The Cost of Pumping—Power Cost & Efficiency

Written by:Joe Evans

Published:February 1, 2014 

Today’s federal requirements dictate the minimum efficiency of an electric motor, but they do not have any

impact on the efficiency of a centrifugal pump. A 10-horsepower, 1,800-rpm motor must meet a minimum

efficiency of 90.2 percent, but no such restrictions exist for a 10-horsepower pump—and that is a good thing.

Lower efficiency pumps can actually reduce the total operating costs in some instances. Vortex sewage

pumps are a good example. In most applications, however, high efficiency pumps should be selected

because they can drastically reduce electric power costs.

If I did not know better, I would think that the total efficiency of a pump and motor would be the average of

the two individual efficiencies. If a motor is 90-percent efficient and the pump is 78-percent efficient, the

average would be 84 percent. That would be ideal. Unfortunately, the total efficiency of a motor and pump

when operating together is the product of their individual efficiencies, and that product reduces the total

efficiency value to well below the average.

Sometimes, this is hard to comprehend because so many units of measure are involved. To make it easier, I

like to use a very simple energy unit—a bag of energy. Figure 1 illustrates this concept. If 10 bags of energy

enter the motor and seven bags exit the pump, the total efficiency is 70 percent. If 10 bags enter the motor

and nine bags exit the motor, the motor efficiency is 90 percent. If nine bags enter the pump and seven exit

the pump, its efficiency is 78 percent. The only way to calculate a total efficiency of 70 percent is to multiply

90 percent by 78 percent.

Figure 1. Total efficiency calculation example

This total, or wire-to-water, efficiency is a major factor when calculating the power cost for pumping some

amount of water. One of the more common cost units is the cost per thousand gallons pumped and is

calculated using Equation 1.

Cost/1,000 gallons = (0.189 x Cost/kWh x Head) / (Pump eff x Motor eff x 60)

Equation 1

The power cost per thousand gallons is directly proportional to the cost per kilowatt hour (kWh) and pump

head while inversely proportional to pump and motor efficiency. Let’s compare the electrical costs for two

different pumps.

Figures 2 and 3 show the power cost per thousand gallons pumped for two pumps. Both are real pumps and

are popular in several water markets. The best efficiency point (BEP) for both pumps is 1,000 gallons per

minute at 127 feet, and the power cost is 10 cents per kilowatt hour.

Figure 2. The power cost per thousand gallons pumped for a pump with a BEP efficiency of 85 percent

driven by a motor with an efficiency of 93 percent

Figure 2 shows the cost per thousand gallons pumped for a pump with a BEP efficiency of 85 percent driven

by a motor with an efficiency of 93 percent. The wire-to-water efficiency is 79 percent. At 60 hertz (Hz), the

power cost at the BEP is 5 cents per thousand. Because the cost per thousand gallons is also directly

proportional to head, the cost drops to 4.2 cents at 55 Hz, 3.5 cents at 50 Hz and 2.8 cents at 45 Hz. If this

pump runs eight hours per day at 60 Hz, the annual electrical cost will be $8,760.

Figure 3. The power cost per thousand gallons pumped for a pump with a BEP efficiency of 73 percent

driven by a motor with an efficiency of 93 percent

Figure 3 shows the cost per thousand gallons pumped for a pump with a BEP efficiency of 73 percent driven

by a motor with a 93-percent efficiency. The wire-to-water efficiency is 68 percent. At 60 Hz, the cost at the

BEP is 5.9 cents per thousand. As with the previous pump, reduced speed also results in a lower cost.

Operation for eight hours per day at 60 Hz will result in an annual electrical cost of $10,337. In this

comparison, an 11-percent reduction in wire-to-water efficiency results in an 18-percent increase in power

cost.

The U.S. Energy Information Agency reports that the July 2013 average cost per kilowatt hour across the

U.S. was 10.71 cents. This represents a 3.9 percent increase from July 2012. Residential averages were

highest at 12.61 cents and industrial averages were lowest at 7.32 cents. Energy cost also varied greatly by

region. The highest average rate was Hawaii and Alaska at 27.2 cents. New England was second at 14.3

cents and the Middle Atlantic states were third at 12.74 cents. The lowest was the West South Central states

(Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma) at 8.12 cents. The remainder ranged from 8.48 to 11.17 cents.

Energy costs will continue to rise, so end users should ensure that their pumps operate at maximum

efficiency.

Protean Electric looks to revolutionize electric cars with in-wheel motorsBy Gary Gastelu

Published July 18, 2012FoxNews.com

Protean Electric

Protean Electric

Next Slide Previous Slide

Protean Electric hasn’t exactly reinvented the wheel, but what’s inside of it is a different story.

The Michigan-based company is set to begin production of compact, in-wheel electric motors that could revolutionize the plug-in car business.

With an $84 million investment from Chinese investor GSR Partners, Protean is building a manufacturing center in the city of Liyang, China, that will have an initial capacity to build 50,000 motors per year and will begin pre-production in early 2013.

Unlike many existing systems that use large motors to drive either a transmission or axles to get power to the wheels, Protean’s in-wheel motors are fully housed within the otherwise conventional wheels, which are bolted directly to them.

Versions of the motor measuring 18 inches in diameter weigh 68 pounds and provide 110 hp and an impressive 598 lb-ft of torque each, but can be scaled up to 24 inches for higher power applications. Two or four are used on each vehicle.

Protean’s innovative design packages the stationary, permanent magnet at the center of the device while the rotor is on the outside, making it easier for the wheel to be directly attached. Inverters and power electronics are housed between

the two, rather than in a remote unit, further simplifying and reducing the weight of the complete system. Each motor is made up of between four and eight parallel submotors, so in the event that one fails the unit can continue to operate until it is serviced.

Protean CEO Bob Purcell is a General Motors veteran who was head of the automaker’s Advanced Technology Vehicles Group behind the EV-1 electric car program. He says the company has demonstrated the technology in both all-electric and plug-in hybrid applications, and that its small size makes it ideal for retrofitting existing vehicles while offering unique opportunities for designers to reimagine the basic shape of a car or truck designed from the ground up around the motors. GM's Autonomy concept from a decade ago is a perfect example of the latter, it's flat "skateboard" chassis optimized by the use of in-wheel electric motors.

Purcell says the company will handle early production in house at its new facility, but the business plan is to ultimately license the technology to large manufacturers that can build the product in very high volumes themselves.

No customers have been named yet, but Purcell says Protean is in talks with several automakers in China, the U.S. and Europe and that deals are in the works that could be announced soon, with full commercial production on track to begin at the Liyang facility in early 2014.

Protean Electric in-wheel motors rolling toward productionBy Gary Gastelu

Published December 24, 2013FoxNews.com

Protean Electric

Protean Electric

Protean Electric

Next Slide Previous Slide

A new set of wheels is on the way.

Protean Electric has teamed up with a major automobile manufacturer to develop its novel in-wheel electric motor technology, with the intent of using it in a production car.

The Michigan-based company is working with FAW-Volkswagen, a Chinese automaker part-owned by VW Group, to integrate the system into a battery-powered Bora sedan demonstration vehicle.

Based on the last-generation VW Jetta, FAW-VW has been working for a couple of years on an all-electric version of the car using more conventional electric-drive technology. But now it is re-engineering it with Protean to incorporate its in-wheel motors.

Protean says that installing its motors directly at the wheel eliminates the need for driveshafts and [SB1]  other

components, while offering better control of the power delivery to each wheel.  The design also incorporates all of the electronics required to operate them, so they don’t require a separate unit located somewhere else in the vehicle, as all electric cars currently use.

The Bora is being developed as a rear-wheel-drive vehicle with one motor at each wheel. The Protean motors feature an inside-out design, with the stator on the inside and rotor on the outside, and are bolted directly to the wheels, where they deliver 100 hp and 739 lb-ft of torque each, the latter as much as the twin-turbocharged 6.0-liter V12 in a Mercedes-Benz CL63 AMG. Each motor should cost about $1,500 when series production begins.

However, Protean Vice President of Business Development Ken Stewart notes that while they plan to have a working prototype on the road in 2014, a production vehicle for FAW-VW is likely still several years down the road.

The company is also in talks with several other automakers through its offices in the U.S., China and the U.K.

Mazda plots Wankel-powered range extenders, HCCI mild hybrids

.

Mazda illustrates how its compact 330-cc single-rotor rotary engine (shaded blue here) compares in size to a piston engine of equivalent power.

The problem with electric drive systems is that they are too electrified. That’s Mazda’s view, judging from the company’s plans to fortify internal-combustion technology so that hybrids and EVs can carry smaller electric motors and batteries, making them lighter and cheaper.For mainstream products, that means piston engines that feature homogeneous-charge compression ignition (HCCI) and adiabatic design.  For EVs, Mazda is eying a compact, quiet, and smooth range extender using the company’s signature Wankel rotary engine to power a small on-board generator.HCCI and adiabatic developmentToday’s Mazda SkyActiv engines employ non-typical compression ratios—14:1 for gasoline engines and the same CR for diesel. This focus on optimal combustion lays the groundwork to move into HCCI, according to Takahisa Sori, Managing Executive Officer for research and development at Mazda Motor Corp.These engines and their successors will be normally aspirated rather than turbocharged, because normally aspirated engines’

quicker response is better suited to Mazda’s focus on fun-to-drive cars, he explained. And while reduced-displacement turbo engines can achieve high efficiency on standardized tests, such engines commonly disappoint customers with their real-world fuel economy, he pointed out.Hence Mazda’s continued refinement of normally aspirated internal-combustion engines.  Because IC engines still waste most of their energy in the form of heat, converting more of that to useful energy is Mazda’s focus for future engines, Sori said.A lean-burning HCCI engine will help achieve that using a compression ratio that is even higher than today’s SkyActiv 14:1 ratio. Diesel-like throttleless intake reduces pumping losses, and the company aims to trim friction losses by 20%. Together these changes will boost fuel economy by 30% over today’s engines.HCCI engines are limited in the load range in which they can run in HCCI mode, but Mazda expects to expand that range with improvements to the fuel injection system. Meanwhile, matching the HCCI engine to a hybrid electric drivetrain will let the HCCI gas engine run in its most efficient operating range, letting the electric motor assist as needed.In this de-emphasized role, the electric motor and battery need not be as large as in conventional hybrids, reducing their cost.These improvements to the engine reduce the energy loss through the exhaust but increase the heat loss to the cooling system. For SkyActiv 3, Mazda is pursuing adiabatic combustion, using insulation and possibly ceramic materials to minimize cooling-related efficiency losses, Sori said. He did not offer a timetable for the delivery of these technologies.Rotary redux?Meanwhile, Mazda is pursuing a new way to preserve the relevance of its signature rotary engine, which was dropped from production in late 2011 due to steadily decreasing volumes (in the RX-8 sports car). The rotary has struggled since the 1990s to meet increasingly stringent emission regulations.“We engineers at Mazda are very proud of the rotary engine,” Sori said.  “Therefore, we have been continuing research and development of the rotary.” One benefit of Mazda’s six decades of experience with the technology that yields benefits for today’s piston-engine programs is a thorough understanding of combustion. But rather than viewing the engine in romantic terms, Mazda is taking a hard-eyed approach to its potential return to production. “If it will become profitable, we will use it,” Sori said.

One potential application would be to address driver concerns about electric vehicle range. Mazda2 EV customers list driving range as a top concern, and using a rotary-powered range extender would alleviate that, according to Takashi Suzuki, program manager in Mazda’s powertrain development division.Aside from Mazda’s desire to find a 21st century role for the rotary engine, the design carries other benefits in comparison to a piston engine of equivalent power. For example, radiated noise, measured from 50 cm (7.8 in) with the engine running at 3000 rpm while producing 25 kW, is 87 dB for a rotary, compared to 92 dB for a gas engine and 96 dB for a diesel, noted Suzuki.A chart of vehicle road and wind noise at speed closely tracks one showing the noise produced by a rotary range extender while making enough power to propel a car at those speeds. This means that an EV can use a pistonless rotary-powered range extender without the driver ever hearing it run, unlike range-extender hybrids such as the Chevrolet Volt and Cadillac ELR that use reciprocating engines to extend their EV range.A 330-cm3 single-rotor Wankel can produce 22 kW (29.5-hp) at 4500 rpm or 28 kW (37.5-hp) at 6000 rpm, according to the company. Its compact size means it fits easily beneath the rear load floor of a subcompact Mazda2.Audi touted a similar solution in its A1 e-tron concept of 2011, which used a 15-kW (20-hp) 254-cc engine. The company never developed the concept for production, however, saying it wasn’t cost-effective. Engineering-services companies AVL and FEV also have shown Wankel-based range-extended EV proposals that are under development. Mazda’s design makes a key change. Aside from the slightly larger displacement, Mazda’s approach installs the gas engine and generator side by side, with a belt drive geared to double the speed of the generator. Audi’s design stacked the generator atop the rotary engine, with a direct connection driving the generator at engine speed. The faster spinning generator is 5% more efficient than one turning at engine speed, and Mazda’s generator produces a continuous 20 kW (27 hp), according to Suzuki.Mazda has survived in a market dominated by much larger rivals thanks to its unconventional approaches to design and engineering, so the company has an established track record of bringing unorthodox solutions like these to market

Hydro Power Gets Big Makeover By Going SmallJanuary 15th, 2014 | by Michael Keller

Generating loads of electricity from moving water might soon shift away from the province of behemoth structures like Washington’s Grand Coulee and China’s Three Gorges dams.

Over the last few years, researchers and industry have been chalking up successes developing small-scale, distributed hydroelectric generators to potentially replace their massive forebears, whose footprint causes major disturbances in the environment and communities nearby. These emerging technologies, collectively called hydrokinetics, can turn moving water in rivers, manmade spillways and ocean tides into electricity that gets pumped into power grids. 

“For new projects that need to be started, small hydrokinetic distributed networks should be considered as a viable candidate against big dams or other major power production projects,” says Diana Marculescu, a Carnegie Mellon University computer and electrical engineering professor who works in hydrokinetics. “In the long term, these distributed generation projects can become a serious alternative to large-scale hydroelectric, especially in the developing world, where increase in demand will be much larger.” 

In an April 2013 report on waterpower, the U.S. Department of Energy forecast that hydroelectric dams and hydrokinetic technologies could provide 15 percent of the country’s electricity needs by 2030.

Huge potential energy recovery 

But in the report’s compilation of analyses on hydrokinetic sources, the bigger potential is revealed—1,170 terawatt-hours of electricity is theoretically recoverable in wave energy alone every year. That’s enough to power around 100 million homes. Tapping the energy in flowing rivers without building dams by planting turbines in the water, so-called run-of-the-river generation, could yield another 120 terawatt-hours a year. And converting some of the thermal energy held in ocean water could produce another 576 terawatt-hours a year.

(Power density of the Atlantic Ocean off the Massachusetts coast. Red areas are greater than 1,000 watts per square meter. Courtesy Center for GIS at Georgia Tech.)

Hydrokinetic power companies are beginning to see successes in pilot projects.  Verdant Energy, a company that demonstrated tide-driven turbines in New York City’s East River from 2006 to 2009, was issued the first-ever commercial tidal power license in 2012 to generate and sell up to a megawatt of electricity. The company may eventually install 30 turbines in the river as part of their Federal Energy Regulatory Commission pilot license.

Others will soon follow them. FERC has now issued 14 preliminary hydrokinetic permits and another seven are pending. Those projects will have the capacity to produce more than 3.4 gigawatts of power.

"Energy harvesting from water is trapped in an archaic damming paradigm with high up-front costs and ecological impacts,” Marculescu says. “But rivers run to the ocean, and there is an enormous amount of kinetic energy that could be sustainably harvested."

Making hydrokinetic smart 

But for these small power generation units that may one day pepper shorelines and inland waterways to work optimally, they need to smarten up. During project design and turbine operation, managers need to have real-time information about the flow of water at the units. They also need to have an accurate computer model that forecasts changes in water flow rates coming toward the turbines due to upstream weather events. 

That’s why Marculescu is leading a team of engineers and computer scientists to develop a toolkit to monitor and control distributed hydrokinetic units. Their tools will help place and operate the generators. “The state-of-the-art model we are working to build is weather-aware and accurate second by second,” she says. “It’s a lot of data we’ll feed into it, but then we could predict what will happen in days or weeks. And then you could decide which turbines to turn on or off and do it as a function of weather and other data that effects the flow rate.”

The system would also provide the brains to direct hydrokinetic-generated electricity onto the local power network, creating a smart component of a smart grid. She says their model will be designed to tell the hydrokinetic units when to feed into the grid, and tell the grid when there won’t be enough power coming out the units so it can find power elsewhere. 

"There is a huge benefit to society in this work as we strive to create more sustainable ways to power our lives,” she says. “Small footprint hydroelectric projects could create enough low-carbon energy to power an economy the size of Virginia while minimizing impact to the environment and surrounding communities.”

Power in prediction 

The team is going to be building hierarchical models at several scales to analyze river systems, folding in huge amounts of data into each—tidal and river gauge sensor information, temperature and precipitation readings, and hydrological and soil features, among others. There are so many numbers to feed in, Marculescu says, that they still need to work out their system’s architecture. When they scale it up from their current study area to one the size of, say, the Mississippi River drainage basin, will standard computing resources be enough to crunch all the numbers? Or will they need to split these geographic areas up and then network the separate models together?

The project has just begun, and is being funded by a three-year, $1.2 million National Science Foundation grant.  Marculescu says the result of their work could also be used to predict coming catastrophic flooding events in great detail. “The dynamics of something like a flood happen so fast that it can take people by surprise,” she says. “But you could use our system to monitor changing conditions and make predictions to say to people, ‘You’ll have this much water in this much time.’”

Top Image: A Verdant Power tidal turbine being installed in New York City’s East River in 2006. Courtesy Kris Unger/Verdant Power.

An Independent Engineering Evaluation of Waste-to-Energy Technologies

Thomas Stringfellow and Robert Witherell, CH2M HILL Engineers, Inc.

January 13, 2014  |  10 Comments

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Waste-to-Energy (WTE) or energy-from-waste is the process of generating energy in the

form of electricity and/or heat from the incineration of waste. In the U.S., some cities primarily

in the northeastern and mid-Atlantic, burn part of their municipal solid wastes. Hemmed in by

major population centers, landfill space in these areas is at a premium, so burning wastes to

reduce their volume and weight makes sense. Combustion reduces the volume of material

by about 90 percent and its weight by 75 percent. The heat generated by burning wastes has

other uses, as well, as it can be used directly for heating, to produce steam or to generate

electricity.

Renewable Energy World North America Conference and Expo is now accepting abstracts

for its upcoming 2014 conference program, set to take place December 9-11 in Orlando,

Florida. CLICK HERE to submit your abstract today!

In 1885, the U.S. Army built the nation’s first garbage incinerator on Governor’s Island in

New York City harbor. Also in 1885, Allegheny, Pennsylvania built the first municipal

incinerator. As their populations increased, many cities turned to incinerators as a convenient

way to dispose of wastes.

These incineration facilities usually were located within city limits because transporting

garbage to distant locations was impractical. By the end of the 1930s, an estimated 700

incinerators were in use across the nation. This number declined to about 265 by 1966, due

to air emissions problems and other limitations of the technology. In addition, the popularity

of landfills increased.

In the early 20th century, some U.S. cities began generating electricity or steam from burning

wastes. In the 1920s, Atlanta sold steam from its incinerators to the Atlanta Gas Light

Company and Georgia Power Company.

Europe, however, developed waste-to-energy technologies more thoroughly, in part because

these countries had less land available for landfills. After World War II, European cities

further developed such facilities as they rebuilt areas ravaged by war.

The use of municipal waste combustion for energy in the U.S. is not common; the nation had

only 87 such facilities in 2007 and has added several more today, while Europe has more

than 430 such facilities. By the 1990s, after the tax credits extension of 1986 finally ended,

fewer waste-to-energy plants were built. Figure 1 shows the generic process of converting

waste to energy. 

Recently in the U.S. WTE has been deemed a Renewable Energy source. According to the

EPA the definition of Renewable Energy - “Renewable Energy is energy obtained from

sources that are essentially inexhaustible, unlike natural gas, coal and oil, of which there is a

finite supply.” According to the Department of Energy (DOE) – “Renewable energy sources

include: wood and other biomass, solar (Photovoltaic and Thermal), wind, geothermal,

wastes [Municipal Solid Waste (MSW), Refuse-Derived Fuel (RDF), Landfill Gas (LFG)] and

any other sources that are naturally or continually replenished.” By definition, the DOE

describes renewable energy as a “non-deplete-able source of energy.”

Technologies

The technologies described in this paper all produce energy, we will not address pure

incineration or other means of reducing municipal solid waste that does not produce energy.

We will also not address the Non-Thermal Technologies (Anaerobic Digestion, Landfill Gas,

or Hydrolysis and Mechanical Biological Treatment.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a technical evaluation of the available technologies

and provide an indicative cost estimate ranges associated with each.

The technologies we reviewed are as follows:

Thermal Technologies

Direct Combustion (Mass Burn and RDF)

Pyrolysis 

Conventional Gasification

Plasma Arc Gasification

As mentioned earlier we did not evaluate the Non-Thermal Technologies.

Thermal Technologies

Direct Combustion Mass Burn and Refuse Derived Fuel

As mentioned above Mass Burn facilities have been in existence for decades and as the

technology reflects it literally burns/combusts everything, leaving only noncombustible

material. There are over 100 of these facilities operating in the U.S. and considerably more in

Europe and Asia. Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) is the process of removing the recyclable and

noncombustible from the municipal solid waste (MSW) and producing a combustible

material, by shredding or pelletizing the remaining waste. There are only 19 RDF facilities in

the U.S., but as energy prices climb and landfill permitting gets more difficult there may be an

increase in the number of these facilities. Figure 2 and 3 are B&W’s rendition of typical Mass

Burn and RDF technologies. 

Pyrolysis

Pyrolysis is the thermo-chemical decomposition of organic material, at elevated

temperatures without the participation of oxygen. The process involves the simultaneous

change of chemical composition and physical phase that is irreversible. Pyrolysis occurs at

temperatures >750°F (400°C) in a complete lack of oxygen atmosphere. The syn-gas that is

produced during the reaction is generally converted to liquid hydrocarbons, such as

biodiesel. Byproducts from the process are generally unconverted carbon and/or charcoal

and ash. 

There are various types of Pyrolysis technologies ranging from carbonization to rapid or flash

type systems. Table 1 below shows the different types and comparisons of the process

conditions and major products. 

Figures 4 and 5 show the process flows for the fast and rapid pyrolysis processes that are

being offered commercially. We are aware of small modules operating throughout the world,

but to our knowledge there are no systems operating at large industrial sized. 

Conventional Gasification

Conventional gasification is defined as the thermal conversion of organic materials at

temperature of 1,000 °F - 2,800 °F (540 °C – 1,540 °C), with a limited supply of air or oxygen

(sub-stoichiometric atmosphere). This is not combustion and therefore there is no burning.

Gasification uses a fraction of the air/oxygen that is generally needed to combust a

given material and thus creates a low to medium Btu syn-gas. Although more mature than

other processes, it does require complex systems, such as gas clean up equipment.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Worldwide Gasification Database shows that the

current gasification capacity has grown to 70,817 megawatts thermal (MWth) of syn-gas

output at 144 operating plants with a total of 412 gasifiers. The database also shows that 11

plants, with 17 gasifiers, are presently under construction, and an additional 37 plants, with

76 gasifiers, are in the planning stages to become operational between 2011 and 2016. The

majority of these plants—40 of 48—will use coal as the feedstock. If this growth is realized,

worldwide capacity by 2016 will be 122,106 MWth of syn-gas capacity, from 192 plants and

505 gasifiers. This data base does show that there are gasifiers operating on both biomass

and waste. Figures 6 and 7 are two basic types of gasifiers, Figure 6 is fluidized bed gasifier

and char combustor and Figure 7 is a typical slagging gasifier. 

Plasma Arch Gasification

Plasma Arc gasification is the process of that utilizes a plasma torch or plasma arc using

carbon electrodes, copper, tungsten, hafnium, or zirconium to initiate the temperature

resulting in the gasification reaction. Plasma temperature temperatures range from 4,000 °F

– 20,000 °F (2,200 °C – 11,000 °C), creating not only a high value syn-gas but also high

value sensible heat. The technology has been used for decades to destroy wastes that may

be hazardous. The resulting ash is similar to glass that encapsulates the hazardous

compounds.

The first Plasma Arc unit began operation in 1985 at Anniston, Alabama. The unit used a

catalytic converter system to improve gas quality and the gasifier was designed to destroy

munitions. The second system began operation in 1995 in Japan followed by the third

system in Bordeaux, France, both design for MSW. There are other operating systems in

Sweden, Norway, the UK, Canada, Taiwan and the U.S., Japan has added nine more since

1995. All of these are small in size but have the ability to scale up, using multiple units.

Figure 8 and Figure 9 show a couple of current systems available on the market and both

can be employed to reduce waste and generate clean electric energy.

The advantage of the Plasma gasification is the high temperature that minimizes air

pollutants well below those of traditional WTE facilities. At the elevated temperatures, there

is no odor, and the cooled off gas has lower NOX, SO2 and CO2 emissions. The solid

residue resembles glass beads. 

Technical Evaluation

In order to fairly evaluate each of these technologies we assessed the overall technology

capabilities, commercial viability and associated costs, while asking the following questions:

Is it proven? (technically sound) – Not serial No. 1

What is the capital and long term O&M costs? (Long Term Lease?)

Is it guaranteed and what is behind the guarantee?

Land and Water requirements?

Is it scalable? (Modular)

Environmental?

Can it use all the municipal solid waste, with little or no waste streams?

What is the schedule for delivery and commercial operation?

Is the technology/company committed to resolve all issues with waste?

Note: If it doesn’t work technically then it doesn’t work and if it doesn’t work economically,

then it doesn’t work. (Both are needed to be viable)

Estimated Costs

Ranges for Capital Costs for each of the Thermal Technologies assumes a 15 MW output for

a:

Direct Combustion (Mass Burn and RDF) ranges from $7,000 to $10,000 per kW.

Pyrolysis ranges from $8,000 to $11,500 per kW.

Conventional Gasification ranges from $7,500 to $11,000 per kW.

Plasma Arc Gasification ranges from $8,000 to $11,500 per kW

Costs vary from technology to technology due to each having unique design characteristics,

variations in equipment costs, site specific waste characteristics and site space

requirements. There are significant other factors that can negatively affect the costs of

construction.

If the site is located at an intercity location several issues can occur:

Restrictive site: A restrictive site size can have a number of effects including

possible off-site laydown requiring double handling of equipment and material leading to a

significant increase in construction indirect costs. Similarly, the requirement for offsite craft

parking would lead to bussing of craft to the site on a daily basis, resulting cost of bussing

and loss of craft productivity. Loss of craft productivity also occurs with a restrictive site size

due to congestion during construction because of conflicts between craft interfaces and

worker densities issues.

Accessibility of site: Intercity locations can have issues that affect accessibility of

the site for delivery of major equipment by rail or by barge (if located on a waterway).

Additional cost for heavy hauling of major equipment may occur.

Architectural: Architectural considerations to disguise the nature of the facility may

be required utilizing storefront and enclosure walls with special treatment to blend in with

neighboring structures.

Noise considerations: Acoustical panels and sound attenuation sound walls may be

required.

Possibility of contaminated soil: Many inter-city sites have issues with

contaminated soil occurring when the new site is located where a previous facility was

located that had processes that contaminated the soil if not previously mitigated. The new

Owner is then required to rectify the soil conditions based on EPA requirements.

Utility tie-ins: the new site will need to be either being tying in to an existing

switchyard or have a requirement for a new switchyard and/or transmission line. If the gas

supply is not adjacent to the site, issues may occur where gas tap fees and routing through

existing inter-city infrastructure for any distance could be expensive.

If the site is located in a unionized craft location several issues can occur:

Craft labor costs: Particularly in northeast and west coast locations of the US craft

labor costs can be very high along with low craft productivity. Low craft productivity can be

attributable to restrictive union rules, weather conditions in northerly locations and labor

productivity intrinsic to the particular location.

Availability of skilled labor: Lack of available skilled craft labor can have a

tremendous affect of the total facility cost. Lack of availability can be caused by other high

labor hour projects being built at the same time as the new facility. Difficult union

relationships would be another potential factor.

Evaluation Conclusions

In our opinion, all of the technologies presented provide the end user with different results.

Although mass burn and RDF have the most units installed around the world, the lesser used

technologies (Pyrolysis, Gasification and Plasma Arc) all have the capability of changing the

landscape of the WTE arena. All three of these technologies provide systems with lower

emissions than the mass burn and RDF system simply due to their process characteristics.

The Plasma Arc has proven that it has the lowest emissions of all the technologies

presented, but does not have a track record of multiple units around the world. That said, it is

gaining in acceptance and increasing the number of installations due to its complete

elimination of the waste stream. Although there are few Pyrolysis systems installed around

the world it appears as though this technology will not be used to produce electrical energy

rather it will be used to produce bio-fuels for the transportation industry. We opine that even

though it could make electrical energy the likelihood will be rare.

Although the capital costs are conservative and high compared to other energy technologies,

we need to look at the possible revenue streams. The revenue for all of the technologies is;

Electric Energy Sales, Government Subsidies, Renewable Energy Credits, Sale of any

Recyclables and tipping fees. Although some are more valuable than others, WTE

technologies have more ways to generate revenue that any other power generation

technology. The only revenue stream that may not be included with the Plasma Arc, as it

may not have a recyclable revenue stream due to its complete consumption of waste and

this will depend on the ultimate final design.

We would like to thank the companies who have provided their technology, the Department

of Energy, the EPA and other sources we have reviewed prior to writing this paper. 

Read More Bioenergy News Here

The Water Heater as Grid Battery, Version 2.0

Could a simple redesign turn basement water tanks into real-time utility assets?

Jeff St. John November 8, 2013

The household electric water heater, long a quiet partner in utility demand response programs, is going through a series of makeovers that just might turn it into tool that can match the challenges happening at the edge of the grid.

Some of this work involves cutting-edge pilot projects, seeking to create virtual batteries from thousands of water heaters tied together in fast-reacting, grid-responsive control systems. Canada’s PowerShift Atlantic project, or the U.S. Department of Energy-backed Pacific Northwest Demonstration Project, are good examples of this approach.  

Or, it might involve a simple redesign, at a cost of about $20 in extra parts, aimed at turning the classic electric resistance hot water tank into a “breakthrough variable-capacity grid-interactive water heating technology.”

That’s how Sequentric Energy Systems describes its latest contribution to the emerging concept of water-heater-as-smart-grid-resource. Last week, the Atlanta-based startup was awarded a U.S. patent for its technology. At this week’s ACEEE Hot Water Forum -- an entire conference dedicated to efficient ways to heat water -- Sequentric announced its first manufacturing partner, Massachusetts-based Vaughn Thermal Corp., which plans to start making the units for utility buyers.

So, what’s the big breakthrough? According to Sequentric CEO Daniel Flohr, it involves little more than taking advantage of the way that hot water rises and cold water sinks in a heater tank. Most water heaters heat the entire tank of water, leaving little wiggle room in how often utilities can turn them on or off without

affecting temperature, angering customers, and making them a no-go for mass deployment.

But adding an extra heating element at the bottom of the tank, where the cold water sits, allows utilities the ability to turn it on and off at will, while leaving the hot water at the top of the tank at a stable temperature, he said.

That solves four key challenges, he said -- “How do we give the utility company the timing, how do we keep it safe, how do we keep water hot, and how do we keep it simple?”

These are challenges that have limited today’s water heater demand response programs. Traditional water heaters have some pretty strict limits on how often they can be turned off, and for how long, before the water gets cold enough to be noticed by homeowners. Likewise, programs that use water heaters to absorb excess power -- for example, to make use of wind power that would otherwise be curtailed for lack of demand -- can only crank up the heat so much before it starts to get dangerously hot, threatening homeowner safety and the integrity of the water heater itself.

This new design, by contrast, allows utilities to “extend the capacity -- and take over 100 percent of the timing,” Flohr said. Here’s a chart illustrating how a utility using one of Sequentric’s water heaters is able to use that lower heating element in ways that drive significant ups and downs in the lower, colder portion of the tank, while keeping water temperature at the top of the tank stable:

From Real-Time Grid Support to Long-Range Wind Energy Storage

What can be done with a utility-controlled water heater with this kind of range and flexibility? A new pilot being conducted by Battelle, the Columbus, Ohio-based nonprofit that manages DOE labs, including Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and mid-Atlantic grid operator PJM is testing out one possibility: turning water heaters spread across several commercial campuses into second-by-second frequency regulation responsive loads.

“Part of the challenge for frequency regulation is verifying to PJM that you did what they asked you to do,” said Jason Black, energy and environment research leader at Battelle. “Especially when you have 1,000 water heaters out there, and [PJM] says, 'Give me 30 kilowatts,'” which equates to about five or six water heaters.

