Thank you to all our avid readers for all your support!
Please bear with me/us as I transition into the “real world” and we figure out the future of Technizzel.
Check back soon for even cooler engineering feats!
- Ben
Today is May 1, 2008. This is the Global Warming Era. Thanks to Al Gore, everyone seems to be familiar with the pressing issue of Global Warming and Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions, but in case you haven’t, allow me to recap.
Globally, we emit nearly 8 Billion tons of CO2 per year, a number that, until recent years, had been growing at about 1.5% annually. This staggering amount of CO2 has had numerous detrimental effects on our environment and rumors of legislation taxing CO2 emitting plants have never been stronger.
This sort of legislation exists in European countries like
As we all know, the threat of receiving a parking ticket will have little effect long term if no other parking alternative is provided (Think - college campuses). In a sense, this parking ticket example is a microcosm of the overarching CO2 tax issue. Despite the officials who believe that simply taxing CO2 emitters here in the
The cement manufacturing industry accounts for nearly 10% of the world’s CO2 emissions. Consider Markus Akermann, CEO of Holcim, one of the world’s largest cement suppliers. As CEO, Akermann has two choices. He can spend millions upon millions of dollars to set up an internal research and development team whose sole focus would be to alter their existing cement production process to rid CO2 emissions. Alternatively, he can continue supplying cement and accept a few million dollar decrease in revenue due to the proposed carbon tax. Considering an internal R&D team may amount to no process improvements with regards to CO2, which would you choose?
Until technologies for permanently sequestering CO2 become readily available, the government should spend its time investing in potential technologies rather than implementing a money-making carbon tax. Simply put, this resembles the ever old argument of which came first, the chicken or the egg. Without alternatives, CO2 emitters will not invest their own money into ddevloping cleaner technologies. And, without taxing companies, the government lacks the funds to invest in research. Essentially, this has resulted in a stand still, preventing any major improvements on the most important issue of our time: Global Warming.
By: Patryk Garlinski, Ben Jabbawy, Matt Gleason, and Yeounoh Chung
Imagine a world where instead of paying $40 or more to fill up your car with gas just to make it through the week, you could plug your car in overnight, get thousands of miles out of a full charge, and even help free the world from its heavy dependence on oil. Best of all, you could do it for less than what you’re paying to fill up your tank now. We’ve all thought about such a car, but how far are we from this ideal world?
Recently the answer to this question has started to take shape in the form of the Automotive X Prize (AXP). This competition, offered by the X Prize Foundation, challenges teams to design and build 100+ mile-per-gallon vehicles that could eventually be sold to the public. By organizing this competition, the X Prize Foundation says they hope “to inspire a new generation of viable, super-efficient vehicles that help break our addiction to oil and stem the effects of climate change.” Teams worldwide will compete to win the multi-million dollar prize and show that their vehicle has what it takes to become the future of the automotive industry. In order to qualify for the competition, teams will have to construct vehicles that meet the 100 mile-per-gallon mark and also must pass strict emissions and safety guidelines. In addition, each team must present a viable business plan for producing and selling their vehicle. Of the teams that meet these requirements, the winner will be determined by a series of race stages set to be held in 2010.
So far, over 50 teams have officially joined the competition. Though many of the ideas being developed are quite diverse, with competitors trying everything from super-efficient traditional engines to revolutionary hydraulics and air powered motors, the most popular source of energy for this competition is clearly electricity. Tesla Motors, a young, privately funded car company, has already proven that a purely electric vehicle is commercially viable with the release of their Roadster this past year. This environmentally friendly sports car reportedly gets 120 miles per gallon when using an electricity/gasoline equivalent conversion. However, the Roadster does not meet the emissions guidelines set forth by the X prize competition, which is why Tesla plans to enter a new model that will be more moderately priced and geared toward the mainstream auto market. Another
Building a Better
While these examples may make it seem like the goal of the AXP competition has already been met, and with relative ease, pure efficiency is not the whole story. The greatest optimization challenges for developers of electric vehicles have been and will continue to be driving range and refueling time. When trying to improve vehicle efficiency, excess weight is usually one of the first things to go. In a vehicle powered by electricity, energy is typically stored in batteries, which tend to be very heavy and take up lots of space. Historically, small, light vehicles just don’t have the battery capacity necessary to travel long distances. Another problem lies in the time it takes to charge the batteries in an electric car. The most advanced batteries widely sold up until now take several hours to charge. Compare this with the several minutes it takes to fill up at a gas pump and it is easy to see the problem.
