Wednesday, 28 March 2018
Monday, 26 March 2018
SOLAR ROADWAYS
Solar Roadways Incorporated is an American company based in Sandpoint, Idaho aiming to develop solar powered road panels to form a smart highway.
Their proof-of-concept technology combines a transparent driving surface with underlying solar cells, electronics and sensors to act as a solar array with programmable capability. The road panels are to be made from recycled materials and incorporate photovoltaic cells.The project has received criticism in regards to its feasibility.
The company was founded in 2006 by Scott and Julie Brusaw, with Scott as President and CEO. They envisioned replacing asphalt surfaces with structurally-engineered solar panels capable of withstanding vehicular traffic.The proposed system would require the development of strong, transparent, and self-cleaning glass with the necessary traction and impact-resistance properties at competitive cost.
In 2009, Solar Roadways received a $100,000 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) for Phase I to determine the feasibility of the proposed project.In 2011, Solar Roadways received $750,000 SBIR grant from the DOT for Phase II to develop and build a solar parking lot; from this, they built a 12-by-36-foot (3.7 by 11.0 m) parking lot covered with hexagonal glass-covered solar panels sitting on top of a concrete base, heated to prevent snow and ice accumulation, with LEDs to illuminate road lines and display messages. According to the Brusaws, the panels can sustain a 250,000 lb (110,000 kg) load.
In April 2014, the company started a crowdfunding drive at Indiegogo to raise money so they could get the product into production. The campaign raised 2.2 million dollars and became Indiegogo’s most popular campaign ever in terms of the number of backers it attracted.The success was attributed in part to a tweet made by actor George Takei, due to his more than 8 million followers. One of the Brusaws’ videos went viral, with over 20 million views as of November 2015. In December 2015, the USDOT announced that it had awarded Solar Roadways a Phase IIB SBIR contract to further their research. In 2016 they were given an additional $750,000.00
The first public installation was in Jeff Jones Town Square in Sandpoint, Idaho. It opened to the public on September 30, 2016. As a pilot install it is for walkways only. This installation consists of 30 Solar Roadways SR3 panels covering an area of roughly 150 square feet (14 m2). The cost of this installation was roughly $60,000 with the majority of the money coming from a grant from the Idaho Department of Commerce ($47,134), and a $10,000 grant from the Sandpoint Urban Renewal Agency. A webcam was installed to broadcast a view of the installation. The 30 tiles in Sandpoint aren’t yet generating power.The City of Sandpoint's Proposed 2016-2017 budget includes $500,000 for future Solar Roadways projects.
In 2014, Jonathan Levine, a professor of urban planning at the University of Michigan, expressed doubt regarding the political feasibility of the project on a national scale. He suggested, however, that a single town might be able to deploy the concept in a limited test case such as a parking lot.
Journalist David Biello, writing in Scientific American, noted the difficulties of the project in dealing with material limitations, particularly in its choice of making the surface of the panels from glass, which "must be tempered, self-cleaning, and capable of transmitting light to the PV below under trying conditions, among other characteristics—a type of glass that does not yet exist."
Sebastian Anthony noted in ExtremeTech that the cost to replace all roads in the United States with Solar Roadways panels would come to approximately $56 trillion, based on Scott Brusaw's cost estimate of $10,000 for a 12-by-12-foot (3.7 m × 3.7 m) section. The USDOT announcement of Phase IIB funding in December 2015 mentioned that because the solar cells were still manufactured by hand, they were "very costly to produce".
source : - driving on glass solar road..Scientific American. October 6, 2009. Retrieved February 24, 2015
Saturday, 24 March 2018
Monday, 19 March 2018
Scientists take multi-coloured images with a lensless camera
Using only a piece of ground glass and a monochrome sensor, the
scientists created multi-coloured images by 'reverse engineering' the light
that is scattered by the translucent matt surface of the ground glass, thus
obtaining the original image that was projected on to it.