“We have some proprietary methodology that we’re patenting [pertaining to] how we can very transparently show PJM what we’re doing by declaring a schedule for each of the individual water heaters,” he said. While Battelle is retrofitting existing water heaters with Sequentric’s load controller right now, it has also tested the company’s new design, which could “allow for additional, finer-grained

control and provide additional storage capability compared to a traditional water heater,” he said.

That storage capability is critical to balancing 24-hour fluctuations in grid supply and demand, Flohr noted. For example, water heaters could be controlled to slowly allow the water at the bottom of the tanks to cool so that “at midnight, we can have relatively small capacity,” just enough to serve a household’s hot water needs. Then, through the course of the night, “when the wind is cranking, through seven in the morning, charge it up,” heating all the water in the tank.

Then, when morning electricity peak demand arrives, the water heater can be turned off almost completely in order to draw off that stored hot water capacity. From that point on, “over the course of the day, we’re still putting energy in, but at a rate less than what is coming out,” he said.

That excess capacity could also be made available to absorb power that comes when wind power spikes, or substations trip offline, he said. “The code name we have with Battelle is the 'Spinal Tap' mode -- it goes to 11,” he said. “Being able to selectively overcharge, keeping something in reserve, just in case -- but still safely, so the homeowner doesn’t get burned and the tank’s lifespan isn’t hurt.”

These kinds of deep discharge and recharge cycles can shorten the life of batteries asked to do similar tasks, he said. But even more importantly, unlike batteries, there are 50 million or so electric water heaters in the United States already in place, ready to serve wind power storage and fast-response needs.

Market Potential Versus Alternatives

How could water heaters with this new design get into the homes and connected to the utilities that need them? Steven Koep, utility sales manager at Vaughn, noted that water heaters are replaced every ten to fifteen years or so, far more often than most other household appliances, which could make them one of the earliest “smart appliances” to see widespread market adoption.

“Retrofitting grid-interactive controls has been done on small scales for demonstration projects, but I think it’s a less viable option than being able to take advantage of the 8 percent to 10 percent average turnover of electric water heaters every year,” he said. “And the incremental cost of adding the control to the unit at the Vaughn manufacturing plant is probably a tenth of the cost” of retrofits, he added.

Despite its new patent, Sequentric isn’t in the water heater business, Flohr noted. Rather, it makes sensors and controls for end loads, as well as the software to manage the network that connects them to utility or grid operator systems. “We give them the real-time telemetry, and they decide how to dispatch the network, and we take care of the housekeeping -- and it operates in real time,” he said.

The company is involved in about 26 projects, with about 2,100 devices connected, he said. Some two-thirds of them are water heaters, where Sequentric’s sensor and control array provides voltages, temperature, current transformer readings, state of relay information, leak detection, and communications links to operators, usually via cellular or broadband internet.

In Canada’s PowerShift Atlantic project, Sequentric has retrofitted a number of water heaters that utilities lease to customers. Utility water heater lease programs are a natural target for Sequentric’s new water heater design, Flohr said. In the U.S. Midwest and Ontario, utility Direct Energy has a fleet of about 1.25 million leased water heaters, and similar programs are sponsored by Tennessee Valley Authority and others.

New Brunswick Power, one of the PowerShift program’s participants, replaces about 10,000 of these leased water heaters per year, and charges customers $6 a month on their electric bill for the service, he said. When those water heaters break down or start to leak, the utility has an incentive to replace them quickly, he added.

Beyond direct leasing programs, there’s a world of water heaters that could eventually be turned over into more responsive utility assets. Thirty-five states have utilities running water heater load control programs, which turn them on and off via remote control to help shave loads during grid peaks. In the United States, rural co-ops are big customers -- the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) counts about 220 member utilities with water heater demand response programs, and another 100 planning them.

One possible hurdle for the expansion of this market is the question of whether electric water heating should be expanded, or instead replaced with natural gas fueled water heaters, heat pump water heaters, solar hot water systems or other higher-efficiency options. Earlier this year, the Department of Energy proposed water heater efficiency standards for 2015 and onward that could bar many electric water heaters from the market.

Backers of demand-response-capable water heaters, including NRECA, PJM, the American Public Power Association, the Edison Electric Institute and smart-water-heater maker Steffes Corporation, have asked the DOE to reconsider those rules, which could have broader impacts on water heater manufacturers across the spectrum.

***

Network with leaders from GE, SDG&E, IBM, AT&T, Intel, PG&E, and more on topics like these that are driving innovation at the edge of the grid. Learn more about our new Grid Edge Executive Council.

Tags: battelle, demand response, doe, frequency regulation, grid edge, pacific northwest

demonstration project, pjm, pnnl, powershift atlantic, sequentric, smart grid, steffes, water

heater, wind power

A Smarter Way to Use Sunlight: Array Pushes Solar Deep into BuildingsCINCINNATI, Nov. 7, 2013 — A pair of University of Cincinnati researchers want you to see the light — even if you're in an unlit, interior, windowless room.

The new technology, called SmartLight, involves a narrow grid of tiny, electrofluidic cells self-powered by embedded photovoltaics and applied near the top of a window. These open-air "ducts" help sunlight to illuminate windowless work spaces deep inside office buildings. The grid can be applied to any building — big or small, old or new, residential or commercial — and the excess energy can be harnessed, stored and directed to other applications.

This rendering depicts how an office might appear with the University of Cincinnati's SmartLight off (top) and on (bottom). Sunlight is directed to different spaces, including to a "SmartTrackLight" in the outer hallway. Renderings courtesy of Timothy Zarki.

SmartLight is the result of an interdisciplinary collaboration between Anton Harfmann, an associate professor in UC's School of Architecture and Interior Design, and Jason Heikenfeld, a professor of electrical engineering and computer systems. Their research

paper, "Smart Light - Enhancing Fenestration to Improve Solar Distribution in Buildings," was presented recently at Italy's CasaClima international energy forum.

"The SmartLight technology would be groundbreaking. It would be game-changing," Harfmann said. "This would change the equation for energy. It would change the way buildings are designed and renovated. It would change the way we would use energy and deal with the reality of the sun. It has all sorts of benefits and implications that I don't think we've even begun to touch."

Existing solar technologies, such as photovoltaic cells, aren't very efficient. A typical PV array loses most of the energy it has gathered as it converts that energy into electricity. But with SmartLight, Harfmann said the sunlight channeled through the system stays, and is used, in its original form. This method is far more efficient than converting light into electricity, then back into light, and would be far more sustainable than generating electric light by burning fossil fuels or releasing nuclear energy, he said.

Diagram showing how the University of Cincinnati's SmartLight can direct sunlight from the outside of a building (far right) to the inner part of a building and to a centralized harvesting- and energy-storage hub (far left). Courtesy of Anton Harfmann, University of Cincinnati.

Each tiny cell in the SmartLight grid contains fluid with optical properties as good or better than glass. The surface tension of the fluid can be rapidly manipulated into shapes such as lenses or prisms through minimal electrical stimulation - about 10,000 to 100,000 times less power than what is needed to light a traditional incandescent bulb. This allows sunlight passing through the cell to be controlled and possibly stored for use on cloudy days or at night.

The grid might direct some light to reflect off the ceiling to provide ambient room lighting. Other light might get focused toward special fixtures for task lighting. Yet another portion might be transmitted across the empty, uppermost spaces in a room to an existing or newly installed transom window fitted with its own electrofluidic grid. From there, the process could be repeated to enable sunlight to reach the deepest, most "light locked" areas of any building. And it's all done without needing to install new wiring, ducts, tubes or cables, they say.

"You're using space that's entirely available already. Even if I want to retrofit to existing architecture, I've got the space and the ability to do so," said Heikenfeld, creator of the SmartLight's electrofluidic cells. "And you don't need something mechanical and bulky, like a motor whirring in the corner of your office steering the light. It just looks like a piece of glass that all of a sudden switches."

A user could control SmartLight through a mobile app, as depicted in this rendering. Courtesy of Anton Harfmann.

Harfmann believes that SmartLight will have the greatest impact on "the major energy hog" — large commercial buildings. Energy needed to occupy buildings accounts for close to 50 percent of total energy consumption, he said.

Plans call for SmartLight to be controlled wirelessly via a mobile software application. It could even use geolocation data from the app to respond when a user enters/leaves a room or changes seats within the room, by manipulating Wi-Fi-enabled light fixtures, the researchers say.

"SmartLight would be controlled wirelessly. There would be no wires to run. You wouldn't have light switches in the room. You wouldn't have electricity routed in the walls," Harfmann said. "You would walk into a room and lights would switch on because your smartphone knows where you are and is communicating with the SmartLight

system."

Much of the science and technology required to make SmartLight commercially viable already exist, Heikenfeld said. He and Harfmann have begun evaluating materials and advanced manufacturing methods, but need sufficient funding to create a large-scale prototype to attract government or industry partners.

"We're going to look for some substantial funds to really put a meaningful program together," Heikenfeld said. "We've already done a lot of the seed work. We're at the point where it would be a big, commercially driven type of effort. The next step is the tough part. How do you translate that into commercial products?"

For more information, visit: www.uc.edu  

Can Certain Geothermal Technologies Better Withstand Climate Change than Others? As superstorms like Typhoon Haiyan strike at an increasing rate, we are learning which technologies hold up best. Meg Cichon, Associate Editor, RenewableEnergyWorld.com

December 11, 2013  |  6 Comments

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New Hampshire, USA -- Nearly one month after Typhoon Haiyan ravaged the Philippines,

affecting more than 12 million people and killing almost 6,000, many residents are still sitting

in the dark. The Superstorm not only decimated the islands’ transmission systems, it

knocked out one of its main power sources — geothermal.

An aerial shot of the province of Leyte shows the extent of damage brought by Super

Typhoon Haiyan in Leyte province, the Philippines, on Sunday, Nov. 10, 2013. Credit:

Bloomberg.

Clustered on the hardest hit island of Leyte, geothermal plants were a sitting duck for

Haiyan’s harshest wrath. All five plants located on the island, totaling more than 600

megawatts (MW) of capacity, were incapacitated immediately following the storm. But in the

weeks that followed, two plants were able to start putting some power back onto the grid,

and revealed that the type of technology used may make a life-changing difference. 

“What happened in the Philippines is interesting,” said Nir Wolfe, vice president of sales and

business development at Ormat Technologies. Rather than comment on the distinctions

between coal, gas and geothermal plants, Wolfe suggested that observers "note the

differences in the technology of the [geothermal] power plants.”

Geothermal Abundance

The Philippines sits on a cauldron of geothermal resources, otherwise known as the Ring of

Fire. It is a geologic region containing nearly 400 volcanoes that extends in a horseshoe

shape from the bottom tip of South America, up along the Pacific coast through North

America, and looping back through Asia and down to New Zealand.

This environmental zone means that the Philippines ranks second in the world behind the

U.S. for the most geothermal development, with more than 1,900 MW of capacity. Much of

this growth took place in the 1990’s to curb the nation’s reliance on oil. 

Traditional vs. Binary

Since the island sits on resources that

can reach more than 600 degrees Fahrenheit, geothermal developers were able to build

traditional steam turbine systems. In dry-steam systems, developers drill a production well to

access geothermal fluids directly from underneath the earth’s surface. These fluids travel up

the well and push through a turbine as steam, which produces electricity. The fluid is then

replaced into the ground via a reinjection well. 

Flash-steam plants are very similar, but the fluid is pumped at a very high pressure into a

flash tank, which is held at a lower pressure. The difference in pressure causes the fluid to

“flash” and create steam, which drives a turbine to create electricity. Traditional plants

typically use water-based cooling towers to prevent over-heating.

Binary geothermal systems are able to produce electricity from much lower-temperature

fluid. This is possible due to the use of a “working fluid,” which has a much lower boiling point

than the traditional resource. Geothermal water travels up an injection well and back down

into the earth in a closed loop. However, when the fluid reaches the surface it travels through

a heat exchanger. Inside this exchanger, the geothermal water heats up the working fluid.

The working fluid then turns into a gas, which drives the turbine and ultimately produces

electricity. Binary plants typically use air-based cooling towers. 

A Binary Advantage?

The two geothermal plants that are already producing electricity in the Philippines, the 132-

MW Upper Mahaio and 39.2-MW Leyte Optimization, are both binary plants, while the

remaining three plants use a traditional stream-turbine design. According to the Energy

Development Corportation (EDC), which owns and operates the plants, the majority of the

damage affected the cooling towers. Since water-based cooling towers are at a much higher

elevation than air-cooled, they faced the brunt of the storm. 

“Somehow the binary systems survived the disaster a little bit better. Maybe because they

are a little bit more rugged. Maybe because they are a bit more low profile and can better

withstand high winds,” said Wolfe. “It is an advantage that we see with low-profile power

plants worldwide — they are very reliable for electricity generation, grid connection, and

maybe even for withstanding weather conditions.” 

Binary systems are likely more robust in high winds due to their design, agreed Halley

Dickey, director of geothermal business development at TAS Energy, although he noted that

“hurricane-force winds are tough no matter how you look at it — requiring very stout design.”

Not only are air-cooled binary systems lower-profile, they also can be activated and

deactivated in phases, according to Wolfe. For this reason, both binary plants in the

Philippines were able to start feeding 57 MW of capacity to the grid even though they were

not fully operational. 

Binary plants are brought online in much smaller phases than traditional plants — typically in

5, 10, 15 or 20-MW increments, explained Dickey, whereas traditional plants are brought

online in large 50 to 100 plus-MW segments.  

“[Binary plants] are able to be deployed quicker and in phases much more easily than

traditional steam,” said Dickey. “Because of scale, traditional plants are designed as big as

possible, making it a major undertaking.” It may also be more difficult to get larger segments

online after damages like those brought on by Typhoon Haiyan.

The EDC hopes to bring at least 147 MW back online by the end of December, but predicts it

will take up to one year to reach full operation.

Read More Geothermal Energy News Here

UFV750 Ultrafiltration System Compact Membrane Filtration System for Processing up to 1500 GPD

The UFV750T is part of Sanborn Technologies line of compact ultrafiltration systems for waste minimization or process water reuse. These systems are ideal for recyling and/or disposal of oily wastewaters from aqueous parts washers, floor moping, waste coolants or tumbling and burnishing operations.

The UFV750T employs rugged ½” tubular membrane ultrafiltration membrane technology to separate water from suspended solids and emulsified oils.  Membrane life is between 1 to 2 years so operational costs are low.  Where free-oil is present an integrated Sanborn SOS oil separator is mounted right on the processing skid.  Like all Sanborn UF systems, wastewater can be reduced by as much as 98% without the use of chemical additives such as flocculent.  The effluent is typically discharged directly to sewer or reused within the process.

Sanborn’s compact design include a 330 gallon process tank, process pumps without pump seals, and level controls, transfer pump to allow the unit to be installed with minimal effort.

FeaturesSelf-Contained Packaged System

• Easy Installation • Mechanical separation proceeds without operator involvement

• System is easily expandable to double processing capacity up to 1500 GPD

Simple and Efficient Operation

• Polymeric membrane is insensitive to chemical concentration in wastewater streams • Verticle seal-less pumps can handle highly abrasive solids

• 1/2" tubular membranes allow processing of high solids wastewater

BenefitsDramatic Direct Cost Savings

• Reduce wastewater volumes by up to 98% • Recyled fluids saves the costs of new fluid purchases

• Energy efficient separation using only 5 HP pump

Simple Operation and Reliable Performance

• Operates with a single pump and no chemical additives • Membranes provide a positive barrier between process and the environment

SANBORN’s UFV Series of Ultrafiltration Systems bring compact wastewater disposal/reuse technology to manufacturing facilities. Designed for waste volumes of up to 1,500 gallons per day (GPD), these economical systems allow for simple, continuous operation with a minimum of energy and operator involvement. All UFV systems employ ultrafiltration membrane technology to separate water and dissolved chemicals from suspended solids and emulsified oils. The process reduces wastes by as much as 98% without the use of chemical additives. The state-of-the art designs include vertical centrifugal pumps that handle the abrasive

solids encountered in most manufacturing waste fluids

without the potential for pump seal leaking and failure. The separation process is mechanical and operates

without messy and expensive prefiltration and, in most cases,

produces a reusable or directly sewerable effluent thus dramatically

reducing waste disposals costs. Models are shipped pre-wired and pre-piped for easy

installation. Options include an integrated free-oil separator,

automatic fluid

transfer system, flushing shutdown system and packaged water

reuse designs. ULTRAFILTRATION SYSTEMS UFV 250T • UFV 500T • UFV 750T •

UFV 1500T UFV 750TV SHOWN WITH OPTIONAL FREE-OIL SEPARATOR Primary applications for the systems include waste minimization of: • Metalworking Coolants • Aqueous Parts Washer Solutions • Burnishing and Deburring Wastes • Mop Water • Food Processing Wastes • Air Compressor Blowdown • Printing and Paint Washwater 23 Walpole Park South Walpole, MA 02081-2558 USA Telephone (508) 660-9150 Fax: (508) 660-9151 E-mail sales@sanborntechnologies.com www.sanborntechnologies.com UFV ULTRAFILTRATION SYSTEMS GENERAL SPECIFICATIONS Model UFV250TV UFV500TV UFV750TV UFV1500TV Volume Processed (GPD) 250 500 750 1500 Process Tanks (gals) 180 180 330 330 Cleaning Tank (gals) 50 50 70 70 Number of Membranes 4 4 12 12 Length of membranes (Ft) 5 10 5 10 Process & Cleaning Pumps 50 50 100 100 GPM/Pump Pump HP 5 5 10 10 Amp Draw@460 volts 7.5 7.5 15 15 Dimensions (LWH) Inches 74 x 39 x 81 74 x 39 x 142 86 x 4 8 x 81 86

x 48 x 145 With SOS (Free-Oil Separator) 89 x 39 x 81 89 x 39 x 142 100 x 48 x 81 100 x 48

x 145 (LWH) Inches Weight 1700 1800 2100 2200 Weight with SOS 2000 2100 2400 2500 Operating Conditions pH Range Temperature 2-12 50 - 125 deg F

All specifications in this datasheet are subject to change without notice. Copyright 2006

REV-032007 FEATURES • High-tech polymeric membrane is highly insensitive to chemical and concentration changes in the waste feed stream. • Half-inch tubular membrane allows processing of high- solids waste. • System operates in batch or continuous mode. • Skid-mounted units install easily in the plant. BENEFITS DIRECT COST SAVINGS • Reduced waste volume saves on disposal costs. • Simple operation saves on labor costs. • Extremely low operating costs. ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFITS • Positive membrane barrier ensures consistent effluent quality. • Lower waste volumes reduce environmental liability. • Low-pressure, non-chemical system is safe to operate. VALUABLE TIME SAVINGS • Unattended operation and limited maintenance saves man-hours. • Less storing, monitoring, and hauling away of wastewater. Cutaway of Tubing Shows Wide-Channel Tubular Membranes. 1. FEED TUBULAR ULTRAFILTRATION MEMBRANES 5. WASTE MATERIAL 4. TO SEWER 6. PERIODIC WASTE 2. DISPOSAL Y-STRAINER 3. PUMP CLEANING TANK PROCESS TANK

UFV OPERATION SUMMARY 1. Wastewater enters the process tank. 2. Wastewater passes through

a strainer that protects the pump. 3. The liquid is continuously pressure driven across the semipermeable UF membrane where emulsion dewatering occurs. 4. Clean water is continuously discharged from the system. 5. Waste material rejected by membranes is recycled back to the process tank. 6. Concentrated waste is periodically removed for disposal. TYPICAL UFV250TV

50kW Portable Power Center

<img src="http://static.squarespace.com/static/503564dc84ae416826d0a41f/

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Renewable Energy, where you need it, without fossil fuels or a "grid"

UPRISE Energy has developed an innovative 50kW wind energy generator; the machine is powerful, efficient, and portable. The entire machine fits in a standard 40' ISO shipping container, has been optimized for low wind-speed environments and produces power for less than domestic utility power suppliers. Surplus power can be stored in a variety of mediums, including the conversion of air-to-water and biomass-to-hydrogen.  

<img src="http://static.squarespace.com/static/503564dc84ae416826d0a41f/t/

5035773f84ae416826d0d32e/1345681217583/photo%205-1.JPG" alt="The Portable

Power Center can be towed by a standard truck on unimproved roads and can be

setup in a couple hours by a single man on almost any terra firma. " />

The Portable Power Center can be towed by a standard truck on unimproved roads

and can be setup in a couple hours by a single man on almost any terra firma. 

Numerous innovations make the Uprise Portable Power Center the most advanced

wind turbine in the world. Innovations that dramatically improve energy capture in

low, steady, and gusty wind conditions. Through intelligent programming, the

machine is constantly monitoring weather patterns and adjusting itself to best

capture energy from the wind. The machine rotates 360º to face the wind and adjust

blade pitch and speed for optimum capture. When the wind is too strong, the

computer automatically parks the rotor and lays the mast down to avoid damage. 

The Uprise Portable Power Center is the most advanced wind turbine in the world.

The machine can deliver its power into the grid or directly to the consumer (off-grid,

stand-alone mode). Excess power is stored and power delivery is stabilized. When

wind power exceeds demand, energy is stored. When wind energy is low, the Uprise

machine draws on the stored power.

The machine is portable. This feature increases accessibility to remote regions at low

transportation costs, and incorporates a self-erecting and automatic lay-down

feature. Set-up is simplified, requiring no permanent site improvements, cranes or

specialty technicians. 

Communities not served with power transmission lines now have a low cost,

renewable energy option. In addition to generating electricity, the machine is capable

of making water from air and hydrogen from biomass. The Uprise Energy wind

machine is like none other.

<img src="http://static.squarespace.com/static/503564dc84ae416826d0a41f/t/

503ab513e4b04953d0f2c86a/1346025255332/photo%204.JPG" alt="With the lay-

down feature, all setup and maintenance is done at ground level. When the machine

senses a storm or overload condition, it will lay itself down autonomously to prevent

damage." />

With the lay-down feature, all setup and maintenance is done at ground level. When

the machine senses a storm or overload condition, it will lay itself down

autonomously to prevent damage.

(Click arrow to view 3min video) 

 

Primary Applications

Consumers in remote regions, not connected to the power grid: Farms, Villages, Islands, Resorts. Forty percent of the world’s population does not have access to reliable power.

Consumers wanting to reduce and stabilize electric costs: 12mph avg wind speed = $0.10/kWhr to be consumed directly or in a Net Metering application

Consumers that want renewable energy: Clean alternative to Diesel Generators, Coal, Nuclear Power and other forms of power

Disaster Relief Efforts: Mobile, meaningful, direct-connect power

Government & Military applications: Autonomous, discreet power for forward mobility and covert operations

Humanitarian organizations: Empower 3rd world communities with Electricity, Hydrogen and Water

More information on why the Uprise Energy portable wind turbine is needed and the

unique advantages it brings to those in search of renewable power.

<img src="http://static.squarespace.com/static/503564dc84ae416826d0a41f/t/

5036770be4b02f1c1cc9b081/1345746700076/PortablePower.jpg" alt="Transient" />

“If you are looking at the most effective real-world small wind generator, I

would strongly suggest looking at the STAR (Sweep Twist Adaptive Rotor)

blade, currently being incorporated in a portable wind generator by the start-

up UPRISE Energy in California.[3] This blade uses intelligently chosen and

applied materials to better capture gusts and shed excess load from very

strong gusts, maximizing performance. According to Sandia testing, it

achieves 12% better performance than conventional blades in varying wind

conditions; this testing was done back-to-back with conventional and STAR

wind generators placed side-by-side in ridgeline and non-ridgeline test sites.”

NTU and Sentosa launch Singapore's first tidal turbine system at Sentosa BoardwalkNanyang Technological University (NTU) has built Singapore's first tidal turbine system to test the viability of tapping tidal energy to generate electricity here.

The new tidal turbine test bed, set up in collaboration with the Sentosa Development Corporation (SDC), was designed, built and installed by NTU engineers from the Energy Research Institute at NTU (ERI@N).

Tidal energy is a completely new field in Singapore. Its key advantage as a renewable energy source is that tidal cycles are predictable, unlike conventional wind and solar energy, which are highly susceptible to weather fluctuations.

The NTU tidal turbine system consists of two low-flow turbines mounted on the test bed, optimised for local conditions. Compared to typical turbines, these specially designed prototypes are able to work at higher efficiency despite low water speeds, similar to those found in Singapore's waters.

This new test bed is expected to open up new research avenues for renewable energy, especially for resource-scarce countries such as Singapore. The research data gathered will allow NTU to develop more innovative turbine concepts to cater to Singapore's environment and beyond.

In the next year of operation, the tidal energy test bed will demonstrate how low-flow tidal energy can be harnessed efficiently, and made cheaper and more reliable. The energy produced by the test bed is used to also power the lights at the Sentosa Boardwalk Turbine Exhibit. Open to the public, the informative exhibition which is part of the Sentosa Sustainability Plan, will have information about tidal energy and showcases a miniature tidal turbine prototype.

Mr Mike Barclay, Chief Executive Officer of SDC, said: "Sentosa is deeply committed to promoting sustainable tourism. One key aspect of our commitment is to open up Sentosa as a test-bed for new green initiatives and technologies, particularly those that can be scaled up for wider adoption across Singapore. This collaboration with NTU has been an exciting project, as it has demonstrated the potential of tidal flow as an alternative energy source."

IMAGE: This is a floating test-bed for NTU's new tidal turbines at Sentosa.

Click here for more information.

Professor Subodh Mhaisalkar, Executive Director of ERI@N, said investment in such emerging technologies is a demonstration of Singapore's commitment to explore renewable energy options, much like how the country has developed its renowned expertise in water technologies.

"Apart from proving that tidal energy is feasible in Singapore, the test bed will also provide important research data on how the turbine handles local low-flow currents and the tropical marine environment," Prof Mhaisalkar said. "More importantly, the data will allow us to improve our designs for future turbine systems, leading to new avenues of renewable energy in resource-scarce countries such as Singapore."

The two turbines installed at the test bed extracts energy from tidal currents to generate up to a thousand watts of energy per hour combined, which could power about 70 fluorescent light bulbs (15 watts per bulb) typically found in households.

The Sentosa Boardwalk is an ideal location for a tidal power test bed, as it has high tidal currents several locations near the Boardwalk, due to concrete pillars at the adjacent bridge which funnel water into a narrow channel and amplifies water speed.

This scalable test bed at Sentosa allows for the installation of multiple turbines and will be used by NTU to assess newer and more innovative turbine concepts.

###

The project is jointly funded by Singapore's Ministry of Trade and Industry, NTU and SDC.

ABOUT SENTOSA

Sentosa is Asia's leading leisure destination and Singapore's premier island resort getaway, located within 15 minutes from the central business and shopping districts. The island resort is managed by Sentosa Development Corporation, which works with various stakeholders in overseeing property investments, attractions development, operations of the various leisure offerings and management of the residential precinct on the island. The Corporation also manages the Southern Islands, and owns Mount Faber Leisure Group which runs Singapore's only cable car service.

The 500-hectare island resort is home to an exciting array of themed attractions, award-winning spa retreats, lush rainforests, golden sandy beaches, resort accommodations, world-renowned golf courses, a deep-water yachting marina and luxurious residences – making Sentosa a vibrant island resort for business and leisure. Making Sentosa its home, too, is Singapore's first integrated resort, Resorts World Sentosa, which operates South East Asia's first Universal Studios theme park.

Situated on the eastern end of Sentosa Island is Sentosa Cove, an exclusive residential enclave. By 2014, it will be bustling with some 2,000 homes, romantic quayside restaurants, retail and specialty shops. Offering Singapore's only truly oceanfront residences, Sentosa Cove is fast becoming the world's most desirable address.

The Island is also proud to be home to Sentosa Golf Club and its two acclaimed golf courses, The Serapong and The Tanjong. The

Golf Club's legacy included hosting Asia's richest national open, the annual Barclays Singapore Open on The Serapong from 2006 to 2012. The tournament saw starstudded line-ups featuring international players and golf professionals from Asia, Europe and the USA playing to nail-biting finishes. The Golf Club is also honoured to be the new home for the prestigious HSBC Women's Champions from 2013 to 2015. The spectacular tournament features many of the world's top women golfers vying for top honours at The Serapong.

IMAGE: This is the NTU-designed low-flow turbine blade for the tropics and waters around Singapore.

Click here for more information.

Welcoming a growing number of local and international guests every year, Sentosa is an integral part of Singapore's goal to be a global destination to work, live and play.

ABOUT NANYANG TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY

A research-intensive public university, Nanyang Technological University (NTU) has 33,500 undergraduate and postgraduate students in the colleges of Engineering, Business, Science, Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences, and its Interdisciplinary Graduate School. It has a new medical school, the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, set up jointly with Imperial College London.

NTU is also home to world-class autonomous institutes – the National Institute of Education, S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Earth Observatory of Singapore, and Singapore Centre on Environmental Life Sciences Engineering – and various leading research centres such as the Nanyang Environment & Water Research Institute (NEWRI), Energy Research Institute @ NTU (ERI@N) and the Institute on Asian Consumer Insight (ACI).

A fast-growing university with an international outlook, NTU is putting its global stamp on Five Peaks of Excellence: Sustainable Earth, Future Healthcare, New Media, New Silk Road, and Innovation Asia.

Besides the main Yunnan Garden campus, NTU also has a satellite campus in Singapore's science and tech hub, one-north, and a third campus in Novena, Singapore's medical district.

For more information, visit http://www.ntu.edu.sg

For media enquiries, please contact:

Sentosa Leisure Group Azreen Noor Manager, Communications Branding & Communications Department Sentosa Leisure Group T: (65) 6279-1120 azreen_noor@sentosa.com.sg

Joy Fang Assistant Manager, Communications Branding & Communications Department Sentosa Leisure Group T: (65) 6279-3429 joy_fang@sentosa.com.sg

Sentosa Media Hotline: 8388-0027

Nanyang Technological University Lester Kok Senior Assistant Manager Corporate Communications Office Nanyang Technological University T: (65) 6790-6804 Email: lesterkok@ntu.edu.sg

Keep the Material Moving

Case Studies Featured Articles

Tunnelling contractor Gallagher’s contacted Euroflo to supply a dredging pump system for a major rail-tunnelling project in east London, the Connaught Crossing, which dates back to the latter half of the nineteenth century. A project of this scope required extensive planning and careful attention to detail. One of the challenges that Euroflo addressed successfully required the combination of different pumps along the system to account for differing needs in the complex dredging.

PREPARED FOR PUMPINGCofferdams were positioned at the Royal Albert and Royal Victoria docks, some 164.04 feet (50 meters) apart. This left water between the two Cofferdams, which was then pumped out to leave a residue of heavy silt and slurry, situated 49.21 feet (15 meters) below.

The civil engineering works involved the accessing of tunnels through the base of the excavation in order to enlarge the existing tunnels. Initially they used standard diesel driven hydraulic drainer pumps in an attempt to pump heavy silt and slurry from the bottom of the excavation; however these pumps were completely unsuitable for a dredging pump application and continuously blocked causing lengthy delays.

HEAVY LIFTING FIRSTEuroflo proposed a temporary dredging pump system that would cope with the heavy slurry and supplied the entire packaged solution; including generators, control equipment, cabling, pumps, and pipework. This was to move the heavy slurry with a specific gravity of around 1.3, so Jetting rings were required to create the conditions of a 70 to 30 percent ratio of water and soil mix for pumping.

As part of the package Euroflo installed a Dragflow dredging pump, along with a jetting ring attachment. Water was high pressure jetted by a Grindex drainage pump to help break up the heavy material. This was accompanied by a smaller Toyo dredging pump that could be more easily moved around for slurry Pump transfer to the main Dragflow dredging pump from around the dock floor.

The Dragflow dredging pump was positioned at the deepest part of the excavation so that the material would gravitate towards the dredging pump with the use of excavators and Euroflo’s other smaller more mobile dredging pumps. The larger Dragflow dredging pump then discharged the material over the cofferdam 328.08 feet (100 meters) away.

One of the Dragflow dredging pumps used in this project.

THE TECHNICAL CHALLENGEEuroflo were then commissioned to automate the operation of the Dragflow heavy-duty slurry pump system to run as required unmanned. Once the slurry removal process was complete an 8 inch (203 millimeter) Grindex Maxi drainage pump was installed to manage the water levels for the remainder of the project.

The technical challenge was fairly straightforward. The key to success in managing high specific gravity applications is to keep the material moving and critical to that is the right pump selection with slow revolution motors. Euroflo recommend heavy-duty hard iron pumps for dredging pump applications, which will withstand the often abrasive and sometimes corrosive environments.

Because of variable densities of slurries and compacted material we recommended jetting the material at high pressure. A Grindex master pump was suspended in the main dock and delivered water at 43.51 psi (3 bar) pressure over the 49.21 foot (15 meter) Cofferdam delivered to a tee piece with one spur used for the jetting ring to create agitation and the other spur used to provide cooling water to the Dredging pump. A submersible pump is normally cooled by the media its submerged in, but in this case it was only possible to semi-submerge the Dredging pump which meant it needed to be kept cool by water spray from the Grindex Master, thus avoiding overheated motors and breakdown.

