TU213A / TU219A Civil Engineering (Sustainable Infrastructure)Project Handbook | TU Dublin

4. ASSESSMENT

4.1. Total Mark

Your final thesis mark will be based on a continuous assessment of your performance in your project work and on the quality of the various assessable submissions. A total of 30 ECTS credits are assigned to the project. Marks will be awarded for thesis structure, written and visual presentation, scope and coherence of literature review, methodological approach/rationale, knowledge and understanding, critical analysis, conclusions and ability to communicate and defend all aspects of the project during the interviews. The thesis defence will confirm a pass or fail of the thesis.

The following illustrates a typical breakdown of marks for each component:

Interim Reviews (literature review – first interim report, oral presentation) (15%)
Structure and quality of written material (15%)
Understanding, design and execution of the project (35%)
Conclusions, critical analysis and contribution to knowledge (35%)

4.2. Assessment Procedures & Marking Sheet

Your thesis is marked by your supervisor and at least one other assessor. The marking sheet is in Appendix A. Your supervisor will confer with the other examiner to comment on your initiative and conduct during the project and highlight any extenuating circumstances, such as equipment failure or other factors outside your control that should be taken into consideration. Your oral presentations will be marked by all staff members who attend the presentation.

4.3. Assessment Criteria

Thesis assessors look for a substantial research effort, clearly expressed oral interviews, well-written reports showing competency and initiative.

The areas of interest to assessors include:

Literature review; relationship between past work and present research.
Logical development of theory, understanding of limitations of any assumptions and experimental apparatus.
Clear, well-labelled diagrams, tables and equations.
Logical approach to the project work and the thesis presentation.
Clear referencing of previous work.
Concise, clear discussion of results and recommendations.
Comparison of experimental results with theory, where possible.
Evidence of initiative (this may be indicated by the Supervisor).

Oral assessments will be held at the university in-person and carried out by the academic staff in attendance.

They will look for:

logical presentation,
clarity of speech and explanation,
effective use of visual aids and
depth of knowledge.

Expectations for thesis marks are explained below.

A thesis considered to be consistent with a mark > 70% will show evidence of excellence in terms of;

awareness of previous developments in the subject area;
clarity of expression of aims and outcomes of the project;
original theoretical development and/or experimental design;
use of rigorous or innovative methodology;
logic and insight in discussion of the results
standard of written English, organisation and format of the thesis.

The presentation will be highly professional and answers to questions will indicate a mastery of the subject. The oral presentation will be clear and audible, and make appropriate use of high quality visual aids.

A thesis considered to be consistent with marks 60% to 69% will show evidence of excellence in most of the above criteria, but may be weaker in some of the criteria. It will nonetheless be a sound piece of work once again exhibiting excellence in the areas of problem solving and reporting. The presentation will be highly professional and answers to questions will indicate a sound knowledge of the subject.

A thesis considered to be consistent with marks 50% to 59% may include some misconceptions or inconsistencies, but they should not affect the basic thrust of the thesis. The thesis should show a high standard of problem solving and reporting skills. The presentation should be highly professional and answers to questions indicative of a sound knowledge of the subject.

A thesis considered to be consistent with marks 40% to 49% will satisfy some of the above criteria but may have a narrow range of knowledge and theory, limited evidence of critical evaluation of practice and ethical issues, limited literature review and depth of analysis.

A thesis consistent with marks <40% will be deemed not to have met the assessment criteria.

5. GUIDE TO SUCCESSFUL COMPLETION OF THE RESEARCH PROJECT

A PowerPoint presentation is included in the module resources on Brightspace which explains the various stages of the project journey.

5.1. Literature Review

The purpose of the literature review is to study previous research which has been undertaken in the area of interest to you. Your project supervisor can be consulted when preparing a list of papers of key researchers in the area and also when compiling a list of key words on the research topic. Then proceed to the library to undertake the necessary search.

The library staff will assist you if necessary. A literature survey is expected to critically analyse the research undertaken to date in the field of your project, in order to put your work into context. It is not simply a chronological review. You must evaluate each contribution to the subject in terms of its strengths and weaknesses. After reviewing the literature, you should be able to see the background to the project and where your contribution will be made. A literature review must be directly relevant to your topic and based on recent research. All students should read SECTION 8.0 for a detailed discussion of how to conduct a literature review.

