4TU.Stan Ackermans Institute’s PDEng trainees present solutions for industry and healthcare
With the 4TU.Stan Ackermans Institute (SAI), the universities of technology have been offering a 2-year postgraduate course for some years. Excellent master students are trained as technological designers and are given the title 'Professional Doctorate in Engineering,' abbreviated to PDEng. Annually a project book is published with some appealing design assignments that trainees do at a company. This spring the Project Book 2019 was published.
Curriculum
In the first year of the program trainees follow a continuous curriculum, which consists of courses , workshops, and group and/or practical assignments. The most important part of the program comes in the second year. The trainees will carry out an in-company design assignment. The aim is to demonstrate how the knowledge gained is converted into innovative business solutions for industry or healthcare. These sample projects are collected in an annual project book.
A few highlights in the Projectbook 2019:
Samsung – program Design of Electrical Engineering Systems
Almost one in six couples experience infertility problems. In-vitro fertilization (IVF) can be perceived as the most advanced assisted reproductive technology, which in Europe is the last resort for more than 2.5 million couples that experience infertility problems. Although the failure rate of the treatment remains very high, there is no method available yet for characterization of the uterine activity outside pregnancy. In collaboration with Samsung and two hospitals, PDEngs are aiming to implement a measurement tool based on ultrasound speckle tracking and strain analysis. The tool can help clinicians with making the decision between transferring an embryo or not.
Brainport Smart District – program Smart Buildings & Cities
The Netherlands is under increasing pressure to become a natural free gas country, in which heating based on renewable energy source is essential towards a sustainable future. Smart Districts, such as Brainport, are seen as powerful examples of how society can reduce the dependency on fossil fuels. Brainport is also a great place to implement a new heating system that might change the world’s perspective on sustainable development. The projectteam developed a design approach to select the most suitable renewable heating system which is now being used in Brainports’ decision-making process.
Dow Benelux B.V. – program Process and Product Design
Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of this era – all industries must reduce their carbon footprint to limit global warming. In order to meet the Paris Agreement, Dow Terneuzen aims, by 2050, to have cut their CO2 emission by more than 80%. The PDEng project provides a long-term strategy towards achieving this goal, but large modifications and investments are required. A computer model has been developed and used to compute over 20 million scenarios for reduction of CO2 emission. The result of the project is a recommendation for the best technologies for CO2 reduction and a planning on how to implement these.
More information on PDEng: www.4tu.nl/sai