#RESEARCH PROJECTS
Robotics for the Disabled (Part 1: Eating) It is conceivable that an appropriate robotic workstation
can play a major role in providing long periods of independence, which
in turn will lead to improved quality of life, for people who are disabled.
This proposed research is aimed at providing tools that will aid the disabled
in performing specific tasks. The robots role is to perform, under the
command of a disabled person, computer-controlled mechanical actions that
he or she could not readily accomplish unaided. A novel method that integrates
voice recognition with a Computer-Aided Design (CAD) system is proposed.
The voice commands, through the CAD-system, are linked to a robotic manipulator
arm. The integration will produce an environment for controlling robots
graphically through voice recognition. The voice commands will be translated
into solid models that will appear on the screen. Once the user is satisfied
with the computer model, a command to start motion can be issued. K.
Abdul-Malek. (Supported by URB).
Robot-assisted surgery for the insertion of screws in vertebral pedicles The proposed research is aimed at initiating a drive towards
the field of robot-assisted surgery at AUB. Sixteen years of civil war
have left the Lebanese population with many disabled individuals and a
great need for orthopedic surgeons. Robot-assisted surgery is a fast-evolving
field that requires a multidisciplinary collaboration well-suited for the
AUB environment. The research is a collaboration between three investigators
in different departments. It is believed that significant funding research
can be secured upon the establishment of a physical setup of the proposed
research. Pedicle screw insertion has been chosen due to the high number
of failures and morbidity rates associated with the manual insertion of
screws into the spine. K. Abdel-Malek, R. Haidar and F. Mrad.
(Supported by LNCSR.)
Robotic dental simulator This research is aimed at the development of a dental simulator
for education purposes. A robot mechanism held to a probing tool, provides
a user with the enough reactions to simulate probing on a real tooth. The
workstation comprises a robot manipulator arm, a computer controller, a
monitor, and a mannequin, which enables the dental student to simulate
dental work with sufficient accuracy. The workstation is aimed at providing
a standardized bed for educational use, testing, and research. Different
scenarios of enamel and tooth deformities can be simulated. K. Abdel-Malek,
L. Johnson*, V. Goel* and C. Squier*. (Supported by the University
of Iowa and others.)
Experimental and numerical study of refrigerant-charged heat pipe solar collector A two-phase heat pipe solar collector will be designed using
a refrigerant as the working fluid. The heat pipe contains fluid under
a pressure that permits evaporated vapor on the solar exposed part to fill
the core of the pipe and travel to the water-cooled side. The vapor condenses
on the cold side and the condensate will travel back to the hot side by
gravity and surface tension. The unit will be fabricated locally and its
performance will be evaluated under various conditions including collector
pipe and inclination, the presence of glass cover and fluid pressure in
the heat pipe. A model of the process and a simulation program will be
developed to allow a parametric study of the unit performance under local
solar conditions. The program results will be verified by the experimental
data. The unit would fit very well with solar absorption space cooling
systems with the heat pipe replacing the heating coil of the generator.
N. Ghaddar. (Supported by LNSCR.)
Energy conservation code for practice for buildings in Beirut Energy conservation measures on buildings have a significant
role to play in reducing the burden of the energy bill on the Lebanese
economy. The residential sector is one of various sectors that energy measures
can be applied to. Such measures include the use of insulation materials,
double-glazed windows, shading, efficient air-conditioning systems, economical
lighting and reduction of infiltration rates. It is demonstrated through
detailed energy analysis of typical residential and office buildings that
strict conservation is beneficial on the micro and macro economic levels.
A code of practice is suggested to establish acceptable standards for energy
use in residential buildings and ranking is done of energy measures based
in economical indices. N. Ghaddar. (Supported by LNSCR.)
Numerical study of heat transfer augmentation of flow in corrugated channels Convective heat transport in corrugated channels will be investigated
using a time-dependent direct formulation in conjunction with the spectral
element method. The convective range is to cover laminar and transitional
regimes. The corrugated channel is a common heat exchanger configuration
in which the flow impinges on the wall and is deflected by the corrugation.
The thermal boundary layer is interrupted by flow separation and at sufficiently
high Reynolds numbers self sustained oscillations may be induced. The gains
in the heat transfer are usually accompanied by increased losses of mechanical
energy in the flow. The practical utility of this approach will depend
on design constraints such as pressure drop or pumping power needed to
sustain the flow. The purpose of the present work is to study the heat
transfer characteristics, the flow patterns in laminar and transitional
regions and the flow conditions for the onset of self-sustained oscillatory
flow. Performance comparisons between corrugated channel behavior and parallel
plate channel will be highlighted for design of heat transfer equipment.
