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Wednesday, November 30, 2011
autos modernos 2011
Honda teams up with Mugen Euro to launch sporty CR-Z ICF
Engineers at MUGEN Euro worked on the 1.5-litre power unit, keeping the 3-button IMA modes. They also added a centrifugal forced air induction system, induction system, charge-air cooler and a MUGEN Euro-mapped ECU. With these features, the vehicle has a remarkable power to weight ratio as well as an enhanced torque helping to deliver 0-62mph in 6.1 seconds -- over 3 seconds quicker than the regular vehicle.
According to Head of Honda (UK) marketing Martin Moll, the "MUGEN Euro magic" has developed a "super responsive yet eco-conscious model building on our sporting credentials." He added that this allows them to compete in the "hot hatch" marketplace as they move towards 2012. Production development will still be at MUGEN Euro, with vehicles available for test drive in spring 2012 through the eight Honda UK MUGEN dealers. Prices are expected to be around £24,000, but have yet to be confirmed.[via : 4wheelsnews]
Photo : Honda CR-Z ICF/Mugen
Review :
Exterior :
The CR-Z has a broad stance and wedgelike profile. Inspired by the CRX two-seater sold in 1990 and '91, the CR-Z shares that model's split liftgate window, an element that remains controversial in terms of style and driver visibility in the Insight and Toyota Prius.
At 160 inches long, the CR-Z is a few inches longer than a Mazda MX-5 Miata and the extended version of the Mini Cooper, the Clubman. Exterior features include:
At 160 inches long, the CR-Z is a few inches longer than a Mazda MX-5 Miata and the extended version of the Mini Cooper, the Clubman. Exterior features include:
- Standard 16-inch alloy wheels; 17-inch alloys available
- Standard LED taillights
- Standard rear-window wiper
- Available high-intensity-discharge headlamps
- Available fog lights
- Available heated side mirrors
Interior :
The interior has a busy but effective design similar to that of the Insight, with cockpit-style driver-oriented controls and displays. Even the ventilation controls are on a pod near the driver; there's no conventional center control panel and the optional navigation system is slightly on the passenger side of the dashboard.
Storage bins behind the seats are separated from the cargo area by a bulkhead that can be folded forward to extend the cargo hatch's floor — similar to a folding seat's backrest. A retractable cargo cover is standard. Interior features include:
Storage bins behind the seats are separated from the cargo area by a bulkhead that can be folded forward to extend the cargo hatch's floor — similar to a folding seat's backrest. A retractable cargo cover is standard. Interior features include:
- Power windows, locks and mirrors
- Manual-adjustable bucket seats
- Tilt/telescoping steering wheel
- CD stereo with MP3 jack and USB port
- Available premium stereo with subwoofer
- Available Bluetooth connectivity
- Available leather-wrapped steering wheel
Under the Hood :
Like other Honda hybrids, the CR-Z uses a relatively simple system that puts an electric motor in tandem with a gas engine, in this case a 1.5-liter four-cylinder. Though the engine shuts off when the car is stopped, it's always turning over when the car's in motion.
To suit the driver's needs, the CR-Z has Sport, Normal and Econ modes. Econ maximizes fuel economy, while Sport makes the acceleration more responsive and decreases the power-steering assist for a sportier feel. Mechanical features include:
To suit the driver's needs, the CR-Z has Sport, Normal and Econ modes. Econ maximizes fuel economy, while Sport makes the acceleration more responsive and decreases the power-steering assist for a sportier feel. Mechanical features include:
- Gas engine and motor combine to produce 122 horsepower
- Standard six-speed manual transmission
- Optional continuously variable automatic transmission
Safety :
Standard safety features include:
- Side-impact airbags
- Side curtain airbags
- Four-wheel-disc antilock brakes
- Electronic stability system with traction control
- Active head restraints
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
The Next Generation of Nuclear Reactors
Engineerblogger
Nov 29, 2011
The nuclear-power-generation future is quietly taking shape, at least virtually, through the labors of several hundred scientists and technicians working on the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) in Idaho Falls, ID. Scattered through several research facilities and operating sites, these experts are wrestling with dozens of questions—from technology evaluations to site licensing to spent fuels—that accompany any extension of nuclear power.
NGNP is far more than an extension: it is a radical step forward for nuclear power. It will be the first truly new reactor design to go into commercial service in the U.S. in decades; it is to be up and running by September 2021. The way forward may not be smooth. Cost estimates range from $4 billion to nearly $7 billion and who pays for what remains unsettled. Nevertheless, barring a technical crunch, a licensing snag, or a financial meltdown, NGNP could become a cornerstone of an energy future with abundant electricity and drastically reduced carbon emissions.
The reactor initiative is for a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor or HTGC (sometimes abbreviated as HTGR), a graphite-moderated and helium-cooled design backed by considerable engineering development in Japan, China, Russia, South Africa, and, in the U.S. by General Atomics, Inc. The primary goal of the project is to commercialize HTGCs. Experts put the potential market at several hundred reactors if most coal-fired power plants are replaced.
Running NGNP is what the U.S. Department of Energy calls the NGNP Industry Alliance. Members include many of power-generation’s biggest names: General Atomics; Areva NP; Babcock & Wilcox; Westinghouse Electric Co.; SGL Group, a German producer of graphite and carbon products; and Entergy Nuclear. Entergy owns, operates, or manages 12 of the 104 power-gen reactors in the U.S. and is expected to handle licensing. These firms’ operations and expertise span the industry.
Further backing comes from the consortium that operates INL itself. Its members are Battelle Energy Alliance / Battelle Memorial Institute; Babcock & Wilcox; Washington Group International / URS Corp.; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and the Electric Power Research Institute.
The high-temperature reference is to the reactor’s outlet temperature, about 1,000 °C, or very roughly three times higher than most of today’s reactors. That means HTGCs can be a source of low-carbon, high-temperature process heat for petroleum refining, biofuels production, the production of fertilizer and chemical feedstocks, and reprocessing coal into other fuels, among other uses. This is why the NGNP alliance includes Dow Chemical, Eastman Chemical, ConocoPhillips, Potash Corp., and the Petroleum Technology Alliance of Canada. All are potential customers for NGNP’s clean heat.
The NGNP Industry Alliance’s HTGC is an integral part of the Generation IV International Forum (GIF). Founded in 2000, GIF is a broadly based international effort to put nuclear power to widespread use for base-load electricity generation and low-cost heat for industrial processes. The other five Generation IV designs are molten-salt reactors, sodium-cooled fast, supercritical water-cooled, gas-cooled fast, and lead-cooled fast. (“Fast” refers to a portion of the neutron spectrum.)
Improvements to existing reactors of 2000 and later are classed as Generation III reactors. They have:
There is also a Gen III-plus group of about a dozen reactor designs in advanced planning stages. Today’s operating units, mostly built since 1970, are second generation. The first generation was 1950 - 1970 prototypes and demonstration units.
Despite optimistic long-term prospects for NGNP and Gen-IV, the nuclear industry’s critics raise two objections. First, safety risks may be greater initially with new reactor types as reactor operators will have had little experience with the new design. Second, fabrication, construction, and maintenance of new reactors can be expected to have a steep learning curve. Advanced technologies always carry a higher risk of accidents and mistakes than predecessors. Established technologies grow safer with accumulated experience and lessons-learned.
The NGNP program envisions dozens of these reactors by 2050. In contrast to today’s power-generation reactors and their enormous concrete-and-steel containment structures, these reactors may be nearly invisible. They will be underground in concrete silos 150 feet deep.
Meanwhile, ASME is playing a major role in NGNP research on metal alloys that can withstand the reactors’ extremely high outlet temperatures. The alloys under consideration are 800H (iron-nickel-chromium), Grade 91 steel (chromium–molybdenum) and Haynes International’s Hastelloy XR (nickel-chromium-iron-molybdenum). The work is being carried out by ASME Standards Technology LLC under an agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy.
Source: ASME
Nov 29, 2011
The nuclear-power-generation future is quietly taking shape, at least virtually, through the labors of several hundred scientists and technicians working on the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) in Idaho Falls, ID. Scattered through several research facilities and operating sites, these experts are wrestling with dozens of questions—from technology evaluations to site licensing to spent fuels—that accompany any extension of nuclear power.
 |
| High-temperature gas-cooled reactor. Image courtesy of Idaho National Laboratory (INL). |
NGNP is far more than an extension: it is a radical step forward for nuclear power. It will be the first truly new reactor design to go into commercial service in the U.S. in decades; it is to be up and running by September 2021. The way forward may not be smooth. Cost estimates range from $4 billion to nearly $7 billion and who pays for what remains unsettled. Nevertheless, barring a technical crunch, a licensing snag, or a financial meltdown, NGNP could become a cornerstone of an energy future with abundant electricity and drastically reduced carbon emissions.
