Friday, June 25, 2010

Advanced Material Coatings for High Strength, High Conductivity Substrates from Innocentive

Advanced Material Coatings for High Strength, High Conductivity Substrate

Challenge Overview

presented by INNOCENTIVE

The Seeker is looking for advanced materials (alloys, metal composites, advanced coatings, surface treatments, etc.) to be used as the contact surface of a high speed rail system. The conductive material must withstand thermal, mechanical and electrical cycling while still retaining surface hardness and strength properties.


This Challenge is an Ideation Challenge, which varies from traditional InnoCentive challenges in the following ways:
  • There is a guaranteed award. The awards will be paid to the best submission(s), which are solely determined by the Seeker. The total payout will be $10,000. The Seeker can payout as one award or split it among the best submissions. One award will be at least $5,000 and no award will be less than $1,000.
  • Your submission will identify and describe a material/process that meets the requirements of the Challenge. You are required to give the Seeker a free, perpetual, and non-exclusive license to use any information submitted for this Challenge.


The Seeker will complete the review process and make a decision after the Challenge deadline. All Solvers that provide a submission will be notified as to the status of their submission; however, there will not be any detailed evaluation of your submission given. 

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Environmental Association of Universities and Colleges-Top Brains look at Sustainability_Some Materials Aspects WRAP'd- UP

John Holland of WRAP-Waste Resources Action Programme looks at materials used in construction. This post also is a convenient way to bring the increasing understanding and accompanying credibility given to sustainability by top thinkers brought together by the Environmental Association of Universities and Colleges, EAUC, in the UK.  EAUC currently has 280 members.



EAUC conferences 2009 and 2010 currently free online constitute a very important contribution to thought and action on sustainability.

MORE

1. cf.  EAUC conf 2009  and  EAUC conf 2010

         Related Posts:

Materials and Environment-Embodied Energy of Materials

New Green Construction Material Innovation_Low energy cement production by Celitement via IOM3: The Global Network for Materials, Minerals & Mining Professionals



3.  Open Search on IOM3's MW-Materials World, journal returned the following first 10 links:

WRAP takes over from Envirowise

06 April 10, IOM3, News article

The maze of mixed plastics recycling

01 July 09, Materials World Magazine, News article

Composites Design and Simulation Challenges for the Future

19 March 08, Composites, Conference proceedings / event reports

Recycling WEEE polymers

01 June 07, Materials World Magazine, News article

Mixed plastics recycling in the UK

14 July 08, Packaging Professional Magazine, News article

Mixed plastics recycling in the UK

01 July 08, Materials World Magazine, News article

Resource mapping of packaging and food waste

09 November 09, IOM3, News article

Useful links

16 March 10, Design Mine

Conversations-on-Innovations: Low energy cement production | IOM3: The Global Network for Materials, Minerals & Mining Professionals

Conversations-on-Innovations: Low energy cement production | IOM3: The Global Network for Materials, Minerals & Mining Professionals

Sunday, June 6, 2010

H2 storage and Fuel-Cells in graphs, tables and images

Almost a year ago in the July 2009 issue of Materials World, John Kilner of Imperial College London, and Peter Edwards and Vladimir Kuznetsov of the University of Oxford, in the UK discussed the issues surrounding the generation of power using H2 and Fuel Cells. The feature clarified many aspects of the different types of fuel-cells, the chemical processes involved, their range of application eg due to temperatre, weight, or volume limitations as well as the typical applications. The following is a visual account of some of the electrochemical and materials issues involved in H2 storage and Fuel-Cell development: graphs, tables and images.










REFERENCES:
1. Cell-ing future power – hydrogen and fuel cells
By Peter Edwards and Vladimir Kuznetsov, MW July 2009.

2. Insight review article, Hydrogen-storage materials
for mobile applications Louis Schlapbach, Andreas Züttel. NATURE
VOL 414 15 NOVEMBER 2001
www.nature.com from 22.Sandrock, G. & Thomas, G. The IEA/DOC/SNL on-line hydride databases. Appl. Phys. A 72,153–155 (2001).
3. GUIDELINES FOR USE OF HYDROGEN  FUEL IN COMMERCIAL VEHICLES , US Dept of Transport  Final Report Nov 2007.

