Campus Tree-Planting at AUM on World Sustainability Day

On 25 October 2023, AUM organized a Campus Tree-Planting activity to celebrate the World Sustainability Day. Faculty members who demonstrated a profound dedication to sustainability on AUM campus participated in this activity with a determination to plant more seeds into the campus green area and add more trees to the existing trees already planted on campus.

This activity extends beyond campus tree planting, it promotes environmental awareness among the community and supports the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities, and SDG 13: Climate Action. 

Sustainable Village

AUM collaborated with SLB to host The Sustainability Village on November 9 and 10, 2022. A sustainability mini walk-through experience linked with a number of the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals and local sustainability goals. The purpose behind the project is to showcase the importance of these topics to the modern-day Kuwaiti Household.

The project consists of three main booths: Electricity Consumption Booth, Waste Management Booth, and Health and Wellbeing Booth; and are all designed in an interactive way that would encourage individuals to participate and experience how sustainability can make a difference in their lives.

In cooperation with slb... our students had an interesting experience yesterday in slb sustainability village ♻️

Its aim is to raise awareness of the concept of sustainability. Those who attended the event will be present today after 🤩 from 3 o'clock, towards the Lake, we are waiting for you.

World Sustainability Day

Who would have imagined that the paper used could turn into masterpieces! 🎨

AUM students celebrated World Sustainability Day by participating in a workshop where they learned how to recycle used paper and turn it into paintings. ✨

Upcycling Workshop – Plastic to Plant

AUM launched an upcycling workshop series as part of its efforts to teach students about waste management, recycling, and responsible consumption.

The first series of workshops was titled “Plastic to Plant” and comprised two sessions on the first week of December and another two sessions on the second week of the same month so both groups of students can attend, while taking all the necessary health and safety precautions.

The workshop started with an informative session about recycling, upcycling, the negative effects of waste on the environment, and the sustainable development goals. Different ideas about what kind of wastes can be upgraded into something artistic and have real usage were discussed during the workshop.

During the session, students learned how to give life to used plastic bottles by turning them into plant pots. Students enjoyed creating a pot from the plastic, designing the water bottle, and adding soil and a plant to it.

After the workshop, students hung the plants on a designated wall on campus.

Selected Award-winning student projects on SDG13. Climate Action

Carbon dioxide capture from flue gas emissions using green separation agents - Won the third prize in AUM Innovation Day Event in Spring 2023 & Won the third prize in Chemical and Petroleum Processing Category, 10th Undergraduate Research Competition 2023, Abu Dhabi, UAE

The increase in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions has been a leading cause of the global crisis that has been taking place. Therefore, the capture, storage, and utilization of CO2 have been widely studied recently. However, most of the available CO2 sorbents that are used in the industry are not eco-friendly. The purpose of this project is to develop a preliminary design of a CO2-capturing plant that uses chitosan as a green sorbent. The process is designed to capture CO2 from flue gas that is released from Al-Sabiya power plant in Kuwait, which has approximately 10 mol% of CO2. The designed CO2-capturing process uses adsorption technology for capturing the CO2, and it is capable of capturing around 2,473 kg/h of CO2 per cycle and with a purity of 100%. The captured CO2 will be liquefied and stored in tanks for the ease of transportation and utilization. In this project, material and energy balances calculations were performed to obtain material quantities and the required power for all units. Detailed design and sizing are performed for all main units in this process to ensure that the units used perform efficiently, consume minimal energy, are safe, and cost-effective. Finally, material of construction selection and capital cost estimation are done for the main units in the process. The capital cost of major equipment in this process is approximately 4.5 million USD, which was estimated using the module factor approach. As for the future work of this project, we aim to perform lab-scale experiments on developing chitosan for higher CO2 capturing capacity and to be able to use software modeling like Aspen Adsorption to simulate the CO2 capturing process.

Design Optimization and Fabrication of Hub and Spindle Assembly In Solar Car - Conference paper published in “The 33rd CIRP Design Conference”

Vehicle exhaust is a major contributor to pollution and global warming. To generate mechanical energy, most vehicles' motors burn fossil fuels through a chemical process. As a result of this reaction, many diseases and environmental problems result. To move vehicles, engineers are looking at alternative energy sources, such as solar power which generates electric power from the sun's rays. As part of this concept, mechanical engineering students will build a solar car to compete in world challenges. Mechanics students have already built the solar car chassis. This project focuses mainly on the design of wheel assemblies, specifically the front wheel uprights. These components are crucial to steering, suspension, and brakes, which connect the steering system, suspension system, and brake system to the chassis. They are responsible for steering, riding, reliability, and durability of the vehicle. Manufacturing the right effectively follows the engineering design process. The following chapters provide an introduction, a problem definition, a comprehensive literature review, concepts and evaluations of design, simulations of design, optimum design, project management, and future work. Following the evaluation of the first concept, the second concept was selected, and then further simulations were conducted to obtain the best design features through DOE. In the end, Aluminum 6061-T6 proved to be the most durable material for the upright; the FOS generated for the spindle was 5.5 and the mass was 1085.72 grams, while for the hub the FOS was 3.2 and the mass was 731.45 grams.

Analysis and Design of An Optimum Powertrain for An Electric Battery Vehicle for AUM Campus Shuttle Service - Conference paper published in 8th World Congress on Mechanical, Chemical, and Material Engineering (MCM'23) and won “Best Paper” award. Extended version of the paper published in Journal of Fluid Flow, Heat and Mass Transfer

In order to achieve both high performance and a longer driving ranges, conventional automobiles rely on fuels supplied from petroleum. However, there are certain drawbacks to consider, such as poor fuel economy and emissions of exhaust gas that contribute to the pollution of the environment. To this end, there has been a recent rise in interest in electric cars. The purpose of this paper therefore, is to analyze and design an optimum powertrain for an electric battery vehicle for AUM campus shuttle service. The history of electric cars as well as academic studies on the subject have both been covered in this paper. Additionally, the benchmark of five different electric golf carts, including Xunhu, Lgao, Zhongyi, Suzhou Eagle, and Autopower, has been investigated as part of this research. After that, the design parameters of the best possible model of an electric golf cart were produced. In order to assess the selected design in relation to other designs already on the market, a quality function deployment (QFD) diagram has been designed. The proposed study involves, the selection design and optimization of an EV to be used in the American University of the Middle East (AUM) campus considering the main objective is to complete the daily tasks within a single charge. A longitudinal EV model is generated in MATLAB/Simulink, a benchmarking vehicle is selected and parameter optimization for battery capacity and final drive ratio (FDR) is performed. The final design has 19.9 % less battery capacity and 7.901 second 0 – 25 kph vehicle acceleration duration, 17.86 % less than the original configuration. The results of this study will be used for the autonomous driving car development project.