into the anaerobic digester and how this will impact the output products and their re-use potential is therefore essential. Faecal sludge presents problems to treatment technology, such as AD, due to its high solids content and wide variability (C ofie et al. 2006). There is still a significant lack of knowledge of the characteristics of faecal sludge which creates problems in not only the development of AD technology but also in predicting what the final output of the process will be. The principle driver for this work is to develop and create a solution to the high costs of sanitation by creating a high value, safe and beneficial re-use product that can help to reclaim the prior costs of collection and treatment of human waste. In creating a high value end product the safe disposal of human excreta will be promoted by financial incentives and is likely to subsequently improve human health, environmental conditions and productivity of this large sector of population.
Outline of research to date

An extensive review and statistical assessment of fresh faeces and urine has been undertaken with a particular emphasis on the medical sector. Analysis of data found in this sector has allowed data to be extracted and design values for factors such as production rate, physical and chemical composition have been produced. This was done in order to aid the development of innovative OSS systems such as the NanoMembrane Toilet that is being developed at C ranfield University, as well as decentralised treatment systems, such as anaerobic digestion that are designed to treat human excreta after minimal storage times. A similar review of faecal sludge characteristics from a variety of OSS systems has also been conducted, exposing significant variation. This review was conducted prior to fieldwork in Lusaka, Zambia. Fieldwork was conducted in March 2013 in the Kanyama district of Lusaka where a recent faecal sludge management project has been implemented. The project has a system of formalised pit latrine emptying with the collected sludge being treated in a newly constructed biodigester before secondary treatment in drying beds. During the course of the fieldwork pit latrine emptying teams were accompanied and samples of faecal sludge from the pit latrines were collected and analysed for physical, chemical and biological parameters. Laboratory based analysis was undertaken for solids composition, COD, organic and inorganic nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium as well as faecal coliform concentrations. Further analysis of the supernatant and dried solids is currently being undertaken for Volatile Fatty Acid concentrations and elemental composition at Glasgow and C ranfield University. This sampling regime and subsequent analysis was undertaken in order to aid design values for anaerobic digestion technology advancement as well as to gain a greater understanding of the re-use potential of faecal sludge from pit latrines.
Res earch P anel Paper A uthor: C . M . Ros e, A . H . P arker, E . C artmell I ns titution: C ranfield U niversity 37
The fieldwork in Lusaka was carried out with the assistance of Water and Sanitation For the Urban Poor (WSUP) alongside a consortium partner from Newcastle University, Ruth Kennedy-Walker, whos PhD research was assessing the effect knowledge transfer and capacity building (through participatory methodologies) has on changing peoples sanitation practices and attitudes toward sanitation service delivery.
Intended course of action

C haracterisation work will continue in order to aid the development of decentralised faecal sludge treatment. Further sites will be selected and any variation exposed between sites will be explored and accounted for. The second stage of this research will involve the selection and development of a re-use technology. The development of this re-use technology will enhance the use of the outputs of anaerobic digestion, with a particular focus on the re-use of the digestate in agriculture.
Conclusions
In examining the characteristics of fresh faeces and urine a large amount of data was found within the medical literature. After statistical analysis it could be concluded from this data that there was a significant amount of variation in the production rate of faeces and this could be largely accounted for by dietary fibre intake; with a positive correlation of faecal wet mass produced per capita and that persons dietary fibre intake. Of the human waste fractions it was also concluded that the solids content of urine was potentially larger than the solids fraction of faeces. Variation in the composition of human excreta can be accounted for by differences in the diets consumed by populations. Preliminary results from faecal sludge characterisation of pit latrines in Lusaka have also exposed variation. The diet of the target population should be considered before setting design values for technology development for a specific region and technology should be able to deal with the variation exposed. Acknowledgments This research is being funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC ) as part of a UK based consortium entitled A global solution to water scarcity and health by transforming waste. The project aims at using a novel, high-rate, anaerobic digester to treat high-solids waste ensuring reuse and good sanitation planning (see www.transformingwasteproject.com).
References C ofie, O. O., Agbottah, S., Strauss, M., Esseku, H., Montangero, A., Awuah, E. and Kone, D. (2006), "Solidliquid separation of faecal sludge using drying beds in Ghana: Implications for nutrient recycling in urban agriculture", Water Research, vol. 40, no. 1, pp. 75-82. Daisy, A. and Kamaraj, S. (2011), "The impact and treatment of night soil in anaerobic digester: A review", Journal of Microbial and Biochemical Technology, vol. 3, pp. 43-50. Heath, T. T., Parker, A. H. and Weatherhead, E. K. (2012), "Testing a rapid climate change adaptation assessment for water and sanitation providers in informal settlements in three cities in sub-Saharan Africa.", Environment and Urbanization, vol. 24, no. 2, pp. 619-637. Ingallinella, A., Sanguinetti, G., Koottatep, T., Montangero, A., Strauss, M., Jimenez, B., Spinosa, L., Odegaard, H. and Lee, D. (2002), "The challenge of faecal sludge management in urban areas-strategies, regulations and treatment options", Water Science and Technology, vol. 46, no. 10, pp. 285-294. Mara, D., Lane, J., Scott, B. and Trouba, D. (2010), "Sanitation and health", PLoS Medicine, vol. 7, no. 11, pp. e1000363. Peletz, R., Simuyandi, M., Sarenje, K., Baisley, K., Kelly, P., Filteau, S. and Clasen, T. (2011), "Drinking water quality, feeding practices, and diarrhoea among children under 2 Years of HIV-positive mothers in peri-urban Zambia", The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, vol. 85, no. 2, pp. 318-326. Phiri, et al. (Lusaka, Zambia), (2012), Characterisation of LWSC Biosolids (unpublished Scientific Paper), Institute for EcoDevelopment Strategies and Toxicology (IESTO). Prss, A., Kay, D., Fewtrell, L. and Bartram, J. (2002), "Estimating the burden of disease from water, sanitation, and hygiene at a global level", Environmental Health Perspectives, vol. 110, no. 5, pp. 537-542. Sasaki, S., Suzuki, H., Fujino, Y., Kimura, Y. and Cheelo, M. (2009), "Impact of drainage networks on cholera outbreaks in Lusaka, Zambia", American Journal of Public Health, vol. 99, no. 11, pp. 19821987. Strauss, M., Larmie, S. and Heinss, U. (1997), "Treatment of sludges from on-site sanitation-low-cost options", Water Science and Technology, vol. 35, no. 6, pp. 129-136. Strauss, M., Heinss, U. and Montangero, A. (2000), "On-site sanitation: when the pits are full--planning for resource protection in faecal sludge management", Schriftenreihe des Vereins fur Wasser-, Boden- und Lufthygiene, vol. 105, pp. 353-360. United Nations (2006), The Millennium Development Goals Report 2006, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, New York, U.S.A. WSUP (2012), Baseline household survey data (unpublished data), WSUP, Lusaka, Zambia. Ziegelbauer, K., Speich, B., Musezahl, D., Bos, R., Keiser, J. and Utzinger, J. (2012), "Effect of Sanitation on SoilTransmitted Helminth Infection: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis", PLoS Medicine, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. e1001162. Zuckerman, J. N., Rombo, L. and Fisch, A. (2007), The true burden and risk of cholera: implications for prevention and control, The Lancet Infectious Diseases, vol. 7, no. 8, pp. 521-530.
40
Expandable Modular Pico-Hydro Off-Grid Networks Sam Williamson

University of Bristol
Abstract
This paper describes research into a modular and scalable pico-hydro off-grid network using a Turgo turbine. The turbine optimisation using commercially available cups finds that a jet impact diameter to jet diameter ratio of 5:1 with a 20mm jet at 20 inclination angle provided the best trade-off between low-head efficiency, rotational speed and unit size. Simulation of the electrical network, fed by two turbine units with an inverter front-end is used to demonstrate the stability during load and head changes. Preliminary experimental results are presented demonstrating load sharing.
Keywords: Pico-Hydro, Turgo turbine, Performance Testing, Parallel Inverter, Off-Grid Network
Introduction
The research reported investigates the development of a pico-hydro powered off-grid electrical network to provide a cost effective solution for rural electrification. A system specification was developed, with the key points as follows: Power: 1kW electrical power generation at 3.5m head; Head range: 0.5 3.5m; Electrical Output: 50/60 Hz, 120/230 V AC High reliability; Modular design allowing unskilled labour to diagnose faults and replace modules as required; Plug-and-play capability of a generator unit to form a network; Low cost. Typically pico-hydro installations are stand-alone, with one unit feeding a number of houses, with an electronic load controller regulating the voltage on the grid 0. In some locations, similar to that shown in Figure 1. there are several picohydro installations in close proximity.
Figure 2 Possible implementation site for pico-hydro network in Bhanbhane, Gulmi, Nepal 8 potential sites (4 already developed) with ~17 kW of water potential feeding over 150 households.
Res earch P anel Paper A uthor: Sam Williamson I ns titution: U niversity of Bris tol 41
If these installations were connected together in a networked grid then the increased electrical output would allow the power to support not only domestic loads, but income generating loads, such as agricultural processing, support community health posts, schools and provide a more reliable and redundant power supply. Turgo Turbine Optimisation Testing A Turgo turbine is chosen to satisfy the specification 0. The Turgo turbine can be characterised by two basic equations 0: v r v v cos r v sin cos sin (1) (2)
where T is the generated torque, is the water density, Q the flow rate, v w is the change in jet velocity in the plane parallel to the turbine wheel, r the radius of jet impact, v 1 the jet velocity, 1 the inclination angle of the jet, 2 the relative jet exit angle of the cup and 1 the relative inclination angle of the jet. Six important variables are identified these equations: nozzle diameter, head, inclination angle, wheel diameter, number of cups and jet vertical aim position. A series of tests were carried out to determine the optimum performance of the Turgo turbine. Initially a Design of Experiments study was carried out to understand the effect that nozzle diameter, head, aim position and inclination angle had on the efficiency. It was found that a shallower inclination angle with a jet diameter of 20mm aiming towards the top of the cup produced the highest efficiency. These criteria are then optimised through small perturbations to find the best operating conditions. An example of one of the outputs from this experimental analysis can be seen in Figure 2, where the aim point of the jet is varied from the top lip of the cup to the lower portion. As can be seen, at inclination angles of both 10 and 20, jet-to-mechanical efficiencies of over 90% were achieved.
Figure 2 Optimisation of the aim position in the Turgo turbine cup at inclination angles (
) of 10 and 20.
The two other variables, number of cups and wheel diameter, are also varied in further optimisation testing, as parametric testing on these variables is more difficult. These show as the number of cups on the wheel increased the efficiency increased. As the wheel diameter to jet diameter ratio decreased from 7.5:1 to 5:1 the turbine volume can decrease by 1/3 with only a 2% reduction in the efficiency and a doubling of the rotational speed allowing it to better match commercially available generators. More details of the modelling and experimental optimisation of the Turgo turbine can be found in 0. Electrical Simulation and Experimentation The turbine is connected to the off-grid network through a generator, rectifier, DC-DC converter and inverter, which are combined to form a generator unit. The aim of this work is to develop a control system that allows multiple identical inverter units to be connected to the network, to share power and provide a stable grid with changes in load and head. The modelling is carried out in Simulink, with the setup shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3 Simulation set-up, with 2 generator units (comprising of turbine system, rectifier, DC-DC converter and inverter) connected in parallel, separated by line resistances and multiple loads. The inverters are controlled using a droop method 0, which replicates the response of a synchronous generator connected to a grid. The active and reactive power output by the inverter is calculated and controls the output voltage and frequency of the inverter. The power sharing of the inverter is affected by unequal line impedances between the generator unit and the load. The power sharing can be improved by increasing the voltage and frequency tolerance bands, which is reasonable in off-grid systems 0. The available power at the turbine also affects the power output. Figure (a) shows the first simulation, with two identical generator units are connected in parallel through different line impedances, and varying load over a period of 15 seconds between 1 kVA and 1.5 kVA.
Figure 4 Output from the simulation: (a) Two paralleled generator units with identical heads operating at different distance from a varying load. (b) Two paralleled generator units with changing heads connected to a constant load. As can be seen, the rotational speed of the turbine/generator reduces as the load is increased, as expected. The power sharing is not perfect as Unit 2 provides a larger proportion of the load as it is closer. However, with tighter voltage and frequency regulation, it was shown that the power sharing performance decreased dramatically. In the second simulation, Fgure 4(b), both units are equidistant from the load, but they have a different head available at the turbine. During the first 20 seconds they share the load in proportion to their available power. After 20 seconds the head from Unit 2 starts to reduce, simulating a blockage in the intake canal. As the head from Unit 2 decreases, Unit 1 takes on more of the load. Two inverters have been built to test the control system and validate the simulation, Figure 5. Where line is indicated, the two inverters can be connected in parallel through uneven resistive lines to a variety of loads: resistive, inductive and non-linear.
Figure 5 Electrical test set-up, with 2 inverters connected in parallel, separated by line resistances and multiple loads The control system demonstrated in Figure 4 was developed in the digital domain. Here it is compiled to run in real-time on dSPACE. When the inverters were connected in parallel with uneven lines (RLINE1 = 2 RLINE2) they were able to achieve reasonable power sharing, with Inverter 1 supplying 300 mA of the load and Inverter 2 supplying the remaining 200 mA, as can be seen in Figure 6 the lower traces are the inverter output currents are almost equal. The voltage waveform (upper trace) appears to be relatively sinusoidal with minimal harmonics.
Figure 6 Voltage (upper) and current (lower) traces showing the load sharing with uneven resistance power lines for a resistive load and (b) non-linear load Future Work The final phase of the research is to improve the control system further and build a hardware-in-the-loop system that allows the whole generator unit to be either replicated or prototyped. In additional, design work on the final generator unit assembly is being carried out by an undergraduate design team at the University of Bristol. To keep up to date with the research please visit http://saminnepal.blogspot.com or follow me on twitter at http://twitter.com/saminnepal. Acknowledgements This research is funded by Renishaw plc, and supported by Engineers Without Borders, UK. References S. J. Williamson, Low Head Pico Hydro Off-Grid Networks, EWB-UK Research and Education Conference, London, 2011. S. J. Williamson, Concepts, Simulation and Testing for Pico Hydro Networks, EWB-UK Research and Education C onference, London, 2012. N. P. A. Smith, Induction generators for stand-alone micro-hydro systems, in International Conference on Power Electronics, Drives and Energy Systems for Industrial Growth, New Delhi, 1996 S. J. Williamson, B. H. Stark and J. D. Booker, Low head pico hydro turbine selection using a multi-criteria analysis, Renewable Energy, In Press. S. J. Williamson, B. H. Stark and J. D. Booker, Performance of a low-head pico-hydro Turgo turbine, Applied Energy, vol. 102, pp. 1114-1126, 2013. K. De Brabandere et al, A Voltage and Frequency Droop Control Method for Parallel Inverters, IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics 22 (2007) 11071115.
Development of a Pay as you go Solar Home System for Rural Areas Ashley Grealish
Imperial College London
Abstact
This paper presents an EWB affiliated project working to improve the design of an open source pay as you go solar home system developed by e.quinox during 2012. The paper discusses the motivation for this project and outlines its end goals. Keywords: Solar, Solar Home System, Pay as you go, Charge Controller, Lead-acid batteries, e.quinox, photovoltaic
Introduction
Electrification of rural communities in developing nations is a huge problem, only 1% of Rwandans living in rural areas have access to electricity (World Bank, 2011). There are many proposed solutions to this problem but all have their disadvantages. One lesser researched and commercialised solution is a household off-grid photovoltaic system which is sold on a pay-as-you-go payment plan, these systems incorporate a solar panel, storage battery and payment systems. e.quinox and a few other organisations have recently begun trialling these systems but much work is still needed to make this solution technically and commercially viable. During 2012 I, as part of e.quinox, developed the first generation prototype system (Figure3) which is currently being used in a trial of 75 units in Northern Rwanda, these units are named the izuba.box (izuba means solar in Kinyarwandan). Whilst this trial showed that the business model works we identified many areas for technical improvement before these units are suitable for tackling rural electrification on a large scale. To continue the development of the product I have been working on it as an EWB affiliated final year project. This project have focussed primarily on the design of an intelligent, highly efficient charge controller and reducing the manufacturing time of the product.
Background
The Electrification Problem There are 1.4 Billion people living worldwide without access to electricity (World Bank, 2011). In Africa 57% of the population are without access to electricity and this is predicted to rise to 67% by 2030 (2). In Rwanda specifically only 7% have access to electricity (3) and in rural areas this falls to 1%. Bringing electricity and lighting to these areas can have a huge impact, the productivity can increase as people work and do business later into the evening which boosts the local economy. School children can study later into the evenings allowing them to achieve better grades and finally it reduces the travelling required to gain access to electricity. I really like your project here, it is quiet awesome to see my small quarter called MUNYANA(Minazi) at the evening all blight with the light provided by your organization e.quinox. previously, we were mainly based on petrol lights or candles for some people, but to day it is note the case due to equinox. moreover it was so hard to recharge our phones, you can imagine that the people did about 5 kilometers to get to the sector office to recharge their phones because it was there only found electricity along over the whole sector. but to day we almost use boxes to recharge. (sic) Email received by a young person living in Minazi, the location of the first izuba.box trial. Many people would argue that a commercially viable solution cannot be used to solve this problem as the target consumers do not have the money to support a for-profit venture. This however is not true. The market currently spends $37 billion dollars on low quality energy solutions (4). Businesses need to change their models to enable profit to be generated from this market; bottom of the pyramid (BOP) consumers cannot afford to pay large amounts of cash for a product and are much better served by small, frequent payments. For example, shampoo is often sold to these markets in single use sachets rather than large bottles allowing the price sensitive consumer to purchase just what they need for that day (5). By applying this business methodology to electrification, the issues can be tackled in a sustainable and large scale way by for-profit companies. For this reason, this project has focused on combining a pay as you go business model with a premium solar home system.
Res earch P anel Paper A uthor: A shley G realish I ns titution: I mperial College L ondon 45
Figure 1 - The Economist Pyramid showing the huge size of the market of Bottom of the Pyramid consumers. Whilst the consumers in tiers 4 & 5 have less purchasing power each there are many more of them making the market worthwhile targeting (5). e.quinox e.quinox is a non-profit student led humanitarian project that aims to bring cost-effective, sustainable and renewable energy to developing countries (6). e.quinox aims to prove that certain business models and technology can work thus encouraging the uptake of these models by for-profit organisations. Since 2009 e.quinox has built 6 energy kiosks in Rwanda and Tanzania. An energy kiosk consists of a small building at the centre of a village with solar panels which are used by a shopkeeper to charge battery boxes. Customers rent a battery box, consisting of a sealed lead-acid battery with protection and power level conversion circuitry allowing it to power LED lighting and charge mobile phones. C ustomers will rent a fully charge battery box, take it to their home and return it when the battery is depleted. During these trials of the energy kiosk model many issues have been identified, both technically and from a business perspective. One of the identified issues with the energy kiosk is that it is not suitable for very rural areas with a very sparse population density. It is designed to be placed in the centre of a village however we have found that people may walk for 5 hours or more to rent a battery box (7). Another identified issue is one of bookkeeping and management. In each kiosk e.quinox employs a shopkeeper who is paid through the profits generated. They are in charge of keeping track of the finances and ensuring all customers have paid for their rentals. However due to the lack of education or occasionally corruption the shopkeepers do not correctly log this data. Whilst analysing performance of each kiosk e.quinox members often find the accounts to be so badly kept that the data is unusable. Current Solar Home Systems Many companies are entering the rural lighting market in developing nations with products known as solar home systems or solar lanterns. These are solar powered systems providing lighting and often mobile phone charging. BBOXX and D.Light are two examples of companies supplying these systems which are shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2 - Bboxx's BB5 Solar Home System and D.light's S250 Solar Lantern
These are selling well to the richer consumers in developing nations through companies such as Solar Sister (8). However these products are still too expensive for many costumers due to the large upfront cost. A better solution is to provide a product which is affordable by even the bottom of the pyramid customers by reducing the upfront cost.
First Generation izuba.box