Further reading


http://www.humboldt.edu/~serc/animation.html

http://www.howstuffworks.com/fuel-cell.htm

http://www.fuelcells.org/basics/how.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PEM_fuelcell.svg

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Metallurgy-Materials Science pick of the month by french popular science magazine La Recherche brings SMA-Shape Memory Alloys to the fore

In fact two SMA article summaries are reported in this post

Ferrous Polycrystalline Shape-Memory Alloy Showing Huge Superelasticity by
Y. Tanaka,1 Y. Himuro,1 R. Kainuma,2,* Y. Sutou,1 T. Omori,1 K. Ishida1, published in Science from the American Association for the Advancement of Science AAAS.

Shape-memory alloys, such as Ni-Ti and Cu-Zn-Al, show a large reversible strain of more than several percent due to superelasticity. In particular, the Ni-Ti–based alloy, which exhibits some ductility and excellent superelastic strain, is the only superelastic material available for practical applications at present. We herein describe a ferrous polycrystalline, high-strength, shape-memory alloy exhibiting a superelastic strain of more than 13%, with a tensile strength above 1 gigapascal, which is almost twice the maximum superelastic strain obtained in the Ni-Ti alloys. Furthermore, this ferrous alloy has a very large damping capacity and exhibits a large reversible change in magnetization during loading and unloading. This ferrous shape-memory alloy has great potential as a high-damping and sensor material.

1 Department of Materials Science, Graduate School of Engineering, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8579, Japan.
2 Institute of Multidisciplinary Research for Advanced Materials, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8579, Japan.

What Others Say
Physics Today Blog
http://blogs.physicstoday.org/update/2010/03/

Un alliage très élastique et pas cher/ A very elastic inexpensive alloy
http://www.larecherche.fr/content/actualite-matiere/article?id=27546

Science Editor recommends a 2nd paper on SMAs recommends also

Materials Science:
Expanding the Repertoire of Shape Memory Alloys
Ji Ma and Ibrahim Karaman
The exceptional properties of many materials often come at the expense of limited performance in other areas. For example, conventional metals and their alloys are strong—they are good at resisting stress (i.e., an applied load)—but they tolerate only a very small amount of strain (i.e., deformation) before they are irreversibly deformed. Rubber can easily return to its original shape, even after large deformations, but is much weaker than conventional metals. However, some metal alloys exhibit "shape memory"; they are strong but can recover from being deformed when heated. This process seems counter-intuitive, but these alloys take advantage of solid-to-solid "diffusionless" phase transitions: The atoms rearrange how they pack into crystals in an orderly fashion, and this process changes the material's macroscopic shape. Few other materials possess this combination of strength and flexibility (see the figure), and clever engineering has exploited these properties—for example, in implanted medical devices such as stents. On page 1488 of this issue, Tanaka et al. (1) report on a superelastic alloy that almost doubles the useful range of deformation that can be induced in such alloys.

Materials Science and Engineering Interdisciplinary Program and Department of Mechanical Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA.
en référence à : Expanding the Repertoire of Shape Memory Alloys -- Ma and Karaman 327 (5972): 1468 -- Science (afficher sur Google Sidewiki)

RELATED POSTS:

Metaklett-steel grips, Biomimicry and Shape Memory Alloy meanders



Footnote: 1 News dates from March 2010 but published in La Recherche's June Issue.
                2. Nitol is used as an example . The current SMA reported above is reportedly better and cheaper. The alloys appear on first sight very much cheaper than the books (2$/22gm) cf details of Nitol product offer on AMAZON below





Footnote: 1 News dates from March 2010 but published in La Recherche's June Issue.
             


















  2. Nitol is used as an example . The current SMA reported above is reportedly better and cheaper. The alloys appear on first sight very much cheaper than the books (2$/22gm) cf details of Nitol product offer on AMAZON below
Nitol Product Features:
ASTM F2063, Straight, Annealed Temper, Super Elastic Alloy, May be Strained 8-10 times More Than Spring Steel, Superior Corrosion Resistance
Product Details cf advert.