The reactor initiative is for a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor or HTGC (sometimes abbreviated as HTGR), a graphite-moderated and helium-cooled design backed by considerable engineering development in Japan, China, Russia, South Africa, and, in the U.S. by General Atomics, Inc. The primary goal of the project is to commercialize HTGCs. Experts put the potential market at several hundred reactors if most coal-fired power plants are replaced.
 |
| Researcher at Idaho National Laboratory (INL). |
Running NGNP is what the U.S. Department of Energy calls the NGNP Industry Alliance. Members include many of power-generation’s biggest names: General Atomics; Areva NP; Babcock & Wilcox; Westinghouse Electric Co.; SGL Group, a German producer of graphite and carbon products; and Entergy Nuclear. Entergy owns, operates, or manages 12 of the 104 power-gen reactors in the U.S. and is expected to handle licensing. These firms’ operations and expertise span the industry.
Further backing comes from the consortium that operates INL itself. Its members are Battelle Energy Alliance / Battelle Memorial Institute; Babcock & Wilcox; Washington Group International / URS Corp.; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and the Electric Power Research Institute.
The high-temperature reference is to the reactor’s outlet temperature, about 1,000 °C, or very roughly three times higher than most of today’s reactors. That means HTGCs can be a source of low-carbon, high-temperature process heat for petroleum refining, biofuels production, the production of fertilizer and chemical feedstocks, and reprocessing coal into other fuels, among other uses. This is why the NGNP alliance includes Dow Chemical, Eastman Chemical, ConocoPhillips, Potash Corp., and the Petroleum Technology Alliance of Canada. All are potential customers for NGNP’s clean heat.
The NGNP Industry Alliance’s HTGC is an integral part of the Generation IV International Forum (GIF). Founded in 2000, GIF is a broadly based international effort to put nuclear power to widespread use for base-load electricity generation and low-cost heat for industrial processes. The other five Generation IV designs are molten-salt reactors, sodium-cooled fast, supercritical water-cooled, gas-cooled fast, and lead-cooled fast. (“Fast” refers to a portion of the neutron spectrum.)
Improvements to existing reactors of 2000 and later are classed as Generation III reactors. They have:
- standardized type designs to expedite licensing, reduce capital costs, and speed construction. Gen II’s were largely custom-built.
- simpler, more rugged designs for less complicated operation and lower vulnerability to operational problems.
- higher availability with fewer, shorter outages and operating lives stretching 60 years.
- better resistance to damage from possible core melts and aircraft impact.
- "grace periods" of 72 hours; a shutdown plant requires no active intervention for the first 72 hours in part because of passive or inherent safety features that rely on gravity, natural convection, or resistance to high temperatures.
- higher "burn up" to reduce fuel use and the amount of waste.
There is also a Gen III-plus group of about a dozen reactor designs in advanced planning stages. Today’s operating units, mostly built since 1970, are second generation. The first generation was 1950 - 1970 prototypes and demonstration units.
Despite optimistic long-term prospects for NGNP and Gen-IV, the nuclear industry’s critics raise two objections. First, safety risks may be greater initially with new reactor types as reactor operators will have had little experience with the new design. Second, fabrication, construction, and maintenance of new reactors can be expected to have a steep learning curve. Advanced technologies always carry a higher risk of accidents and mistakes than predecessors. Established technologies grow safer with accumulated experience and lessons-learned.
The NGNP program envisions dozens of these reactors by 2050. In contrast to today’s power-generation reactors and their enormous concrete-and-steel containment structures, these reactors may be nearly invisible. They will be underground in concrete silos 150 feet deep.
Meanwhile, ASME is playing a major role in NGNP research on metal alloys that can withstand the reactors’ extremely high outlet temperatures. The alloys under consideration are 800H (iron-nickel-chromium), Grade 91 steel (chromium–molybdenum) and Haynes International’s Hastelloy XR (nickel-chromium-iron-molybdenum). The work is being carried out by ASME Standards Technology LLC under an agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy.
Source: ASME
TIME Magazine recognizes DARPA’s Hummingbird Nano Air Vehicle
Engineerblogger
Nov 29, 2011
Rapidly flapping wings to hover, dive, climb, or dart through an open doorway, DARPA’s remotely controlled Nano Air Vehicle relays real-time video from a tiny on-board camera back to its operator. Weighing less than a AA battery and resembling a live hummingbird, the vehicle could give war fighters an unobtrusive view of threats inside or outside a building from a safe distance. This week, TIME Magazine named the Hummingbird one of the best 50 inventions of the year, featuring it on the November 28th cover.
“The Hummingbird’s development is in keeping with a long DARPA tradition of innovation and technical advances for national defense that support the agency’s singular mission – to prevent and create strategic surprise,” said Jay Schnitzer, DARPA’s Defense Sciences Office director.
Creating a robotic hummingbird, complete with intricate wings and video capability, may not have seemed doable or even imaginable to some. But it was this same DARPA visionary innovation that decades ago led to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which were, at the time, inconceivable to some because there was no pilot on board. In the past two years, the Air Force has trained more initial qualification pilots to fly UAVs than fighters and bombers combined.
“Advances at DARPA challenge existing perspectives as they progress from seemingly impossible through improbable to inevitable,” said Dr. Regina Dugan, DARPA’s director.
UAVs from the small WASP, to the Predator, to Global Hawk now number in the hundreds in Afghanistan. What once seemed inconceivable is now routine.
“At DARPA today we have many examples of people – national treasures themselves – who left lucrative careers, and PhD programs, to join the fight,” Dugan said. “Technically astute, inspiringly articulate, full of ‘fire in the belly,’ they are hell-bent and unrelenting in their efforts to show the world what’s possible. And they do it in service to our Nation.”
TIME Magazine also recognized DARPA’s innovative breakthrough in 3-D holography, the Urban Photonic Sandtable Display, among its top 50 inventions. The holographic sand table could give war fighters a virtual mission planning tool by enabling color 3-D scene depictions, viewable by 20 people from any direction—with no 3-D glasses required.
Source: DARPA
Nov 29, 2011
Rapidly flapping wings to hover, dive, climb, or dart through an open doorway, DARPA’s remotely controlled Nano Air Vehicle relays real-time video from a tiny on-board camera back to its operator. Weighing less than a AA battery and resembling a live hummingbird, the vehicle could give war fighters an unobtrusive view of threats inside or outside a building from a safe distance. This week, TIME Magazine named the Hummingbird one of the best 50 inventions of the year, featuring it on the November 28th cover.
“The Hummingbird’s development is in keeping with a long DARPA tradition of innovation and technical advances for national defense that support the agency’s singular mission – to prevent and create strategic surprise,” said Jay Schnitzer, DARPA’s Defense Sciences Office director.
Creating a robotic hummingbird, complete with intricate wings and video capability, may not have seemed doable or even imaginable to some. But it was this same DARPA visionary innovation that decades ago led to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which were, at the time, inconceivable to some because there was no pilot on board. In the past two years, the Air Force has trained more initial qualification pilots to fly UAVs than fighters and bombers combined.
“Advances at DARPA challenge existing perspectives as they progress from seemingly impossible through improbable to inevitable,” said Dr. Regina Dugan, DARPA’s director.
UAVs from the small WASP, to the Predator, to Global Hawk now number in the hundreds in Afghanistan. What once seemed inconceivable is now routine.
“At DARPA today we have many examples of people – national treasures themselves – who left lucrative careers, and PhD programs, to join the fight,” Dugan said. “Technically astute, inspiringly articulate, full of ‘fire in the belly,’ they are hell-bent and unrelenting in their efforts to show the world what’s possible. And they do it in service to our Nation.”
TIME Magazine also recognized DARPA’s innovative breakthrough in 3-D holography, the Urban Photonic Sandtable Display, among its top 50 inventions. The holographic sand table could give war fighters a virtual mission planning tool by enabling color 3-D scene depictions, viewable by 20 people from any direction—with no 3-D glasses required.
Source: DARPA
Ride the wave: vessels for wind turbine maintenance
The Engineer
Nov 28, 2011
A sea craft using supercar suspension could be the solution to maintaining offshore wind turbines.
It’s probably fair to say that wind turbines have become one of the most divisive forms of renewable energy available in the UK.
But whichever side of the fence you sit on, from a purely technical point of view it’s difficult to deny that the wind sector presents some unique and interesting engineering challenges.
