Generating electricity from vibrations in road surface works

Engineerblogger
March 1, 2012

Credit: University of Twente

A pilot research project into vibration energy on the N34 provincial motorway near Hardenberg in the eastern Netherlands has shown that vibration energy as a local energy source is a sustainable alternative for the batteries of roadside sensors and other applications. The trial project has provided valuable insights into this innovative form of energy production.

In the autumn of 2011, a piezoelectric material that converts vibrations from passing vehicles into energy was applied to the surface of the N34 motorway. The piezoelectric material was applied to the road surface in a rural area where the speed limit is 100 km per hour. The aim of the pilot project was to investigate the feasibility of piezo technology in road construction. The research was carried out by the Tauw advice and engineering agency and the University of Twente in partnership with the Dutch province of Overijssel.

The aim of the pilot project was to establish whether electrical energy can be generated from traffic vibrations using piezoelectric material and, if so, how much energy can be generated. The trial system was tested in various weather conditions between October and December 2011. A measurement device was used to continually monitor the system and collect data.

Results
Tauw and the University of Twente have concluded that energy can indeed be generated using piezoelectric material in the road surface. The amount of energy generated depends on the number of passing vehicles and the number of piezo elements in the road. Vehicles that are moving more slowly appear to generate slightly more energy than faster-moving vehicles, but further research is needed to confirm this.

The amount of energy generated during the pilot project was too small to be used for traffic lights or street lighting, but it was enough for devices that need less energy, such as wireless motion sensors, which detect vehicles and send a signal to, for example, traffic lights. Currently these are mainly powered by batteries or solar panels. Vibration energy is a sustainable alternative for these power sources.

The project partners also concluded that integrating piezo elements in an existing road surface is problematic. For the pilot research, a narrow groove was cut into the road and a steel housing containing the piezo elements was fitted into it. Ultimately it turned out that the housing was not strong enough to withstand the forces of the passing traffic, and it came loose in December. This did not cause a traffic hazard, but it did mean that the research ended a few weeks earlier than planned.

Applications
The project partners are hopeful about other applications. Project leader Simon Bos says: “The application of vibration energy in existing roads did turn out to be difficult, but we do see possibilities for existing and new bridges and viaducts, for example at expansion joints. Of course further research into a good, strong design has to be carried out before this can be applied on a large scale.”

Next steps
Following the pilot project, various interested parties have contacted Tauw and the University of Twente to carry out further research into vibration energy. Piezo elements can not only be fitted under bridges and viaducts, but also under concrete road slabs and speed bumps, or alongside railway lines or water drainage channels. The application of piezo elements beneath concrete slabs is at an advanced stage, while the other possible applications are still in the research phase.

Source: University of Twente

Material Flow and Logistics technology: Swarming and transporting

Engineerblogger
March 1, 2012

The autonomous transporters perform their work in a swarm.  Source:  Fraunhofer IML

On its own, an ant is not particularly clever. But in a community, the insects can solve complicated tasks. Researchers intend to put this „swarm intelligence“ to use in the logistics field. Lots of autonomous transport shuttles would provide an alternative to traditional materials-handling technology.

The orange-colored vehicle begins moving with a quiet whirr. Soon afterwards the next shuttles begin to move, and before long there are dozens of mini-transporters rolling around in the hall. As if by magic, they head for the high-rack storage shelves or spin around their own axis. But the Multishuttle Moves® – is the name given to these driverless transport vehicles – are not performing some robots‘ ballet. They are moving around in the service of science. At the Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics IML in Dortmund, Germany, researchers are working to harness swarm intelligence as a means of improving the flow of materials and goods in the warehouse environment. In a research hall 1000 square meters in size, the scientists have replicated a small-scale distribution warehouse with storage shelves for 600 small-part carriers and eight picking stations. The heart of the testing facility is a swarm of 50 autonomous vehicles. “In the future, transport systems should be able to perform all of these tasks autonomously, from removal from storage at the shelf to delivery to a picking station. This will provide an alternative to conventional materials-handling solutions,“ explains Prof. Dr. Michael ten Hompel, executive director at IML.