During 2012 e.quinox experimented with a new solution for electrification for rural communities which improved upon some of the issues associated with the energy kiosk and solar home systems. This new solution, which I developed, was branded the izuba.box. This solution removes the central kiosk and extends the battery box to incorporate power generation facilities; each box is supplied with its own solar panel, charge controller and payment system.
Figure 3 - First Generation izuba.box The izuba.box concept has many advantages over the energy kiosk model. Firstly, the cost of building, maintaining and operating a central kiosk is removed. Hiring shopkeepers who are educated enough to maintain the accounts and the technical aspects of the kiosk is very difficult. It also means that the kiosk must make enough profit to pay the wage or e.quinox faces long term losses, meaning that a single kiosk needs to have a minimum number of regular customers to be sustainable. Also, the kiosk has an upper limit on the number of customers it can support. This upper limit is a technical limit as the equipment we can supply can only generate a limited amount of power, especially in the wet season. C orrectly sizing of kiosk for a certain village is very difficult and has not yet been perfected by e.quinox. C ustomers pay weekly for use of the izuba.box and it will automatically lock after a payment has expired. Payment is made using a mobile phone based money transfer system which is already widely used in Rwanda and surrounding countries. Money is transferred to e.quinox from the customer and they receive a SMS reply with a unique unlock code for their system. One benefit to the customers is that the izuba.box costs a similar price to Bboxxs BB7 (Figure ) however the addition of a pay-as-you-go payment business model and technical implementation of this makes the product affordable to almost all customers. The monthly price charged for a payback period of 2 years is less than the average bottom of the pyramid consumer is currently spending on low quality energy solutions, such as kerosene lighting. A second customer benefit is that the box is charged and paid for in the users home meaning that the time previously spent travelling to gain access to electricity is now freed. People may still need to travel to top up their mobile money credit, however the mobile phone networks already have very good distribution networks in place for this. A trial of 75 prototype izuba.boxes (shown in Figure 3) were deployed in Rwandas Northern Provence in September 2012. They were distributed to a range of customer types but focusing on the bottom income group in the most rural areas. The test customers chosen were known to the shopkeeper at one of e.quinoxs existing kiosks meaning we have easier access to the customers for feedback. Many issues have been identified which need to be addressed before a large scale deployment of this product. These issues have been identified through customer and shopkeeper feedback as well as by analysing data from the web portal and through detailed reliability analysis of the current design. Some issues identified are with the design of the casing which will be improved outside of the scope of this project. The main issue identified was the third party charge controller which was used within the boxes. The charge controller used is the most basic type, it connects the panel and battery directly together with a high voltage and low voltage disconnect. There are many implications of this; the main issues include reduced power available from the panel and shortened battery lifetime. Due to the reduction of battery lifetime e.quinox estimates that the batteries used in the first generation izuba.box will fail before the end of the payback period, for this reason we have covered the cost of a replacement battery in the total price of each unit.
The primary aim of this project is to incorporate an intelligent maximum power point tracking (MPPT) charge controller into the payment system and output conversion electronics allowing full utilisation of the solar panel and not require a replacement battery during the products lifetime. The integration of the payment system and charge controller is beneficial as many components are duplicated when separated. Both systems require a method for detecting battery charge and switching of the outputs when battery is low. By integrating these systems together we reduce costs and increase the intelligence of the overall system.
Future Application
The charge controller designed during this project will be optimised for a low cost pay-as-you-go solar home system but the underlying design will be a low cost, high efficiency and battery lifetime optimising charge controller. This means that the design will have the potential to be used in many other applications. One such application is street lighting; solar street lighting has gained much attention recently (9) as a method for reduction of council spending and carbon footprint. A low-cost, high efficiency charge controller for relatively low powers would be well suited to this application. Other possible applications are in backup telecommunication systems and remote sensor networks.
Project Aims
Primary Develop an intelligent, low cost maximum power point tracking charge controller and battery management system to extend battery lifetime. This aim specifies four desired attributes for the designed charge controller: intelligence, low cost, maximum power point tracking and battery lifetime extending. Research has been published separately into the individual attributes of the goal but it is difficult to find research combining all of these aspects into a single charge controller. Intelligent, multi-stage charge controllers have been widely commercialised but are often very expensive. The same can be said for maximum power point tracking but this functionality is rarely combined with intelligent multi-stage charging. Charge controllers that extend battery lifetime are mostly mains powered, there are very few, if any, commercially available solar charge controllers with this functionality. Most research published on charge controllers focus on large sealed lead-acid batteries, typically >30Ahr. This is due to most research looking at uninterruptable power supplies for telecommunications systems, automotive applications or large photovoltaic systems. As this product is a photovoltaic systems for a single household the required batteries are much smaller, typically 7-10AHrs. Because of this many charge controllers designed in current research have much higher power ratings than is required here. The algorithms used to detect state of charge (SOC ), state of health (SOH) and to charge the batteries may need to be modified and optimised for these smaller systems. Secondary Redesign product to reduce manufacturing time, increase durability and increase functionality. This secondary aim is to combine the charge controller technology and the solar home system to make a full and commercially viable product. The first generation izuba.box suffered from reliability issues and took a very long time to manufacture. This is due to all the connectors being wired and connected to the PC B through terminal block. One easy improvement to improve assembly time is to mount all the connectors directly to the PC B and machine the faceplate to match. This should also increase the reliability of the product. There are many areas like this that can be improved in the next generation to meet the aim above.
Figure 4 3D Design of connectors mounted directly to PCB held behind machined faceplate with mounting posts.
Progess
This project has been running since November 2012, when I returned from Rwanda where we implemented the first generation trial. The first months of the project were spent researching charge controllers and battery technologies in detail. Many charge controller designs have been discussed and published, optimised for factors such as charging time or efficiency. However there is little research on extending the working lifetime of batteries. Papers have been proposed various designs but few studies compare and evaluate these results. I have evaluated the most promising techniques on paper and will test these in hardware during the project. A MPPT charge controller has been built and is currently being tested testing. It is optimised for small scale solar applications with a maximum charging current of 5A. The next stage of the project will be implementing this charge controller and the evaluated charging techniques together in one product. From this the charging techniques can be compared and evaluated before moving forward with a final product design.
Evaluation Plan
To evaluate the designed charge controller and product as a whole it must be compared with the specifications and project aims. A test rig will automate the charge cycling of the batteries and log data such as voltage, current, temperature, SOC and SOH. By taking the data gathered from the test rig and assessing with the number of cycles the battery will have in three years under normal operating conditions, it can be decided whether or not the charge controller meets specification. To ensure the tests are fair they will be carried out on batteries from various manufactures and ideally with samples of the batteries which will be used in the final product. Along with testing the developed charge controllers against the original specification this test rig can be used to compare current commercial charge controllers. By doing this we can evaluate how current charge controllers operate and compare with the designed charge controller. This test rig based evaluation system for the charge controllers has its limitations, it will be difficult to test all failure mechanisms of batteries. For example, sulphating occurs when a battery is left discharged for long periods of time. As the cyclic degradation needs to be tested in a relatively short space of time due to the time constraints on this project it may be difficult to test this aspect of battery failure. However, if the users use the product correctly and leave it connected to the panel on the roof at all times the battery should never be left in a discharged state for a long period. The final product design will be trailed in Rwanda in summer 2013 by an e.quinox team. The results of this trial will influence our future direction and we will promote what we have learnt to any interested parties with the aim of encouraging commercial organisations to deploy similar technologies on a large scale.
Conclusion
Pay as you go solar home systems are a very promising technology for tackling the problem of rural electrification in developing nations. During the 2012 trial we proved that the demand for this product exists however technically our product was not perfect. In this project I will build on the knowledge gained during the first trial to improve the product and make it suitable for a large scale roll out by commercial companies. This should encourage large companies that this is a viable market and help address the rural electrification problem on a large scale. Acknowledgements I would like to thanks all of the e.quinox team, especially C hristopher Emmott and Yuval Jacob who worked with me during the first trial of the izuba.box. I would also like to thank Professor Andrew Holmes who is kindly supervising this project.
References
World Bank. Energy - The Facts. World Bank. [Online] World Bank, 2011. [Cited: 29 December 2012.] http://go.worldbank.org/6ITD8WA1A0. Lighting Africa. In Numbers. Lighting Africa. [Online] Lighting Africa, 2012. [Cited: 29 December 2012.] http://www.lightingafrica.org/about-us/in-numbers.html. BTC . Increased access to electricity for the rural population. BTC. [Online] BTC, 2009. [Cited: 29 December 2012.] http://www.btcctb.org/en/casestudy/increased-access-electricity-rural-population. International Finance Corporation. From Gap to Opportunity: Business Models for Scaling Up Energy Access. s.l. : Iternational Finance Corporation, 2012. Prahalad, C . K. The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid. New York : Wharton School Publishing, 2005. e.quinox. About. e.quinox.org. [Online] e.quinox, 2012. [Cited: 22 December 2012.] http://e.quinox.org/index.php/about. C leophas, Ahishakiye. e.quinox Impact. [Facebook Message received on e.quinox page] London : s.n., 2012. Solar Sister. What We Do. Solar Sister. [Online] Solar Sister, 2012. [Cited: 29 December 2012.] http://www.solarsister.org/what-we-do/. BBC . Mogadishu's first solar-powered street lamps. BBC News. [Online] BBC , 29 October 2012. [Cited: 29 December 2012.] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-20124754.
Development of synthetic pit latrine sludge and investigation into the effects of fluidisation Chloe Underdown and Richard Fenner
University of Cambridge
Abstract
In densely populated informal settlements there is insignificant space to dig new pits when latrines fill up. It is therefore essential that they are emptied to ensure their continued use but current technologies struggle to remove the heavily consolidated sludge in many pits. A kaolin-topsoil based synthetic sludge is being developed to replicate the shear strengths and densities of latrine sludge to facilitate the development of new pit emptying technologies. A series of tests analysing the effects of water content and solid composition have been carried out. The second phase of the project will investigate the process of air blown remoulding for reducing the strength of consolidated sludges so that more can be removed from the pit. Keywords: pit latrine, sludge, fluidisation, sanitation
Introduction
Context In 2010 the United Nations General Assembly and Human Rights Council affirmed that water and sanitation are human rights (WHO/UNICEF JMP, 2012). Yet despite this, the Millennium Development Goal's target to halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to basic sanitation is unlikely to be met (UN, 2012). The United Nations (UN) estimate that 2.5 billion people, approximately half of the population of developing regions, lack access to improved sanitation facilities (ibid.). Densely populated urban areas provide a particular challenge for sanitation provision. An estimated 863 million people currently live in slums (UN, 2012), areas where service provision cannot keep pace with rapid population growth. The majority of the population rely on on-site sanitation, such as pit latrines, yet there are insufficient services to support them. (UN-Habitat, 2003). There is limited space to build new latrines and without pit emptying services latrines overflow and their users are forced to resort to open defecation. Large vacuum tankers cannot access pits in overcrowded slums and they are expensive and not widely available so in many cases the only option is manual emptying (Boot, 2007; Eales, 2005). Pit emptiers spend hours up to their waist in sludge digging sludge and solid waste out of the pit (Eales, 2005; Still, 2002). The health risks to the workers are considerable (widely reported e.g. Buckley et al., 2008; Katukiza et al., 2012). It is also reported that pit emptiers in Kibera, Nairobi face assault and stigma from residents and so are forced to work at night (Eales, 2005). C onsequently there has been considerable development of smaller pit emptying technologies (PETs) that prevent workers coming into contact with the sludge and overcome some of the issues of large vacuum tankers. These devices are either manually operated using a hand pump, such as the 'Gulper' developed by the London School of Tropical Hygiene and Medicine, or by using a motor-driven vacuum pump, such as UNHabitat's 'Vacutug' (Boot, 2007). Although they can access many more latrines they struggle to remove the heavy sludge and solid matter that consolidates in pits (Eales, 2005; UN-Habitat, n.d.). As they can only remove the weaker fluid at the top the pit eventually fills with unpumpable sludge. Therefore there is a need for a device or method that allows more of the sludge to be removed. This will ensure that pit latrines can be used repeatedly. Further benefit can be gained if an element of resource recovery can be incorporated as treated waste is a valuable source of nutrients (GMSC & UN-Habitat, 2008). Faecal Sludge Omni-Ingestor Project The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) is supporting a project to develop a faecal sludge omni-ingestor (FSOI). The aim is to overcome many of the limitations of current PETs by developing a modular device that can access 90% of all pits/septic tanks and fully empty them. The device should also be able to remove extraneous matter such as rubbish and sand from the sludge (BMGF, 2012). There are several firms working on sections of the FSOI. Prototypes are currently being tested in the US using a synthetic sludge recommended by Radford (2012). Using a simulant has obvious health and accessibility benefits. However as the properties of the simulant are largely unknown it is not yet possible to accurately test the prototypes capabilities.
Res earch P anel Paper A uthor: C hloe Underdown and Ric hard Fenner I nstitution: U niversity of C ambridge 51
Project Aims
A readily available, replicable synthetic sludge would facilitate prototype development of PETs. The first phase of this research is to develop a simulant that replicates the reported range of strengths and densities of sludge. A study by Radford (2011) proved that air-blown remoulding had the capability of reducing the strength of consolidated sludges thus allowing more sludge to be pumped and therefore removed from a pit. The second phase of the project will test this process on stronger sludges and at a larger scale, including looking at any spatial effects.
Phase 1 - Synthetic Sludge Development

Sludge Characteristics Undrained shear strength and density were found to be the two parameters that control whether or not a sludge can be pumped (Radford, 2011). This treats the sludge as a weak soil rather than a fluid which is more appropriate, particularly for heavily consolidated sludges. The only known example in the literature of a study into the characteristics of pit latrine sludge is an investigation by the International Reference C entre for Waste Disposal (IRCWD) in Gaborone, Botswana in 1985 (Bsch and Schertenleib). The maximum shear strength of sludge was found to be 500Pa (converted from viscosity by Radford, 2011). In contrast a recent unpublished study by Radford (2012) carried out in Kampala, Uganda reported sludges exceeding the 2kPa limit of the equipment used. The difference is due to the method used; the strengths reported from the Botswana study represent the maximum strength sludge that could be pumped and therefore represent the limits of the equipment used. As the true maximum strength is likely to be significantly higher than 2kPa, the brief for the FSOI is to remove sludges with strengths up to 10kPa (J Radford, pers. comm., 2012) and thus the synthetic sludge should match this. The densities reported from the IRC WD study range from 1027 to 2159kg/m3 with a mean of 1423kg/m3 whereas the mean density from the Kampala study is 1001kg/m3. The difference likely stems from the amount of sand found in the Botswana sludge; the Kampala study is more likely to represent 'pure' faecal sludge. Therefore ideally the synthetic sludge would cover the range of the Kampala data as sand could then be added in order to increase the density. Existing Simulants There are several existing simulants including kaolin-compost and kaolin-maize mixes. However compost has a highly variable water content meaning it is hard to control the mixture's properties (Radford, 2011) and the kaolin-maize mixture had problems with mould (Byrne, 2012). A comparison of all existing simulants recommended kaolin-topsoil as an improvement particularly because topsoil has a less variable water content (Radford, 2012). However there is limited data on its properties so it is currently assumed to have similar characteristics to the kaolin-compost mixture (ibid.). It is necessary to determine the true properties of the mixture and whether it can replicate real sludge. Materials, Equipment and Method The kaolin is supplied in dry powder form whereas the topsoil, obtained from a local garden centre, has a water content of 40% ( 1%) of total mass. Small uniform batches are mixed using a plaster stirrer in buckets and tested immediately. This allows sludges to be altered, remixed and tested again thus reducing the amount of waste and reducing the time taken for testing.
Figure 1 Mini Ball Penetrometer (a) Penetrometer under construction (b) Penetrometer calibration (c) Penetrometer in actuator rig
The undrained shear strength is tested using a mini-ball penetrometer designed by Kuo (2011) for use in soft marine sediments, see Figure 2. The penetrometer was constructed and then calibrated by placing small weights on to it and measuring the change in voltage to produce a linear calibration curve. The penetrometer is driven by a 2D actuator. Water Content The IRC WD study defines water content on a wet mass basis as geotechnical convention

as opposed to the
. The IRCWD study shows that there is a strong negative correlation
between density and water content of the sludge. This is linear when plotted on a wet mass basis, as shown in Error! Reference source not found.. Therefore it has been decided to use the wet mass definition, the same as the IRC WD study, throughout this research in contrast to previous simulant development (Byrne, 2012; Radford, 2011).
(a) Density - water content by wet mass