For onshore turbines, engineers have risen to this quite impressively, demonstrating an ability to effectively transfer knowledge and skills from other sectors to solve issues such as torque handling with innovative gearless generators, for example.
With offshore, though, there is a whole new set of challenges to tackle and not just from a scale point of view.
Even the most robust turbines will be subject to routine maintenance and unscheduled downtime. So if the planned next-generation offshore mega-farms are going to be cost effective, engineers will need to get to them in potentially rough sea conditions or the turbines will sit idle and lose money (see panel).
For this reason, the UK Carbon Trust - through its industry-backed Wind Accelerator Programme - launched a competition this summer in order to find technologies that might help achieve this. The potential solutions detailed in the entries submitted so far are varied, but one thing they have in common is the need for some kind of vessel that can cope with large waves.
Continuing the tradition in the renewable sector of transferring technologies from other sectors, one of the potential solutions has its roots in the automotive industry.
Nauti-Craft is an Australian company headed by inventor and engineer Chris Heyring. While Nauti-Craft is focused on marine applications, it draws experience and ideas from a previous company co-founded by Heyring called Kinetic, which builds innovative suspension systems for high-performance cars.
These were used by Citroen to win the World Rally Championship in 2003, 2004 and 2005 and by Mitsubishi to win the Paris Dakar campaign in 2004 and 2005 - until, as Heyring puts it, ’they were banned for being too competitive’. The suspension systems are now fitted as standard to the current Toyota Landcrusier and Nissan Patrol off-roaders, as well as the McLaren MP4-12C supercar.
Nov 28, 2011
 |
| Softening the blow: the craft’s pods adapt to the water’s undulating surface, minimising bumps |
A sea craft using supercar suspension could be the solution to maintaining offshore wind turbines.
It’s probably fair to say that wind turbines have become one of the most divisive forms of renewable energy available in the UK.
But whichever side of the fence you sit on, from a purely technical point of view it’s difficult to deny that the wind sector presents some unique and interesting engineering challenges.
For onshore turbines, engineers have risen to this quite impressively, demonstrating an ability to effectively transfer knowledge and skills from other sectors to solve issues such as torque handling with innovative gearless generators, for example.
With offshore, though, there is a whole new set of challenges to tackle and not just from a scale point of view.
Even the most robust turbines will be subject to routine maintenance and unscheduled downtime. So if the planned next-generation offshore mega-farms are going to be cost effective, engineers will need to get to them in potentially rough sea conditions or the turbines will sit idle and lose money (see panel).
For this reason, the UK Carbon Trust - through its industry-backed Wind Accelerator Programme - launched a competition this summer in order to find technologies that might help achieve this. The potential solutions detailed in the entries submitted so far are varied, but one thing they have in common is the need for some kind of vessel that can cope with large waves.
Continuing the tradition in the renewable sector of transferring technologies from other sectors, one of the potential solutions has its roots in the automotive industry.
Nauti-Craft is an Australian company headed by inventor and engineer Chris Heyring. While Nauti-Craft is focused on marine applications, it draws experience and ideas from a previous company co-founded by Heyring called Kinetic, which builds innovative suspension systems for high-performance cars.
These were used by Citroen to win the World Rally Championship in 2003, 2004 and 2005 and by Mitsubishi to win the Paris Dakar campaign in 2004 and 2005 - until, as Heyring puts it, ’they were banned for being too competitive’. The suspension systems are now fitted as standard to the current Toyota Landcrusier and Nissan Patrol off-roaders, as well as the McLaren MP4-12C supercar.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Everyday Prothetic Finger
Engineerblogger
Nov 28, 2011
In a former life, Dan Didrick fabricated cosmetic fingers. The key word in that phrase is cosmetic.
“The fingers were only a silicon cap that doesn’t bend,” Didrick said. “We call them Sunday fingers because you wear them to church or dinner and then throw them in a drawer for the week.”
Bedeviled by the cosmetic fingers’ shortcomings, he invented X-Finger, surgical steel fingers that move, flex, and grasp, just like the wearer’s original fingers.
“You can move them as quickly as you can move your prior finger; plus because it’s common to flex your finger from open to closed and the X Finger follows motion of a residual finger, there’s no learning curve,” Didrick said. “A patient can use the device right away after putting it on. They could immediately catch a tossed ball that they see from the corner of their eye.”
Along the 10-year path since his first prototype, Didrick patented the device—which uses no electronics—himself, sought and received coverage from all major medical insurers for the fingers, and taught himself computer-aided design (CAD). That last bit, he said, was the easiest.
A huge proportion of nonfatal accidental amputations involve fingers. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that finger losses account for about 94 % of job-related amputations.
So Didrick—who got his start in prosthethics as a child, by using materials from his father’s dental office to make movie-quality monster masks—put his skills to use fabricating prosthetic fingers.
But his world, and his job, changed when he met a man who had lost several fingers in an accident and who was deaf. The loss of the fingers made it impossible to communicate in sign language.
“I started by actually carving components out of wood and assembling them into reciprocating series of components that, through leverages, force the mechanics in the shape of a finger to move from a straight to a bent position; from straight to a fist,” Didrick said.
Many amputees retain part of their finger. So the device, when fitted over the hand and the residual finger or fingers, lets a patient move his or her X-Finger by moving the residual finger from extended to bent.
X-Fingers, invented by Dan Didrick, are prosthetic fingers that can be manipulated by wearers through use of their residual finger or fingers. The device lets them regain full use of their finger or fingers.
“So I came up with the assembly, but I was just carving them out of wood,” Didrick said. “Then I started seeking out design engineers. That’s when I realized it can cost tens of thousands of dollars to have a design engineer create an assembly of this nature.”
Though he had majored in business in college, Didrick rose to this first challenge as he would rise to many others while launching X-Finger. He simply bought a CAD package—SolidWorks, from the company in Concord, MA—and quickly ran through the tutorial.
“Then I just started designing the components,” he said. “It only took about two weeks to get the first design. I shipped those to a manufacturer and they replicated them using an EDM machine and sent back components.”
Because all amputation cases are different, Didrick went on to develop what he called an erector set of parts that could be assembled into more than 500 different configurations. That number is likely much higher than 500, but “once I got that high, I became confused counting them,” he said.
The device is composed of stainless steel, with a plastic cap that sits on the tip of the finger and another bit of plastic that sits at the flange. This is covered with a thermoplastic cosmetic skin that is soft and resists tearing. Think of what an artificial fishing worm feels like and how it can stretch.
“We actually contacted a company that was doing a job for the military, and they’d formulated thermoplastic to the same durometer reading as human skin; so it’s almost eerie to touch it, in that it feels like skin,” Didrick said.
Each finger contains 23 moving parts, though depending on the complexity of the case—such as whether the wearer retains a residual finger or not—it could contain more. For those without residual fingers, a wire runs into the webbing between the fingers to receive open and flex impulses. The device is attached to the wrist and fitted over the hand and the residual fingers.
“It was really challenging replacing the ring and middle finger. The joint that controls those residual fingers is in your hand,” Didrick said. “But in this case it needs a probe that goes down into the webbing between the fingers to be controlled by that joint.
For those who have lost four fingers, the device allows the movement of the palm to control all the artificial fingers.
Post Engineering
Though he’d invented the world’s first active prosthetic finger (the passive type is the cosmetic ‘Sunday’ finger), Didrick, who now owns Didrick Medical of Naples, FL, was still an industry outsider.
He bought a book called Patent It Yourself by David Pressman (1979 McGraw-Hill and since updated) and spent a year writing his own patent.
Once the device was patented, FDA representatives and some online help taught him how to write a 513(d) document necessary for device evaluation. Didrick sent his evaluation to the agency and soon received a positive response. X-Fingers (the plural, used when the device contains more than one finger) had been registered with the FDA.
The next step was receiving insurance approval for the fingers. After he won approval from the FDA, he went on to get approval from all major insurance companies, which now cover X-Fingers.
“From there, the device began taking off. The need was great,” Didrick said. “Many amputees had been awaiting something like this.”
What’s little realized, he said, is how many children lose fingers. The largest group of people who lose fingers outside the workplace are children under five, who undergo finger amputation due to accidents like slamming them in a car door.
He also has learned that one out of 200 people will lose one or more fingers within their lifetime. That statistic takes into account people living all over the world.
“It’s not only machinists who lose fingers,” Didrick said.
Because his device is powered by the body, literally the wearer is flexing and bending his hand.
Many of Didrick’s customers pay a deposit in advance, which helps finance the four-employee company and it’s continued innovations.
