Engineering

Oh dear! According to an article in "New Scientist" 21 Jan 2006. More reactive nitrogen falls out of the air now than farmers put on their fields in the 1950's. Reactive nitrogen is generated naturally by lightening The same article also claims that this is due to the addition of reactive nitrogen into the environment caused by the ways of man. Such as using fertiliser to feed our populations, the use of most fuelled land, air, and sea vehicles. It is also predicted that 70 percent of natural ecosystems to end by 2050. The most worrying aspect of most forms of reactive nitrogen is their contribution to Eutrophication. Eutrophication is defined (by http:/…

If anyone's been following up on my latest threads, one can come to a conclusion that I'm building something. I recently just formed a research group, currently very small, yet working on expansion. We are planning something big, a big project, and we'll be unveiling our end product sometime around May 2007. BUT THAT IS ONLY IF WE CAN GET FUNDED. We need grant money to operate on this. We need the money for a lab set-up including temendous computing capability as well as production of the product. We may incorporate the research group in order to quallify for NEA's research grants. So if anyone has connections to a firm that supports scientific endeavors, we will thank yo…

I will need to set up a minimalistic Robotics Lab, for about a year and a half or research/development of a complex automaton. Can anyone list the items I should invest in, or give me an estimate of the net cost? It will be much more a machine than a conventional robot, by that I mean that it will stay stationary and run processes, such as calculations, and dilations, and decantations, and seperation of earth materials. I'm guessing I'll need a powerful computer, does that mean I should invest in dual-core? Let's pretend money isn't an issue.

Hi all. I am considering making a rapid-firing coil gun for a school project. NO it will not be a gigantic man-slaughtering weapon of mass destruction - I doubt whether it will even break the sound barrier (more like dropping like a stone after travelling 2 feet). Honestly, I'm happy if I get the projectile out a meter before it hits the ground. So, can anyone suggest some ideas or plans or sites to help me? I've googled around, but they all are either camera flash cap powered or gigantic cap more than capable to kill a person powered. And they're all one shot, then wait for the cap to recharge style. Are there any rapid fire ones? I saw a few movies of a very low pow…

I'm doing a report in school and my topic is safety procedures/rules/precautions in a nuclear power plant (specifically the Zion Plant near Chicago, Illinois). Can anybody tell me where I could find this information?

Hello, Im interested in somewere i can find things like circuit switches dimmers etc.. small enought to fit into a 2cmx5cmx52m box so just reasonably small. I would also need a LED. Thanks a lot

I was just wondering if anyone knew how I could make a homemade heat exchanger. It's more of a contherm concept but I need to constantly keep a liquid moving while I'm heating it up. The main idea of my contherm is to keep the liquid constantly moving through a tube while being heated from a source that isn't in direct contact with the liquid. Any help would be great, Thanks!

I have some questions which may seem strange, but this is for part of a project I am working on. 1) How necessary is low pressure argon gas in the operation of a fluorescent light? Would a normal pressure argon work with less efficiency, or would it not work at all? 2) Can I power a fluorescent light from a Magnetron? Do you have any thoughts on what the best way would be to do this? Thanks for your input

Does anyone know if Ultraviolet C rays would damage some kind of paints, like for example the paint on a car? Perhaps this may not happen upon immmediate contact with the UVC but the deterioration would occurr over a few weeks thereafter.

In the book, "Engineering Design: A Day in the Life of Four Engineers," a group of recently graduated engineers are put on the same team with the goal to design an electronic car. They don't do it. But the point was that they didn't know that they could fail they came up with useful results. This is assumming a team of veteran engineers would have thought the task to be impossible and not try every option because they are really on what they have learned is possible. This is based on a real experiement which I believe was successful. My question is does anyone know what project that was? Or if you have any more information on the subject?

Are ther any metallurgists, or metallurgists in training out there? Wouldn't the resonances that occur when an iron mallet hits a steel carpace tend to be transmitted to and embedded in the steel as information? Might not it be possible that this information is recoverable? aguy2

As the title says: What can I do with 20 strong 1/2" disc magnets? I'm thinking of building something, but what? (except a Gauss Rifle). The project can use the magnets, and electronic parts and a 9V battery. It's for a school project. Thanks.

