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Biweekly magazine of the Eindhoven University of Technology

14 November 2013 | year 56

For the latest news: www.cursor.tue.nl/en and follow @TUeCursor_news on

and tuecursor on

TU/e students want to build largest ice dome ever More news on www.cursor.tue.nl/en

Four major European research grants for TU/e

Thursday 7 November 2013 - Two graduate students at Built Environment have decided they want to build the largest-ever dome made of ice. Jorrit Hijl and Roel Pluijmen will leave for Finland in late December to start working on a dome with a thirty-meter diameter at the base, helped by volunteers. They’ll be using ice that’s been reinforced with wood fiber.

The past months involved thorough research of the structure, design and construction of the ice dome. The construction method will involve a ring of anchors with a rope net attached to it. Hijl: “We’ll inflate a large hot air balloon of sorts so the net rises, and then, layer by layer, we’ll spray a mixture of snow, water, and fiber over the dome shape.”

Tuesday 12 November 2013 - Four researchers at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) will receive Consolidator Grants from the European Research Council (ERC) amounting to a maximum of 2.75 million euros each. Their research focuses on new kinds of nanowires, optimizing fluidized bed reactors, new algorithmic methods and the behavior of droplets on soft materials. The grants go to the following four researchers at TU/e: prof.dr.ir. Erik Bakkers, prof.dr.ir. Jacco Snoeijer (both working at Applied Physics), dr.ir. Johan Padding (Chemical Engineering and Chemistry) and dr. Nikhil Bansal (Mathematics and Computer Science).

Eindhoven technology students in reality soap Thursday 7 November 2013 - There’s a reality soap series in the making: Campus Eindhoven, starring six technology students from Eindhoven.

The soap will premiere on network Omroep Brabant in early 2014.

The university will put forward three of the total of six reality show students. The idea Omroep Brabant, TU/e and Fontys have in mind with Campus Eindhoven is to put technical study programs in the limelight, and put Eindhoven on the map as a real student city.

Clmn

Cursor introd online event uces calendar Tuesday 29 Oct ober 20

13 - Want to know where and when the best parties are, w ant to stay in th e loop for intere sting lectures, or plan to atte nd a fun studen t activity? Cursor started a conv enient online ev ent calendar lis ting activities on ca mpus and in th e city center of Ei ndhoven. We’re also offering th e opportunity to upload new ev ents yourself.

Drop us a line at cursor@tue. nl and we’ll prov ide you with th e necessary logi n information.

Sit back, relax and enjoy your flight

That’s all I did over the past weekend. It’s been the most tiring yet most satisfying journey in a long time: travelling back home after almost a year.

Yes, I’m writing this column all the way from India.

This summer I boarded numerous flights to European destinations.

I booked most flights with cheap European airlines, and flight time was never more than a few hours. I remember how excited and nervous I was boarding an intercontinental flight for the first couple of times. However, when I booked my flight to India it seemed no different from any other flight.

But soon it hit me that intercontinental flights are a different experience altogether. The difference could be felt at the airport already, where security was stricter, and asked more questions about immigration.

But the nicest part of the experience came on board. How could I have forgotten about the food? It was so nice to receive delicious in-flight meals, including a menu-card and drink options. It was also good to have a personal TV screen to watch all movies that had been on my wish.

I wonder if introducing these facilities on cheap European flights would increase ticket prices too much.

The best feeling was when I found the flight for Kolkata that was waiting for me to board. Many people in line were from this part of India, and they were speaking my mother tongue, Bengali. It was even more wonderful to see all the foreign tourists boarding the same plane, anticipating and excited to travel beautiful India. Suddenly I felt extremely proud of my country and I looked forward to seeing my ‘City of Joy’ and my family once again.

Bipashyee Ghosh of Innovatio , Master student n Sciences

20 | Focus

Text | Norbine Schalij Photos | Bart van Overbeeke Illustration | Sandor Paulus Next Tuesday, November 19, will be World Toilet Day. Funny though this may seem, the intention is quite serious. Sanitation is a human right. One in three people on this globe does not have access to a toilet. In order to draw attention to this and to break the taboo on toilets, the United Nations embraced the World Toilet Day - created in 2001 by the World Toilet Organization.

