This article focuses on the fact that by matching the use to demand the heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC), the controls are now able to cut electric bills and ease strain on the local grid, often leading to earn credits from the utilities. Similarly, advanced lighting systems are providing needed illumination using less electricity than conventional overhead lighting. The Lighting Systems Research Group of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory developed a table lamp that provides the same illumination as a 300-watt halogen lamp or an ISO-watt incandescent table lamp, but uses less energy than either one. The Berkeley lamp’s designers placed an optical septum—an aluminum reflector dish painted white—between the two lamps to permit three different modes of lighting—down, up, or a combination of the two. The downward, directly focused light is intended for reading or writing, and the indirect, upward light for low glare, suitable for working on a computer.

This article highlights that manufacturers have been designing remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) that are directly powered by electric motors to improve their energy efficiency, and to reduce their weight and size. Alstom Schilling Robotics developed the Quest to compete with 100- to 150-hp hydraulic ROVs in such underwater tasks as offshore construction support, remote tool deployment, object recovery, salvage, surveying, and mapping. The Quest’s Sea Net communication and telemetry system carries signals over a single optical fiber to and from modular hubs affixed to the ROV, TMS, and accessories, including sensors, cameras, lights, thrusters, and tools. The greater mass of hydraulic-powered ROVs gives them an advantage over electric vehicles in rough seas, where greater stability is needed. To operate in looser soil that cannot support the trencher, the tracks can be removed and replaced with skids, so that the trencher’s power can be directed to its thrusters.

The General Electric (GE) H turbine system in Wales is designed to be 60% thermally efficient. The Welsh installation will serve as a springboard for two other installations, planned for New York State and Tokyo, so that the technology will span three continents. The 480-megawatt H system in Wales is designed to be the first gas turbine combined-cycle system in the world to achieve 60% thermal efficiency. The main advantage provided by efficiency is economic, because fuel represents the largest single expense in running a fossil-fueled power plant. GE engineers based much of the H design on proven turbine technology, starting with the high-pressure compressors. Another advantage GE intends to stress in marketing its H turbines, along with fuel economy and environmental performance, is their greater power density.

This article analyses strategies that are improving manufacturing in the aluminum and automotive industries. There are also high-performance plastics that can be injection molded in a single piece to replace assemblies of several metal parts. Automated controls enhance the precision of what were once manual operations and make them safer. Replacing assembled metal parts with injection-molded plastic components often reduces the number of manufacturing steps and their related costs, as well as the weight of the finished product. Advances in instrumentation and control technologies are enabling manufacturers to automate more and more operations, with increases in efficiency and productivity beyond human limits. Ormet Aluminum Mill Products Corp. in Wheeling, WV, recently upgraded the strip casting furnace operations at its coated aluminum and foil aluminum facility in Jackson, MI, this way.

This article highlights that researchers are developing new technologies to carry H 2 in gas, liquid, or solid state. The advantages of hydrogen fuel for cars and trucks keep driving efforts to develop ways of handling it. Hydrogen has the highest energy content by weight of any fuel—52,000 Btu per pound. As the simplest and most common element in the universe, though never found naturally in pure form, hydrogen can be produced from a host of available sources, including water, natural gas, coal, biomass, municipal solid waste, or scrap tires. Compressed gas tanks store hydrogen as a gas, and their cryogenic counterparts store it as a liquid. A less familiar method of storing hydrogen is a solid in metal hydrides, alloys of rare earth, transition metal, and magnesium. These granulated materials absorb hydrogen. Researchers feed hydrogen directly into the tanks, where it is absorbed by the powdered alloy. As the hydrogen gas is absorbed during charging, the metal hydrides generate heat that is removed by water.

This article discusses the logistical agility of the United States armed forces that enables the nation to project its power into countries as remote as Afghanistan. The aircraft, artillery, and vehicles deployed on the battlefield are effective as long as the flow of anul1unition, fuel, and spare parts reaches them in good order. For that reason, Uncle Sam is a major sponsor of innovative technologies that rely on mechanical innovation, automation, and vision systems to improve the transport of vital equipment. These breakthroughs are often commercialized to benefit private sector transport as well, as was the case with the Direct Acquisition Rail-to-Ship spreader bar system (DARTS) designed to transfer military cargo directly from railcars to vessels, and now used in commercial shipping. The designers based the DARTS on Bromma’s standard AST -6 telescoping spreader bar, which uses a single electric motor to drive the hydraulic pump that extends or retracts the bar’s reach.