A Dragflow hard iron dredging pump with a 44 kilowatt motor was installed with an 8-inch (203-millimeter) discharge and pumped 328.08 feet (100 meters) through a wire armoured hose. The six pole, three phase 50 Hertz, 60 horsepower, runs at 980 revolutions per minute. This slow running motor spins the impeller slowly to move the heavy material. A fast motor (2800 revolutions per minute) would either spin the impeller too fast cutting through the material which is unproductive or it would block quickly against the resistance of the heavy material, thus overloading and burning the motor.

SOLVING SHORT STARTINGWhen a pump starts up it can use up to 6 to 7 times its running amps if a direct-on-line (DOL) electrical starter is used. This can mean using a disproportionately large generator to cope with a short starting phase. To solve this problem, Euroflo used soft-start 18 to 55 kilowatt electrical panels which peak at 2.5 time running amps and consequently require a much smaller generator, which reduces costs. Euroflo used pre-programmable soft starts set above the working parameters of the pumps at 95 amps, slightly higher than its 89 running amps to protect from pump overload.

The cable supplied on all Euroflo pumps is individually screened and designed to go to earth immediately the cable is cut rendering the cable literally powerless and completely safe, in the event of an accident. The generator sized at 150kva was supplied with a fully bunded 528.34-gallon (2000-liter) diesel tank. A total of 6000 Qm3 approximately of slurry was moved over ten weeks with intermittent breaks and used 12000 to 18000 Qm3 of water to mix with slurry. Toward the end of the project, a 37 kilowatt Grindex maxi pump was installed and level controls were introduced to manage intermittent residual slurries and Cofferdam leakage. ■

_________________________________________________________________________

ABOUT THE AUTHORDan Langrish is the digital marketing executive for Euroflo Fluid Handling Ltd., who has been providing expert industrial and submersible pump services for more than fifteen years, and specializes in the electrical submersible pump industry. Euroflo exclusively represents Grindex submersible drainage pumps and Dragflow submersible slurry pumps. For more information, visit www.euoflo.com._________________________________________________________________________

MODERN PUMPING TODAY, October 2013Did you enjoy this article?Subscribe to the FREE Digital Edition of Modern Pumping Today Magazine!Motorbike Generates Electricity Using Exhaust Gas 13 Sep 2013 Atsumitec Co Ltd has unveiled a motorbike equipped with its ‘Synergy Cell’ which combines thermoelectric conversion elements and a fuel cell in the exhaust gas stream of a Honda motorbike. The motorbike was exhibited at Innovation Japan 2013, which took place in Tokyo from August 29th to 30th 2013. It can generate power of up to 200 W, which Asumitec said improves mileage by 2-3%. The Exhaust Gas Power Generation System was developed with help from a support program of Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST). The Synergy Cell consists of a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) tube and oxide-based thermoelectric conversion elements, based upon the high-temperature parts of n- and p-type thermoelectric conversion

elements, which are attached to the SOFC tube. The motorbike on display was fitted with around 300 cells. Atsumitec combined the SOFC and thermoelectric conversion element anticipating they would produce a synergistic effect using exhaust gas. Specifically, the SOFC generates power by using remaining hydrogen and carbon hydride in exhaust gas and the temperature of the motorbike's exhaust gas is within the operating temperature range of SOFC at around 650°C. The thermoelectric conversion element generates power by using the heat of exhaust gas and also the heat generated by the reaction in the SOFC. Even when the exhaust gas stops flowing and the SOFC is not functioning, the element can generate power by using residual heat. - See more at: http://www.fuelcelltoday.com/news-events/news-archive/2013/september/motorbike-generates-electricity-using-exhaust-gas#sthash.wUTquoC0.dpuf

Germans Look to Straw For FuelOctober 22, 2013 | 1 Comment

Researchers at the TLL (Thueringian regional institute for agriculture), the DBFZ (German biomass research center) and the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research (UFZ) think now that from a total of 30 million tons of cereal straw produced annually in Germany, between 8 and 13 million tons of it could be used sustainably for energy or fuel production.

Straw, the stem and some of the leaves of cereal grasses like wheat, oats and rye grasses could be seen as under utilized as a biomass residue and waste material.  Keeping straw on the farm is also a valid way to not deplete and protect soils. The biomass of straw is a very interesting commodity, however.

Straw could supply energy to several millions of households in Germany. Image Credit: Stefan Michalski/ UFZ. Click image for the largest view.

The German research suggests using the nation’s straw in part could provide 1.7 to 2.8 million average households with electricity and at the same time 2.8 to 4.5 million households with heating.

The results highlight the potential contribution of straw to renewable sources of energy.  The TLL scientists published their results in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Applied Energy.

From the scientists point of view in the study they analyzed the development of residual substances resulting from German agriculture. Accounting for 58%, straw can be regarded as the most important resource, and yet so far it has hardly been used for energy production.

From 1950 to 2000 there was a noticeable rise in the cultivation of winter wheat, rye and winter barley in Germany, which then remained relatively constant. To remove any bias from weather fluctuations, the average values were taken from 1999, 2003 and 2007. On average, approx. 30 megatons of cereal straw per year were produced in these years. Due to the fact that not all parts of the straw can be used and the fact that straw also plays an important role as bedding in livestock

farming, only about half of these 30 megatons are actually available in the end.

The German team also considered that cereal straw plays an important role in the humus balance of soils. For this reason some of the straw must be left scattered on the agricultural land to prevent nutrients from being permanently extracted from the soil. To calculate the humus balance of soils, the team of scientists tested three different methods of calculation.

Depending upon the method of calculation used, 8, 10 or 13 megatons of straw can be used sustainably every year for energy production – i.e. without causing any disadvantages to the soils or other forms of utilization. “To our knowledge this is the first time that a study like this has been conducted for an EU country, demonstrating the potential of straw for a truly sustainable energy use, while taking into account the humus balance,” stresses Prof. Daniela Thraen, scientist at the DBFZ and the UFZ.

Straw could contribute to the future energy mix.

Political correctness requires assessing to what degree straw use will contribute to greenhouse gas reduction.  But, that depends on how the straw is used. A reduction compared to fossil fuels can be somewhere between 73 and 92 percent when using straw for the generation of heat, combined heat and power generation or as second-generation biofuel production. The different greenhouse gas balances cast a differentiated light on the European Union’s goal of covering ten percent of transportation sector’s energy use by using biofuels.

Once again the study emphasizes how the use of bioenergy needs to take into account various factors. Given the conditions prevalent in Germany, the use of straw in combined heat and power generation would be best for the climate. “Straw should therefore primarily be used in larger district heating stations and/or combined heat and power stations, but technology must be developed for an environmentally-friendly utilization,” stresses Dr. Armin Vetter from TLL, who has been operating a straw-fuelled power station for 17 years.

According to the summary of the new study, straw-based energy applications should be developed in Germany in

particular in those regions with favorable conditions and appropriate power plants.

All this wouldn’t be spinning straw into gold. But, Denmark is considered to be the world leader in straw-based energy applications. 15 years ago a master plan was introduced there, ensuring in the meantime in Germany´s northern neighboring country that over 5 billion kilowatt hours of energy per year is generated from straw.

These kinds of biomass ideas could very well work.  The problem is soil depletion, the removal of the phosphorus and potassium and the other trace elements.  One field of research sorely missed is a means to recover the fertility elements and send them back to the land at affordable cost.

Then these kinds of ideas would have a much better chance of making economic sense.

- See more at: http://newenergyandfuel.com/http:/newenergyandfuel/com/2013/10/22/germans-look-to-straw-for-fuel/#sthash.G03EHeRB.dpuf

Converting to Variable Speed at a Pumped-Storage Plant09/01/2013

As French utility Electricite de France is learning, replacing a traditional pump-turbine unit with a variable speed unit at an existing pumped-storage plant can increase capacity, provide better energy storage and offer faster grid support.

By Jean Marc Henry, Frederic Maurer, Jean-Louis Drommi, and Thierry Sautereau

Variable speed technology offers additional network flexibility to conventional pumped-storage plants by enabling power regulation in pumping mode as well as in generation mode. A variable speed pumped-storage plant is one for which the speed can be varied through a frequency converter. This speed variation allows a change in the discharge/power in pump mode, as with a fixed speed there is only one operating point for a given head. While already used for several years, particularly in Japan, the variable speed finds a new source of development with the fast growth of variable power sources, such as wind and solar. There is a need for better adaptation by storage capacity to compensate for fluctuations.

This case study discusses the benefits associated with retrofitting an existing pumped-storage plant with a variable speed unit, based on turbine manufacturer Alstom Hydro's experience with hydro projects under construction and the experience of French utility Electricite de France (EDF) in the installation and operation of pumped-storage plants.

Why variable speed?

Developing and constructing a new pumped-storage plant requires an adequate site, significant investment and eight to 10 years. A more expedient and cost-effective approach to increasing hydroelectric capacity is to convert existing synchronous units into variable speed machines.

EDF operates an electricity generation fleet with capacity of about 100 GW in France and a total capacity of more than 135 GW worldwide. Among this fleet, 5 GW of capacity comes from pumped-storage plants equipped with synchronous generators. Pumped-storage plants provide storage capacity while keeping the advantage of fast peaking response provided by all hydroelectric facilities. This technology developed significantly with the expansion of nuclear development programs from the 1970s through the 1990s. A key enabler of this development was reversible Francis pump-turbines that allowed large outputs per unit (>200 MW). The nuclear expansion required a storage compensation of large output, mainly on a day/night basis, as the nuclear was not flexible at all, particularly in its early stages. Storage compensation of large output is possible with reversible pump-turbines.

Today, intermittent renewable power generation (such as that provided by wind and solar plants) represents an ever-larger share of the world's power output, but it requires a means of storing the surplus energy so that it can be used during periods of peak demand. Moreover, intermittent renewable energy is not predictable, thus representing a major challenge for grid stability.

Refurbishment of conventional synchronous pump-turbine units, as EDF and Alstom are doing at the 800-MW Revin plant, can increase balancing reserve and improve performance.

Variable speed pumped-storage schemes combine the needs for better energy storage and faster grid support. Variable speed technology can offer additional network flexibility to conventional pumped-storage plants by allowing power/frequency regulation in pumping mode, as well.

For example, converting 50% of the 20 GW of pumped storage installed in the USA would provide additional power balance flexibility, as well as up to 3 GW of frequency regulation capability on the grid during off peak periods. Furthermore, greenhouse gas emissions are reduced because fossil fuel-fired plants are not needed for balancing purposes.

Converting an existing plant to variable speed

Although it is a prime option for providing better energy storage and faster grid support, converting a synchronous unit into a variable speed unit requires special considerations and design studies.

First, a turbine upgrade has to be considered because the power variation in pump mode and the potential speed variation depend on the hydraulic design. Consequently, setting a new hydraulic profile within an existing machine structure requires requalification of the mechanical structure, as well as verification of the hydraulic transients. These constraints must take into account the expected speed variation range as well as the new way of operating the units.

Second, the choice between a synchronous generator with full convertor and a double-fed induction generator with converter in the rotor circuit must be evaluated. The constraints of upgrading the motor-generator into a variable speed induction machine within an existing powerhouse and its effect on the plant must be taken into account. The ability of the civil structure to accommodate the resulting higher stresses must also be dealt with.

Variable speed units lead to higher loads on civil structures. However, modifying the civil works in the plant is not cost-effective. Thus, all existing concrete structures must be checked to ensure they can bear the foundation loads of the stator (loads and torques, under static and dynamic conditions) and thrust bearing load transfer. Ultimately, local reinforcement may be necessary or variable speed machine size must be limited to match civil structure bearable loads.

Hydraulic design

Power regulation in pumping mode mainly relies on the ability of the hydraulic design to adapt to the power/flow variations. Because the older designs are not set to these conditions, an upgrade is recommended to get the most benefit. Upgrading the hydraulic design affects:

— Hydraulic transients considering the existing waterway;

— Integration of the new hydraulic components within existing contours; and

— Cavitation-free operation with the available runner setting. This is one of the main parameters that could affect the pump power range.

As discussed above, to benefit from the upgrade, a new hydraulic design is generally required to provide increased pump-turbine efficiency (up to several percent) due to improved and state-of-the-art design capabilities and to the speed adjustment in turbine mode at partial load.

It is also needed to provide increased power regulation in pumping mode. Such regulation is provided by increased performance in cavitation and turbine/pump power ratio, as highlighted by variable speed hydraulic designs with a large head range (see Table 1)

.

Electrical design

The excitation frequencies, for example on the head cover, are related to the rotation speed. The requalification of existing parts of the distributor (such as wicket gates and head cover) requires, therefore, consideration of the speed variation, to avoid resonance.

There are two technologies for varying the speed (see Figure 1 and Figure 2). One option is keeping a synchronous motor-generator connected to a full power supply frequency converter (fully-fed motor-generator); the other option is replacing the synchronous motor-generator by a double-fed induction machine (DFIM) connected to a reduced power supply frequency converter on the rotor. In this case, keeping the existing stator may also be considered.

The first option is most suitable for low outputs (<100 MW per unit), but it also requires an excitation system. For higher outputs, the cost of the frequency converter becomes prohibitive. It is possible to keep the synchronous motor-generator from the original equipment manufacturer, but it is not recommended to re-use the existing motor-generator winding because the frequency distortions and harmonics become more demanding for electrical insulation (fast aging of insulating material).

A DFIM is generally the preferred solution for large unit outputs (>100 MW). Its main advantage is that it requires low-power converters that use only a small fraction of the total output. This means less power loss in the converters, lower global price and a much smaller footprint for the power electronics while delivering the most benefit variable speed can offer.

A fully-fed machine cannot deliver additional power regulation in pumping mode because of the limitations of current pump-turbine technology. Pump power variations are limited by the stability and cavitation characteristics of the pump and not by the frequency range of the power converter. For example, a pump operating range generally has about a 30% power variation, which means a +10% frequency range variation.

The voltage source inverter using IGBT (Insulated-gate bipolar transistor) or IGCT (integrated-gate commutated thyristor) is preferred to a cyclo-converter because it enables rapid response to the grid. Using a voltage source inverter also leads to a smaller machine because there is no need to supply reactive power to a cyclo-converter. In addition, there are no sub-harmonics injections that could generate sub-synchronous resonances.

Alstom uses DFIM technology in all its variable speed pumped-storage projects. DFIM uses the exchange between the wound rotor and frequency converter to provide the speed variation. As a consequence, the stator needs to be oversized in sub-synchronous mode, due to the additional power transiting the rotor.

Keeping the existing stator may, however, be considered if reactive power supply can be reduced. The reactive power is partially provided by the frequency converter. In such a case, the stator winding needs to be compatible with the rotor winding. Alternatively, the stator could be replaced.

In both cases, the main constraint on the DFIM design is to fit the stator and rotor within the motor-generator pit. The pit dimension is a limiting factor to the DFIM maximum output.

The DFIM wound rotor is about 30% heavier than a salient pole synchronous rotor, which impacts the shaft line behavior.

The frequency converter

The frequency converter will lead to additional losses (roughly 3% of the converter power) but much less than a full power frequency converter. This is because the power involved is proportional to the ratio of shifted frequency.

While an additional static frequency converter is often used to raise the speed up to the synchronous speed with fixed speed PSP in pump mode, this speed raising function is achieved by the frequency converter itself on variable speed PSP. While the static frequency converter feeds the stator within a fixed speed PSP, the frequency converter feeds the rotor on DFIM variable speed.

The connection to the rotor will be made through large slip rings housed in a separate cubicle. Given the high current involved, air-cooling and filtration are needed. The environment of the slip rings is air-conditioned to maximize the lifetime of the brushes and to capture all the carbon dust. Special attention is given to the carbon dust vacuuming system to avoid the spread of carbon particles over the unit, which could result in a rotor insulation drop.

Electrical balance of plant

Beyond the motor-generator described, the entire unit's electrical equipment has to be re-engineered. Some equipment may be re-used, while other parts must be replaced, and new equipment must fit within the space limitations of the powerhouse. For example, synchronous rotor excitation devices must be dismantled while stator medium voltage gears could be re-used.

Most of the new equipment that must be installed in the powerhouse is for the DFIM rotor feed. Equipment includes:

— Heavy-duty power tapping on the MV side of the unit's power transformer;

— Short circuit current-limiting reactors;

— MV breaker;

— Harmonic filters;

— Voltage source inverter and transformer;

— Segregated phase bus ducts from voltage source inverter to rotor ring cubicle;

— Rotor over-current and over-voltage protection cubicle; and

— Non-conventional current transformers and voltage transformers for rotor current and voltage measurement at very low frequency.

The largest pieces of equipment required for rotor excitation (voltage source inverter and transformer) require roughly 1,615 square feet of ground space for a unit with pumping capacity of about 30 MW, which might be difficult to find in some underground powerhouses.

On the stator side, additional pieces of equipment need to be installed:

— Isolated phase bus ducts (part of which may be re-used from the existing sync unit);

— Starting/braking short circuit breaker used for the DFIM launching in motor mode and for the re-generative braking sequence;

— Generator circuit breaker: depending upon its condition and rating, a new breaker might be considered; and

— Phase reversal disconnectors, which may be re-used or replaced depending upon condition, ageing and rating.

Last but not least, the unit power transformer has to be checked for replacement, depending on the rating of the new unit and/or special requirements due to the harmonics produced by the DFIM and voltage source inverter. On the unit control side, the unit voltage and speed controls are very closely linked in order to optimize the DFIM and turbine operating point. Hence, from an operator point of view, active and reactive power setpoints are the sole information to be sent to the variable speed generating set control.

Variable speed units must have some of the same important operating features as the synchronous units, such as black start operation, isolated network feeding or line charging capacity. Black start operation without tapping energy for rotor excitation is obtained from a low power feeder that energizes the voltage source inverter enough to build up stator

voltage. Isolated network and line charging capacity are no more challenging than with a synchronous machine. Indeed, the power electronic control improves, stabilizing the unit output when operating in an islanded network condition.

Mechanical design

The thrust bearing will be impacted by the new hydraulic design, which may transfer different hydraulic thrust, and by the rotor, which may increase weight. As a result, the existing thrust bearing needs to be rechecked against updated loads.

Several parameters need to be considered in the shaft line calculation: possible increase in the bearing's span, increase of the rotor weight, runaway speed modification and operating speed variation. The most critical feature for shaft line safety is the bending natural frequency. Fulfilling usual margin criteria may impact the overall machine layout.

Increase in thrust load, converter losses and the slip ring filtration system need to be reconsidered — both for the sizing and the routing of the water-cooling system. Special attention must be paid to the water velocity in the existing embedded pipes in order to avoid ageing of the pipes.

Converting a motor-generator to variable speed, either complete or the rotor only, takes time. Specifically, the new wound rotor would need to be assembled on-site. Nevertheless, the rotor and stator will be assembled prior to unit shutdown. Furthermore, given the work to be done to upgrade the hydraulics, the motor-generator replacement is unlikely to have a significant impact on time, taking no longer than it would for standard hydraulic refurbishment.

Conclusion

Converting existing synchronous units into variable speed is an expedient and cost-effective solution to increase power regulation capabilities for plant operators. It also facilitates the integration of intermittent renewable energy generation into the electrical grid. However, some constraints and limitations must be fully assessed before such a conversion may be undertaken. Constraints coming from civil structures or the hydraulic circuit would be the most difficult and most costly to overcome.

EDF and Alstom, based on their respective experience in pumped-storage plant design and operation, have made such an assessment in order to upgrade a 270 MVA existing unit into a 300 MVA variable speed machine.

Jean Marc Henry is a technical integrator and Frederic Maurer is an electrical engineer with Alstom Hydro. Jean-Louis Drommi is an electrical expert and Thierry Sautereau is a mechanical engineer with Electricite de France.

More HRW Current Issue Articles

The Smart Pump Market

Manufacturers are developing a larger role in creating, driving and selling intelligent pump systems.

Written by:

Anand Gnanamoorthy & Laurel Donoho, Frost & Sullivan

Published:

September 1, 2013

       

Topic Sponsor

Resources Pump Ed 101

Pump Repair

HI Pump FAQs

Kids usually master new technology quickly. They use Facebook, iPhones, iPads, Xboxes—all things digital.

Common to all these devices and technologies is the integrated chip (IC). Pump users, on the other hand,

have not been as quick to adopt this new technology.

Egyptians were the first to use pumps to hoist water from the Nile River for drinking and irrigating their fields.

In fact, pumps started the industrial revolution. Thomas Savery developed the first commercial steam-

powered device—a water pump. These quintessential machines survived through the years. If these

divergent technologies were married, a technology disruption may occur.

Michio Kaku, theoretical physicist and futurist, says in his book, Physics of the Future, that every time the IC

has entered a product, it revolutionized that industry. IC entered large, unwieldy telephones, and the market

for smart phones exploded. IC entered cameras and digital cameras, turning the industry upside down.

Industry stalwarts were caught off guard and are fighting to retain and revamp their business models and

market approaches.

Integrating pumps produces new technologies. An important one of these is smart pumps, which can sense,

think and then act on their own. Another offspring—wireless and remote communication—gives pumps the

ability to communicate with other systems and be remotely controlled. Together, wireless and remote

communications form machine-to-machine (M2M) communication.

While smart pump technology is not yet widely in use, M2M is slowly transforming the way end users

interact with their pumps. Frost & Sullivan’s recent “North American Machine-to-Machine Software and

Services Market” analysis and upcoming research on intelligent pumps provide a detailed evaluation of

these technology trends, the impact on the pump market and the growth potential for pump manufacturers.

This article discusses excerpts from those analyses on M2M and pumps.

M2M Communications

M2M is defined as the transfer of data from an electronic device that is mounted on an asset—such as a

pump or compressor—through a wired or wireless communication network, connected to a software platform

or a centralized control system that translates that information into useful data for the end user. Solution

providers are constantly developing platforms to extract raw data from devices to create business insights

for end users who want additional functionality from their existing connected devices.

Several key advantages are associated with using M2M. One is the remote monitoring of assets. Users can

track critical process equipment in remote locations. This creates multiple cost and safety benefits because

personnel do not have to go to the site for information. Additionally, some technology allows the customer to

remotely control the asset, saving companies money on service management. From monitoring assets in the

oil and gas industry to remote health monitoring in the health care industry, the benefits of adoption are

clear.

Another advantage is the increase in operational excellence and improvement in process efficiency.

Operational efficiency and process optimization are key contributors to the success of any organization.

Using M2M, end users can collect, store and analyze key information and performance metrics that can help

enhance process efficiency and reduce costs, which in turn increases operational excellence. Streamlining

operations is achievable not only within the organization, but also in their extended supply chain, which in

the current market scenario is extremely complex.

Evolution of M2M

As seen in Figure 1, the evolution of M2M technologies resulted in several end user verticals that saw the

benefits of adoption. Many industries that traditionally used M2M technologies to monitor their distributed

assets (such as equipment, workforce and operations) want to use the raw data to analyze key performance

metrics, further enhancing the productivity of their assets at the site. As digitization continues, M2M will play

a key part in enhancing visibility across the enterprise by gathering relevant data from almost any asset,

converting that data into actionable insights and mapping the data with other business systems.

Figure 1. The

evolution of M2M

In general, the process industries harbor tremendous potential for M2M. A quick review is included in this

section.

Oil & Gas Industry

Oil and gas in particular offers the highest promise as end users try to integrate process equipment for

system control to ensure maximum profitability. For example, an international oil and gas major would have

resources—such as subsea wells in the Gulf of Mexico, oil producing wells in the Middle East, gas wells in

Qatar, oil wells in the North Sea and shale gas wells in the U.S. These are closely integrated with control

systems—such as distributed control system (DCS) or supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA)—

which in turn are closely integrated with enterprise or business management systems, such as enterprise

resource planning (ERP).

If the company determines that demand exists in Eastern Europe and more margins are to be made, then it

might increase production in the North Sea while reducing production in the Gulf of Mexico. Conversely, if

more demand for liquid natural gas (LNG) from Japan exists, it can increase gas production in Qatar. This

integration helps them be agile and generate more profit based on rapidly changing market demand.

- See more at: http://www.pump-zone.com/topics/pumps/pumps/smart-pump-market#sthash.1okcdzsr.dpuf

The Smart Pump Market

Manufacturers are developing a larger role in creating, driving and selling intelligent pump systems.

Written by:

Anand Gnanamoorthy & Laurel Donoho, Frost & Sullivan

Published:

September 1, 2013

       

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Other Process Industries

Process industries adopt M2M to reduce operational costs and improve process efficiency. Many process

industries—such as chemicals and oil refining—are experiencing increases in investments because of shale

activity in the U.S. The industry is faced with an aging workforce at the same time that new capacity is

needed, placing significant pressure on industries to find and train the next generation of operations and

maintenance personnel. In the near future, a larger number of employees are likely to retire within a short

time span, and the need to find qualified employees to replace them will become acute.

M2M enables data collection and remote control from process equipment. Much of the maintenance can be

completed remotely, reducing the requirement for onsite service personnel. Moreover, by connecting the

process equipment to the automation control system, end users can optimize pump operation, increasing

process efficiency.

Key Concerns

One of the biggest concerns in the M2M space is a lack of standards for the devices and software. Without

clearly defined standards, costs incurred because of deployment and optimal use are restraining the

adoption of M2M solutions. With many software providers present in the M2M space, end users have

difficulty mapping their existing legacy systems to this new technology because of the different protocols

with individual devices and platforms.

Figure 2.

Connected wireless oil and gas components: simplified topography

Application platforms are usually specific to individual vertical markets, and a customized, off-the-shelf

solution that accommodates a number of vertical segments is needed.

Another key concern is security. As end users take advantage of their custom-built devices and software,

they may have no way to ensure that the communication network is secure. Since the data is transferred

across different media, permissions, controls and supports, major security issues can arise for data transfer

between M2M devices.

The Future of Intelligent Systems

The M2M market for pumps is expected to grow rapidly. Unfortunately, many pump manufacturers do not

have the ability to manufacture or integrate electronic solutions to their products. As a result, distributors and

system integrators are currently filling the gap. This reduces pumps to a component in a large solution,

decreasing competitive advantage and commoditizing the pump.

While large manufacturers acquired such capabilities, the way forward for smaller manufacturers is to

partner with M2M solution providers. A major discussion thread in the industry right now is: how is this

current model going to play out as adoption increases? Will manufacturers develop a larger role in creating,

driving and selling intelligent pump systems? Or will the distribution channel build capabilities and expertise

to own most of the intelligent pump revenues that are available? How this plays out is one of the most

interesting trends in the pumps space today and will continue to drive thought leadership discussions

throughout the industry.

Author Bio: 

Anand Gnanamoorthy is senior analyst for the Industrial Automation and Process Control Group at Frost &

Sullivan. Laurel Donoho is global research manager for the Industrial Automation and Process Control

Group at Frost & Sullivan. Both authors can be reached at liz.clark@frost.com. For more information about

Frost & Sullivan, visit www.frost.com.

- See more at: http://www.pump-zone.com/topics/pumps/pumps/smart-pump-market?page=2#sthash.Z7erxE4W.dpuf

The Pump Guy’s Quick & Easy Tips for Resolving 85% of Cavitation IssuesAugust 21, 2013

Matt Migliore

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During this week’s Pump Guy Seminar in Chicago, Larry Bachus (a.k.a. “The Pump Guy”) explained how 85 percent of pump cavitation problems can be alleviated by employing some basic pumping systems fundamentals. Want to know how? Read on.

Bachus says there are two primary types of cavitation that impact pumping systems:

1.    Vaporization Cavitation; and

2.    Internal Recirculation Cavitation

According to Bachus, vaporization cavitation accounts for nearly 70 percent of all cavitation cases, with internal recirculation cavitation accounting for 15 percent of cases.

Cavitation Identification

Vaporization Recirculation

If you see damage on the tail end of the impeller blades, that would typically be an indication of vaporization cavitation.

If you see damage on the leading edge of the impeller blades, that would typically be an indication of recirculation cavitation.

Vaporization CavitationBachus says the key to solving vaporization cavitation is ensuring the NPSHa (Net Positive Suction Head available) is greater than the NPSHr (Net Positive Suction Head required) plus three feet of head for safety margin … “And there’s nothing wrong with five feet or more as a safety margin,” he says. 

Sounds easy enough, but if you’re dealing with a system in which the NPSHa is lacking, how can you find that extra oomph on the suction side of the pump? Well, Bachus says there are some common, and simple, ways you can find more energy (or NPSHa) on the suction side of your system.

For example, you could increase flow by looking at the suction pipe to make sure all of the suction valves are totally wide open. It is common practice to partially close a valve on startup until the system comes up to temperature, because if a hot system is started with the valve all the way open and the system temperature increases, it will be impossible to close the valves thereafter. In his experience, Bachus says he often finds those valves are never revisited and fully opened once the system does come up to temperature. Fully opening a few partially closed valves could make the difference between vaporization cavitation and no cavitation at all.

RELATED: 5 Interesting Things I Heard Today at the Pump Guy Seminar

RELATED: Have you registered for the Oct. 1-3 Pump Guy Seminar in Philly yet?

Another relatively easy fix is to clean and/or replace filters and strainers on the suction side of the pump. Or, if you’re draining a tank, don’t drain the tank too low, but rather

keep some elevation in the tank to provide added suction energy on the pump.

If all of the energy has been used, Bachus says some piping rework may be in order. For example, changing six-inch suction pipe to eight-inch suction pipe would buy some energy; or perhaps some energy could be gained by changing out two 90-degree elbows for two 45-degree elbows.

If all options have been exhausted, and there is just no reasonable way to increase energy on the suction side of the pump, Bachus says you can also reduce the energy required (NPSHr) by pinching a valve on the discharge side of the pump.

Recirculation CavitationRecirculation cavitation occurs when there is a low-flow condition due to excessive resistance on the discharge side of the pump. So, while vaporization cavitation is caused by the pump operating to the right of the best efficiency zone on the pump curve, recirculation cavitation is caused by the pump operating to the left of its best efficiency zone.

Bachus says recirculation cavitation can often be addressed by ensuring all of the downstream isolation valves are totally open and that all of the downstream filters and strainers are clean and operating efficiently. Or, perhaps there is some debris (or a wrench) lodged in the downstream pipe. Or maybe a temporary witch hat strainer was never removed from the downstream piping. 

Ultimately, Bachus says it is in the plant’s best interest to train the operators to understand the difference between vaporization cavitation and recirculation cavitation, as well as how to troubleshoot these two forms of cavitation. And while he acknowledges there are other forms of cavitation that require more complex troubleshooting, he says pump users can, on average, eliminate 85 percent of their cavitation problems by focusing on vaporization and recirculation.

Matt Migliore is the director of content for Flow Control magazine and

FlowControlNetwork.com. He can be reached at 610.828.1711 or Matt@GrandViewMedia.com.

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o Particulates: Selection of cleaning pulse pressure for pulse jet fabric filtration

Figure 1: Typical pulse jet fabric filtration system.

Figure 2: The operation of pulse jet fabric filtration systems.

Figure 3: Effect of pulse pressure and media dust loading rate on clean gas dust concentration.

Figure 4: Effect of cleaning pulse pressure and media dust loading rate on peak pressure.

Figure 5: Effect of pulse pressure and media dust loading rate on residual pressure.

Figure 6: Effect of pulse pressure and media dust loading rate on cake pressure.

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FeatureParticulates: Selection of cleaning pulse pressure for pulse jet fabric filtration

27 August 2013Awadhesh Kumar Choudhary and Arunangshu Mukhopadhyay

Changes in the physical properties of filter media are largely governed by formation of dust layers on the filter bag. The influences of media dust loading on the peak, residual and cake pressure in pulse jet fabric filters can help in the selection of pulse pressure for media regeneration. Awadhesh Kumar Choudhary and Arunangshu Mukhopadhyay have looked at ways to optimise this process through variation of media dust deposition and pulse pressure.