What’s New and Next?
After his initial success, Didrick began routinely traveling to the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio and to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC, to fit wounded soldiers. He has also has fitted British soldiers with the device.
The U.S. Department of Defense asked him to design an artificial thumb, which he has also done. It’s not surprisingly called the X-Thumb.
He’s now at work on a thin glove that would enable those with paralyzed hands who retain some mobility in the wrist to use that mobility to control their hands.
Didrick is also trying to help children whose insurance companies deny them coverage because they grow out of their prosthetics too fast. The costs of producing children’s X-Fingers are high because of the variation in injuries and finger dimensions in smaller fingers and hands. He’s recently established the nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, World Hand Foundation, to cover costs to provide X-Fingers for those who cannot afford to pay for them.
And he’s still using his original CAD package.
“If we needed the funds to hire a professional design team we’d never be able to do this,” Didrick said.
Source: ASME
Nov 28, 2011
 |
| X-Fingers surgical steel fingers. |
In a former life, Dan Didrick fabricated cosmetic fingers. The key word in that phrase is cosmetic.
“The fingers were only a silicon cap that doesn’t bend,” Didrick said. “We call them Sunday fingers because you wear them to church or dinner and then throw them in a drawer for the week.”
Bedeviled by the cosmetic fingers’ shortcomings, he invented X-Finger, surgical steel fingers that move, flex, and grasp, just like the wearer’s original fingers.
“You can move them as quickly as you can move your prior finger; plus because it’s common to flex your finger from open to closed and the X Finger follows motion of a residual finger, there’s no learning curve,” Didrick said. “A patient can use the device right away after putting it on. They could immediately catch a tossed ball that they see from the corner of their eye.”
Along the 10-year path since his first prototype, Didrick patented the device—which uses no electronics—himself, sought and received coverage from all major medical insurers for the fingers, and taught himself computer-aided design (CAD). That last bit, he said, was the easiest.
A huge proportion of nonfatal accidental amputations involve fingers. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that finger losses account for about 94 % of job-related amputations.
So Didrick—who got his start in prosthethics as a child, by using materials from his father’s dental office to make movie-quality monster masks—put his skills to use fabricating prosthetic fingers.
But his world, and his job, changed when he met a man who had lost several fingers in an accident and who was deaf. The loss of the fingers made it impossible to communicate in sign language.
“I started by actually carving components out of wood and assembling them into reciprocating series of components that, through leverages, force the mechanics in the shape of a finger to move from a straight to a bent position; from straight to a fist,” Didrick said.
Many amputees retain part of their finger. So the device, when fitted over the hand and the residual finger or fingers, lets a patient move his or her X-Finger by moving the residual finger from extended to bent.
X-Fingers, invented by Dan Didrick, are prosthetic fingers that can be manipulated by wearers through use of their residual finger or fingers. The device lets them regain full use of their finger or fingers.
“So I came up with the assembly, but I was just carving them out of wood,” Didrick said. “Then I started seeking out design engineers. That’s when I realized it can cost tens of thousands of dollars to have a design engineer create an assembly of this nature.”
Though he had majored in business in college, Didrick rose to this first challenge as he would rise to many others while launching X-Finger. He simply bought a CAD package—SolidWorks, from the company in Concord, MA—and quickly ran through the tutorial.
“Then I just started designing the components,” he said. “It only took about two weeks to get the first design. I shipped those to a manufacturer and they replicated them using an EDM machine and sent back components.”
Because all amputation cases are different, Didrick went on to develop what he called an erector set of parts that could be assembled into more than 500 different configurations. That number is likely much higher than 500, but “once I got that high, I became confused counting them,” he said.
The device is composed of stainless steel, with a plastic cap that sits on the tip of the finger and another bit of plastic that sits at the flange. This is covered with a thermoplastic cosmetic skin that is soft and resists tearing. Think of what an artificial fishing worm feels like and how it can stretch.
“We actually contacted a company that was doing a job for the military, and they’d formulated thermoplastic to the same durometer reading as human skin; so it’s almost eerie to touch it, in that it feels like skin,” Didrick said.
Each finger contains 23 moving parts, though depending on the complexity of the case—such as whether the wearer retains a residual finger or not—it could contain more. For those without residual fingers, a wire runs into the webbing between the fingers to receive open and flex impulses. The device is attached to the wrist and fitted over the hand and the residual fingers.
“It was really challenging replacing the ring and middle finger. The joint that controls those residual fingers is in your hand,” Didrick said. “But in this case it needs a probe that goes down into the webbing between the fingers to be controlled by that joint.
For those who have lost four fingers, the device allows the movement of the palm to control all the artificial fingers.
Post Engineering
Though he’d invented the world’s first active prosthetic finger (the passive type is the cosmetic ‘Sunday’ finger), Didrick, who now owns Didrick Medical of Naples, FL, was still an industry outsider.
He bought a book called Patent It Yourself by David Pressman (1979 McGraw-Hill and since updated) and spent a year writing his own patent.
Once the device was patented, FDA representatives and some online help taught him how to write a 513(d) document necessary for device evaluation. Didrick sent his evaluation to the agency and soon received a positive response. X-Fingers (the plural, used when the device contains more than one finger) had been registered with the FDA.
The next step was receiving insurance approval for the fingers. After he won approval from the FDA, he went on to get approval from all major insurance companies, which now cover X-Fingers.
“From there, the device began taking off. The need was great,” Didrick said. “Many amputees had been awaiting something like this.”
What’s little realized, he said, is how many children lose fingers. The largest group of people who lose fingers outside the workplace are children under five, who undergo finger amputation due to accidents like slamming them in a car door.
He also has learned that one out of 200 people will lose one or more fingers within their lifetime. That statistic takes into account people living all over the world.
“It’s not only machinists who lose fingers,” Didrick said.
Because his device is powered by the body, literally the wearer is flexing and bending his hand.
Many of Didrick’s customers pay a deposit in advance, which helps finance the four-employee company and it’s continued innovations.
What’s New and Next?
After his initial success, Didrick began routinely traveling to the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio and to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC, to fit wounded soldiers. He has also has fitted British soldiers with the device.
The U.S. Department of Defense asked him to design an artificial thumb, which he has also done. It’s not surprisingly called the X-Thumb.
He’s now at work on a thin glove that would enable those with paralyzed hands who retain some mobility in the wrist to use that mobility to control their hands.
Didrick is also trying to help children whose insurance companies deny them coverage because they grow out of their prosthetics too fast. The costs of producing children’s X-Fingers are high because of the variation in injuries and finger dimensions in smaller fingers and hands. He’s recently established the nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, World Hand Foundation, to cover costs to provide X-Fingers for those who cannot afford to pay for them.
And he’s still using his original CAD package.
“If we needed the funds to hire a professional design team we’d never be able to do this,” Didrick said.
Source: ASME
Robots in reality: Robots for real-world challenges
MIT News
Nov 28, 2011
Consider the following scenario: A scout surveys a high-rise building that’s been crippled by an earthquake, trapping workers inside. After looking for a point of entry, the scout carefully navigates through a small opening. An officer radios in, “Go look down that corridor and tell me what you see.” The scout steers through smoke and rubble, avoiding obstacles and finding two trapped people, reporting their location via live video. A SWAT team is then sent to lead the workers safely out of the building.
Despite its heroics, though, the scout is impervious to thanks. It just sets its sights on the next mission, like any robot would do.
In the not-too-distant future, such robotics-driven missions will be a routine part of disaster response, predicts Nicholas Roy, an MIT associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics. From Roy’s perspective, robots are ideal for dangerous and covert tasks, such as navigating nuclear disasters or spying on enemy camps. They can be small and resilient — but more importantly, they can save valuable manpower.
The key hurdle to such a scenario is robotic intelligence: Flying through unfamiliar territory while avoiding obstacles is an incredibly complex computational task. Understanding verbal commands in natural language is even trickier.
Both challenges are major objectives in Roy’s research — and with both, he aims to design machine-learning systems that can navigate the noise and uncertainty of the real world. He and a team of students in the Robust Robotics Group, in MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), are designing robotic systems that “do more things intelligently by themselves,” as he puts it.
For instance, the team is building micro-aerial vehicles (MAVs), about the size of a small briefcase, that navigate independently, without the help of a global positioning system (GPS). Most drones depend on GPS to get around, which limits the areas they can cover. In contrast, Roy and his students are outfitting quadrotors — MAVs propelled by four mini-chopper blades — with sensors and sensor processing, to orient themselves without relying on GPS data.