This article focuses on diverse benefits of biomass gasification. Biomass gasification involves converting organic fuels to create a relatively clean combustible gas. The advantages of biomass gasification are its ability to convert relatively cheap stocks, such as sawdust, switch grass, bagasse, agricultural wastes, or specifically grown energy plantation crops like willow trees, into fuel that will not produce as many emissions, especially of alleged greenhouse gases, as will the direct burning of organic solids. The relatively high energy value of the biomass gas means it could be combined with natural gas or distillate oil, which the company believes is a necessity to commercialize the process. Future Energy Resources Corp. (FERCO) uses a personal computer-based data acquisition and control system equipped with WonderWare software for the McNeil gasifier. Currently, FERCO has two development agreements to install its biomass gasification process.

This article discusses the electrochemical machining (ECM), a noncontact technology that spares both tool and part from machining wear, and the ECM finishes some parts in half the time of conventional mechanical machining techniques. The Sermatech Manufacturing Group, a leading user of ECM, is researching new applications for the technology, which the company uses principally on turbine components and various aircraft parts. In the ECM process, the DC power source charges the workpiece positively and charges the tool negatively. As the machine slowly brings the tool and workpiece close together, perhaps to within 0.010 of an inch, the power and electrolyte flow are turned ON. Everite engineers developed a thinner cutting wheel version of its ECG machines to cut fine stainless steel tubing for medical devices without burrs. Other tiny medical devices made by Everite machines include biopsy needles, nickel titanium threading catheters, and cobalt–chrome alloy joint implants.

This article reviews that material and design improvements convert more electrical energy into mechanical power. According to the Department of Energy, electric motors account for two-thirds of the energy consumed by US industries, including chemicals, general manufacturing, mining, and utilities. More than 1.2 million integral electrical motors are sold each year, 10–15% of them high-efficiency motors, according to the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA), based in Rosslyn, VA. Greenville Tube Corp., based in Greenville, PA, is a subsidiary of Chart Industries Inc. in Cleveland. Greenville Tube’s 100,000-square-foot plant in Clarksville, AR, made a name for itself by quickly producing stainless steel tubing of specific size and type to reduce costly downtime caused by equipment failure. The Clarksville plant cold draws approximately one million feet of stainless steel tubing each month for use in automotive, aerospace, food processing, and medical equipment, pharmaceutical and petrochemical applications.

This article provides details of various aspects of air cooling technologies that can give gas turbines a boost. Air inlet cooling raises gas turbine efficiency, which is proportional to the mass flow of air fed into the turbine. The higher the mass flow, the greater the amount of electricity produced from the gas burned. Researchers at Mee Industries conduct laser scattering studies of their company’s fogging nozzles to determine if the nozzles project properly sized droplets for cooling. The goal for turbine air cooling systems is to reduce the temperature of inlet air from the dry bulb temperature, the ambient temperature, to the wet bulb temperature. The Turbidek evaporative cooling system designed by Munters Corp. of Fort Myers, Florida, is often retrofit to turbines, typically installed in front of pre-filters that remove particulates from inlet air. Turbine Air Systems designs standard chillers to improve the performance of the General Electric LM6000 and F-class gas turbines during the hottest weather.

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed technologies to lower maintenance costs for the Navy and to automate more tasks at the factory. The scope of the institute’s engineering research has also grown from its origins in textiles, ceramics, and early helicopter—or autogyro—design. Today, student and faculty researchers in Georgia Tech’s Logistics and Maintenance Applied Research Center—LandMARC—are using the latest information technology to reduce the maintenance and logistics costs for aircraft, I transit buses, and emergency vehicles. The first project undertaken by LandMARC is expected to reduce the cost of maintaining the US Navy’s aging fleet of Lockheed Martin P-3 Orion anti-submarine aircraft by more than $1 million per year. Georgia Tech and Navy personnel are concentrating on improving the diagnostic techniques for the Orion’s engine-driven compressor because it is the airplane’s single most costly repair item. The compressor supplies air to several key aircraft systems, including internal pressurization, engine start, and air conditioning.