But how do the vehicles know what they should transport, and where, and which of the 50 shuttles will take on any particular order? “The driverless transport vehicles are locally controlled. The ›intelligence‹ is in the transporters themselves,“ Dipl.-Ing. Thomas Albrecht, head of the Autonomous Transport Systems department explains the researchers‘ solution approach. “We rely on agent-based software and use ant algorithms based on the work of Marco Dorigo. These are methods of combinational optimization based on the model behavior of real ants in their search for food.“ When an order is received, the shuttles are informed of this through a software agent. They then coordinate with one another via WLAN to determine which shuttle can take over the load. The job goes to whichever free transport system is closest.

The shuttles are completely unimpeded as they navigate throughout the space – with no guidelines. Their integrated localization and navigation technology make this possible. The vehicles have a newly developed, hybrid sensor concept with signal-based location capability, distance and acceleration sensors and laser scanners. This way, the vehicles can compute the shortest route to any destination. The sensors also help prevent collisions.

The vehicles are based on the components of the shelf-bound Multishuttle already successfully in use for several years. The researchers at IML have worked with colleagues at Dematic to develop the system further. The special feature about the Multishuttle Move®: the transporters can navigate in the storage area and in the hall. To accomplish this, the shuttles are fitted with an additional floor running gear. But what benefits do these autonomous transporters offer compared with conventional steady materials-handling technology with roller tracks? “The system is considerably more flexible and scalable,“ Albrecht points out. It can grow or contract depending on the needs at hand. This is how system performance can be adapted to seasonal and daily fluctuation. Another benefit: It considerably shortens transportation paths. In conventional storage facilities, materials-handling equipment obstructs the area between high-rack storage and picking stations. Packages must travel two to three times farther than the direct route. “It also makes shelf-control units and steady materials-handling technology,“ Albrecht adds. Researchers are now trying to determine how these autonomous transporters can improve intralogistics. “We want to demonstrate that cellular materials-handling technology makes sense not only technically but also economically as an alternative to classic materials-handling technology and shelf-control units,“ institute executive director ten Hompel observes. If this succeeds, the autonomous vehicles could soon be going into service in warehouses.

Source: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft

Materials: Building lightweight trains

Engineerblogger
March 1, 2012

These diesel trains for housing is manufactured from a light polyurethane-based material, yet extremely durable. Source:  Fraunhofer ICT

The less trains weigh, the more economical they are to run. A new material capable of withstanding even extreme stresses has now been developed. It is suitable for a variety of applications, not least diesel engine housings on trains – and it makes these components over 35 percent lighter than their steel and aluminum counterparts.

In their efforts to render cars and trains more economical, manufacturers are trying to find lighter materials to replace those currently used. But there is a problem: Lighter materials tend not to be as tough as steel or aluminum, so they cannot simply be used in place of these metals. Rather, it is a question of manufacturers deciding which components can really afford to have weight shaved off and how to integrate them into the overall systems.

Working together with Bombardier GmbH, KraussMaffei Kunststofftechnik GmbH, Bayer MaterialScience AG, DECS GmbH, the DLR’s Institute for Vehicle Concepts, the University of Stuttgart and the Karlsruhe Institute for Technology, researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Chemical Technology ICT in Pfinztal have now developed a polyurethane-based sandwich material that is extremely resilient. “To demonstrate the material, we manufactured a component that is subject to significant stresses and which has to fulfill a number of requirements – the diesel engine housing for a train,” says Jan Kuppinger, a scientist at the ICT. This housing is located beneath the passenger compartment, i.e. between the car and the tracks. Not only does it shield the engine against flying stones and protect the environment from any oil that might escape, but in the event of a fire, it also stops the flames from spreading, thus meeting the flame retardant and fire safety standards for railway vehicles. Kuppinger adds: “By using this new material, we can reduce the component’s weight by over 35 percent – and cut costs by 30 percent.”