Industrial surface filtration systems embedded with pulse jet cleaning have become a preferred choice throughout the world, providing sound technical and commercially attractive solutions in controlling industrial pollution. More specifically, this system known as pulse-jet filtration is used in many industries such as power generation, incineration, chemical, steel, cement, food, pharmaceutical, metal working, aggregates, and carbon black, for example. Pulse-jet fabric filtration (PJFF) can meet the stringent particulate emission limits regardless of variations in the operating conditions. The PJFF cleaning device is less expensive than other types of mechanism and requires considerable less space. Other merits of PJFF include high collection efficiency, on-line cleaning and collection outside, which allows the bag (filter media) to be maintained in a clean and safe environment.Filtering the solid particles dispersed in a process carrier gas leads to surface deposition and clogging of the porous filter media and is accompanied by an increase in pressure drop of the process. Therefore, the filter bags must be periodically regenerated, by a pulse-jet cleaning system. During cleaning, high-pressure, short-duration gas injections in the reverse direction blow the dust layer off the bag surface, which is collected in the dust hopper located at the bottom of the filter housing. As soon as the dust layer is removed, the pressure drop (ΔP) is reduced and filtration continues for another cycle. During cleaning, the force developed is insufficient for the complete removal of dust, in particular particles trapped inside the structure. Due to this, there will be a small but imperceptible change in pressure drop even under steady state conditions and the pattern will proceed until the critical limit of pressure drop is reached, when replacement of the bag becomes necessary. There are various pressure differential indices (ΔP) which characterise the performance of filter fabric. Peak pressure drop is often referred to as total pressure drop; whereas residual pressure drop is defined as the pressure drop across the filter just after cleaning. Cake pressure drop is the difference between the peak and residual pressure drops.Changes in the physical properties of the filter media are largely governed by dust deposition on the media. Differential pressure drop across the filter media therefore indicates running performance and lifetime of the filter bag. There are other implications of pressure drop as higher pressure drop during filtration indicates higher operational costs. The energy used by the fan accounts for 60-80% of the baghouse operational costs and, therefore, a stable and low differential pressure makes it worth investing in a highly developed filter unit. However, cleaning should not damage the bag filter while allowing filtration processes to operate at a steady and lowest possible pressure drop. Further, it is also necessary to conserve the dust layer up to a certain extent to ensure good filtration efficiency and, in certain cases, this helps in absorbing gas on a dust cake of specific properties. In addition, the energy used in compressed air consumption (due to pulse cleaning) is comparatively small (10-15%) in relation to the total operating cost.Numerous experimental studies on pulse jet cleaning of fabric filters have been conducted and demonstrated that the most critical factor for cake separation is cleaning pressure. In pulse jet cleaning, a combination of injection pulse pressure (initial tank pressure) with valve opening time (total air volume released) and pulse cleaning cycle

time are critical for the satisfactory operation of continuously rated fabric dust filters. However, performance of an inappropriate filter element cannot be improved by increasing pulse intensity as it will lead to mechanical damage of the filter bag, resulting in shorter bag life. Recent studies show that of these pulse cleaning factors, pulse pressure is the most critical factor governing emissions and all pressure parameters across the media. Although pulse pressure reduces the pressure differential across the fabric media, it also increases the level of emissions. So, the selection of pulse jet system operating parameters is influenced by the required efficiency, characteristics of particulate matter, capital investment, availability of space, power, local legislative emission requirements, operating and maintenance charges, construction complexity, and estimated service life of the media.An experimental study based on the influences of media dust loading on the peak, residual and cake pressure in pulse jet fabric filters, can enhance the knowledge of filtration professionals about the selection of pulse pressure for media regeneration along with the fan, for savings in power consumption.

Experimental findings

A nonwoven needle felt sample was prepared using 100% polyester fibre of 1.4 denier. The final fabric weight (GSM) was 385 g/m2. All the bags were prepared using this nonwoven fabric and they were of fixed dimension (height 1.0 m and bag diameter 0.13 m). The surface area of each single bag was 0.46 m2. All runs were continued for four hours, with the filtration process comprising two media dust loading rates of 80 g/min (48.7 g/m3) and 140 g/min (85.1 g/m3). During filtration, the filter media were fed with 19.2 kg and 33.6 kg of cement dust over four hours of the total run, which corresponds to the two different media dust loadings. During filtration, continuous data acquisition of the pressure drop (?P) in 0.5 second intervals was carried out by ABB pressure transducer and ?P data recorded for all filter bags. Cleaning peak pressure and residual pressure were obtained directly from recorded data but cake pressure was calculated from the peak and residual pressures. Cake pressure is the difference between peak pressure and the respective residual pressure data. After a three hour filtration-process, outlet dust emissions were measured based on 1 hour collection of particulate matter by a stack sampler. This provides an assessment of the amount of emitted particles per unit volume and accordingly the clean gas dust concentration at the system outlet was calculated.It was observed that clean gas dust concentration increases with an increase in cleaning pulse pressure; but it decreases at a higher level of media dust loading (Figure 3). Whereas all differential pressure parameters across the media (i.e., peak, residual and cake pressure drop) show a trend that is opposite to that of the change in the factors mentioned (Figure 4-6). The role of the cleaning pulse pressure is quite understandable and it is expected that a higher dust loading rate will also lead to thicker dust layering in-between pulse cleaning (i.e. media regeneration time). A thicker dust layer on the filter media eventually reduces the clean gas dust concentration; however, it also leads to an undesirable increase in pressure differential across the media. It can be observed that the role of pulse pressure and media dust loading rate are influencing factors on the downstream emission and pressure differential across the filter media. It is also observed from the figures that the media dust loading rate is a higher influence on peak pressure but lower on residual pressure drop than the pulse pressure parameter. The same trend is also found for cake pressure drop and again the media dust loading rate is found to be more significant. Interestingly, a prominent interaction effect is present among the pulse pressure and media dust loading rate. Due to the interaction effect, clean gas dust concentration will be less affected by pulse pressure at a higher dust loading rate (Figure 3). On the other hand a large decrease in all pressure parameters (peak, residual and cake pressure) is possible with the change in pulse pressure at higher dust loading rate (Figure 4-6). It implies that the higher pulse pressure is better in the case of a higher level of dust loading for a restricted pressure drop provided emissions are under control.

Conclusions

The study showed that an increase in media dust loading rate is more of an influence on peak pressure, but is less on residual pressure drop in comparison with cleaning pulse pressure operating parameters. Due to a significant interaction effect among pulse pressure and media dust loading rate, the clean gas dust concentration will be less affected by pulse pressure at a higher dust loading rate. On the other hand, a large decrease in all pressure parameters (peak, residual and cake pressure) is possible with the change in pulse pressure at a higher level of media dust loading. Therefore, higher pulse pressure is better in the case of higher media dust loading for a restricted pressure drop provided emissions are within statutory norms. 

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What is Spiralock®?

Spiralock Corporation has transformed the standard internal thread profile into a self-locking female thread form with the

addition of a unique 30° wedge ramp at the root of the thread. This unidirectional locking feature, called Spiralock®, is

compatible with standard 60° male thread fasteners.

The wedge ramp allows male fasteners to spin freely relative to the female threads until clamp load is applied. At that

point, the crest of the standard male threads is drawn tightly against the wedge ramp, creating a continuous spiral line of

contact along the entire length of the thread engagement. As clamp load increases, the wedge ramp pushes against the

male thread from all sides, eliminating the radial clearance that allows fasteners to begin self-loosening under vibration.

Thread Form Benefits

Why use Spiralock thread form? Read here about the advantages of replacing standard locking methods with Spiralock.

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Vibration Loosening

Resistance

Testing on Junker vibration equipment has proven that the Spiralock thread form outperforms other thread locking devices.

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Load Distribution

The load carried by Spiralock threads is more uniform than 60° threads. Load percentage on the first engaged Spiralock thread is

significantly lower.

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Watch Spiralock in animated clips showing the Morphing Animation, Load Vector Comparison, and Photoelastic Analysis.

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Carnegie to develop first wave-powered desalination plantBy Giles Parkinson on 27 August 2013

Perth-based Carnegie Wave Energy says it will become the first company in the world to build a wave-powered desalination plant, and the first to have a wave energy project that delivers both electrons and fresh water.

The announcement comes after Carnegie signed a “co-operation agreement with the WA-based Water Corporation that will support a pilot desalination project to be built alongside the Perth Wave energy demonstration project that is now being built near the Garden Island naval base near Perth.

Water Corp relies heavily on desalinated water. It built the first large-scale, mainland desalination plant in Australia at Kwinana in 2006, and this year began construction of a second plant at Binningup. Together, these plants will supply 100 billion litres of freshwater to Perth – about half of the city’s drinking water needs.

Water Corp CEO Sue Murphy said desalination was an important part of the city’s long term water supply solution and Carnegie’s CETO technology offered a “novel and promising approach” to producing desalinated freshwater with zero greenhouse gas emissions.

The CETO desalination pilot will integrate off-the-shelf reverse osmosis desalination technology with the infrastructure of the adjoining wave energy project. It will be supported by the $1.27 million in funding from the Federal Government’s AusIndustry Clean Technology Innovation Program.

Combining energy and fresh water has long been touted as a key differentiation for the CETO technology. Carnegie ways combining the two will be cost-effective.

“Carnegie’s wave powered desalination pilot will be a world first,” CEO Michael Ottaviano said in a statement.

The 2MW demonstration project off Garden Island will be the first in the world to deploy multiple wave energy machines.

It will feature the CETO technology, that comprises submerged buoys, 11m in diameter, that are tethered to pumps which deliver pressurised water onshore via an underwater pipe.

There, the water is used to drive hydroelectric turbines, generating zero-emission electricity, or it can be used to supply a reverse osmosis desalination plant, replacing or reducing the reliance on greenhouse gas-emitting, electrically driven pumps.

Carnegie’s share price, which hit a low of 2.8c earlier this year, have more than doubled in recent months. On Tuesday, the shares were trading at 6.5c after a 6.6 per cent gain. The company is now capitalised at around $70 million.

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Standard Force Sensing Clevis Pins/Bolts, CPA/CBA Series from Strainsert

The Force Sensing Clevis Pin or Clevis Bolt, otherwise known as load pins, are unique strain gage transducers utilizing the internal strain gage transducer process developed by Strainsert and used also in their Flat Load Cells® and Tension Links. These clevis pins and clevis bolts offer precision force measurement by replacing existing shear pins, clevis bolts, clevis pins, shear axles and many other types of pinned joints for the aerospace, automotive, marine and military industries.

FEATURES

The Strain gages are sealed inside small axial holes within the load pin and are positioned at two locations at the Clevis to Clevis Eye interfaces. In order to sense only those strains which are induced by the shear forces at these two sections, the strain gages are positioned and oriented with great precision, at a neutral plane relative to one specific direction of pin loading.

The four strain gages (two at each location) are electrically connected to form a full bridge, the signal from each strain gage being additive so that the bridge output is proportional to the sum of the loads transmitted by the shear planes of the pin. The circuit typically includes temperature compensating, signal trim (optional) and balance resistors terminating in suitable connector socket or integral cable, and potted with a sealing compound inside the gage hole for enhanced environmental protection.

Standard models include detailed calibration data up to 500,000 lbs. Higher capacity calibration data is available at an additional charge. In-place calibration check is recommended.

Some Features Include:

· Precison Load Sensing · Easy Installation

· Rugged · Direct Force Measurement

· Internally Sealed Strain Gages · High Strength Stainless Steel

APPLICATIONS

These standard clevis pins are typically used in new applications where the designer can develop the specific load pin joint around the standard clevis pin dimensions, to optimize force measurement performance. In addition, for existing load pin joints, the standard clevis pin may fit or can be incorporated through the use of bushings or modifying the clevis assembly. For information on custom designs, see custom load pins

Strainsert - for superior internally gaged force transducers.Strainsert stands for:

Product Quality Knowledgeable Technical Staff

Standard and Custom Designs

Customer Service

Comprehensive Testing

Contact StrainsertFor information on load pins, force sensing bolts, load cells, tension links or our high quality custom products, Contact Us for further assistance.

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The Ultimate Fastening Device: Shaftloc® from SDP

Product Announcement from Stock Drive Products/Sterling Instrument - SDP/SI

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New Hyde Park, NY -- Shaftloc® Fastening Device is Simply Superior!

Shaftloc® is a patented rotating component fastening device, produced by Stock Drive Products (An ISO 9001 Registered Manufacturer). A surprisingly simple design, it eliminates all the disadvantages of traditional methods for fastening components to shafts.

There are several different styles available for the Shaftloc® Fastener, but they all feature a simple two-piece construction with corresponding male and female threads. The sleeves slide over the shaft on either side of the component to be secured. The threads are assymetrical so that the two sleeves wedge together around the shaft, holding the part between them. Hex heads make it easy to tighten the Shaftloc® sufficiently, and to unscrew it to make adjustments as needed.

Because the design is so simple, it is very easy to install and low cost. Because there are no set screws, it can be reused and adjusted many times over without ever marring the shaft. The shallow angle of the thread produces large amplification of forces, resulting in substantial torque transmission capability between the component and the shaft.

SDP/SI is a leading manufacturer of small mechanical components, servicing a wide variety of aerospace, medical and commercial industries for over 50 years. Quotes, online orders, and 3D CAD Models are available on our updated estore at www.sdp-si.com/estore. SDP/SI offers over 130,000 small mechanical components, including gears, belt and chain drives, shafts, shaft accessories, bearings, couplings, universal joints, vibration mounts, miscellaneous components, hardware, gearheads and speed reducers, right angle drives, brakes and clutches, motors and gearmotors. For additional information about SDP/SI please visit www.sdp-si.com.

Stock Drive Products / Sterling Instrument (SDP/SI), 2101 Jericho Turnpike, P.O. Box 5416, New Hyde Park, NY 11042-5416. Phone: 1-800-819-8900 | 516-328-3300 • Fax: 516-326-8827.

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Tocardo Completes Tidal Turbine Offshore Trials in Dutch Waddensea

Posted on Jun 11th, 2013 with tags Dutch, europe, News by topic, offshore, Tidal, Tocardo, trials, turbine, Waddensea.

In May 2013 Tocardo deployed its tidal turbine, equipped with blades made by Airborne Marine, in the Dutch Waddensea for a full scale offshore test and calibration program. The turbine was attached to a barge and was taken to the

Marsdiep, known for its strong tidal currents. The motorized barge acted as floating foundation system that could be powered to simulate even stronger currents.

The foundation system, between barge and turbine, has been optimized and will be used for future projects. It is standardized and can be used for all site types.

The 6.5 meter smart reverse rotor blade that was used is specially designed for nearshore / offshore tidal sites. It is able to harness tidal flows from multiple directions by simply flipping the blades, without the use of a pitching mechanism.

The rotor blade was tested for its performance and calibrated with the performance models for offshore tidal sites. The test results exactly matched the performance models, which enables Tocardo to exactly predict the turbine behavior for any site. The rotor blade was also stress tested, simulating forces that occur during power loss situations. The blades, which were manufactured by Airborne Marine, withstood all the challenges the crew was able to throw at it.

A full “island grid”, with a diesel generator, was installed on the barge to test the advanced control systems of the tidal turbine. With this Tocardo not only shows the ability to operate within local grids, it also demonstrates new control strategies to maximize power output for any site.

Tocardo has a successful track record of 5 years and has proven its technology to be very reliable, efficient and cost effective. With the successful completion of the test program Tocardo has proven its tidal turbines are ready for offshore and nearshore deployment.

Press Release, June 11, 2013

 

Clip-Air project envisages modular aircraft you can board at a railway stationBy David Szondy

June 11, 2013

30 Comments7 Pictures

The Clip-Air combines air and rail transport elements

Image Gallery (7 images)

Air travel today is a nightmare of long drives to crowded airports, long queues that move at a snail's pace, and long, boring waits in identical lobbies drinking overpriced coffee. It would be so much easier and less frustrating if catching a plane were like catching a train. If Switzerland’s École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) has its way, its Clip-Air project will one day produce modular aircraft that will allow you to board a plane at a London railway station and disembark in the middle of Rome without ever setting foot in an air terminal.

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Under development since 2009, the Clip-Air project aims to merge the speed of air travel with the flexibility of rail transport. Airplanes are specialized vehicles made for particular tasks, so a passenger plane can’t be used as a cargo plane without extensive modification. On the other hand, a train is a collection of modules with a locomotive “module” providing propulsion. Put passenger cars behind a locomotive and you have a passenger train, put goods wagons there and you have a goods train. You can also add specialist cars, such as buffet cars, sleepers, guards vans, tankers, ore carriers, car carriers and many more.

Clip-Air does the same thing with airplanes. Instead of a locomotive, it uses a flying wing containing the engines, cockpit, fuel and landing gear. And instead of cars, there are up to three modules or capsules that are self-contained airplane fuselages. The capsules can be mixed and matched to suit the purpose at hand. A plane can carry all cargo or all passengers, first class or coach capsules, or any combination along with specialized versions. Another benefit of Clip-Air is that the capsules also increase capacity for an aircraft of a given size, with three passenger capsules carrying 450 people, yet the plane can still operate from a conventional airport.

EPFL has designed the capsules so that they are 30 m (98 ft) long and weigh 30 tonnes (29.5 tons). The clever bit about this is that it makes the capsules suitable for rail transport, which provides the potential to alter the design of airports and how they’re used. Instead of going to the airport and boarding planes, passengers could go to railway stations and board capsules as easily as a commuter train, which on reaching the airport would be attached to the flying wing, so passengers never need to go inside a terminal. The same principle applies to industry, with freight loading moved to railway yards or factories.

EPFL claims that this configuration allows for more efficient and flexible fleet management and reduces the likelihood of empty flights. The modular design also provides savings in maintenance, storage and management. In addition, EPFL claims that the design is greener because the Clip-Air can carry as many passengers as three Airbus A320s with only half the engines. It can also be adapted to run on a variety of biofuels or liquid hydrogen thanks to the ability to swap out a regular capsule for the large tanks that hydrogen requires.

Though EPFL is confident about the future of Clip-Air, it admits that the technology has a long way to go before it’s practical.

"We still have to break down several barriers but we do believe that it is worth to work in such a concept, at odds with current aircraft technology and which can have a huge impact on society," says Claudio Leonardi, leader of the Clip-Air project. “The development of the concept requires performing more advanced aerodynamic simulations and testing a six-meters (20 ft) long flying model powered by mini-reactors in order to continue to explore the concept’s flight performance and to demonstrate its overall feasibility.”

A 1.2-m (3.9-ft) model of the Clip-Air plane will be exhibited from June 17 to 19 at the Normandy Aerospace stand at the Paris Air Show. Gizmag will be attending the show and will take a closer look at the concept.

The video below shows an animation of the proposed Clip-Air plane.

Source: EPFL

Your first e-vehicle could be an e-bikeMar. 7, 2013 Leland Teschler | Machine Design

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You can thank the Japanese for fostering the birth of the modern electric motorcycle, but not in the way you might think.

“The big four motorcycle companies — Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, and Yamaha — are all very conservative. Rather than come up with their own e-bikes, they sat back and watched events unfold. That let a bunch of guys in their garages on low budgets use creativity to demonstrate e-bikes that were at parity with gas bikes,” says retired electric motorcycle racer Chip Yates.

Yates is in a position to know what he’s talking about. In the first-ever organized race between an all-electric motorcycle and beefy, twin-cylinder, 1,150-cc gas bikes, Yates collected third-place honors on a bike carrying 102 ƒlithium-ion polymer pouch cells and a dc permanent-magnet motor. He and his team also set the world-speed record for electric motorcycles in 2011, hitting 190.6ƒmph during a one-mile, standing-start run in the California desert.

The accomplishments of Yates and his crew personify the role garage entrepreneurs have had in advancing e-bike technology.

Key points:• Electric motorcycles are

much easier to produce than electric four wheelers, a fact that has attracted numerous

entrepreneurs.• The tough part: Kinetic-

energy recovery during braking because the front

wheel loads much more than the rear.

Resources:Chip Yates Bonneville World’s

Fastest Electric Motorcycle Video

Current MotorEngineeringTV.com Current

Motor interviewLit Motors

Lit Motors C-1 on YouTubeSwigz.com Pro Racing

(Chip Yates)

E-bikes are now a hotbed of development dominated by independent inventors and small start-ups. One reason is that for someone set on producing an electric-powered vehicle, it’s far more manageable to bring a motorcycle to market than anything with four wheels. “In some ways bikes are a natural platform for innovation because they are easy to get your head around,” says Yates. “An e-bike is relatively inexpensive to build. It is a much simpler undertaking than a car. You can spend more of your time on new technology rather than on building a giant platform.”

In Yates’ case, some of that innovation went into coming up with a patent-pending way of pulling energy from a bike’s front wheel to help recharge the battery. That’s important, Yates explains, because a bike’s rear wheel is lightly loaded during fast stops and offers minimal opportunity for regenerative braking. So Yates and his crew equipped the front wheel with special one-way clutches. They sit in the front wheel hub and let the front tire transmit more than 500 lb-ft of braking torque to the electric motor, but they prevent the electric motor from driving the front wheel.

Specifically, the clutches mate to a ring and pinion gear set on the front axle. The pinion gears turn two counterrotating and telescoping driveshafts running along the outside of the front forks. (The driveshafts share the torque load and so can have a smaller diameter than if using a single big shaft.) Each drives a chain that respectively turns an inner and outer shaft rotating in opposite directions. The shafts go to a custom steering head in the bike frame. Inside the steering head, the shafts respectively turn a lower and upper bevel gear. Between these counterrotating bevel gears is an output bevel gear that exits the steering head and turns a driveshaft that runs inside the frame rail of the bike. The counterrotating driveshafts and bevel gears act to counteract torque steer felt through the handlebars.

The driveshaft runs from the steering head down to a gearbox inside the frame rail around the area of the rider’s knee. The gearbox drives a chain going to the electric motor shaft where it can be used to generate electricity for recharging the battery pack. For safety, proprietary control software limits the amount of front-wheel braking based on factors such as lean angle and the potential for overcharging.

Biking in the cloud

Another start-up that sees e-bikes as fertile ground is Current Motor in Ann Arbor, Mich. “The two-wheel space is a sweet spot for electric-power entrepreneurs, says Erik Kauppi, Current Motor cofounder and chief engineer. “It is just easier when the vehicle is small. You need less of a battery, it costs less and it needs less power. You can charge from a regular wall outlet and there are fewer regulatory requirements for producing a vehicle.”

Current Motor began shipping its Super Scooters in November, though they are officially classified as motorcycles. The bikes are said to have 60% more peak power than 150-cc gas scooters and hit 65 mph or more with a range of about 40 miles/charge or better. An onboard 3G connection lets a digital dash relay rider information back to Current Motor via the cloud.

Some of Current Motor’s best technology resides in the scooter’s 5-kW permanent-magnet dc-brushless motor. The motor is built into the hub of the rear wheel rather than sitting on the frame as in most bikes, electric powered or otherwise.

“We started with a commercially available hub motor and saw a lot of room for improvement,” says Kauppi. The problems, he explains, arise because the motor must supply a lot of torque at low speed to get the vehicle moving from a dead stop. But there’s also a need for

appreciable power at high speeds to overcome aerodynamic drag. Highly efficient permanent-magnet motors commonly used for e-vehicles have trouble performing well in both operating regimes. The usual way of handling the problem is with field weakening, reducing the magnetic field at high speeds so the motor generates less electromotive force that opposes its rotation. “There are broad categories of permanent-magnet motors where field weakening doesn’t work,” explains Kauppi. “So we’ve been granted several patents on technology that applies to hub motors that address these sorts of problems.”

Current Motor’s use of hub motors in any capacity is controversial because locating the motor in the wheel hub boosts the amount of unsprung weight in the bike, the weight which is unsupported by the suspension. High unsprung weight has a tendency to make the bike harder to control under hard acceleration or braking. All in all, some chassis design purists look on hub motors with disdain because they exacerbate such handling issues.

But chassis idealists have a lesspersuasive argument on this point when it comes to scooter-type motorcycles. Even ordinary gas versions have an engine-gearbox-final drive system that pivots as part of the rear suspension and hence is partly unsprung. “A lot of people who have tried both say the ride and handling of our e-bike is better than that of comparable gas bikes,” says Kauppi.

Running around regulations

Current Motor’s first customer was riding his scooter 18‡months after the company opened its doors. One reason for the short time-to-market is that companies producing motorcycles have lower regulatory hurdles than those making vehicles with four wheels. “It’s much easier for motorcycles to pass federal safety mandates because the standards are simpler and there are no crash test requirements.” says Kauppi. “And e-bikes have an easier time passing EPA emissions than gas bikes.”

Confirming this view is Daniel Kim, founder of Lit Motors in San Francisco. Kim’s firm is working on an e-bike called the C-1 which is billed as the world’s first gyroscopically stabilized “rolling smartphone.” The C-1 balances on two wheels using two gyroscopes so it stays upright when stopped. “Landing gear” deploy when the C-1 parks to keep it standing up. The gyros also let the C-1 lean itself into and out of turns while staying stable.

“It is about $11 million cheaper to bring a vehicle like this to market than to do the same thing with an electric car,” says Kim. “A car, for one thing, would have to pass crash tests. If its battery chemistry was new, it would take about 18‡months to go through National Highway Traffic Safety Administration testing. But a motorcycle has none of this. You can be quick to market.”

Though one attraction of developing e-bikes is their potentially simpler technology, you wouldn’t know that from the C-1. It uses a balancing scheme borrowed from spacecraft attitude-control systems. Onboard are two control-momentum gyroscopes (CMGs) consisting of a spinning rotor and motorized gimbals that tilt the rotor’s angular momentum. As the rotor tilts, the changing angular momentum causes a gyroscopic torque. In space, that torque rotates a spacecraft. In the C-1, it keeps the bike upright regardless of the terrain or sharp turns executed by the driver, effectively making the C-1 idiot-driverproof.

“What is exciting to many people is that the CMG controls not only balance but also the amount of lean in a turn so the driver doesn’t have to,” says Kim. “There have been many mechanically controlled CMGs, but this is the first time a vehicle company has used an electronic CMG. Our patents are in the actual CMG control system.”

The C-1 carries two gyros to provide redundancy and to assure stability in real-world scenarios. “It is one thing to create a self-balancing vehicle in the laboratory. But inclines, declines, and variations in the road are all tough to handle with a single gyro,” says Kim.

Lit Motors designed its flywheels internally. The two gyros in the C-1 rotate in opposite directions for balancing, and each spin at somewhere between 6,000 and 12,000‡rpm, rotational speeds high enough to provide stability but low enough to avoid concerns about wheels disintegrating from high centrifugal forces. The flywheels are made of chrome-moly 4140, a grade of steel known for its high strength-to-weight ratio and often used in such applications as gun barrels.

Unfortunately, Lit Motors isn’t discussing a lot of other details on the C-1. Kim says the whole vehicle will weigh less than 800‡lb and will be powered by a proprietary electric motor providing 20-kW continuously and 40-kW peak. Preliminary specs call for the C-1 to hit 100+ mph (160+ kph), do 0 to 60 mph in under 6 sec, and have a range of 200‡miles (320 km) per charge. The bike will also have a unibody construction like that of a conventional car. Lit Motor is now building two driving prototypes and hopes to be in production next year. “It’s still just a motorcycle. Once you have prototyped it a couple times, it’s not much more complicated to build a production version and sell it,” Kim claims.

Saving the planet one bike at a time

It’s likely that technology pioneered for e-bikes will advance the state of the art in a variety of fields where electrical motors can be more sustainable than petroleum burners. The first signs of the trend are already emerging.

E-motorcycle racer Chip Yates, for example, has raced his last ebike and is moving the technology his team devised into more promising areas. “For me, the ebike was a platform to push the limits and have some fun. I was after low-hanging fruit and I wanted to make a difference,” he explains. “But gas motorcycles are already incredibly efficient — they get 50 mpg. So if you convert every gas bike to electric you won’t move the needle for smog or pollution.”

Yates thinks aviation might be the next area primed for a shake-up based on technology originally created for e-bikes. “Airplanes are incredibly filthy and they fly missions where electric planes could do better,” he says. Yates and his crew have already come up with a way to recharge an electric airplane in flight and have been granted patents on the idea. Yates has set a speed record for an electric plane (200 mph) and eventually plans to duplicate Lindberg’s solo flight from New York to Paris electrically.

But the quest for that goal has been interrupted by a more pressing project. “The Navy wants to build an electric version of the Predator UAV,” he says. “They noticed that electric planes are tough to see with infrared. So we are building a UAV for them called the Silent Arrow in

which we bury what little heat we generate in the airframe using a strategy involving compressed nitrogen.”

Cleaner, Cheaper Way to Make Steel Uses Electricity Making steel in a similar way to aluminum is cheaper and reduces greenhouse gas emissions

May 9, 2013 |By Umair Irfan and ClimateWire

Flickr/Ian Britton

The fires that smelt iron also heat up the planet, but researchers are working on ways to produce higher-quality metals with fewer greenhouse gas emissions, potentially giving U.S. steelmakers an edge in a competitive global market.

A report released yesterday in the journal Nature highlights a step in this direction that uses electricity instead of heat to extract iron.

With thousands of years of development and two centuries of industrialization, making iron and steel is a mature process around the world. In 2011, manufacturers produced around 100 billion metric tons of iron globally.

From mining ores to smelting to tempering alloys, the process is energy intensive, and engineers have chased improvements about as long as steel has topped axes, formed armor and driven machinery.

"What that means is that the majority of low-hanging fruit have been picked and the processes we have to make [metals] are nearing the limits of what is physically possible," explained Lawrence Kavanagh, president of the Steel Market Development Institute.

Though iron is the most common element in the Earth's crust, it is usually in the form of an ore. Conventional processing methods use a high-temperature blast furnace to heat the iron ore and other compounds to remove oxygen and yield a desired alloy, a method that creates a lot of carbon dioxide, according to a report last year from U.S. EPA on greenhouse gas emissions from the iron and steel sector.

Discovery of an inexpensive anode"For Integrated steelmaking, the primary sources of GHG emissions are blast furnace stoves (43 percent), miscellaneous combustion sources burning natural gas and process gases (30 percent), other process units (15 percent) and indirect emissions from electricity usage (12 percent)," the report said, estimating that the U.S. steel industry produced 117 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2010.

But there are other ways to pull iron out of rocks. Dissolving ores in a molten electrolyte and passing a current through it could reduce iron oxides to a more usable form and produce oxygen at the same time. "The real issue here is finding a nonconsumable anode that can sustain this process," said Donald Sadoway, a professor of materials chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a co-author of the new report.

Previous attempts to electrolyze ores used anodes made of expensive elements like platinum and iridium, or the components broke down in the 1,600-degree-Celsius temperatures needed to maintain a liquid metal-oxide electrolyte.

Sadoway and his team found that an anode made from chromium-based alloys could withstand the process. These materials are also cheap. "If you end up with something that's superior but far costlier, nobody wants it," Sadoway said.

Using electrolysis to make metals has several advantages over a blast furnace. The resulting metals are purer because there are fewer contaminants introduced in the process. "The electrolytic route actually consumes less energy," Sadoway noted, adding that it can be 30 percent more efficient than conventional methods.

Cost advantage for U.S. industryThese methods can help U.S. manufacturers forge a path to more energy-efficient steelmaking, creating a market advantage from higher-quality metals with smaller carbon footprints. Electrolysis could help reduce prices as well.

"Energy is a big cost in steel," said Kavanagh. He also observed that 40 percent of steel ends up traded, so any changes in production will have global consequences.

However, Kavanagh pointed out that electrolysis is only as clean as the grid that feeds it, so if the energy comes from a coal-fired power plant, there may not be any carbon emissions savings.

"If your source of electricity was renewable power, it would reduce carbon dioxide by 10 percent," said Derek Fray, an emeritus professor of materials chemistry at the University of Cambridge. Fray wrote a piece in Nature yesterday commenting on Sadoway's work.

Another issue is redesigning steel mills to accommodate electrolysis. Fray said blast furnace reactions take place in three dimensions, while electrolytic cell reactions occur in effectively two dimensions. The challenge, then, is to design an electrolysis steel plant that isn't much bigger than a conventional facility.

In his article, Fray also suggested that metal electrolysis could be used to produce oxygen on other planets, "making human colonization of the Solar System more feasible."

Researchers are now working on scaling up electric metal production. Sadoway said a demonstration plant is still about three years away, but the systems would be analogous to cells used to extract aluminum.

He acknowledged it will be hard and time-consuming to bring these radical changes to one of the most iconic industries in the world built on centuries of knowledge, noting his own two decades of research in liquid metals. "People who want instant gratification, they don't work in this area," he said.

Correction: Forty percent of global steel ends up traded, not exported, correcting an earlier version of this story.

Looks like a conveyor, works like a wind turbineAirfoils on circulating chains define a new approach to wind power.

May 22, 2013 Leland Teschler

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Researchers have devised a wind turbine design that connects airfoils like rungs on a conveyor in an effort to address shortcomings of conventional horizontal wind turbines.

Those attending the recent Windpower 2013 exhibition could get a first-hand explanation of the Looped Airfoil Wind Turbine, a concept said to overcome shortcomings of horizontal wind turbines. Devised by a startup called EverLift Inc. in Nassau, Del., the device looks a little like

a conveyor belt with airfoils for cleats. The airfoils cut through the wind and push the belt along. Electric generators would be driven by the moving chain via a rack-and-pinion setup.

Its inventors say the LAWT concept should work equally well in air and in water, so applications harvesting ocean tidal stream energy aren't out of the question. They also claim the device is scalable from 10 kW to the megawatt range.

The track to which the wings attach trace out the shape of a  trapezoid. The wings drive chains or segmented rigid connectors. Housings (nacelles) hold connections from the track to the generators. A front “wind shield” prevents any braking drag force on “returning” wings.

One advantage of the scheme, say its inventors, is that both ascending and descending wings capture wind energy. And unlike ordinary horizontal wind turbines, the heavy parts of the appuratuse are at ground level.

The LAWT is heaviest on its base, unlike conventional horizontal wind turbines.

