Younger Members Papers Evening 2006

A successful Younger Members’ papers evening was held at the OpTIC Technium centre at Glascoed, St Asaph on Wednesday the 18 January. Five members presented short papers to an audience whose number approached thirty individuals. Two prizes of £250 were offered for the best two papers of the evening as judged by a panel of three WN IEE members. Brief details of the presenters, their backgrounds and their lecture topic are:-

1. Alireza Ahmadi

Ali is studying for a BEng Electronic and Electrical Engineering, (final year) at University College London.

His talk outlined Var input and system loss problems with a wind farm in North Wales and gave details of system network analysis work that identified the contributing factors to increased Var input and real power reduction. The work included identifying potential ameliatory actions including using the local hydro station for voltage control.

http://www.iee.org/OnComms/Branches/UK/Wales/NorthW/Ali.pdf

Yara Arjona

Yara hails from Mexico City and has an Honours degree in Chemical Engineering (UNAM University Mexico). She studied reactor design in the University of California Santa Barbara, USA. and worked two years in the paints and coatings industry (Polymer Research Centre Mexico). She is presently studying for a PhD at The University of Wales Bangor based on novel reactively processed polymer films for sensors and devices.

Her talk centred on ink jet printing technology, a technique that is familiar as a method of printing text and images onto paper. She confirmed how in the last few years, it has been used as a free-form fabrication method for building parts layer-by-layer and confirmed the growing interest in the fabrication of multilayer parts and circuits using this technology. Yara described how ink jet printing is a method that has been explored as a way of printing electrical and optical devices and outlined the future work that needs to be done to achieve the manufacture of high-quality materials.
http://www.iee.org/OnComms/Branches/UK/Wales/NorthW/Yara.pdf

3. Ian Golightly

Ian graduated with an MEng degree in Electronic Engineering from the University of Wales, Bangor in 2002. He received an undergraduate bursary from the Nuffield Foundation and an IEE undergraduate scholarship and is now completing his PhD studies in methods for visual servoing, which was funded by EPSRC.

Ian’s presentation described the problems of inspecting electricity distribution lines, and the proposal to use an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) for this purpose. The UAV would capture video showing the condition of the lines, which could then be used for asset management and for scheduling maintenance.

http://www.iee.org/OnComms/Branches/UK/Wales/NorthW/Ian.pdf

Sam Hubbard

Samantha is a Process Control Technicianwithin the Automation Engineering Department at UPM-Kymmene UK, Shotton Paper Company, Deeside. She commenced an instrumentation cum electricalapprenticeship with her employer in 1993 working her way up to promotion to process control technician status in 2004. During her training and subsequently she gained an ONC, HNC and BEng(Hons) in Computer & Control Engineering as well as an HND in Engineering & Management. Sam successfully combines her career with those personal responsibilities of a wife and mother.

Sam described a successful project that she had personal and hands on responsibility for executing that had the objective of improving the control of the pulper system for Winder 1 at Shotton by bettering the control of stock being pumped back to the paper machine. Improvements arising from the modifications were assessed and were shown to be more than cost effective. Work continues to optimise the application.
http://www.iee.org/OnComms/Branches/UK/Wales/NorthW/Sam.pdf

Geoff Murphy

Geoff is a graduate of the University of Liverpool having obtained a 2.1 B.Eng in Integrated Engineering with Industrial Management following an Instrument Technician apprenticeship at Shell’s Stanlow Oil Refinery. He is currently a Sir Joseph Whitworth Scholar and is 16-months into a 2-year graduate engineer training scheme with ScottishPower.

Geoff described work he is undertaking in relation to the extension and reinforcement of the low voltage distribution network of the Kenyan town Mpeketoni in order to provide every premise with a point of supply. Work involves specifying changes to overcome voltage drop issues that currently restrain the network. The work also includes the design of an 11kV network to link the town with an out of town combined diesel/wind generation site. This was carried out as a project on the ScottishPower engineer graduate training scheme.

http://www.iee.org/OnComms/Branches/UK/Wales/NorthW/Geoff.pdf

The two best papers judged on content, clarity and delivery were deemed to be by Yara Arjona and Sam Hubbard who both received cheques for £250 – well done ladies. The three runners up were awarded £50 each in recognition of their competent and worthwhile efforts.

The WN IEE committee were pleased with the result of this session as the winners highlighted two important issues. First the two best papers came from different ends of the engineering spectrum – an academic/research background and a hands-on production engineering background. Secondly the fact that two lady engineers presented these papers can only augur well for the increasing number of woman entering the Profession.

D.W.Riches Chair IEE NWales