While Cursor is aware that TU/e students and staff members have no reason to grumble about their sanitary facilities, it still catches them doing so. So let’s plunge into this issue.

Toilets for the disabled | There are 25 toilets for disabled persons in 23 buildings. The one in Laplace is the most unusual; it has a very special seat.

This 1,200-euro toilet seat sprays and dries the buttocks and was mounted many years ago for a (now former) staff member who had no arms.

14 November 2013

Do you give Royal toilet | 1,200 euro for

a toilet seat is costly, but 25,000 guilders for a temporary toilet inside a temporary building is an exorbitant amount. Or so the Court of Audit thought in 1958.

The year before, a Royal toilet costing that amount was built for Queen Juliana at the Paviljoen which she was to open. The ladies-in-waiting who came to size up the situation in advance demanded a suitable location where the Queen could freshen up. Simple sanitary fittings intended to be used by students will not come up to the Royal standard, as the ladies-in-waiting intimated discreetly, says ‘the small TU/e encyclopedia’. After Queen Juliana’s visit, the toilet was removed again. The THE was reprimanded for this and never did so again. Nowadays, whenever a member of the Royal family needs to go to the toilet during a visit to TU/e, this will probably take place in the Auditorium.

It has an entrance for ‘distinguished visitors’.

Personal hygiene | At TU/e soap dispensers are pressed 2,303,002 times every year by

Paper | Every year 46,608,064 sheets of toilet

paper are used at TU/e. A meticulous survey was conducted to select this paper in 2011. As there were frequent blockages of the sewage system at TU/e, both the sewage system and the paper were examined. In 2011 Martine de Graaf (Internal Affairs) and Cor Smits (Real Estate Management) tested various kinds of paper from several manufacturers for their pulverizability. They put the sheets into bottles of water and shook them until they knew whether the paper was pulverized.

Since January 1, 2012, we have had 100% cellulose paper instead of recycled paper, because the latter contains a lot of glue that will not dissolve.

As a result you get clogs which block the system.

Cellulose paper is thin, single-layer paper.

“The softer, the more paper people will use.”

Imtech also solved the bottlenecks in the sewage system: it widened bends, replaced T-pieces and especially: the urinary calculus was removed.

people washing their hands. Yet 1 in 3 Dutchmen do not wash their hands after having been to the toilet, according to the British research bureau Opinion Matters (September 2013).

It also calculated that Dutch employees spend more than 33.5 hours per year in the toilets at their place of work. During sanitary stops 1 in 7 Dutchmen use their mobile phones, 1 in 30 read newspapers and 1 out of 20 surf the web.

Urinary calculus | In the age when it was in fashion to save water -this is the mid-1990s- the quantity of

flushing water was reduced from 9 to 6 liters. In 2012 TU/e reversed this adjustment. “To prevent urinary calculus, which blocks the sewage system, a substantial water flow is required”, explains Ad van Rooij, contract director of mechanical engineering contracts with Real Estate Management. He is responsible for climate installations and sanitation. Van Rooij is the man to turn to for the construction, alteration and maintenance of toilets.

Focus | 21

See for more news www.cursor.tue.nl/en

a shit?

Dirty | The dirtiest toilets can be found in the Bunker. Demos has stainless steel urinals, which are extremely vandalism-proof. SSRE also has dirty toilets.

“The things you find in toilet bowls! Glass, complete lavatory paper rolls, cans and even T-shirts and socks. I see chewing gum in lots of urinals”, says Ad van Rooij from Real Estate Management. Cleaning crews find sanitary napkins in the bowls, poop on the wall, on the side of the bowl and on the floor. Vomit is another familiar sight on Friday mornings.

Squatting closets |

TU/e has a squatting closet for ladies and one for gents, built especially for those international students and staff members who just cannot get used to a toilet with a bowl and seat. As soon as a squatting toilet gets blocked, it is locked and is not opened again until Imtech has solved the problem.

Urinals | Most urinals come with a button that the

toilet user himself needs to press. Some men tend to forget this. In Laplace, Auditorium and Potentiaal you get urinals that flush automatically.

Foto | Jessica van Lier

Bowls | At TU/e there are around seven hundred toilet bowls and more than two hundred and fifty urinals.