The idea for the design arose when EverLift cofounder George Syrovy invented a novel vertical takeoff and landing aircraft that involved an intense investigation of helicopter rotors, basically rotating wings. Eventually Syrovy noticed that horizontal wind turbine rotors have helicopter-like blades embodying all the limitations of rotary winged aircraft.

The insight led to the idea of capturing wind energy using multiple airfoils in the manner of fixed-wing aircraft. Moreover, the LAWT design appears to work equally well in both wind and flowing water. And because water is some 780 times more dense than air, a hydro version of the LAWT could be much smaller than those for wind energy.

So far, though, the company has not built a working model of its concept. It was at the Wind Power show looking for a manufacturing partner. It says the first (non-working) hydro LAWT model built at the University of Southern Maine was about three feet high and four feet wide. EverLift says it has yet to determine the exact size of the first functioning hydro LAWT, but figures it will be of the same order of magnitude as this model.

The first concept model for the LAWT was a non-working hydro setup.

When EverLift gets around to devising a working model, it hopes to equip it with at least two and perhaps as many as eight generators. Outward-facing gear teeth on the moving track will engage pinion gears on each generator. But there are other possible solutions if this method proves to be less than optimal. Plans also call for extruding the airfoils  and then simply cutting them to the required length as a way of keeping down costs.

 

 

Official

Volvo testing F1-style KERS system, cites 25% fuel economy bump [w/video]

Related GalleryExperimental Volvo KERS unit

By  Jonathon Ramsey RSS feed

Posted Apr 29th 2013 9:30AM

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Volvo has been experimenting with flywheel propulsion systems since the eighties, but only

recently has technology caught up with the possibility of real-world applications. In 2011, the Swedish carmaker was granted 6.57 million Swedish kronor (about $1M US) by the Swedish Energy Agency to work on a kinetic energy recovery system with Swedish bearing company SKF. Before it began trials, Volvo expected the fuel savings to be as high as 20 percent. After trials conducted last year on public roads the results were even better, Volvo finding that a KERS-equipped four-cylinder turbo performs like a six-cylinder turbo but gets up to 25-percent better fuel economy. It calls KERS "a light, cheap and very eco-efficient solution."

The test vehicle was an S60, its ICE driving the front wheels while the KERS – weighing six kilograms, measuring about 20 centimeters across and using a carbon fiber flywheel – was attached to the rear axle. Under braking, the four-cylinder engine is shut off and the KERS gathers rotational energy, spinning at up to 60,000 revolutions per minute. The stored energy is then used to get the car going again or to assist at cruising speeds. It's the same kind of vacuum-sealed flywheel design used by Audi in its R18 etron quattro, but with the opposite arrangement – in the Audi the diesel V6 drives the rear wheels, the KERS drives the front wheels.

Like the units in Formula One, it provides an additional 80 horsepower. When working with the four-cylinder ICE, the S60 with KERS can do the 0-62 mph dash in 5.5 seconds, a full 1.1 seconds faster than the S60 with the 3.0-liter T6 engine and all-wheel drive.

As we expect with hybrids, the greatest fuel savings came in urban environments with a lot of braking, Volvo suggesting that the combustion engine could be shut down "about half the time" on the New European Driving Cycle. A press release below has more details, along with a video Volvo released in 2011 to show how its system works.

Show full PR textVolvo Cars tests of flywheel technology confirm fuel savings of up to 25 per cent

Volvo Car Group has completed extensive testing of kinetic flywheel technology on public roads - and the results confirm that this is a light, cheap and very eco-efficient solution.

Apr 25, 2013 -- "The testing of this complete experimental system for kinetic energy recovery was carried out during 2012. The results show that this technology combined with a four-cylinder turbo engine has the potential to reduce fuel consumption by up to 25 percent compared with a six-cylinder turbo engine at a comparable performance level," says Derek Crabb, Vice President Powertrain Engineering at Volvo Car Group, "Giving the driver an extra 80 horsepower, it makes car with a four-cylinder engine accelerate like one with a six-cylinder unit."

The experimental system, known as Flywheel KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System), is fitted to the rear axle. During retardation, the braking energy causes the flywheel to spin at up to 60,000 revs per minute. When the car starts moving off again, the flywheel's rotation is transferred to the rear wheels via a specially designed transmission.

The combustion engine that drives the front wheels is switched off as soon as braking begins. The energy in the flywheel can then be used to accelerate the vehicle when it is time to move off again or to power the vehicle once it reaches cruising speed.

Most efficient in city traffic"The flywheel's stored energy is sufficient to power the car for short periods. This has a major impact on fuel consumption. Our calculations indicate that it will be possible to turn off the combustion engine about half the time when driving according to the official New European Driving Cycle," explains Derek Crabb.

Since the flywheel is activated by braking, and the duration of the energy storage - that is to say the length of time the flywheel spins - is limited, the technology is at its most effective during driving featuring repeated stops and starts. In other words, the fuel savings will be greatest when driving in busy urban traffic and during active driving.

If the energy in the flywheel is combined with the combustion engine's full capacity, it will give the car an extra 80 horsepower and, thanks to the swift torque build-up, this translates into rapid acceleration, cutting 0 to 100 km/h figures by seconds. The experimental car, a Volvo S60, accelerates from 0 to 100 km/h in 5.5 seconds.

Carbon fibre for a lightweight and compact solutionFlywheel propulsion assistance was tested in a Volvo 260 back in the 1980s, and flywheels made of steel have been evaluated by various manufacturers in recent times. However, since a unit made of steel is large and heavy and has rather limited rotational capacity, this is not a viable option.

The flywheel that Volvo Cars used in the experimental system is made of carbon fibre. It weighs about six kilograms and has a diameter of 20 centimetres. The carbon fiber wheel spins in a vacuum to minimise frictional losses.

"We are the first manufacturer that has applied flywheel technology to the rear axle of a car fitted with a combustion engine driving the front wheels. The next step after completing these successful tests is to evaluate how the technology can be implemented in our upcoming car models," concludes Derek Crabb.

Concrete spheres could deliver feasible energy storage for offshore wind turbinesBy Darren Quick

May 1, 2013

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A new system being developed at MIT would store excess energy in concrete spheres on the sea floor

The intermittent nature of wind and solar power generation is one of the biggest challenges facing these renewable energy sources. But this isn’t likely to remain a problem for much longer with everything from flywheels to liquid air systems being developed to provide a cheaper form of energy storage than batteries for times when the wind is blowing or the sun isn’t shining. A new concept out of MIT can now be added to the the list of potential solutions. Aimed specifically at offshore wind turbines, the concept would see energy stored in huge concrete spheres that would sit on the seafloor and also function as anchors for the turbines.

The MIT concept works by using excess energy generated by the wind turbines to pump seawater from a hollow concrete sphere sitting on the seafloor that measures 30 meters (98 ft) in diameter. Then, when the wind dies down and power is needed, a valve is opened to let the water back into the sphere through a turbine that drives a generator to produce electricity.

The MIT researchers say that such a sphere positioned in 400-meter (1,312 ft) deep water could store up to 6 MWh of power, meaning that 1,000 spheres could supply as much power as a nuclear power plant for several hours. They claim this is enough to transform offshore wind turbines into a reliable alternative to conventional on-shore coal or nuclear plants.

Additionally, since the system would be connected to the grid, the spheres could also be used to store energy generated from other sources, such as on-shore wind and solar, or from base load power plants that are most efficient when operating at steady levels. Such a system could reduce the reliance on the generally less efficient peaking power plants that kick in when there is a high electricity demand that base load plants can’t meet.

The spheres with their 3-meter thick concrete walls would weigh thousands of tons each, which would also make them suitable to anchor the wind turbines in place. However, because there is currently no vessel with the capacity to deploy a load of their size and weight, a specially built barge would need to be constructed to tow them out to sea after being cast on land.

This contributes to the preliminary cost estimates of about US$12 million to build and deploy one sphere, with costs gradually declining from there. The team estimates the technology could yield storage costs of around six cents per kilowatt-hour, which is considered viable by the utility industry.

While the team’s analysis indicates the technology would be economically feasible at depths as shallow as 200 m, with costs per megawatt hour of storage dropping as depth increases to 1,500 m before rising again, 750 m is seen as the optimal depth for the spheres. However, Brian Hodder, a researcher at the MIT Energy Initiative, says as costs are reduced over time, the system could become cost-effective in shallower water.

Alexander Slocum, the Pappalardo Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT, and his students built a prototype 30-inch (76 cm) diameter sphere in 2011 to demonstrate the feasibility of the system. The team now hopes to scale testing up to a 3-meter sphere and then, if funding becomes available, a 10-meter version that would be tested in an undersea environment.

They estimate an offshore wind farm using the technology could supply an amount of power comparable to the Hoover Dam, while using a similar amount of concrete. The team says that some of the concrete for the spheres could be made using fly ash from existing coal plants to cut the amount of carbon dioxide emissions resulting from production.

The MIT team has filed a patent for the system, which is detailed in a paper published in IEEE Transactions.

Source: MIT

How Google Glass works

<a href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/hbp.ep/inpage;sec=science;tile=15;sz=180x150;u=-1;ord=6352950846683786082139390310?"><img src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/hbp.ep/inpage;sec=science;tile=15;sz=180x150;u=-1;ord=6352950846683786082139390310?" width="180" height="150" border="0" alt=""></a>

Infographic details optical principal behind exciting new technology

While Google Glass is being heralded as the next big thing in smart devices, there are still a lot of questions surrounding the technology. 

 

Google Glass is expected to usher in a new form of wearable smart device technology. (Image via: uncrate.com)

For one, how does it work? Also, how is it able to layer a digital image over the image of reality, a technique referred to as “augmented reality”? Brille-kaufen.org has put together the following Infographic that details from top to bottom how Google Glass works in a very simple and easy-to-understand manner. 

So it appears as though the key to the technology is the device’s mini projector, which uses a semi-transparent prism to project the digital image directly into the user’s retina (sounds harmless, right?) Even though the image is really close to one’s eye, everything’s still crystal clear. And because it’s slightly transparent, it can be placed right in front of the user’s eye without becoming a visual hindrance.

The author behind the Infographic, Martin Missfledt, concludes that the biggest challenge Google now faces with this device is making it usable for people with normal glasses. Right now, Google Glass needs to be placed ahead of normal glasses, which neither looks good nor feels comfortable for the user. Missfledt suggests that Google might have to manufacture individual customized prisms for these users, but that could wind up being a super costly endeavor.

Infographic via: brille-kaufen.orgBy Jeffrey Bausch

How Google Glass works

<a href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/hbp.ep/inpage;sec=science;tile=15;sz=180x150;u=-1;ord=6352950846683786082139390310?"><img src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/hbp.ep/inpage;sec=science;tile=15;sz=180x150;u=-1;ord=6352950846683786082139390310?" width="180" height="150" border="0" alt=""></a>

Infographic details optical principal behind exciting new technology

While Google Glass is being heralded as the next big thing in smart devices, there are still a lot of questions surrounding the technology. 

 

Google Glass is expected to usher in a new form of wearable smart device technology. (Image via: uncrate.com)

For one, how does it work? Also, how is it able to layer a digital image over the image of reality, a technique referred to as “augmented reality”? Brille-kaufen.org has put together the following Infographic that details from top to bottom how Google Glass works in a very simple and easy-to-understand manner. 

So it appears as though the key to the technology is the device’s mini projector which uses a semi-transparent prism to project the digital image directly into th user’s retina (sounds harmless, right?) Even though the image is really close t one’s eye, everything’s still crystal clear. And because it’s slightly transparent, i can be placed right in front of the user’s eye without becoming a visua hindrance.

The author behind the Infographic, Martin Missfledt, concludes that the bigges challenge Google now faces with this device is making it usable for people wit normal glasses. Right now, Google Glass needs to be placed ahead of norma glasses, which neither looks good nor feels comfortable for the user. Missfled suggests that Google might have to manufacture individual customized prism for these users, but that could wind up being a super costly endeavor.

Infographic via: brille-kaufen.orBy Jeffrey Bausch

How Google Glass works

<a href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/hbp.ep/inpage;sec=science;tile=15;sz=180x150;u=-1;ord=6352950846683786082139390310?"><img src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/hbp.ep/inpage;sec=science;tile=15;sz=180x150;u=-1;ord=6352950846683786082139390310?" width="180" height="150" border="0" alt=""></a>

Infographic details optical principal behind exciting new technology

While Google Glass is being heralded as the next big thing in smart devices, there are still a lot of questions surrounding the technology. 

 

Google Glass is expected to usher in a new form of wearable smart device technology. (Image via: uncrate.com)

For one, how does it work? Also, how is it able to layer a digital image over the image of reality, a technique referred to as “augmented reality”? Brille-kaufen.org has put together the following Infographic that details from top to bottom how Google Glass works in a very simple and easy-to-understand manner. 

So it appears as though the key to the technology is the device’s mini projector, which uses a semi-transparent prism to project the digital image directly into the user’s retina (sounds harmless, right?) Even though the image is really close to one’s eye, everything’s still crystal clear. And because it’s slightly transparent, it can be placed right in front of the user’s eye without becoming a visual hindrance.

The author behind the Infographic, Martin Missfledt, concludes that the biggest challenge Google now faces with this device is making it usable for people with normal glasses. Right now, Google Glass needs to be placed ahead of normal glasses, which neither looks good nor feels comfortable for the user. Missfledt suggests that Google might have to manufacture individual customized prisms for these users, but that could wind up being a super costly endeavor.

Infographic via: brille-kaufen.orgBy Jeffrey Bausch

How Google Glass works

<a href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/hbp.ep/inpage;sec=science;tile=15;sz=180x150;u=-1;ord=6352950846683786082139390310?"><img src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/hbp.ep/inpage;sec=science;tile=15;sz=180x150;u=-1;ord=6352950846683786082139390310?" width="180" height="150" border="0" alt=""></a>

Infographic details optical principal behind exciting new technology

While Google Glass is being heralded as the next big thing in smart devices, there are still a lot of questions surrounding the technology. 

 

Google Glass is expected to usher in a new form of wearable smart device technology. (Image via: uncrate.com)

For one, how does it work? Also, how is it able to layer a digital image over the image of reality, a technique referred to as “augmented reality”? Brille-kaufen.org has put together the following Infographic that details from top to bottom how Google Glass works in a very simple and easy-to-understand manner. 

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So it appears as though the key to the technology is the device’s mini projector, which uses a semi-transparent prism to project the digital image directly into the user’s retina (sounds harmless, right?) Even though the image is really close to one’s eye, everything’s still crystal clear. And because it’s slightly transparent, it can be placed right in front of the user’s eye without becoming a visual hindrance.

The author behind the Infographic, Martin Missfledt, concludes that the biggest challenge Google now faces with this device is making it usable for people with normal glasses. Right now, Google Glass needs to be placed ahead of normal glasses, which neither looks good nor feels comfortable for the user. Missfledt suggests that Google might have to manufacture individual customized prisms for these users, but that could wind up being a super costly endeavor.

Infographic via: brille-kaufen.orgBy Jeffrey Bausch

"This is a major step toward making practical devices based on our technique for harnessing both the light and heat energy provided by the sun," said Nicholas Melosh, associate professor of materials science and engineering at Stanford and a researcher with SIMES, a joint SLAC/Stanford institute.

The new device is based on the photon-enhanced thermionic emission (PETE) process first demonstrated in 2010 by a group led by Melosh and SIMES colleague Zhi-Xun Shen, who is SLAC's advisor for science and technology. In a report last week in Nature Communications, the group described how they improved the device's efficiency from a few hundredths of a percent to nearly 2 percent, and said they expect to achieve at least another 10-fold gain in the future.

Enlarge

Concentrated sunlight (red arrows at the top) heats up the device's semiconductor cathode (beige and grey upper plate) to more than 400 degrees Centigrade. Photoexcited hot electrons (blue dots) stream out of the cathode's nanotextured …more

Conventional photovoltaic cells use a portion of the sun's spectrum of wavelengths to generate electricity. But PETE uses a special semiconductor chip to make electricity by using the entire spectrum of sunlight, including wavelengths that generate heat. In fact, the efficiency of thermionic emission improves dramatically at high temperatures, so adding PETE to utility-scale concentrating solar power plants, such as multi-megawatt power tower and parabolic trough projects in California's Mojave Desert, may increase their electrical output by 50 percent. Those systems use mirrors to focus sunlight into superbright, blazingly hot regions that boil water into steam, which then spins an electrical generator.

"When placed where the sunlight is focused, our PETE chips produce electricity directly; and the hotter it is, the more electricity it will make," Melosh said.

The heart of the improved PETE chip is a sandwich of two semiconductor layers: One is optimized to absorb sunlight and create long-lived free electrons, while the other is designed to emit those electrons from the device so they can be collected as an electrical current. A cesium oxide coating on the second layer eases the electrons' passage from the chip. Future research is aimed at making the device up to an additional 10 times more efficient by developing new coatings or surface treatments that will preserve the atomic arrangement of the second layer's outer surface at the high temperatures it will encounter in the concentrating solar power plant

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-03-materials-scientists-solar-energy-chip.html#jCp

Company Uses Nanotech To Put Hydrogen in the Palm of Their HandApril 16th, 2013 | by Lina Zeldovich

When Cella Energy CEO Stephen Voller demos little squares of white fluffy material, he isn’t holding cotton swabs from a local pharmacy. Neither is he tossing a handful of cereal when he showcases tiny white pellets that look like Cheerios dipped in sugar. The materials he presents are complex nanoparticle compounds, which may hold the answer to the long-pursued challenge of safely and effectively storing hydrogen fuel.

"Each one of these when heated will release hydrogen gas," he says of the small heap of pellets in his palm. “You get about a balloon worth of hydrogen gas from that."

A near-perfect solution to energy and emission problems, hydrogen fuel is efficient and clean – it generates water as its waste product. But because it’s a gas, it’s hard to store and transport. It’s also potentially dangerous when stored in pressurized tanks.

Cella’s method attempts to get the positive out of this alternative fuel while solving some of its problems. The company uses ammonia borane, a solid chemical compound that consists of one boron and one nitrogen atom accompanied by six hydrogen atoms. When heated more than 100 degrees centigrade, the compound releases hydrogen, but not in a very friendly form. “The trouble is that it melts when you heat it so you end up with this horrible gunk,” says Voller. “So if you use it in your laptop or your car you will gunk up your car or your laptop.” 

So Cella cofounder Stephen Bennington, a scientist from Rutherford Appleton Laboratory near Oxford, UK, devised a clever solution. In his method, ammonia borane molecules are encapsulated inside the chains of polyethylene oxide, a polymer used in many industrial applications. “Polyethylene has these kind of linear chains like a rope,” Bennington says. “The ammonia borane goes inside the strands of the rope.” 

To create the more useful nanostructure for storing hydrogen, the polyethylene and ammonia borane are freeze-dried into a powder and then shaped into pellets, which are coated by a layer of filter plastic. “That cleans the hydrogen and it comes out much more pure,” Bennington says, adding that the plastic pellets can be reused.

Game-changing pellets?

The company’s technology promises a gamut of applications, including revolutionizing the car industry. Future hydrogen-powered cars could be equipped with devices that pump the pellets into a “hot cell” where they would be heated to release the fuel, and then into a waste tank that collects the empty beads. Instead of gas stations, drivers would pull up to refueling stations to load up a few pounds of pellets and empty the waste tank.

Cella’s engineers have already started working on engine prototypes for these possible future automobiles, which Voller says he expects to have in trials within five years. The company is also investigating another approach, which Bennington calls diesel co-combustion. “If you feed hydrogen into the diesel engine it improves the combustion of the diesel so you get some small efficiency gains,” he says.

Vans and sedans won’t be running on pellets next year, but unmanned aerial vehicles might. Cella has developed pellet-based battery-life extender cartridges that fit into the aircraft’s wing and can keep drones in the air three times longer than the lithium-ion battery. Inside the cartridge, hundreds of tiny pellets can be “fired up” one by one, assuring the continuous flow of hydrogen into a fuel cell to generate electricity.

NASA calls

Voller and Bennington formed Cella as a spin-off from Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in 2010, and wrote a business plan on how to commercialize the technology. A few months later, Space Florida, a U.S. aerospace economic development agency, became interested in their ideas, and in late summer 2012 Cella opened an office at the Kennedy

Space Center.  “NASA and Kennedy have probably been the largest users of hydrogen worldwide for years because they use it in space shuttles,” Voller says.

Space Florida president Frank DiBello says: “We saw the potential of the technology and how it works – we saw that it would be a game changer. We provide space in the building that Space Florida owns and we helped them open the door to the certain markets they can have.”

It turned out there was yet another market for Cella’s hydrogen nano-compounds: radiation shielding for the people and electronics inside space shuttles and satellites. “It’s a different type of radiation than you get inside nuclear reactors on Earth because the particles are very high energy,” Voller says.

Hydrogen is known for its radiation-shielding properties, but using it for this purpose in its gaseous form is impractical. However, Cella’s thin cotton-like nanocompounds have proven to be better suited for such insulation than polyethylene, the material currently used in space vehicles. The white fluffy tissues can stop radiation 30 percent better than polyethylene. The next step is to prove if the product is a viable commercial idea, Bennington says, so Cella is looking for partners who make electronics for satellites to see if they are interested in testing the nanomaterials to extend the life of their components.

Just like with the car industry, this technology will take time to develop and test, Voller says. But if long-duration spaceflight is to become a reality, astronauts exposed to radiation longer would need better protection. “If you’re going to go to Mars, it’s going to take about two years to make the round trip,” he says. “This will keep you alive.”

Top Image: Hydrogen-containing pellets. Courtesy Cella Energy.

Lina Zeldovich grew up in a family of Russian scientists listening to bedtime stories about the inner workings of volcanos and black holes. Now she writes about science, medicine, health, environment and technology. Her work has appeared in Nautilus, Scientific American and Psychology Today

PSA Peugeot Citroen reveals new Hybrid Air powertrain

By KBB.com Editors on January 28, 2013 3:42 PM

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Working with strategic supplier partners Bosch and Faurecia, PSE Peugeot Citroen has unveiled a new form of what it claims will be a super-clean, extremely efficient and very affordable form of hybrid drivetrain technology that uses a conventional internal combustion engine and compressed air for motive power. Intended for smaller B- and C-segment vehicles with output of up to 110 horsepower, it's designed

to operate in three modes: internal combustion, compressed air only or a combination of the two. Mechanically, the package consists of a small gasoline engine - which here was teamed with an automatic transmission -- and a compressed air reservoir that effectively replaces the battery pack used in a conventional hybrid.

Like virtually every other gas/electric setup, the PSA Hybrid Air system also incorporates regenerative-braking functionality. Only here, it's used to replenish the contents of a centrally-mounted high-pressure compressed air cylinder as well as the rear-mounted low-pressure secondary reservoir by means of a built-in two-way pump.

          See: Check out the video of the PSA system in action

In addition to requiring only minimal redesign work on a conventional platform like the Citroen C3 or Peugeot 208, the automaker says this type of Hybrid Air vehicle would be able to operate between 60-80 percent of the time in city driving environments as a true zero-emissions transport module. It also would generate a 45-percent savings in relative fuel usage and enjoy up to a 90-percent increase in range compared to a similar vehicle with only an internal combustion engine. PSA Peugeot Citroen already has filed 80 patents for its Hybrid Air system. It plans to start fitting the package into several of its B-segment models in 2016 and is open to licensing the technology to other automakers.

 

Peugeot Car That Runs On Air Will Be Available In 2016, Company Says The Huffington Post  |  By Ron Dicker Posted: 01/23/2013 4:55 pm EST

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Promising to drastically reduce CO2 emissions and money spent on gas, Peugeot unveiled its Hybrid Air. The company said it should hit the market in 2016.

We breathe it. Why not drive it?

Peugeot Citroen this week introduced a car that runs on air. The car manufacturer said the vehicle should be available by 2016.

"We're quite confident," company spokesman Jean-Baptiste Thomas told The Huffington Post on Wednesday.

Thomas said the company already had developed four of its "Hybrid Air" prototypes and driven them 12,000 miles.

The outward design of the car won't change much since the technology can be fitted to current models. But under the body, the advances will be a first, Thomas said. A hydraulic pump forces compressed air against fluid that activates the wheels. (See the video above for a more detailed look.) The pressure can regenerate within 10 seconds if a motorist were to stop.

The Hybrid Air would enable a motorist to drive up to 50 minutes in city conditions without using any gas, Thomas told HuffPost.

In what industry observers hope will be a breath of fresh air for the environment, the air-only mode converts the car into a ZEV, a "zero emission vehicle," the company said in a press release.

Stunt kite movements could be harnessed to generate power12 November 2012

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Engineers in Germany believe the aerial movements of stunt kites can be harnessed to generate electricity.

Berlin-based wind energy developer NTS and experts from the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA in Stuttgart are now working on a project to harness the power of winds at altitudes of up to 500m.

Joachim Montnacher, an engineer at the IPA, said: ‘The kites fly at a height of 300–500m, perfectly positioned to be caught by strong winds. Cables, about 700m in length, tether the kites to vehicles and pull them around a circuit on rails.

‘A generator then converts the kinetic energy of the vehicles into electricity. The control and measuring technology is positioned on the vehicles.’ 

Compared with conventional wind farm technology that relies on rotors, this technology is said to offer a wide range of advantages: at a height of 100m wind speeds are around 15m/sec while at 500m they exceed 20m/sec.

‘The energy yield of a kite far exceeds that of a wind turbine, whose rotor tips turn at a maximum height of 200m. Doubling the wind speed results in eight times the energy,’ said Montnacher. ‘Depending on wind conditions, eight kites with a combined surface area of up to 300m² can equate to 20 conventional 1MW wind turbines.’

According to Fraunhofer, figures for the past year show that at a height of 10m there is only an approximately 35 per cent chance of wind speeds reaching 5m/sec, but at 500m that likelihood goes up to 70 per cent.

This makes any number of new low-land sites viable for the production of wind energy. Another advantage is that it costs less to build a system that, among other things, does not require towers.

High-altitude wind farm

NTS will design the kites and construct the high-altitude wind farm, and the researchers from the IPA will develop the control and measuring technology, which includes the cable winching mechanism and cable store.

One of the jobs of the control unit is to transmit the measuring signals to the cable control and kite regulation mechanisms. A horizontal and vertical angle sensor located in each cable line and a force sensor within the cable distributor guarantee precise control of the kite’s movements as it follows either a figure-of-eight or sine-wave flight path up above.

These flight manoeuvres are claimed to generate a high pulling power of up to 10kN — meaning that a 20m² kite has the capacity to pull one ton. Each vehicle is pulled by a different flight system.

At a test site in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, IPA researchers and NTS sent a remotely controlled kite on its maiden voyage along a 400m-long straight track.

The team now want to reconfigure the test track making it into a loop and computers will eventually be used to achieve fully automatic control of the kites.

Guido Lütsch, managing director of NTS, said: ‘According to our simulations, we could use an NTS track running a total of 24 kites to generate 120GWh/year. To put this into perspective, a 2MW wind turbine produces around 4GWh/year.

‘So an NTS system could replace 30 2MW turbines and supply power to around 30,000 homes.’

After successful test flights on the demonstration track, the project partners are confident that their computer simulations will hold up in reality. The first investors are already on board.

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Intelligent Pump Systems Tap Major Opportunities for Energy SavingsBy Jack Creamer July 10, 2012 02:00:21 pm

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Pumps have historically been a backbone of many applications, including commercial buildings, municipal water and wastewater management, irrigation and agriculture; and are certainly key contributors in industrial systems found in chemical, oil and gas, and pulp and paper industries. Pumping systems account for nearly 25 percent of the energy consumed by electric motors, and for 20 to 60 percent of the total electrical energy usage in many industrial, water and wastewater treatment facilities. Optimizing these processes presents extensive potential savings opportunities, which far exceed more commonplace activity such as motor maintenance/optimization and fan/compressor system upgrades.

Figure 1. A U.S. Department of Energy study shows pumping systems as among the largest energy efficiency opportunities in industrial facilities.

 

While pumps continue to perform the tasks for which they were designed – movement of liquids/solids – there are several trends impacting the future of pumps and pump systems. Historically, pumps have been supplied as part of larger systems and were frequently misapplied, improperly sized, and generally left to be

standalone components in larger systems. Many trends in various industrial markets have increased the visibility of pumping, and ultimately the “pump system” as a key component. Key trends include:

Energy efficiency

System/process efficiency

Environmental concerns

Electrical energy demand is projected to double by 2030, putting the world in the midst of a global energy dilemma. At the same time, environmental trends dictate a need to cut CO2 emissions in half to prevent dramatic environmental impact. While many factors can contribute to both the problem and the resolution, the fact that pumping systems account for nearly 20 percent of the world’s electrical energy demand and range from 25 percent to 50 percent of the energy usage in certain industrial plant operations means improving operational pumping is clearly a key factor.

Figure 2. The global energy dilemma: Electrical demand will double by 2030, and environmental concerns say we should cut CO2 emissions by half.

One powerful driver is life cycle costing (LCC), which is essentially an economic evaluation technique that determines the total cost of owning and operating a pump over the total projected life of the pump. Many organizations only consider the initial purchase and installation cost of a system. It is in the fundamental interest of the plant designer or manager to evaluate the LCC of different solutions before installing major new equipment or carrying out a major overhaul. This evaluation will identify the most financially attractive alternative.

As national and global markets continue to become more competitive, organizations must continually seek cost savings that will improve the

Figure 3. A typical pump life-cycle cost profile shows that initial costs are dwarfed by energy and maintenance costs over the operating life of the pump.

profitability of their operations. Plant equipment operations are receiving particular attention as a source of cost savings, especially minimizing energy consumption and plant downtime. Some studies have shown that

30 percent to 50 percent of the energy consumed by pump systems could be saved through equipment or control system changes, which can have significant impact as can be seen in Figure 3.

Pumping Systems Show Affinity for Energy EfficiencyIn the industrial environment, pumps consume almost 25% of all motor energy use. Yet due to a combination of selection, application and demand considerations (combined with the affinity laws, which state that power savings are proportional to the cube of motor speed reduction), the savings potential in the pump realm is often in excess of 50% of total savings potential.

As energy costs continue to increase, pump manufacturers understand that making equipment more efficient will contribute to saving energy. While traditional methods of specifying and purchasing piping, valves, fittings, pumps and drivers often result in the lowest first cost, these methods often produce systems with unnecessary, expensive energy consumption and higher maintenance costs. A business entity that incorporates the energy, reliability and economic benefits of optimized pumping systems can enhance profits, gain production efficiency improvement opportunities, and initiate necessary capital upgrades for long-term business survival. Pump savings potential revolves around several factors, such as:

Pump sizing: Pumps are either oversized for the application and/or sized to meet the peak demand required.

Operating cycle: Pumps rarely run 24/7 fully loaded – variations exist by time of day, time of year, etc.

Pump wear: Over time, best efficiency points (BEPs) must be maintained to optimize energy consumption.

Figure 4. The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Industrial Technology has determined that pumping system energy savings are potentially greater than energy savings from most other sources combined.

 

Intelligence Comes to Pumping SystemsLet’s take a look at how “intelligent pump systems” can help manage energy consumption, starting with the definition of an intelligent pump system. The ARC Advisory Group defines an intelligent pump as the combination of a pump and a variable-frequency drive (VFD) with digital control capability. The VFD itself is a primary energy savings device due simply to the impact of the affinity laws. The power consumption decreases by the cube of the speed, so a 10 percent reduction in motor speed, while having a nominal effect on flow, reduces energy consumption of the pump by more than 25 percent.

Figure 5. Affinity Law dynamics indicate that a small decrease in centrifugal pump flow and pressure results in a large reduction in energy consumption.

With multi-pump systems, the decision to stage or de-stage is commonly done based on system demand. In a pressure-based system, if there is a drop in pressure, the drives ramp up motor speed. Under conditions of constant demand, a multi-stage system may have multiple pumps running at non-optimal speed. Yet due to inherent fluctuations in demand, altering the number of pumps running may result in the final stage being cycled on and off. As such, consideration of multivariable approach towards the staging or de-staging decision is essential in getting the optimal, energy-efficient control scheme. For a typical pressure-based system, this may involve monitoring torque, flow and time and applying a logic function that can be based in the VFD, a PLC, an HMI or separate logic control functions.

Additional feedback devices need not necessarily bring about an increase in cost. With VFDs, there are ways to approximate the system variables, such as flow, using data the VFD readily tracks, such as torque and current. This allows for smart decision-making in control logic, as described above, and also paves the way for additional pump system functionality. For instance, with approximate flow values, current and torque data available, software can be used to detect leaks and perform appropriate mitigation in the system control logic.

Intelligent pumping solutions also can offer benefits in specific manufacturing systems and/or processes. One such industry where there is particular excitement about intelligent pumping solutions is oil and gas. Most mature onshore oil wells are mature producers, with many producing less than 10 barrels of oil per day. Pumpjack systems, progressive cavity pumps (PCP) and electrical submersible pumps (ESP) work hard to bring oil to the surface, while operators are employing additional recovery techniques to increase productivity.

