Engineering

Research results indicate that although Nigeria expends a substantial percentage of her national budgets each year in construction activities, her construction industry is not developing and is unable to implement the country’s construction programmers. The inability of the construction industry to contribute much to the national output, given its relatively large contribution to the country’s fixed capital formation, is probably due to the industry’s relatively low growth rate over the years.

A base triangle network was designed and lateral shift, q values of 15, 30 and 45 degrees were used for the estimation of accuracy for various lengths of Bridge crossing ranging from 200m to 3km. A priori analysis showed the standard error in position Mp increases with increase of the length of bridge crossing and the size of the lateral shift q. Further examination of our results revealed that for all q values and length of bridge crossing less than 1km, the standard error in position Mp is less than 5 mm.

In this project six vertical control points were determined to be outside the zone of any possible influence movement were selected out of the sixteen points earlier monumented. Special standards and specifications were designed for the geodetic leveling. The NI I Zeiss Geodetic level was used for running the levels. The levels were double run forward and backward in loops where the topography and geometric configuration permits River crossing was carried out by the simultaneously reciprocal observation from both banks. The mean difference in height for each line was determined.

This paper presents results from a study which examined the causes of building failures in Nigeria using Benin City as a case study. Through a literature survey, a set of these causes were identified, and data were collected using a structured questionnaire administered randomly to selected Practicing Engineers, Architects and Builders operating in Nigeria. The results were analyzed using a 4-step ordinal scale method to determine the relative significance of the various factors in contributing to the collapse of engineering facilities.
 

It has become obvious that Africa cannot achieve any meaningful levels of economic growth without switching to new technologies through innovations.  These new technologies depend almost entirely on instant communication and dissemination of data, ideas and symbols. With the very limited resources available for investment in Research and development, developing countries must necessarily expand their knowledge base for technological development through the acquisition of knowledge created elsewhere.

A soluble oil was formulated from readily available materials such as low-grade automotive oil, emulsifying wax, ordinary washing soap, sulphur and other additives. Separate cutting fluid emulsions of 15% concentration were made from it and a commercial soluble oil. The two cutting fluids were used for straight turning operations, at various speeds and time intervals. The flank wear land and nose wear of the tool were measured after each machining interval.

Two 3-horsepower petrol engines were developed using reverse engineering principles.  General-purpose equipment and techniques were used for making the various parts which were assembled and tested under idle condition. The performance of the laboratory-made engines compared well with that of the commercial engine
 

Using local raw materials, various metal-arc welding fluxes were formulated. A ternary system of FeO. TiO2-SiO2-CaCO3 gave satisfactory results. Average values of 546 N/mm2 ultimate tensile strength and 10% elongation were obtained from all-weld metal tensile specimens. The formulation also gave a metal deposition efficiency of 88.9%.

In this work, Taguchi’s method for optimizing manufacturing conditions was used for brake pad formulation from local materials. The asbestos-free brake pad was made up of 10 ingredients. The properties studied included hardness, coefficient of friction and wear rate. Optimum level setting was selected by using signal-tonoise ratio (S/N), analysis of variance (ANOVA) and averaging of the experimental values. The optimal manufacturing conditions for the formulation were moulding pressure (16.74MPa), moulding temperature (160degC), curing time (8 minutes) and heat treatment (2 hours).

An analytical method based on die expansion is used to derive a general expression for the optimum interface diameters in composite dies such that minimum die expansion and minimum resultant maximum circumferential die stress are obtained. It enables the specified forging tolerance and allowable maximum die stress to be maintained and may also give rise to savings in die materi