It is for this reason the automotive industry is shining a major spotlight on battery innovation as a segway into a new era of hybrid and electric cars. Thanks to many researchers and innovators, batteries are finally breaking new ground in meeting the demanding requirements of the automobile industry.
Dr. Cui, a researcher at
The prospects for the battery innovation sound tremendous, but it has yet to prove its ground in some aspects. One area of skepticism lies in the predicted lifespan of the battery. In an interview with Dr. Yi Cui from GM-VOLT.com, he stated that he is currently doing tests to see if his batteries will meet a target of 1000 cycles (better than most li-ion cells) without substantial depreciation, and that he expects to have results in the next couple of months. The implications of this kind of study are very important. So far, the only published results show that the batteries hold up very well when cycled 30 times. To bring this into perspective, the Tesla roadster has an estimated range of about 220 miles. With a range extension of 10 times, the carbon nanowire battery could bring this range up to 2200 miles on one charge. A thousand cycle lifespan would mean that the car’s battery would be able to take the car 2.2 million miles without needing to be replaced, and that’s quite a bit.
But what about charging the whole battery pack, which holds as much electricity as 6800 standard lithium-ion batteries do? If a laptop with 12 lithium-ion battery cells takes about 2 hours to fully charge, then could fully charging an electric vehicle with 6800 cells take as long as 13,600 hours?! Well, you would not be relying on a regular home appliance adaptor (100 – 240 V, 1.5 Amps) to charge such battery. For commercial electric vehicles that are available in the very near future, the average charging time, given a special charging station that runs on 70 Amps of current at 100 – 240 V, projects to be about 3.5 hours, which is not terrible, but not great either. Fortunately, MIT researchers are coming up with a better solution to the problem. By inserting a layer of metal (manganese and nickel) separated from the lithium by oxygen and organizing the crystalline structure of the material, the flow of lithium-ions within the battery can increase up to 10 times faster than that of an unmodified battery. Another positive aspect of this improvement is that by using manganese and nickel rather than currently accepted cobalt in lithium-ion cells, the cost of production can be much cheaper and the capacity of the battery can be much higher. *1*
A Competitive Edge
So how much of an impact will this new battery technology have on the teams competing for the X Prize? Looking at the vehicles engineered by Tesla and Aptera, they are only able to cover 220 and 120 miles per charge respectively, before needing to charge for several hours. While this is not terrible, limitations of this kind may cause many consumers to doubt the utility of such a vehicle. It is this perspective that has encouraged many teams to pursue some form of hybrid electric vehicle. The inclusion of an engine running on liquid fuel provides the advantage of quick refueling during long periods of driving. At the same time, if the ability to plug the vehicle in and recharge off the grid exists, shorter trips may be completed on only electric power. This is the strategy of several teams, including a team from
Looking Ahead
While many teams will likely be able to achieve the necessary efficiency, performance could be a more significant issue. Though the specifics of the race stages of the contest have not been officially announced, it is likely that a variety of driving scenarios will be required in the competition. Slower driving over short distances, consistent with urban driving, might not put much separation between competitors. Rather, it is the longer “highway” courses that may decide the outcome. Any team employing electricity as a main source of energy will need every bit of help possible to extend the driving range of their vehicles. This is why the development of new lithium-ion batteries with ten times the capacity of their predecessors offers such an advantage for both AXP, and the industry as a whole.
However, the new battery technology does raise some concerns. One issue that will arise if a move to electric vehicles occurs is where all needed electricity to charge them will come from. Just plugging into the grid means you will be using electricity produced mainly by burning fossil fuels. So, might a decrease in vehicles powered by gas or other fuels just mean an increase in power plants and a continued dependence on fossil fuels? As Cornell AXP’s team leader Terence Davidovits points out, not quite: “Electric cars are more efficient and would likely result in a reduction in CO2 emissions, even taking into account the fact that we burn fossil fuels to supply electricity. We also then have a vehicle fleet in place that can then be charged with sources like wind, solar or nuclear, that do not require the consumption of fossil fuels.” This concern with where the power will come from will undoubtedly be important to eco-friendly car buyers.
In fact, a lot of people are talking about solar power these days. You might have heard about how entire communities out in California are buying up solar cells to power up their homes and don’t have to pay any more energy bills. If they get more solar energy for a given month than they need, the power companies are forced to buy off the excess energy. The main issue is that in order to implement this technology, these families are also spending over fifty thousand dollars on some of the larger installations to power their houses. So, how much would it cost to power your car with one of these solar cells?