Since different wavelengths of light are scattered differently by the
ground glass, the NTU scientists created an algorithm to reconstruct the image.
To do this they created a library of 'speckle patterns' linked to each
wavelength of light, including those in the infrared and ultraviolet spectrums
which are not visible to the naked eye.
In a conventional camera, optics made from glass or plastic lenses
capture light and guide it onto the colour filters and camera sensor to obtain
sharp colour images. These lenses are usually bulky in size and expensive due
to the precision manufacturing required.
By removing the need for a lens and colour filters and replacing them
with ground glass, this innovation could potentially be applied to compact
cameras and smart phones to make them slimmer.
Assistant Professor Steve Cuong Dang from the NTU School of Electrical
and Electronic Engineering who led the research, said their new imaging
technique could help to improve imaging applications in biomedical and
scientific applications as well as opening new doors for other industries.
"Our technology can also reconstruct images in other multiple wavelengths
invisible to the naked eye, like infrared and ultraviolet, which are used in
imaging purposes for medicine, surveillance and astrophysics. It can also
reconstruct images taken at the microscopic scale," explained Prof Dang.
"Our multispectral imaging technique uses a monochromic (black and
white) camera coupled with a simple piece of ground glass, making it very
cost-effective compared to existing multispectral cameras on the market.
"The unique feature of our camera is that it can capture any range of
light spectrum, unlike existing cameras on the market which are pre-fixed. It
is also less affected by optical alignment issues like conventional cameras,
because there are no moving parts and no focusing optics."
An interdisciplinary research project
Professor Yoon Soon Fatt, Chair of NTU's School of Electrical and
Electronic Engineering said the innovation was the result of interdisciplinary
research involving both physics and photonics engineering.
"How light interacts with objects change with varying wavelengths,
so our scientists had to think out of the box, in order to design a camera not
limited by the typical red, green and blue spectrums. This research is an
example of how advanced photonics research can lead to potential improvements
to diagnostics, sensing and surveillance technologies." Prof Yoon said.
This interdisciplinary project took Prof Dang and his researchers Dr
Sujit Kumar Sahoo, and Dr Tang Dongliang, over a year of research and
development.
"There are other potential areas of application where our technique
could be useful. For instance, it could be used for food safety, where one can
take a photo of fruits or meat in particular spectra to look for spots that are
associated with chemicals or bacterial activity leading to spoilage," said
Dr Sahoo, who is the first author of the paper.
The research team used their technique to distinguish between two
different apple juices which look identical to the naked eye, but have
different colour spectrums signalling their difference in ingredient or
freshness, for instance.
It could also be used for forensics, as the camera could be tuned to
capture a wide spectrum, including near infrared and ultraviolet, to reveal
clues or evidence invisible under normal circumstances.
With only a snapshot picture and a computational algorithm, this
multispectral imaging technique combines the strengths of vision technology and
spectroscopy to do multiple analysis at very high speeds.
A patent has been filed for this new technology by NTU's innovation and
enterprise arm, NTUitive, and the research team will be engaging industry
partners to see how they can adapt their technology for real-world
applications.
Supported by NTUitive and the LUX Photonics Consortium, the team
received keen interest from industry players and potential adopters to further
develop this technology in the fields of vision correction and chemical
sensing. This innovation was featured on the cover of the scientific journal
Optica in Oct 2017.
Story Source:
Materials provided by Nanyang Technological
University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Saturday, 18 November 2017
PIPELINE INSPECTION
In the United States, millions of miles of pipeline carrying everything from water to crude oil. The pipe is vulnerable to attack by internal and external corrosion, cracking, third party damage and manufacturing flaws. If a pipeline carrying water springs a leak bursts, it can be a problem but it usually doesn't harm the environment. However, if a petroleum or chemical pipeline leaks, it can be a environmental disaster. In an attempt to keep pipelines operating safely, periodic inspections are performed to find flaws and damage before they become cause for concern.
