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Aquaponics, one of the vertical farming methods, is a combination of aquaculture and hydroponics. To enhance the production capabilities of the aquaponics system and maximize crop yield on a commercial level, integration of Industry 4.0 technologies is needed. Industry 4.0 is a strategic initiative characterized by the fusion of emerging technologies such as big data and analytics, internet of things, robotics, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence. The realization of aquaponics 4.0, however, requires an efficient flow and integration of data due to the presence of complex biological processes. A key challenge in this essence is to deal with the semantic heterogeneity of multiple data resources. An ontology that is regarded as one of the normative tools solves the semantic interoperation problem by describing, extracting, and sharing the domains’ knowledge. In the field of agriculture, several ontologies are developed for the soil-based farming methods, but so far, no attempt has been made to represent the knowledge of the aquaponics 4.0 system in the form of an ontology model. Therefore, this study proposes a unified ontology model, AquaONT, to represent and store the essential knowledge of an aquaponics 4.0 system. This ontology provides a mechanism for sharing and reusing the aquaponics 4.0 system’s knowledge to solve the semantic interoperation problem. AquaONT is built from indoor vertical farming terminologies and is validated and implemented by considering experimental test cases related to environmental parameters, design configuration, and product quality. The proposed ontology model will help vertical farm practitioners with more transparent decision-making regarding crop production, product quality, and facility layout of the aquaponics farm. For future work, a decision support system will be developed using this ontology model and artificial intelligence techniques for autonomous data-driven decisions.

Industry 4.0 promises to increase productivity and flexibility for the manufacturing industry, which translates into greater customer value and lower costs. Lean manufacturing has long championed principles and tools with a focus on value adding activities, elimination of waste and continuous improvement. Even the most successful lean manufacturing firms, in terms of efficiency and quality achieved through waste reduction, will acknowledge there is a lot of opportunity for improvement. This review evaluates how lean principles can support Industry 4.0 in pursuit of greater customer value and manufacturing excellence. Leveraging the opportunities that exist within Industry 4.0 umbrella of technologies can help to further reduce the nine wastes of lean. While large corporations have access to extensive capital markets and can capture economies of scale offered by leading edge technologies of Industry 4.0, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) with greater capital restraints face the challenge of justifying Industry 4.0 technologies and cannot risk being at the bleeding edge of technology. Using a case study of a small electronics manufacturing firm, the opportunities, challenges, and the implementation strategy for technology are examined. This paper finds that SMEs pursuit of process efficiencies and waste reduction can be best achieved through a focus on foundational digitalization & data management then taking a stepwise approach towards the cyber-physical systems of Industry 4.0.

Recent advances in manufacturing research have set the stage for the industrial integration of zero-defect manufacturing strategies, aiming towards a more sustainable production paradigm. A systematically deployment guideline to implement zero-defect manufacturing is needed to transform the future cyber-physical factory floor. This paper describes a novel framework based on a well-known cyber-physical architecture that provides advanced information analytics, robust information flows, and data acquisition systems that support defect detection and prediction introduces repair technologies and sets up procedures for preventive maintenance. Through continuous inspection of product and equipment status during the manufacturing process, raw quality and tool health data from different sources is used to obtain key performance indicators. Statistical tools such as cross-correlation are then applied to quantify underlying relationships between product quality specifications and equipment health. The resulting correlations are then used to reduce non-conformance of products manufactured by implementation of preventive maintenance. A unified implementation for zero-defect manufacturing cyber-physical processes eases their integration in future Industry 4.0 facilities and validated in the context of offsite construction manufacturing of steel frame assemblies.