5.2. Project Plan

Once you have been given approval for your project, you should agree a provisional project plan with your supervisor. Key tasks should be identified together with any critical paths where success is dependent on either information or third party resources. This project plan should be revised by you with appropriate input from your supervisor throughout the project.

5.3. Interim Report (First Deliverable)

The purpose of this typed report is to demonstrate significant progress in the project and to show that the student is on the right track for successfully completing the project in the time allocated. It should include a fully developed project, including methodology and draft literature review.

It shall also include progress made and information gathered to date together with a list of data, surveys, materials, instrumentation and equipment necessary to complete the project. While this is a formal submission requirement, it is expected that the student will submit informal review reports to their supervisor on an on-going basis throughout the first semester.

Suggested layout of Interim Report

The interim report could be structured with the following headings:

Introduction (with clear Aim and Objective)
Literature Review (Draft)
Methodology
Data Sources
Preliminary Findings
Tasks & Programme to Completion
References

Introduction

A general outline of the topic with reference to any background information, history, previous work, and general background to theory. The motivation for the work should be given and clear aims and objectives listed.

Literature Review

This should be a draft of your final literature review. It should include an in depth review of relevant academic and industry literature in the subject area.

This should show that the student has a broad grasp of the current status in the area of interest and is able to present information from disparate sources in a coherent manner which is relevant to the issues being addressed.

Methodology

The methodology should be clearly defined at the first interim report stage:

What theories/approaches will you use to address your objectives?
Why adopt this methodology rather than other approaches?

Data Sources & Preliminary Findings

What data is necessary for the chosen methodology?
If secondary, where will you obtain the data and how appropriate is it?
If primary, how will you collect this data and how will you design your survey/experiment to ensure robustness (e.g. statistical significance)?
Report preliminary findings if appropriate.

Tasks and Programme to Completion

Describe the tasks required to complete the thesis.
Describe the timing of these tasks using a Gantt chart.

References

This is a list of literature surveyed to date (a Bibliography is fine for the interim report). References should follow the Harvard System. Refer to TU Dublin Library online for guidance along with the short guide to the Harvard System in this module on Brightspace.

5.3.1. Interim Report Submission

This report must be typed. MS and PDF versions to be uploaded to Brightspace and emailed to your supervisor by the submission deadline. Lengths of reports vary but are expected to be a minimum of 10 pages due to inclusion of a draft literature review.

5.4. Final Thesis

Two copies of the Final Thesis is to be submitted in ring-bound soft cover format to the project supervisor. A PDF and MS Word version should also be uploaded to Brightspace and an e-mail sent to your Supervisor confirming the online submission. The Final Thesis should comply with the following requirements.

5.4.1. Title & Declaration

The title page should comprise the following:

The title
The full name of the author and TU Dublin programme
The date and address (TUDublin – City Campus)
The declaration is included in Section 2.0 (page 4) earlier.

5.4.2. Text

The text should be in clear English, in the third person and avoid colloquialisms. Spelling should follow the first spelling in the latest edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary. Capital letters should only be used for proper nouns. Abbreviations should conform to the latest edition of BS 350 Part 1 and symbols should be in accordance with the latest edition of the relevant industry guidelines. A notation defining all symbols used should be provided.

Mathematical equations should be clear and easily understood. Each equation should be numbered and appear on a separate line in the text. Only relevant equations should be shown in the main body of the text – any development of an equation should appear in an appendix. SI units should be used throughout.

5.4.3. Tables

Information, which is additional yet essential to the understanding of the text – and which cannot be better presented graphically – should be presented as tables. Tables should be simple with brief column headlines (including all units) and as few rows and columns as possible. The tables should be numbered consecutively and referred to in the text (e.g. Table 1).

5.4.4. Illustrations

Line drawings, sketches and photographs should be included wherever possible to enhance the understanding of the text. Each illustration should be clearly captioned, referred to in the text and numbered consecutively (e.g. Fig. 1).

5.4.5. References

Sources of information and originators of work or ideas referred to in the text must be properly acknowledged. In-text citations should provide the authors’ names and year of publication; e.g. (Slattery, 2009). A full reference should be given at the end of the thesis conforming to the Harvard Style. Refer to later sections of this handbook for more detailed guidelines on compiling references.