2400 2200 2000
(b) Density - water content by dry mass

2400 2200 2000
Density (kg/m3)
1800 1600
Density (kg/m3)
80 100
1800 1600 1400 1200 1000 800
R = 0.916
1400 1200 1000 800 0 20 40 60
200
400
600
800
1000
WC (wet)
WC (dry)
Figure 2 IRCWD Study, Botswana (Bsch and Schertenleib, 1985): Comparison of use of wet and dry water content
Experimental Design
Water content and solid composition are the controllable properties of the simulant. Therefore a series of tests will be carried out adjusting the water content while controlling the solid composition of the sludge. As shear strength is dependent on shear rate each composition is tested at different penetration rates. For the first composition these were 10, 20, 50 and 100mm/s however for later compositions this was amended to 12.7, 20, 50 and 100mm/s. A penetration rate of 12.7 corresponds to a shear rate of 1/s the standard rate used for testing. Four repeats are carried out for each penetration rate and composition. A 60%-40% kaolin-topsoil by dry mass is currently in use by FSOI companies using the kaolin-compost correlations. This was used as a starting point. Water was added to the kaolin-topsoil mix until a cohesive material that could be tested using the penetrometer was formed at a water content of approximately 32%. 8 different water contents were tested up to a water content of 49%. The raw data from each test is very noisy so the data is filtered before being converted to distance and shear strength from the draw wire potentiometer and penetrometer readings respectively. A mean shear strength is taken from each individual test, and the results from all 16 tests are plotted to determine the relationship between shear rate and shear strength,
Figure 3 Example analysis of single composition (a) Individual test determining shear strength (b) Correlation for single composi
From the shear strength-rate correlation a reference strength can be found at a shear rate of 1/s. The reference shear strengths can then be used to find correlations with water content and solid composition. A full set of tests has been carried out for kaolin-topsoil mixtures with 60%, 40% and 20% kaolin respectively and tests on a 30% kaolin mix are underway. The full range of shear strengths can be replicated from very weak sludges around 70Pa to sludges over 12kPa as shown in Figure 4Figure .
Figure 4 Correlation of shear strength with water content for 60% kaolin - 40% topsoil sludge The shear strength exponentially increases with decreasing water content. Further analysis is required to find confidence intervals for the water content-strength correlations and to determine the effect of solid composition. Initial results indicate that the shear strength decreases with increasing kaolin content.
Phase 2
Air Blown Remoulding Radford (2011) found that air blown remoulding could reduce the strength of sludge enough that an 'unpumpable' sludge became pumpable. However these tests were carried out on sludge that has a maximum strength of approximately 1kPa. In order to be of most benefit fluidisation needs to reduce the strength of high strength sludges, up to 10kPa, enough to make them pumpable. Tests will be carried out using a one fifth scale Vacutug designed by Manus Coffey Associates connected to a compressed air line. A series of tests will determine the air pressure required to fluidise different strength uniform sludges. This will then inform the pressure used on larger scale consolidated tests. In previous tests it was observed that a conical area of sludge was remoulded. Therefore approximately 400L of sludge, 40cm deep in a container 90cm by 110cm, will be left to consolidate before being fluidised. The strength reduction will be measured across the full area of the sludge to determine the conical area that is fluidised. The time required to set up the large scale tests is prohibitive as the topsoil requires sieving to remove large lumps. This is a disadvantage of the simulant that will affect its use in PET development. It is hoped that three tests will be able to be carried out on different strengths and sensitivities of sludge. Benchmarking A higher strength representative synthetic sludge will allow different pit emptying technologies to be tested and compared. A final stage of testing will investigate the limits of different pit emptying technologies by weakening the sludge until the device is capable of removing it from the container. These will include the 'Gulper' and the vacuum based system used for fluidisation testing.
Conclusions
A synthetic sludge has been developed which replicates the full range of undrained shear strengths required simply by controlling water content. Problems with the potential large scale use of the simulant include the time required to sieve the topsoil. The effects of solid composition and plasticity are still to be analysed but initial results suggest that shear strength is inversely proportional to kaolin content. Large scales tests are underway to analyse the effect of fluidisation on the shear strength of consolidated sludges. The reduction in shear strength will be analysed spatially to determine the volume of sludge that is sufficiently weakened that it can be pumped. Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Jamie Radford for suggesting the project and continuous guidance and support in planning and implementing it; Dr. Matthew Kuo for allowing use of his mini-ball penetrometer and assistance in constructing it; and the technicians, students and academics at the Schofield C entre for their help and advice.
References Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, 2012. FSOI Development Report. Boot, N., 2007. Practical Action Technical Brief: Pit emptying systems. Bsch, A., Schertenleib, R., 1985. Emptying On-Site Excreta Disposal Systems: Field Tests with Mechanized Equipment in Gaborone (Botswana). IRCWD News No. 21/22. Buckley, C .A., Foxon, K.M., Brouckaert, C.J., Rodda, N., Nwaneri, C., Balboni, E., C ouderc, A., Magagna, D., 2008. Scientific support for the design and operation of ventilated improved pit latrines (VIPS) and the efficacy of pit latrine additives. Water Research C ommission, Gezina, South Africa. Byrne, A., 2012. Sanitation in Developing Countries - Emptying Pit Latrines (MEng). Eales, K., 2005. Bringing pit emptying out of the darkness: A comparison of approaches in Durban, South Africa and Kibera, Kenya. BPD Sanitation Series Sanitation partnership series: Manual pit emptying, 19. Greater Moncton Sewerage Commission, United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), 2008. Global atlas of excreta, wastewater sludge, and biosolids management: moving forward the sustainable and welcome uses of a global resource. United Nations Human Settlements Programme, Nairobi, Kenya. Katukiza, A.Y., Ronteltap, M., Niwagaba, C.B., Foppen, J.W.A., Kansiime, F., Lens, P.N.L., 2012. Sustainable sanitation technology options for urban slums. Biotechnology Advances 30, 964978. Kuo, M., 2011. Deep ocean clay crusts: behaviour and biological origin (PhD). Radford, J., 2011. Fluidisation of synthetic pit latrine sludge (MEng). Radford, J., 2012. Faecal Sludge Simulant Development (Phase 1 Desk Study No. 311686/WUD/WUM/1/B). Mott MacDonald, Cambridge. Still, D.A., 2002. After the pit latrine is full... what then? Presented at the Biennial C onference of the Water Institute of Southern Africa (WISA), Durban, South Africa. UN-Habitat, n.d. Sanitation - Vacutug website. United Nations (UN), 2012. The Millennium Development Goals Report 2012. United Nations Pubns. United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), 2003. Water and sanitation in the worlds cities: local action for global goals. Earthscan Publ., London [u.a.]. WHO/UNIC EF Joint Water Supply and Sanitation Monitoring Programme, World Health Organization, UNICEF, 2012. Progress on drinking water and sanitation: 2012 update. UNICEF; World Health Organization, New York, N.Y.; Geneva.
Participatory Manufacture of Small Wind Turbines: A Case Study in Nicaragua J. Sumanik-Leary, L. Marandin, M. Craig, C. Casillas, A. While, R. Howell
University of Sheffield
Abstract
Small wind turbines can be manufactured locally in developing countries, creating local jobs, shortening the supply chain for spare parts, increasing local capacity and providing a low-cost solution for rural electrification initiatives. What is more, local manufacture presents the opportunity for community members to take part in the construction of the machine that will be installed in their community. This not only increases the sense of ownership of the technology, but also greatly improves knowledge transfer. Wind turbines are complex machines and are notoriously unreliable, therefore it is essential that somebody close to where the turbine is installed knows how to fix it. As the vast majority of un-electrified communities are located in remote regions, it is impractical for engineers to frequently travel long distances to maintain the technology. This study shows that participatory construction can reduce lifecycle costs by 43% (compared to an engineer driving a pickup to the community each time maintenance is required) as members of the community are capable of performing the vast majority of maintenance themselves. It is shown that where a suitable wind resource is available, the technology can be significantly cheaper than solar PV. Keywords : wind, participatory manufacture, Nicaragua, small scale, renewable
Introduction
blueEnergy made the hard decision in 2011 to stop implementing small wind for our community energy projects on the C aribbean: the wind resource is not optimal, solar PV became very competitive and its hard to ensure the necessary quality at low volume Mathias C raig, Director and Founder of blueEnergy For over 7 years, blueEnergy installed small wind turbines along the Atlantic C oast of Nicaragua, however due to the combined effects of the remote nature of the communities, the increasing cost-competitiveness of solar, coupled with the extremely unfavourable environmental conditions (low-winds, lighting strikes, corrosion and hurricanes) and the lack of interest on behalf of the communities to maintain the systems, the vast majority fell into disrepair and all but 3 have now been uninstalled. The following figure shows the operational status of four of blueEnergys turbines during 2010 and 2011:
Figure 1: Operational status of four blueEnergy wind turbines (Red = offline, yellow = online, but awaiting repair, green = online, grey = uninstalled) Source: (Neves, Bennet, & Gleditsch, 2011)
Res earch P anel Paper A uthor: J . Sumanik- Leary, L . M arandin, M . C raig, C . C asillas, A . While, R. H owell I nstitution: U niversity of Sheffield 57
Table 3 shows an excerpt from the maintenance logs kept by blueEnergy engineers visiting the turbine in Monkey Point to perform maintenance. It clearly shows the immense challenges facing small scale wind in this region of the country:
Table 3: Maintenance logs for blueEnergys wind turbine in Monkey Point Source: (Neves et al., 2011) Despite blueEnergys decision not to install any new wind turbines in its community electrification projects on the Atlantic C oast, a collaborative project with the Nicaraguan NGO AsoFenix was initiated in 2009 to establish whether the technology could be viable in a different local context: the central highlands. The community of C uajinicuil is located in the municipality of San Jos de los Remates in the department of Boaco and was chosen for this pilot project because of its excellent wind resource (5.77m/s mean annual wind speed). In May 2010, a PV-Wind hybrid system was installed to charge batteries and supply 14 households interconnected via a micro-grid, whilst individual PV systems were installed at 4 more distant households. A 1kW bD4 wind turbine manufactured in Bluefields by blueEnergy was installed alongside a 540W PV array.
Cuajinicuil
Figure 2: Location of Cuajinicuil in relation to the wind resource available in Nicaragua Source: ENCO Central America (30m hub height) A new method of technician training was also trialed during this project participatory manufacture. The members of the community chosen to be responsible for operating and maintaining the system after installation were invited to travel to Bluefields and take part in the manufacture of the wind turbine that was to be installed in their community.
Technician training
The level of technician training given in wind-based rural electrification projects varies wildly from a quick chat after installation to multiple days of specialist training at a renewable energy demonstration centre (Leary et al., 2012). Whilst many organisations around the globe run educational courses based around the construction of a small wind turbine and many others promote their use in rural development projects, the authors are unaware of any that have previously linked the two together such that the end user becomes the student in the course. Figure 3 shows the participants and organisers of this construction/training course that was held at blueEnergys workshop in Bluefields. As will be demonstrated in this paper, this practical approach to knowledge transfer is much more likely to be effective than conventional theoretical methods when working with people who may have had little formal education, but already have excellent practical skills, such as farmers.
Figure 3: 1 kW Piggott turbine manufactured during a small scale wind power workshop led in 2010 by blueEnergy in Bluefields (RAAS, Nicaragua).
Operation and maintenance (O&M)

For community electrification projects, operation and maintenance (O&M) is absolutely critical for ensuring project sustainability. Many people who live without access to electricity do so because they live in remote areas and the cost of extending the national grid is far too high compared with the amount that they are able to pay for the electricity. The electricity produced by decentralized generation is almost always more expensive than that supplied by the grid, often due to the efficiencies of scale that centralized generation is able to exploit. What is more, any failures in the generating equipment require either a lengthy journey by an engineer from a nearby population centre or an extensive program of training for community members. Even if maintenance can be performed by a community member, they will need access to the necessary tools and spare parts, both of which will be much harder to obtain due to the remote location of the community. These additional costs are not usually taken into account when calculating lifecycle costs for energy projects. Maintenance operations can be divided into two categories: Preventative maintenance actions designed to reduce the frequency of failures C orrective maintenance performing repairs when failures occur
Preventative maintenance It is widely acknowledged by utility scale power providers that preventative maintenance can: "reduce maintenance costs and breakdown frequency, increase machine life and productivity, and reduce spare parts inventories (US DoE, 2011) Interviews with the community technicians and administrator were conducted to determine the amount of time and money spent on preventative maintenance every year by the community 2 (C uajinicuil Interviews #8 and #13). The results for each renewable technology are compared below in Figure 4. Not only are more tasks required in order to maintain the wind turbine than the solar panels, but it is important to note that each task is more complicated. For example, the most complex task required to maintain the solar panels is climbing onto the roof to clean them at most once a month, something that one person can do alone in less than half an hour with virtually no training. In fact, the preventative maintenance required of the solar systems is so simple that the end-users of the domestic (55 W) solar systems are capable of doing it all themselves. In contrast, the wind turbine requires a well-trained technician for over 100 hours/year, to perform daily checks to make sure it is operating properly (listen for strange noises, check that it is following the wind direction etc.) and to lower it every six months for a check-up (bearings greased, blades and metal parts repainted, nuts & bolts tightened, power cable untwisted etc.), as well as before any hurricanes or big storms. This also requires the assistance of the whole community to lower the tower and a full check-up takes at least 2 days. In fact, the community once spent 4 days without electricity after a check-up because there were not enough people around to raise the tower again (C uajinicuil End-user Interview #12, 2012). With regards to safety, just lowering the tower is already far more dangerous than any of the required operations for the solar systems: [the turbine] is incredibly dangerous. Its not easy to raise and lower this thing. Its very costly and very dangerous." C uajinicuil PV-Wind End-user (Interview 12, 2012) However, this risk does have a hidden benefit: "Solar is easier to usebut wind is more secure because nobody is going to be able to run away with it!" C uajinicuil Technicians (Interview 13, 2012)
Full details of the exact tasks performed, consumables and tools required, along with their associated costs and time commitments are listed in the full report (Marandin, Craig, C asillas, & Sumanik-Leary, 2013).
160 140 Time commitment (hours/year) 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 Micro-grid 540W PV 1kW Wind 50 Cost (US$/year) 40 30 20 10 0 Micro-grid 540W PV 1kW Wind 55W PV 14x 55W PV Micro-grid 1.5kW PV
Deionised water Transport to nearest town Oil Grease Paint (spray for blades) End-users Tecnicians Whole community
55W PV
14x 55W PV
Micro-grid 1.5kW PV
Potential alternative systems to replace PV-wind micro-grid Figure 4: Comparison of a) the time commitment and b) the costs required to perform the necessary preventative maintenance for the actual renewable energy systems installed in Cuajinicuil with 2 potential PV only alternative systems for the micro-grid. Data obtained from Cuajinicuil Interviews #8 and #13. Also shown in Figure are two potential alternatives for the electrification of the 14 houses connected to the micro-grid: 14 individual household PV systems (55W each) and a PV only micro-grid (1.5kW). With regards to time, the first option would require over 150 hours/year from the end users, however this is split between the 14 households and equates to just 11 hours/year each. The second option would require just 15 hours/year of technician time, an 85% reduction on the installed PV-wind system. In terms of cost, both options require around US$12/year to keep the batteries hydrated and the only real difference between the two is the transport costs required to get all 14 users to the shop selling deionised water vs. just one technician, putting the costs of consumables 11% and 64% respectively below that of the existing PVwind micro-grid.
Actual systems as installed in Cuajinicuil
Corrective maintenance
Wind turbines are mechanical devices that sit on top of tall towers and spin at high speed, deliberately exposed to the full force of wind and all that comes with it (rain, sun, lightning etc.). As a result, regardless of the quantity and quality of preventative maintenance performed, failures are inevitable: wind turbines are surprisingly troublesome pieces of equipmentbecause of all the little things (and some big things) that go wrong. (Piggott, 2009) Error! Reference source not found. shows the amount of time that each energy system has spent out-of-operation, for maintenance. It is important to note that the hybrid nature of the PV-wind micro-grid gives it a much higher reliability than either system alone as it can continue to provide energy to the community until both sources (or the shared storage and distribution system) go offline.
50W PV, TecnoSol (Interview 9) Generating energy Generating energy but awaiting repair 2007 2008 55W PV (Interview 10) 55W PV (Unavailable for interview) 55W PV (Interview 2) 55W PV (Interview 1) Micro-grid 2009 540W PV 1kW Wind 2010
2011
2012
Visita
Figure 5: Diagram of the downtime experienced due to routine preventative maintenance or pending corrective maintenance for each renewable energy system in Cuajinicuil.
The data presented in Error! Reference source not found. is summarized in Error! Reference source not found. with the aid of three key metrics conveying reliability, resilience and a combination of the two.
MTBF - Mean Time Between Failures (days) 1000 900 800 700 600 days 500 400 300 200 100 0 1kW wind mi cro-grid 540W PV
MTTR - Mean Time To Return (days)
Availability (%) 100 80 60 40 % 20 0
55W PV
50W PV (TecnoSol)
s ol ar home systems
Figure 6: Comparison of the reliability and resilience of the various renewable energy systems in Cuajinicuil
The Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) is a measure of reliability, taking into account the frequency with which faults occur: no. days between failures total no. failures
MTBF =
At 154 days, the MTBF for the wind system is more than three times smaller than even the worst of the solar systems. What is worse is that if the metric had included times when the tower was lowered for preventative maintenance, it would have been just 70 days. This is not uncommon for locally manufactured small wind turbines, as a similar analysis conducted in Peru studying technology produced by two similar NGOs, WindAid (7 turbines) and Soluciones Prcticas (35 turbines) found MTBFs of 115 and 291 days respectively (Leary et al., 2012). Fortunately, it is expected that this number will increase over the lifetime of the installation: I would expect a couple of problems in the first year and one per year thereafter (Piggott, 2009) In addition to the number and frequency of failures, the time taken to repair each is also important. The resilience of the system is measured by the Mean Time To Return (MTTR): no. days from when fault occurs until repair completed total no. failures
MTTR =
In spite of what may have been predicted, at 162 days it is actually the solar system that has the highest MTTR. However, this is not a fair reflection on the ability of the community to repair the solar system as replacing the charge controller is simple, however the community currently has no money to buy a replacement. What is more, the controller burnt out in June 2012 when ants invaded the control panel something that could equally well have happened to any of the wind power systems electrical components.
Figure 7: Invasion of the fuse box by ants that led to the failure of the solar controller in June 2012 Photo courtesy of Bryan Ferry In addition to this, one of the solar home systems has been awaiting a repair for over a year now; however it is the fuse that has blown in the inverter and as they no longer have a television, they are happy to continue using the DC light bulbs and no more (Cuajinicuil Interview #2). This has pushed the MTTR of the 55W PV systems up to 28 days, just below that of the wind system, which was expected to be much higher due to the longer supply chain for spare parts coming from the Bluefields, the increased complexity of the repairs and the need to lower the turbine. The short time in which each of the faults with the wind system were fixed is testament to the skill of the community operators, who due to the success of the technician training program, were able to fix all of the problems themselves apart from the replacement of the rotor and stator discs in the generator, which is one of the most complex repairs in the whole system. In Peru, it was found that the wind power systems could be fixed even quicker (MTTR of just 3 days for Soluciones Prcticas) by having more spare parts available in the community (Leary et al., 2012). The replacement of the rotor & stator in C uajinicuil took over 60 days as a new part had to be made from scratch, shipped across the country and installed by an engineer. In contrast, the Peruvian community were able to keep 3 entire spare systems in the community as they had installed many smaller turbines as opposed to a single larger one, as in C uajinicuil. If more communities in the C uajinicuil region were to install small wind turbines, then a service network could be established that would allow the system to get back into operation much faster. The final metric is the availability, which is a combination of both reliability and resilience and indicates the percentage of time that the system is capable of producing energy: no. days not able to produce energy total no. days since installation
Availability =
Even though the wind system has been out of service for at least 4 days per year for preventative maintenance checkups, has been taken down to replace the rotor and stator discs and both the dump load and rectifier have been replaced, the overall availability of the wind system (98%) is unexpectedly better than that of its solar counterpart in the mini-grid (82%). This is again due to the on-going lack of funds for a new solar controller, combined with the fact that the wind turbine was able to continue operating whilst the faults were occurring (e.g. a switch with a bad connection was simply left closed). In Peru, the wind systems were found to have availabilities of 83% (WindAid) and 97% (Soluciones Prcticas) (Leary et al., 2012). However, as expected the 50 and 55W solar home systems performed even better than the wind system (100% availability) as the only interruption to energy production for these systems was the changing of the battery of the 50W TecnoSol system at the end of its life. Whilst preventative maintenance has a negligible cost for the solar and minimal cost for the wind systems, Error! Reference source not found. shows that corrective maintenance makes up 46% and 30% of the net present cost of the solar and wind generation systems respectively. The costs associated with each of the incidents shown in Figure 5 are shown below in Figure 8Error! Reference source not found., alongside the fund collected by community members from the tariff roughly equivalent to 30C $ ($1.25) per household per month that has been put aside to cover maintenance
costs. Whilst the fund easily covers the consumables required for preventative maintenance, the costs of each failure are huge in comparison. Fortunately for the community, the first 4 failures were deemed to be design flaws and installation faults, and as a result were paid by the NGOs that implemented the projects. However, when the solar controller burned out in June 2012, there was nowhere near enough money to pay for a replacement, let alone cover the installation cost.
10000 5000 0 2010 -5000 C$ -10000 -15000 -20000 -25000
Tariff Consumables for preventative maintenance Spare parts for corrective maintenace Balance of maintence fund
400 200 0
2011
Rotor & stator Wind system DEISGN FAULT BLUEENERGY PAID Dump load Wind system DESIGN FAULT BLUEENERGY PAID
2012 -200 -400 -600

