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This is a good example of a student-made film about a materials program. This one is about the Industrial Ceramics Engineering Technology program at the college located in southern Ohio. They review slip development, glazing, heat treatment and burners, strength testing and microscopy. According to the students, ICE-T is hot!

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Back in April, ACerS’ magazine, the Bulletin, announced that the Imperial College (U.K.) was establishing a Structural Ceramic Center funded at £6 million over a five-year period by an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council’s Science and Innovation Award. The Center is being directed by Bill Lee, a professor at Imperial College and head of its Department of Materials. Although this news is a little old, Imperial College now offers a podcast of an interview with Lee regarding the plans for the new center and explaining structural ceramics. (The interview with Lee is part of a larger set a interviews, but his is the first interview on the podcast and runs about 5 minutes.)

Bill Lee

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Forget bulbs - now there's light-emitting glass.

If you can get beyond the heavy hype, it appears Planilum - billed by its developers as “the world’s first light-emitting material,” a “technology that redefines our relationship with light” and light that “establishes a dialogue between the ethereal and the functional” - might actually be a great product. Its codevelopers - Paris’ Saazs Institute and Saint-Gobain - say the technology doesn’t depend on bulbs or other light sources but, instead, Planilum material itself radiates light. The material is said to be nontoxic, 90 percent recyclable, RoHS-certified, requires 100W of power and can last for 50,000 hours or about 20 years of conventional residential use, according to the Saazs Institute’s website. The makers say the light is “non-dazzling.” Because the light’s heat is dissipated over both sides of the material’s surface,

Planilum’s temperature is about equal to that of a human body, the website claims. This enables Planilum lights to be touched and eliminates the need for filters, diffusers, lamp shades or other kinds of protection, the site notes. The Sept. ‘08 edition of Materials World magazine reports that Planilum is about 0.8 inches thick and comprised of “four layers of tin-doped indium oxide conductive glass containing an ionized plasma gas.” Within the next three years, the magazine says, Saazs and Saint-Gobain plan to develop Planilum glass plates that will be as effective as neon lights but, unlike neon, won’t bleed toxic mercury if broken. Currently, Planilum panels are strong enough to stand alone and already are being incorporated into standard and customized shelves and tables.

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Electric sensors cast in the pedal crank report biomechanical stress.

Smart parts - parts that can track themselves and predict their own breakdown - may soon be possible thanks to new ceramic materials and cast-metal manufacturing methods being developed at the Fraunhofer Institute in Bremen, Germany. According to an Institute press release, Fraunhofer scientists are developing a way to make light-metal parts “intelligent” by embedding electrical components and sensors into the parts during the casting stage of manufacturing.

Previously, this hadn’t been possible because electronic devices couldn’t withstand casting temperatures that reach 700°C or higher. The Fraunhofer team has reportedly overcome this problem by developing modifications to standard casting practices and designing new ceramic materials that can protect electronic equipment from extreme heat. As reported in the Sept. ‘08 edition of Materials World magazine, the Fraunhofer team is reluctant to reveal too many specifics until its research has been completed. What’s known, however, is that the Institute has tested its methods and materials through trials that successfully embedded piezoceramic sensors, light-emitting diodes, batteries, thermocouples and radio frequency identification tags into aluminum, magnesium and zinc.

Materials World says the Institute also has constructed and tested a prototype - a bicycle crank housing two piezosensors. The crank was installed on a bicycle displayed at Germany’s Hannover Messe technology expo this past April. Connected wirelessly and sending real-time reports to a computer, the sensors measured the amount of force exerted on the pedal by riders. By indicating how “evenly” each rider pedaled, the sensors were able to detect if riders experienced “inappropriate biomechanical stress during cycling.”

Health-monitoring is just one application that might result from the Fraunhofer Institute’s innovations. For instance, its press release suggests that now ”for the first time ever” manufacturers will be able to embed RFID transponders into cast parts and other products, enabling them to be “tracked, identified and protected against product piracy.” Sensors detecting aircraft material failure and unusual vibrations might also be used to prevent plane crashes, the release predicts.

Enthusiasm is not universal, however. In the Materials World article, Geoff Scamans of the U.K.’s Innoval Technology, voices concern. “With the [EU] End of Life Vehicles Directive, people in casting are worried about anything that interferes with sending scrap back. If there’s anything in the metals that has a residual impurity, that would be a problem,” he cautions. “Time will tell,” as the cliché says. Final reports are expected by the end of October.

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The DuPont/Smart Fuel Cell Team came out the million-dollar winner Oct. 8 in the Department of Defense’s Wearable Power Prize competition. DuPont is based in Delaware and SFC is headquartered in Brunnthal, Germany. DuPont has a minority stake in SFC and the group’s methanol-powered pack actually began to be deployed among combatants this summer:

“Our fuel cell technology represents a major breakthrough in portability that will benefit soldiers through significant weight reduction, while providing a prolonged source of power,” said Cynthia Green, VP and general manager of DuPont Fluoroproducts.

The contest was launched in the summer of 2007, initiated by the DOD’s Research and Engineering Directorate to fuel innovation and competition to develop a long-life, light-weight power pack for soldiers. Initially, 169 groups submitted entries. The group was narrowed to six finalists that were put to another round of testing Oct. 4 at the Marine Corps’ Air Ground Combat Center at Twentynine Palms, Calif. The minimum requirement was that the power packs had to be able to produced 20 watts average power for 96 hours and weigh less than 4 kilograms. According to the DOD news release, the winner’s power pack operated longer than the minimum, but offered no specifics:

DuPont/SFC won the competition by building the lightest wearable system that provided an average of 20 watts of power for more than 96 hours and weighed less than 4,000 grams, or 8.8 pounds.

Adaptive Materials of Ann Arbor, Mich., won  $500,000 for second place for their propane fueled solid oxide fuel cell. Jenny 600S of Middleburg, Va., won the $250,000 third place prize. DOD seems happy with the results of the competition:

“The winners, and really all the teams that competed, have moved wearable power technology forward,” said William Rees Jr., the deputy under secretary for defense laboratories and basic sciences. “But the real winners from this competition are our ground warfighters, as these systems show great promise to reduce the weight of batteries they have to carry while performing their critical missions.” Rees, who sponsored the DOD Wearable Power Prize, also hopes this competition will inspire scientists and engineers. “The rules we developed for this DOD competition attracted small businesses, individual inventors, and large companies alike,” said Rees. “Our nation has tremendous capacity for innovation, so we hope that this and future competitions also motivates the scientific community to continue important advancements in technology.” . . . “The M-25 has the capability to revolutionize wearable portable power sources in the field by extending soldier-mission times to 72 hours and beyond,” said Col. Richard Hansen, project manager of the Soldier Warrior program of the U.S. Army.

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