Car-truck stands are used during maintenance operations to support one end of a freight car or a commuter car used in railway industry. Usually, they consists of several pieces of steel tubes and other steel members welded together to form a rigid frame structure. From a safety perspective, the car-truck stands are to be designed carefully, but at the same time due to their possible large volume of production, this structure needs to be optimized from strength and cost perspectives besides other parameters such as long life, etc. The purpose of this paper is to conduct virtual experiments for the optimal design of a different car-truck stand structures using Autodesk Simulation program as a CAE tool. The idea is to include this work as a part of final project in a traditional finite element analysis (FEA) course taught at Kettering University. For the work reported here, the structural steel members are simplified by using standard pipe sections, which are then optimized for strength and weight reduction, as well as for buckling. It is hoped that through this study a clear understanding of assumptions made in the FEA course topic on frames is realized by the students. Initial assessment done indicates that students appreciated the use of a CAE tool for optimal design of frames and other structural members.

Future energy systems should include distributed power generation with combined heat and power. A study is conducted to evaluate the economic competitiveness of using a high temperature fuel cell with combined heat and power as a distributed power generation system against the conventional grid supplied power system at a sewage treatment facility. This report evaluates the economic benefits of using natural gas or biogas from the sewage treatment plant at the Flint-Biogas Complex to power a 1.4MW direct fuel cell which operates at a temperature of 400 o C. The waste recovery heat will be used for heating the sludge and the facility. Bottoming cycle options are proposed. The waste heat will be used to warm the sludge, heat up the reactants and provide warm water throughout the facility. This approach eliminates or reduces additional energy cost. The most important engineering and economic indicators would be used for evaluating the CHP system against the conventional furnace and power from the grid.

The concept of using a distributed power generation and a combined heat and power principle-CHP in public buildings, commercial facilities is widely gaining public acceptance as a result of reduced energy cost, reliable power supply and environmental and health issues. By using the exhaust heat from a high temperature fuel cell at 400 o C for cogeneration, space heating, to provide warm water for facility use-(swimming pool and sporting locker room) and cooling in chillers at no additional cost, we reduce energy cost and preserve the environment. By bottoming cycle, the efficiency of the entire system is increased. A study is conducted to compare the economic impact of using the CHP system against the conventional heating system using furnaces.