Charge cotroller Solar system COMMUNITY TO PAY
Fuse Wind system INSTALLATION FAULT ASOFENIX PAID Rectifier Wind system DESIGN FAULT BLUEENERGY PAID
-800 -1000
Figure 8: Comparison of the maintenance fund collected by the community and the maintenance costs incurred by the system since operation. Note: the cost of spare parts in this illustration does not include installation costs.
Impact of lifecycle costs

The C uajinicuil PV-wind micro-grid was modelled in the software Homer to establish the influence of various parameters on the economic viability of the system. The results of the analysis are summarized below in Figure 93. To reflect the true cost associated with the local manufacture of the wind turbine, overheads of 30% and 50% were added to all materials and labour costs respectively. As previously stated, a commercial scenario that does not rely on volunteer labour was assumed4. The system was modelled over a 25 year period, with replacement of the batteries (7 years), wind turbine (15 years) and inverter (15 years) scheduled to occur during this time period. A real interest rate of 8% and an exchange rate of C $24.01=US$1 was used to model the current financial climate in Nicaragua.
The complete breakdown of the costs used as inputs for the model can be found in the full report (Marandin et al., 2013)
4
Please note that these economic models developed in this study assume a commercial scenario, such as that taken by the Nicaraguan suppliers of renewable energy equipment, TecnoSol, Ecami and SuniSolar. This is in contrast to the volunteer model adopted by the NGOs blueEnergy and AsoFenix, in which many of the labour costs are zero as they employ many international volunteers, who often even pay for their own overheads. While this is seen as a viable model for introducing new technologies, it is not sustainable in the long term as it does not continue to build local capacity and will not allow the organization to scale up the technology to reach all those that could benefit from it.
US$
Figure 9: Breakdown of the net present costs of the major system components in the Cuajinicuil micro-grid (modelled in Homer with a real interest rate of 8% over a 25 year period) In Figure 9, the costs are first categorized into those associated with the 1kW wind (e.g. tower, wind study), the 540W solar array (e.g. PV panels, installation of panels) and those that are shared between the two (e.g. inverter, training on
principles of electricity). It is possible to see that the cost per watt of the wind turbine (US$5.21/W) works out at just below that of solar panels (US$5.27/W) when you include just the cost of the materials. However, when you add in the resource assessment (wind: installing an anemometer on a mast at the site and logging data for a year PV: zero), manufacturing (wind: labour costs for the construction of the wind turbine PV: zero) and installation costs (wind: transport of tower and turbine to site, digging and concreting of anchor points, laying of underground cable to powerhouse PV: transport of panels to site, fabrication of aluminium frames and installation on roof of powerhouse) to give the installed cost, the balance tips the other way to US$7.70/W and US$5.59/W respectively. Despite the success of the technician training program, the increased maintenance requirements of the wind turbine push the gap even wider when including O&M costs ($15.32 and $10.38), showing that watt for watt, wind is a more expensive solution. However, this does not take into account the energy yield of the two renewable technologies. Below, Figure 10 shows the variation in Levelized C ost of Energy (LC oE) between the most cost-effective system typologies, as modelled in Homer. Wind is clearly the most cost effective system, due to the superior energy yields on this excellent wind site.
2 Levelized Cost of Energy (US$/kWh) 1.8 1.6 1.4 1.2 1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0 1kW wind 1kW wind 270W 1kW wind 540W kW PV PV (as installed) 2.7kW PV
Figure 10: Comparison of Levelized Cost of Energy for the most economical wind, PV-wind hybrid and PV systems with the 1.54kW PV-wind hybrid installed in Cuajinicuil. Despite making up a significant portion of the total costs, the operation and maintenance costs of the renewable energy system in C uajinicuil are a lot lower than if there had not been any technician training. If there had been no training given, initial capital costs for the wind system would decrease by 5%, the PV system by 1%, and the rest of the project by less than 1%. As a result, instead of the community technicians being able to fix most of the problems (with assumed negligible cost), an engineer would have had to visit the community for repairs, leading to an increase in operation and maintenance costs by 7% for the PV system, and 27% for the wind system (due to the higher number of failures). These cost increases assume that the engineer would take the bus to the community and back, for repairs that dont require large spare parts; this would be a trip of 3 hours followed by a 2 hour walk, each way. If, instead, they were to drive a pickup (2.5 hours followed by a 40 min walk), as is more realistic for a commercial installer, they would rise by 16% and 76% respectively. The result is an increase in the net present cost of the system from $37,420 to $39,013 and $41,810 respectively.
End-user opinions
The fact that the community technicians were involved in the manufacturing and installation of wind turbine and that significant time and effort was put into training them has meant that despite the quantity and complexity of maintenance required by the wind power system, they are capable of performing almost all of it: "Its great that AsoFenix suggested that the guys learn about the installation and theory of the system.that theyre prepared, so that they can respond to situationsno matter what happens to the turbine, because going to Managua would be very difficultit would take a long time (C uajinicuil Interview #8) Not only is their level of knowledge impressive, but also their dedication as they are not paid for all the work they do on the system: Theyve worked hard to learn for the benefit of the community (C uajinicuil Interview #14) "I maintain the turbine because I love it!" (C uajinicuil Interview #13) During the field survey, 75% of those who were asked about the turbine technicians job performance rated it as good, 25% as average, and none deemed it bad (C uajinicuil Interviews #3-#8, #11 and #12, 2012). In fact, since the installation of the renewable energy system in C uajinicuil, one of the technicians has now worked with AsoFenix in the
installation of over 20 PV systems and a micro hydro project in other communities. The engineers from AsoFenix have inspired him to study to become an engineer himself. He currently travels 3 hours each way to Managua every Saturday to take classes to prepare him for university entrance exams. It is necessary to have somebody with this level of knowledge and enthusiasm for the technology that lives in the community because there are so many technical problems to solve with a wind system: "Theyre really activetheyre always checking over things, repairing the battery shed, cleaning the batteries, filling them with waterand when theres a problem with the turbine, perhaps a strange sound and maybe it needs to be greasedits really nice because if theres a problem, they know how to fix it (C uajinicuil Interview #8) In fact, during the evaluative visit, this is exactly what happened: the technicians heard a strange sound the night before lowering the tower to install an anemometer. Sure enough, when the tower was lowered the next day, the rotor and stator were touching in one tiny portion of the rotation. The technicians adjusted the spacing between the two discs and avoided what could have developed into a major problem (see howell Figure 11).
Figure 11: Inspection of the rotor and stator by the Cuajinicuil technicians to prevent potential future failures One unfortunate downside to all this training is the potential for brain drain, i.e. despite the fact that the technicians now have so much more technical knowledge than the rest of the community, there are few other opportunities in the local area in which they can use their new skills. They may therefore choose to leave the community to seek a better paying job in the nearby towns and cities and abandon their maintenance responsibilities: Were in the process of becoming sustainableit would be good to train more people becausefor example, one [technician] already left, hes in C osta Ricaanother suddenly has to go off and study in Managua or work far away and wont be spending much time here (C uajinicuil Interview #8) Despite this, the technician training programme in C uajinicuil has undoubtedly been a success, with a number of capable and motivated individuals now in charge of the renewable energy system and able to perform the vast majority of maintenance without an engineer ever having to leave their office. However, the key question is really whether or not it is possible to find people as motivated and technically able in other communities.
Conclusions & recommendations

It has been shown that the participatory manufacture approach can offer significant savings in the lifecycle costs of a small wind power system and ensure a much more reliable and resilient energy system. In addition to this, it offers the community the chance to be more sustainable as they are not reliant on an engineer travelling from far away every time
something goes wrong. However, the fact remains that the amount of maintenance required for small wind turbines is much higher than for solar panels and therefore the following recommendations are made to any organization considering a small wind rural electrification initiative: Only communities that are sufficiently organized to be able to perform and pay for maintenance should choose wind power. In communities with low income, a link to productive uses of the energy should be made in order to be able to cover maintenance costs. In particular, productive uses that are seasonally compatible with the wind resource, e.g. irrigation during the dry season. A network of service centres should be established, so that community members can get access to the knowledge and spare parts to be able to perform repairs without having to travel great distances. C lustering wind projects together would allow communities to share knowledge and expertise and reduce travelling time for engineers if called out for major repairs. It would also help raise awareness of the technology in that area. Regions with adverse environmental conditions should be avoided or the appropriate preventative measures and/or expected repairs should be budgeted for, i.e. high salinity, heat or humidity (especially the combination of the three) and high frequency of hurricanes and/or lightning strikes. Ensure access to the lowest price solar panels, as hybrid systems are much more resilient both meteorologically and technologically than either technology alone. Locally manufactured technology can present significant savings over imported technology, but only if an industry that can produce in reasonable quantities and therefore offer the necessary quality can be established. Solar panels and deep cycle batteries are currently exempt from import tax and VAT in Nicaragua. If the same were possible for wind turbines, imported turbines could become competitive if a strong enough supply chain to provide the necessary maintenance services could also be created. Effective training is necessary for local technicians and community members to empower them and make the project sustainable: Participation in the construction of the wind turbine that will be installed in their community when using locally manufactured technology provides the ideal opportunity for this transfer of knowledge. Involvement in the installation of the technology is also an excellent way of transferring knowledge and increasing the communitys sense of ownership of it. Establishment of a renewable energy demonstration centre could help raise awareness of the technology and would also be useful for training purposes. A rolling demonstration program, where the technicians of a community about to install a wind turbine visit a community that has recently had a wind turbine installed, much like the campesino a campesino (farmer to farmer) environmental awareness program that is currently running in rural Nicaragua. Sufficiently motivated individuals from within the community must be willing to take on the role of technician (ideally at least three in case one leaves the community and another is busy when a problem occurs) Acknowledgements This forms part of a larger body of work that was funded by Green Empowerment and carried out by Lal Marandin, Mathais C raig, Christian Casillas and Jon Sumanik-Leary between September 2012 and February 2013. The full report is titled Small Scale Wind in Nicaragua Market Assessment 2012-2013 and can be found on the Wind Empowerment web site Jon Sumanik-Learys participation in this research was funded by the UK Research Councils Energy Programme and conducted at the E-Futures Doctoral Training Centre at the University of Sheffield, UK
References Leary, J., Howell, R., While, A., Chiroque, J., VerKamp, M., & Pinedo, C. (2012). Post-installation Analysis of Locally Manufactured Small Wind Turbines C ase Studies in Peru. Presented at the ICSET 2012, Kathmandu. Marandin, L., C raig, M., C asillas, C., & Sumanik-Leary, J. (2013). Small Scale Wind Power in Nicaragua - Market Assessment 2012-2013. Green Empowerment. Neves, P., Bennet, C., & Gleditsch, M. (2011). Assessment of the role of wind turbines in blueEnergys portfolio. Piggott, H. (2009). A Wind Turbine Recipe Book. US DoE. (2011). Establishing an In-House Wind Maintenance Program. US Department of Energy, Energy Efficiency & Renewable, Energy Wind and Water Power Program.
Investigation into the stabilisation of compressed earth blocks Victoria Bullen

Brunel University
Abstract
This project looks into investigating the effect of changing the amount of Ordinary Portland C ement (OPC) in compressed earth blocks. The amounts looked at are 2%, 8% and 15%; these values were chosen in order to grasp a wide and varied amount of results from using an extremely low value of OPC , an amount more commonly used and an amount higher than that normally used. The understanding of earth as a building material is extremely important and an asset to be taught in developing countries so that local people in the community can provide an active role in their construction industry. There is also a new interest in earth buildings in developed countries as well as developing countries due to the growing aims for a sustainable way of living. Keywords : Stabilisation, C ompressed Earth Blocks (C EB), International Development, Sustainable living
Project Brief
During this project three blocks of each consistency were cured for 7 days and a separate set cured for 28 days; this was to provide further knowledge into the structural behaviour of C EBs during the curing period and whether a shorted curing period may still be suitable. The less time the blocks need to cure the quicker they can be used in construction resulting in less risk of damage through storage of curing; storage which may not be hugely available in a developing country. Outline of research done: Constructed 18 earth blocks, 6 for each consistency, 3 of each were cured for 7 days and 3 of which cured for 28 days. The blocks were constructed by mixing sand, pea gravel, kaolin clay, OPC and water, the dry materials were thoroughly mixed to reduce risk of materials clumping together and not providing an even mix for moulding. During the curing process one blocks from each of the consistencies of the 28 day curing set were wet cured for 7 days to enable understanding of water absorption and its effect to strength. Once constructed, samples of each mix were weighed, oven dried and re-weighed to determine each of the water contents, to ensure discrepancies, if any, can be addressed if anomalies arise with strength tests. Densities were also measured during production to ensure the blocks were around the recommended value used in practice and to enable characteristic patterns to be analysed. Once cured the blocks were tested for compressive strength on an Instron compression tester. The attachment used for the Instron was a round end piece with a flat piece placed underneath before the block, this attachment allows for minor rotation if the ends of the blocks are not completely parallel ensuring even distribution of the load throughout the block. As expected the 15% OPC blocks withheld the highest compressive strengths with the 7 day cured blocks reaching a maximum of 88Kn and 28 day cured a maximum of 129kN. The 8% 7 day cured blocks had a maximum strength of 26kN with the 28 day cured a maximum of 49kN. The 25 OPC blocks had significantly weaker strengths with the 7 day cured blocks achieving a maximum of 5kN and the 28 day cured a maximum 7kN. It has been observed that the 2% OPC blocks do not increase much in strength over the curing period meaning the blocks are nearly at their full strength after 7 days, however this is not a suitable strength for the purpose needed for the blocks. Issues arose during the construction of the blocks with the mixture being very dense and sticky making it hard to handle. The compression of the blocks also was conducted with wooden blocks however it was hard to know the exact compression the blocks had under gone, unlike in reality when using mechanical presses a known load would be applied to compress the blocks, ensuring consistency throughout. Intended course of action: I am going to look at the Youngs modulus of the blocks to determine if that has any significant pattern towards influencing behaviour of the blocks. The compressive strength graphs can be analysed against extension (in a negative direction) to determine the Youngs modulus and stiffness of the blocks. Look at density compared with compressive strength, the density of the blocks cured for 28 days were less than those cured for 7 days suggesting the blocks have a loss of weight during curing, potentially through water loss.
Res earch P anel Paper A uthor: V ictoria Bullen I ns titution: Brunel U niversity 69
Conclusions
Using a stabilisation amount of 2% OPC is insufficient to achieve the strengths needed to suffice for construction; the blocks of this consistency are weak and crumbly and unsuitable for building with. The use of this little amount of OPC means the mixture does not bond in such a way as the blocks with higher percentages so cannot perform to the needed standards. The blocks which were wet cured for 7 days and then dry cured for the rest of the time were weaker than those which were dry cured for the whole 28 days. The wet cured blocks did not return to their original weight 7 days after being taken out of the water meaning they still had extra water content which obviously affects the compressive strength of the blocks. This shows it is important to teach workers where to store the blocks before using them and roofs should have a large overlap to reduce the water contact to the blocks during rain. 15% OPC provides more than adequate strengths for CEBs used for housing in developing countries and it would not be beneficial in costs to provide this much stabilisation when it is not necessary. The 8% OPC blocks would most likely be suitable for these uses but further research would be needed with more extensive construction procedures to provide finer detail results. Acknowledgements Thanks to Dr. Philip C ollins, Malcolm Austin and Paul Szadorski
References www.mecoconcept.com www.earth-auroville.com Engineers without Borders UK information on research for compressed earth blocks
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Research Poster Papers
Research Poster Papers
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The Context of Construction in North Cyprus and its impact on Project Management Practice Balkiz Yapicioglou and Therese Lawlor-Wright
University of Manchester
Keywords: : Project Management, Construction, Stakeholders
Introduction
The Turkish Republic of North Cyprus has had a boom in its construction industry in recent years with many infrastructure projects launched. However, the indigenous construction industry is not currently able to exploit these opportunities. This paper considers the political, economic, social and technical factors affecting the sector and how these affect the industry.
Research to Date
The management of small companies is heavily influenced by the culture of the society and state in which they operate. These must be taken into account in order to develop sustainable management practices for the future. Research to date has involved an extensive literature search focussing on aspects of project context that affect the construction industry in North C yprus. The project context has been analysed according to the principles of the Association of Project Management (2006) and is shown to be extremely complex (see Table 1). The contextual factors are interrelated and very challenging for the indigenous construction industry. As a result of this, the business owners spend much of their time managing their external stakeholders to secure new contracts, rather than managing existing contracts. Although a small number of companies are sufficiently qualified, they have insufficient financial resources to compete for large contracts being awarded to improve the infrastructure in the state. This has led to protests and demands from industry associations that the Government give preferential treatment to local companies in the award of such contracts. Having identified the important factors from literature and study of the history of North Cyprus, qualitative research was undertaken with the construction business owners. The main aim of this was to identify the strategy of the local construction companies and their project management practices.
Factor Political
Example North C yprus is a de facto state, unrecognised by the international community. It is heavily dependent on the Patron State (Turkey) which finances many of the projects and issues the tenders in many cases. Political C onflict on the island has resulted in the existence of two political states in C yprus with separate communities and languages and an international military presence. Political future uncertain and the 2004 Annan Peace Plan was rejected by the Greek C ommunity. Defacto states are prone to favouritism in the award of contracts.
Economic
International Embargoes affect the economy. Funds have been made available from international sources for infrastructure improvement. Lack of international recognition internationalisation. is a barrier to growth of industry and
The construction industry is dominated by small and micro- enterprises without the financial capabilities to compete for large contracts. The market in North C yprus is very small and there are logistics and resource issues associated with being a small island. Economic C risis in the Greek C ommunity in C yprus.
Res earch P oster Paper A uthor: Balkiz Y apicioglou and T herese L awlor-Wright I nstitution: U niversity of Manc hes ter 73
Factor Social
Example The construction industry is run by mainly small family-owned companies. The size of the companies may be deliberately kept small to ensure control by the owners. For example, 86% of businesses have fewer than 5 employees (Egemen & Mohamed, 2006). C ompanies may not have the skills or resource to adopt new management practices. Only a few indigenous contractors are qualified to bid for the infrastructure contracts. Very high levels of immigration from Turkey since the partitioning of the island in 1974. The Turkish C ypriots have experienced trauma as a result of their experiences of political conflict and being forced to live in enclaves in the 1960s and early 1970s. The lack of recognition of the state perpetuates isolation from the international community (Volkan, 2008). Strong family ties and sense of community. Large scale emigration of young well-qualified C ypriots due to limited opportunities available.
Technologic al
Limited equipment due to industry size. Technology is available but industry unwilling or unable to invest Management recognises the need to improve but does not take practical steps to do this (Yitmen, 2007).
Table 1: Factors Affecting the Context of Construction Projects in North Cyprus
Conclusions
The conclusions to date are that the complex industry environment has made it difficult for the indigenous construction industry to survive. Co-operation between some companies has enabled their survival. The award of larger infrastructure contracts might have been expected to bring benefits for the indigenous companies. However, this is perceived not to be the case. There are demands for the local industry to be protected and to have preferential status in the award of local construction contracts but this is not currently the case. As a result of this, the strategy of the local construction small business owners is more one of diversification into other service sectors rather than growth. This can have severe consequences for North Cyprus as a healthy local construction industry is needed to service the community in the future. In order to ensure the sustainability of the industry, the government should consider how to engage the local contractors in the infrastructure projects in a way that allows them to learn from the international contractors and develop their capacities for the future.
Acknowledgements Our thanks to the author, Vamik Volkan M.D., for sharing his knowledge and his time during his holiday in C yprus in 2012.
References:
Association for Project Management (2006) APM Body of Knowledge 5th edition, APM, Buckinghamshire, UK. Egemen, M., & Mohamed, AN. (2006) C lients needs, wants and expectations from contractors and approach to the concept of repetitive works in the Northern C yprus construction market Building and Environment, 41 (2006) 602614. Volkan, V. D. (2008). Trauma, Identity and Search for a Solution in C yprus. Insight Turkey, 10(4), pp. 95-110. Yitmen, I. (2007). The challenge of change for innovation in construction: A North C yprus perspective Building and Environment, 42 (2007) 13191328
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Crowd modelling for a crisis Bharat Kunwar, Anders Johansson