TU/e prefers a white bowl with a black lidless seat. These form the vast majority, particularly in the buildings that were erected until the 1970s. See Hoofdgebouw, Potentiaal, Paviljoen, Corona and Impuls. In the two following decades Gemini (north and south), Traverse, IPO and Laplace were built, where you occasionally see a white seat. In even newer buildings you find toilets designed by the architects.

Toilet trivia:

Number of toilet bowls at TU/e: Number of urinals: Number of toilet paper holders at TU/e: Number of soap dispensers: Square meters of sanitation floor space: Sanitary napkins containers: Incontinence pads boxes: Hand towel roll dispensers: Number of hand dryers:

Sewage system | Water discharged from TU/e is divided into a clean water sewage system and a

foul water sewage drain. The first system discharges rainwater via roof gutters, rain pipes and street inlets into the river Dommel. The second system is used for the water coming from toilets and wash basins in the buildings.

In the Paviljoen the toilets are at a great distance from the main sewer, which hampers their flushing.

When they do not get flushed frequently enough, the solid matter to be discharged gets stuck. For this purpose an automatic flushing mechanism has been installed, which flushes all toilets every two hours.

± 700 > 250 682 599 4,488.33 m2 236 2 581 <15

22 | Research

14 November 2013

4 burning questions 1 ’s on What f your o r e ov ? the c ation t r e s dis

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2 Wh a peo t do yo ple u te a whe t par ll ties n abo ut y they a sk our rese arch ?

Christian Berendsen | Applied Physics

4

What person, technology, or device has been essential for your research?

does How efit n e b ty socie ur work? yo from

Unstable liquid films

1 | cover The cover shows how a thin layer of liquid dewets, which 3 | essential During my research project we and the team of the is the spontaneous appearance of dry spots that continue to grow and develop a pattern of droplets. The microscopic image shows a liquid film moving underneath an airknive (a curtain of fast flowing air). Using the colored interference lines we can measure the film thickness: in this case, approximately 60 nanometers.

2 | parties Conducting experiments and simulations, I’ve researched

how to control the breakup of thin liquid films. By deforming a liquid layer using air jets, lasers or static electricity, I can influence the distribution of residual droplets.

Sonia Gupta | Applied Physics

TU/e Equipment & Prototype Center developed a spincoater with an open axis of rotation. This device can deform a deposited liquid film, and measure its height profile at the same time using a high-speed camera.

4 | society benefit In the immersion lithography machines of

collaboration partner ASML, water is used to improve the resolution. At high scan speeds, this water is left behind as a thin layer on the wafer and breaks up into droplets. One of the things my study yielded was a way to scan faster without losing water. This idea has now been patented

by ASML, and can help increase the production speed of these machines.

The study may also be useful for improving coating processes.

Preventing salt damage

1 | cover The cover page presents an example of the effectiveness 3 | essential of an inhibitor that promotes salt crystallization outside the brick. This helps to reduce salt damage to World Heritage Sites like the Coliseum.

2 | parties Many historic structures and stone monuments worldwide are in a bad state due to salts. Salt damage occurs when growing salt crystals exert pressure the pore walls, resulting in cracks and sometimes disintegration of parts of the material. My research goal was to understand the salt crystallization processes inside porous building materials, and to test the use of a crystallization inhibitor as a preventive method against salt damage. We defined efficient ways (i.e. by spraying) and optimal environmental conditions to improve the functionality of the crystallization inhibitor. It has been proven that the inhibitor reduces the amount of crystallized salt inside the material and could therefore be effective against salt damage.

Rob Wijnhoven | Electrical Engineering 1 | cover I put an intelligent surveillance camera analyzing a video image on the cover. The intelligence is symbolized by the brains in the camera, which are connected to a vision processor that contains the software to analyze the images. The camera detects several objects in the image, including cars, ships, and people.

2 | parties Usually, a camera simply records without ‘knowing’ what it sees. My algorithms analyze the image and detect objects belonging to predetermined categories like cars. People may be able to analyze images very well (and that may make it seem simple), but there still aren’t any marketed systems that are able to detect objects robustly.

We used a specially designed Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) set-up that can measure various salt ions (H, Na, Li) together. This powerful set-up has been indispensable to gain complete information about salt crystallization and the moisture/ion transport processes inside a real porous material.

