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Due to the university lockdown caused by COVID-19, teachers and students at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark experienced a sudden and massive change from face-to-face to distance and online teaching in spring 2020. To obtain an overview of the tools used for online teaching and the experiences gained, the department conducted a survey among its teachers. This questionnaire consisted of two key questions: “What worked well?” and “What worked less well?”. A second survey containing similar questions was conducted by the university among all students. A qualitative analysis of the empirical data generated by the surveys provides an overview of the teaching tools and methods used after the forced conversion to distance and online teaching. The analysis illuminates the strengths and weaknesses of the different teaching methods, from both teachers’ and students’ perspectives. Based on the findings, recommendations are made to support teachers as they guide students towards learning strategies that best fit the chosen teaching methods.

Reducing the use of non-renewable resources is a key strategy for transition to circular economy. Mycelium is the vegetative part of fungus which can cement particulate substrate and can be formed into any shape if grown in a mould. Mycelium biocomposites (MBs) are rapidly being seen as green alternative for many hydrocarbon-based products, including Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) used for insulation in the construction industry. This is largely due to its comparable acoustic/insulative properties, superior fire safety and minimal environmental impact. Furthermore, as MBs can utilize low cost readily available commercial waste products such as wheat husks as a composite substrate, a clear value chain upscaling can be envisioned. Throughout its linear lifecycle, EPS insulation pose numerus environmental issues, including high resource use and challenges in its end of life disposal. Even if disposed correctly it can take thousands of years to degrade, evidently making it extremely difficult to properly contain. This has resulted in bioaccumulation of toxic chemicals in food webs across the planet. Conversely, MBs are biodegradable and importantly can be used as raw material for the production of more MBs. When comparing life cycle assessment (LCA) and production, MBs are estimated to hold clear advantages in terms of reduced CO2 out put and costs. It is thus clear it holds the potential to become an ideal candidate for a “cradle to cradle” economy, in this sector. Despite these attributes, MB insulation still have evident disadvantages when compared to their hydrocarbon counterparts and could hinder its adoption on a commercial scale. These include higher density and issues with water uptake. Furthermore, there can be wide variability in material performance on the basis of which substrate composition fungal strain, incubation conditions and manufacturing techniques are used. This coupled with the relatively sparse research in this field makes full asse

In this paper we present five modularity practices across the domains of mechanics, electronics and software deduced from observations from four companies. The practices are made to help product developers of mechatronic products to assist in finding the most efficient modular division of the products. Furthermore, we present a tool to assist in cross-domain modularity decisions and to help developers follow the five cross-domain modularity practices.

One of the main challenges that maintenance organizations are facing is grouping of different equipment to be maintained together. The challenge of grouping equipment to be maintained according to the same preventive maintenance plans suffers from lack of academic and empirical studies. This study, by getting inspired from the product family and product architecture theory, will try to investigate how this theory can be used to design and develop equipment groups to reduce the complexity in developing and managing the preventive maintenance plans.

Design support can benefit practitioners, but it must be evaluated to increase the likelihood of adoption in industry. This study investigated how design support was evaluated in the papers presented at NordDesign 2018. The results indicate a skewed balance between research that understands design and research that supports it, as 65% of papers had a major focus on design support and 42% of papers introduced new support. Results also indicate a lack of evaluation and rigour in evaluation as only 44% of new support was evaluated and only half of these evaluated with intended users.

Maintenance is coming more and more into focus and in many areas maintenance costs are becoming increasingly important to running a profitable business. Performing the right maintenance is therefore important to many companies. The right maintenance is a balance of costs, impact on production, reduction of downtime, ensuring high safety and reducing environmental impact. The foundation of performing the right maintenance is an effective maintenance process. A maintenance process, as described in literature, includes identification of required maintenance; planning of the maintenance tasks; scheduling of the planned tasks; execution of the maintenance; and close-out of the maintenance job. Descriptions of the maintenance process in literature mainly follow a sequential process similar to that of sequential engineering. The sequential process is typically slow and inefficient and therefore does not support the need for running an efficient maintenance program. This paper presents a literature review that looks into how product development have met similar problems with a sequential development process and how this problem is solved through concurrent engineering. The maintenance process is analyzed through a literature review looking at different maintenance processes. The literature shows that the maintenance process is subject to large variation depending on the source, but that all the sources base their process on a sequential structure. It is also observed that maintenance is facing similar problems to the sequential product development. Based on the literature review, four initiatives for improving the maintenance process is suggested. The initiatives are based on the identified methodology from concurrent engineering. A case study is used to further understand the sequential issues in maintenance and to highlight how the initiatives can influence the maintenance process. The case study shows that implementing the initiatives gives a potential 12% cost reduc