University of Bristol Keywords: crowd modelling, disaster management, large scale evacuation preparedness, crowd sourcing, open source data, GIS, OpenStreetMap, sociology, human behaviour, social media, Twitter, early warning mechanism
Project Brief
C rowd modelling for a crisis develops upon the existing work on crowd simulation in the context of mass evacuation scenarios. Crowds are a feature attributed to large cities, occuring not only at mass gatherings but also in day to day life. The project aims to develop a simulation tool-kit that can be initiated on demand to assess the outcome of multiple initial conditions and multiple strategies deployed within a given evacuation process that best serves the interest of all the agents and the goal that they are trying to achieve while mitigating safety in the process. Online datasource OpenStreetMaps sets the initial stage for the project. Other means of crowd sourced social media indicators such as Twitter are considered as an early warning mechanism. The overall goal of the tool-kit is to help inform infrastructure planning and resource allocation in such a way that the least damage is felt during a crisis. Drawing attention to a recent disaster in Haiti, the relief effort benefited from web-based mapping efforts. C risisC amp Haiti, OpenStreetMap, Ushahidi and GeoCommons are some of the platforms which were used. Analyses demonstrate that GIS tools were a key means though which individuals could make a tangible difference in the work of relief and aid agencies without being physically present in Haiti. In addition, OpenStreetMap in particular, has consistently shown a better coverage of available information to Google maps and other mapping efforts in hard to reach places due to the crowd-sourced nature of the information.
Outline
The work carried out so far has been to re-examine barriers experiences by similar past attempts of this kind to evaluate if they can be tackled using the help of recent advances in technology. As a prerequisite, a local database has been populated with GIS information which is freely available at http://www.OpenStreetMap.org and is comprised by data digitised from aerial photography combined with crowd-sourced data that is continuously added by a large user community manually tracking natural and man-made features in their neighbourhood, and thus becomes increasingly more detailed with time. The database can be queried for geographical information and various points of interest. As a first step, before explicit movement is modelled in our areas of interest, initial work with the database has been a comparison of static points of interest within cities, to analyse the social and physical structure and topology of potential areas of interest. A given city is split into an even grid and the count of number of points of interests that fall within the grid cells are determined as shown in Figure 1 for an example case of grids of bars and hospitals in London. After applying a Gaussian smoothing with =1 over the grid, the correlation coefficient is established using standard statistical methods in MATLAB. The kinds of correlations that can emerge from static data can be helpful in situations where it may be required to compare properties of various administrative boundaries. In figure 1, comparison has been made between correlation coefficients of bars vs hospitals and bars vs atms in C ardiff, Manchester and London, cities in United Kingdom. It is clear from the data that there is a stronger correlation between bars and atms, perhaps due to its economic benefits. However, the correlation is virtually non-existent in relative terms between pubs and hospitals. Inferences like these can be made from simple co-ordinates of points of interests.
Res earch P oster Paper A uthor: Bharat Kunwar, A nders J ohansson I nstitution: U niversity Bris tol 75
Figure 1: Grid visualization of London where the graph on the left shows the concentration of bars and the graph on the right shows the concentration of hospitals. The numbers on the axes show the cell indices in longitudinal and latitudinal direction, where each cell is 938 metres high and 585 metres wide.
Figure 2: Comparison of correlation between bars vs hospitals and bars vs atms in Cardiff, Manchester and London. The vertical axis shows the correlation coefficient (-1.0 is maximum anti-correlation, 0 is no correlation and 1.0 maximum correlation).
Figure 3: Cumulative visualization of a few disaster related tweets over time showing normal activity. Now when we have looked at how static spatial data can be used to study the structure of cities, let us turn to the analysis of dynamical aspects and information flows in cities, driven by social interaction of its inhabitants. Work to analyse feeds from social media sites like Twitter has also commenced. As it stands, a continuous query searches Twitter for disaster related tags. A record of the cumulative sum of the number of tweets over a period of time reveals the nature of activities. A normal activity is described by a linear correlation of cumulative tweets with time as shown in Figure 3. It can be hypothesized that the number of tweets will scale up significantly when a disaster occurs. Such an activity would be characterised by a significant bump. This data displayed in the figure was recorded live from Twitter for the tags earthquake, tsunami, terror attack and volcano on 22 March 2013 between 10:00am and 11:15am.
Direction
The intended course of action is to develop a tool-kit that is able to simulate a disaster at different scales. This will involve gathering more layers of data such as but not limited to the following: Population count data Urban centre data Natural resources data Scarce resources data Altitude data
Eventually, it will also be necessary to implement dynamic information consisting of human movement data. Due to the increasing availability of GPS enabled devices, it is possible to access this kind of data through projects like GeoLife. This will help to understand more about human behaviour and ultimately validate the simulation results. The agents in the simulation model will be able to interact with various amenities and points of interests. This project will aim to define the nature of those interactions and identify the main constrains that various cities will face depending on the crisis through a means of an evacuation-friendly index. The live social media feed will be integrated with the simulation tool-kit which is expected to provide a live monitoring mechanism fed directly by people. It will be possible to ask questions like: if a lot of people are talking about a particular disaster, how long will it take for it to propagate to wider reaches of population and how can those who might be affected be safely evacuated. Algorithms will need to be developed that will help to determine where the tweets are being generated as well as distinguishing between multiple disasters being reported in different locations around the globe. One of the main limitations is the scalability of the simulation. There are innovations taking place in megascale agent based simulations that make use of GPUs.
Conclusions
In conclusion, the project is at its infancy and there is a potential for a lot more exciting developments. The database framework is still a work in progress. However, once it is complete, it is intended to be used as a quick reference mechanism to feed the simulation. This will be very useful for informing planners and emergency services during a mass evacuation effort.
Acknowledgements
BK acknowledges funding from EPSRC Doctoral Training Grant and EPSRC IDC in Systems.
References Anders Johansson, Michael Batty, Konrad Hayashi, Osama Al Bar, David Marcozzi, and Ziad a Memish. C rowd and environmental management during mass gatherings. The Lancet infectious diseases, 12(2):1506, February 2012. M Haklay and P Weber. Openstreetmap: User-generated street maps. Pervasive C omputing, IEEE, 7(4):1218, 2008. M Zook, M Graham, T Shelton, and S Gorman. Volunteered geographic information and crowdsourcing disaster relief: a case study of the Haitian earthquake. World Medical & Health Policy, 2(2):733, 2012. Lucy C hambers. OpenStreetMap versus Google maps, 2012. Y Zheng, X Xie, and W Y Ma. GeoLife: A collaborative social networking service among user, location and trajectory. IEEE Data Engineering Bulletin, 33(2):3240, 2010. Mikola Par Lysenko and Roshan M Par DSouza. A framework for megascale agent based model simulations on graphics processing units. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, 11(4):10, 2008
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Understanding how knowledge and attitudes of key stakeholders may affect the success of sanitation interventions in practice - A case study of Lusaka, Zambia R Kennedy-Walker, J.M. Amezaga, and C.A.Paterson
Newcastle University
Keywords: : Sanitation; Planning; Urban; Knowledge; Attitudes; C apacity.
Introduction
Although huge progress has been made globally to improve the sanitation situation for the worlds poorest, there is still an estimated 2.5 billion people that lack access to improved sanitation [1]. Since 1990 rural dwellers (724 million) have gained access to improve sanitation, whilst people unserved in urban areas has grown (up 184 million) (ibid). The challenge of keeping up with the rapid population increase in urban localities caused by migration from rural areas as well as natural urban growth is proving to be a complex one. In these localities a major challenge is for city planners to extend the drinking water and sanitations services to reach the poorest people often located in peri-urban unplanned locations around the city.
In 2011, an Engineering and Physical Science Research C ouncil funded project entitled, A Global Solution to Protect Water by Transforming Waste was initiated. The aim of which was to create an interdisciplinary team that would work together to come up with an innovative solution to transforming waste for people located in such peri-urban location of fast growing cities. The project is in collaboration with the Universities of Glasgow, Sheffield, Cranfield and Ulster, and the Institute of Development Studies, Brighton and its focused aim is to provide a locally-appropriate solution for sanitation in peri-urban areas by transforming domestic waste into (1) cleaner water, suitable for irrigation or for further treatment to potable water quality; and (2) high-value products, including nitrogen and phosphate-rich fertilizers.
Figure 1: Transforming Waste- Whole System Approach Newcastle Universitys role within the project is to specifically contribute to the converging understanding required between technology and social science for a project of this kind to work. This paper looks to provide and an introduction to my research contribution to this project, which is being undertaken as part of my PhD and in particular an overview of work which has been undertaken in Lusaka, Zambia in the last few months. This review is not intended to provide
Res earch P oster Paper A uthor: R Kennedy- Walker, J .M . A mezaga, and C .A .Paterson I nstitution: N ewc astle U nivers ity 79
concrete conclusions on the research undertaken to date but is to provide a detailed overview of the research methodology and the intended purpose of such an approach.
Outline of research problem

For any technology to be successful a good understanding of the users of the technology and how that technology can converge to the needs of those users is required. In particular, there needs to be an understanding of what is both viable and feasible for your selected environment. This is not just in terms of the technology itself but also with the situation regarding politica, environmental, economic and social viability and feasibility. In many cases, pre-intervention planning provides a setting whereby before any technological intervention takes place these variables can be considered. Planning has been part of the implementation process in the field of sanitation for many decades. Although historically it was driven as a top-down engineer centric process, more recently there has been a focus of ensuring the participation of users within the planning process [2]. The rationale behind which was to try and ensure more socioculturally acceptable sanitation systems were implemented [3]. User participation is a key focus of good planning practice however a number of recent studies have shown that although planning guidelines propose more communicative and participatory methods, in reality, the engineers are dominant throughout the planning process [4, 5]. As part of the Transforming Waste rationale one of the key starting points for the project is to ensure that planning for the technological intervention not only participates with the end users throughout but also uses these interactions to gain an understanding of the more socio-cultural reasoning being what may be viable/feasible for the selected environment. For most planning approaches participation is predominately completed at the very beginning as a tick-box exercise to establish whether there is sufficient demand for the intervention and to collect necessary background information for project development and assessment [6]. One of the most common methods used in early projects stages are Knowledge, Attitude and Practice (KAP) surveys which are often completed to collect information on various socio-cultural components (i.e. what is known, believed and done) in relation to a particular topic [7, 8]. KAP surveys are seen as an attractive cross-sectional survey method due to their ease, cost effectiveness and the production of statistically significant outputs [8]. However, a number of shortcomings for this approach have been identified, primarily in terms of its weakness in understanding anthropological factors and contextual reasoning behind KAP, the fact it often only utilizes surveys at the household level (which may present bias in reporting as it is excluding portions of the population) and that the method assumes that knowledge is directly associated with action [8, 9]. From January to March 2013 research was undertaken in Lusaka, Zambia as an attempt to try and explore further some of the shortcomings found with current techniques used in sanitation planning. In particular, the research is focused on exploring the importance of understanding KAP at both the household level and beyond within various levels of institutional control as a way of improving the introduction of sanitation technologies in those peri-urban environments described earlier.
Outline of research undertaken in Lusaka

In particular, this research looks to develop a methodology which could be used to help identify possible bottlenecks in capacity and attitude of different stakeholders which in turn may affect the success of any sanitation intervention at house-hold through to city-wide scale. The specific aims of the fieldwork undertaken were as followed; To evaluate the current situation on the ground with regard to the Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices (KAP) of the different levels of stakeholders in Lusaka, Zambia. To identify parts of the current KAP of the various stakeholders within Lusaka that may provide bottlenecks to scaling up of sanitation provision. To develop a methodology that can be used in practice to assess the KAP of various stakeholders and will provide new information that will help in the scaling up of sanitation provision.
The methodology followed split those stakeholders involved in sanitation within Lusaka into 3 separate levels. Stakeholders within the sector were split into the following categories and different methods were used for each type of stakeholder group. City-Focused Stakeholders present those stakeholders that have role in managing sanitation provision at the city wide level. This included representatives from the regulators, commercial utility, city council, university lecturers, ministries and various non-governmental organisations. At this level one on one semi-structured interviews were undertaken. In total 25 Interviews were undertaken at this level. Community-Focused Stakeholders present those stakeholders that have role in managing sanitation provision at the community wide level. These representatives included members of the community based water provider, members of ward development committee, members of the water committee, formal pit emptiers and formal members from C ommunity based Enterprises. At this level one on one semi-structured interviews were also undertaken. In total 9 Interviews were undertaken at this level. Households present those stakeholders that have role in managing sanitation provision at the household level. Three different communities were selected as they provided a good representation of the types of sanitation service provision available in low-income settlements surrounding Lusaka (more details below). At this level more structured questionnaires were undertaken and in total 166 interviews were completed. For the city and community-focused stakeholders, the in-depth completed drew upon the KAP of the interviewees surrounding sanitation access within low income compounds within Lusaka. The idea behind this type of approach was to
gain an understanding of firstly, the KAP of the various levels of stakeholders and to secondly, see through comparisons between the different levels if in particular Knowledge and Attitudes actually converge or contrast. For the householdfocused stakeholder household level questionnaire were completed in three different peri-urban localities; Kanyama, C hazanga and George (see Figure 2 for locations).
C hazanga
George
Town C entre
Kanyama
Figure 2: Map of Lusaka with highlighted areas of research The three peri-urban areas were firstly selected as they present low-income unplanned settlements at which this research is directed at. They also represented the various water supply set ups that have been established in these low-income (peri-urban) compounds within Lusaka. For Lusaka province, the entity mandated to provide both water supply and sanitation services is with the Commercial Utility, Lusaka Water and Sewerage C ompany (LWSC ) [10]. The Peri-Urban Department (PUD) of the LWSC has responsibility for water supply, sewerage and sanitation in Lusaka's peri-urban areas. In nine peri-urban areas, responsibilities for water and sanitation provision has been given to community-based Water Trusts (WTs) through service management contracts which means they are operating under license from the mandated service provider, LWSC. The WTs are made up as grown in Figure 3 below. The trust report to the board of trustee and to a large extent worked directly with LWSC as the registered license holder and mandated institution. LWSC provide technical assistance to the WTs and ensure that they are supplied with acceptable quality of water by creating Improved Service Management C ontracts. In areas were WTs have not been established LWSC are responsible for water supply and sanitation directly.
Figure 3: Water Trust set up within Lusaka [11] Firstly, Kanyama compound was selected as it is currently providing water supply through the WT structure and has also began to engage in some outputs related to sanitation with the support of Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor; namely a Feacal Sludge Management which is dealing with the collection, transportation, treatment and reuse of pit latrine sludge. The second compound, Chazanga, was chosen as it represents a ward that provides water supply through the same WT structure but have no current outputs related to sanitation. Finally, George compound was selected as it represents a ward that is provided water supply directly by Lusaka Water and Sewerage C ompany and currently no sanitation provision is being provided here. The household focused questionnaires were developed so that a greater understanding of peoples KAP around sanitation provision could be gained from within these three communities. Table 1 below identifies the variables that were covered within the questionnaires and includes a description of exactly the aspects that were covered within each. This method of identification of variables was taken from research done in a similar field which focused on evaluating the role of social proximity with regard to access to solid waste and sanitation services in Uganda [12]. The questionnaire itself was made up of open and close ended questions as well as more participatory methods including a unity-sum gain exercise and linkert scale related to attitudinal statements.
Variable Access Practice Knowledge
Description To services How sub structure is constructed On parts of sanitation chain Political and Legal elements Socio-cultural, economic and environmental effects of lack of current access
Trust Membership Participation Attitude C ompetence Age Gender Education Income C ost of Services Distance to community organisations/service provider Distance to toilet
Trustworthiness, empathy, reliability, promptness Membership to community body Working in some way to improve situation Sanitation/SWM Attitude toward quality of service provision Perceived capability and efficiency of service provider Age of interviewee Gender of interviewee Years of formal education of interviewee Monthly Income Monthly Expenditure GPS recorded
GPS recorded
Table 1: Variables included in household focused questionnaire One of the main proximities of reference for this research is the distance of household to the service provider and community organisations. To record this, Global Positioning Satellite devices where used to record the location of the household and the toilet. This information will be used to measure the distance from the households to service providers buildings and to establish what effect, if any, that has on the attributes being tested. This is also a useful tool to show the distribution of the survey sample throughout the compound. To achieve an even distribution spatial sampling frame the Stratified random unaligned sampling was used; whereby the serviced compound area was split into grid squares and a household was randomly selected to be interviewed within each grid square. Figure 4 below shows an example of some of the household level interviews completed in Kanyama compound.
Figure 4: Example of sampling method used in household level questionnaires, Kanyama.
Intended course of action

