Self-healing wires

Aug 14th, 2008 | Filed under: Aerospace, Design | 0 Comments

A University of Dayton Research Institute chemist who identified a plausible cause for the explosion that downed TWA flight 800 in 1996, has developed a self-healing wire designed to prevent a similar kind of explosion.

Bob Kauffman and his colleagues at UDRI were part of a team hired to determine the cause of the centre-wing fuel tank explosion that brought down TWA 800 killing all passengers and crew on board. The researchers determined that frayed fuel sensor wiring was to have played a significant role in the explosion.

Research showed that frayed wires exposed to moisture in a fuel tank cause conductive fuel residues to form. Kauffman explained: “If those residues are exposed to DC electricity from faulty wiring, they become red hot and can ignite the surrounding fuel.”

Kauffman’s solution if a PATCH – Power-Activated Technology for Coating and Healing – for wire insulation. The inexpensive and non-toxic formula draws on water and electricity to chemically transform itself into a permanent coating.

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Physiotherapy for the eye

Aug 14th, 2008 | Filed under: Bio Tech, Design | 0 Comments

Researchers at the University of Aberdeen have designed an interactive program that can help sufferers of partial vision loss (hemianopia), which is caused by damage to the visual pathways in the brain after a stroke.

The Neuro-Eye Therapy (NeET) uses a medical device called the Vision Rehabilitation Program to repeatedly stimulate blind areas of vision using on-screen patterns.

Dr Arash Sahraie, University of Aberdeen, explained: “The basic principles behind Neuro-Eye Therapy are similar to those of physiotherapy following a stroke. If muscles are affected following a brain injury, patients are asked to repeat a pattern of limb movements in order to improve their mobility.

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Flexible nanoantennas capture solar energy continuously

Aug 13th, 2008 | Filed under: Design, Electronics | 0 Comments

Researchers at the US Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory (INL), have devised an inexpensive way to produce plastic sheets containing billions of nanoantennas that collect heat energy generated by the sun and other sources.

While methods to convert the energy into useable electricity still need to be developed, the sheets could one day be manufactured as lightweight ‘skins’ that power everything from hybrid cars to iPods with higher efficiency than traditional solar cells, say the researchers. The nanoantennas also have the potential to act as cooling devices that draw waste heat from buildings or electronics without using electricity.

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Stretchy material could lead to flexible electronics

Aug 11th, 2008 | Filed under: Design, Electronics | 0 Comments

Scientists from the University of Tokyo have developed a stretchy, rubbery material which is able to conduct electricity.

When the material, which comprises single wall carbon nanotubes, elastic resin and an ionic liquid, is attached to a grid of tiny transistors, it cab be stretched up to 2.34 times its original size, without adverse effects to the conductivity. Later it reverts to its original form.

A similar material was developed in 2005, but was only able to stretch 1.25 longer than its original size, and its conductivity limited to 10S/cm. The newly developed material has a conductivity of 57S/cm.

According to a paper published by the scientists working on the project, the material could be used to create flexible electronics, and there have been suggestions it could be used on the joints of a robot’s arm.

Cochlear technology to aid vision

Aug 11th, 2008 | Filed under: Bio Tech, Design | 0 Comments

By adapting existing cochlear ear implant technology to perceive light rather than sound, two Sydney-based scientists have developed a ‘cheap and safe’ bionic eye to restore basic vision to people going blind.

Professor Minas Coroneo and Dr Vivek Chowdhury say the prosthesis should cost little more than the £10,000 of a cochlear hearing device.

Professor Coroneo explained: “We are using a bionic ear to make a bionic eye.”

While other researchers are working on implanting electrodes on the retina (intraocular), the cochlear device puts electrodes on the outer wall of the eye (extraocular).

Patients will wear glasses mounted with a tiny camera that sends images to electrodes in the eye.

Nanoantenna is first step towards mass produced solar energy collector

Aug 11th, 2008 | Filed under: Design | 0 Comments

Researchers have devised an inexpensive way to produce plastic sheets containing billions of nanoantennas that collect heat energy generated by the sun and other sources. The technology, developed at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory, is the first step toward a solar energy collector that could be mass-produced on flexible materials.

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Keeping an eye on new optics technology

Aug 8th, 2008 | Filed under: Design, Electronics | 0 Comments

Technology inspired by the human eye could be used to produce improved photographic images with a wider field of view.

Researchers from Northwestern University’s McCormick School of Engineering and Mechanical Engineering, teamed up with the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, to create an array of silicon detectors and electronics that can be conformed to a curved surface. Like the human eye, the curved surface can then act as the focal plane array of the camera, which captures the image.

On a normal camera, such electronics must lie on a straight surface, and the camera’s complex system of lenses must reflect an image several times before it can reflect on the right spots on the focal plane.

Yonggang Huang, Northwestern University, explained: “The advantages of curved detector surface imaging have been understood by optics designers for a long time, and by biologists for an even longer time. That’s how the human eye works – using the curved surface at the back of the eye to capture the image.”

But exactly how to place those electronics on a curved surface to yield working cameras has stumped scientists, despite many different attempts over the last 20 years. The electronics lie on silicone wafers, which can only be compressed one per cent before they break and fail.

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Pill bot sticks around for a clearer picture

Aug 8th, 2008 | Filed under: Bio Tech, Design, Robotics | 0 Comments

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have developed a robotic surgical assistant with tiny adhesive hands, which will allow doctors to see what’s going on in a particular area inside the body of a patient.

Pill bots are not new. For many years doctors have used tiny machines, often attached to a camera, to see what is going on inside a patient, however, it is the adhesive hands which make this product unique.

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Fuelling the next generation of hybrid cars

Aug 7th, 2008 | Filed under: Automotive, Design | 0 Comments

Using a specially-coated form of clothing material Goretex, scientists at Monash University have developed an electrically-generated fuel cell which could make the next generation of hybrid cars more reliable and cheaper to build.

The team of Monash scientists have designed and tested an air-electrode, where a fine layer – just 0.4 of a micron thick, or about 100 times thinner than a human hair – of highly conductive plastic is depositied on the breathable fabric. The conductive plastic acts as both the fuel cell electrode and catalyst.

Dr Bjorn Winther-Jensen, Monash University, explained: “The same way as waste vapour is drawn out of this material to make hikers more comfortable and less prone to hypothermia, so it is able the ‘breathe’ oxygen into our fuel cell and into contact with the conductive plastic.”

Professor Doug MacFarlane, Monash University, continued: “The benefits for the motoring industry and for motorists are that the new design removes the need for platinum, which acts as the catalyst and is currently central to the manufacturing process.

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