N. Ghaddar. (Supported by URB.)
Modeling and simulation of heating and cooling of building using solar energy absorption systems An analytical study is performed on solar energy utilization
in space cooling of a small residential application using a solar lithium
bromide absorption system. A simulation program for modeling and performance
evaluation of the solar-operated absorption cycle is done for all possible
climatic conditions of Beirut. The results have shown that for each ton
of refrigeration it is required to have a minimum collector area of 23.3
m² with an optimal water storage tank capacity ranging from 1000 to
1500 liters for the system to operate solely on solar energy for about
seven hours a day. The monthly solar fraction of total energy use in cooling
is determined as a function of solar collector area and storage tank capacity.
An economic assessment is performed based on current cost of conventional
cooling systems. It is found that the solar cooling system is marginally
competitive only when combined with domestic water heating. N. Ghaddar.
Abdel-Malek, K., Graphical interface for robot. Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing, 12 (30), 288, 1996. , Criteria for the locality of manipulator arm with respect to an operating point. IMEChE Journal of Engineering Manufacture, 210 (1), 385-394, 1996. Abdel-Malek, K., and Yeh, H.J.*, Determining intersection curves between surfaces of two solids. Computer-Aided Design, 28 (6-7), 539-549, 1995. , Geometric representation of the swept volume using Jacobian rank-deficiency conditions. Computer Aided Design, 29 (6), 457-468, 1997. , Analytical boundary of the workspace for general three degree-of-freedom mechanisms. International Journal of Robotics Research, 16 (2), 198-213, 1997. , On the determination of starting points for parametric surface intersections. Computer-Aided Design, 29 (1), 21-35, 1997. Darwish, M., Diab, H., and Moukalled, F., An education two-dimensional interactive dynamic grid generator. International Journal of Mechanical Engineering Education, 24 (4), 279-290, 1996. Darwish, M. and Moukalled, F., The normalized weighting factor method: A novel technique for accelerating the convergence of high-resolution convective schemes. Numerical Heat Transfer, Part B, 30 (2), 217-237, 1996. , A new route for building skew-upwind schemes. Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering, 129, 221-233, 1996. Ghaddar, N., Effect of rotating cylindrical heat source position in rectangular enclosures on natural convection heat transfer. Journal of Thermophysics and Heat Transfer of American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 10 (2) 303-312, 1996. Ghaddar, N. and Al-Maarafie, A.M.*, Study of charging of stratified storage tanks with finite wall thickness. International Journal of Energy Research, 21, 411-427, 1997. Ghaddar, N., Shihab, M. and Bdeir, F., Performance of solar absorption systems for space cooling in Beirut. Renewable Energy Journal, 10 (4) 539-558, 1997. Haug, E.J.*, Abdel-Malek, K., Yeh, H.J.* and Adkins, F.*, On the determination of boundaries to manipulator workspaces. Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing, 13 (1), 1-15, 1996. Moukalled, F., The efficiency at maximum power output of endoreversible engines under combined heat transfer modes. IJMEE, 24 (1), 25-35, 1996. Moukalled, F. and Acharya, S.*, Natural convection in the annulus between concentric horizontal circular and square cylinders. AIAA Journal of Thermophysics and Heat Transfer, 10, (3), 524-531, 1996. Moukalled, F. and Darwish, M., A new bounded skew central difference scheme, Part I. Formulation and testing. Numerical Heat Transfer, Part B, 31 (1), 91-110, 1997. , A new bounded skew central difference scheme, Part II. Application to natural convection in an eccentric cavity. Numerical Heat Transfer, Part B, 31 (1), 111-133, 1997. Moukalled, F., Darwish, M. and Acharya, S.*, Influence of wall conduction on mixed convection heat transfer in externally finned pipes. Numerical Heat Transfer, Part A, 28, (2), 157-173, 1995. , Laminar mixed convection heat transfer in externally finned pipes. Journal of Enhanced Heat Transfer, 3 (1), 29-42, 1996. Moukalled, F. and Honein, A., Computer aided analysis of the Pelton wheel. International Journal of Mechanical Engineering Education, 23 (4), 297-314, 1995. Moukalled, F. and Nuwayhid, R., The efficiency at maximum power output of a carnot engine with heat leak. International Journal of Mechanical Engineering Education, 23, (2), 157-165, 1995. Moukalled, F., Nuwayhid, R., and Fattal, S., A universal model for studying the performance of carnot-like engines at maximum power conditions. International Journal of Energy Research, 20, 203-214, 1996. Moukalled, F., Nuwayhid, R., and Lakkis, I., Transient thermal performance of axially and radially diluted nuclear fuel cells. Numerical Heat Transfer, Part A, 28 (2), 231-252, 1995. , Transient thermal performance of a radially diluted and centrally cooled nuclear fuel cell. Numerical Heat Transfer, Part A, 28 (6), 687-705, 1995. Moukalled, F., and Nuwayhid, R., and Nouehed, N., The efficiency of endoreversible heat engines with heat leak. International Journal of Energy Research, 19 (5), 377-389, 1995. Nuwayhid, R., Ayoub, G., Saba, E. and Abi-Said, S., The solid waste management scene in greater Beirut. Waste Management and Research, 14, 171-187, 1996. Nuwayhid, R. and Goddard A.*, The potential gas-cooled reactor development. International Journal of Energy Research, 19 (9), 761-789, 1995. Zou, H. L.*, Abdel-Malek, K. and Wang, J. Y.*, Computer-aided-design using the method of cut-joint kinematic constraints. Computer Aided Design, 28 (10), 795-806, 1996. , A variational approach for the design of the spatial
four-bar mechanism. Mechanics of Structures of Machines, 25 (1),
41-59, 1997.