Due to the fact that the fieldwork has only just been concluded detailed analysis of the results need to be undertaken before definitive conclusions can be made. However, the fieldwork was successful in collecting data from the various levels of stakeholders and on the variables outlined in Table 1. Once analysis is completed, it is hoped that the information collected will support the Transforming Waste project in understanding the needs of the users on the ground. It is also hoped that some of the shortcomings of pre-planning assessment methods such as KAP studies can be improved upon. In terms of showing the need to collect KAP information for various levels of stakeholders just not community, the affect distance has on the KAP and generally how a better in-depth understanding of KAP at these various levels can help to improve the implementation of sanitation interventions in peri-urban localities.
Acknowledgments This research is funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Research C ouncil. The assistance of Water and Sanitation for Urban Poor, University of Zambia, Lusaka City Council and Lusaka Water and Sewerage Company is also acknowledged. I would also like to acknowledge, David Raffo from the University of Ulster for letting me use the Whole System Approach diagram in Figure 1.
References WHO/UNIC EF JMP, Progress on drinking water and sanitation: 2012 update MDG assessment report, 2012: World Health Organization and UNICEFs Joint Monitoring Programme. Kennedy-Walker, R., et al., C ritical Assessment of Urban Sanitation Planning Post- Kalbermatten. IN PRESS. Mara, D.D., Low cost urban sanitation1996, New York: John Wiley. xv, 223. McC onville, J.R., Unpacking Sanitation Planning: Comparing Theory and Practice, in Department of Architecture2010, C halmers University of Technology: Gothenburg, Sweden. Nance, E. and L. Ortolano, C ommunity Participation in Urban Sanitation: Experiences in Northeastern Brazil. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 2007. 26(3): p. 284-300. Sterkele, B. and C. Zurbruegg, Baseline Study on Water Supply, Sanitation and Solid Waste in Upper Dharamsala, India, 2003, EAWAG: Duebendorf: SANDEC, . WHO, A Guide to developing Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practice Surveys: Advocacy, Communication, and Social Mobilization for TB, 2008, World Health Organisation: Switzerland. Launiala, A., How much can a KAP survey tell us about people's knowledge, attitudes and practices? Some observations from medical anthropology research on malaria in pregnancy in Malawi. Anthropology Matters, 2009. 11(1). Quy Anh, N., KAP Surveys and Malaria Control in Vietnam: Findings and Cautions about C ommunity Research. Southeast Asian J Trop Med Public Health, 2005. 36 (3): p. 572-577. Brian C olquhoun Hugh O'Donnell and Partners, Improved Service Management Contracts Between Lusaka Water and Sewerage Comany And Water Trusts Operating In Peri-Urban Areas To Upgrade Service Levels, Create Financial Sustainability and Mobilise Development Funding, 2011. Peal, A., A rapid evaluation of the outcomes of WSUP's capacity development interventions under the AusAID-funded programmes in Nairobi, Lusaka and Dhaka, 2012, Water and Sanitation for Urban Poor. Tukahirwa, J.T., A.P.J. Mol, and P. Oosterveer, Access of urban poor to NGO/CBO-supplied sanitation and solid waste servicesin Uganda: The role of social proximity. Habitat International, 2011. 35: p. 582-591.
Design and optimisation of a Turgo turbine for use at low head and low flow sites Joe Butchers, Marco Guerrini, Matthew Kujawski, Lloyd Randall
University of Bristol
Keywords: pico-hydro, Turgo
Introduction
Pico hydro is considered to be one of the most cost effective methods for rural electrification [1]. In many locations, there are a large number of low head and low flow sites that are currently unused. Recent research has proven that Turgo turbines offer an efficient solution for these types of sites [2]. This research project aimed to build on the work of Sam Williamson in order to design an optimised Turgo turbine for use at a number of sites in Bhanbhane, Nepal.
Research
For the system design the following key design drivers were identified: deliver power at the lowest cost per kilowatt maximise site usage deliver power all year round minimising weight and volume per kilowatt, for implementing in rural sites maximise system efficiency
As cost was considered most important of these, an initial design of the unit, turbine and civil works was completed to identify the most significant features. It was found the generator was the largest contributor of cost. The objective of a flexible solution means one generator needed to be selected for a range of site conditions. Modelling of Turgo turbine performance was needed to match the operating conditions of the turbine and generator. Following scale model testing of a Turgo turbine [3], dimensional analysis could derive the performance of a geometrically similar turbine at full scale. This allows predictions of the operating conditions: head, rotational speed, and nozzle size which will produce peak efficiency at any given scale. Generators which matched these conditions were then considered for down selection, with the additional measures of weight, efficiency and costs used for further comparison. Generator and turbine size selection In Bhanbhane, information on loading indicated that average daily power usage for a household was only around 40W [4]. The Medium Irrigation Project (MIP) method for estimating river flow for Nepal indicated that Bhanbhane has a long dry season from November through to May, with maximum rain fall of approximately 27 times greater in the wet season. However, due to the low load requirements and the extended dry season, it was decided that the design would ensure power provision throughout the year rather than maximising supply in the wet season. The plug and play nature of the design allows use of multiple units in series (when there is a large head) or parallel (when there is a large flow) arrangements. The possibility of these installations is dependent on the site landscape and cost. Dimensional analysis was used to find an appropriate range of turbine sizes to examine for use at the sites in Bhanbane. For each turbine size, the cost and expected power generated were calculated when installing units individually, in parallel or in series combinations. For each combination of turbine size and generator, it was possible to determine whether a combination was possible by applying the following rules: Rated generator power must be greater than mechanical power Rated speed of generator must be greater than turbine optimum running speed Flow rate of the river must be greater than required flow rate from the nozzle for that size
By satisfying all of these conditions, a combination demonstrated it was possible. If one of the conditions wasnt satisfied, an additional unit was considered in series or in parallel and ensured that for each combination of turbine size and generator, a specific cost could be found. Using this method across the range of sites in Bhanbane allowed prediction of the average cost per kilo-watt of every combination. Figure 1 shows the average cost per kilo-watt for each turbine size and for four of the initially selected generators. The efficiency, weight per kilo-watt and volume per kilo-watt were also considered for each turbine size and generator. Considering all these measures, a turbine with 0.35m pitch circle diameter using an 1000W generator with a
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rated of speed of 300rpm was selected as the most appropriate for Bhanbane. This size was selected for manufacture and
testing.
Figure 1 - Graph of average cost per kilo-watt against turbine pitch circle diameter for a range of generators A later analysis used the wet season flow rate to determine the turbine size and demonstrated that a larger turbine pitch circle diameter of 0.425m was more cost effective. A turbine of this size would require the nozzle to be changed in the dry season to prevent the forebay tank from emptying. The implications of using a changeable nozzle are being investigated to determine whether sizing the turbine based on dry season or wet season flow rates is more appropriate. In addition, the range of turbine sizes and generators will be considered across random sites to examine the possibility of a one size fits all solution.
Design
The manufacture of the cups at this scale was considered, focusing on producing designs for local manufacture and maintenance in a rural Nepalese setting. Initial process generation considered: Hand-carved wood cups. Pressed sheet steel cups. Hand lay-up of fibre glass and epoxy resin. Epoxy casting.
Qualitative assessment of these process/material combinations resulted in a final selection of methods hand-carved wooden cups and pressed steel sheet. Two cups were designed using parametric studies to optimize the cup geometries for strength. A worst case steady state loading scenario was considered, modelling the forces subjected to the Turgo cups with three components of force: Axial force Acting along the axis of rotation. Tangential force Acting tangentially to create a torque on the turbine hub. Radial force due to the rotational velocity of the cups.
With a selected turbine size having determined the inner cup surface geometry, the dimensions of supporting structures for the two types of cup were varied in combinations. Stress tests were repeated using the parametric stress analysis feature in Autodesk Inventor 2012. This permits various combinations of certain dimensions to be tested, with an upper limit of stress (based on fatigue behaviour) defined as a criterion for an acceptable design. The acceptable combination with the lowest mass can be selected as the final design for each cup type.
Figure 2 - C AD wooden (top row) and steel (bottom row) cups
Manufacture
A method for local manufacture of the drawn sheet steel cups has been developed. A C NC milling machine was used to produce a dome which replicated the form required for the internal features of a cup. This dome was used to set plaster to produce a negative die in order to set reinforced concrete. The concrete mould was used with a hydraulic press in order to form 1mm sheet steel into the shape of a cup. Figure 3 shows the cup produced by this method. After trimming, the formed sheet will be brazed onto steel supports to form the final Turgo cup geometry. The same method will be used to manufacture scaled cups for performance testing.
Figure 3 - Pressed steel cup Hand-carved wooden cups are a viable choice for Nepal as local craftsmen are capable of reproducing the design using traditional methods. For the purposes of strength testing, a CNC milling machine was used to replicate the hand-carving process. Figure 4 shows the resulting wooden cup.
Figure 4 - Milled wooden cup
Testing
To determine the strength performance of the wood and steel cups, repeat loading at steady state conditions will be carried out to 104 cycles (medium cycle fatigue). The load will be applied at 7 degrees the resolved angle of the jet hitting the cups with the load spread across the internal face of the cup. The loading rate will be 5 times per second, to emulate the peak operating conditions of the turbine. A rig was designed to emulate the cup connection to neighbouring cups and the hub. Plastic deformation is the key parameter for both types of cup to determine if they yield in steady state conditions. Strain gauges will also be connected to the steel cups to compare experimental strains to analytical and FEA results. Finally the wood and steel cups will be loaded to failure, to determine maximum loads and weakest points in the design. Hydraulic turbine testing will examine the performance of the new manufacturing processes in comparison with previously designed cups of known efficiency. An equivalent testing regime will be used to determine the effect of using optimised geometries with locally appropriate manufacturing techniques on the turbine efficiencies. In addition, two sizes of geometrically similar steel cups, 0.1m and 0.15m pitch circle diameter, will both be tested using nozzle diameters of 0.02m and 0.03m respectively. By maintaining a constant ratio of nozzle diameter to pitch circle diameter, it is hoped that the results will verify the accuracy of modelling by comparing the experimental results with analytical predictions at two scales.
Further work
Using an existing turbine rig, testing will seek to validate the selected turbine size and investigate the flexibility of this size across the range of heads while using a range of nozzles. The testing will use scaled cups manufactured using the steel pressing process and rapid prototyping (to simulate hand carved manufacture) and the efficiencies of these cup types will be assessed. Strength and fatigue testing is intended to find the safe useable limit and confirm whether the selected cup designs are appropriate for use over a full service life of 10 years. It is hoped that the results of the project will determine a size, generator and method of manufacture that is most suitable for Bhanbane. More generally, these outcomes can be used to examine the viability of a one size fits all Turgo turbine system. Acknowledgements Many thanks go to Dr Julian Booker and Sam Williamson for their on-going guidance and advice References 1. The World Bank Group Energy Unit, Energy, Transport and Water Department, September 2006 Technical and Economic Assessment of Off-Grid, Mini-Grid and Grid Electrification Technologies Annexes. 2. S.J. Williamson, B.H. Stark, J.D. Booker, Low head pico hydro turbine selection using a multi-criteria analysis, Renewable Energy 3. S.J. Williamson, B.H. Stark, J.D. Booker, Performance of a low-head pico-hydro Turgo turbine, Applied Energy 4. S.J. Williamson, Personal communication. 2013
Background Papers
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The Global Dimension to Engineering Education Project Nina Neeteson