The researchers opted for a sandwich construction to ensure component stability: Glass fiber reinforced polyurethane layers form the outer facings, while the core is made of paper honeycomb. Polyurethane is a bulk plastic combining two substances. Since it can be adapted to fulfill various requirements, it is referred to as a ‘customizable material’. In foamed form it is soft, and can be used for example as a material for mattresses; in compact form it is strong and hard. The researchers began by incorporating various additives into their polyurethane, altering it in such a way as to ensure it would meet fire safety standards. Then, the partners optimized the standard manufacturing process, fiber spraying, by developing a mixing chamber which allows even more complex structures to be produced in any required size. The diesel engine housing they made is approximately 4.5 meters long and more than 2 meters wide. “This is the first time it has proved possible to use this process to manufacture such a large and complex component that also satisfies the structural requirements,” states Kuppinger. Previously, one problem encountered with fiber spraying was that it was impossible to determine the precise thickness of the polyurethane top layers. But now the researchers have found a way to do this, using computer tomography to inspect the manufactured layers and then applying a specially-adapted evaluation routine to establish their exact thickness. This information helps to simulate the strength of the component, as well as its ability to withstand stresses.

The scientists produced their diesel engine housing demonstrator as part of the PURtrain project, which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The demonstrator passed its first strength test – in which the scientists placed it in a test rig and then applied forces to it at various locations, measuring the extent to which it deformed – with flying colors. In the next stage, the researchers want to trial the component in a proper field test. If that, too, proves successful, it will then be possible to use the material to make roof segments, side flaps and wind deflectors for the automobile and commercial vehicle industry, and to ramp up the manufacturing process to produce medium volumes of between 250 and 30,000 units.

Source: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft

National Grid, Advanced Plasma Power and Progressive Energy announce new project to transform waste into Bio Substitute Natural Gas

Engineerblogger
March 1, 2012

Project will deliver an end-to-end process for converting waste to Bio-SNG, using Gasplasma® technology

The first pilot project that demonstrates the use of waste to produce bio-substitute natural gas (Bio-SNG) has today been announced by National Grid, Advanced Plasma Power and Progressive Energy.

The project, which uses waste as a feedstock to produce Bio-SNG, will be based at the Advanced Plasma Power Gasplasma® facility in Swindon, UK. It will demonstrate the technical feasibility and commercial viability of the waste to Bio-SNG process. The three partners will work together to design, install and test the operation of a demonstration plant.

The plant will take the waste-derived and energy rich synthesis gas from the existing Gasplasma® process, and convert it to meet the specification for injecting it into the gas network. Bio-SNG could play a crucial role in the decarbonisation of heating and help reach the UK's binding carbon reduction targets. As part of its work on future energy scenarios, National Grid has forecast that renewable gas could be a vital part of the energy mix in the coming decades.

APP’s process converts commercial waste into high-quality syngas, which can then be converted into methane. Credit: APP

Marcus Stewart, Future Distribution Networks Manager at National Grid said, “This project is a great opportunity to look at the potential of Bio-SNG from both a technical and commercial perspective. The project underlines our commitment to seeking economic and innovative ways to decarbonise energy, while making the best use of the existing network. ”

It is estimated that renewable gas, of which Bio-SNG may be a major source, could account for as much as one fifth of the UK’s heat requirement by 2050.

Rolf Stein, Chief Executive, Advanced Plasma Power said, “The development and implementation of a process to derive Bio-SNG from waste using our unique Gasplasma® process has significant global implications for sustainable waste management and low carbon energy solutions. We look forward to demonstrating the process on our plant in Swindon.”

Phillip Cozens, Progressive Energy said, “"This project is a significant step towards greater resource efficiency in our economy, exploiting the capacity of the existing gas infrastructure and demonstrating the potential to deliver renewable heat at a cost that is competitive with other renewable heat options. The partnership has put together a strong project execution team to deliver a practical demonstration of Bio-SNG production from residual wastes. Successful demonstration would provide a blue-print for general deployment.”

National Grid:
National Grid is an electricity and gas company that connects consumers to energy sources through its networks. The company is at the heart of one of the greatest challenges facing our society - to create new, sustainable energy solutions for the future and developing an energy system that underpins economic prosperity in the 21st century. National Grid holds a vital position at the centre of the energy system and we ‘join everything up’. In Britain, we run the gas and electricity systems that our society is built on, delivering gas and electricity across the country. In the North Eastern US, we connect more than seven million gas and electric customers to vital energy sources, essential for our modern lifestyles.