Many operators use conventional time on/time off pump controls to prevent a pumped off condition from occurring. Although simple to operate and adjust, they do not necessarily maximize production recovery. Process efficiency can be improved with an intelligent pump solution employing a VFD to vary the speed of the equipment to maintain maximum fill rates. There are three types of solutions that can be employed:

Torque only: Using pump motor load information to understand well conditions and determine optimal speed. This would be the least costly solutions for wells of depth up to 500 meters.

Surface card: This solution uses feedback from a rod-mounted load cell to analyze well conditions. It’s capable of optimizing speed and fill rates for deeper wells.

Down-hole card: Advanced algorithms use the rod load at the bottom of the well, maximizing optimization and providing the greatest ROI.

The Environment Comes FirstThere remains the demand to reduce CO2 emissions to prevent/avoid dramatic climate changes. Intelligent pumping also has a play in this arena. In applications such as dewatering and hydraulic fracturing, many companies are deploying VFD solutions in response to factors including emissions and noise regulations, pump efficiency and longevity, and power/fuel efficiency.

In fact, in numerous states such as California, rebates and/or incentives are available to subsidize conversions to motor-driven, VFD-controlled pumps

In summary, pumps play a major, and often understated, role in most industrial activity. The opportunity to reduce energy consumption and related costs, improve industrial processes and contribute to environmental well being are all benefits that can be attributed using intelligent pump systems in many of these applications. Challenge your business to determine how you can realize the benefits of intelligent pumping!

Relevant Tagswater, automation, carbon, electricity, engineering, fluid handling, greenhouse gas, lifecycle analysis, maintenance, motors and drives,

A New Engine Is Coming

August 20, 2012 | 48 Comments

Dr. Norbert Mueller, an associate professor at Michigan State University’s (MSU) college of engineering, plans to have a new engine generating power through a 25-kilowatt battery out later this year.  The new engine connected to a generator and buffered by a battery and likely some capacitor storage would be powerful enough to run a full size vehicle.

The new engine is a “disk wave” chamber instead of a piston in a cylinder.  The disk wave principle uses a novel internal system to generate shock waves by igniting a compressed air and fuel mixture that propels rotors.  No valve gear, pistons, connecting rods or crankshaft.

Disk Wave Engine Layout. See Text below for the explanation. Click image for the largest view. Image Credit: Michigan State University.

ARPA-E, the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy provided a $2.5 million ARPA-E grant in 2009 to Mueller who says, “The wave disk engine is smaller, lighter and easier to manufacture. You have to be aggressive with your research in today’s world if you want to get anywhere.”

Mueller’s engine designed is said to reduce the weight of the engine by 30%, cut the weight of vehicle by up to 20%, improve the fuel economy by using 60% of the fuel for propulsion, reduce the total cost by up to 30%, and reduce the CO2 emissions by 90%.  That’s a very big list with big numbers all in the shadow of the American car companies’ headquarters in Detroit.

Mueller says they have four working bench prototypes, “We have engines – real, working, good-sized models – running right now.”  The MSU research team will turn one of them into a 25-kilowatt disk wave engine and generator package this year, “We’ll be able to drive a full-sized hybrid vehicle, or even a hybrid SUV.”

The engine is a system of rotors with radial channels that work due to timing as the shock waves are generated and move through the system.  To grasp what’s going on, consider a turbine with air going in one end and exhaust gas exiting the other, like a set of fans.  The wave engine – it seems – is like a squirrel cage or centrifugal fan with the air coming in the center and exhaust leaving the perimeter. Seems simple . . .  vent the incoming air fuel mix properly, ignite it and vent it out at the right moment.

Mueller said, “The engine was obviously hard to design. But it’s easy to manufacture. There are many parties – national and international – now interested in it, both in the automotive and base power sectors. Interest in the engine, that’s not a problem.”

The wave disk engine offers a major improvement using 60% of the fuel to create power, making it up to four times as efficient as today piston engines.  That offers a whole new calculation on fuel use.  It would also stuff a plug into the progress of grid charged electric vehicles.  Consumers and the oil companies will love this – cutting 75% of the gas bill for one and staying in the game for the other is a natural symbiosis.

In case you’re wondering why the piston engine isn’t ever going to catch up to turbine types, it’s the working function problems.  Pistons (plus the pins and a part of the mass of the connecting rod) have to go up and down essentially stopping and starting with the acceleration and deceleration twice with each crankshaft turn.  Lots of energy gets used doing that.  Plus there is the air turbulence inside the crankcase – twice the displacement of the engine gets pumped in every revolution using more energy.  There are also all those moving parts, compressing springs and other things gong on.  It’s astonishing the modern internal combustion engine is as efficient as it is.

Mueller can hold the bench prototype engine in just one hand.  The engines would be relatively easy to manufacture and reduce the overall weight of a car by hundreds of pounds, enabling hybrid vehicles to be perhaps 20 percent lighter and 30 percent less expensive.  A series hybrid could be very desirable, indeed.

Researchers Developing Self-Cleaning Coating for Cars

By Doug Newcomb

07.24.12

5:14 PM

<img src="http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/autopia/2012/07/2572230856_0aba0b1671_b-660x495.jpg" alt="" title="2572230856_0aba0b1671_b" width="660" height="495" class="size-large wp-image-48247" />

Photo: jkbrooks85/Flickr

Depending on your relationship with cars, keeping your ride clean is either a ritual act of OCD TLC or you put it off until some wise guy writes “Wash Me” on your back window. If you’re part of the latter group, researchers at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands (or TU/e for short) may have rescued you from spending time with a bucket and hose by developing a surface coating that not only repairs itself of small scratches but is also self-cleaning.

Self-repairing surfaces and water-resistant coatings aren’t new. Nissan has offered a self-healing Scratch Guard Coat on its cars for several years, and the automaker recently included the technology in a Beta test of a scratch-repairing iPhone case. Three years ago, researchers at the University of Southern Mississippi created a polyurethane coating for cars that heals itself when exposed to sunlight. The science behind most self-healing coatings involves implanting nano-capsules that mimic the way human skin repairs itself: The nano-capsules rupture when a scratch occurs and send healing agents into the damaged area of an electroplated coating.

While current applications of the technology lose their self-healing and water-resistant properties over time, Dr. Catarina Esteves, an assistant professor of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry at TU/e, and several colleagues developed a way to keep nano-capsules in self-healing coatings vigilant and vibrant for longer. And keep their surfaces cleaner to boot.

The team developed nano-capsule surfaces with special “stalks” that are mixed throughout the coating, and at their ends contain the functional chemical groups needed for self-repair.

When the outer surface layer becomes detached by wear and tear or a scratch, stalks in the underlying layer reorient to the renew surface and restore the original function and finish. One of the applications for the technology is a highly water-resistant coating that maintains its self-cleaning property longer, making it possible for even slobs to have cleaner cars. Small “that’ll buff right out” type scratches are self-repaired, and water droplets simply roll off the car – taking dirt along with them. So instead of avoiding driving a clean car in the rain, with the TU/e technology an occasional shower is all it takes to maintain a reasonably dirt-free ride. Obviously, this won’t do much good for car-loving Southern Californians and others in the desert Southwest, and no word on whether the self-cleaning properties will last an entire winter.

The benefits of the technology extend beyond just the pleasant and temporal feeling of having a clean car. Other applications could include keeping skylights and solar panels cleaner longer, and it could also be a bonus to airlines and the environment since a cleaner aircraft surface means less air resistance, and reduced fuel consumption.

While the new technology could be a boon for lazy car owners, it still won’t help total klutzes as the self-repairing capabilities are only effective on superficial scratches that don’t completely penetrate the coating. And it won’t be putting car washes out of business anytime soon either. Esteves and her colleagues plan to further develop the technology with other universities and industrial partners (and at prices comparable to those of today’s coatings), but the researchers claim that the first coatings of this type won’t be ready for production for six to eight years

Cutting the cost and time associated with custom fasteners

Page 1 of 3

Alistair Rae looks at some recent developments that are helping designers to reduce the cost and lead time for custom fasteners.

There are thousands of different standard fasteners available. For threaded fasteners alone, if you consider the possible combinations of different thread forms (with many offered in standard, course and fine pitches), lengths, head styles, materials and finishes, the extent of standard product portfolio soon becomes very large. However, there are various reasons why an alternative head form or non-standard length might be required, and it can be beneficial to incorporate location lugs, integral washers, O-ring grooves or other geometric features. Sometimes the 'fastener' can be redesigned so as to additionally perform the functions of another component.

Fastener manufacturers have been highly innovative in recent years, taking advantage of the important role their products can play in reducing bills of materials and assembly time, as well as providing reliable joints in adverse operating conditions. One example of this is Arnold Umformtechnik's screws that benefit from a patented Mathread dog point. These are designed to prevent the screws from being cross-threaded during insertion, which might otherwise result in increased cycle times and damaged assemblies, and a risk of injuries to operatives. As the threads of the patented Mathread dog point come into contact with the female thread, they begin to cam over the female thread, thereby ensuring that the two thread helices align correctly every time without fail (Fig.1). Compared with alternative solutions to this cross-threading problem, screws with Mathread dog point are claimed to be shorter, lighter and can be used in more applications. With innovative features like this available on standard fasteners, the message to designer engineers is that they should not hold back from asking fastener manufacturers to create new products to solve specific assembly problems.

Forget the towers. Let helium do the lifting.April 16, 2012 Paul Dvorak : 1 Comment

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It's not Photoshop. Altaeros Airborne Wind Turbine prototype during testing in Limestone, Maine. A wind energy company formed out of MIT has announced that it has demonstrated high altitude power production from an automated prototype of its airborne wind turbine. The company recently completed testing of a 35-ft scale prototype of the Altaeros Airborne Wind Turbine (AWT) at the Loring Commerce Center in Limestone, Maine. The prototype, fabricated in partnership with Doyle Sailmakers of Salem, Massachusetts, hit several key milestones. The AWT climbed up 350-ft high, produced power at altitude, and landed in an automated cycle. In addition, the prototype lifted a Southwest Skystream turbine to produce over twice the power at high altitude than generated on a conventional tower. The turbine was successfully transported and deployed into the air from a towable docking trailer.

The company is developing its first product to reduce energy costs by up to 65% by harnessing the stronger winds found over 1,000 ft and reducing installation time from weeks to days. In addition, it is designed to have almost no environmental or noise impact and to require minimal maintenance. The Altaeros AWT will displace expensive fuel used to power diesel generators at remote industrial, military, and village sites. In the long term, Altaeros plans to scale up the technology to reduce costs in the offshore wind market.

“For decades, wind turbines have required cranes and huge towers to lift a few hundred feet off the ground where winds can be slow and gusty,” explained Ben Glass, the inventor of the AWT and Altaeros Chief Executive Officer. “We are excited to demonstrate that modern inflatable materials can lift wind turbines into more powerful winds almost everywhere—with a platform that is cost competitive and easy to setup from a shipping container.”

The AWT uses a helium-filled, inflatable shell to ascend to higher altitudes where winds are more consistent and over five times stronger than those reached by traditional tower-mounted turbines. Strong tethers hold the AWT steady and send electricity down to the ground.

The lifting device is adapted from aerostats, industrial cousins of passenger blimps that for decades have lifted heavy communications and radar equipment into the air for long periods of time. Aerostats are rated to survive hurricane-level winds and have safety features that ensure a slow descent to the ground.

In December 2011, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) released draft guidelines for siting the new class of airborne wind systems under existing regulation. The company is currently seeking partners to join its effort to launch the first commercially-available high altitude wind turbine in the world.

Altaeros Energieswww.altaerosenergies.com

Coatings Can Improve Pump Impeller Cavitation Damage Resistance

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By Allan R. Budris

The writer's February 2012 WaterWorld column discussed how various impeller materials impact cavitation damage and pump life, with a brief reference to hard ceramic coatings. However, the issue of impeller coatings for either repair and/or increased resistance to cavitation damage is a complex issue that deserves more coverage, which this column attempts to address. A cavitation resistant coating could be a lower cost, better option than changing to a cavitation resistant material, such as stainless steel.

Original ITT Goulds 3480 impeller after three months of operation. Photo courtesy of Belzona

Techniques available for cavitation damage repair and/or prevention include: weld overlays and inlays, plasma sprays, thermal sprays (such as Stellite 6), reinforced epoxy coatings, unreinforced polyurethane coatings, and ceramic coatings. Ideally, the material used to repair/prevent cavitation damage should be selected to minimize capital costs, while maximizing the service life, under the expected operating conditions.

In the past, the most commonly used method, which produced the most durable coatings, used weld overlay techniques. However, weld overlays are expensive and required a high skill level. Instead, this column focuses on the more affordable polymer coatings, such as (ceramic) reinforced epoxies (which have also been used widely) and unreinforced polyurethane (which have superior cavitation resistance). Compared with a weld overlay technique, the advantages of epoxy and polyurethane compound coatings include: (1) significantly reduced labor costs, (2) avoidance of thermally-

induced residual stresses in the repaired components, and (3) improved control of component contours through the use of templates.

Reinforced Epoxy Coatings

To improve wear resistance, epoxy coatings are mixed with hard-ceramic particles of alumina, silicon carbide, or the likes. Although reinforced epoxies have enjoyed some success with low intensity cavitation, it is difficult to predict their performance. The average life of epoxy coatings has been found to be relatively short, from 6 months to 1 year. Since the bond strength between the epoxy and metallic substrate depends on the surface condition, over time, the repair compounds may fail due to cavitation and mechanical fatigue of the bond interface. However, epoxy coating can be quite effective in replacing worn away metal surfaces during a repair.

Polyurethane Coatings

Although polyurethane coatings are available in both reinforced and non-reinforced versions, only flexible unreinforced polyurethane (elastomer) coatings have been found to be significantly more resistant to the effects of cavitation. Several coating manufacturers (Belzona and Metaline) have developed such coatings. These unreinforced elastomeric coatings retain adhesion under long term immersion, dissipating energy created under medium to high intensity cavitation conditions, and also provide outstanding resistance to erosion/ corrosion.

ITT Goulds 3480 impeller after Belzona 1321 / 1241 composite coating. Photo courtesy of Belzona

Laboratory and field tests show cavitation performance superior to stainless steel and much better than carbon steel and cast iron. Substrate surface preparation is key to assuring that the coating will exhibit the required long term adhesion under cavitating conditions.

The reason that elastomer, unreinforced polyurethane coated metal can perform better than some metals is that it can dissipated the cavitation energy, while avoiding the permanent deformations in the metal in the form of rough pitting (which typifies cavitation). The surface of the elastomer coating acts like a spring when impacted by the imploding microjets of the cavitation bubbles. This energy will produce a given displacement of the surface which is linearly proportional to the spring constant of the elastomer. As long as this displacement does not exceed the elastic limit of the elastomer, it will revert to its original shape and not suffer any adverse effects other than a miniscule increase in temperature which is rapidly rejected to the fluid.

Belzona modified one of its unreinforced polyurethane, durable, and abrasion resistant elastomers coatings to make it more suitable for cavitation service. The resulting cavitation resistant coating (Belzona 2141) has performed very well in both controlled laboratory tests and field installations.

One such field application involved an ITT Goulds 3480 double suction pump impeller, which was rebuilt at a pump workshop. This impeller was regularly being replaced at a cost of $5,000 because of very severe cavitation, which was destroying it every 3 months. After two coats of a reinforced epoxy coating (Belzona 1321) to rebuild the worn surfaces, it was coated with a final coat of Belzona 2141 at a total cost of $1,650, including labor. After 30,000 hours of continuous operation (41 months) the impeller was inspected and found to be 98% intact. The tiny defects that needed repaired were from solids that had gotten through holes in the strainer. The customer is extremely happy so far with the Belzona 2141 coating. Over the 41 month run, the coating produced a savings of $68,350.

Hydraulic Cautions

Whenever any coating is applied to the inlet of an impeller, care must be taken to insure that the coating thickness does not significantly increase the thickness of the leading edges of the impeller vanes, or markedly reduce the inlet throat area between the impeller vanes. Thicker vane leading edges and/or smaller inlet throat areas will increase the velocities at the impeller inlet, which increases the pump NPSHR and results in more cavitation. This additional cavitation can lead to increased damage, if the pump "Suction Energy" is high enough (see October 2007 column). Any such significant increase in cavitation could counter the benefits of the cavitation resistant coating. These repairs should also retain the original impeller vane shape to avoid negative impacts on the pump performance. A small change in impeller vane shape can have a relatively large affect on the head, capacity, efficiency and/or NPSHR of a pump. Generally the larger the pump the less it will be affected by the thickness of a coating.

Conclusions

When a centrifugal pump experiences premature damaging cavitation, and the Net Positive Suction Head Available (NPSHA) cannot be significantly increased, there are still options available. These options include more cavitation resistant impeller materials, and various metal and polymer coatings. The most cost effective / cavitation resistant coatings appear to fall in the unreinforced polyurethane, elastomer family. Polymer coatings can also slightly increase overall pump efficiency. The writer's May 2008 column, gives a field example of how polymer coatings can be used to repair worn pump casings and increase their efficiency.

References

1. "Do Coatings Protect against Corrosion and Wear?", Bernd Schramm, Anja Dwars & Andreas Kuhl, Techno Digest No. 10, December 2004.

2. "Application of Thermal Spray and Ceramic Coatings and Reinforced Epoxy for Cavitation Damage Repair of Hydroelectric Turbines and Pumps", Richard Ruzga, Paul Willis & Ashok Kumar, USACERL Technical Report FM-93/0, March 1993.

About the Author: Allan R. Budris, P.E., is an independent consulting engineer who specializes in training, failure analysis, troubleshooting, reliability, efficiency audits and litigation support on pumps and pumping systems. With offices in Washington, NJ, he can be contacted via e-mail at budrisconsulting@comcast.net.

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Peristaltic Pump Evolution01/01/2011

By Todd Loudin, President, Larox Flowsys North America

The earliest peristaltic pumps have been in existence since the 1930s. The designs have been continuously refined to improve performance and enhance lifetime over the years. Throughout the early developmental years of the peristaltic pump, the greatest improvements have been advancements in rubber technology.

Peristaltic pumps are used in a huge number of industries. They can be used in printing inks and colorings, mining slurries, waste water slurries, bleach, sodium bromide and lime slurry pumping. Peristaltic pumps also are excellent for suction lift applications. As with all technologies, they evolve and improve. Early designs were inhibited by the shoe design limitations and inferior rubber technology. If you have tried peristaltic pumps in the past and were not completely satisfied, you should consider trying one again based on the improvements that have been made.

The average driver has also experienced this advancement with their automobile’s tires, wiper blades, hoses and tubes. In earlier years, these components were not durable and often required repairs. As rubber technology improved, the need for replacements became seldom. Peristaltic pump technology has advanced similarly, but the quality and prevalence of rubber gets overlooked. If the average consumer would take the time to consider the reliable performance of their automobile tires, they would quickly realize that rubber is an amazingly durable material.

To further establish the significance of superior rubber technology in pumping systems, we must look upon progressive cavity, centrifugal and diaphragm pumping technologies and also larger-diameter peristaltic pumps. These all rely on rubber as one of the most important wear components of their pumps. The rubber hose is the main wear element and in most designs is the only part that is replaced periodically.

Both early and current peristaltic pump designs have fixed shoes that slide against the hose and generate friction and heat, so enormous amounts of glycerin are required to dissipate the heat. Many sliding shoe peristaltic pump users understand that the glycerin required is a costly nuisance when the pump needs to be repaired. One gallon of peristaltic pump glycerin costs around $85 a gallon and a typical 3-inch sliding shoe peristaltic pump uses about 10 gallons of glycerin. Therefore, every hose failure is a loss of $850 in glycerin, not including the 10 gallons of contaminated glycerin that must be disposed.

Sliding-shoe-design peristaltic pumps cannot be continuously run at a high rpm. For instance, a 3-inch peristaltic pump may have a limit of 40 rpm for continuous service. In order to run a larger shoe design pump at higher rpms, it is necessary to run it for two hours and then turn it off and let it cool for one hour. Obviously this downtime is not ideal or even possible in many cases. Some applications have to run two pumps at the same time to keep the process running continuously, which is costly.

Newer and more advanced peristaltic designs use either single or double rollers, which eliminate 80 percent of the friction caused by sliding shoe designs and allow the pumps to run at higher rpms. Roller designs require only a fraction of the glycerin used in shoe designs and have significantly longer hose lives. The motor size required in the larger diameter peristaltic pumps is significantly smaller in roller designs than in sliding shoe designs. A 3-inch roller design peristaltic pump only requires 2.2 gallons of glycerin, as opposed to 10 gallons for a sliding shoe design. At $85 a gallon, the savings on each hose change for the rolling design pump is $663 in glycerin alone. Roller design pumps can run at higher rpms and still produce a longer hose lifetime than shoe-design peristaltic pumps. In many cases, the work or flow rate that a 3-inch shoe design pump produces can be accomplished by a 2.5-inch roller design peristaltic pump.

In peristaltic pumps the major determining factor of hose life is the number of times the hose is compressed. The medium that is pumped through can have an impact, but the number of hose compressions is the single most important factor in determining or estimating hose life. A large majority of peristaltic pumps compress the hose two times per revolution, but to ensure the longest hose life, a single roller design is the ideal choice. Sliding- shoe designs generate significant heat, which breaks down the hose quickly. The hose lifetime of a single or multiple roller design pump is two times longer than a shoe-design peristaltic pump. As seen in the accompanying table the hose lifetime in some cases may be four to five times longer with a rolling design.

The cost of running a peristaltic pump on extremely abrasive slurry for a one-year time frame is much more economical than many other pumping technologies. For instance, if a 3-inch progressive cavity pump was utilized in the above application, the cost of rotor and stator replacement over a one-year time frame may be as much as $50,000. So regardless of which type of peristaltic pump considered, it may produce significant cost savings compared to some other types of pumps. Also, peristaltic pumps can run dry which in many cases is the reason for rotor and stator failures in progressive cavity pumps.

Peristaltic pumps are positive displacement devices and can be controlled very accurately with a variable frequency drive. Simply speeding up or slowing the pump will change the flow rate linearly. In cases where centrifugal pumps are used and

the required flow output is a wide range, a customer may have problems controlling it below the pump curve. This is not the case with peristaltic pumps.

Maintenance of all peristaltic pumps is relatively simple. It consists of removing a broken or damaged hose, cleaning the pump’s interior casing of any contamination and then installing a new hose with the amount of glycerin required by the manufacturer. In some designs this can be accomplished by one worker in 15 to 20 minutes. In other designs it may require as many as three people, but is still less time-consuming than completing a hose change. Peristaltic pumps do not require removing the pump from the pipeline or taking it to a repair shop. Instead, repair work can be done where the pump is installed. With centrifugal or progressive cavity pump re-builds, the complete pump is almost always removed from its mounting and piping and taken to a repair shop to be rebuilt. The rebuild time with these other types of pumps is typically an eight-hour shift, if all the parts are in stock. With peristaltic pumps the only required parts are a new hose and the necessary amount of glycerin.

Peristaltic pumps produce pulsations. Many applications require a high-quality pulsation dampener. Since peristaltic pumps are positive displacement devices, it is recommended to install a programmable pressure transmitter on the pump outlet. This can shut down the pump if pressure begins to approach higher-than-desired levels. Another option is to have a rupture disc installed downstream of the pump to prevent undesirable pressure spikes.

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Induction Lighting Goes MainstreamDec. 20, 2010 Susan Bloom, Susan Bloom Consulting | Electrical Construction and Maintenance

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Why this energy-efficient, long-life lighting solution is becoming more popular

Induction lighting is a type of electrodeless lamp, a light source in which the power required to generate light is transferred from the outside of the lamp envelope by means of electromagnetic fields or induction. In other words, induction lamps don’t use electrodes; instead, they use the principle of induction (transmission of energy by way of magnetic field). This contrasts with a traditional electric lamp, which uses electrical connections within the lamp envelope to transfer power. Except for this method of transferring power, induction lighting is similar to conventional fluorescent lamp technology in the way that UV is converted to visible light with the use of phosphors (e.g., mercury vapor in the discharge vessel is electrically excited to produce short-wave ultraviolet light, which then excites the phosphors coating the interior of the lamp to produce visible light), as shown in the Figure (click here to see Figure).

Although they are gaining in popularity, induction lamps have actually been commercially available for the last 20 years. The first type, introduced in the early 1990s, was shaped like an incandescent bulb. Today, there are two main types of magnetic induction lamps — internal and external inductor technology. The original and still widely used form of induction lamps are the internal inductor types. External inductor types, which are a more recent development with a wider range of applications, are available in round-, rectangular-, and olive-shaped versions.

While there are no clear estimates on the size of the induction lighting market in units or dollars — because sales of this product aren’t currently broken out by any regulatory body, such as the National Electrical Manufacturers Association — some manufacturers and installers report growth and opportunity in this area, especially within industrial, high-bay, and exterior area lighting applications.

The benefits

The absence of electrodes in induction technology offers users several benefits:

Extended lamp life, as the electrodes are usually the limiting factor in lamp life. By not incorporating an electrode, the lamp life is only limited by the life of the electronic components. Most induction lamps sport an impressive lamp life of 60,000 hr to 100,000 hr.

Improved efficiency levels, with lumen-per-watt efficacies in the 80 to 90 range.

Reduced costs. Currently estimated at half that of solid-state and metal-halide light sources in specific applications.

Easy one-for-one lamp and ballast retrofits.

High quality of light (80 or better), as measured by the color rendering index (CRI).

Other benefits include instant-on capability (enabling use with a photocell or motion sensor), lumen maintenance in excess of 70% of its light output at 100,000 hr, minimal color shifting, and starting temperatures as low as -40°F, supporting their use in extreme temperature conditions.

The drawbacks

To provide a truly fair assessment of these lamp types, however, it’s also useful to know the applications for which induction lighting technology is not best suited. Based on its diffuse

nature, induction technology is not ideal for accent lighting (e.g., retail track lighting or otherwise), where the objective would be to create contrast and highlights.

“Induction does well in a wider thermal range (ambient temperatures), but may not have the directional capabilities for certain street lighting applications where the customer requires a more controlled distribution pattern,” says David Alpert, executive major account representative with Sylvania Lighting Services, Danvers, Mass.

In addition, based on its current price range of around $300, induction is not necessarily best suited for projects where first cost is a priority, although it may deliver an attractive payback when considered in the context of its total cost of ownership over its life.

Available options

Some of the most popular induction lamp products currently in the marketplace are those in the 55W to 165W range. The lower-wattage products are popular in area lighting installations, and the higher-wattage products are typically directed toward indoor applications. Products are also available on both sides of this range. The 200W lamps satisfy user needs for high-wattage options in industrial high-bay applications. On the lower end, 40W lamps are popular for their ability to support exterior applications requiring less light output, such as downlighting, canopies, security lighting, etc. Manufacturers are also focusing on ballast development for induction lamps and will be launching ballasts with continuous and bi-level dimming capabilities in the coming months.

Modern applications

A broad range of interior and exterior applications can benefit from induction lighting.

Externally, these include area lighting for municipal streets, parks, campuses, parking garages, and tunnels. Induction lighting has also been very effective as a light source on offshore oil rigs because of its stability, long life, and high resistance to vibration. One of the more high-profile uses of induction lighting technology was near Washington, D.C. within the Pentagon Memorial, unveiled on September 11, 2008, and designed to honor that site’s 9/11 victims (see SIDEBAR: A Fitting and Long Lasting Tribute below). 

Interior atria spaces with high ceilings, such as two-story retail spaces and airport concourses, can also benefit from induction lighting, as can other diffuse/general lighting applications, such as industrial low-bay/high-bay settings, exterior signage installations based on the -40°F starting temperature (large box signage especially), covered parking facilities, decorative post-top street lights, and exterior-mounted security lights. Other successful interior installations have occurred in gyms, indoor sports fields, and indoor equestrian facilities. In addition, the technology is well-suited to cold storage applications like walk-in freezers and unconditioned warehouses, where induction lighting can be combined with occupancy sensors for maximum efficiency.

Overall, induction technology is ideal in any application where long life is critical and/or where maintenance cost avoidance is a priority, such as in difficult-to-reach applications like high ceilings where lift trucks are required or hazardous locations, such as bridges and tunnels.

Tips for contractors

Although this technology is not as old as some others, induction lighting is mature and proven, delivering attractive white light, high lumen maintenance, significant energy savings, and long life to a variety of indoor and outdoor applications. So how do you put this technology to work for you and capture some new business in the process? Here are several tips for electrical contractors to consider:

Because induction lighting carries a relatively higher initial cost than some other light sources, you must sell induction lighting on the basis of the total cost of ownership over the life of the technology, stressing its energy efficiency and long life.

Thermal management of an induction system (with the electronics) is critical for the life of the system, and its life can be significantly impacted by the degree of control exerted over the temperature of the electronic components. Although the system is intended to last for years, improper design of an induction luminaire will negatively impact its lifespan. “Temperature and fixture venting definitely play a big part in how well any of these products will perform and last over time,” says Alpert.

Stick with reputable induction lighting products and brands. “There are numerous off-shore solutions vying for the business,” says Alpert. “Beware of companies that are making 100,000-hr claims with 90+% lumen maintenance on their induction lamps, as testing has revealed that many offshore products have poor lumen maintenance due to their manufacturing process.”

Proper installation is critical. “Our contractors install both new fixtures that use induction components as well as retrofit kits that will work in many existing fixtures,” says Alpert. “Whether a new fixture or a retrofit is involved, it’s important to understand that the efficiency of the fixture is predicated on good optics. Retrofit kits should include a new reflector to properly illuminate the area.”

Bloom, a freelancer and consultant, is an 18-year veteran of the lighting and electrical products industry. She can be reached at susan.bloom.chester@gmail.com.

 

Induction Lighting Goes MainstreamDec. 20, 2010 Susan Bloom, Susan Bloom Consulting | Electrical Construction and Maintenance

EMAIL

INSHARE

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Why this energy-efficient, long-life lighting solution is becoming more popular

Induction lighting is a type of electrodeless lamp, a light source in which the power required to generate light is transferred from the outside of the lamp envelope by means of electromagnetic fields or induction. In other words, induction lamps don’t use electrodes; instead, they use the principle of induction (transmission of energy by way of magnetic field). This contrasts with a traditional electric lamp, which uses electrical connections within the lamp envelope to transfer power. Except for this method of transferring power, induction lighting is similar to conventional fluorescent lamp technology in the way that UV is converted to visible light with the use of phosphors (e.g., mercury vapor in the discharge vessel is electrically excited to produce short-wave ultraviolet light, which then excites the phosphors coating the interior of the lamp to produce visible light), as shown in the Figure (click here to see Figure).

Although they are gaining in popularity, induction lamps have actually been commercially available for the last 20 years. The first type, introduced in the early 1990s, was shaped like an incandescent bulb. Today, there are two main types of magnetic induction lamps — internal and external inductor technology. The original and still widely used form of induction lamps are the internal inductor types. External inductor types, which are a more recent development with a wider range of applications, are available in round-, rectangular-, and olive-shaped versions.

While there are no clear estimates on the size of the induction lighting market in units or dollars — because sales of this product aren’t currently broken out by any regulatory body, such as the National Electrical Manufacturers Association — some manufacturers and installers report growth and opportunity in this area, especially within industrial, high-bay, and exterior area lighting applications.

The benefits

The absence of electrodes in induction technology offers users several benefits:

Extended lamp life, as the electrodes are usually the limiting factor in lamp life. By not incorporating an electrode, the lamp life is only limited by the life of the electronic components. Most induction lamps sport an impressive lamp life of 60,000 hr to 100,000 hr.

Improved efficiency levels, with lumen-per-watt efficacies in the 80 to 90 range.

Reduced costs. Currently estimated at half that of solid-state and metal-halide light sources in specific applications.

Easy one-for-one lamp and ballast retrofits.

High quality of light (80 or better), as measured by the color rendering index (CRI).

Other benefits include instant-on capability (enabling use with a photocell or motion sensor), lumen maintenance in excess of 70% of its light output at 100,000 hr, minimal color shifting, and starting temperatures as low as -40°F, supporting their use in extreme temperature conditions.

The drawbacks

To provide a truly fair assessment of these lamp types, however, it’s also useful to know the applications for which induction lighting technology is not best suited. Based on its diffuse nature, induction technology is not ideal for accent lighting (e.g., retail track lighting or otherwise), where the objective would be to create contrast and highlights.

“Induction does well in a wider thermal range (ambient temperatures), but may not have the directional capabilities for certain street lighting applications where the customer requires a more controlled distribution pattern,” says David Alpert, executive major account representative with Sylvania Lighting Services, Danvers, Mass.

In addition, based on its current price range of around $300, induction is not necessarily best suited for projects where first cost is a priority, although it may deliver an attractive payback when considered in the context of its total cost of ownership over its life.

Available options

Some of the most popular induction lamp products currently in the marketplace are those in the 55W to 165W range. The lower-wattage products are popular in area lighting installations, and the higher-wattage products are typically directed toward indoor applications. Products are also available on both sides of this range. The 200W lamps satisfy user needs for high-wattage options in industrial high-bay applications. On the lower end, 40W lamps are popular for their ability to support exterior applications requiring less light output, such as downlighting, canopies, security lighting, etc. Manufacturers are also focusing on ballast development for induction lamps and will be launching ballasts with continuous and bi-level dimming capabilities in the coming months.