“You can’t fly indoors or quickly between buildings, or under forest canopies stealthily if you rely on GPS,” Roy says. “But if you put sensors onboard, like laser range finders and cameras, then the vehicle can sense the environment, it can avoid obstacles, it can track its own position relative to landmarks it can see, and it can just do more stuff.”
To read more click here...
Nov 28, 2011
 |
Nicholas Roy, an MIT associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics Photo: Dominick Reuter |
Consider the following scenario: A scout surveys a high-rise building that’s been crippled by an earthquake, trapping workers inside. After looking for a point of entry, the scout carefully navigates through a small opening. An officer radios in, “Go look down that corridor and tell me what you see.” The scout steers through smoke and rubble, avoiding obstacles and finding two trapped people, reporting their location via live video. A SWAT team is then sent to lead the workers safely out of the building.
Despite its heroics, though, the scout is impervious to thanks. It just sets its sights on the next mission, like any robot would do.
In the not-too-distant future, such robotics-driven missions will be a routine part of disaster response, predicts Nicholas Roy, an MIT associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics. From Roy’s perspective, robots are ideal for dangerous and covert tasks, such as navigating nuclear disasters or spying on enemy camps. They can be small and resilient — but more importantly, they can save valuable manpower.
The key hurdle to such a scenario is robotic intelligence: Flying through unfamiliar territory while avoiding obstacles is an incredibly complex computational task. Understanding verbal commands in natural language is even trickier.
Both challenges are major objectives in Roy’s research — and with both, he aims to design machine-learning systems that can navigate the noise and uncertainty of the real world. He and a team of students in the Robust Robotics Group, in MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), are designing robotic systems that “do more things intelligently by themselves,” as he puts it.
For instance, the team is building micro-aerial vehicles (MAVs), about the size of a small briefcase, that navigate independently, without the help of a global positioning system (GPS). Most drones depend on GPS to get around, which limits the areas they can cover. In contrast, Roy and his students are outfitting quadrotors — MAVs propelled by four mini-chopper blades — with sensors and sensor processing, to orient themselves without relying on GPS data.
“You can’t fly indoors or quickly between buildings, or under forest canopies stealthily if you rely on GPS,” Roy says. “But if you put sensors onboard, like laser range finders and cameras, then the vehicle can sense the environment, it can avoid obstacles, it can track its own position relative to landmarks it can see, and it can just do more stuff.”
To read more click here...
Toyota unveils high-tech concept car ahead of show
Engineerblogger
Nov 28, 2011
Toyota's president unveiled a futuristic concept car resembling a giant smartphone to demonstrate how Japan's top automaker is trying to take the lead in technology at the upcoming Tokyo auto show.
Toyota Motor Corp. will also be showing an electric vehicle, set for launch next year, and a tiny version of the hit Prius gas-electric hybrid at the Tokyo Motor Show, which opens to the public this weekend.
But the automaker's president, Akio Toyoda, chose to focus on the experimental Fun-Vii, which he called "a smartphone on four wheels" at Monday's preview of what Toyota is displaying at the show.
The car works like a personal computer and allows drivers to connect with dealers and others with a tap of a touch-panel door.
"A car must appeal to our emotions," Toyoda said, using the Japanese term "waku waku doki doki," referring to a heart aflutter with anticipation.
Toyota's booth will be a major attraction at the biannual Tokyo exhibition for the auto industry. Toyota said the Fun Vii was an example of what might be in the works in "20XX," giving no dates.
The Tokyo show has been scaled back in recent years as U.S. and European automakers increasingly look to China and other places where growth potential is greater. U.S. automaker Ford Motor Co. isn't even taking part in the show.
Toyota's electric vehicle FT-EV III, still a concept or test model, doesn't have a price yet, but is designed for short trips such as grocery shopping and work commutes, running 105 kilometers (65 miles) on one full charge.
The new small hybrid will be named Aqua in Japan, where it goes on sale next month. Overseas dates are undecided. Outside Japan it will be sold as a Prius.
Japan's automakers, already battered by years of sales stagnation at home, took another hit from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, which damaged part suppliers in northeastern Japan, and forced the car makers to cut back production.
The forecast of demand for new passenger cars in Japan this year has been cut to 3.58 million vehicles from an earlier 3.78 million by the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association.
Toru Hatano, auto analyst for IHS Automotive in Tokyo, believes fuel efficient hybrid models will be popular with Japanese consumers, and Toyota has an edge.
"The biggest obstacle has to do with costs, and you need to boost vehicle numbers if you hope to bring down costs" he said. "Toyota has more hybrids on the market than do rivals, and that gives Toyota an advantage."
Toyota has sold more than 3.4 million hybrids worldwide so far. Honda Motor Co., which has also been aggressive with hybrid technology, has sold 770,000 hybrids worldwide.
Toyota is also premiering a fuel-cell concept vehicle, FCV-R, at the show.
Zero-emission fuel cell vehicles, which run on hydrogen, have been viewed as impractical because of costs. Toyota said the FCV-R is a "practical" fuel-cell, planned for 2015, but didn't give its price.
"I felt as though my heart was going to break," Toyoda said of the turmoil after the March disaster. "It is precisely because we are in such times we must move forward with our dreams."
Source: The Associated Press
Nov 28, 2011
 |
A presenter explains about Toyota Fun-Vii in Tokyo Monday, Nov. 28, 2011. Toyota Motor Corp. unveiled the futuristic concept car resembling a giant smartphone to demonstrate how Japan's top automaker is trying to take the lead in technology at the upcoming Tokyo auto show, which opens to the public this weekend. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara) |
Toyota's president unveiled a futuristic concept car resembling a giant smartphone to demonstrate how Japan's top automaker is trying to take the lead in technology at the upcoming Tokyo auto show.
Toyota Motor Corp. will also be showing an electric vehicle, set for launch next year, and a tiny version of the hit Prius gas-electric hybrid at the Tokyo Motor Show, which opens to the public this weekend.
But the automaker's president, Akio Toyoda, chose to focus on the experimental Fun-Vii, which he called "a smartphone on four wheels" at Monday's preview of what Toyota is displaying at the show.
The car works like a personal computer and allows drivers to connect with dealers and others with a tap of a touch-panel door.
"A car must appeal to our emotions," Toyoda said, using the Japanese term "waku waku doki doki," referring to a heart aflutter with anticipation.
Toyota's booth will be a major attraction at the biannual Tokyo exhibition for the auto industry. Toyota said the Fun Vii was an example of what might be in the works in "20XX," giving no dates.
The Tokyo show has been scaled back in recent years as U.S. and European automakers increasingly look to China and other places where growth potential is greater. U.S. automaker Ford Motor Co. isn't even taking part in the show.
Toyota's electric vehicle FT-EV III, still a concept or test model, doesn't have a price yet, but is designed for short trips such as grocery shopping and work commutes, running 105 kilometers (65 miles) on one full charge.
The new small hybrid will be named Aqua in Japan, where it goes on sale next month. Overseas dates are undecided. Outside Japan it will be sold as a Prius.
Japan's automakers, already battered by years of sales stagnation at home, took another hit from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, which damaged part suppliers in northeastern Japan, and forced the car makers to cut back production.
The forecast of demand for new passenger cars in Japan this year has been cut to 3.58 million vehicles from an earlier 3.78 million by the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association.
Toru Hatano, auto analyst for IHS Automotive in Tokyo, believes fuel efficient hybrid models will be popular with Japanese consumers, and Toyota has an edge.
"The biggest obstacle has to do with costs, and you need to boost vehicle numbers if you hope to bring down costs" he said. "Toyota has more hybrids on the market than do rivals, and that gives Toyota an advantage."
Toyota has sold more than 3.4 million hybrids worldwide so far. Honda Motor Co., which has also been aggressive with hybrid technology, has sold 770,000 hybrids worldwide.
Toyota is also premiering a fuel-cell concept vehicle, FCV-R, at the show.
Zero-emission fuel cell vehicles, which run on hydrogen, have been viewed as impractical because of costs. Toyota said the FCV-R is a "practical" fuel-cell, planned for 2015, but didn't give its price.
"I felt as though my heart was going to break," Toyoda said of the turmoil after the March disaster. "It is precisely because we are in such times we must move forward with our dreams."
Source: The Associated Press
Mazda announces world first capacitor-based regenerative braking system
Engineerblogger
Nov 28, 2011
Mazda Motor Corporation has developed the world's first passenger vehicle regenerative braking system that uses a capacitor. The groundbreaking system, which Mazda calls 'i-ELOOP', will begin to appear in Mazda's vehicles in 2012. In real-world driving conditions with frequent acceleration and braking, 'i-ELOOP' improves fuel economy by approximately 10 percent.