Additive manufacturing is arguably a cornerstone of the new digital manufacturing, Industry 4.0, which holds enormous opportunities to increase operational and customer effectiveness. Additive manufacturing is also seen as a powerful enabler of circular economy (CE), which aims at reducing resource consumption while boosting business opportunities. No waste production and reduced physical inventories are just few examples of how AM could positively contribute to CE goal. This paper aims at, firstly, exploring what CE strategies can be enabled by AM, and secondly, providing examples of key sustainability aspects to be considered in early design of AM-enabled CE strategies. Our findings show that AM has a great potential in supporting a variety of CE strategies, ranging from providing recycled materials, to original manufacturing, repair and remanufacturing activities, to recycling of materials at the end of life. Furthermore, AM could play a key role in helping businesses to transform their business models and design new products. Using a database of sustainability indicators, we provide examples of key sustainability aspects to consider when planning an AM-enabled CE strategy. Consideration of sustainability aspects is important in the planning and design stage, in order to understand and subsequently measure potential contribution to sustainability. With few examples we show that there are is a need to make a case by case analysis as there is no universally best AM-enabled technology sustainability wise.

Designers’ appreciation of functional analysis and morphological synthesis and criticism regarding sub functional focus and poor innovation ability of these approaches, is the theoretical starting point of this article. Inspired by the multi-functionality of fascinating principles found in nature, this article explores how multi-functionality is handled in engineering design. Using a multi-functional case, findings suggest searching for multi-functional solution principles and that minor changes to the FM-tree could support designers in assessing a product’s complexity degree.

QC 20190528

According to Schön [1] professional knowledge is to a high degree based on tacit knowledge. For university teachers, tacit knowledge includes knowledge about what works – and what does not work - when teaching a specific class of students a specific subject in a specific context. However, it is important to make tacit knowledge explicit for at least two reasons: Firstly, for the individual teacher it may support a more conscious linking of observations and experiences from own teaching practice to general principles of teaching and learning. This linking could enable a systematic analysis and development of own teaching in order to improve student learning [2]. Secondly, it is also beneficial to make one’s tacit knowledge explicit in order to discuss teaching and learning with other persons, e.g. during peer coaching of less experienced colleagues, or collaboration on teaching development with colleagues. This unfortunately seldom takes place and leaves teachers in a limbo of solidarity. Therefore, the authors have developed a board game for university teachers to articulate and share their reflections on teaching and learning in a collective process. The game consists of a board and a deck of cards, where each card contains a statement related to teaching and/or learning. The purposes of the game are to support a team-oriented approach to teaching and thereby to strengthen communities of teaching practices [3], i.e. to develop groups of colleagues, who acknowledge the individual team members’ different ways of teaching and how a manifold of teaching practices fertilises the students’ building of skills, competences and attitudes towards becoming professional engineers.The game has been played at two international engineering education conferences, at an annual education day at a university abroad, and at several faculty meetings at the authors’ university. Data have been collected on the selection and ranking of cards. These represent the players’ reflections on te

Oceanic dissolved organic carbon (DOC) is an important carbon pool, similar in magnitude to atmospheric CO2, but the fate of its oldest forms is not well understood1, 2. Hot hydrothermal circulation may facilitate the degradation of otherwise un-reactive dissolved organic matter, playing an important role in the long-term global carbon cycle. The oldest, most recalcitrant forms of DOC, which make up most of oceanic DOC, can be recovered by solid-phase extraction. Here we present measurements of solid-phase extractable DOC from samples collected between 2009 and 2013 at seven vent sites in the Atlantic, Pacific and Southern oceans, along with magnesium concentrations, a conservative tracer of water circulation through hydrothermal systems. We find that magnesium and solid-phase extractable DOC concentrations are correlated, suggesting that solid-phase extractable DOC is almost entirely lost from solution through mineralization or deposition during circulation through hydrothermal vents with fluid temperatures of 212–401 °C. In laboratory experiments, where we heated samples to 380 °C for four days, we found a similar removal efficiency. We conclude that thermal degradation alone can account for the loss of solid-phase extractable DOC in natural hydrothermal systems, and that its maximum lifetime is constrained by the timescale of hydrothermal cycling, at about 40 million years3.

A company's product strategy and its management of the product development process have been found to be key factors for a product's success on the market. Project managers of development projects need support to make process decisions and defining goals that are consistent with the business's goals while bearing in mind the ability of the development team to deliver a product to the market that satisfies the customer’s expectations and needs. Uncertainty is a part of the product development project’s nature, which according to Simon is ill-structured, explorative and pragmatic. In product development projects it is desirable to reduce the level of uncertainty in order to make decisions without having to redo them later in the project resulting in longer lead time and higher costs. It is the project manager’s responsibility to manage this uncertainty in a complex ever-changing project environment. However, this research shows that there is unnecessary uncertainty in planning and controlling decisions when project changes occur. The uncertainty is manifested in not considering performance aspects of the project and the product in a wider organisational context. Visualization and clarification of decision situations and consequences is rarely used in practice and structured reasoning about project and product performance when making decisions is also rare. In order to enhance the project managers’ understanding of decision-making in product development projects, the objective of this paper is to propose a mindset for clarification of decision situations when changes has occurred. The proposed mindset is supposed to aid project managers when handling project changes by reducing complexity in project planning and supporting the articulation of uncertainties., xpres