Digital twin (DT) is a virtual mirror (representation) of a physical world or a system along its lifecycle. As for a complex discrete manufacturing system (DMS), it is a digital model for emulating or reproducing the functions or actions of a real manufacturing system by giving the system simulation information or directly driven by a real system with proper connections between the DT model and the real-world system. It is a key building block for smart factory and manufacturing under the Industry 4.0 paradigm. The key research question is how to effectively create a DT model during the design stage of a complex manufacturing system and to make it usable throughout the system’s lifecycle such as the production stage. Given that there are some existing discussions on DT framework development, this paper focuses on the modeling methods for rapidly creating a virtual model and the connection implementation mechanism between a physical world production system at a workshop level and its mirrored virtual model. To reach above goals, in this paper, the discrete event system (DES) modeling theory is applied to the three-dimension DT model. First, for formally representing a manufacturing system and creating its virtual model, seven basic elements: controller, executor, processor, buffer, flowing entity, virtual service node and logistics path of a DMS have been identified and the concept of the logistics path network and the service cell is introduced to uniformly describe a manufacturing system. Second, for implementing interconnection and interaction, a new interconnection and data interaction mechanism between the physical system and its virtual model for through-life applications has been designed. With them, each service cell consists of seven elements and encapsulates input/output information and control logic. All the discrete cells are constructed and mapped onto different production-process-oriented digital manufacturing modules by integrating logical, geometric and data models. As a result, the virtual-physical connection is realized to form a DT model. The proposed virtual modeling method and the associated connection mechanism have been applied to a real-world workshop DT to demonstrate its practicality and usefulness.

Currently, damage identification and localization in remanufacturing is a manual visual task. It is time-consuming, labour-intensive. and can result in an imprecise repair. To mitigate this, an automatic vision-based damage localization method is proposed in this paper that integrates a camera in a robotic laser cladding repair cell. Two case studies analyzing different configurations of Faster Region-based Convolutional neural networks (R-CNN) are performed. This research aims to select the most suitable configuration to localize the wear on damaged fixed bends. Images were collected for testing and training the R-CNN and the results of this study indicated a decreasing trend in training and validation losses and a mean average precision (mAP) of 88.7%.

In this study, turbulent flow characteristics of CuO-water nanofluid through heat exchanger pipe enhanced with louvered strips are numerically investigated. Nanoparticles volume fraction (ϕ) varied from 0 to 2%. The louvered strips are mounted in single and double geometries. The slant angle (θ) and the Reynolds number (Re) are within 15° − 25° and between 5000 and 14,000, respectively. (RNG) k − ϵ model is employed based on the finite volume technique. The results illustrated that strong flow disturbance between the wall and the louvered strip is the main reason for turbulent kinetic energy increment. Besides, the nanoparticles improve the thermophysical properties of the working fluid, which results in better heat transfer. The Nu number increases 15.6% by using nanofluid instead of water at Re = 14000. The highest thermal enhancement parameter of 1.99 is obtained at Re = 14000 by using double perforated louvered strip with θ = 25°. The recirculating flow inside the holes can significantly improve the thermal performance.

Composite materials due to their high strength to density characteristics are widely used in aerospace, automotive, marine applications etc. Recent developments in Additive Manufacturing processes and materials have enabled the manufacture of end-use functional components. This paper investigates the fatigue behaviour of composite parts processed Additive Manufacturing (AM) process Continuous Fibre Fabrication reinforcement (CFF) method. There are existing data for static material properties however they are only a few published papers on the fatigue performance of parts processed by CFF additive manufacturing. This study investigates by physical and digital simulation, the fatigue life of 0, 2, 4, 6, 8 layer carbon fibre reinforced Nylon ASTME606M test samples. This research has determined design for fatigue guidelines for additively manufactured composite materials, for both for the low and high cycle applications.