5.4.6. Appendices

Detailed data sets, results, development of equations, supplementary or additional information should be presented in appendices on separate pages after the bibliography.

5.4.7. Suggested layout of Final Thesis

This is a suggested layout only and the most appropriate layout for your work should be agreed with your supervisor.

Title Page
Abstract
Acknowledgements
Contents List
List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Abbreviations
Glossary of Terms
Introduction
Literature Review
Methodology
Results and Discussion
Conclusions
Recommendations for Further Research
References
Appendices

5.4.8. Suggested Thesis Presentation

A suggested font, text size, line spacing and margins are given below:

single-sided A4 paper;
12 point font;
Arial or Garamond fonts preferable;
1.5 line spacing and justified;
a margin of at least 3.5cm on the left side of the page for both text and diagrams to allow for binding;
with other margins of at least 2.5cm;
explanatory footnotes should stand at the foot of the relevant pages and the bibliography should follow the text and any appendices;
Recommendation of one illustration per 500 words;
Pages should be numbered.

5.5. Final Thesis Interview

Students will be interviewed on their Final Thesis. The interview will take approximately 50-60 minutes and will include a short oral presentation (10 minutes) by the student followed by questions from the interview panel. Students should use their final thesis during this time to display and defend various aspects of their final report.

5.5.1. Submission

PowerPoint Presentations to be uploaded to Brightspace by the deadlines noted in Table 1 (i.e. by 9am on the Monday of presentation week).

Suggested Presentation Format:
a) Title.
b) Motivation & Objectives
c) Methodology.
d) Results.
e) Discussion and conclusions.

5.5.2. Presentation Delivery

Timing of the talk is very important. The only way to gauge the length of your talk during preparation is to rehearse, and rehearse and rehearse. Rehearsing will also allow you to get the words right and also to become familiar with the use of your visual aids; you will then approach the actual day with more confidence. Despite this preparation, nervousness on the day can cause you to speak faster or slower than expected and it is usually a good idea to have some additional material which can be added or some material marked for possible removal towards the end. Keep track of the time during your talk. The Chairperson will cut your talk short if you run over time.

The presentation should be logically constructed and present information at the appropriate level. Please try to provide the audience with enough background and explanation for them to follow your talk. You should try to speak well (also dress well) and present your ideas clearly and simply.

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6. DESIGN OF EXPERIMENTS AND ANALYAIS OF RESULTS

An example from structural engineering experiments is used here in order to demonstrate the process of undertaken experiments as part of the project. Please note that laboratory time MUST BE BOOKED for the discussion, preparation and testing of the project samples.

6.1. Objective of Experiment

Experiments are expensive and time-consuming so you only do one if you are going to find out something you didn’t know before (or verify what someone else has found out). You must have some objective. In other words, you do the test to answer some (research) question. In structures this question might be:

Does a particular theoretical model match the actual behaviour of the structure? Or
Which of two or more different theoretical models most accurately predicts the actual behaviour?

Both of these will involve comparing the experimental measurements with the predictions made by the theoretical model(s).

What is the effect of modifying or strengthening a structural element in some way (e.g. cutting hole in a member, welding on steel plates etc.)
What is the experimental value of some material property of interest (such as the Modulus of Elasticity or the Tensile Strength)?
Can we predict the behaviour of a large structure or part of a structure by testing a smaller model?

6.2. Design of Experiment

Once you have decided what question you want to answer you must design the experiment in such a way that your measurements will give you enough information to answer this question. Also, you should only take measurements that will help in answering this question. For example, there is no point in measuring strain in ten different locations if you are not going to use this data later in your analysis.