This article highlights that one of the most accurate industrial cutting blades is a thousandth-of-an-inch supersonic jet of water carrying abrasive particles to a target surface. Waterjets cut simple or complex shapes from steel, glass, plastic, composites, paper, or fabric, without causing the thermal or mechanical distortions associated with mechanical saws. Recovering the abrasive is the mission of the WaterVeyor system developed by Flow International Corp. The WaterVeyor lets waterjet cutters recycle garnet abrasives, thereby reducing waste disposal costs and the cost of purchasing virgin abrasive. Although industrial waterjets are strong enough to shear steel plate, they are also delicate enough to carve decorative glass, where the appearance of the finished product is as important as throughput.

This article illustrates that factories and machine shops use automated controls, sensors, and continuous electric arcs to make faster welds better. Welding system manufacturers, such as Lincoln Electric Co. of Cleveland, work with robot manufacturers, including ABB, to integrate their products and tailor automated welding systems that make faster precision welds. At the same time, instrumentation companies, such as LMI Selcom of Gothenburg, Sweden, have developed sensors to improve the precision of automated welding systems even further in high-volume applications. LMI Selcom Robotic Guidance of Gothenburg, Sweden, developed its SeamFinder laser measurement systems to improve the welding quality and cycle times of robotic. A key component to the Power MIG 200 is its Diamond Core technology, an internal assembly that provides a constant electrical current to the welding torch. A Michigan-based welding company taking advantage of the Power MIG 200’s smooth arc is Midstate Utility in White Cloud. The company fabricates machinery used to install telephone cable. Midstate Utility has been using the Lincoln unit since October of 2000.

Manufacturers of fuel cells are working to improve the economics of electrochemical devices to make them more competitive with conventional fossil fuel power systems for industrial plants and vehicles. FuelCell Energy of Danbury, Connecticut, is designing a system to convert polluting coal mine methane into electricity. General Electric MicroGen of Latham, New York, plans to introduce a residential fuel cell system by the end of the year to provide remote homes with backup current and heat. Another residential system is being developed by International Fuel Cells of South Windsor, Connecticut. The Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory in Morgantown, West Virginia, is sponsoring a program to determine the feasibility of feeding coal mine methane to fuel cells. The program involves building a 250-kilowatt fuel cell system at the Nelms mining complex operated by Harrison Mining Corp. in Cadiz, Ohio. A fuel cell system planned for the Nelms complex will assist these automotive engines in consuming methane emissions while generating electricity.

Automakers are using French-born manufacturing software to improve the machining and assembly of their vehicles. Carmakers use ILOG software to determine the order of building vehicles that will optimize production, maximizing return on investment. A more recent French software entrant in the Detroit area is ILOG, which opened a sales and technical support office in Southfield, Michigan, in May 2000, to serve the US automotive market. Delmia Corp.’s, a French company, labs in Troy, Paris, Montreal, Stuttgart, and Bangalore, India, customize software services to design, simulate, optimize, and control production activities, which account for up to 80 percent of the cost of manufactured goods. Delmia adapted three of its proprietary software tools to form the core software of the V-Comm Project. The Delmia Assembly Module enables users to evaluate alternative sequences of assembly to achieve the optimal lean solution. Toyota engineers working in V-Comm rooms at 20 Toyota locations in Japan, Europe, and North America use the Delmia software to create virtual prototypes that are projected on large screens, and to observe the visual data in three dimensions.