Capillary pressure is frequently measured to evaluate the shrinkage performance of concrete but has been limited to pressures

Waste, Energy and Transport are three of the main sectors of the human society. The three sectors have substantially been studied in their individual right and there is a plethora of literature available on them individually and also collectively in varying combinations. For instance, Waste to Energy is a well-established field, and so is the energy usage by the transport sector. However, there is an extreme knowledge gap in connection to energy being generated by incinerating waste in order to propel the means of the transport be it in air/aviation, terrestrial/automobile and locomotives or water/marine vessels. The paper focuses on this knowledge gap, thereby, aiming to create theoretical models of this concept. Therefore, the core nature of this study is conceptual. Relevant secondary data is drawn from the existing literature in the form of numbers and graphs to quantitatively establish the state of each of the three sectors before being joined together into a new nexus called Waste to Energy for Transport and abbreviated as WET Nexus. An account of challenges as well as benefits is outlined regarding the possibility of replacing the consumption of fossil fuel by waste-to-energy i.e. a kind of ‘on-board’ waste incineration to propel maritime vessels and also supply energy to ‘on-board’ built environments. Thus, killing two birds (transport and waste) with one stone (energy). The paper also touches upon innovative insights and future research potentials in terms of how maritime transport being driven by energy-from-waste instead of fossil fuels, can improve environmental sustainability; help climate emergency agendas and; also contribute to the Climate Action, which is one of the seventeen SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) introduced by the UN (United Nations).

Remanufacturing as well as quality improving innovations are important activities to improve sustainability. However, when coexisting in one company, their interaction is not clear. On the one hand, past research found a positive impact of remanufacturing on product quality. On the other hand, remanufacturing was shown to be negatively affected by an industry’s technology trajectory of quality improvements. Using a stylized model of endogenous product quality improvement and remanufacturing we find that the main driver of the contradicting results is the change in manufacturing costs caused by improving product quality. A strong increase in manufacturing costs due to product quality improvement may induce the firm to take up remanufacturing when introducing the new product. Conversely, a small impact of product quality improvement on manufacturing costs reverses this effect and may indeed lead the firm to cease remanufacturing when introducing the new product. We find that the latter outcome is never beneficial from an environmental point of view, while the former always is. With endogenous product quality improving innovation we then characterize conditions where a remanufacturing manufacturer would take a different product quality improvement decision than a non-remanufacturing manufacturer. We observe that remanufacturing stifles (stimulates) product quality improvement when manufacturing cost of quality improved products are low (high). Neither of the two results are exclusively beneficial or detrimental from an environmental perspective and we characterize the conditions under which product quality improvement is preferable.

Growing concrete consumption has gradually depleted conventional resources. This research incorporates silicomanganese (SiMn) slag, marine sand and seawater as alternative concreting materials. The use of SiMn slag to replace limestone as coarse aggregate enhances sustainability, though reducing strength and durability of concrete. This research aims to enhance the SiMn slag concrete by incorporating silica fume (SF) and fly ash (FA). The interaction of SF and FA on strength, durability and workability of concrete is investigated by statistically evaluating the experimental result. In this regard, the polynomial function prediction model is developed using the Response Surface Method (RSM) for the optimization of SF and FA contents. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) using p-value at significance level of 0.05 showed that the models were statistically significant and had marginal residual errors. All models had high fitness with R 2 value ranging from 0.853 to 0.999. Adequate precision of models was above 4, indicating that the models had a low prediction error and were fit for optimization. Optimization indicated that a combination of 11.5% SF and 16.3% FA produced concrete that met the optimization criteria. Experimental validation showed that the highest prediction error was 3.4% for compressive strength , 3.2% for tensile strength , 4.9% for sorptivity and 18% for chloride permeability. The optimized concrete exhibited compact microstructure with good bonding between aggregate and cement paste . By using the established linear equation with SiMn slag concrete, the models also predicted the compressive strength of limestone concrete containing SF and FA with an error of between 0.9% and 5.4%.