Mazda's regenerative braking system is unique because it uses a capacitor, which is an electrical component that temporarily stores large volumes of electricity. Compared to batteries, capacitors can be charged and discharged rapidly and are resistant to deterioration through prolonged use. 'i-ELOOP' efficiently converts the vehicle's kinetic energy into electricity as it decelerates, and uses the electricity to power the climate control, audio system and numerous other electrical components.
Regenerative braking systems are growing in popularity as a fuel saving technology. They use an electric motor or alternator to generate electricity as the vehicle decelerates, thereby recovering a portion of the vehicle's kinetic energy. Regenerative braking systems in hybrid vehicles generally use a large electric motor and dedicated battery.
Mazda examined automobile accelerating and decelerating mechanisms, and developed a highly efficient regenerative braking system that rapidly recovers a large amount of electricity every time the vehicle decelerates. Unlike hybrids, Mazda's system also avoids the need for a dedicated electric motor and battery.
'i-ELOOP' features a new 12-25V variable voltage alternator, a low-resistance electric double layer capacitor and a DC/DC converter. 'i-ELOOP' starts to recover kinetic energy the moment the driver lifts off the accelerator pedal and the vehicle begins to decelerate. The variable voltage alternator generates electricity at up to 25V for maximum efficiency before sending it to the Electric Double Layer Capacitor (EDLC) for storage. The capacitor, which has been specially developed for use in a vehicle, can be fully charged in seconds. The DC/DC converter steps down the electricity from 25V to 12V before it is distributed directly to the vehicle's electrical components. The system also charges the vehicle battery as necessary. 'i-ELOOP' operates whenever the vehicle decelerates, reducing the need for the engine to burn extra fuel to generate electricity. As a result, in "stop-and-go" driving conditions, fuel economy improves by approximately 10 percent.
The name 'i-ELOOP' is an adaptation of "Intelligent Energy Loop" and represents Mazda's intention to efficiently cycle energy in an intelligent way.
'i-ELOOP' also works in conjunction with Mazda's unique 'i-stop' idling stop technology to extend the period that the engine can be shut off.
Mazda is working to maximize the efficiency of internal combustion engine vehicles with its groundbreaking SKYACTIV TECHNOLOGY. By combining this with i-stop, i-ELOOP and other electric devices that enhance fuel economy by eliminating unnecessary fuel consumption, Mazda is striving to deliver vehicles with excellent environmental performance as well as a Zoom-Zoom ride to all its customers.
Source: Mazda
Nov 28, 2011
 |
| Mazda's 'i-ELOOP' regenerative braking system |
Mazda Motor Corporation has developed the world's first passenger vehicle regenerative braking system that uses a capacitor. The groundbreaking system, which Mazda calls 'i-ELOOP', will begin to appear in Mazda's vehicles in 2012. In real-world driving conditions with frequent acceleration and braking, 'i-ELOOP' improves fuel economy by approximately 10 percent.
Mazda's regenerative braking system is unique because it uses a capacitor, which is an electrical component that temporarily stores large volumes of electricity. Compared to batteries, capacitors can be charged and discharged rapidly and are resistant to deterioration through prolonged use. 'i-ELOOP' efficiently converts the vehicle's kinetic energy into electricity as it decelerates, and uses the electricity to power the climate control, audio system and numerous other electrical components.
Regenerative braking systems are growing in popularity as a fuel saving technology. They use an electric motor or alternator to generate electricity as the vehicle decelerates, thereby recovering a portion of the vehicle's kinetic energy. Regenerative braking systems in hybrid vehicles generally use a large electric motor and dedicated battery.
Mazda examined automobile accelerating and decelerating mechanisms, and developed a highly efficient regenerative braking system that rapidly recovers a large amount of electricity every time the vehicle decelerates. Unlike hybrids, Mazda's system also avoids the need for a dedicated electric motor and battery.
'i-ELOOP' features a new 12-25V variable voltage alternator, a low-resistance electric double layer capacitor and a DC/DC converter. 'i-ELOOP' starts to recover kinetic energy the moment the driver lifts off the accelerator pedal and the vehicle begins to decelerate. The variable voltage alternator generates electricity at up to 25V for maximum efficiency before sending it to the Electric Double Layer Capacitor (EDLC) for storage. The capacitor, which has been specially developed for use in a vehicle, can be fully charged in seconds. The DC/DC converter steps down the electricity from 25V to 12V before it is distributed directly to the vehicle's electrical components. The system also charges the vehicle battery as necessary. 'i-ELOOP' operates whenever the vehicle decelerates, reducing the need for the engine to burn extra fuel to generate electricity. As a result, in "stop-and-go" driving conditions, fuel economy improves by approximately 10 percent.
The name 'i-ELOOP' is an adaptation of "Intelligent Energy Loop" and represents Mazda's intention to efficiently cycle energy in an intelligent way.
'i-ELOOP' also works in conjunction with Mazda's unique 'i-stop' idling stop technology to extend the period that the engine can be shut off.
Mazda is working to maximize the efficiency of internal combustion engine vehicles with its groundbreaking SKYACTIV TECHNOLOGY. By combining this with i-stop, i-ELOOP and other electric devices that enhance fuel economy by eliminating unnecessary fuel consumption, Mazda is striving to deliver vehicles with excellent environmental performance as well as a Zoom-Zoom ride to all its customers.
Source: Mazda
Graphene: the future in a pencil trace
Engineerblogger
Nov 28, 2011
The European programme for research into graphene, for which the Universities of Cambridge, Manchester and Lancaster are leading the technology roadmap, today unveiled an exhibition and new videos communicating the potential for the material that could revolutionise the electronics industries.
An exhibition has been launched in Warsaw today highlighting the development and future of graphene, the ‘wonder substance’ set to change the face of electronics manufacturing, as part of the Graphene Flagship Pilot (GFP), aimed at developing the proposal for a 1 billion European programme conducting research and development on graphene, for which the Universities of Cambridge, Manchester and Lancaster are leading the technology roadmap.
The exhibition covers the development of the material, the present research and the vast potential for future applications. The GFP also released two videos aimed at introducing this extraordinary material to a wider audience, ranging from stakeholders and politicians to the general public. The videos also convey the mission and vision of the graphene initiative.
“Our mission is to take graphene and related layered materials from a state of raw potential to a point where they can revolutionise multiple industries – from flexible, wearable and transparent electronics to high performance computing and spintronics” says Professor Andrea Ferrari, Head of the Nanomaterials and Spectroscopy Group.
“This material will bring a new dimension to future technology – a faster, thinner, stronger, flexible, and broadband revolution. Our program will put Europe firmly at the heart of the process, with a manifold return on the investment of 1 billion Euros, both in terms of technological innovation and economic exploitation.”
Graphene, a single layer of carbon atoms, could prove to be the most versatile substance available to mankind. Stronger than diamond, yet lightweight and flexible, graphene enables electrons to flow much faster than silicon. It is also a transparent conductor, combining electrical and optical functionalities in an exceptional way.
Graphene has the potential to trigger a smart and sustainable carbon revolution, impact in information and communication technology is anticipated to be enormous, transforming everyday life for millions.
It is hoped that the unique properties of graphene will spawn innovation on an unprecedented scale for myriad areas of manufacturing and electronics – high speed, transparent and flexible consumer goods; novel information processing devices; biosensors; supercapacitors as alternatives to batteries; mechanical components; lightweight composites for cars and planes.
The Warsaw meeting has seen the gathering of EU and national politicians, national funding bodies and research policy makers, EC representatives, and key stakeholders from the scientific community associated to the pilots. At the meeting, the six short-listed pilots presented their vision, objectives, and expected impact on science, technology and society. This follows a successful meeting in Madrid with over 80 European companies interested in developing graphene science into technology.
Dr Jani Kivioja, from the Cambridge-Nokia Research Centre, said: “We got overwhelming interest in graphene technology from a large number of companies. We are now working to form a Graphene Alliance to formulate and sharpen the graphene technology roadmap for Europe. This alliance of the leading EU technology companies will be instrumental in keeping Europe at the forefront of the graphene technology development. The potential prospects for job and wealth creation are huge.”
Source: Cambridge University
Nov 28, 2011
The European programme for research into graphene, for which the Universities of Cambridge, Manchester and Lancaster are leading the technology roadmap, today unveiled an exhibition and new videos communicating the potential for the material that could revolutionise the electronics industries.