Aqueous Homogenous Reactors are what their name suggests; water in which soluble nuclear salts (usually uranium sulfate or uranium nitrate) have been dissolved in water. Thus the fuel is also the coolant and the moderator, thus the name "Homogenous" ('mixed together') The water can be either "Heavy Water" (water enriched in naturally occuring deuterium [the first isotope of hydrogen, with 1 proton & 1 neutron]; a deuteron occurs in 1 out of 6400 atoms of hydrogen.) or ordinary water, both which are very pure. A heavy water aquous homogenous reactor can achieve criticality (turn on) with ordinary, un-enriched uranium dissolved as uranium sulfate! Thus, no enrichment is…

You first probably ask the question, how is this so? Power is developed through harnessing powers of the earth. Science proves that it is mathimatcally impossible to have a 100% efficient power devloping machine and engine. This is correct but somewhere along the line we forgot to add to the equation...... Logic. When we talk about harrnessing the natural powers on earth we first think of wind, water, sunlight, and other naturally occuring forces. For some reason we forget to realize we, the human civiliaztion, is probably the greatest source of force on the earth. Now you see what I am getting at when I say we have the ability to power our planet. It is impossibl…

I am attempting to build a working Battery-free flashlight flash light. It would be powered by coils around a pen tube with a rod magnet inside. When you shake the tube the magnet goes up and down reversing polarity inducing a charge in the coils. The only problem is I can’t seem to get more than 0.9 volts out of the thing. I need at LEAST 3 volts. Not to mention that the current output is pitiful. The coils I wound are PERFECT. The layers are on top of each other with no overlaps. There are somewhere between 500 and 1500 turns. I can’t even begin to guess how many. So does anybody have any ideas? I have attached a schematic.

Is it possible by using magnetic field blocking materials to build a motor that runs only on permanent magnets? Say you have metal shaft supported by two bearings on each end. In the middle of this shaft is a permanent magnet with the north side facing out and the south side facing inward toward the shaft. Right across from the magnet on the shaft is another larger permanent magnet that is encased in a magnetic shielding material. Part of this shield can open like a valve to let the large magnetic repulse the magnet on the shaft and then close as the magnet passes around again. Here is an animation to better describe what I just typed. ?

Correct me if I'm wrong about any of this, please Peltier devices utilize an electrical current to produce a cold side and a hot side. The hot side gains it's heat energy from the electricity used to drive the device and from the heat absorbed by the cold side. Would it be wrong to say that close to 100% of the energy used to power the device ends up as heat on the hot side?

Out of curiosity, how many of you are familiar with WIG (Wing-In-Ground) effect planes? For that matter, anybody here an aerospace engineer? Long story short, I'm thinking about building a WIG craft / hovercraft, and I was wondering if anybody had ideas for where to start out. I have hardly any idea where to begin with airfoil shape, body shape, etc - although I am familiar with the extremely basic principles of flight. Any good books on aerodynamics would be great too. As far as the maths in the books go, by the end of this year I'll be through with AP Calc BC (roughly a full year's worth of college/uni-level calculus, a bit shy of multivariable calculus), and I'…

I have a plan to make an exhaust muffler, basicly it`s a tin can with a screw top lid cylindrical and about 1 litre capacity. I`ll use a 15mm copper pipe going into this can about 2/3`s its length, and 4x 8mm copper pipes from the other end of the can also going in about 2/3s of the can length. so any gas will have to do a letter `S` path to escape, the can will be filled with course grade wire wool. the single 15mm pipe is the inlet and the 4 8mms the outlets. that`s about the best I can come up with as an idea. I`de welcome any comments or improvements to this as long as they`re DOable. I also considered leaving the inlet pipe free (not fixed position) so I …

I want to know how to reflect a bluetooth signal, back to the source that sent it. Can bluetooth travel through any material? Thank you

I’m thinking of building my own ROV (remotely operated vehicle) which is basically a remote control submarine. Ideally I’d like the ROV to be able to withstand going fairly deep, say 200 feet, which means it will need to withstand high pressure (6 atmospheres / 88psi / 608kPa). I was thinking rather than build the ROV out of materials that can withstand such pressures, why not fill it with an uncompressible yet inert liquid, like oil? Well, one reason not to do this is that the electronics inside the ROV might break under the pressure anyway. At the very least I’ll have a video camera in there (lets not worry about the oil changing the optical properties of the ca…

Volvo has created Environmental Priority Strategies (EPS). At first sight this methodology is clear and useful. But I can’t understand how Volvo has calculated Environmental Load Unit (ELU). Can somebody explain me ELU or point me articles about this problem?

How can I build an Inverter? I have seen schematics, but I am currently unable to read schematics effectively, and I find them very confusing. Is it possible to build an inverter with just copper wire and something like iron? Your help would be most appreciated. A thank you in advance Thank you for your assistance.

A is made from two steel cables, overlaid with 2ftx6ft redwood lumber. It is 110 feet long, and sags down in the middle 5 feet lower than the ends of it. There are 400 pounds of wood in all.Each cable is rated at 2000lbs How much moreweight can this bridge support? Show or link to your proof, and show the formula used. In what ways does allowing extra sag affect the end result? What about if four cables were used rather than two? :confused:

I have fully coated my stainless steel kniefs with multiple films of TiCN/TiN. Can anybody teach me the methods to decoat the films partially that is halfly with coatings and halfly without coatings? Happy New Year! http://www.plasmatechnol.com/