To illustrate experimental design, consider an example. Suppose you are doing an experiment to verify the Shear Capacity formula for a steel beam: Fv,rd = Avfy/√3 (not a great research question as this formula is already backed up by lots of experimental data but we can use it as an example). In your test you would design your experimental test to ensure:

the beam fails in shear and not in any other failure mode (moment, local buckling, lateral buckling etc.). If the beam does not fail in shear then the experiment has not been successful. Steps might include:
o making the span short and applying a point load close to support,
o putting a stiffener under the load to ensure there is no local crushing
o providing lateral restraint at supports and at the load point
o that sufficient measurements are taken to determine accurately the shear force in the region of interest during the test (e.g. measure accurately the location and value of the applied load)
o there is a failure criterion to enable you to decide when shear failure occurs
so that you know when to stop the test (e.g. when strain measurements show that yielding has occurred)

6.3. Experimental Measurements

The purpose of the experiment is to gather experimental data which can then be analysed to answer the research question. Often we cannot measure directly the thing we are interested in so we have to measure it indirectly. For example, for a member in pure tension you could get an experimental axial force by:

measuring the axial strain (using a strain gauge) along he member
multiplying the strain by the Modulus of Elasticity E (for linear elastic material) to get the experimental axial stress.
multiplying the stress by the cross-sectional area of the member to get the axial force Each step may introduce some uncertainty (e.g. accurate value of E may not be known).

6.4. Analysis of Experimental Data

Clearly, it is not sufficient just to gather a lot of data. You must analyse the data in a way that helps you to answer your research question. For the experiment considered in Section 2 above, your analysis might include:

Using the load cell readout at failure and the load position measurements to determine the experimental shear force at failure
Determining reasonably accurate values for any material properties that you need to calculate the theoretical shear capacity (in this case Av and fy). This may involve one or more materials tests where a small sample of the material used in the experiment is tested
Comparing theoretical prediction to experimental result and drawing some conclusions.

6.5. Computer Modelling

The use of suitable engineering software to support experimental work is encouraged. The range of software tools includes spreadsheets, simple 2D structural analysis (e.g. LinPro, Prokon) for beams, frames and trusses, and more elaborate finite element analysis (e.g. Ansys, Lusas).

Students should be aware that it can take a substantial effort to learn how to use some of the more complex tools, and they should have a clear view of what they hope to achieve through the use of the software. As the computer software is based on the same theoretical models that the student may be using, it should be possible to get a close match between the two.

For example, Macaulay’s method for deflection of beams and frames should produce exactly the same answer as the software, although this may require adjusting member properties in the software to ignore axial deformation in a frame”.

6.6. Uncertainty

No experiment will give you a perfect match between theory and experiment. This does not necessarily mean that the theoretical model is wrong (though proving a theory wrong is in itself very useful).

There will always be some error arising from uncertainty in measurements, uncertainty in values assumed for material properties, limitations of the equipment, simplifying assumptions made by the theoretical model etc. that might explain the difference between measured values and theoretical predictions.

If possible, you should try to quantify the uncertainty so that you can decide if it is within an acceptable range.

6.7. Conclusions

You must draw some conclusions from your experiment. Even if the results are inconclusive you must state this clearly. Your conclusion might be:

the theoretical model is fully or partially in agreement with the experimental behaviour accurately
the theoretical model does not match the experimental behaviour
the experimental results are inconclusive and further testing is required

If you have made a mistake in the design or execution of the experiment you must acknowledge this. Making one or two mistakes does not mean that you will fail the relevant assignment/project.

You must be honest when reporting your results, even if the experiment is unsuccessful!

Your honesty will be rewarded, particularly if you show that you have learned from your mistakes. If you are not honest then you will be sending future researchers in the wrong direction.

7. HEALTH & SAFETY ISSUES

Students are expected to exercise due care and diligence in manufacturing and testing of test pieces, and must take all necessary steps to safeguard the health and safety of themselves, their fellow students, staff, and any other person involved.

In particular students must exercise due care and diligence in:

Field/Traffic surveys
Moving and lifting heavy loads

Each student’s attention is drawn to the following:

Hazards should be assessed with your supervisor and the need for risk assessments identified.
A risk assessment must be carried out in collaboration with your supervisor All students must obey Health and Safety notices displayed in the Laboratories. Laboratory access is restricted to registered students of the college.

7.1. Laboratories/Project Fabrication

The following laboratories are available to students for their project:

E-Block, Room 607 Loading Rig, Fabrication Area and Testing Lab
Room 171 Concrete Testing Laboratory & Loading rig
Room 191 Materials Testing Laboratory
Room 193 Soils Laboratory
Room 495 Stress Analysis Laboratory