With the ever-increasing growth of electric vehicles (EV)s in the power industry, their significance as a flexible load has increased drastically. On the other hand, uncontrolled charging of these vehicles can cause serious problems in the grid, such as a peak in demand, a decrease in the life expectancy of transformers and as a result, an increase in charging costs of EVs for the EV owners. In this paper, a framework for day-ahead optimal charging of EVs is proposed which through optimization of active and reactive power exchange at each time interval, could prevent the problems mentioned above and at the same time increase the benefit of EV owners and network operators simultaneously. Furthermore, taking into account the effective factors on electrical energy consumption of EVs and the driving pattern of their owners, a route mapping algorithm is developed based on the proposed framework, so as to provide the EV owners with better services. The simulations are carried out using a hybrid interior-point optimization approach, based on traffic and geographic data collected from the city of Kowloon and a standard IEEE 33 bus system is used. The simulation results show that integrating optimal charging of EVs with a route mapping algorithm into the proposed framework can reduce the loss costs of the network during the hours of EVs’ presence in the framework and the selling price of electricity to EV owners by 24.93% and 33.6%, respectively in comparison with the uncontrolled mode. Also, the average life expectancy of power transformers is increased by 2.97% in the optimal charging mode compared to the uncontrolled mode.

This paper reports significant enhancement of corrosion resistance and electrical properties of waterborne epoxy coatings through additions of ceria modified graphene. Results showed that ceria particles were uniformly distributed and covalently bonded onto the surface of graphene. A dense interface layer was formed between the ceria modified graphene and epoxy matrix by aliphatic ether bonds. The composite coating with a modified graphene content of 0.5 wt% exhibited the best corrosion resistance with the highest impedance modulus (e.g., 103 Ω cm2 for the damaged coating) and the lowest corrosion rate (e.g., 0.002 mm/year). The excellent corrosion resistance of the composite coating is related to the barrier effect of graphene and the inhibition effect of ceria on metal corrosion. Moreover, the coating showed a low percolation threshold of 0.231 vol% and its electrical conductivity reached 10−5 S/m when the content of modified graphene was 0.5 wt%.

The foundry industry provides near net shape metal casting for a wide range of industries, producing components in ferrous and non-ferrous metal castings in a range of sizes from miniature items as small as zips to large castings such as ships' propellers.\ud \ud The sand casting process has changed little over centuries, except for incremental improvement in materials and mechanisation of the process, the fundamental process being that of sand compacted around a pre-manufactured mould pattern which is then removed to cast the metal. For mass production stage this is both efficient and economical, however during development and prototyping production stages the requirement for mould production tooling, the design constrained production method means this stage is often a major bottleneck in new product development.\ud \ud Additive manufacturing has been used to manufacture sand moulds for metal sand casting using laser sintering and sand bonding process without the need for tooling. This research focuses on optimisation of the build parameters for additive manufactured sand print bonded mould tools specifically for automotive aluminium castings.\ud \ud The approach taken in this research is to evaluate characteristics of casting produced and relates to the permeability, dimensional accuracy, tensile and compressive crush strength, density, impact strength and high temperature resistance of the mould tool produced. These properties are required to compare the 3D Sand Printing (3DSP) process to traditional Furan based casting sand mixtures. The automotive turbo charger casing was used to validate the build parameters optimisation process.\ud \ud This research would be of interest to designers and manufacturing engineers wishing to take advantage of the implications of having new design freedom, tool-less manufacturing with short lead times in a wide range of materials using fundamentally tried and tested foundry industry casting techniques. This research has demonstrated 3DSP process has the capability to manufacture sand patterns to permeability, accuracy, tensile and compressive strength comparable to traditional sand casting process.

This work aims to employ fused deposition modelling 3D printing to fabricate immediate release pharmaceutical tablets with several model drugs. It investigates the addition of non-melting filler to methacrylic matrix to facilitate FDM 3D printing and explore the impact of (i) the nature of filler, (ii) compatibility with the gears of the 3D printer and iii) polymer: filler ratio on the 3D printing process. Amongst the investigated fillers in this work, directly compressible lactose, spray-dried lactose and microcrystalline cellulose showed a level of degradation at 135°C whilst talc and TCP allowed consistent flow of the filament and a successful 3D printing of the tablet. A specially developed universal filament based on pharmaceutically approved methacrylic polymer (Eudragit EPO) and thermally stable filler, TCP (tribasic calcium phosphate) was optimised. Four model drugs with different physicochemical properties were included into ready-to-use mechanically stable tablets with immediate release properties. Following the two thermal processes (hot melt extrusion (HME) and fused deposition modelling (FDM) 3D printing), drug contents were 94.22%, 88.53%, 96.51% and 93.04% for 5-ASA, captopril, theophylline and prednisolone respectively. XRPD indicated that a fraction of 5-ASA, theophylline and prednisolone remained crystalline whilst captopril was in amorphous form. By combining the advantages of thermally stable pharmaceutically approved polymers and fillers, this unique approach provides a low cost production method for on demand manufacturing of individualised dosage forms.

