The NZ Geothermal Workshop, held in Taupo this year, had a higher attendance and number of presentations than in the past, and presented a very positive vibe for the geothermal industry overall. A number of delegates from the AGGAT team also attended this conference from both HERA and University of Auckland. The AGGAT team members…
Research aim 1-2 materials knowledge base research and 1-3 geothermal scaling and corrosion The AGGAT Materials Research Group has successfully completed a Hazard and Operability (HAZOP) Study on the Materials Test Rig scheduled to go onsite in December 2015. The meeting had all its key stakeholders present which was a very fruitful outcome, considering the complexity…
The New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering and the Australian Earthquake Engineering Society co-hosted the Tenth Pacific Conference on Earthquake Engineering (PCEE 2015) in Sydney, Australia. The conference was held between 6 and 8 November 2015, and was very well-attended by a mixture of practitioners and researchers from around the world. The keynote presenters at…
Auckland University of Technology mechanical engineering final year project HERA is proud to award the 2015 HEERF engineering prize to Maxine Aldred from Auckland University of Technology’s (AUT) engineering school for her project on alleviating the troubles of sleep apnoea. A respiratory condition where a person will experience a cessation of breathing while asleep due to…
Following the establishment of the New Zealand National Group of the International Association of Bridge and Structural Engineering (IABSE), Structural Systems General Manager Dr Stephen Hicks attended the IABSE Conference in Geneva in September 2015. The conference objective was ‘Providing Solutions to Global Challenges’, which was underpinned by following global themes: Climate Change and the…
The ASME Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) Conference 2015 held in Brussels, Belgium this year was the third consecutive conference of its kind and takes place every two years. A total of 214 submissions for presentation were received for this conference of which 142 were accepted, 53 of them in poster presentations. The conference attracted more…
Research aim 1-4 – heat transfer performance data Heat transfer test rig design and data (critical step 1-4-1/2-2-1) A test rig design for heat exchanger performance investigation has been completed and now undergoing review with our industry partner. The rig will use a temporary heat resource and has been configured to allow testing in two…
The HERA Annual General Meeting took place as part of last month’s Metals Week and the members of the 2015/16 HERA Executive were confirmed. The terms of elected members Peter Hutton, Sean Gledhill, David Moore, and John Frear ended with the AGM. Peter Hutton, David Moore and John Frear were re-nominated and willing to stand…
This month, we update you on our research themes of Heat Transfer and Materials/Fluids undertaken in the AGGAT programme. One of the Research Aims under Materials and Fluids is RA1-3 – Geothermal Fluid Scaling and Corrosion, led by AGGAT team member Dr. Sadiq Zarrouk (University of Auckland). The other theme of Heat Transfer has two Research…
The annual ArchEng workshop continues to go from strength to strength, thanks to co-operation with industry associations such as HERA. A CCANZ initiative that began in 2011, it expanded this year to involve the timber and steel sectors. Now that all three major building materials, concrete, steel and timber, are involved, ArchEng is poised to…
The Aotea Event Centre was a well selected venue to the second Steel Innovations Conference during Metals Week held on the 1 – 4 September. First launched in 2013, the biannual Steel Innovations Conference provides a forum for structural engineers, steel industry representatives, academics and students to share the latest knowledge in the design and…
New Zealand’s structural steel fabricators are showing strong support for the industry’s recently launched quality assurance scheme – Steel Fabricator Certification (SFC) – an initiative designed to ensure safety of fabricated structural steelwork. One year on, the number of firms who have achieved SFC certification has doubled to 16, with a double-digit number of fabricators lining up…