(Originally published Changing Course EWB-UK & EAP Education Conference 2012, 26th March 2012) Engineers Against Poverty
Introduction
Engineering education is facing pressure to keep pace with global issues such as sustainability, climate change and inequality. Forward-thinking higher education institutions (HEIs) are adapting courses to equip graduates with the skills, knowledge and attitudes that are necessary to maximise the positive and far-reaching impact of engineering on society and the environment. But constraints exist that must be overcome if these improvements are to be scaled-up and sustained over time. The Global Dimension for Engineering Education project brings together for the first time leading organisations responsible for accreditation and professional development in engineering education to work with those involved in global education and poverty reduction to collaborate on activities with an explicit poverty reduction and sustainability focus.
The Project
A Global Dimension for Engineering Education came to life as an education initiative funded by the DFID Development Awareness Fund, and has been in operation since July 2009. The aim of the project is to strengthen the commitment and capacity of UK higher education engineering faculties and senior staff to embed global issues within the learning of engineering undergraduates. Through various activities, the project enhances knowledge and understanding of the challenges and prospects for development amongst academic staff and enables them, through embedding global issues in the curriculum, to impart this knowledge and understanding to engineering undergraduates. In this way, academics are equipped to help undergraduates understand that for engineering knowledge to be effective, it must be integrated into the social, economic and institutional aspects of development, and that they must join their knowledge with that of other specialists through interdisciplinary approaches.
The Partners
Engineers Against Poverty (EAP) is the grant holder with formal responsibility to deliver the project. However, EAP has implemented the project in association with the Development Education Research C entre (DERC ) of the Institute of Education (IoE), Engineering Council UK (ECUK), Engineering Subject C entre (EngSC ) and the Engineering Professors C ouncil (EPC). The project also works with several UK based HEIs, notably Coventry University and Brighton University as partners in curriculum development.
Activities
This project incorporates a range of activities that include: A series of professional development seminars where participants work with leading experts and be exposed to examples of good practice; The provision of practical support during curriculum review and development; C ompiling and providing electronic access to case studies and other curriculum development materials; High quality publications that capture the key learning from the programme and communicate it in a variety of forms to key audiences; A national symposium GDEE 2012: Changing Course
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Lessons Learned
There has been a positive response from stakeholders and HEIs regarding the objective of the Global Dimension for Engineering Education, as well as recognition of the necessity for improved teaching to maximise the positive and farreaching impact of engineering on tackling todays most pressing global challenges. However, during the course of the project some important hurdles have been identified which must be addressed to allow for lasting and positive change in engineering education. In a review of current practice, it was generally reported that although there has been some introduction of the global dimension, much of the existing curriculum content focussed on sustainability, with less emphasis on economic, social, moral, and ethical issues. Importantly, there is often a lack of knowledge of global issues amongst teaching staff and a resistance to what is seen by some as a dilution of core engineering content.5 Alignment of the project outcomes with the everyday work of departments and academics would enable the Global Dimension for Engineering Education to be used as a catalyst for addressing the global dimension more concretely. As the project life cycle comes to a close, it is of utmost importance that the present strong coalition of stakeholders is maintained and efforts are solidified in translating good intent into meaningful and measurable learning outcomes for future engineering undergraduate students.
See E AP & I oE (2 008) T he G lobal E ngineer, EAP & I oE , L ondon available at http://www.engineers againstpoverty.org/_db/_documents/WEBGlobalEngineer_Linked_Aug_08_Update.pdf Bac kground Papers A uthor: N ina N eeteson I nstitution: E ngineers A gainst P overty
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Community led technology co-creation in engineering education Alistair Cook & Ashley Thomas
(Originally published EE2012 International Conference on Innovation, Practice and Research in Engineering Education, 19th November 2012) International Development Design Summit
Abstract
The International Development Design programme has for the last five years brought students and young professionals together from all over the world to work with a community on creating real technological solutions to problems through the process of co-creation and furthermore, to ensure the sustainability of this change by including education and innovation in social start up and income generation for the community. Their summer 2012 summit, hosted in the favelas of Brazil is the start of their regionalisation programme as they begin to run parallel summits in different locales. This educational model, that allows students and graduates to work with and transfer knowledge through co-creation with community members has proved very popular with participants, however it is currently questionable if the community benefits to the same level as the participants. This paper develops these issues along with the evolution of IDDS and the wider MIT D-Lab programme and asks if these models are appropriate for inclusion in the UK engineering education context.
Introduction
The International Development Design Summit is a hands-on design summit that brings participants from across the world and from all sectors to design technologies and enterprises focused on improving the lives of those living in extreme poverty. Emphasis is placed on tangible outcomes such as prototypes and even creation of ventures, rather than paperbased outputs such as proceedings and business plans. The goal is to move technologies from idea to implementation to impact through the creation of small start-ups, ventures, and similar initiatives. IDDS is part of the Design Revolution that aims to shift the focus in product design to meeting the needs of the worlds poor. To do so, they use several pillars of innovation such as: co-creation, cross-disciplinary collaborations and crowd sourcing. Another core value of IDDS is its diversity. IDDS participants and organizers have come from more than 20 countries and across a vast spectrum of sectors and industries- from students and teachers to engineers, economists, mechanics, doctors, welders, farmers, pastors, and masons. Innovation is created at the intersection of disciplines and experience and such cross-pollination is central to IDDS philosophy. Equally important is the idea of co-creation: the concept of empowering communities with the skills necessary to innovate and create solutions for themselves rather than spending resources on someone else to provide the solutions for them. This capacity building is critical to project sustainability and by embedding the creative sills in the communities, they can continue to innovate in other areas, generating value beyond the initial technology. IDDS equally values the participation of students, both from developed and developing countries- nearly half of all participants are students. IDDS gives students a forum where they can explore non-traditional educational opportunities and expose them to alternate career opportunities. It also provides a forum for like-minded individuals to develop a global network in which students are empowered and inspired to focus their skills on tacking global challenges of poverty and sustainability. This paper seeks to introduce the IDDS concept into the academic scene in the UK and explain why it is relevant, why now, and discuss potential issues that should be considered if implementing a programme in the UK. The programme has clear anecdotal evidence that it is a tipping point for students pursuing an international career, but a formal impact evaluation is still needed to prove long-term impacts on both students and the communities their projects seek to serve.
Inception
Massachusetts Institute of Technologys Senior Lecturer Amy Smith, with a group of like-minded students, faculty, and private sector collaborators, founded the International Development Design Summit in 2007. Smith was inspired by an activity-lead learning and design summit hosted at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2006, the Vehicle Design Summit, and aspired to have a similar collaborative incubator for technologies for the developing world. The foundations for IDDS came from Smiths innovative set of courses, D-Lab. D-Lab is a set of courses taught at MIT that focuses on designing appropriate technologies and sustainable solutions for low income countries. There are 12 different courses that broadly fall into the categories of Development, Design and Dissemination. The foundation D-Lab course is D-Lab: Development, in which students from all disciplines collaborate on country- specific design challenges on quality of life improvements though low cost and sustainable technologies. Student teams partner with local organizations and have a one-month field trip upon the completion of the course to implement their design projects. It became increasingly apparent that D-Lab projects would benefit greatly from more community partner participation, and that there was a missed opportunity in having isolated country partners unable to collaborate with each other. Thus, the idea of IDDS was borne as a reverse D-Lab where community partners could collaborate with each other, along with students and faculty, to design and prototype innovative technologies designed for and by people in developing countries.
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Why now? Todays engineering students parents were nurtured on a diet of analogue technical advancement. From the shuttle to C oncorde, technology and engineering made everything smaller, faster, more efficient and eventually created two technologies that changed the world through changing how we communicate - the computer, mobile phones and the internet. The digital age had begun and with every change in engineering and technological age - like stone to bronze analogue to digital has left those who do and those who teach having to catch up with a seismic shift. Economics did not end the manned space programme and super-sonic commercial flight, remotely controlled robotics, Skype and the inherent rise of networks design has. The network of the internet allows us to create one to one connections around the world in a way previously unavailable and to take part in and understand other peoples individual stories through the medium of social media etc. This has created a generational shift in the way we perceive the world by removing many of the technological and practical barriers to immediate peer to peer conversation by opening up many more communication options. In the past it was simple! You selected your suppliers from your area, and they used the materials that were to hand. This delivered your project in such a way that the projects' impact on the environment was automatically as low as it could realistically be. This is no longer the case. Nowadays, the complexity of materials and components, from an ever increasing global supply chain, means that your management must have a thorough knowledge of the entire supply chain and exactly how it all fits together, in order to make the right decision. The real stars of the future will be the managers who take on board all this information to deliver projects and can also demonstrate how they use it to reduce their impact on the environment. (Bourn & Neal, 2008) This dramatic shift in the way we perceive and interact with the global community has led to a change in the awareness and interests of students as was also recognised in the recent Engineers Against Poverty and Institute of Education report into the Global Engineer; Awareness of the world has heightened the curiosity of students about their role in global society. They travel across the world, absorb news from across the world and communicate with people from across the world. Unless students find themselves roles to play, there is a risk of disenfranchisement or of disillusionment: that they are aware of global issues but do nothing about them. (Bourn & Neal, 2008) Many students in vocational degrees and particularly those in engineering understand the role that their skills can potentially provide in the global sphere and for various reasons, from philanthropic ideals to employment marketability wish to be educated in the skills needed to operate in this new engineering age. Anecdotal evidence from organisations such as Engineers Without Borders UK (EWB-UK) student interactions demonstrates this feeling and the resultant frustration felt by these students at the slow pace of curricular iteration. Students; Felt that engineering curricula should have a stronger emphasis on practical skills and experience. Students said it needed to have more practical real life situations and should include a couple of modules which include making small practical projects such as small wind turbines or using energy from the sun. Students also called for more real experiences and a link with the real world, suggesting trips and projects from around the world that would cover more real life engineering problems and experiments. These professional skills need to be supported by the personal qualities the students identified such as being adaptable and having the ability to work with different people. Overall, the students felt the global engineer needed to be a multiliterate all-rounder, who may be multilingual, culturally diverse and aware of different unit applications. (Penlington et al, 2011) The desires expressed by students through this report, demonstrate needs both for a new pedagogy for engineering alongside a change in the content and context to provide them with the learning opportunities they require and see as the future of engineering. This change is one recognised and supported by practicing professional engineers, future employers and the professional institutes connected to engineering. Lord Browne, former president of the Royal Academy of Engineering supported this need, both in his 2011 lectures and by stating that The ability to think strategically cannot be learnt from a book; it has to be developed through practical experience. It can only be achieved through 'learning by doing': getting students to work on real engineering problems and properly consider the consequences of their approach. (Professional Engineer, 2011) Why? Many universities throughout the UK are recognising this change and looking for alternatives to traditional pedagogy to increase the opportunities for students to learn skills such as independent working, team work, contextual learning, practicalities of engineering design and engineering systems management, co-creation and collaboration through remote working. This alternative pedagogy has to understand and take advantage of online tools for collaboration to which students are already experienced, such as social networks like Facebook, Linkedin or Ning, media sharing through Youtube and Flickr to cloud software that is used in industry such as Basecamp, Teambinder or 4projects (which already drives projects at engineering consultancies such as Mott MacDonald). This period of experimentation has led many universities to undertake trials of project-based learning and/or activity led learning, taking a lead from the examples of Australian universities and organisations such as University of South Australia and Engineers Without Borders Australia and United States higer education institutions (HEIs) such as Olin College and MIT some of the leaders in this field. In the United Kingdom, much of this faculty wide work is being undertaken by the University C ollege London (UC L) and the C oventry University, leading to C oventry University undertaking a radical pedagogy change faculty wide and defining their approach as, A pedagogic approach in which the activity is the focal point of the learning experience and the tutor acts as a facilitator. An activity is a problem, project, scenario, case-study, research question or similar in a classroom, work-based, laboratory-based or other appropriate setting and for which a range of solutions or responses are appropriate. Activities may cross subject boundaries, as activities within professional practice often do. Activity Led Learning requires a selfdirected inquiry or research-like process in which the individual learner, or team of learners, seek and apply relevant
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knowledge, skilful practices, understanding and resources (personal and physical) relevant to the activity domain to achieve appropriate learning outcome(s) or intention(s). To be appropriate, the learning outcomes or intentions must be consistent with the aims, outcomes and intentions of the programme of study with which the student is engaged (Wilson-Medhurst et al, 2008) Academics involved in these changes are also finding activity and project led learning as appropriate and successful pedagogies and are understanding the benefits of teaching in engineering through these methods. Learning in a passive system has a much greater tendency to be both superficial and quickly forgotten. Active involvement in learning helps the student to develop the skills of self-learning while at the same time contributing to a deeper, longer lasting knowledge of the theoretical material..[and] it is almost the only effective way to develop professional skills and to realise the integration of material from different sources. (McC owan & Knapper, 2002) This change in approach has also resulted in a positive reaction from their student population. Initial results have shown a dramatic improvement in exam results, a reduction in students leaving the course and an increase in student satisfaction with teaching methodology. It has also led to an increase in student expectation, with students demanding an increase in opportunities to globalise the new skills they are attaining. This has been demonstrated by the University C ollege Londons C ivil Engineering Department, where the increase in numbers of students undertaking international exchange years has multiplied tenfold since the switch to activity led learning. Universities who have undertaken the change to teaching using this pedagogy are now reacting to students new and holistic understanding of engineering in a global context and so have to look for innovative education models to continue the new education and career paths which students are organically creating. Developments in education such as EWB-UKs research programme allow students to use their engineering skills whilst as part of their degree helping to solve real problems from all over the globe in partnership with local community and/or non-government organisations. This programme, and other similar education innovations such as the EWB C hallenge, UC L C ivil Engineering Departments scenario based design weeks, University of Sheffields Global Engineering week and many other examples (explained in more detail by UK Approaches to Engineering Project-Based Learning (Graham, 2011)) are bringing the global context into this pedagogy as desktop based exercises in the UK. Whilst this works well to a point, particularly with the provisions for an increase in global communications and methods to work remotely through the internet as described, there is little opportunity for students to experience the realities of the context in question and to work practically with their project partners. MIT through their D-Lab (the D stands for development, design and dissemination) programme are demonstrating an exciting iteration of the global engineering agenda, by taking groups of students as part of their undergraduate degree studies to continue their USA based project work in co-creation with their global partners. In the UK, programmes such as RedRs Rapid Research Secondment Scheme and occasional internationally based field research projects as part of Masters projects are allowing some students to access these opportunities, however due to funding constraints it is unlikely that all UK based institutions will be able to follow the example set by MIT and a handful of other universities around the world. This gap however, is being filled creatively by engineering education students frustrated at the boundaries of their engineering degrees, through voluntary placements such as the EWB-UK branch project programme. This allows EWB-UK student branches at universities to apply for support and funding through the NGO to undertake long term, sustainable and participatory projects in partnership with international groups. An alternative option, as championed by USA universities such as Olin C ollege, C alifornia Institute of Technology & MIT is the International Development Design Summit programme. The summit is part of a growing movement among engineers at universities and non-governmental organizations to combat poverty with appropriate technology - products that are inexpensive, easy to use, and built with locally available materials. [] "Young people today are much more aware of the needs of the planet," said Bernard Amadei, founder of Engineers Without Borders and a professor at [University of] C olorado. "This is a kind of engineering that involves the heart as well as the brain, and it's appealing to more people than ever before." Unlike many scientific conferences, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology summit, which wraps up tomorrow, has focused on turning innovative ideas into reality instead of just talking about them. It brought together scientists and engineers with non-academics from poor countries who will test and market the products on the ground. "One of the things that's important about doing development work is to involve people from developing countries in the whole creative process," said Amy Smith, an MIT lecturer and MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" winner who organized the summit. (Mello, 2007) Is this the answer? Research has been done during each IDDS summit to give feedback into the IDDS curriculum and process, but there has been no impact assessment to date. IDDS is in the process of designing a rigorous study to determine the medium to long term impacts of the conference, both on participants and on communities in the developing world who used the outputs of the summits. The survey is being designed in collaboration with MIT and IDDS alumni as well as an experienced impact assessment advisor from Harvard University. The team is designing the study according to MITs C ommittee on Use of Humans as Experimental Subjects (C OUHES) and data will be available in September 2012 for analysis so as to include information from IDDS 2012 in August. Students from the UK have been surveyed to give anecdotal evidence and to support the design of the formal impact assessment work. All students surveyed responded saying that IDDS has significantly impacted their current career and long term plans and believe that universities in the UK should adopt an IDDS-type program. The survey suggests that IDDS served as a tipping point to those students, as all students indicated after IDDS, they are more committed to perusing a long-term career in development. One student surveyed stated, The skills you learn on IDDS are second to none: working with people of so many different backgrounds, from Tanzanian bike mechanics to Brazilian Engineering students, and from Guatemalan craftsmen to American Professors. Defining a
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problem statement, generating ideas, working designs, building and testing prototypes, then finally presenting solutions to each other, reporters from the New York Times and The Boston Globe, as well as the public! It was amazing to see projects involving water purification, electricity generation from soil, thermodynamically optimised brick ovens and many other examples of appropriate technology. Truly inspiring! This anecdotal information needs further work to be conclusive, and the IDDS programme is actively working on the impact study design. Results of the study will be shared upon completion. Who does it benefit? IDDS is a an evolving educational model and as has been demonstrated above, has some flaws, many of which are similar to the MIT D-Lab programme from which it was born. Whilst the international participants undoubtedly benefit from the experiences, learning opportunities and networking the benefit for the community partners is less clear. Following from the example above, it can be seen that IDDS for many participants a turning point in their career if not life. In the example of Global C ycle Solutions of Tanzania; The story of Jodie Wu and Bernard Kiwia is typical of how the IDDS effect is reverberating in the developing world. Kiwia was working as a bicycle mechanic when he made the trip from Tanzania to MIT to participate in the first IDDS in 2007. At the summit, he learned about bicycle-powered agricultural technologies from C arlos Machn, director of the Guatemalan NGO Maya Pedal. That encounter, plus the IDDS design curriculum, jump-started Kiwias career as an inventor. He returned to Tanzania after the summit and began to produce a variety of bicycle-powered devices to address local needs. I used to fix bikes, Kiwia says. Now I make things. Wus encounter with the IDDS effect was triggered by her participation in one of Amy Smiths D-Lab classes in the fall of 2007. During the semester, Wu learned about a maize sheller originally developed by Maya Pedal. Energized by Smiths vision of disseminating affordable, appropriate technologies, Wu decided to test the shellers potential in Tanzanian villages on her D-Lab trip [] A return trip was so successful that Wu decided to pursue the enterprise full time. She launched Global C ycle Solutions (GC S) in 2009 after winning the Development Track of the MIT $100K Competition. Kiwia who has invented a pedal-powered hacksaw, drill press, and cell phone chargerleads the companys R&D efforts and supervises manufacturing (MechEC onnects, 2010) Jodie is now listed as one of the Forbes Magazines 30 under 30s in science to watch due to a series of connections made through IDDS and its parent MIT programme.This and other similar stories demonstrate the change that this programme can create in its participants. However, these stories are currently the exceptions, and the vast majority of community partners and students leave IDDS without clear long-term projects or partnerships.While thesurvey showed anecdotal evidence on the positive outcomes for students from developed countries, there is no evidence to show that the partner communities in developing countries receive equal benefits.One of the major barriers to extending the benefits to a community level is that often projects leave IDDS in the proof of concept stage, and they are not developed enough to be of practical use immediately. IDDS has recognised this problem and has given particular focus was given due to repeat partnerships with three communities in Ghana while working with Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in 2009 & 2011 to begin to address it. From the teams and ideas generated in 2009, one project had a level of continuation and further iteration/development (see http://www.deliakulukundis.com/groundnut-threshing-tools) as per the aims of IDDS2009. This is one of the central questions IDDS is currently asking itself - does this process benefit all the partners in the cocreation process fairly and can the process be refined and designed into the system to improve the ratio. As the programme iterates clarification on the answers (and indeed questions) is becoming apparent that off-shoots from the IDDS programme such as the proposed EWB Challenge IDDS summits may provide alternative methods and answers to some of the questions. The EWB Challenge will see the summit as part of a minimum three year engagement between students and the community which should increase the successful ratio due to the increased contact period and opportunities by taking full advantage of the interconnectivity this digital age allows us. However, if this model was applied to bring IDDS style community engagement in other programs, it will be critical for the host university to establish its priorities, goals, and metrics to establish a clear understanding of who does it benefit.
Conclusion
Our profession, engineering, underpins the progress of humankind. For thousands of years, engineers have unlocked the natural resources of the earth for the benet of humanity. Engineers have given practical application to scientic endeavour driving economic growth and bringing billions out of poverty. In the future, it will be engineers using the earths resources in new ways who continue that progress, solving the great challenges we face today. But for engineers to succeed, they must play more than a supporting role they must be at the forefront of society, as leaders capable of driving change, not following it. (Browne, 2011) Our global future has many challenges, both new and evolving to which we as engineers will be an important part of the solutions and mitigations. However, to do this engineers and their education must correlate to a global community with all of its complexities, interconnections and individualism as demonstrated through the power of the digital age. Engineering education has recognised that it has to meet this shift and is in the midst dramatic pedagogical, delivery methodology and content change to which the International Development Design Summit along with the wider MIT D-Lab programme is a small but significant part. Both IDDS and MIT D-Lab are still in the early stages of an iterative process themselves and still contain many flaws - particularly when viewed holistically. However, they have already demonstrated how different engineering education can be and how this can mould students into global citizens. These types of programmes are perfect vehicles for students to have practical, project-based learning while simultaneously providing a mechanism to gain a global perspective on engineering practice that increasingly necessary in engineering education and practice. If implementing such a project, it is critical to engage partner communities to ensure that impacts are shared equally between students and partners. However, there are clear benefits to both parties, and from stakeholders anecdotal evidence we can conclude that this is an option that students, academics, partners and communities can relate
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to and find not only educational but also inspirational all of which guides these students and graduates to become global engineers as global leaders. I believe leadership requires three core skills: the ability to dene a vision that ts your context, the ability to align diverse parties to work towards that vision, and an ability to execute that vision efficiently [] As engineers, in whatever eld, we have a unique and crucial role to play in transforming the natural resources of the planet into benet for humanity a role that has never been more important than it is today. We live in a world more interconnected and intertwined than ever. That adds complication but it also multiplies opportunity: a leader in one place can make a greater di erence than ever before. (Browne, 2011) Acknowledgements With thanks to Amy Smith, Ariel Phillips, Kendra Leith and Daniel Mokrauer-Madden from the IDDS evaluation team for their help and baseline data along with the UK educated International Development Design Summit alumni for their support and feedback.
References Bourn, D. and Neal, I. (2008) The Global Engineer. Engineers Against Poverty and Development Education Research C entre Penlington, R. Montgomery, C. Perera, N. Tudor, J and Wilson, A (2011) Educating the Global Engineer: Staff and student perspectives on embedding sustainable development practices into the engineering curriculum. The Higher Education Academy Engineering Subject C entre McC owan, J. and Knapper, C. (2002) An Integrated and Comprehensive Approach to Engineering C urricula, Part One: Objectives and General Approach. International Journal of Engineering Education, 18 (6), 633-637 Wilson-Medhurst, S. Dunn, I. White, P. Farmer, R. and Lawson, D. (2008). Developing Activity Led Learning in the Faculty of Engineering and computing at C oventry University through a continuous improvement change process. Proceedings of Research Symposium on Problem Based Learning in Engineering and Science Education, Aalborg, Denmark, June 30 - July 1,2008. Browne. (2011) For the engineering leaders of tomorrow: Two lectures by Lord Browne of Madingley, President, The Royal Academy of Engineering 2006-2011, London, The Royal Academy of Engineering Professional Engineer (July 2011) Young engineers need more practical experience. Available from http://profeng.com/news/young-engineers-need-more-practical-experience-says-lord-browne Moore, J (2012) The global social network, The Independent. Available from; http://www.independent.co.uk/student/study-abroad/news/the-global-social-network-6292352.html Graham, R (2010) UK Approaches to Engineering Project-Based Learning, MIT Engineering Leadership Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Mello, F (2007) Fast, cheap, and in control, Boston Globe. Available from; http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2007/08/09/fast_cheap_and_in_control/ MechEC onnects (2010) The IDDS effect: Senior Lecturer Amy Smith triggers the next wave of development. Available from mecheconnects.mit.edu/?p=340
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Changing Mindsets in International Development - or how did we get to where we are today? Hayley Sharp
(Originally published Changing Course EWB-UK & EAP Education Conference 2012, 26th March 2012) Engineers Without Borders UK
The concept of "international development" has evolved hugely since the end of the Second World War. In the last sixty or so years, the theories behind international development - and the ways that development programmes are structured and implemented - have been continuously challenged and redefined. This article aims to outline6 some of the major developments in international development during this period, ranging from the roots of modern day development and the Cold War, the first large-scale infrastructure projects, the move to appropriate technologies and "human development", participatory involvement and the Millennium Development Goals. Although international trade and international relations have existed for many hundreds of years, many historians argue that today's idea of "development" emerged in the post-Second World War world - and first came from US President Truman's inaugural address in 1949, where he declared that the benefits of scientific advance and industrial progress must be made available for the "underdeveloped" areas. 1945 to 1950 had seen a period of post-war restructuring and modernisation, notably with the foundation of the United Nations (UN) in 1945 aimed to coordinate international efforts in "maintaining international peace and security, developing friendly relations among nations and promoting social progress, better living standards and human rights" (United Nations, 2012). During this period, the first real instance of large-scale development aid came in the form of the Marshall Plan (also known as the "European Recovery Program" - the large-scale programme whereby the United States gave monetary support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II), had been established in 1947 in order to assist rebuilding a war-torn Europe (and to help combat the spread of communism). By 1949, the efforts of the Marshall Plan seemed to be producing successful results, and Truman had felt that something similar could be applied in the rest of the world - with a particular emphasis on supporting those newly decolonised states that were not yet aligned with the Western Allies or the communist East, and with an underlying purpose to consolidate the US influence around the globe 7. The 1950s marked the beginning of the "golden age" for international development - where the growth for most countries was robust and fairly steady. The 1960s brought in the UN's Decade of International Development, and was the first time where mass media enabled large numbers of people in the West - particularly the radical young - to become first aware of the existence of mass hunger and suffering in large parts of the world. The UN Development Decade had set an unprecedented target for all industrialised countries to donate 1% of their Gross National Product (GNP) to "Official Development Assistance" - or "aid" to be lent to countries needing support to "develop", and many people believed that it would be possible to lift almost all countries and peoples out of poverty. Sadly, the vision was looking less optimistic by the end of the 1960s. The concept that large amounts of aid would almost automatically lead to improve development - based somewhat on the success of the 1947 Marshall Plan - had not held fast. Whilst the European countries had generally been using aid from the Marshall plan to rebuild their countries - and already had political, financial, and administrative systems setup to manage the process - many of the "underdeveloped countries" would be building their infrastructure and systems for the first time. In one respect the "Development Decade" had been a success - most developing countries had managed to raise their GNP per capita by at least 5% (Black, 2010), but this new wealth had made little impact on the majority. In 1969, the Pearson Committee - a commission setup to conduct a review into the impact of development assistance - noted that "the climate surrounding foreign aid programs was heavy with disillusionment and distrust" (Pearson, 1969). During this period, the structure of the early development projects - often focusing on physical infrastructure with little thought for sustainability and wider issues - meant that many ventures failed spectacularly. One of the most notorious was an attempt to mechanise agriculture in Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia - resulting in rapid breakdowns, no spare parts, misuse for private purposes, a failure to recover cultivation costs and endless other problems (Black, 2010). Another example was a development programme in Lesotho aimed to help local people with crop and livestock management, as well as building roads so they could access markets. However, few of the people in the region were farmers, and conditions were not good for farming. Harsh weather destroyed pilot crop projects, and the roads allowed in competitors who drove the existing local farmers out of business (Ferguson, 1994). In addition, many of the large-scale infrastructure "development" projects were optimistic in their cost-benefit projections, and whilst they were often completed "successfully", the loans used to pay for such project also contributed
6 7
with an apologetically top-level and Wes tern viewpoint the term "third world" firs t c ame into us e during this period of the C old War - initially as an ideological c oncept denoting a s earch for an
approac h different to that of the c apitalist ("first world") or c ommunis t ("second world") approaches. Bac kground Papers A uthor: H ayley Sharp I nstitution: E ngineers Without Borders UK
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to the overall debt that the country gathered. As a consequence, any extra national resources were spent on paying back creditors instead of on the health, education, water and sanitation infrastructure and livelihood support that the poorest people need (Black, 2010). By the 1970s, the maturing development industry had led to the growth of innumerable governmental and intergovernmental institutions, university programmes, specialist researchers, practitioners, and charities, resulting in many debates about the nature of development and the question of what is was truly trying to solve. Whilst the growth of neoliberal and state-centred ideas led to the implementation of structural adjustment programmes into the early 1980s, alternative concepts began to emerge. These included the appropriate technology movement, pioneered by E.F. Schumacher in his book "Small is Beautiful", which encourages the use of "people-centred" technology that is small-scale, labour-intensive, energy-efficient, environmentally sound, and locally controlled (Hazeltine, 1999). The concept of microfinance - providing access to financial services and small loans to directly empower poor people to setup businesses, increase their incomes, and leave poverty behind them - gained its first footholds in the 1970s, and has since become widespread (Rutherford, 1999). The vision of a whole world development dramatically receded in the 1980s. Recession in the industrialised world impacted on the newly developing countries, such as Mexico, who were dependent on their richer trading partners. In 1982, Mexico suspended their interest payments on an accumulating debt, marking the start of an emerging crisis of developing country indebtedness (Black, 2010). in 1980, the total debt of the developing world stood at $660 billion, by 1990 they had more than doubled to $1,540 billion (UNIC EF, 1995) - and during this period, the transfer of resources from rich world to poor went into reverse, with debt repayments from developing countries overtaking the inflow of aid and investment. Over 60 developing countries experienced declining per capita income over the decade, with the worst impacts felt in Africa and Latin America. By its end, the 1980 became known as a "lost decade" for most of the developing world, a decade of development reversal rather than growth (Meadows, 1991). The 1990s saw a popular movement returning and a growth of decentralisation, with a new emphasis on "human development" - a definition formally combining the criteria of both social and economic advances, rather than solely economic measurements. The Human Development Index (HDI), devised in 1990, epitomised this trend. The HDI, had the explicit purpose "to shift the focus of development economics from national income accounting to people centred policies"(ul Haq, 1995), and were based on the underlying conceptual frameworks developed by the economist Amartya Sen. The basic HDI measures the health of a population; its educational attainment; and its material standard of living (measured by GDP per capita). It can be argued that even these measures of poverty and development are still overly simplistic and only measure a subset of development indicators, as for example, the HDI does not account for human rights or political freedom. The concept of sustainable development also become more significant (since the seminal publication of Rachel C arson's "Silent Spring" in 1962, the environmental movement, and the concept of a finite set of resources, had been gradually gaining pace), and Robert C hambers' participatory approaches and policies aimed at putting the "poor, destitute and marginalised at the centre of the processes of development policy" demonstrated how the development projects needed to reassess how it would focus on those most in need of its assistance. Approaching the millennium, the global development focus moved towards consensus building, particularly with the conception of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), aiming to encourage development by improving social and economic conditions in the world's poorest countries. So far, progress on the MDGs has been variable, with often those already nearest the goalpost able to climb over, whilst the hardest to reach are not always benefitting. Duncan Green argued academic literature used to stress the positive potential for inequality to reward "wealth creators" and so encourage innovation and economic growth, but that by 2005, the manifest failure of that approach prompted a number high-profile publications from the World Bank, with the UN arguing that tacking inequality is one of the most urgent tasks of our time (Green, 2008). Regardless, the early 2000s has seen a number of large scale development aid initiatives that are attempting to consider sustainability, appropriateness, participation, and a rights-based approach. One large-scale programme introduced in Afghanistan in 2003 was a massive effort by the government to reach rural communities across Afghanistan and address their needs using participatory involvement. Through the scheme, programme representatives work with elected villagelevel councils who reach consensus on development priorities, develop investment proposals and use grants and local labour to meet local needs, and to date, about 17 million rural people in Afghanistan have benefitted from improved water and roads. New market solutions are also moving into the development sphere. A number of economists argue that low income markets present a prodigious opportunity for the worlds wealthiest corporations to bring prosperity to the aspiring poor whilst generating a worthwhile profit, and that businesses should see the poor as resilient and creative entrepreneurs as well as value-demanding consumers (Hart, 2002). Social entrepreneurship business models, or for-more-than-profit enterprises, use blended value business models that combine a revenue-generating business with a social-valuegenerating structure or component (Acumen Fund, 2010).
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A number of thinkers of the post-development school regard development as having failed and as that the era of development is - or should be - over. William Easterly, author of "The White Man's Burden" argues that the majority of places in which weve meddled the most are in fact no better off or are even worse off than they were before (Easterly, 2006), whilst other voices from the 'post-development' school claim that, at best, development has failed, or "at worst it was always a hoax, designed to cover up violent damage being done to the so-called developing world and its peoples" (Allen, 2000). However, whilst there have been setbacks and failed (and indeed harmful) projects, most scholars would agree that the world as a whole is a safer place, with less poverty and more opportunities for more people - than it was in 1945. Some development approaches so far have been successful, and some have not, with the only certainty that there is no onesize-fits-all for international development. Nonetheless, a great deal of learning and the evolution of ideas have taken place over the last 60 years, and whilst it is impossible to predict the future of international development, its concepts will continue to evolve and, ideally, to enable more people to help themselves to have a greater quality of life for them and their children. Key Texts: Poverty and Development in the 21st C entury, Allen, T, Thomas, A From Poverty to Power, Duncan Green Small in Beautiful, E.F. Schumacher Development as Freedom, Amartya Sen
References Acumen Fund. (2010). Acumen Fund. Retrieved January 2, 2010, from http://www.acumenfund.org/ Allen, T. a. (2000). Poverty and development into the 21st century. OUP. Black, M. (2010). The No-Nonsense Guide to International Development. Verso. Easterly, W. (2006). The White Man's Burden. London: The Penguin Press. Green, D. (2008). From Poverty to Power. Hart, C . K. (2002). The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid. Strategy and Business, , p. Vol. 26. Hazeltine, B. (1999). Appropriate Technology: Tools, Choices, and Implications. Academic Press. Meadows, D. H. (1991). The Global Citizen. Island Press. Pearson, L. (1969). The Crisis of Development. Pall Mall Press. Rutherford, S. (1999). The Poor and their Money. Institute for Development Policy and Management, University of Manchester. UNIC EF. (1995). Memorandum, 28 June 1995. UNIC EF Office of Social Policy and Economic Analysis. United Nations. (2012, Feb 28). About the UN. Retrieved from www.un.org/en
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The EWB Challenge & EWB-UK: Global Education for Global Engineers Alistair Cook & Hayley Howard
(Originally published AEC EF Symposium 2012, 13th September 2012) Engineers Without Borders UK
Abstract:
The EWB C hallenge is a design programme for first and second year engineering undergraduates who work in teams to develop conceptual designs for projects identified by Engineers Without Borders UKs partners overseas. The identified project briefs are introduced within existing technical areas of the curriculum and contribute towards the sustainable development of disadvantaged communities in developing countries. The project briefs are designed to educate and familiarise engineering undergraduates and academics in key 21st century issues including globalisation, climate change, sustainability and poverty alleviation - the Global Dimension (Bourne & Neal, 2008). The EWB C hallenge aims to develop more holistic global skills in engineering undergraduates, expanding their critical thinking, multi-disciplinary team working, ability to work across cultures and contexts, systems thinking and communication skills to ensure that they are better equipped to address future global engineering challenges. The Engineers Without Borders Challenge (EWB Challenge) was pioneered by EWB Australia in 2007 and EWB-UK brought this fantastic opportunity to over 2,000 UK undergraduates across 13 higher education institutions (HEIs) in the 2011/12 academic year. This paper will outline the history of the EWB Challenge, and detail how it has run in the UK in the 20112012 academic year. It will outline plans to expand the on-going international partnership between EWB organisations in Australia, Germany, India, New Zealand and the UK, universities, undergraduates and community partners to provide a more conclusive support network for introducing the Global Dimension into undergraduate engineering curricula. This paper will conclude with future projections for the EWB-UK C hallenge and its expansion to further UK and Ireland universities in the 2012/13 academic year. Who are Engineers Without Borders UK Engineers Without Borders UK is a massive small change organisation that empowers thousands of new engineers to remove barriers to development through programmes which provide opportunities for young people to learn about technology's role in tackling poverty. Supported by the EWB-UK community, members can work on projects around the globe with partner organisations and communities. Started in 2001 by students at the University of C ambridge, the EWBUK network has grown to over six thousand members in the UK over the intervening years and now has branches at thirty universities, supported by a volunteer national team and six full time staff. Engineers Without Borders are part of a global social movement of young motivated engineers and design students/professionals determined to use their skills in the pursuit of global poverty reduction. There are EWB movements in countries across the globe and while each organisation is a separate entity, they collaborate on many programmes and in the UK, this collaboration is mainly around education programmes, such as the EWB C hallenge programme with EWB Australia and the academic support network with EWBs Spain and Italy. Global Engineers: Over the past decade, universities, policy-makers and educational institutions in the U.K have increasingly adopted the term global citizen. This is partially in recognition that graduates need to have the skills and knowledge to live and work in an ever more globalised economy and society (Bourn & Hunt, 2011) Engineering undergraduates live and work in a globalised world, where technology pervades the societies in which they live. From increasingly cosmopolitan student populations, newsfeeds from various media streams and by travelling and communicating with peoples from all over the world, students are becoming progressively more aware of global issues such as climate change, sustainability, resource depletion, water scarcity and poverty alleviation, to name but a few. Despite this, the engineers role in and capacity to address each of these problems is seldom linked into undergraduate curricula. Unless students can identify themselves as these problem solvers, there is a risk of disillusionment: they are aware of global issues but can do nothing about them. (Lamb et al, 2007) It is also important to note that whilst this definition has had considerable impact within the UK in primary and secondary levels of formal education, it has been less influential within higher education, which can have the effect of stifling an existing educational route and student interest. In setting up the EWB C hallenge, Engineers Without Borders Australia recognised these student perspectives and developed a programme that brings these interests together. They have enabled UK universities to partake in order to address shared attitudes and to better equip engineers for the increasingly global challenges which they will have to solve in their professional working capacity. Within UK policy-making bodies, the term being a global citizen has emerged over the past five years, in part a response to the government drive on citizenship but also because of interest in sustainable development and response to
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globalisation and the increased global accessibility changes to which students and young people are at the forefront of(DfES 2005a, DfES 2005b). Within higher education, being a global citizen is referred to either directly or by inference in strategies by Higher Education Funding Council for England (2005) and the Higher Education Academy (HEA), in their strategies on sustainable development and internationalisation. The HEA, for example, aims to encourage curriculum development that would prepare all graduates, regardless of country of origin, to be informed, responsible citizens able to work effectively in a global, multi-cultural context (Jones, E,. 2010)
Introduction to the Challenge