An exhibition has been launched in Warsaw today highlighting the development and future of graphene, the ‘wonder substance’ set to change the face of electronics manufacturing, as part of the Graphene Flagship Pilot (GFP), aimed at developing the proposal for a 1 billion European programme conducting research and development on graphene, for which the Universities of Cambridge, Manchester and Lancaster are leading the technology roadmap.
The exhibition covers the development of the material, the present research and the vast potential for future applications. The GFP also released two videos aimed at introducing this extraordinary material to a wider audience, ranging from stakeholders and politicians to the general public. The videos also convey the mission and vision of the graphene initiative.
“Our mission is to take graphene and related layered materials from a state of raw potential to a point where they can revolutionise multiple industries – from flexible, wearable and transparent electronics to high performance computing and spintronics” says Professor Andrea Ferrari, Head of the Nanomaterials and Spectroscopy Group.
“This material will bring a new dimension to future technology – a faster, thinner, stronger, flexible, and broadband revolution. Our program will put Europe firmly at the heart of the process, with a manifold return on the investment of 1 billion Euros, both in terms of technological innovation and economic exploitation.”
Graphene, a single layer of carbon atoms, could prove to be the most versatile substance available to mankind. Stronger than diamond, yet lightweight and flexible, graphene enables electrons to flow much faster than silicon. It is also a transparent conductor, combining electrical and optical functionalities in an exceptional way.
Graphene has the potential to trigger a smart and sustainable carbon revolution, impact in information and communication technology is anticipated to be enormous, transforming everyday life for millions.
It is hoped that the unique properties of graphene will spawn innovation on an unprecedented scale for myriad areas of manufacturing and electronics – high speed, transparent and flexible consumer goods; novel information processing devices; biosensors; supercapacitors as alternatives to batteries; mechanical components; lightweight composites for cars and planes.
The Warsaw meeting has seen the gathering of EU and national politicians, national funding bodies and research policy makers, EC representatives, and key stakeholders from the scientific community associated to the pilots. At the meeting, the six short-listed pilots presented their vision, objectives, and expected impact on science, technology and society. This follows a successful meeting in Madrid with over 80 European companies interested in developing graphene science into technology.
Dr Jani Kivioja, from the Cambridge-Nokia Research Centre, said: “We got overwhelming interest in graphene technology from a large number of companies. We are now working to form a Graphene Alliance to formulate and sharpen the graphene technology roadmap for Europe. This alliance of the leading EU technology companies will be instrumental in keeping Europe at the forefront of the graphene technology development. The potential prospects for job and wealth creation are huge.”
Source: Cambridge University
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Jaguar XKR
Specification :
Engine: Supercharged 5.0-litre AJ-V8 GEN III
Max power (bhp @ rpm): 510bhp @ 6,000 – 6,500 rpm
Max torque (Nm @ rpm): 625Nm @ 2,500 – 5,500 rpm
Transmission: 6-speed automatic transmission with Jaguar Sequential Shift™
Drivetrain layout: front engine; rear wheel drive
Weight: 1,753kg
Performance :
0 to 100km/h: 4.8 seconds (claimed)
0 to 60km/h: 2.9 seconds (tested)
0 to 100km/h: 4.9 seconds (tested)
80 to 120km/h: 2.5 seconds (tested)
60 to 120km/h: 3.4 seconds (tested)
100 to 0km/h: 3.2 seconds (tested)
Top speed: 280km/h w/ speed pack (claimed)
Engine: Supercharged 5.0-litre AJ-V8 GEN III
Max power (bhp @ rpm): 510bhp @ 6,000 – 6,500 rpm
Max torque (Nm @ rpm): 625Nm @ 2,500 – 5,500 rpm
Transmission: 6-speed automatic transmission with Jaguar Sequential Shift™
Drivetrain layout: front engine; rear wheel drive
Weight: 1,753kg
Performance :
0 to 100km/h: 4.8 seconds (claimed)
0 to 60km/h: 2.9 seconds (tested)
0 to 100km/h: 4.9 seconds (tested)
80 to 120km/h: 2.5 seconds (tested)
60 to 120km/h: 3.4 seconds (tested)
100 to 0km/h: 3.2 seconds (tested)
Top speed: 280km/h w/ speed pack (claimed)
Thursday, November 24, 2011
F20 BMW 1 Series by AC Schnitzer
First pictures of the AC Schnitzer 1 Series were shown approximately two months, but since then, the Aachen-based company has updated their offering.
At the front, the 1 Series features a sportier look thanks to the redesigned front spoiler, a rear roof spoiler, a racing tailpipe trim and alloy wheels in 18 or 19 inches. For a more sporty driving performance, AC Schnitzer offers an optional spring kit.
The AC Schnitzer performance upgrades take the standard 118d from 143 to 171 horsepower, and the 120d from 184 to 210 horsepower. This is reflected visually in the AC Schnitzer engine styling and the chromed “Racing” exhaust tailpipe.
Dynamics and lifestyle are also presented in the interior of the BMW 1 Series by AC Schnitzer. The aluminium “Black Line” gear knob, a gear knob with digital gear display, or an illuminated leather gear knob are available for the discerning BMW customer.
And that’s not all: the AC Schnitzer “Black Line” aluminium cover for the i-Drive system controller, aluminium handbrake handle with chrome details or fully in “Black Line”, aluminium foot rest and pedal set, and velours floor mats offer plenty of scope for customizing the interior.
There’s a similarly wide choice when it comes to filling the wheelarches in the 1 Series by AC Schnitzer. These can be customized – with corresponding tires – with the Type VIII forged alloys in BiColor, Type VIII rims in BiColor in 19 inch, or Type IV wheels in silver or BiColor in 18 and 19 inch.[via : BMWblog]
Photo : BMW 1 Series by AC Schnitzer
Researchers Draft Blueprint to Boost Energy Innovation
Engineerblogger
Nov 24, 2011
The U.S. government could save the economy hundreds of billions of dollars per year by 2050 by spending a few billion dollars more a year to spur innovations in energy technology, according to a new report by researchers at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Achieving major cuts in carbon emissions in the process will also require policies that put a substantial price on carbon or set clean energy standards, the researchers find.
The report is the result of a three-year project to develop a set of actionable recommendations to achieve “a revolution in energy technology innovation.”
The project, part of the Energy Technology Innovation Policy (ETIP) research group in the Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, included the first survey ever conducted of the full spectrum of U.S. businesses involved in energy innovation, identifying the key drivers of private-sector investments in energy innovation.
The researchers also surveyed more than 100 experts working with an array of energy technologies to get their recommendations for energy R&D funding and their projections of cost and performance under different R&D scenarios. They then used the experts’ input to conduct extensive economic modeling on the impact of federal R&D investments and other policies (such as a clean energy standard) on economic, environmental, and security goals.
The research team identified industries that would most benefit from increased innovation investment. The report recommends the largest percentage increases for research and development in four fields: energy storage, bio-energy, efficient buildings, and solar photovoltaics.
The report, titled Transforming U.S. Energy Innovation, recommends doubling government funding for energy research, development and demonstration efforts to about $10 billion per year. The modeling results suggest that spending above that level might deliver decreasing marginal returns.
The modeling done for the report projected that investing more money in energy innovation without also setting a substantial carbon price or stringent clean energy standards would not bring big reductions in greenhouse gas emissions -- largely because without such policies, companies would not have enough incentive to deploy new energy technologies in place of carbon-emitting fossil fuels.
The researchers also propose ways for the government to strengthen its energy innovation institutions, particularly the national laboratories, so that the United States can get the most bang for its buck in its investments in energy innovation. The report concludes that the national laboratories suffer from fast-shifting funding and lack incentives for entrepreneurship.
The researchers also find that the performance of public-private partnerships and international partnerships on energy innovation would benefit from gathering information about the performance of previous projects.
The ETIP project is part of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program and Environment and Natural Resources Program at the Kennedy School. Professor Venkatesh Narayanamurti and Associate Professor Matthew Bunn were the principal investigators for this work, and the research team was led by Dr. Laura Diaz Anadon, ETIP director. The project was supported by a generous grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.
Source: Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University
Additional Information:
Nov 24, 2011
The U.S. government could save the economy hundreds of billions of dollars per year by 2050 by spending a few billion dollars more a year to spur innovations in energy technology, according to a new report by researchers at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Achieving major cuts in carbon emissions in the process will also require policies that put a substantial price on carbon or set clean energy standards, the researchers find.
The report is the result of a three-year project to develop a set of actionable recommendations to achieve “a revolution in energy technology innovation.”
The project, part of the Energy Technology Innovation Policy (ETIP) research group in the Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, included the first survey ever conducted of the full spectrum of U.S. businesses involved in energy innovation, identifying the key drivers of private-sector investments in energy innovation.
