Power and Electrical Engineering
This topic covers issues related to energy generation, conversion, transportation and consumption and how the industry is addressing the challenge of energy efficiency in general.
innovations-report provides in-depth and informative reports and articles on subjects ranging from wind energy, fuel cell technology, solar energy, geothermal energy, petroleum, gas, nuclear engineering, alternative energy and energy efficiency to fusion, hydrogen and superconductor technologies.
’Tree-Power’ Could be Future Energy Source
A wood-fueled electricity generating plant may be in your future.
In fact, the future is ’now’ in some Scandinavian countries, said Dr. Darwin Foster, Texas Cooperative Extension forestry program leader. “In Sweden, they’re already bundling up what we’re leaving in the forest after a timber harvest and using it as bio-fuel,” Foster said. “Bio-fuel” is all-inclusive term that includes any renewable resource used to generate energy. As with ethanol distilled fr
Artificial antenna helps ’cockroach robot’ scurry along walls
Student-made device sends obstacle warnings to mechanical bug’s brain
Can a robot learn to navigate like a cockroach? To help researchers find out if a mechanical device can mimic the pesky insect’s behavior, a Johns Hopkins engineering student has built a flexible, sensor-laden antenna. Like a cockroach’s own wriggly appendage, the artificial antenna sends signals to a wheeled robot’s electronic brain, enabling the machine to scurry along walls, turn corners and
Molecular wires & corrosion control boost performance of conductive adhesives
Replacing lead-based solder
Electrically conductive adhesive (ECA) materials offer the electronics industry an alternative to the tin-lead solder now used for connecting display driver chips, memory chips and other devices to circuit boards. But before these materials find broad application in high-end electronic equipment, researchers will have to overcome technical challenges that include low current density.
Using self-assembled monolayers – essentially molecular
Students Create Proximity Sensor System for Wheelchair-Bound Woman
A team of first-year engineering students at Elizabethtown College have created a proximity sensor system that will help a disabled woman better maneuver her power wheelchair.
The Audible Warning Sonic Sensor System, which is mounted to and powered by Melissa Sneath’s wheelchair, produces a warning sound when she is approaching an object or wall. The sound changes as she gets closer to the object, allowing her to correct her course and avoid a collision.
“As a result of h
Duke University engineers join ’Red Team’ robotic vehicle team
Students from Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering are partnering with Carnegie Mellon University’s “Red Team” in an effort to win a $2 million prize from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). All they have to do is complete the toughest ground course ever devised for a self-guided robotic vehicle.
The contest, called the DARPA Grand Challenge, is a race between fully self-guided ground vehicles to be conducted in the Southwestern United States on Oct. 8,
UF-developed detectors help guard against foam flaws in shuttle’s fuel tank
The engineers who built the massive external fuel tank that will power the shuttle Discovery into orbit this spring used sophisticated X-ray detectors developed by UF researchers to reduce the chance of a defect in the foam insulation covering the tank. The detectors, first invented as a new technology to find land mines, can identify tiny gaps, or air-filled voids, in the insulating foam without causing any damage. It is believed that such a gap – possibly located between the foam and the ta