Advanced Plasma Power:
Advanced Plasma Power Limited (APP) is a leading technology provider for advanced waste to energy plants, showcasing its globally patented Gasplasma® technology. After the removal of valuable recyclates, the Gasplasma® process treats a wide range of feedstocks including residual municipal solid waste and commercial/industrial waste converting it all into two high value outputs: a clean, high quality, energy rich synthesis gas (syngas) and a solid, vitrified product each with multiple applications. The syngas can be used to generate electricity directly in gas engines, gas turbines and fuel cells or it can be converted to Bio-SNG or liquid fuels. The solid product, Plasmarok®, has a variety of valuable end uses, for instance, as a building material. The process is clean, modular and scalable, delivering high efficiency and maximising landfill diversion whilst minimising visual and environmental impact.

Progressive Energy:
Progressive Energy is a market leading project development company, specialising in clean energy and carbon abatement in the energy sector through the deployment of carbon capture and storage and renewable energy technologies. 

Source: National Grid

Composite plastics have high conductivity and strength

Engineerblogger
March 1, 2012

A London-based start-up company has created composite plastics with both high conductivity and tensile strength.

The material, which can be made into fibres or sheets, could find a use in strain monitoring and has already been tested to this end in the sails of high-end yachts competing in the Americas Cup.

Conductive polymers have existed for some time, but are generally made from exotic semi-conducting organics, and restricted to organic solar cells, printing electronic circuits, and organic light-emitting diodes.

A team at NanoForce, a spin-off from Queen Mary University of London, set about creating robust plastics that could conduct at near-metallic levels.

‘You can just use normal polypropylene or polyamide, so they’re much more stable than these fancy semi-conducting polymers,’ Ton Peijs, technical director, told The Engineer.

The team uses additive multi-walled carbon nanotubes at a weight percentage of around one per cent. In isolation, the nanotubes show excellent metallic conduction, but the challenge has been to incorporate them into composites.

‘If I want to make a conductive polymer composite I need to mix in these nanoparticles and you don’t want them to be all agglomerated here and all agglomerated there because then they are too far apart and never form a network — but if they are all perfectly and evenly dispersed, then they are also quite far apart,’ Peijs said.

NanoForce’s solution was a post-processing technique that involves annealing and hot pressing — basically re-melting the polymer after extrusion — allowing the nanotubes to migrate into a self-organising ‘dynamic network’ that is conductive. The process can be tuned by temperature and time of annealing, and can also align the polymer units to increase the strength.

Crucially, when the resulting fibre or sheet is stretched and placed under strain, the nanotube networks that has been in place previously gets pulled apart and deforms, breaking down the connections and creating electrical resistance of several orders of magnitude. This is particularly useful for in situ monitoring of strain in various critical structures.

Indeed, NanoForce has recently done some work with North Sails for certain teams competing in the Americas Cup yacht competition.

‘It’s sort of the Formula One of sailing — actually they spend more than than Formula One — and they do a lot of analysis,’ Peijs said. ‘Using our technology they could analyse the load in the sails, what are the local strains… then, of course, you can optimise performances.’

Applied as a thin-film layer it could also be used for condition monitoring in the aerospace industry and wind turbines, for example.

Source: The Engineer

Exotic Material Boosts Electromagnetism Safely

Engineerblogger
March 1, 2012

Yaroslav Urzhumov

By using exotic man-made materials, scientists from Duke University and Boston College believe they can greatly enhance the forces of electromagnetism (EM), one of the four fundamental forces of nature, without harming living beings or damaging electrical equipment.


This theoretical finding could have broad implications for such applications as magnetic levitation trains, which ride inches above the surface without touching it and are propelled by magnets receiving electrical current.

As the term indicates, EM is made up of two types of fields – electric and magnetic. Alternating current sources generate both electric and magnetic fields, and increasing one of them generally leads to the increase in the other. Electrical fields can cause problems if they get too high.

“For any EM applications dealing with things on the human scale, high-intensity EM fields needed for the generation of strong EM forces interfere with other devices and may be harmful to biological tissues, including humans,” said Yaroslav Urzhumov, assistant research professor in electrical and computer engineering at Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering.