This paper reports the development of a quantitative analysis system for selecting a greener and economically sustainable wind farm at the early design stage. A single wind turbine produces a limited amount of carbon emissions throughout its lifecycle. By taking a broader view, such as wind farms, collectively such an application would have a greater impact upon the environment and cost. Recent research on wind farms tends to focus on wind flow modelling to enable accurate prediction of power generation. Therefore, this paper presents a quantitative approach to predict a wind farm's lifetime (i) carbon emissions and intensity; (ii) potential energy production; (iii) return on investment and (iv) payback time from an early design perspective. The overall contribution of this work is to develop a quantitative approach to enable the selection of ‘greener’ designs for reducing the environmental impacts of a wind farm with hub heights between 44 m and 135 m while still considering its economic feasibility assessment. This newly developed system could potentially be used by top-management and engineers of wind turbine manufacturers and wind energy service providers for cleaner energy provision.

Organic compounds, often used in cement systems as admixtures, may affect the crystallisation and carbonation kinetics of Ca(OH)2, an important phase of hydrated cement. Here, we investigated changes in Ca(OH)2 morphology in the presence of 3 organic compounds, commonly encountered in cement and lime-based materials: sucrose, pectin and calcium lignosulfonate. The additives were introduced either before or after lime slaking to determine the influence of temperature. Ca(OH)2 crystals and supernatant solutions were characterised at time of slaking and after 6 months of ageing using scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and optical emission spectroscopy. Our results indicate that the morphology of Ca(OH)2 crystals is modified by the characteristics of the organic molecules which promote formation of Ca(OH)2 with habits that can result in faster carbonation, an effect that is detrimental to cement used in reinforced concrete. These effects are enhanced when the additives are introduced before slaking, likely as a result of thermal degradation.

The adverse effects of hostile marine environment on concrete structure have inevitably resulted in huge economic loss and may contribute to catastrophic failure. Concrete is susceptible to weathering, particularly under wetting-drying action (WDA), although its current state of the art is well established. The diverse characteristics of WDA at different site locations have compromised the reliability of laboratory works. The objective of this study is to review the impact of WDA on concrete and to provide an overview of the research trend, aiming to identify the research gap. Concrete deterioration mechanisms in marine environment in respect of WDA are identified. The influential factors of WDA are analyzed. The physical and mechanical properties and corrosion resistance of concrete exposed to WDA are discussed. WDA aggravates concrete deterioration by hastening intrusion of inimical compounds such as chloride, sulphate and carbon dioxide. Chloride convection zone can be expanded by two to three times to cause a significant concrete cover loss. Physical damage of concrete starts with efflorescence staining, followed by mortar delamination, aggregate detachment and concrete spalling, leading to loss of mechanical properties. The use of mineral admixtures such as fly ash and silica fume improves concrete resistance against corrosion, but its refining effect may lead to over-accumulation of chloride, risking the long-term durability. Limited research works are identified on synergy between physical and chemical deteriorations, validation of simulated experiment, volume expansion, mass change and tensile strength of concrete.