When a pipeline is built, inspection personnel may use visual, X-ray, magnetic particle, ultrasonic and other inspection methods to evaluate the welds and ensure that they are of high quality. The image to the left show two NDT technicians setting up equipment to perform an X-ray inspection of a pipe weld. These inspections are performed as the pipeline is being constructed so gaining access the inspection area is not problem. In some areas like Alaska, sections of pipeline are left above ground like shown above, but in most areas they get buried. Once the pipe is buried, it is undesirable to dig it up for any reason.
Have you ever felt the ground move under your feet? If you're standing in New York City, it may be the subway train passing by. However, if you're standing in the middle of a field in Kansas it may be a pig passing under your feet. Huh??? Engineers have developed devices, called pigs, that are sent through the buried pipe to perform inspections and clean the pipe. If you're standing near a pipeline, vibrations can be felt as these pigs move through the pipeline. The pigs are about the same diameter of the pipe so they range in size from small to huge. The pigs are carried through the pipe by the flow of the liquid or gas and can travel and perform inspections over very large distances. They may be put into the pipe line on one end and taken out at the other. The pigs carry a small computer to collect, store and transmit the data for analysis. In 1997, a pig set a world record when it completed a continuous inspection of the Trans Alaska crude oil pipeline, covering a distance of 1,055 km in one run.
Pigs use several nondestructive testing methods to perform the inspections. Most pigs use a magnetic flux leakage method but some also use ultrasound to perform the inspections. The pig shown to the left and below uses magnetic flux leakage. A strong magnetic field is established in the pipe wall using either magnets or by injecting electrical current into the steel. Damaged areas of the pipe can not support as much magnetic flux as undamaged areas so magnetic flux leaks out of the pipe wall at the damaged areas. An array of sensor around the circumference of the pig detects the magnetic flux leakage and notes the area of damage. Pigs that use ultrasound, have an array of transducers that emits a high frequency sound pulse perpendicular to the pipe wall and receives echo signals from the inner surface and the outer surface of the pipe. The tool measures the time interval between the arrival of a reflected echos from inner surface and outer surface to calculate the wall thickness.
On some pipelines it is easier to use remote visual inspection equipment to assess the condition of the pipe. Robotic crawlers of all shapes and sizes have been developed to navigate the pipe. The video signal is typically fed to a truck where an operator reviews the images and controls the robot.
Thursday, 9 November 2017
Solar-Powered Cars to Compete in Harrowing Race Across the Australian Outback
The car, which was designed and built by engineering students from the University of New South Wales (UNSW), departed Sydney, Australia, on Sept. 20 and will travel about 2,700 miles (4,300 kilometers) to Darwin, on the continent's northern coast. This scenic route allows the team to test the car, and serves as a regional outreach tour, introducing their fellow highway drivers to the car's futuristic design.
Then, on Oct. 8, Violet will take part in the 30th Bridgestone World Solar Challenge, competing against 47 teams representing 21 nations.
The race will take them from Darwin in the Northern Territories to Adelaide in South Australia, covering 1,877 miles (3,021 km). Though the event is scheduled to last from Oct. 8 to Oct. 15, the winner is expected to cross the finish line in Adelaide's Victoria Square in the early hours of Oct. 12, officials with the World Solar Challenge announced in a statement.
Violet is the sixth iteration of a solar-powered race car produced by UNSW's Sunswift team, which formed in 1995 to compete in the World Solar Challenge. Described by UNSW representatives as "a four-seater sedan" and larger than previous generations of Sunswift's solar race cars, Violet was deliberately crafted to resemble commercially produced vehicles, in order to showcase solar technology as a potential energy source for practical, daily use in transportation, Sunswift representatives explained on the group's website.
With a shell made of carbon fiber, the car weighs about 880 lbs. (400 kilograms) and it uses about 7 kilowatts of horsepower at 68 mph (110 km/h) — "as much power as a four-slice toaster," Sunswift team leader Simba Kuestler said in a statement
Source: www.livescience.com
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