Modern applications

A broad range of interior and exterior applications can benefit from induction lighting.

Externally, these include area lighting for municipal streets, parks, campuses, parking garages, and tunnels. Induction lighting has also been very effective as a light source on offshore oil rigs because of its stability, long life, and high resistance to vibration. One of the more high-profile uses of induction lighting technology was near Washington, D.C. within the Pentagon Memorial, unveiled on September 11, 2008, and designed to honor that site’s 9/11 victims (see SIDEBAR: A Fitting and Long Lasting Tribute below). 

Interior atria spaces with high ceilings, such as two-story retail spaces and airport concourses, can also benefit from induction lighting, as can other diffuse/general lighting applications, such as industrial low-bay/high-bay settings, exterior signage installations based on the -40°F starting temperature (large box signage especially), covered parking facilities, decorative post-top street lights, and exterior-mounted security lights. Other successful interior installations have occurred in gyms, indoor sports fields, and indoor equestrian facilities. In addition, the technology is well-suited to cold storage applications like walk-in freezers and unconditioned warehouses, where induction lighting can be combined with occupancy sensors for maximum efficiency.

Overall, induction technology is ideal in any application where long life is critical and/or where maintenance cost avoidance is a priority, such as in difficult-to-reach applications like high ceilings where lift trucks are required or hazardous locations, such as bridges and tunnels.

Tips for contractors

Although this technology is not as old as some others, induction lighting is mature and proven, delivering attractive white light, high lumen maintenance, significant energy savings, and long life to a variety of indoor and outdoor applications. So how do you put this technology to work for you and capture some new business in the process? Here are several tips for electrical contractors to consider:

Because induction lighting carries a relatively higher initial cost than some other light sources, you must sell induction lighting on the basis of the total cost of ownership over the life of the technology, stressing its energy efficiency and long life.

Thermal management of an induction system (with the electronics) is critical for the life of the system, and its life can be significantly impacted by the degree of control exerted over the temperature of the electronic components. Although the system is intended to last for years, improper design of an induction luminaire will negatively impact its lifespan. “Temperature and fixture venting definitely play a big part in how well any of these products will perform and last over time,” says Alpert.

Stick with reputable induction lighting products and brands. “There are numerous off-shore solutions vying for the business,” says Alpert. “Beware of companies that are making 100,000-hr claims with 90+% lumen maintenance on their induction lamps, as testing has revealed that many offshore products have poor lumen maintenance due to their manufacturing process.”

Proper installation is critical. “Our contractors install both new fixtures that use induction components as well as retrofit kits that will work in many existing fixtures,” says Alpert. “Whether a new fixture or a retrofit is involved, it’s important to understand that the efficiency of the fixture is predicated on good optics. Retrofit kits should include a new reflector to properly illuminate the area.”

Bloom, a freelancer and consultant, is an 18-year veteran of the lighting and electrical products industry. She can be reached at susan.bloom.chester@gmail.com.

 

Induction Lighting Goes MainstreamDec. 20, 2010 Susan Bloom, Susan Bloom Consulting | Electrical Construction and Maintenance

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Why this energy-efficient, long-life lighting solution is becoming more popular

Induction lighting is a type of electrodeless lamp, a light source in which the power required to generate light is transferred from the outside of the lamp envelope by means of electromagnetic fields or induction. In other words, induction lamps don’t use electrodes; instead, they use the principle of induction (transmission of energy by way of magnetic field). This contrasts with a traditional electric lamp, which uses electrical connections within the lamp envelope to transfer power. Except for this method of transferring power, induction lighting is similar to conventional fluorescent lamp technology in the way that UV is converted to visible light with the use of phosphors (e.g., mercury vapor in the discharge vessel is electrically excited to produce short-wave ultraviolet light, which then excites the phosphors coating the interior of the lamp to produce visible light), as shown in the Figure (click here to see Figure).

Although they are gaining in popularity, induction lamps have actually been commercially available for the last 20 years. The first type, introduced in the early 1990s, was shaped like an incandescent bulb. Today, there are two main types of magnetic induction lamps — internal and external inductor technology. The original and still widely used form of induction lamps are the internal inductor types. External inductor types, which are a more recent development with a wider range of applications, are available in round-, rectangular-, and olive-shaped versions.

While there are no clear estimates on the size of the induction lighting market in units or dollars — because sales of this product aren’t currently broken out by any regulatory body, such as the National Electrical Manufacturers Association — some manufacturers and installers report growth and opportunity in this area, especially within industrial, high-bay, and exterior area lighting applications.

The benefits

The absence of electrodes in induction technology offers users several benefits:

Extended lamp life, as the electrodes are usually the limiting factor in lamp life. By not incorporating an electrode, the lamp life is only limited by the life of the electronic components. Most induction lamps sport an impressive lamp life of 60,000 hr to 100,000 hr.

Improved efficiency levels, with lumen-per-watt efficacies in the 80 to 90 range.

Reduced costs. Currently estimated at half that of solid-state and metal-halide light sources in specific applications.

Easy one-for-one lamp and ballast retrofits.

High quality of light (80 or better), as measured by the color rendering index (CRI).

Other benefits include instant-on capability (enabling use with a photocell or motion sensor), lumen maintenance in excess of 70% of its light output at 100,000 hr, minimal color shifting, and starting temperatures as low as -40°F, supporting their use in extreme temperature conditions.

The drawbacks

To provide a truly fair assessment of these lamp types, however, it’s also useful to know the applications for which induction lighting technology is not best suited. Based on its diffuse

nature, induction technology is not ideal for accent lighting (e.g., retail track lighting or otherwise), where the objective would be to create contrast and highlights.

“Induction does well in a wider thermal range (ambient temperatures), but may not have the directional capabilities for certain street lighting applications where the customer requires a more controlled distribution pattern,” says David Alpert, executive major account representative with Sylvania Lighting Services, Danvers, Mass.

In addition, based on its current price range of around $300, induction is not necessarily best suited for projects where first cost is a priority, although it may deliver an attractive payback when considered in the context of its total cost of ownership over its life.

Available options

Some of the most popular induction lamp products currently in the marketplace are those in the 55W to 165W range. The lower-wattage products are popular in area lighting installations, and the higher-wattage products are typically directed toward indoor applications. Products are also available on both sides of this range. The 200W lamps satisfy user needs for high-wattage options in industrial high-bay applications. On the lower end, 40W lamps are popular for their ability to support exterior applications requiring less light output, such as downlighting, canopies, security lighting, etc. Manufacturers are also focusing on ballast development for induction lamps and will be launching ballasts with continuous and bi-level dimming capabilities in the coming months.

Modern applications

A broad range of interior and exterior applications can benefit from induction lighting.

Externally, these include area lighting for municipal streets, parks, campuses, parking garages, and tunnels. Induction lighting has also been very effective as a light source on offshore oil rigs because of its stability, long life, and high resistance to vibration. One of the more high-profile uses of induction lighting technology was near Washington, D.C. within the Pentagon Memorial, unveiled on September 11, 2008, and designed to honor that site’s 9/11 victims (see SIDEBAR: A Fitting and Long Lasting Tribute below). 

Interior atria spaces with high ceilings, such as two-story retail spaces and airport concourses, can also benefit from induction lighting, as can other diffuse/general lighting applications, such as industrial low-bay/high-bay settings, exterior signage installations based on the -40°F starting temperature (large box signage especially), covered parking facilities, decorative post-top street lights, and exterior-mounted security lights. Other successful interior installations have occurred in gyms, indoor sports fields, and indoor equestrian facilities. In addition, the technology is well-suited to cold storage applications like walk-in freezers and unconditioned warehouses, where induction lighting can be combined with occupancy sensors for maximum efficiency.

Overall, induction technology is ideal in any application where long life is critical and/or where maintenance cost avoidance is a priority, such as in difficult-to-reach applications like high ceilings where lift trucks are required or hazardous locations, such as bridges and tunnels.

Tips for contractors

Although this technology is not as old as some others, induction lighting is mature and proven, delivering attractive white light, high lumen maintenance, significant energy savings, and long life to a variety of indoor and outdoor applications. So how do you put this technology to work for you and capture some new business in the process? Here are several tips for electrical contractors to consider:

Because induction lighting carries a relatively higher initial cost than some other light sources, you must sell induction lighting on the basis of the total cost of ownership over the life of the technology, stressing its energy efficiency and long life.

Thermal management of an induction system (with the electronics) is critical for the life of the system, and its life can be significantly impacted by the degree of control exerted over the temperature of the electronic components. Although the system is intended to last for years, improper design of an induction luminaire will negatively impact its lifespan. “Temperature and fixture venting definitely play a big part in how well any of these products will perform and last over time,” says Alpert.

Stick with reputable induction lighting products and brands. “There are numerous off-shore solutions vying for the business,” says Alpert. “Beware of companies that are making 100,000-hr claims with 90+% lumen maintenance on their induction lamps, as testing has revealed that many offshore products have poor lumen maintenance due to their manufacturing process.”

Proper installation is critical. “Our contractors install both new fixtures that use induction components as well as retrofit kits that will work in many existing fixtures,” says Alpert. “Whether a new fixture or a retrofit is involved, it’s important to understand that the efficiency of the fixture is predicated on good optics. Retrofit kits should include a new reflector to properly illuminate the area.”

Bloom, a freelancer and consultant, is an 18-year veteran of the lighting and electrical products industry. She can be reached at susan.bloom.chester@gmail.com.

 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

AboutSupplier:

optek-Danulat, Inc.

Since 1984, optek has become the proven world leader in high-performance photometry. optek offers a complete line of UV/VIS/NIR and scattered light-based photometric analyzers, designed for installation directly in process pipelines, tanks and vessels. 

Using a unique modular design, optek systems typically feature advanced photometric converters, coupled with rugged, inline or probe-style sensors. Available in hundreds of different configurations, this modular design approach allows us to specify systems for virtually any process application, from ultra-sanitary to hazardous classifications. 

Every optek product is subject to demanding standards of precision and durability, from the earliest stages of design and development. Performance and reliability is proven through countless tests and trials. This robustness is vital, because optek instruments are challenged day after day, to harsh extremes of pressure, temperature and corrosive environments. 

Because of this superior quality, optek technology is used in thousands of plants spanning the globe. More than 20,000 optek photometric analyzers are controlling vital processes in a wide range of critical liquid and gas processing applications. 

Common Industries:

Industrial and SpecialtyWater and Waste Water

Beverages and Brewing

Food and Dairy

Life Sciences

Typical Applications:

Diatomaceous Earth (DE) Filtration Control & MonitoringInline Process Color Measurement

Electroplating: Solution Concentration Monitoring and Control

Vegetable Oil Refining

Energywise Green Tech Solar

India Plans to Install 26 Million Solar-powered Water PumpsBy Katherine Tweed

Posted 20 Feb 2014 | 21:08 GMT

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Photo: SunEdison

India’s government wants to replace 26 million groundwater pumps for irrigation with more efficient pumps that run on solar power, in an effort to relieve farmers of high costs of diesel fuel. Diesel generators are commonly used when grid power is unavailable, a not uncommon occurrence. And the power used for pumping irrigation water is also one of the largest strains on the Indian power grid.

The initiative is expected to require $US 1.6 billion in investment in the next five years just to switch out the first 200 000 pumps, according to Bloomberg.

Pumping water is critical for Indian agriculture, which otherwise relies on seasonal rain. It's also very contentious—Indian farmers are currently drawing more water than is sustainable, removing about 212 million megaliters from the ground each year to irrigate about 35 million hectares.

One of the risks of switching to solar pumps, however, is that farmers may use even more water than they currently do with expensive diesel generators. To combat that unintended consequence, the farmers who accept the subsidies to purchase the solar water pumps must switch to drip irrigation. The state of Punjab is also offering subsidies for drip irrigation. 

The government thinks the upside of solar pumps will outweigh the risks. “The potential is huge,” Tarun Kapoor, joint secretary at India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, told Bloomberg. “Irrigation pumps may be the single largest application for solar in the country.”

Falling prices of solar panels means that the payback for a solar water pump system is about one to four years, Ajay Coel, CEO of Tata Power Solar Systems, told Bloomberg. Some state governments in India are subsidizing most of the cost of the systems because it helps eliminate the billions of dollars in annual farm diesel subsidies that go to farmers.

Agriculture isn’t the only sector that the government is trying to wean off of heavily subsidized diesel. Mandates will require 75 percent of rural and 33 percent of urban telecom towers to run on renewables by 2020. 

Solar powered “water ATMs” are also bringing clean water to rural India. All of this activity is part of why India is expected to be the fifth largest market for solar PV by 2015. It is not just small, rural projects to supplant diesel, either. India has plans for a 4-gigawatt solar PV plant, which would nearly triple the country’s solar capacity and be the largest in the world.

Prevent "Water Hammer" and "Reverse Flow"

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Have a problem with failing double door style check valves ? Who doesn't!

Want to prevent "water hammer" and "reverse flow" and have tight shut-off? Sure you would!

Why are you consistently specifying or replacing check valves that are costing you money? Break the habit and upgrade to a DFT check valve that works!

DFT Inc. has the solution to replace those problem check valves - the ALC. Offered from 2"-24", ASME Class 150#-300# , meeting API-594 face to face dimensions, in both A216 grade WCB Carbon Steel and A351 CF8M Stainless Steel bodies with all Stainless Steel trim. These center guided, non-slam, spring assisted silent check valves are a direct replacement for those constantly failing double door style check valves. The ALC can be used in both the vertical or horizontal positions, available with a Inconel X-750 springs, 0.5 psi cracking pressure and the meets, or exceeds, MSS SP 61 specifications. Metal to metal seats or soft seats for zero leakage. Applications include liquids, gases or steam. Tapped lifting lug holes are provided in the body for ease of installation in the 10" and larger ALC's.

For further information on the ALC and all of the other Non-Slam, Silent Check Valves available from DFT Inc. visit our website @ www.dft-valves.com ,or contact us at: dft@dft-valves.com, or phone 1-800-206-4013.

Medical Breathalyzer Can Smell Type I Diabetes on the BreathBy

Clay Dillow

Posted 05.21.2010 at 10:16 am 1 Comment

17

<img alt="" class="" data-image_style="article_image_large" typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://www.popsci.com/sites/popsci.com/files/styles/article_image_large/public/images/2010/05/Glucosehires.JPG?itok=ejTB3AEL" width="525" height="588" title="" />

Checking for Low Insulin

A breathalyzer that measures for the telltale signs of low insulin means someday diabetics who fear the needle pricks should be able to breathe easier.

ACS

A new diagnostic test developed by researchers at ETH Zurich can tell if a patient has Type I diabetes, but gone are the days of blood samples and lab work. The new nanotech sensor can tell instantly if a patient has diabetes or an associated complication called diabetic ketoacidosis by simply analyzing a sample of exhaled breath.

The sensor -- a breathalyzer of sorts for diabetes -- scans the breath for high levels of acetone, a biomarker associated with Type I diabetes. If an exceptionally high level of acetone is detected, it's a strong indicator that the person is suffering from ketoacidosis, a potentially serious buildup of acetone in the blood that occurs when insulin levels fall too low.

The sensor takes advantage of a the properties of tiny ceramic nanoparticles that are laid in a thin film between two gold electrodes inside the device. Those particles act like a kind of electrical resistor, but when acetone comes in contact with the sensor that resistance is diminished. Small amounts of acetone don't drastically affect the sensor, but in doses indicative of diabetes the resistance is noticeably altered, allowing electricity to flow between the electrodes more freely and raising red flags. The higher the acetone level, the redder the flag.

With sensitivity at 20 parts acetone per billion, the sensor can detect acetone at levels 90 times lower than that found in the breath of diabetics, so the chance of it missing a diagnosis is very low. It could provide emergency room techs a quick diagnostic tool with which to determine if a diabetic patient has developed ketoacidosis. But it has more practical uses as well; as costs come down, it could be used by diabetics in the home to determine if they need to take more insulin, skirting the problem of ketoacidosis altogether.

Wind TurbineProfessional Wind Turbine Supplier. High Quality, Competitive Price.

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Photo by Linda Nylind

We’ve seen skyscrapers studded with wind turbines before, but the Strata is the first building to integrate turbines directly into its facade. Developed and contracted by Brookfield Europe, the tower is a tricky engineering feat indeed, especially granted the gusty blasts of wind that construction crews had to deal with while raising it.

Measuring in at 42 stories tall, the Strata tower has enough height to eclipse the buildings surrounding it, allowing it to take full advantage of the area’s 35mph wind speeds. The tower is also designed to utilize the Venturi effect created by nearby structures to force wind through the turbines at accelerated rates, generating an expected 50MWh of electricity annually.

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Read more: The Strata: World's First Skyscraper With Built-In Wind Turbines | Inhabitat - Sustainable Design Innovation, Eco Architecture, Green Building

Concept Waterscraper Brings Monumental Architecture Into The Open Sea

By

Stuart Fox

Posted 03.11.2010 at 4:30 pm 70 Comments

966

<img alt="" class="" data-image_style="article_image_large" typeof="foaf:Image"

src="http://www.popsci.com/sites/popsci.com/files/styles/article_image_large/public/images/2010/03/water-skyscraper-2.jpg?itok=O83SjEI-" width="525" height="688" title="" />

Sarly Adre Bin Sarkum's Water-Scraper

Sarly Adre Bin Sarkum, via eVolo

For the last five years, eVolo Magazine has hosted a futuristic skyscraper design competition. Usually, the entrants imagine giant buildings taller than anything under construction today. However, the most impressive entry in this year's competition goes the opposite route, by dropping the building straight into the sea. This floating building would generate its own electricity and food, house thousands, and plunge deep beneath the waves.

Designed by Sarly Adre bin Sarkum of Malaysia, the waterscraper would be about as tall as the Empire State Building, but with only a couple of stories exposed above the surface. The whole building would be a self-sufficient, floating, arcology. Wind, solar, and wave power would provide energy, hydroponics and the green space at the top would provide food and oxygen, and the structure would provide housing, work spaces, and areas for recreation.

Ballast tanks would keep the structure level, like in a submarine, as would the tentacles. The tentacles would also move around in the ocean tides, generating electricity from kinetic energy.

Adre bin Sarkum deliberately designed this building to contrast with the skyscrapers that dominate the rest of the competition, and to highlight sustainable architecture.

Obviously, no one has any plans to build anything remotely like this. But if global warming throws us into a WaterWorld like future, Adre bin Sarkum's aqua-condo looks like much sweeter digs than a rickety boat captained by a urine-drinking fish-man

otton reinforced with boron carbide is tough and hard but nonetheless elastic. These properties indicate future promise, but this material is not yet bulletproof.

American and Chinese researchers, together with ETH Zurich Professor Brad Nelson, recently published a paper in the scientific journal Advanced Materials in which they presented a new method that uses an ordinary cotton T-shirt as the raw material to make a tough, hard but flexible cloth. The University of South Carolina, which is heading this project led by Professor Xiaodong Li, suggests in a communiqué that more comfortable and more lightweight bulletproof vests for the police, for example, could be manufactured from this new material. The media reported that this kind of vest would soon be available.This is not inconceivable according to Nelson, Professor of Robotics and Intelligent Systems, who is involved in the research project together with his ETH Zurich team. However, although a successful breakthrough has been achieved with the method of manufacture, much more development work is still needed before conventional bulletproof materials, such as Kevlar, can be replaced.Bath in boronTo create their new material, the researchers dipped strips of cotton shirt into a boron solution enriched with nickel, after which the pieces of cloth were heated to 1160°C in a furnace. At such a high temperature and under an inflow of argon, a furry coat of boron carbide nanofibres forms on the cotton microfibres. Boron carbide is the third-hardest known material at room temperature, and is in fact the hardest above 1100°C. After the nanofibres have formed, the cotton microfibres turn into boron-reinforced carbon microfibres. A droplet of catalyst material sits on the tip of each nanofibre.Unlike solid boron carbide, these fibrils are extremely elastic and flexible. This is shown by tests on individual nanofibres that Nelson carried out in his laboratory, which specialises in studies of this kind.

Nevertheless the boron carbide nanofibres display the strength and rigidity of solid boron carbide. All in all the fabric itself remains light-weight and flexible like the cotton T-shirt, but at the same time it is also tougher and more rigid at the nanoscale.Brad Nelson works in the field of micro- and nano-robotics. For him the emphasis is quite clearly on the development of the raw material. Although the T-shirt is important as a possible application, he believes the manufacturing process to be the key. Nelson finds the idea of being able to use an everyday material like cotton simultaneously as a support substance and as a catalyst, thus completely changing its properties, very promising and revolutionary. One could certainly imagine a large number of applications for such materials, from self-actuated loudspeaker membranes to light-weight aircraft materials to protective clothing for the fire brigade. In addition, the boron carbide cloth almost completely blocks out a variety of ultraviolet rays.

Story Source:

Ancient Battery Technology Adapted for Modern Battlefields  May 2010  By Austin Wright 

South Korean developers have adapted 2,000-year-old battery technology for modern warfare.

The device, known as MetalCell, is a backup power source that runs on sodium and can keep a laptop charged for more than four hours, its maker says. The design is relatively simple: a small, ruggedized box with magnesium plates inside. If an electrical gadget — anything from a computer to a flashlight — runs out of energy, a soldier on the battlefield could pour saltwater into the MetalCell and use the device as an emergency power

source.

Soldiers in the field have salt in their Meal, Ready-to-Eat packages. Urine could also be used to power the device, says Art Morgan, CEO of the Northern Virginia-based company SEG Inc., which represents the product in the United States.

The sodium reacts with the magnesium to produce low-voltage power.

“You can pack away the device and let it sit for years until you need it,” Morgan says.

The concept is similar to ancient technology, known as the Bagdad battery, that some anthropologists believe was developed in Iraq thousands of years ago. Nobody knows how these batteries were used.

The standard MetalCell model costs about $200 and can be recharged with salt water until the magnesium plates deteriorate. The company is also marketing disposable models that are cheaper — about $120 — and come with salt tablets.

Ocean powered underwater vehicle

Showing similar inspiration to Hawkes Ocean Technologies with its deepflight submarines, NASA, the U.S. Navy and university researchers have successfully demonstrated the first robotic underwater vehicle to be powered entirely by natural, renewable, ocean thermal energy.

 

The Sounding Oceanographic Lagrangrian Observer Thermal RECharging (SOLO-TREC) autonomous underwater vehicle uses a novel thermal recharging engine powered by the natural temperature differences found at different ocean depths. Scalable for use on most robotic oceanographic vehicles, this technology breakthrough could usher in a new generation of autonomous underwater vehicles capable of virtually indefinite ocean monitoring for climate and marine animal studies, exploration and surveillance.

 

Researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.; and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, completed the first three months of an ocean endurance test of the prototype vehicle off the coast of Hawaii in March.

 

"People have long dreamed of a machine that produces more energy than it consumes and runs indefinitely," said Jack Jones, a JPL principal engineer and SOLO-TREC co-principal investigator. "While not a true perpetual motion machine, since we actually consume some environmental energy, the prototype system demonstrated by JPL and its partners can continuously monitor the ocean without a limit on its lifetime imposed by energy supply."

 

"Most of Earth is covered by ocean, yet we know less about the ocean than we do about the surface of some planets," said Yi Chao, a JPL principal scientist and SOLO-TREC principal investigator. "This technology to harvest energy from the ocean will have huge implications for how we can measure and monitor the ocean and its influence on climate."

 

SOLO-TREC draws upon the ocean's thermal energy as it alternately encounters warm surface water and colder conditions at depth. Key to its operation are the carefully selected waxy substances known as

phase-change materials that are contained in 10 external tubes, which house enough material to allow net power generation. As the float surfaces and encounters warm temperatures, the material melts and expands; when it dives and enters cooler waters, the material solidifies and contracts. The expansion of the wax pressurizes oil stored inside the float. This oil periodically drives a hydraulic motor that generates electricity and recharges the vehicle's batteries. Energy from the rechargeable batteries powers the float's hydraulic system, which changes the float's volume (and hence buoyancy), allowing it to move vertically.

 

So far, SOLO-TREC has completed more than 300 dives from the ocean surface to a depth of 500 meters. Its thermal recharging engine produced about 1.7 watt-hours, or 6,100 joules, of energy per dive, enough electricity to operate the vehicle's science instruments, GPS receiver, communications device and buoyancy-control pump.

 

The performance of underwater robotic vehicles has traditionally been limited by power considerations. "Energy harvesting from the natural environment opens the door for a tremendous expansion in the use of autonomous systems for naval and civilian applications," said Thomas Swean, the Office of Naval Research program manager for SOLO-TREC. "This is particularly true for systems that spend most of their time submerged below the sea surface, where mechanisms for converting energy are not as readily available. The JPL/Scripps concept is unique in that its stored energy gets renewed naturally as the platform traverses ocean thermal gradients, so, in theory, the system has unlimited range and endurance. This is a very significant advance."

 

ROI in Just 60 DaysSmith & Wesson cuts its contract service costs by adopting a new, onsite conditioning method for recycling machine oil

Apr. 11, 2010  | American Machinist

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Smith & Wesson cuts its contract service costs by adopting a new, onsite conditioning method for recycling machine oil

Since 1852, Smith & Wesson® has been associated with high-performance and high-precision firearms for official (safety, security, protection) and recreational user. To maintain efficient production speeds and keep up with customer demand, Smith & Wesson’s manufacturing

Driflex is an in-plant system designed to remove all free,

emulsified, and dissolved water from oil in batches of any size.

processes use approximately 30,000 gallons/year of machine lube oil. Of that total, 19,800 gallons are recycled annually. Processing and recycling this oil had become a significant problem, involving excessive costs and inconvenience of third-party oil treatment processes.

Oil processing and recycling is important in various manufacturing processes, including primary metal production, metal casting, mining and power generation. The machines using these lubricant and hydraulic oils require clean, dry oil for dependable operation. However, as it is used oil becomes contaminated with process particulate and moisture — causing gradual damage to machinery, and potentially leading to machine failure. Processing contaminated oil so that it can be reused is common, because it saves considerable costs over oil replacement.

When the contaminated lube oil began to interfere it machining operations, Smith & Wesson contracted a service to filter, clean, and dry the oil to remove all unnecessary moisture and contaminants. This oil processing and recycling program required Smith & Wesson to accumulate and store 1,500 gallons of used oil over a two-month period.

Next, the manufacturer enlisted the help of a mobile processor to treat oil, at a cost of $4,375 every month. The total cost of this program was $52,500 annually — a lower price per gallon than oil replacement would run, averaging $6 to $8 per gallon for mineral oil and up to $60 per gallon for synthetic oils. However, the still-significant expenses and inconvenience of using a contract service provider led Smith & Wesson to pursue a new oil conditioning solution.

A new filtration solutionMSC Filtration Technologies — a Pentair Industrial distributor — introduced Smith & Wesson to the Driflex™ oil conditioninging system, which launched a fast-tracked project with Henkel Chemical Management to evaluate the system.

Driflex is designed to remove all free, emulsified, and dissolved water from oil in batches of any size. Initially, the system appealed to Smith & Wesson because of its convenience: it would allow the company to process oil in its own plant, on its own schedule, and in virtually any volume they wanted. In addition, keeping the oil processing in-house would eliminate the costs of clean-up services associated with off-site processors or third-party truck-mounted vacuum dehydrator systems. Not only did clean-up services cost tens of thousands of dollars annually, but they also presented the risk that the oil would be permanently damaged and lost during the cleaning process. Along with eliminating this risk and additional cost, it was apparent that Driflex system would improve overall oil quality.

Driflex oil conditioning couples Pentair’s patented UltiDri® membrane technology with high-efficiency filtration to remove known, harmful contaminants from vital lubrication and

Smith & Wesson’s unfiltered machine oil contained a high percentage of fine metal casting and grinding dust, so a duplex, prefiltration cartridge was installed to treat the oil before it entered the Driflex system, and effectively remove moisture during the conditioning process.

hydraulic fluids cost effectively. The system operates by flowing contaminated oil through a particulate filtration stage, followed by a membrane filtration and an air-drying process. The result is that both particulate and moisture are removed from the oil, and the oil is restored to optimal condition for reuse.

Smith & Wesson processes lube oil in 250 to 300 gallon totes, replacing two to three totes (or 500-900 gallons of oil) per week. To service the oil, the company selected a 4 gpm Driflex Model #DF-04L4CS400 to meet their volume and processing time requirements. A Driflex system of this size is capable of processing the company’s typical weekly volume of oil within a few days, with no external schedules to accommodate or third-party expenses.

Solving process challengesDespite the comprehensive capabilities and advantages that Driflex offered, a few challenges remained. Unfiltered oil quality varies depending upon how many times it has been recycled in the past, as well as how much particulate and moisture it has accumulated over its service life. Smith & Wesson’s unfiltered oil presented a significant challenge, as it contained a fairly heavy load of fine metal casting and grinding dust: 350 mg/L, with particles ranging in size from 2 to 10 μm. This contamination prevented the Driflex system from achieving optimal oil conditioning. To handle this heightened contamination, a duplex, prefiltration housing unit — Pentair Industrial Model #H8836, containing 5 μm Triflex™ Mega Cartridges — was installed to treat the oil before it entered the Driflex system. This cartridge prefiltration system successfully removed the fine particulate before oil conditioning took place, allowing the Driflex unit to effectively remove moisture during the conditioning process.

Another difficulty arose when a process accident during the test period introduced a high volume of water to the unfiltered oil. After this incident, the oil’s moisture content registered at 2 percent — 20 times higher than normal. Despite these unusual conditions, the Driflex oil conditioninging system still delivered optimal results, though it took several additional days to process the oil. Through continued recirculation, the oil was processed until the desired level of dryness was achieved — without interruption to Smith & Wesson’s operation or the quality of the machine oil.

Overall cost savingsBy employing the Driflex oil conditioninging system in their operations, Smith & Wesson has significantly reduced its oil processing and recycling costs. Having purchased the Driflex system, it achieved a return on its investment in only two months. And, the savings continue, as the system’s annual operating cost is $4,500 — compared to the $52,500 Smith & Wesson spent annually to accomplish the same task through an outside contractor.

An additional benefit of using the Driflex system is Smith & Wesson’s ability to recycle smaller batches of oil, which would have not been feasible to process though the prior solution. Often, small batches were discarded as the low volume prohibited them from being stored; it was cost-prohibitive to try to accumulate enough oil from these batches to make outside processing feasible. Now, Smith & Wesson can process and reuse oil in batches of all sizes, with no valuable resources going to waste, the value of which is still to be realized.

Acknowledgments: Pentair acknowledge Smith & Wesson as well as Henkel Chemical Management for their willingness to share specific operational and cost details.

LS9 Makes “Major Breakthrough” in Cellulosic-based Fuel Production By Justin Moresco

Jan. 27, 2010 - 10:01 AM PST Jan. 27, 2010 - 10:01 AM PST

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Khosla Ventures-backed LS9, which is using a genetically modified version of e.coli bacteria to make diesel, announced Wednesday that it has made a “major breakthrough” in the production of biofuels and chemicals from cellulosic biomass. The company, working with researchers from the University of California at […]

Khosla Ventures-backed LS9, which is using a genetically modified version of e.coli bacteria to make diesel, announced Wednesday that it has made a “major breakthrough” in the production of biofuels and chemicals from cellulosic biomass. The company, working with researchers from the University of California at Berkeley and the Department of Energy’s Joint BioEnergy Institute, said it has developed a microbe that can produce advanced biofuels directly from cellulosic biomass, such as woodchips, in a “one-step” fermentation process that eliminates the need for additional chemicals and industrial processes.

LS9 aims to produce biofuels and renewable chemicals to replace conventional petroleum-based products, and the company said this breakthrough will enable it to do this at lower costs. Biofuels ultimately will need to compete against conventional fuels on

the open market, and any technological advancement that lowers production costs should make LS9 more competitive.

The startup currently operates a 1,000-liter pilot plant in South San Francisco, Calif., that produces vehicle-ready diesel from so-called first generation feedstock like sugarcane. But the long-term goal of LS9 is to produce biofuels and chemicals using cellulosic feedstock (energy crops, plant waste, etc), which the company says would reduce the total, life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions of its products.

Last year, CEO Bill Haywood said LS9 has been in the process of building a demonstration plant that it aims to complete this year. Spokesman Jon Ballesteros told us today that the company is on track to have the demo facility up and running in the “earlier part of this year.” Ballesteros wouldn’t say how large that facility would be, but Haywood previously told Earth2Tech that it would have an annual capacity of 2.5 million gallons.

Last September, LS9 raised $25 million in a third round of funding from oil giant Chevron’s venture capital arm and others, though the round was less than the $75 million-$100 million the company was asking for earlier in the year. But some critics have questioned the environmental benefits of biofuels that rely on any land-based plants, and recently venture capitalists have focused more on algae-based fuel startups such as Solazyme

Green Ocean Energy Rides the Waves with ANSYS

Simulations that Will Change the World, First Place: Scotland’s Green Ocean Energy is poised to perfect its wave-powered energy-generation system using a suite of analysis and modeling software.

by David Essex | Published December 1, 2009

It is ironic that the north of Scotland, a center of the oil & gas industry thanks to its proximity to North Sea oil fields, is an important front in the worldwide movement to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy. But the region’s already vibrant engineering community is not only riding the new wave of innovation to new opportunities, it is making them possible.