Large scale Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) is a growing area of interest within AM, with several unresolved problems: the volumetric cost of materials is high, the printing process is slow and low cooling rates result in unstable or sagging structures. This paper presents the concept of additive manufacturing via tube extrusion (AMTEx) as a means of overcoming these issues. Using hollow tubes in place of solid extrusions means material use is reduced and cooling properties are vastly improved, allowing spans in excess of 400 mm without sag. Conventional freeform extrusion relies on the use of six-axis robots to orientate the extruder nozzle tangentially to the toolpath. It was found that slight pressurisation of the inside of printed tubes allowed extrusion at more than 90° from the nozzle axis without tube collapse. Aside from reducing the possibility of robot-print collisions, this also allows the use of traditional 3D printing slicing software to generate printer toolpaths. It also opens the potential to use conventional three-axis machines, greatly increasing the applicability of printing with tubes. AMTEx tubes were found to be stronger under tension and bending compared to equivalent FFF parts and had significantly improved ductility.

For a paper manufacturer to remain competitive and sustainable, they must be able to manufacture at a low production cost with minimum resource consumption. One such approach to reduce manufacturing costs and take environmental issues into consideration could be the adoption of recycling and repurposing of waste paper. However, recent recycling research to address both environmental and economic challenges is predominately focused on the mechanical or electrical and electronics sectors. As the paper industry and consumers produce a large amount of waste paper, this lack of research highlights an important knowledge gap in the field of study. This article reviews the extent to which waste paper can be reused through recycling and repurposing. As a result, a cost modelling approach has been developed to predict cost fluctuations under different manufacturing constraints. The overall contributions of this research are: (i) identification of testing scenarios and parameters in waste paper; (ii) methods of recycling and repurposing cost modelling. A case study has been used to validate the method and based on the proposed approach, senior management of paper manufacturers could potentially achieve the best result to prevent unexpected costs and therefore maximise waste paper reuse.

The need for high quality machining of composite materials is rising due to the increased utilisation of these materials across several applications. This paper presents experimental findings of orthogonal cutting of unidirectional glass fibre reinforced plastic (UD-GFRP) composites using HSS single-point cutting tools. Key process indicators including cutting forces, chip formation and surface integrity were evaluated. Full factorial design is employed with fibre orientation, depth of cut, cutting speed and rake angle as process control variables. Fibre orientation and depth of cut were found to be the most significant factors affecting the investigated responses. Lower cutting forces and better surface quality were obtained at 0o fibre orientation and lower depth of cut. Cutting at 45o fibre orientation generated extremely damaged surfaces with relatively high average surface roughness values and should be avoided in practical applications.

This paper describes the development of a quantitative analysis system as a platform for rapidly estimate energy, costs and carbon emission to facilitate the comparison of different wind turbine concept designs. This system aimed specifically at wind turbine manufacturing processes due to the fact that a large proportion of the environmental, costs and energy impacts would occur at this stage. The proposed method supports an initial assessment of multiple design concepts which allows the selection and development of a “greener” wind turbine. The developed system enables concept design of commercial wind turbine towers of hub heights between 44 and 135 m. The method supports an accurate estimation in regards to the dimension, energy consumed, maximum power output, costs and carbon emission in the early design phases of a wind turbine. As a result of the development, the proposed approach could potentially be used to minimise the carbon footprints of major engineering projects such as wind farms.

Power consumed in metal cutting is typically converted into heat near the cutting tool edge. Cutting fluids are then provided to a cutting zone in order to improve the tribological characteristics of machining processes and to dissipate the generated heat. The use of conventional cutting fluids however has lately been questioned due to the adverse impact on the environment and human health. Therefore, trends are directed to various alternatives such as vegetable oils (VOs). VOs offer a combination of good biodegradability and high lubricity, eco-friendly and compatibility with additives, low toxicity and volatility, high flash points and high viscosity indices. This paper details preliminary experimental results when turning Ti-6Al-4V. The impact of VO-based cutting fluids, cutting tool materials and working conditions were investigated. Two sets of experimental plans were designed comprising 25 and 27 tests with analysis of variance (ANOVA) employed to evaluate the effect of process variables on Ra and tool flank wear. In general, surface roughness Ra ranged between 0.56μm and 1.81μm and statistical analysis showed that the main contributing factor for Ra is feed rate having a high Percentage Contribution Ratio (PCR) of 94.4%. Noticeable increase in tool tip flank wear was recorded when higher cutting speeds were used.

