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Monday, 25 July 2005

The University of Adelaide and Japan will collaborate to tackle the complex issue of using active noise control systems focussing "zones of quiet" at passengers in aircraft and motor vehicles.

In the category of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering and titled Noise control in aircraft and motor vehicles, the project has received $39,400 over three years from additional Australian Government investment in the Australian Research Council's (ARC) Linkage International scheme. The University's Dr Ben Cazzolato will collaborate with Professor Nobuo Tanaka, of the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Technology.

Dr Cazzolato, a Senior Lecturer with the University's School of Mechanical Engineering says his work has important implications for increased comfort of air travel and a safer environment for drivers of heavy vehicles.

"The outcomes will be the development of `smart skins' for application to aircraft and vehicle cabin interiors to actively control interior noise," Dr Cazzolato says.

"This will be achieved by combining the Japanese team's `structural wavenumber sensors` and the Adelaide team's `virtual microphone'."

Three other University of Adelaide projects obtained Federal Government funding in last week's announcement:

• In the Geochemistry category, Drs Joel Brugger, Denis Testemale, Jean-Louis Hazemann and Leone Spiccia received $47,870 over one year for a project titled In-situ solubility and speciation studies in super-critical H2O-NaCI-C02 mixtures using synchrotron.

• Federation Fellow Professor Mark Tester and Professor Nicolaus von Wiren received $34,000 over one year in the Crop and Pasture Production category. Their project is titled Development of advanced screening protocols for the identification of genes involved in nutrient sensing and nutrient efficiency in plants.

• And in the category of Soil and Water Sciences, Dr Petra Marschner, Professor Zolenko Rengel, Professor Fusuo Zhang and Professor Long Li received $30,000 over three years for their project titled The role of biological and chemical interactions in the rhizosphere in sustainable intercropping.