Daily Archives2017 February 25

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Not many people think about the origins of harnessing the energy of the sun when the battery in their iPod or cell phone begins to die. They just open the high efficiency solar cell blades on their solar battery charger and draw the free, inexhaustible energy of the sun into their solar powered electronic devices. It’s unlikely that once their electronic device is charged, that they contemplate the sun’s incredible energy; that the energy the sun provides in one minute can supply the world’s energy for one year, or that the sun can provide more energy than the world’s population could consume in 27 years. They don’t realize as they listen to their iPod on the beach, or call for a tow truck with their cell phone, that the sun, which provided the energy to charge their electronic device, has been providing this energy to the earth for the last 4 billion years.

Thankfully, being aware of these facts is not necessary in order to enjoy the benefits of solar battery chargers, or any type of solar powered electronics. Either does knowing that the journey that brought us to today’s solar energy technology began in the year 1767, with the physicist Horace Benedict de Saussure.

Due to the increased use of glass during the eighteenth century, the French-Swiss scientist Horace Benedict de Saussure became aware of the ability of glass to trap solar heat. While many of his contemporaries preferred to work with burning mirrors, which could burn objects at a distance or melt the hardest metal within seconds, de Saussure set out to determine how effectively glass heat traps could collect the energy of the sun by building the Western world’s first solar collector.

When de Saussure created what was to become the first solar oven, he had tried several designs before determining that a well-insulated box with three layers of glass to trap outgoing thermal radiation created the most heat. The highest temperature he reached was 230° F, which he found did not vary significantly when the box was carried from the top of Mt. Cramont in the Swiss Alps down to the Plains of Cournier, 4,852 feet below in altitude and 34° F above in temperature, thereby establishing that the external air temperature played no significant role in this solar heating effect.

Although not many people are aware of Horace Benedict de Suassure and his groundbreaking experiments involving solar energy collection, they certainly have him to thank for pioneering the harnessing of this environmentally friendly source of energy. This along with the development of the earliest version of the solar oven, which is still the most energy efficient, and pollution-reducing oven in use today has demonstrated the benefits of harnessing this benign source of energy. Without the experiments of Horace Benedict de Suassure they may have never been the creation of the photovoltaic cell at Bell Laboratories in 1954, or the development of the solar chargers, solar battery chargers, or solar powered electronics that we use today.

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Source by Richard McCrossen

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Fasteners are hardware devices that are used to mechanically join or affix two or more objects together. The bond can be permanent or temporary. The application of fasteners can be home based or in industries. There is a vast variety of fasteners available today with varying applications. Some examples of fasteners used in industrial applications include bolts, rivets, pipe plugs, pins, clinch studs and anchors whereas example of fasteners for home use include zippers, buttons, pins and hooks. Some of these fasteners may be used in both, industrial and home applications. The use of these devices is very important as they hold parts and components together. For example, in machinery, fasteners are used to bind separate parts together. If they are not used properly, it could result in the failure of the machine which may prove to be disastrous in some cases.

We would all have encountered at least one of the most commonly used fasteners which include safety pins, clips, buttons or zippers. New types of fasteners are constantly being invented to match the different needs of people. The fasteners used in a car would not be the same as those used on ships or airplane. Also, the material used to make them varies depending on the application. For example, very strong iron fasteners would be used to bind objects that would be put under great amounts of stress. However, these have some disadvantages. They cannot be used on ships as they are bound to corrode when in contact with salt water. Therefore, a more economical and advantageous alternative to these can be stainless steel fasteners.

As mentioned earlier in this article, the bonds made by fasteners can be permanent or non-permanent. The need for non-permanent bonds arises when fasteners need to be removed for the object to be dismantled without damaging it. Such fasteners include bolts and nuts and threaded fasteners amongst many others. Screws have the simplest mechanism. They are a piece of metal that have an incised thread and slotted head. They are inserted into a hole which runs through both objects to be bonded and are tightened by simply turning the head. A bolt makes use of a nut to be secured on the opposite side when it is run through a hole to secure the bond as it does not have threads on it.

There are many factors that affect how one chooses which fastener to use for the various applications. Some factors that can be considered are environmental; temperature of the place where the fastener would be used in, is it a corrosive environment, types of forces on fastener; tensile, compression or shear, requirements of the fastener; frequent assembly and disassembly and most importantly the cost of the fastener being used.

Uses of fasteners are evident in everyday life. It’s just that we tend to ignore their presence as it’s so vast. They help to ensure that components are held in place and can function properly.

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Source by Amrit Pal

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The late Kurt Johannsen of Alice Springs ran a trucking service through the outback of Central Australia in the 1950’s. It was a trucking service with a difference, and that difference was Big Bertha, a Diamond T International ex Australian Army truck towing several “Self -Tracking” trailers over a narrow, winding bush road, loaded with 700 empty fuel drums and was really a sight to see.

He was contracted to the Shell Company to pick up all the empty 44 gallon fuel drums in the outlying station properties and return them to the Shell Depot in the Alice. In those days (C1950) the station Owners/Managers would pick up several drums of Petrol and Diesoline, then load their rations for the next month on top of them. In spite of the £ 2.00 (2 Pound) deposit on each drum, they were very seldom returned to the depot by the station, which resulted in a drum shortage.

The Diamond T was a bit different to the original unit built by International, it had a Gardiner Diesel motor and a greatly extended chassis Kurt’s development of the “Self Tracking” system is now used all around the world where road trains are used.

His other engineering feats include,

• Concentrating Copper Ore at Jervois Range using evapourative vats when he found that the rail freight on the copper ore cost more than the price he got for the ore. The ore was dissolved in acid and the liquid pumped into a shallow, wide tank, where the natural evpouration rate of up to 1 inch (25mm) per day did the job for him. The blue crystals of pure copper sulphate were then packed into drums and railed to Adelaide.
• He built a working Gas Producer that made its own Charcoal from wood from the side of the road, he always maintained that all he needed for travelling was a saw or a hatchet as there was always dead wood available close to the roads.
• The big American Station Sedan with the gas producer on the back was also altered with Kurt’s genious. He built a self contained, fold-out, fly-meshed, kitchen/living/sleeping area, which tucked away into the rear of the vehicle, then the big rear door with the gas producer was shut, giving no indication as to the real nature of the car.
• During the Lasseter’s Reef period he took off from Alice Springs in his Tiger Moth to do some searching himself but on landing at a pre-organised fuel dump on a claypan he hit an anthill and splintered the propellor. He removed the prop and trimmed the splintered end with a hatchet, then had to trim the other end until he had the prop balanced on a screw driver. Realising that he would have less thrust, he took off on full revs, well over the safe level, used up all of the clay pan and just made it into the air, and a low level return to the Alice.

Big Bertha and the Gas Producer & Station Sedan can be seen at the Transport Museum in the Alice, and the Modified Propellor, alongside a standard one, at the Air Museum, and you’ll marvel at the difference.

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Source by Pete Rumball