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The Wave Treader, developed by Green Ocean Energy and optimized using ANSYS software, mounts on the base of an offshore structure such as a wind turbine or tidal turbine. It produces 500kW of electricity from onboard generators powered by wave action that raises and lowers floating arms, which sit atop buoyant sponsons.

Green Ocean Energy in Aberdeen might be the best example. The company is a spinoff of the oil & gas engineering firm Nordeng and its use of simulation technologies to develop machines that will ride the ocean to generate electricity earned it the first-place winner in the simulation category of Desktop Engineering’s Change the World Challenge.

last 25 years, says George Smith, the company’s managing director. Smith, a Nordeng director since its inception in 1987, says he was pondering the possibilities of wave energy when he came up with the concept of Ocean Treader, a freestanding device with parts that move up and down with the waves, using the motion to turn a generator.

The company instead turned its focus to Wave Treader, a smaller, more economical version that can be attached to rigid structures. Though it has roughly half the output of Ocean Treader and is less tolerant of rough waves, it should be easier to commercialize, according to Smith. Besides, Ocean Treader presents an additional design challenge: how to attach its power cable to the floating parts.

Wave Treader consists of sponsons at its front and aft ends, and a spar buoy (a type of tall, thin, upright buoy) in the center. As a wave passes, the forward sponson lifts and falls, then the buoy lifts and falls slightly less, and finally the aft sponson lifts and falls. The relative motion between the three is harvested by cylinders that pressurize hydraulic fluid, which, after smoothing by accumulators, spins hydraulic motors and electric generators. “We use a hydraulic system to effectively smooth out the energy,” Smith says.

Suite ScienceSmith focused on structural analysis, using ANSYS DesignSpace and GRAITEC’s SuperStress. Others on the four-person team tackled analysis in ANSYS AQWA and The MathWorks’ MATLAB. “ANSYS allows us to make sure that everything is designed to the correct level,” Smith says. “If something is over-designed, it means it will be too heavy and too expensive. If it is under-designed, it will fail.”

Rudd says ANSYS Workbench is the foundation on which the other tools rest. Third-party integration played a role. The ANSYS tools can read data from MATLAB, and a single-port ANSYS integration in the 3D modeling and digital prototyping tool, Autodesk Inventor, was expanded to multiple ports. ANSYS trained and worked closely with the team, helping to design and test several scale models. “We took on an initial study for them to look at their design in AQWA,” Rudd says, by importing a file of an Ocean Treader design.

Analyst engineer Tamas Bodai says he had to learn hydrodynamics before using AQWA, which he essentially controls from MATLAB. The team used AQWA to build a model based on the components’ geometry, density, and inertia. They entered wave data to calculate hydrodynamic parameters, such as hydrostatic stiffness and buoyancy, as well as fluid dynamics forces such as diffraction, a measure of a floating body’s effect on waves. The

This is an ANSYS simulation of the stress distribution in the Ocean Treader arm.

Figure 3: This is an ANSYS deformation simulation of a spreader beam structure that lifts the Ocean Treader machine safely into the water.

parameters were then fed into code that calculates the kinematic response and power output.

Bodai says he spent much of his time determining how wave movements across the sponsons and buoy could be most beneficially captured, which often became a function of sponson length. “If you want to do it precisely, it takes a very long time,” Bodai says. “One thing is to make sure that the experiment is what you intend to do so you don’t misinterpret the data. You have to make sure it’s detailed enough and complex enough to capture a certain phenomenon.” 

The team has used a 1:12.5 scale model to verify AQWA’s calculations, and the software has performed well, according to Smith. “We’ve got quite a high level of confidence,” he says.

Some load and resistance analysis was handled by engineering consultancy Prospect, who also reviewed designs. It focused especially on the impact of Wave Treader on the operational life and reliability of the support structures of offshore wind turbines, a contribution Smith calls pivotal. Prospect used data from a wind farm to determine if a Wave Treader could be added without modifying a turbine’s foundation or upgrading the power cable. The issue is crucial to Wave Treader’s viability. Prospect’s analysis showed it would add 500 kilowatts of output at no additional cost—one-third the output of a turbine, but at constant rates.

“Wave-loading analysis to the level of complexity needed for the design of wave energy abstraction devices is notoriously difficult,” says principal engineer Kevan Stokes. Prospect’s work led to a better understanding of phase shift between the parts of Wave Treaders and to improvements in access for people who will build and maintain them at sea—coincidentally an advance in wind turbine technology, he says. Smith explains that the current approach requires technicians literally to jump from boats onto towers. Now, they will be able to jump more safely onto a Wave Treader sponson that, like the boat, is moving at the same rate as the waves.

Another technical partner, Cadherent, imported Green Ocean Energy’s design models into Autodesk 3ds Max to develop photorealistic animations of device movement, which was helpful in designing access platforms and explaining the setup to potential investors. “The most challenging aspect for us was to accurately simulate the buoyancy of the Wave Treader and the Ocean Treader,” says Cadherent Managing Director David Thomson. “I understand that interfacing with a conical wind turbine column was a challenge for Green Ocean, which would have proved much harder if it were not for modern CAD programs.”

Just Over the HorizonSmith says the company is raising money and finalizing designs to build a full-size prototype next year. “We’re looking at the electrical and hydraulic system design,” he says. “We’re looking at the sustainability of the machine,” including simulating the load during storms. “It’s really about surviving huge waves.” Smith says waves average 2-3 meters at the prototype’s likely location, but can reach 7-8 meters. “We have to be sure that for any given site, we design for the worst possible scenario,” he says. Then the company will turn its attention to manufacturing issues, with hopes of commercialization in 2011. “We’re like the Model T: we’re very early on in this industry.”

The design is attracting notice from numerous quarters, including the Scottish government, which gave it a SMART award for technically challenging innovation. “Wave Treader is immensely popular, it seems,” Smith says. “We have had tremendous interest from operators of offshore wind farms.” The growth potential seems huge, and the oil & gas industry, with its rigs and platforms, is another potential target. “Any offshore structure which is rigid, we could probably attach a Wave Treader to,” Smith says, adding that the devices could also have their own platforms. The British government estimates that marine energy could fill five percent of

Europe’s energy needs, he says.

Desktop engineering will play a big role in this energy future, Stokes says. “Wind turbine power output, for example, used to be considered unreliable because it was unpredictable, but there are now ever-improving software programs that are very good at predicting this,” he says. “We will have reliable, cost-effective, renewable energy production systems that are several orders of magnitude kinder to the environment than those that we use at present, and this will only be possible as a consequence of the computer-based design and engineering software that we have.”

Rudd says the stakes are high for ANSYS users like Green Ocean Energy. “They have to get these products right, because financial constraints don’t allow them to build a full-scale prototype,” Rudd says. “When the full-scale model—which really is the product, basically—goes into the sea, it’s got to work the first time. Think of the cost if that thing falls to the bottom.”

More Info:ANSYS

Daniel G. Nocera of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is the inventor of the most important solar energy system of the century. His 2007 designed system is able to create cheap solar energy based on the photosynthesis process. His work was published last year in Science.

Nocera’s company called Sun Catalytix is one of the 37 ARPA-E awardees last

month, receiving $4.1 million for further investigations and development from the

U.S. Department of Energy. Polaris Venture Partners has also come with a $3

million investment.

Cut Pump Speed to Cut ProblemsLower rpm can translate into higher reliability.By Andrew Sloley, Contributing Editor

Aug 10, 2009

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Capital costs drive many — and too often penny-wise but pound-foolish — decisions. For instance, what costs most with centrifugal pumps: installation (capital), energy or maintenance? It’s commonly accepted that for most continuous services the largest financial impact comes from production losses due to pump failures. Such breakdowns have direct costs in maintenance. Pump failures, or the threat of them, force us to install standby pumps in critical services — increasing installation costs. Even with spared pumps, these breakdowns can reduce capacity. Pump failures, even for non-critical and hence non-spared services, always cost more than what was expected before-the-fact.

“Dropping from 3,600 rpm to 1,800 rpm has solved nearly every NSS-related problem.”

Pump failures generally come from three sources: mechanical problems within the pump, driver problems and hydraulic limits in the system. We need to work on all three areas to improve pump reliability. Suction recirculation is one factor that ties together mechanical limits and hydraulic requirements. Operation with suction recirculation damages the pump, increases failure rates and dramatically raises pumping system costs.

To check for suction-recirculation-based problems, first look at suction specific speed, NSS:

NSS = N Q0.5/NPSH0.75

where N is pump rpm, Q is flow rate in gpm and NPSH is net positive suction head in feet. At any given operating speed, evaluate NSS at the best efficiency point (BEP) capacity with the pump having its maximum diameter impeller.

A rule of thumb is that reliable operation requires using pumps with NSS under 8,500. As NSS increases, the reliable operating range of the pump usually decreases. "Usually" is the key word. Some low NSS pumps continue to have problems. Some high NSS pumps appear to operate with widely varying flow rates without problems.

Experience has shown two moves can improve reliability: running with lower rpm pumps and raising the NPSH available, NPSHA, at the pump suction. Reducing rpm increases the diameter of the pump needed or mandates more stages in a multiple-stage pump.

Boosting NPSHA at the pump suction usually requires elevating vessels higher above the pump. Both steps can be expensive. No clear guidelines detail the tradeoffs. One solution is to always operate close to the BEP by using pump recirculation (www.ChemicalProcessing.com/articles/2007/109.html).

Once a unit is built, often the only option to improve pump reliability is to replace the pump with a lower speed one. I've found that dropping from 3,600 rpm to 1,800 rpm has solved nearly every NSS-related problem I've encountered — only once have I've had to go down to 900 rpm. However, how do you evaluate what speed to use and what it'll be worth?

Grappling with the problem of predicting pump reliability versus suction conditions led to the development of the concept of suction energy, ESuction. Starting in the early 1990s the pump industry refined the definition of ESuction to more accurately tie together suction conditions and pump reliability — by using a suction recirculation factor that includes peripheral velocity in the impeller eye at the vane edge maximum radius in its calculation:

ESuction = DEye × N × NSS × SGConditions

where DEye is the impeller eye diameter in inches and SGConditions is the specific gravity of the fluid at operations conditions. If you don't have the diameter of the eye available, approximate it by using 0.9 times the suction nozzle diameter for end-suction pumps and 0.75 times the suction nozzle diameter for double-suction pumps.

NPSH Margin Ratio

Figure 1. High ESuction pumps only require a ratio somewhat greater than one.

Typical values used to define high ESuction pumps are 160 × 106 for end-suction pumps and 120 × 106 for double-suction pumps. Very high ESuction pumps start at 50% higher than this (240 × 106 for end-suction pumps and 180 × 106 for double-suction pumps).

Figure 1 shows the NPSH margin ratio — NPSHA over NPSH required, NPSHR — for "reliable" operation across a wide flow range when suction recirculation is the problem. (Don't use this figure for situations where suction recirculation isn't the problem.)

Reducing ESuction by using a lower pump operating speed dramatically improves pump reliability. In Figure 1 the boundary for very high ESuction pumps has been defined so that pumps at that ESuction level have very poor reliability unless the NPSH margin ratio exceeds one. High ESuction pumps only need a NPSH margin ratio somewhat greater than one.

While not perfect, the ESuction concept, coupled with the general curve shown, reasonably quantifies both the speed reduction needed and the relative benefit achieved in solving existing pump suction recirculation problems. ESuction also provides a useful guideline to estimate pump cost versus feed hydraulic changes for reliable operation for new installations.

City of Springfield’s CWLP Dallman 4 Earns POWER’s Highest Honor08/01/2009 | Dr. Robert Peltier, PE

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City Water, Light & Power (CWLP), the municipal utilities agency of the City of Springfield, Ill., determined that coal-fired generation was its best alternative for providing long-term reliable and

economic electricity to the city’s residents. For negotiating an unprecedented agreement with the Sierra Club that allowed the project to move forward, for choosing the latest in coal-fired technology and air quality control systems as the foundation for the city’s comprehensive energy policy, and for assembling a tightly integrated team that completed the project well before the contractual deadline and under budget, CWLP’s Dallman 4 is awarded POWER magazine’s 2009 Plant of the Year award.

Balancing the need for new electricity generation with aggressive environmental goals frequently results in a high price tag, regardless of which way the scale tips. The price is often short-term pain for long-term gain. Municipal utilities are especially shy of going into debt, which is why much constructive criticism was hurled at City Water, Light, & Power (CWLP) — officially the Office of Public Utilities, City of Springfield — when it announced plans to build Dallman 4 (Figure 1). Many disapproved of the Illinois municipality spending half a billion dollars for a new power plant. But Dallman 4, a 200-MW pulverized coal steam power plant, is a bargain that will pay back Springfield’s residents many times over in the coming years — perfectly balancing the city’s environment goals with reliable and economic electricity supplies.

1.    First among equals. City Water, Light & Power of the City of Springfield is completing commissioning of its new 200-MW Dallman Unit 4. The new plant fires Illinois coal and promises to provide a reliable and economic source of electricity for many years to come. Courtesy: CWLP. Photo by Terry Farmer Photography

Unlike some municipal utilities, which routinely draw the ire of ratepayers for high rates and mediocre service, Springfield’s muni is proudly referred to as the "jewel of the city." The construction of Dallman 4 writes another chapter in a success story, with CWLP as the hero for securing the state capital’s power supply while improving the region’s environment and keeping electricity rates low.

Springfield’s mayor recognized that Dallman 4 was going to be a good investment that will keep rates low and system reliability high when he said, "I certainly think [Dallman 4] has raised the expectation for power plants across the United States, and it’s great to have one of the nation’s best practices in coal-fired power plants here in Springfield." It’s unique to find a mayor willing to heap such high praise on an electric utility, but the praise is well-deserved.

The $515 million project is the most expensive project ever built by Springfield. What’s more, it was completed with minimal cost increases — an impressive feat, especially in today’s construction market. The plant also is entering commercial service approximately six months ahead of schedule (Table 1) and under budget, saving Springfield even more valuable cash just when other cities are looking for ways to increase revenues. CWLP’s general manager, Todd Renfrow, noted that the community is "very proud to soon be the owner of one of the cleanest and most advanced coal-fired power plants in the nation. The execution of the project with little cost overrun and being so far ahead of schedule has raised the bar in power plant design and construction."

Table 1.    Actual project schedule. Source: CWLP

Doug Brown, CWLP’s major projects development director and the Dallman Unit 4 project manager, explained that the project’s primary goals included environmental protection and energy efficiency: "A major part of this goal is to protect our ratepayers from the highly volatile market-based rates." Brown mentioned that a secondary goal of the project is "to enhance the knowledge, experience, and reputations for excellence of all the parties involved in the project."

New Power Plant Will Make Economic Sense

Springfield’s requirement for 200 MW of coal-fired capacity was initially identified as part of a long-term planning study conducted in 2001. One goal of the new project was to isolate Springfield from the volatile prices the city was encountering with market electricity purchases when its electricity production capacity couldn’t meet rising demand. Another business opportunity provided by the new plant was to sell surplus power into those same markets, creating a steady source of future revenue.

The impact of the US Energy Policy Act on the pumps industry22 September 2009Tom Stone

While the US Energy Policy Act of 2005 focused mainly on alternative energy sources, reducing dependence on foreign sources of oil and increasing domestic energy production, its emphasis on energy efficiency has had a direct effect on pump users and manufacturers. Blackmer's Tom Stone explores how the legislation has influenced day-to-day operations.

When President Bush signed the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the country's first comprehensive new energy policy since 1992, into law, most of the attention it received focused on the provisions that addressed the future supply and makeup of the country's motor-fuel pool. Transportation fuel was a hot-button topic at the time (and remains so today) as gasoline and diesel prices continued to creep upward, while tough questions were being asked regarding from where future supply would come. But while the Energy Policy Act, or EPAct, did include landmark provisions that set thresholds for the production and use of biofuels and other forms of alternative and renewable energy in the future, in reality, EPAct 2005 was about much, much more than fueling the nation's fleet of vehicles.

The major tenets of EPAct 2005, in addition to promoting alternative and renewable energy sources, are to encourage energy efficiency and conservation, reduce dependence on foreign sources of energy, increase domestic energy production, modernize the electricity grid, and encourage the expansion of nuclear energy.

Included in EPAct 2005 is much verbiage regarding the production, conservation and more efficient use of all types of energy in all settings, from private residences to commercial buildings to manufacturing and industrial plants. In general, EPAct sets new minimum energy-efficiency standards for a wide range of consumer and commercial products and encourages the sale and production of these products, which will help increase the supply of available energy in the future.

The problem

According to the United States Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), the industrial sector consumes 33.6% of all of the energy used in this country. That's more than the transportation (27.9%), residential (21.1%) and commercial (17.4%) sectors use. In that 33.6% of all energy used, US industry represents 29% of the country's electricity demand and 37% of its natural-gas demand. And, depending on which report you read, pumping systems—which are the second most widely used machines in the world after motors—account for anywhere between 27% and 33% of the total electricity used in the industrial sector.

Pumps are widely used to transfer fluids for processing applications, move water and wastewater, provide fluid circulation in cooling systems and furnish the motive force in hydraulic systems. All manufacturing plants, commercial buildings and municipalities rely on pumping systems for their daily operations.

So, with this amount of energy use centered, in general, in the industrial sector and, in particular, on pumping systems inefficiencies in their operation have the capability to exacerbate any energy crunch the nation might be feeling. And there are inefficiencies. According to the Hydraulic Institute they are:

o Energy efficiency is peripheral to most corporate business strategies

o Research and development expenditures are minimal for process and energy technologies

o Incentives are lacking to encourage investment in energy-efficient technologies

o No common standard exists for making energy

o Workplace energy-management skills are insufficient

o Energy supply is constrained due to limited energy fuel choices and volatile energy prices

o Future environmental regulations are uncertain.

These inefficiencies exist because, while the cost of energy is closely monitored and managed at the plant level, the actual use of energy may not be due to facility managers being more concerned with production reliability than the expense of energy efficiency. A disconnect also exists between the budgets for equipment purchases and operations, meaning that equipment purchases can often result in energy-inefficient procurement practices.

The solution

While energy inefficiency in the industrial sector is a major concern, there is a silver lining – and there has to be.

In the 1990s, the Department of Energy set forth a number of Industrial Energy Efficiency Programs. Phase 1 of these programs was to develop transformation techniques designed to encourage industrial energy efficiency. Phase 2, which covered the years 2000-2005, was to focus on the deployment of these new techniques through the use of industry-specific publications, system experts and other training tools. The final phase of integration and sustainability was to begin in 2006 with a series of energy-efficiency assessments of the largest manufacturing plants in the country with the goal of developing market-based, sustainable industrial energy management.

However, when EPAct 2005 came into being, the goals of these Industrial Energy Efficiency Programs were ratcheted up. Beginning in 2007, with a targeted completion date of 2017, the new vision for the industrial sector was to improve ‘energy intensity’ 2.5% per year, or a total of 25% between now and 2017.

That's where the silver lining comes in. According to the Department of Energy's publication, ‘US Industrial Motor Systems Market Opportunities Assessment,’ pump systems offer the largest opportunity for energy-efficiency improvements in industry. In fact, case studies have shown that better system design and a more effective application of pumps can save 20% or more in energy costs. In addition to saving money and energy, better system design and more effective pump applications would also reduce maintenance costs while increasing productivity.

With that in mind, there are many different ways to save energy in pumping systems. Some opportunities are shown in Table 1.

Achieving these goals, however, will require a modification in the thinking of many plant and facility managers. Too often, they view their facilities from the perspective of the individual pump or component. They also tend to promote the practice of sizing pumps conservatively to ensure that the needs of the system will be met under all conditions, while often overlooking the added cost of oversizing pumps. This practice leads to higher-than-necessary system operating and maintenance costs, since oversized pumps also typically require more frequent maintenance. Even though centrifugal pumps are the most widely used pump technology in the world, an often-overlooked consideration is to use a different technology such as positive displacement pumps.

In order for operations to significantly improve their energy savings, they must change their thinking and take a systems approach, shifting the focus from the performance of these individual components to that of the entire system. This approach will enable operators to improve the reliability, performance and efficiency of their overall pumping systems, resulting in not only greater energy savings, but also higher productivity and optimized performance and profitability. Again utilizing suggestions offered by the Hydraulic Institute, a systems approach involves the following types of interrelated actions:

o Establish current conditions and operating parameters

o Determine present and estimate future process-production needs

o Gather and analyze operating data and develop load-duty cycles

o Assess alternative system designs and improvements

o Determine the most technically and economically sound options, taking into consideration all of the

subsystems

o Implement the best option

o Assess energy consumption with respect to performance

o Continue to monitor and optimize the system

o Continue to operate and maintain the system for peak performance

In other words, to use a systems approach effectively, a pumping system designer needs to understand system fundamentals, know where opportunities for improvements are commonly found and have a list of key resources that can help to identify and implement successful projects.

To aid the operator in creating a systems approach at the plant level, a number of key energy programs have emerged over the past couple of years. Here's a closer look at three of them.

Save Energy Now

A component of the Department of Energy's Industrial Technologies Program (ITP), Save Energy Now, helps industrial plants operate more efficiently and profitably by identifying the ways to reduce energy use in key process systems. One of the key components of the Save Energy Now programme is the implementation of energy assessments at manufacturing facilities across the nation. These assessments help manufacturing facilities identify immediate opportunities to save energy and money. The assessment can also be used as part of an overall energy management strategy at the plant that will continue to yield bottom-line benefits for the company.

Beginning in 2005, the operations of 200 of the nation's top energy-intensive industrial facilities were reviewed by DOE-qualified ‘Energy Experts’ who used DOE software tools and technical information to target a specific system area. By the end of 2006, energy-efficiency assessments had been completed for plants in 18 industrial groups in a total of 41 states and Puerto Rico. These 200 assessments recommended improvements that would annually save US$2.5 million in energy costs per plant that, on average, equaled 10% of the assessed plant's energy costs. Based on six-month follow-up interviews with 179 of the assessed plants, about 7% of the total number of energy-saving recommendations had been implemented with another 64% of the recommendations either in progress, planned, under review or awaiting funds for implementation. However, in just six months, these 179 assessed plants had implemented measures for energy cost savings totaling US$30.4 million per year.

For small and medium-sized plants, assessments are conducted by a series of 26 Industrial Assessment Centers (IAC) located at 31 universities nationwide. Utilizing teams of engineering faculty and students, the assessment begins with a university-based IAC team conducting a survey of the eligible plant, followed by a one- or two-day visit to the facility where engineering measurements are taken as a basis for assessment recommendations. The team then performs a detailed analysis for specific recommendations with related estimates of costs, performance and payback times. The assessments primarily focus on energy-intensive systems: process heating, steam, compressed air, fans and pumps. Within 60 days, a confidential report detailing the analysis, findings and recommendations of the team is sent to the plant. In two to six months, follow-up phone calls are placed to the plant manager to verify that the recommendations will be implemented.

With the success of the 2006 assessments, the DOE had identified a further 250 plants for energy assessments in 2007. As of July 1, 2008, a total of 570 assessments have been completed bringing the total identified energy cost savings to more than US$807 million with more than US$117 million energy savings already implemented to date.

Pump Systems Matter

A program developed by the Hydraulic Institute called ‘Pump Systems Matter’ is focused on the energy savings, efficiency and economics of pumps and pumping systems. This focus aims to lower the energy needs of North America while improving the bottom-line profitability of businesses by offering pump users strategic, broad-based energy management and performance optimization solutions, mainly centered around centrifugal pump technologies. To do this, the Hydraulic Institute has a number of informational areas on its Pump Systems Matter Web site (www.pumpsystemsmatter.org/) that have been designed to be an educational resource for getting started on optimizing pumping systems.

One of the key elements of the Pump Systems Matter program is the Pump System Improvement Modeling Tool (PSIM). PSIM is a free educational tool that has been formulated to help users better comprehend the hydraulic behavior of pumping systems. PSIM enables users to calculate the pressure drop and flow distribution in straight-

path, simple branching or looped pumping systems. PSIM calculates pump energy usage and energy cost over time by using Net Present Value concepts. PSIM is also capable of creating pump vs. system curves, a powerful tool that helps engineers better understand the intricacies of pump/system behavior.

Smart Energy Program

Developed by Blackmer, the Smart Energy Program emphasizes the ability of its positive displacement sliding-vane and eccentric-disc lines of pumps to improve the energy efficiency of plants where pump systems are in operation. Designed to be energy efficient themselves, the use of Blackmer pumps, by extension, will also positively affect plant operations where energy efficiency is a consideration in pump selection.

Since there is no one-pump-fits-all solution, particular attention to proper pump selection will become increasingly important, not only to deliver productivity gains but to also control energy consumption. With this in mind, by virtue of their inherent energy and mechanically-efficient designs, positive displacement sliding vane and eccentric disc pump technologies are well suited to offer manufacturers immediate, high-value advantages and solutions in fulfilling their energy-saving initiatives.

Although the operating principles of positive displacement and centrifugal pumps differ widely, both types of pumps can be used to serve many of the same applications. In these instances, certain positive displacement pumps may offer substantial opportunities in the effort to improve processes and productivity as well as maintenance and energy cost savings. Positive displacement pumps generally require less motive energy than centrifugal pumps, and they offer more flexibility relative to dealing with changes in pressure and flow requirements in continuous-type processes. Also, positive displacement pumps, sliding vane and eccentric disc technologies in particular, maintain higher efficiencies throughout the viscosity range. Therefore, in the overlap where both types of pumps can operate, a positive displacement pump's high mechanical efficiency can offer improved energy efficiency. Further, over time the internal clearances in centrifugal pumps, as in positive displacement gear and lobe pumps, will increase resulting in decreased efficiency.

Sliding vane positive displacement pumps, however, utilize self-adjusting vanes that eliminate clearance increase issues thereby maintaining near original hydraulic efficiencies even after extended service life. Eccentric disc pumps also self adjust internal pumping clearances via their inherent design. The ability of sliding vane and eccentric disc positive displacement pumps to offer and maintain higher efficiency levels than other pump technologies can mean substantial energy savings for the user.

Blackmer has developed its blackOPS® Web-based tool that allows users, distributors and original equipment manufacturers to properly size pump equipment. By providing the correct pump data and curves, users can select the ideal pump that will not only perform properly, but also maximize system efficiency.

Additional details regarding the energy efficiencies of sliding vane and eccentric disc pump technologies are available by contacting Blackmer.

The bottom line

While improving the energy efficiency of every manufacturing plant is the ultimate goal of all of these programmes, as well as EPAct 2005, reaching the goal of 25% industrial energy intensity improvement by 2017 will take a cooperative effort amongst all involved in the manufacturing sector.

As President Bush said back in August 2005, “The bill I sign today is a critical first step. It's a first step toward a more affordable and reliable energy future for American citizens. Most of the serious problems … have developed over decades. This bill is not going to solve our energy challenges overnight. It's going to take years of focused effort to alleviate those problems.”

Greenward Ridge Vent Turns Your Entire Roof Into a Solar Collector

Lloyd AlterTechnology / Solar TechnologyNovember 13, 2009

Sometimes the most impressive products at Greenbuild are the most innocuous

and boring looking things; last year I thought the best of show was Agriboard, a

SIP made from straw. This year I spent some time trying to figure out this ridge

vent for a standard shingled roof with tubes running through it, thinking that

there wasn't much surface area on it and it isn't going to do much. Then I

realized that all of the heat in an attic runs through the ridge vent and this thing

turns your entire roof into a solar collector.

As much as 25% of the energy consumed in a house goes to making hot water,

and as we have shown before, it costs a tenth as much to generate a watt of

power from the sun to heat water as it does to make electricity, so it makes a lot

of sense to do this first. The Greenward solar ridge vent may tilt the economics

even more, since you already own about 90% of the system- the roof of the

house.

As the sun beats down on those dark grey shingles, the heat rises and flows out

through the ridge vent around PEX plastic tubes, heating an ethylene glycol and

water mixture that is pumped down to a heat exchanger, preheating the water

before it gets to the water heater. The existing hot water heater only fires up

when needed.

This is one of those crazy clever ideas, replacing a four thousand dollar solar

collector that people don't like putting on their roofs with a completely invisible

one, taking wasted energy that we actually design our roofs to get rid of and

putting it to good use. There is a bit of technology in the basement that is

common to all solar hot water systems, but the basic collector is as simple and

clever as you can get. The company claims:

With an average attic temperature of 120 degrees F. the Greenward™ Ridge

Vent can reduce your energy consumption by just over 12 million BTU's a year

and reduce your CO2 emissions by just over 1,400 pounds annually.

I often scoff at those who say that technology will save us, and then I see a

simple, clever device like this that could knock out a big chunk of our energy

consumption, and nobody could even tell. That's good old American ingenuity.

More at Energy Alternatives

Tags: greenbuild | Green Building

This is what it's all about. How much energy must go into a pump to get the most out of it, and, what does a pump's

inefficiency have to do with its reliability?

H ow many pumps in your plant operate at their best efficiency point (BEP)? The answer is very important. Back in the

day, when energy costs were low and dollars for new equipment not so scarce, it might not have mattered to your

operations. Today, though, with energy costs on the rise and so much riding on a site's reliability and ability to control

unnecessary spending, it's quite a different story.

The BEP is the point on the pump curve where the brake horsepower going into the pump is the closest to the water

horsepower coming out of the pump. Pumps are sized and selected to operate at their BEP, based on system design and

flow-restriction characteristics. When a pump operates at its BEP—and only when it operates at its BEP—it is as

mechanically stable and as energy-efficient as possible. When it's not operating at its BEP, a pump is consuming more

energy than it should, and that inefficiency will ultimately impact the equipment's reliability.

Over time, several factors change within a pumping system. Those changes, in turn, directly impact the pump's operating

conditions, including, for example:

Surface roughness

A change in the number or design of mechanical elements that compose a system (i.e., valves, strainers, heat

exchanges, filters, tees, elbows, etc.)

The addition, deletion or modification of a system that ties into an existing system

Condition of the pump (i.e., internal clearances)

Any change in the mechanical composition of a pumping system will cause a centrifugal pump to operate at a different

point on its curve than where it was designed to operate. So, how does this affect the energy costs associated with the

operation of these pumps?

Centrifugal pumps are not 100% efficient. In fact, as depicted in Fig. 1, the BEP for most single-stage centrifugal units is

only somewhere between 80% and 85% of the shutoff head. You are going to have to look at your individual pump curve

to get the exact number for your pump. However, when selecting a new pump for an application, it is important for the

pump efficiency percentage to be a component in the evaluation process—and for the required operating parameter to

match the pump's BEP.

Utilizing a simple formula and concept that operating a 1 hp motor, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for a full year, and

paying 4.5¢ (cents) per kilowatt hour, a 1 hp motor will cost approximately $450 annually to operate, from an energy

standpoint.

It's important to remember that there will be energy costs associated with centrifugal pumps that cannot be recovered.

As discussed earlier in this article, the BEP is the point on the pump curve where the brake horsepower going into the

pump is the closest to the water horsepower coming out of the pump. When a pump's performance waivers, it indicates

that the unit is no longer operating at its BEP. Thus, the objective (and cost-savings opportunities) relating to energy

consumption is the value associated with the difference between the current operating point and a pump's BEP.

Real-world savings

Here's an example of an actual cost summary report compiled after a plant survey of pumping equipment.

The survey considered a total of 58 pumps at a steel-manufacturing facility with motor horsepower ranging from

30 to 1000 (see Table I).

The site confirmed 4.5¢ per kilowatt hour charged for energy. That equates to energy costs of approximately

$9,225,000 per year.

More importantly, the survey revealed cost-saving opportunities ranging from $655,875 to $1,311,750 per year

when the pumps' energy costs at BEP were compared with energy costs of them running 10% and 20% outside

the BEP.

Let's ask that question again: How many pumps at your site operate at their BEP? A simple way to determine the answer

includes monitoring amp draws, monitoring suction and discharge pressures and reviewing the pump curve.

Amp draws relate directly to flow, and pressure relates directly to total dynamic head on a pump curve. Amps can be

converted to horsepower. Pressure can be converted to total dynamic head. Horsepower and total dynamic head are

reference points on a pump curve that identify operating parameters at a given point, which can be compared with the

pump's BEP.

If you're not doing these things, start now—or have a consultant do it for you. It will be well worth the time and effort, in

more ways than one. UM

Colleen Reeves is vice president of business development for Dubric, Inc., a company specializing in equipment reliability.

Based in Comstock Park, MI, Dubric offers a variety

of pump-related services for end-users across North America, including, among other things, pump-engineering and

improvement programs, rebuilds, repairs and training.

Telephone: (800) 848-0022; e-mail: creeves@dubric.com ; Internet: www.dubric.com

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