The researchers also surveyed more than 100 experts working with an array of energy technologies to get their recommendations for energy R&D funding and their projections of cost and performance under different R&D scenarios. They then used the experts’ input to conduct extensive economic modeling on the impact of federal R&D investments and other policies (such as a clean energy standard) on economic, environmental, and security goals.
The research team identified industries that would most benefit from increased innovation investment. The report recommends the largest percentage increases for research and development in four fields: energy storage, bio-energy, efficient buildings, and solar photovoltaics.
The report, titled Transforming U.S. Energy Innovation, recommends doubling government funding for energy research, development and demonstration efforts to about $10 billion per year. The modeling results suggest that spending above that level might deliver decreasing marginal returns.
The modeling done for the report projected that investing more money in energy innovation without also setting a substantial carbon price or stringent clean energy standards would not bring big reductions in greenhouse gas emissions -- largely because without such policies, companies would not have enough incentive to deploy new energy technologies in place of carbon-emitting fossil fuels.
The researchers also propose ways for the government to strengthen its energy innovation institutions, particularly the national laboratories, so that the United States can get the most bang for its buck in its investments in energy innovation. The report concludes that the national laboratories suffer from fast-shifting funding and lack incentives for entrepreneurship.
The researchers also find that the performance of public-private partnerships and international partnerships on energy innovation would benefit from gathering information about the performance of previous projects.
The ETIP project is part of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program and Environment and Natural Resources Program at the Kennedy School. Professor Venkatesh Narayanamurti and Associate Professor Matthew Bunn were the principal investigators for this work, and the research team was led by Dr. Laura Diaz Anadon, ETIP director. The project was supported by a generous grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.
Source: Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University
Additional Information:
New revolutionary material can be worked like glass
Engineerblogger
Nov 24, 2011
A common feature of sailboards, aircraft and electronic circuits is that they all contain resins used for their lightness, strength and resistance. However, once cured, these resins can no longer be reshaped. Only certain inorganic compounds, including glass, offered this possibility until now. Combining such properties in a single material seemed impossible until a team led by Ludwik Leibler, CNRS researcher at the Laboratoire “Matière Molle et Chimie” (CNRS/ESPCI ParisTech), developed a new class of compounds capable of this remarkable feat. Repairable and recyclable, this novel material can be shaped at will and in a reversible manner at high temperature. And, quite surprisingly, it also retains certain properties specific to organic resins and rubbers: it is light, insoluble and difficult to break. Inexpensive and easy to produce, this material could be used in numerous industrial applications, particularly in the automobile, aeronautics, building, electronics and leisure sectors. This work is published on 18 November 2011 in Science. Replacing metals by lighter but just as efficient materials is a necessity for numerous industries, such as aeronautics, car manufacturing, building, electronics and sports industry. Due to their exceptional mechanical strength and thermal and chemical resistance, composite materials based on thermosetting resins are currently the most suitable. However, such resins must be cured in situ, using from the outset the definitive shape of the part to be produced. In fact, once these resins have hardened, welding and repair become impossible. In addition, even when hot, it is impossible to reshape parts in the manner of a blacksmith or glassmaker.
This is because glass (inorganic silica) is a unique material: once heated, it changes from a solid to a liquid state in a very progressive manner (glass transition), which means it can be shaped as required without using molds. Conceiving highly resistant materials that can be repaired and are infinitely malleable, like glass, is a real challenge both in economic and ecological terms. It requires a material that is capable of flowing when hot, while being insoluble and neither as brittle nor as “heavy” as glass.
From ingredients that are currently available and used in industry (epoxy resins, hardeners, catalysts, etc.), researchers from the Laboratoire “Matière Molle et Chimie” (CNRS/ESPCI ParisTech) developed a novel organic material made of a molecular network with original properties: under the action of heat, this network is capable of reorganizing itself without altering the number of cross-links between its atoms. This novel material goes from the liquid to the solid state or vice versa, just like glass. Until now, only silica and some inorganic compounds were known to show this type of behavior. The material thus acts like purely organic silica. It is insoluble even when heated above its glass transition temperature.
Remarkably, at room temperature, it resembles either hard or soft elastic solids, depending on the chosen composition. In both cases, it has the same characteristics as thermosetting resins and rubbers currently used in industry, namely lightness, resistance and insolubility. Most importantly, it has a significant advantage over the latter as it is reshapeable at will and can be repaired and recycled under the action of heat. This property means it can undergo transformations using methods that cannot be envisaged either for thermosetting resins or for conventional plastic materials. In particular, it makes it possible to produce shapes that are difficult or even impossible to obtain by molding or for which making a mold is too expensive for the envisaged purpose.
Used as the basis of composites, this new material could therefore favorably compete with metals and find extensive applications in sectors as diverse as electronics, car manufacturing, construction, aeronautics or printing. In addition to these applications, these results shed unexpected light on a fundamental problem: the physics of glass transition.
Source: Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS)
Nov 24, 2011
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CNRS Photothèque / ESPCI / Cyril FRÉSILLON The material can take various forms |
A common feature of sailboards, aircraft and electronic circuits is that they all contain resins used for their lightness, strength and resistance. However, once cured, these resins can no longer be reshaped. Only certain inorganic compounds, including glass, offered this possibility until now. Combining such properties in a single material seemed impossible until a team led by Ludwik Leibler, CNRS researcher at the Laboratoire “Matière Molle et Chimie” (CNRS/ESPCI ParisTech), developed a new class of compounds capable of this remarkable feat. Repairable and recyclable, this novel material can be shaped at will and in a reversible manner at high temperature. And, quite surprisingly, it also retains certain properties specific to organic resins and rubbers: it is light, insoluble and difficult to break. Inexpensive and easy to produce, this material could be used in numerous industrial applications, particularly in the automobile, aeronautics, building, electronics and leisure sectors. This work is published on 18 November 2011 in Science. Replacing metals by lighter but just as efficient materials is a necessity for numerous industries, such as aeronautics, car manufacturing, building, electronics and sports industry. Due to their exceptional mechanical strength and thermal and chemical resistance, composite materials based on thermosetting resins are currently the most suitable. However, such resins must be cured in situ, using from the outset the definitive shape of the part to be produced. In fact, once these resins have hardened, welding and repair become impossible. In addition, even when hot, it is impossible to reshape parts in the manner of a blacksmith or glassmaker.
This is because glass (inorganic silica) is a unique material: once heated, it changes from a solid to a liquid state in a very progressive manner (glass transition), which means it can be shaped as required without using molds. Conceiving highly resistant materials that can be repaired and are infinitely malleable, like glass, is a real challenge both in economic and ecological terms. It requires a material that is capable of flowing when hot, while being insoluble and neither as brittle nor as “heavy” as glass.
 |
© CNRS Photothèque / ESPCI / Cyril FRÉSILLON Sequence showing how a complex-shaped object is made by successively deforming and heating it. |
From ingredients that are currently available and used in industry (epoxy resins, hardeners, catalysts, etc.), researchers from the Laboratoire “Matière Molle et Chimie” (CNRS/ESPCI ParisTech) developed a novel organic material made of a molecular network with original properties: under the action of heat, this network is capable of reorganizing itself without altering the number of cross-links between its atoms. This novel material goes from the liquid to the solid state or vice versa, just like glass. Until now, only silica and some inorganic compounds were known to show this type of behavior. The material thus acts like purely organic silica. It is insoluble even when heated above its glass transition temperature.
Remarkably, at room temperature, it resembles either hard or soft elastic solids, depending on the chosen composition. In both cases, it has the same characteristics as thermosetting resins and rubbers currently used in industry, namely lightness, resistance and insolubility. Most importantly, it has a significant advantage over the latter as it is reshapeable at will and can be repaired and recycled under the action of heat. This property means it can undergo transformations using methods that cannot be envisaged either for thermosetting resins or for conventional plastic materials. In particular, it makes it possible to produce shapes that are difficult or even impossible to obtain by molding or for which making a mold is too expensive for the envisaged purpose.
 |
© CNRS Photothèque / ESPCI / Cyril FRÉSILLON A strip of material is deformed in an oven. It is subjected to torsion stress, clearly visible in bright colors under polarized light. These colors fade away within a few minutes when hot: the material has taken a new, permanent shape. |
Used as the basis of composites, this new material could therefore favorably compete with metals and find extensive applications in sectors as diverse as electronics, car manufacturing, construction, aeronautics or printing. In addition to these applications, these results shed unexpected light on a fundamental problem: the physics of glass transition.
Source: Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS)
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