4 | society benefit The fundamental knowledge gained during

the inhibitor project will help us to understand the mystery behind salt damage mechanisms. On top of that, the knowledge will be applied in practice for restoration purposes. Over the next month we’re going to do a case study on 17th-century masonry in ‘De Waag’ in Amsterdam. This building has been affected by salt damage severely.

Intelligent surveillance cameras 3 | essential The most indispensable device during my research project must have been the coffee maker! A good experiment starts off with the aroma of freshly-brewed filter coffee. Apart from all the caffeine, I’m very grateful to my colleagues and the students I supervised during the project. Implementing algorithms for several clients and project partners has been extremely insightful and has resulted in the purely academic framework actually working in practice as well.

4 | society benefit My work is already being used in a number of systems: for the fully automatic detection and monitoring of ships in the Rotterdam Harbor, and for analyzing major people flow at events like GLOW and Mysteryland. The latter system has proven its worth in crowd management, optimizing flow and safety.

People | 23

See for more news www.cursor.tue.nl/en

And how are things in Daejon?

More and more TU/e students go abroad for their studies to follow courses, internships or a doctorate path.

What is it like to find your way in a new country? Students tell their stories.

Get your phone out of your pocket. If it doesn’t say Samsung on the front, there’s probably an apple on the back, but even then it’s full of Korean high-tech. Reason enough to honor the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in Daejeon with a visit. The feeling’s mutual, because as a European you’re an interesting subject just as well: the Korean’s English may not be characterized by a wide vocabulary, but handsome is in there, for sure.

Students here may dedicate a lot of time to their studies, but their efficiency is questionable at times.

I take three courses at KAIST. It feels like being back at high school: homework, quizzes, obligatory presence and actual classrooms. Since investing time in your courses is a big deal at university here, doing so makes you pass the course, usually. The remainder of the time I have left is spent on both fun and cultural activities, of course.

Being an interesting mix between Eastern and Western culture, South Korea has a lot to offer. Fish is gutted on the street and monks bow for Buddha in beautiful temples that are surpassed in beauty only by the fall colors in the mountains where they are situated. By contrast, most average Koreans live in indistinguishable high-rises. Most students, including myself, live in either male or female dorms. The absence of a kitchen forces you to eat in a restaurant and taste new meals every day, but that’s not an issue at all. Pigs skin, the fourth stomach of a cow, chicken heart - I can recommend them all. Still, the idea of savoring the flavor of bitterballen at the TU/e New Year’s reception on January 6 once again is appealing as well.

Jip de s t u ort, d Manag ent OpK ement erations and L ogistics Would you also like to write an article about your time abroad? Please send an email to cursor@tue.nl.

Read more stories online: www.cursor.tue.nl/en

Life after TU/e Name: Timur Bagautdinov Place of Birth: Moscow, Russia Date of Birth: August 31, 1989 Studied at TU/e: 2011-2013. Master of Computer Science Current position: P ursuing a PhD in Computer Vision Laboratory at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland.

Why did you opt for TU/e and how do you look back?

TU/e is known for its high-quality computer science program. The Netherla nds is a nice country, and everyone speaks English. TU/e is fine in terms of academia, but I wish there had been fewer courses and more research, or a broader selection of courses. People (both fellow students and professors) have been exceptio nally cool.

How did the job search go?

It was pretty hard to find a PhD program at the institutions of my preferen ce, but TU/e professors have been wonderful in recommending places to go.

Was the fact you’re not Dutch an advantage or disadvantage in finding a job?

Although I wasn’t looking for a position in the Netherlands, in the academ ic world it doesn’t seem to matter at all. I heard from fellow students that for some companies (especially consultancy) knowing Dutch is important. But nationality doesn’t matter much; it’s mostly about language.

Is this the job you hoped for?

Yes, very much so. Doing research is challenging and fun.

What happens to international students after they graduate from TU/e? Do they go job hunting in the Netherlands, pack their bags and explore the world, or return to their home countries? International TU/e graduates talk about their lives after TU/e.

What are your plans for the future?

To finish my PhD, and make sure it will be really cool.

What advice would you give current students?

Think twice about what you really want to do with your life. TU/e is a great school full of smart people, and it can open any door anywhere if you work hard enough.

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Thursday November, 10.30-11.30h, Ceres 0.31, TU/e-campus

Lecture univ ersity profes sor Maarten Ste inbuch

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