Browsing by Author "Kennedy, Brook"
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- A First Principles Approach to Product Development in EntrepreneurshipMakowski, William (Virginia Tech, 2023-09-05)
- Fog Harvester Having a Vertical Wire Array and Uses Thereof(United States Patent and Trademark Office, 2022-10-11)Described herein are fog harvesters having a vertical wire array and systems thereof. The fog harvesters described herein can be used to harvest liquid from the air, such as from fog. The fog harvesters can, in some aspects, have improved performance in one or more aspects as compared to fog harvesters having a mesh design.
- Tree-Inspired Water HarvestingShi, Weiwei (Virginia Tech, 2020-04-13)In this work, we were motivated to develop novel devices for water harvesting inspired by natural trees, and to understand their collection efficiency and working principles. We accomplished that with scale-model and large-scale fog harps, floating leaves, and synthetic trees. Fluids mechanics, physics, and thermodynamics were applied to solve the problems and rationalize the results. Redwood-inspired fog harps were designed with stainless steel vertical wires, using 3D-printing and laser-cutting techniques. Fog harps always harvested more water than any of the meshes, tested both under heavy fog and light fog conditions. The aerodynamic efficiency, deposition efficiency, and sliding efficiency were calculated to compare the fog harvesting performance. These findings provide insight into the new design of fog harvesters with high-efficiency fog harvesting performance, and future development of large fog harps, applied into regions even with light fog conditions, as an economically viable means. synthetic trees were fabricated with a nanoporous ceramic disk and silicone tubes. This tree system was tested in an environmental chamber (6 cm short trees) or a plant growth chamber (3m tall trees), both with controlled ambient humidities. The system pressure was calculated with Darcy's equation, Poiseuille equation and Laplace equation. The stable transpiration can happen to any scalable tree, which pumps water up an array of large tubes. Our synthetic trees, like natural trees, have the ability to lift water across a wide range of water temperatures and ambient humidities. They can be used as the large-scale evaporation-driven hydraulic pump, for example, pumped storage hydropower, filtration, underground water extraction.
- Understanding product hibernation periods with children's products and exploring motivations for product care to encourage their reuseChoi, Yoon Jung; Kennedy, Brook (Aalto University, 2023-10-02)The phenomenon of product hibernation, namely the process by which end-of-use products are kept but no longer used is a common and significant barrier to prolonging product lifespans within a circular economy. Obsolete products challenge users' decision-making process for the after-use phase and are often discarded despite being perfectly functional. Especially in households with growing children, where children’s products are outgrown but not discarded, product hibernation is the result. This paper presents the survey findings of 157 hibernating children’s products, and interviews with ten families with growing children in the UK who have moved house, exploring product ownership, reasons for product hibernation, and the various barriers for their reuse. Understanding owners’ product care motivation for re-recognizing their value and providing choices to reuse the children’s products is vital to reduce product hibernation. Further, a workshop was conducted to explore the owners’ reuse experience of with their children’s products and the factors affecting their consistent caring process which aim to encourage people to reuse these products more. Through an idea generation process, nine influential factors were identified that suggest opportunities to change users' perception of the value of the end-of-use and care for these products. This paper makes an original contribution to product reuse knowledge with the development of a framework for understanding reuse motivations and barriers through the lens of care.