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Guidance on Milestone Report 2: Engineering Analysis

Your Engineering Analysis (EA) milestone report needs to demonstrate your application of
engineering knowledge to your specified problem. This report contains details of your proposed
solution for your engineering problem, the EA that you conducted on this proposed solution, and
a discussion of your EA.

The EA does not have to be fully complete at this stage, although it will need to be complete for
the final report.

The contents of this report may be included in your final report. It is advised you take any
feedback from this report to improve on your EA section within your final report. This report is
worth 10% of your final grade for ENGR 446, and no resubmissions are allowed.

Report structure
This report will include the following sections, which are discussed in more detail below.
• Proposed solution
• Engineering analysis
• Discussion

Each section has a maximum and recommended page length. The page lengths are based on a
text font size of 12 with single spacing and standard margins.

This report is a formal progress report; therefore it should be written in a formal manner and
contain a title page, table of contents, and any appropriate appendices, as well as the
aforementioned sections. There is no need to include summary, conclusions or further work
sections.

Please attach your Report I: Project Background, to this report, as an appendix. Because
your background report is therefore available, no further background information is required for
this report.

If your scope has changed since Report 1, you must mention that with a note attached to your
online submission.

Proposed solution
In this section you present your proposed approach or solution. This solution needs to
potentially fulfil your objective and its associated aims. The solution needs to be presented with
sufficient detail to allow others to replicate it. Drawings and / or figures are encouraged.
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It needs to be noted that your proposed solution is the “best” solution that you selected from your
2-4 potential solutions that were discussed in Milestone Report I: Background.

In Report 1, you presented the methodology for your initial assessment regarding how you
intended to select your proposed solution out of the 2-4 potential solutions, but in this report
you will only be working with your proposed solution.

The Final Report will include your 2-4 potential solutions, your initial assessment to select the
“best” solution and then a detailed engineering analysis on your proposed solution.

Maximum 1 page; recommended length is ½ a page of text plus any images.

Engineering Analysis
The EA needs to be at a sufficient technical level, be detailed, and be defendable. The EA does
not need to be complete, although at least ~70% of the EAs should be finished and presented in
this report.

The EA should be technical and appropriate to the objective and associated aims of your Final
Report. Typically EA approaches could be (but are not limited to):
• A stress / strain analysis
• Heat transfer models
• Dynamic simulations
• Material choice and properties
• Finite element analysis
• Optimization procedure
• Failure analysis
• Cost analysis (although it is not recommended that the majority of your EA is based on
cost)
• Energy requirement analysis
• Computational time requirements

You may look into one area with a higher level of detail and comprehension, or perform multiple
EAs of different aspects of your approach / solution. Generally, you should focus on depth rather
than breadth, performing a single or multiple EAs with all work linking directly to your project
objective and aims.

In addition, it is expected that the EA would likely include at least one of the following:
• Statistical analysis of the results
• Error bars or margins
• Sensitivity assessment
• Comparison or discussion with regard to appropriate Engineering Standards.
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The EA procedure must be described and presented, along with the purpose for each part of the
EA. The flow of ideas of your EA is important and your report should lead the reader though
your EA. The reader should never have to question “Why are you doing that?” or be confronted
with a sudden change in topic without explanation.

All governing equations used in your engineering analysis must be presented and cited. The
variables are to be introduced and explained.

Example:

2d
Qb = l k Te effv 2rn − pc  (2.1)

v ln dpiv 

The boiling limit, Qb, as described by Equation (2.1) [15] depends on the length of the
evaporator, le, effective conductivity of the saturated wick, keff, temperature of the vapor
contained within the vapor column, Tv, surface tension, σ, maximum capillary pressure, pc, latent
heat of vaporization, λ, density of the vapor, ρv, inner diameter of the heat pipe, dpi, diameter of
the vapor column (the space in between the wick structure), dv, and the nucleation radius which
is approximated at 2.54 x 10-7m [19], rn.

Detailed information regarding the techniques used is not needed unless the technique is very
unique or specific to your problem. Information on the procedure should be sufficient so an
experienced engineer could perform the EA, given your proposed approach. Computer code,
extensive equations, and large numbers of figures are not needed. If you are unsure, use an
appendix but aim for clarity and brevity. Instead, present the most relevant figures in your EA
and include additional figures and code in an appendix.

The results from the EA should be presented in an appropriate form. That form could be tables,
graphs or other figures. All figures and tables need to be clear, readable and referenced in the
text. The main report should contain the principle results and images only, supportive results and
material should be in an appendix. Numerical results need to be presented in a table.

For any incomplete EA, the intended methodology must be described in detail. If possible, the
likely outcomes of this EA should be presented, and these predicted outcomes may be included
within the discussion section.

Maximum length is 6 pages; recommended length is 2-3 pages.

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Discussion
The discussion is an important part of this report. It needs to critically assess your results,
compare your results to your objective, and provide your results within a wider context.

You should summarize your results, presenting any unexpected outcomes and highlighting points
of interest. Your results should be compared to your objective and your individual aims. The
implications of any limitations to your work should be discussed, as well as how these
limitations would affect your results and your ability to achieve your objective.

You should explain what the implications of your results are and why people should be interested
in this. You should consider your results within a wider context and comment on any postulated
ideas with respect to this. You can make recommendations for people tackling similar or related
problems. Where possible your results should be compared to any related results from different
sources.

The expected outcomes of any incomplete work can be presented and included in the discussion.
For this report, the discussion does not need to include a further work section.

Maximum 2 pages; recommended 1 page.

Evaluation Criteria
The marking is out of 100 and based on:

• Technical Writing (30%). This includes your report's appearance, language use,
illustrative material, references, and your ability to define any technical terms you use.

• Proposed Solution (10%) is marked based on your ability to clearly communicate an

appropriate solution with sufficient detail.

• Engineering Analysis (40%) is based on your ability to communicate the purpose and
methodology of your (complete, and any incomplete) EA, the technical level of your EA,
and whether your EA is a sufficient, defensible, and robust analysis.

• Discussion (20%) is marked based on the ability to comment on your EA directly and
with respect to your aims and objective, as well as presenting an understanding of your
EA's limitations, and any implications of your results outside your specific project.

Please remember to attach your Milestone I: Background report as an appendix so the

background and objectives of your project are available. Because you have attached the
Background report you do not need to provide a general introduction to the report.
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If you have made any changes to your objectives (specifically to the purpose or the aims / goals
of your project) since your original Background Report submission, it is highly recommended
you provide the updated version of the Objective Section within your appended Milestone I:
Background report.