Rising car companies like Tesla Motors plan on co-marketing sustainable energy products from other companies along with the car. They claim such a solar panel to be modestly sized and priced, and that the system can generate about 50 miles per day of electricity. That adds up to 350 miles a week, which is a great starting point considering most people drive an average of 230 miles per week, yet this will still leave a lot of people short. The more important solar panel detail is that it will cost an estimated five to six thousand dollars to purchase. While the prospects of everyday individuals helping the world go green by buying up solar cells to reduce their carbon emissions sounds great, it is just not economical for everyone. It is even inefficient for those who have little access to sun exposure. It is expected that most people will not want to make that kind of investment. This again brings us to the topic of fossil fuels. Now instead of the original intent of having a zero emission vehicle, because most Americans get over 50% of their electricity from coal burning, we’re back to the predicament that burning fossil fuels is just downright cheaper than the alternatives.
Like all automotive innovations, one has to wonder whether these concepts will actually become a reality. Are these new batteries economically viable options for automobiles or are they the work of science fiction? In the GM-Volt interview with Dr. Cui, he addresses the following concerns and shares his thoughts on where these batteries are headed in the near future. Since cost is so relevant to developing batteries for cars, are silicon nanowires more expensive? Furthermore, would they increase the cost of the cells?
“Silicon is the second most abundant element in the world. For battery applications it doesn’t have to be high purity silicon. Unlike silicon solar cells which require high purity. The silicon industry is also big, people know everything about silicon. The infrastructure is there, the supply source is there. With the excitement of use of silicon for batteries, the cost will be reduced dramatically.”
What timeline do you think it would take before your technology could be incorporated into a commercial product?
“I am working on it. As a rough timeline, I would say perhaps 5 years.”
Dr. Cui has mentioned the possibility of starting his own company to develop these batteries, but is also thinking of working with an existing battery company. Five years just seems like too long to wait for this type of technology advancement. Cui needs to start thinking about some serious growth. With the AXP competition set to begin in 2010, we can only hope that the innovations springing from the challenge will aid in minimizing the time in attaining such batteries. The consumer basis for these batteries is practically limitless, and no one wants to wait around for new technology. High demand is going to push mass production to come soon. Be ready.
*1* Nickel: 8$/lb, Cobalt: 15$/lb, Manganese: 1$/lb, from 2007 Material database by Granta Design Limited.
Many technological advances are inundating the military market. Among perhaps tougher Kevlar and new rifles, is the Sarcos® Exoskeleton: a revolutionizing robot that complements the human body to attend to the most inhuman tasks possible. While some may imagine that lifting two hundred pounds is a struggle, this machine trivializes this very task, as a CNN video highlights the easiness and lack of human strength needed to operate the robot. With plans to become bulletproof, the exoskeleton can help a single man load a nuclear missile precisely and delicately enough to still play a game of catch- so what exactly is this military epiphany?
For the last fifteen years, as the Sarcos® website indicates, this company has been a leader in the research and development aspects of industries relating to robotics, medical devices, and mechanical and electrical Microsystems. By targeting the focus of the company to couple two diametric perspectives of biology and engineering, the company has given birth to many inventions that add human dexterity to nonhuman elements. Much of the research conducted through the company is centered on the development of silicon-based micro-sensors and electronic servo actuation systems. Silicon-based micro-sensors primarily “measure machine operational characteristics such as rotary movement, strain, load, acceleration, position, pressure, vibration, sound, and flow”. While acknowledging a variety of characteristics relative to robotic systems on a micro scale, these sensors can take the information gathered and apply it to products in the automotive, medical and aerospace industries especially. In combination with the development of such sensors, is the creation of Human/Computer interfaces that allow “an individual to be visually and mechanically immersed within a computer-generated synthetic environment”. The interfaces are further divided into four groups that target a different aspect of a machine, or robot in this situation, including: “(1) mobility portals (MPs), (2) Sensuit command systems (SCSs), (3) graphic workstation interfaces (GWIs), and (4) dexterity masters (DMs)”. Altogether, the interfaces and microsensors allow for the robot to operate to the whim of the human as well as the human to control the robot in extreme situations throughout acute expertise of proprietary actuation, sensor, and control technologies.
Important aspects as mentioned above, are the micro-sensors and actuators used to direct the robots. One such microsensor is the Rotary Displacement Transducer, in which through “emitter and detector disks, housing elements, and a sealed input shaft, the chips interact electrostatically to measure relative position with absolute rotary resolutions”. In general most sensors produced, specifically those of Sarcos®, address intelligence of “multiplexing, signal processing, and self-calibration as well as measurement of rotation, linear strain, and multi-axis strain” in regards to the robot.