The Swedish Navy’s Visby corvette is designed to be virtually invisible in pursuit of hostile submarines and underwater mines. The Visby is designed to be difficult to detect by an enemy using radar, infrared, hydro-acoustic monitoring or any other sensor system. The craft’s success could change naval warfare as profoundly as did the ironclad ships in the 19th century. Sweden’s YS2000 class corvette, the first known production naval stealth vessel, takes shape at Kockums’ shipyard on Karlskrona Island. The Kockums shipwrights designed the Visby to be electronically undetectable at a range greater than 13 km in rough seas, and at more than 22 km in calm seas, without electronic jamming. With the assistance of jamming, the Visby is invisible at more than 8 km in rough waters and 11 km in a calm sea. Computing Devices Canada also designed a monitoring system so that the Visby can perform a background check on its own vibration levels to ensure that the ship’s sound is within acceptable levels.

This article focuses on instruments aboard an orbiting satellite and high-flying aircraft study grass fires that straddle a continent. NASA designed its $1.3 billion Terra to be the flagship in a new series of Earth-observing satellites that will study phenomena affecting the climate. The instruments carried by Terra that were most active during the Safari 2000 field experiment were Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectro-Radiometer (MODIS), Multi-Angle Imaging Spectro-Radiometer (MISR), and Measurements of Pollution in the Troposphere (MOPITT). MOPITT accomplishes its mission by using gas correlation spectroscopy to measure rising and reflected infrared radiance in three absorption bands of carbon monoxide and methane. The Terra’s Safari 2000 observations were augmented by measurements taken by instruments aboard several aircraft, including the high-altitude Lockheed-Martin ER-2 that NASA flew from Pietersburg, South Africa, as part of the African field experiment. The South African Weather Bureau contributed two Aerocommander 690A aircraft to Safari 2000. One of the twin-engine, turboprop planes was used for aerosol research, while the other one helped validate the carbon monoxide measurements obtained by MOPITT.

This article focuses on synthetic gases derived from industrial and municipal wastes enable fuel cogeneration plants in Europe. The modern version of the fabled philosopher’s stone is gasification, a process typically used to convert high sulfur coals into a synthesis gas, or syngas that can be burned cleanly. Basically, the coal is prepared and fed into a reactor, or gasifier, where it is partly oxidized with steam under pressure. GE has developed co-firing capability that allows the power plant to produce full electrical load on the backup fuel, providing electric power availability up to 95%. Waste-fueled IGCC plants are being built in countries other than Italy and Germany. Asian petrochemical plants are also bullish on waste-fueled IGCC. GE is working with Exxon in Singapore to gasify the residues from steam cracking operations at a major olefins plant in the island nation. In addition to providing power and steam, gasification will produce all the hydrogen feedstock the plant needs for olefin processing when it begins operations.

This article focuses on the launch of Sputnik that transfixed the world by Carpenter Technology Corp. By incorporating advanced processing equipment, including a rolling mill, shape controller, annealing furnaces, wet grinders, and leveler with state-of-the-art automated control systems, Carpenter has improved the productivity and quality of its high value strip at a time when Space Shuttle launchings are taken in stride. The Carpenter specialty strip facility installed a cold rolling mill designed by Joseph Frohling GmbH of Olpe, Germany, in November last year, to increase rolling capacity and guarantee that the steel strip it produces meets the desired shape and thickness. In the Frohling mill, strip passes between two working rolls that reduce its thickness to sizes between 0.150 and 0.008 inch, at speeds up to 1500 feet per minute. Carpenter also installed three Ebner vertical annealing furnaces. Coiled strip on mandrels is unwound through each furnace, annealed, then rewound continuously to promote productivity.

This article reviews many hospitals and medical centers have found it more economical to replace their on-site incinerators with alternative waste treatment technologies, primarily microwave systems or steam autoclaves, or send waste to treatment companies that are equipped with disinfection technologies. Sanitec International Holdings of West Caldwell, NJ, illustrates the in roads that alternatives are making to medical waste incineration. The entire Sanitec disinfection system is enclosed in all-weather steel housing, and is connected to the hospital’s electrical and water systems. Hospital workers bring collected waste in carts to the automated lift and load system, which raises the cart and empties it into the infeed hopper. The MediWaste system at Laredo is designed to treat up to 200 pounds of material per hour, which is more than sufficient to treat the 700 to 800 pounds of waste generated per day. Although incineration alternatives appear to be gaining popularity, combustion is still used to disinfect and reduce much clinical waste.