The EWB C hallenge was set-up by Engineers Without Borders Australia in 2007 as a pilot scheme at the University of Queensland before expanding to other universities across the region. It is run with first year students as part of an introduction to professional engineering programme, changing the nature of the projects previously studied from hypothetical to real world problems. It was initially set up to give some exposure to engineering problems in developing communities amongst students and to encourage them to think about sustainability and appropriate design in the social and technical context of 21st century issues. The success of the program is attributed to its use of real world problems and direct contact between students and community partners. The C hallenge now reaches over 8,500 first year undergraduates at 29 participating universities in Australia and New Zealand and continues to expand. It is integrated into existing semester one and two courses for first-year engineering students. The EWB C hallenge supports a wide spectrum of core curriculum components including the following: Introduction to the engineering design process; Development communication skills via reports and presentations; Introduction to team roles, teamwork and team dynamics; Participation in a hands-on design project, including reverse engineering; and Ethical, professional and sustainability considerations in engineering practice.
The EWB C hallenge also promotes a range of key generic attributes for engineering graduates. Key attributes include: Ability to apply knowledge of basic science and engineering fundamentals; Ability to communicate effectively, not only with engineers but also with the community at large; Ability to undertake problem identification, formulation and solution; Ability to utilise a systems approach to design and operational performance;
Ability to function effectively as an individual and in multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural teams, with the capacity to be a leader or manager as well as an effective team member; Understanding of the social, cultural, global and environmental responsibilities of the professional engineer, and the need for sustainable development; Understanding of the principles of sustainable design and development; and Understanding of professional and ethical responsibilities and commitment to them.
[Adapted from King, (1996) Engineers for the future] In 2011/12, the EWB C hallenge was first implemented in the UK by Engineers Without Borders UK as part of the Global Dimension to Engineering Education project, supported and funded by DFID/UKAid. This project, comprising of partners from within the education sector such as the Engineering C ouncil, Engineering Subject C entre, Engineering Professors C ouncil and the Higher Education Academy alongside NGO partners such as Engineers Against Poverty, aimed to build the knowledge and understanding of the challenges and prospects for development amongst academic staff and enable them, through embedding global issues in the curriculum, to impart this knowledge and understanding to engineering undergraduates. The EWB Challenge was chosen as an implementation case-study as part of this wider project and as a pilot aimed to work with a few universities and several hundred students. By adopting the supported pilot programme, universities were able to fulfil specific learning outcomes required by the undergraduate degree accreditation system, including: The application of technical knowledge to the specified problem.
The development of skills in integrating sustainable development and design context into the decision making process. The development of effective communication and teamwork skills for a development context.
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In 2011/12, the challenge was undertaken by over two thousand students from the Universities of Durham, Liverpool, Sheffield, Bradford, London South Bank, Northumberland, Portsmouth, Coventry & Sheffield Hallam. Due to this success, EWB-UK has secured sponsorship for the 2012/13 & 2013/14 academic years to expand the programme to over thirty universities. For the 2012/13 academic year, additional universities such as Imperial C ollege London and Birmingham have confirmed their participation.
Establishing Partnerships working to co-create:

The EWB C hallenge enables UK HEIs and engineering undergraduates to engage with existing international EWB partner organisations to form reciprocally beneficial relationships. From the perspective of the partner organisation, the EWB C hallenge is an opportunity to create exposure for the communities in which they are based and the activities that they are undertaking in order to address local needs. By outlining design briefs that highlight and address these needs, the partner benefits by receiving an influx of ideas that can be workshopped with the community and then potentially piloted. A recent example is a floating biodigester design for a C ambodian water-based community which is now undergoing further testing and design iterations to process local waste in the area. For university academics and undergraduates, the EWB C hallenge provides one of very few opportunities for implementing a real world project overseas. The Challenge provides academics with a wealth of established and tested resources and a means of engaging with the recipient community overseas along with guest speakers to help contextualise the problems, as well as an idea-sharing and peer support platform for engaging with other like-minded academics. For students, the EWB Challenge provides the opportunity to engage with the immediacy of a real-life problem by allowing them to communicate with and make a difference in a community within their first few years of study, rather than upon graduation. The EWB C hallenge provides all three groups with the support network and necessary means to encourage a partnership that works together to develop engineering solutions to on-going global and grassroots problems.
Future of the EWB Challenge:

Within the UK, universities such as Bournemouth, Leeds Metropolitan, Leicester and University C ollege London are now promoting their institutions as promoters of global citizenship as an objective for their students. This change of emphasis is more than a marketing ploy, it is recognition of the need to develop a new conceptual framework as to the skills their graduates need. Indeed, University C ollege London defines its graduates as people who are: C ritical and creative thinkers Ambitious, but also idealistic and committed to ethical behaviour Aware of the intellectual and social value of culture difference Entrepreneurs with the ability to innovate Willing to assume leadership roles: in the family, the community and the workplace Highly employable and ready to embrace professional mobility
[Adopted from UC Ls Education for Global C itizenship (2007)] The EWB C hallenge has a global steering group to guide its development as it looks to respond to various questions such as the internationalisation of the challenge, the practicalities of working with different academic calendars and time zones, and the logistical issues involved in enabling students to work together throughout this global network. It will look to respond to both internal and external reflections on the programme, such as ways to expand to enable students to continue working with the community throughout their university career, ensuring the community benefit alongside the students by supporting further development of the students solutions, and exploring methods to turn virtual co-operation into real co-creation and implementation. .
The task of the global steering group is to work with all the partners universities, communities, students, educational bodies and partner NGOs to continue to iterate and innovate within the programme to support universities education of truly global engineers who are able to understand and solve holistic engineering problems. As the world is getting smaller and more interconnected, it is important for the University to prepare its graduate as global citizens by developing an international outlook and enhancing their global competencies in terms of attitude, language abilities, knowledge and analytical skills through our curriculum, student activities and a variety of international experiences. (Spinks, J,. 2007)
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References Bourn, D., Neal, I., (2008) The Global Engineer. Incorporating global skills within UK higher education of engineers. London. Bourn D., Hunt F., (2011) Global Dimension In Secondary Schools, Institute of Education, University of London King, R. (1996) Engineers for the future, Australian C ouncil of Engineering Deans, Epping (Australia) Lamb, A, E. Roberts, J. Kentish, and Bennett, C . (2007). Students as active global citizens. Bournemouth University, Engineering for Sustainable Futures Jones, E,. (2010) Internationalisation and the Student Voice: Higher Education Perspectives, Routledge, New York (2007) UC Ls Education for Global C itizenship http://www.ucl.ac.uk/global_citizenship/, University C ollege London Spinks, J,. (2007) HKU: Globally C onnected, Globally Respected, University of Hong Kong
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E WB- U K & E AP Research and L earning C onference 2 013 Going Global: s us tainable human development in engineering education 1 2 th A pril

G08 110/ 310

13:00 14:00 14:00 15:30

Buffet Lunch & Exhibition

Afternoon Research Panel Re-learning the rules Workshop sessions

G08 110/ 310 G06 G06 G06

Training the Global Engineer

Going Global sustainable human development in engineering education

About Engineers Without Borders UK Research and Education Programmes

The EWB-UK Research Programme

The EWB-UK Innovation Hub

The EWB-UK Education Programme

How do I become involved?

The EWB Challenge

The EWB-UK Academic Community

About the Engineers Against Poverty Research and Education Programmes

Speakers for the day

Sustainable Low Cost Rickshaw Miriam Kennedy

Objective Possibility of adverts or pictures

Appropriate road vehicle size Recyclable parts

Figure 1: CAD model of rickshaw design; modelled using SolidWorks

Figure 3: Construction of frame completed on March 21st

The Role of Structural Engineers in Disaster Mitigation Joshua Macabuag

Social Technical Environmental Economic

The Role of Structural Engineers

I nstitution: U niversity C ollege L ondon

Performance Goal Immediate Occupancy Life Safety C ollapse Prevention

Keywords: pit latrines, urine-diverting latrines, humanitarian sanitation

Haiti earthquake Case Study

Figure 2 - Female Urinal

Figure 3 - Male Urinal

Initiatives related to emergencies

increasing our effectiveness

Figure 1. Power-Interest Matrix

Stakeholder Tesco Employees

Nature of C omplaints Socio-Economic Health and Safety

Professional Trust and Ethics

Intrusion on customer privacy RFID radiation concerns

Privacy/ professional Ethics Health and Safety

C ommunity groups Environmental / Ecology Groups

Media Shareholders and top management

RFID tag manufacturers

C ost and quality issues of RFID tags

Figure 3. Stakeholder inertial map for Tesco case

Results and discussion

Outline of research to date

Intended course of action

Expandable Modular Pico-Hydro Off-Grid Networks Sam Williamson

First Generation izuba.box

Phase 1 - Synthetic Sludge Development

. The IRCWD study shows that there is a strong negative correlation

(a) Density - water content by wet mass

(b) Density - water content by dry mass

1800 1600 1400 1200 1000 800

Operation and maintenance (O&M)

Actual systems as installed in Cuajinicuil

MTTR - Mean Time To Return (days)

Availability (%) 100 80 60 40 % 20 0

10000 5000 0 2010 -5000 C$ -10000 -15000 -20000 -25000

2012 -200 -400 -600

Impact of lifecycle costs

Conclusions & recommendations

Investigation into the stabilisation of compressed earth blocks Victoria Bullen

Research Poster Papers