The Human/Computer interfaces are also vital to the movement, function, and appearance of the robot that allow for its marketability and success. In general HCIs allow for the movement of the robot to be lightweight and of low resistance especially through the many degrees of freedoms providing for a myriad of joint angles. Through both wired and wireless communication between the computer and the interface, the HCIs allow for local kinematic transformations and control. Mentioned above were a few types of interfaces designed for specific purposes in regards to the robot, including MPs, SCSs, and GWIs. MPs are primarily responsible for natural movement in a synthetic environment and allow for real-time decision making in terms of speed, direction, exertion, and posture. SCS are utilized for direct and interactive real-time measurements of the operator’s body, in which certain signals conducted can control the robot in extreme situations. GWIs, lastly, are small intelligent interfaces that control through microsensors the real-time yet natural command of the many robotic movements.
As the potential consumer for such an idea would be the government and the potential purpose would be for the protection and support of the soldiers, it is grateful that the product is highly reliable yet low cost for such high performance. Since the suit can be controlled either through a remote operator wearing a SenSuit or through a computer controlled preprogrammed show, one can imagine the amount of background engineering and aesthetic design used to implement such a machine. Much of the robot is managed by advanced CAD systems called Pro/Engineer and Alpha-One which manage interfaces handling animation and analysis and allow for real-time movement unlike many robots throughout the world.
This up and coming company has been capturing the eye of the technological world since the early 90s, and with the future of the military in its hands, we have only to wait for what else is in store in the robotic community. Through the thorough research and development of the micro-sensors and interfaces, this robot is ready to stand by every soldier- helping each man and woman run faster, work harder, and yet not sweat a drop. As politics highlight the weakening of the
Read more from http://www.sarcos.com/
For three weeks in January, 30 University of Wisconsin-Madison engineering students explored the city and met the people of Cape Town, South Africa. And during the 2008 LeaderShape Institute, held on the University of Cape Town (UCT) campus, they learned to change the world one goal at a time.
The Wisconsin students were paired with 22 UCT students and stayed on the UCT campus. Though UW-Madison has hosted LeaderShape for more than a decade, this is the first time the program has been held in Africa, and it’s the first time American students have gone overseas to participate.
Early New Year’s Day, the UW-Madison students flew more than 20 hours to Cape Town. They spent the first few days adjusting to a time zone eight hours ahead of Wisconsin. In keeping with advice from UCT chemical engineering associate professor Duncan Fraser, the students used exercise and sunshine to beat the jet-lag. They explored downtown Cape Town, climbed Table Mountain and toured the Cape Peninsula, which is home to overly curious baboons and penguins content to merely sway in the wind.
On Day 6 (Sunday, January 6) of the trip, the UCT students arrived for LeaderShape, a six-day program focused on developing leadership qualities and identifying personal visions for changing the world. This year’s cross-cultural session was “the most intense LeaderShape I’ve seen,” says co-lead facilitator and UW-Madison alum Kristin Skarie.
The UCT students hailed from many African, Asian and European countries, as well as a variety of racial and class backgrounds. Their variety of perspectives, combined with those of the UW-Madison students, led to conversations that found a deep level of authenticity, says LeaderShape co-lead facilitator Jamie Washington. Immediately, the UW-Madison and UTC students bonded. “We have come together perfectly,” says Joey Laspe, a UW-Madison nuclear engineering student.
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Abbott Laboratories and a private contributor, Gary Wendt, sponsored the trip. Students had an opportunity to meet and thank Wendt when he visited Cape Town during LeaderShape (January 6 to 12). Wendt and College of Engineering Dean Paul Peercy spoke to students about what it takes to be an effective leader. Vision and character are the two qualities central to leadership, according to Peercy. For Wendt, every vision needs to be grounded in reality and every leader needs to be persuasive enough to get people to believe in an idea.
Wendt’s own vision led him to support the trip. “We are no longer citizens of Madison or Cape Town, but citizens of the world,” he says. “Why I’m excited about being involved in this is it’s an opportunity to get engineers out of a relatively closed environment and into another environment. Being in another country is an interesting chance to learn.”
Both UW-Madison and UCT students found the LeaderShape program valuable. “I learned so much more about myself in five days than I have learned in years,” says Lesego Mosime, a construction studies student at UCT. “It was a beautiful experience for me.”
During the final week of the trip (January 13 to 18), the group had to put their teamwork and motivation skills to the test. The students worked at the Edith Stephens Wetland Park, a small preserve set in the middle of five poor townships on the outskirts of Cape Town. The pond at the park has been choked off by water hyacinth, and students spent four laborious days tossing the weed into tall piles along the banks, as well as helping with other small maintenance projects around the preserve. “The next time I see a water hyacinth, which may be in my dad’s fish pond, I’m going to throw it over the fence,” says Craig MacKenzie, a UW-Madison civil engineering student.
