How environmental engineering can be relished with GIS?

Introduction

Geographic Information System (GIS) is one of the geospatial technologies that are enthralling the globe with their scientific stewardship and shrewdness. GIS is a deluxe technology that succors geo-mapping, environmental modeling, temporal update of the globe, achieving geographic scenarios insights, spatial data exploration, environmental data formulation, and cost analysis of the projects. GIS is suitable for every field that comes under the domain of environmental engineering. GIS gathers and saves the required environmental information which can be used to reveal selected angle of a particular situation to solve a given problem. Applications of GIS are discussed according to the location of environmental issues i.e. environmental issues that are related to air, water, and land.          

Air

The filthiness of the atmosphere can be sensed by every being living on the planet’s face. Whether it is the urbanization, the industrialization, the cottage industry advancement, or the traffic increment, it is adding more and more to the air pollution. All of it is upsetting wildlife, human life, and well being and aesthetics of the environment. GIS can be used to map the air pollution, to model the spatial configuration of the pollution, and to assess extent of the air pollution temporally. 

Water

The same factors that impact unfavorably health of the air are also offensive to the fresh water ways and water bodies. GIS can be nimbly used to inspect landscape characteristics data to evaluate water quality, collect data for assisting remediation of pollution, manage water treatment procedures, oversee natural and anthropogenic processes that disturb water catchments, make a practicable land use management plan, store spatial and temporal data of water resources, and map environmental phenomenon with in water bodies.  

Wastewater treatment can be efficiently done using GIS when it is used to calculate treatment costs, decide amongst the treatment alternatives, model wastewater transport data, improve the pumping of wastewater, and map successive treatment processes. 

Land

One of the utmost sources of environmental degradation on land is solid waste. Be it municipal, industrial or hazardous, it is totally messy. It pollutes the land, the water ways, and the atmosphere. GIS can be used to plan and map solid waste collection, segregation, transportation, and dumping system. GIS can also be used to estimate distances to landfill, map landfill location and land slope, plan optimal routes from source to disposal, and recommend a suitable disposal site.          

Conclusion

If and when the field of environmental engineering is equipped with GIS, it can sense the aptitude of GIS while making life refining environmental decisions. GIS is unequivocally an expedient and technical tool for environmental studies, applications, and research. Not only students and institutes can get benefit of this technology but also environmental decision makers, managers, developers, and even lay person can be benefited from it. GIS is expected to demonstrate more of its abilities in future there by saving money, labor, and time of its users. GIS when incorporated into environmental engineering research and projects can illustrate its technical benefits. Environmental engineering can then be understood, solved, and displayed in an enhanced style.  

References

Aspinall R, Pearson D. J Environ Manage. 2000; 59: 299–319p.

Crooks AT, Castle CJE. In Heppenstall AJ, Crooks AT, See LM, et al. (Eds). Agent–Based Models of Geographical Systems. Netherlands: Springer; 2012; 219–51p.

Goodchild MF, et al. Environmental Modeling with GIS. New York: Oxford University Press; 1993.

Written by,

Engr. Ayesha Alam Khurram

Modern Engineering Ceramic and its uses you didn't know

Introduction

Ceramic is a solid material which is made from the mixture of processed clay, water, and inorganic earthen elements.  This mixture is shaped in mold then hardened by firing it in specialized oven called kiln. After this process, ceramic becomes a rigid material that is high in strength. Ceramic is non-metallic, it has high melting point, and poor electrical conductivity.¹ Ceramic has diverse range of uses like in pottery, toilets, constructions, tiles, and in places where thermal and electrical insulators are required.

Ceramic Vase

Modern Engineering Ceramic

In today’s world ceramic is not restricted to plates, glasses and bricks but there are many engineered ways to use ceramic. Modern engineering ceramic has applications in but not limited to electronics, automobiles and airplanes, medical surgeries, paint industry, music industry, and earthquake monitoring.     

Advantages and Drawbacks of Engineering Ceramic

One engineered application of ceramics is ceramic brake pad.² The advantage of using it over other materials is that it doesn’t stick to the wheels and doesn’t produce much dust. The drawback of using this type of brake pad is that it is expensive and can result in deterioration of brake rotor. Ceramic is used in surgeries also.³ The use of ceramic in surgeries doesn’t require revision procedure in many cases. But for replacement of a hip joint, there can in rare cases be failure when there are ceramic implants. A type of ceramic, called ceramic microsphere is proposed to make environmental friendly paint that also makes the paint anticorrosive.⁴ These ceramic paints are very expensive.  