This paper presents an experimental study on the development of masonry block with Palm Oil Fuel Ash (POFA) as a partial replacement to cement whilst maintaining satisfactory properties of masonry block. The dosages of POFA are limited to 0%, 20%, 40% and 60% by mass of the total cementitious material in the masonry block. The experiments on masonry block investigate the compressive strength and the breaking load for mechanical properties and water absorption and efflorescence for its durability. The compressive strength and the breaking load of the masonry blocks reduce with increasing percentage of POFA replacement. However, it satisfies the requirements of Class 1 and Class 2 load-bearing masonry block according to Malaysian Standard MS76:1972. In terms of durability of the masonry block, water absorption for all the masonry blocks satisfies the requirement of ASTM C55-11 and there is no any sign of efflorescence on all the masonry blocks. POFA based masonry block are also found to be cheaper than the cement sand masonry blocks. The experimental studies indicate that POFA based masonry block has a significant potential for application in the construction industry.

This paper reports on the investigation of an excavator mounted dust suppression system for demolition and construction activities. Ever increasing pressure is placed on contractors to improve their environmental performance, especially dust emissions. Current methods of dust suppression have been investigated and each of the methods has also been critically analysed to determine their advantages and disadvantages. The investigation also examined the requirements of such a system and a concept system proposal was produced. A working prototype has been constructed for a mini excavator complete with a hydraulic breaker. The proposed system was rigorously tested in various configurations to determine its efficiency and effectiveness in comparison with current suppression techniques. The resulting benefits such as the reduction of water usage and cost are highlighted.

The structural and electrical properties of a low resistivity CuAlMo thin film resistor material were investigated. The thin films were grown on Al2O3 and glass substrates by direct current (dc) magnetron sputtering. The key electrical properties of sheet resistance, temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR) and resistance stability were investigated as a function of sputtering pressure and post-deposition heat treatment time and temperature. A low sputtering pressure range of 0.13 to 0.40 Pa produced CuAlMo films with sheet resistance in the range 0.1 to 0.2 Ω/□ and resistance stability of 0.45 to 0.65% with a TCR of − 90 ppm/°C which could be shifted to zero following annealing in air at 425 °C. Films grown at higher sputtering pressures of 0.53 to 0.80 Pa had increased sheet resistance in the range 0.4 to 0.6 Ω/□ and inferior stability of 0.8 to 1.7% with a more negative TCR of − 110 to − 180 ppm/°C which could not be shifted to zero following annealing. The stability of the films grown at 0.13 and 0.40 Pa could be further improved to < 0.25% with heat treatment, due to the formation of a protective aluminium oxide layer. A minimum dwell time of 3 h at 425 °C was required to stabilise the films and set the electrical properties.

Project Knowledge Management is regarded as a field of increasing importance for both researchers and organisations. This led Volvo Technology, the innovation business unit within a Swedish automotive multinational corporation, to explore through a qualitative case study how Project Knowledge Management could be improved to support knowledge sharing between projects within the organisation. The current situation of Project Knowledge Management is described through a developed theoretical framework and with input from thirteen semi-structured interviews conducted and analysed in an iterative fashion. The description shows that the contributor employs the codification strategy to share knowledge with other projects while the receiver adapts a personalisation strategy to retrieve knowledge from other projects. This description was analysed and compared with current research through brainstorming. Since there are current initiatives within the organisation to improve the codification strategy, this research focuses on improving the personalisation strategy. The recommendation was to promote Communities of Practice. Six semi-structured interviews were conducted to evaluate the relevance of the recommendations. The recommendation was found to be relevant for improving Project Knowledge Management within Volvo Technology. © 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of IPMA