ABSTRACTS, PROCEEDINGS AND CONFERENCES Abdel-Malek, K., Dexterity of manipulator arms at an operating point. Proceedings of the Twenty-First American Society of Mechanical Engineers Advances in Design Automation, DE 82 (1), 781-788, 1995. , An off-line graphical environment for programming robots. Proceedings of American Society of Mechanical Engineers International Computers in Engineering Conference, 1, 491-499, 1995. Abdel-Malek, K., McGowan, D.* and Goel, V. K.*, A novel registration method for robot-assisted surgery. Proceedings of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, 1996. Abdel-Malek, K. and Yeh, H. J.*, Workspace of serial four degree-of-freedom manipulators. Proceedings of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Twenty-Fourth Biennial Mechanisms Conference, Irvine, California, USA, 1996. Darwish, M. and Moukalled, F., Objective-FVM: an object oriented finite volume program. LAAS First International Conference on Computer Simulation, 56-62, Beirut, Lebanon, September 1-4, 1995. , A new method for accelerating the solution of flow problems discretized using high-resolution schemes. International Association of Science And Technology Development, International Conference Modelling and Simulation, 349-352, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, April 25-27, 1996. Ghaddar, N., and Nuwayhid, R., Natural convection loop in transverse magnetic field. Thirty-Second American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronotics (AIAA) Conference of Thermophysics and Heat Transfer, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, June 23-25, 1997. Liu, J.F.* and Abdel-Malek, K., The problem of scheduling parallel computations of multibody dynamic analysis in NP-Hard. Proceedings of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Twenty-Fourth Biennial Mechanisms Conference, Irvine, California, USA, 1996. Moukalled, F. and Darwish, M., A novel technique for constructing skew very high resolution schemes. Finite Volumes for Complex Applications, Problems and Perspectives, 209-216, Rouen, France, July 15-18, 1996. Moukalled, F., Darwish, M. and Doughan, A., Laminar mixed convection heat transfer in concave channels. LAAS First International Conference on Computer Simulation, 455-461, Beirut, Lebanon, September 1-4, 1995. Yeh, H.J.* and Abdel-Malek, K., Workspace of a Gimbal with joint limits. Proceedings of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Twenty-Fourth Biennial Mechanisms Conference, Irvine, California, USA, 1996. Zou, H.L.*, Abdel-Malek, K. and Wang, J.Y.*, Numerical formulation for computing design propagations of the spatial slider-crank mechanism. Proceedings of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Twenty-Fourth Biennial Mechanisms Conference, Irvine, California, USA, 1996. , Kinematic sensitivity analysis of the spacial four-bar mechanism. Proceedings of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Twenty-Second Design Automation Conference, Irvine, California, USA, 1996. , Computing an assembled configuration for the McPherson
Strut suspension systems. Proceedings of the American Society of Mechanical
Engineers Twenty-Fourth Biennial Mechanisms Conference, Irvine, California,
USA, 1996.
Abdel-Malek, K., Graphical Interface for Robot, US Patent
Number 5,511,147 (1996).
Bdeir, F., Modeling and simulation of cooling of buildings using solar absorption systems (1996). Advisor: N. Ghaddar. Doughan, A., Mixed convection heat transfer in convex and concave channels (1996). Advisor: N. Ghaddar.
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