The hot, sweaty, mucky, nasty work—as facilitator and UW-Madison educational policy studies doctoral student JP Leary describes the project—was important to the park. With six dedicated staff members and no real funding, the park scratches out an existence in the barren Cape Flats region.
The pond is critical for the poverty-stricken communities at its borders. Winter in Cape Town means rain, and the pond keeps the water from flooding the townships. The invasive water hyacinth makes it harder for rain to run into the pond; students could envision the damage waist-high water might inflict on the tiny homes after they toured one community, Philippi, the day (January 13) before the project.
The pond offers relief from the gray, dusty landscape of the Cape Flats, as well as a home to many bird and wildlife species that risk losing their breeding spots as the hyacinth ruins the wetland ecosystem. Denis Kow Son Wong, a UCT computer and electrical engineering student, wants to continue the project by educating township kids about the value the pond has for their communities and their wildlife. “If we don’t teach them or educate them on what we did—in this case, taking out the hyacinths and maybe bringing new hope to the wildlife—inevitably the place will end up as it was before, as if we didn’t make any difference at all,” says Wong. “They’d be walking blind past this pond.”
Throughout the project, the students encouraged each other and stayed enthusiastic about working in weather that alternated between blistering hot or chilly, windy and rainy. “These very different student groups came quickly together as one and it’s very gratifying to see that spirit of collaboration make it all the way through to the end,” says Adrienne Thunder, a LeaderShape facilitator and senior advisor in the UW-Madison College of Letters and Science. “The students have been excellent representatives of both institutions.”
All too soon, January 18 arrived and the UW-Madison students packed and departed South Africa for the long flight home. However, the experience has left students from both sides of the Atlantic with strong cross-cultural relationships. “During LeaderShape, people wanted to get along, and it was easy to trust each other and talk openly,” says Ahmed Akhalwaya, a UCT computer engineering student.
Andrew Elizondo, a UW-Madison engineering mechanics and astronautics student, agrees that the Madison and UCT students got very close in a short amount of time. “I see us still cracking jokes a year from now,” he says. “It’s not really over.”
The Cornell Baja Racing team designs, builds and races an off-road vehicle. We participate in the SAE Midwest Regional competition, which includes events that test the maneuverability, suspension, and acceleration of the car, as well as judge its design and cost. The climax of the competition is the four hour endurance race.
Our team is made up of undergraduate students from four different colleges in the university, although most of our team members are engineers. We spend the fall semester designing the car and testing prototype improvements on previous cars. The spring semester is spent building and testing the car before the competition in June. The car is designed and built from the ground up each year, solely by students.
Joining a project team is extremely fun and rewarding. On the Baja team, even the youngest team members contribute to the design and manufacturing of our car. Fabrication is usually the first skill that new team members acquire. Many hours of practice using mills and lathes pays off, because when the car is finished you can point to a suspension upright or pedal and say, “I made that.” As members of the team gain experience through classes and sticking with the Baja team, they begin to design parts of the car as well. These design experiences often reinforce coursework, or develop skills before they come up in class.
Being part of a long-term team gives great experience in preparation for working in the industry. Learning how to design pieces of a large system is emphasized from day one. As others’ parts change, you must make changes to your work. This constant process requires patience and flexibility. Working on a large team also requires you to learn how to listen to others’ criticism of your work, and how to give useful criticism back. The creative process that goes into designing a car requires that everyone give input and that everyone listens to the given input.
Since the Baja team is about designing and building an off-road vehicle, test driving is done on trails in the woods, rock quarries and ATV test tracks. Everyone on the team gets to drive, which means that everyone on the team comes back muddy and dirty. The experience of driving a car which you helped build is unmatched by any other experience as an engineer. Especially when you can drive that car off of a really big jump.
In the Baja SAE competition, all teams are required to use the same, unmodified engine. Given this constraint, one of the simplest ways to go faster is to have as light a car as possible. The Cornell Baja team reduces the weight of the car in several ways. For metal components, designing parts that are only strong enough for the stresses they are expected to encounter saves weight. The analysis of these stresses requires Finite Element Analysis. Another way that Cornell Baja lightens the car is through the use of composites. We are increasingly using carbon fiber to replace metal sections of the car, such as the steering wheel and steering shaft. The body panels of the car are also made from composites, fiberglass for the side panels and Kevlar for the floor.