“The severity of this problem is substantially reduced if the fields are predominantly magnetic, since virtually all biological substances and the majority of conventional materials are transparent to magnetic fields,” Urzhumov said. “While we can’t suppress the electric field completely, a magnetically-active metamaterial could theoretically reduce the amount of current needed to generate a high enough magnetic field, thus reducing parasitic electric fields in the environment and making high-power EM systems safer. ”

The results of Urzhumov’s analysis were published online in the journal Physical Review B, and the team’s research was supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

The solution to this problem comes from the recent ability to fabricate exotic composite materials known as metamaterials, which are not so much a single substance, but an entire man-made structure that can be engineered to exhibit properties not readily found in nature. These metamaterials can be fabricated into a limitless array of sizes, shapes and properties depending on their intended use.

In the magnetic levitation train example, conventional electromagnets could be supplemented by a metamaterial, which would have been designed to produce significantly higher intensities of magnetic fields using the same amount of electricity.

The Duke scientists came up with the theoretical underpinning for the metamaterial, which is being fabricated by collaborators at Boston College, led by Willie Padilla, associate professor of physics.

“The metamaterial should be able to increase the magnetic force without increasing the electric current in the source coil,” Urzhumov said. “The phenomenon of magnetostatic surface resonance could allow magnetic levitation systems to increase the mass of objects being levitated by one order of magnitude while using the same amount of electricity.”

EM is currently being used in a host of devices and applications, ranging from subatomic “optical tweezers” scientists use to manipulate microscopic particles with laser beams, to potentially highly destructive weapons.

Urzhumov works in the laboratory of Duke’s David R. Smith, William Bevan Professor of electrical and computer engineering and director of Duke’s Center for Metamaterials and Integrated Plasmonics. Smith has previously demonstrated that similarly designed metamaterials could act as a “cloak” to different frequencies of light and other waves.

Wenchen Chen and Chris Bingham from Boston College’s physics department were also members of the research team.

Source: Duke University

Additional Infomation:

• The abstract "Magnetic levitation of metamaterial bodies enhanced with magnetostatic surface resonances" by Yaroslav Urzhumov, Wenchen Chen, Chris Bingham, Willie Padilla, and David R. Smith published in the journal Physical Review B, on Feb. 27, 2012

High-Performance Innovation:

Engineerblogger
March 1, 2012

ANSYS-CFX was used in the cloud via Windows HPC Server to depict wave formulation around a seafaring vessel. ANSYS is one of many vendors to develop software specifically designed to remotely take advantage of highly parallel computing systems, offering customers high-end performance and faster results. Image: ANSYS

As researchers scramble to deliver R&D results and bring products to market, they are turning to high-performance computing. Vendors are competing for their business. Can everyone adapt to the cloud?

What laboratory tool has made the most difference in research and development? Arguably, it’s the personal computer. In the early days of computing, specialized clusters of high-performing processors were often needed for data-intensive tasks. But as chipmakers upheld Moore’s Law, desktop machines and even laptops became powerful enough to handle complex design and processing tasks.

Personal computers are ubiquitous and indispensible, but often are no longer powerful enough, even for daily research tasks such a processing a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Circumstances have conspired to force researchers to seek a better solution. As microprocessor speed has stalled, data volume has exploded. In 2004, according to Dave Turek, vice president of deep computing at IBM Corp., Armonk, N.Y., computer scientists recognized the limits of microprocessor technology and realized the best avenue for more performance was to group large numbers of processors together and leverage strength in numbers. Multi-core was born.

Now, through a combination of multicore processing, commoditization of high-end service components, and high-speed communications, high-performance computing (HPC) is handling the heavy lifting of high-technology R&D.

“What really has changed is the migration of traditional techniques and approaches into a non-classical domain. When you peel back the covers, at its core, software is sophisticated mathematics used to answer problems,” says Turek. HPC represents this new domain, where linear programming gives way to counter-intuitive parallel processing and where researchers stand to make tremendous gains in knowledge, if they know how to get the most out it. As a result, research organizations cannot consider adopting HPC without gaining knowledge of the associated software, tools, components, storage, and services that together form the infrastructure for intensive computation.
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