Loud speakers are essential for parties, live shows, hangouts, cinemas, beaches or even for a person alone in the home. Engineered ceramic is a part of loudspeakers. It is fixed in the loudspeakers as piezoelectric ceramic ring.⁵ This type of ceramic ring is fixed into ultrasonic motor of the loudspeaker that allows the loudspeaker to be used where large amplitude or high volume of speaker is required. This property makes the loudspeaker outstanding for a joyous occasion. However, for ceramic loud speakers a high voltage is required as compared to other speakers

            Earthquake accelerometers that are used to measure seismic activity are essential to detect earthquakes.  A ceramic material which is called ceramic substrate was used to make a model of earthquake accelerometer.⁶ This model showed how to enhance the sensitivity of the earthquake accelerometer. This accelerometer had working limits under specified temperatures and stresses.

Image

Conclusion

Ceramic is a strong material that is made from clay. Nowadays, the use of ceramic is not limited to kitchen pots, plates, knifes, construction bricks, tiles, and toilets but it has find its way to many engineered products and gadgets.  Its engineered applications include components of computer, parts of vehicles and aircrafts, surgeries and transplants, and earthquake engineering apparatus. There are more pros of engineering ceramic than cons. Cons are basically related to expensiveness of ceramic but if the product is working without wearing out for a longer time period as compared to other materials then it can be used preferably . 

Notes

1.      Madsen, L. D., and A. A. White. 2014. “Investments in Ceramic Science, Engineering

and Education for Sustainability by the U.S.A. National Science Foundation.” Journal of Electroceramics 32(1): 60-65.

2.      Krenkel, W. 2002. “Design of Ceramic Brake Pads and Disks.” In 26th Annual

Conference on Composites, Advanced Ceramics, Materials, and Structures, Florida, 2002, 319-330. Florida: The American Ceramic Society. 

3.      D’Antonio, J. A., W. N. Capello, and M. Naughton. 2012. “Ceramic Bearings for Total

Hip Arthroplasty Have High Survivorship at 10 Years.” Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research® 470(2): 373-381.

4.      Deyá, C., B. del Amo, and R. Romagnoli. 2012. “Ceramic Microspheres to Improve

Anticorrosive Performance of Phosphate Paints.” Ceramics International 38(4): 2637–2646.

5.      Ohga, J., H. Negishi, I. OOHIRA, H. Saito, K. Oishi, and K. Maeda. 2013. Loudspeaker

for Low Frequency Signal Driven by Four Piezoelectric Ultrasonic Motors.” Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics 19(1): 1-8.doi: 10.1121/1.4799232. 

6.      Ramini, A., K. Masri, and M.I. Younis. 2013. “Electrostatically actuated resonant

 switches for earthquake detection .” In Mechatronics and its Applications, 9th International Symposium, Amman 2013, 1-7. Amman: IEEE. 

Bibliography

D’Antonio, J. A., W. N. Capello, and M. Naughton. 2012. “Ceramic Bearings for Total Hip

Arthroplasty Have High Survivorship at 10 Years.” Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research® 470(2): 373-381.

Deyá, C., B. del Amo, and R. Romagnoli. 2012. “Ceramic Microspheres to Improve

Anticorrosive Performance of Phosphate Paints.” Ceramics International 38(4): 2637–2646.

Krenkel, W. 2002. “Design of Ceramic Brake Pads and Disks.” In 26th Annual Conference on

Composites, Advanced Ceramics, Materials, and Structures, Florida, 2002, 319-330. Florida: The American Ceramic Society. 

Madsen, L. D., and A. A. White. 2014. “Investments in Ceramic Science, Engineering and

Education for Sustainability by the U.S.A. National Science Foundation.” Journal of Electroceramics 32(1): 60-65.

Ohga, J., H. Negishi, I. OOHIRA, H. Saito, K. Oishi, and K. Maeda. 2013. Loudspeaker for Low

Frequency Signal Driven by Four Piezoelectric Ultrasonic Motors.” Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics 19(1): 1-8.doi: 10.1121/1.4799232.  

Ramini, A., K. Masri, and M.I. Younis. 2013. “Electrostatically actuated resonant switches for

earthquake detection .” In Mechatronics and its Applications, 9th International Symposium, Amman 2013, 1-7. Amman: IEEE.

    

 Written by,
Engr. Ayesha Alam Khurram