Civil Engineering

Tech Talk – Innovation of Originality for Solving Sand Shortage Crisis around the World including Hong Kong

Innovation Wing Two, TechTalk / By

Sand is the most exploited raw solid material in the world and used for construction of buildings, roads, railways, bridges, tunnels and beaches. It is also used to make the glass and silicon chips. The annual consumption for use in glass, concrete and construction materials has reached 50 billion tones, which is extremely high. Consequently, according to United Nations’ reports, the world is facing a shortage crisis of sand, as one of the greatest sustainability challenges of the 21st century. Such sand shortage crisis around the world has affected the use of sand in Hong Kong since Hong Kong does not produce any sand and all the sand used in Hong Kong is imported from Mainland China. In this Teck Talk, Professor Yue will present his technological innovation of originality. His innovation can solve this global sand shortage crisis. More importantly, his innovation can provide a stable supply of quality sand for construction and industry and offer new raw material resources for developing new industry in Hong Kong. Professor Yue has discovered that the local ordinary soil in Hong Kong can be converted into the materials of sand and clay. The sand is silica sand and mainly quartz mineral. The clay is mainly kaolinite mineral. Both materials can be used as the raw solid materials in construction and other industry. Professor Yue will demonstrate that his technical innovation is simple, environmental-friendly, sustainable and cost-effective and can be applied to many places around the world for producing quality sand materials.

Tech Talk – Membranes for Water and Beyond

Innovation Wing Two, TechTalk / By

Membrane separation technology is increasingly used for water and energy related applications. Pressure-driven membrane processes, such as microfiltration (MF), ultrafiltration (UF), nanofiltration (NF), and reverse osmosis (RO), have received great attention, fueled by the increasing needs for water purification, wastewater treatment and reclamation, and seawater desalination. In parallel, many novel membranes and membrane processes are being developed. In this TechTalk, Prof. Chuyang Tang will share his personal journey in the amazing membrane world. He will highlight some of his previous and ongoing research works covering topics on water reuse, seawater desalination, resource recovery, energy production, and beyond.

Tech Talk – Cold-formed Stainless Steel Structures under Concentrated Bearing Loads

Innovation Wing Two, TechTalk / By

The application of stainless steel (SS) as an alternative construction material has been developing in the last decade. SS construction has an outstanding structural performance, excellent corrosion resistance, and long-term durability. Moreover, the SS construction has a relatively low maintenance cost with possibility of a longer occupancy period, and thus it promotes sustainability in the construction industry. In combination with the cold-forming technique during the fabrication process, SS structures offer additional strength and a faster construction speed. However, the available international design standards for cold-formed stainless steel (CFSS) structures have not been developed thoroughly, specifically on the strength prediction of a member under concentrated bearing loads, which causes a web crippling. Therefore, a series of laboratory testing and computational simulations were conducted in this research to evaluate the existing design standards. The reliability analysis shows that the available strength predictions in the design standards are not safely used even though they are conservative. This research proposes new strength predictions that are safe and conservative, and it can be used for an improvement of the design standards.

Tech Talk – Re-understanding of Active Volcanoes

Innovation Wing Two, TechTalk / By

The conventional understanding of active volcanoes is based on the theory of hot magma (molten rock) from mantle. Although this magma theory has been widely believed in Earth Science, the prediction of volcano eruption can be incorrect. For example, the recent massive eruption of the Tonga Hunga volcano was not predicted. The devastating eruption of the Mount Ontake volcano in Japan on Sept. 27, 2014 was also not predicted and/or warned at all, consequently caused 55 fatalities, 9 missing and more than 60 injured.

In this Tech Talk, Professor Yue will present his re-understanding of active volcanoes using his methane gas theory. This methane gas theory of active volcanoes is original and can interpret all the observed phenomena associated with active volcanoes. It can be used to correctly predict and effectively reduce the occurrence of damaging volcano eruptions. It can be further used to obtain the huge amount of natural gas resources from gas chambers of active volcanoes at several kilometers below the ground rocks