Engineering

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/

How to derive the following Brinell Hardness Formula ?

Does anyone know of a burner head design that allows one to use gas and air that is preheated beyond the flashpoint? I know there are some post mix style heads but the require ten times the amount of air and therefore negate most of their benefit.

anyone know or have an idea of how to make one,WITH a shotgun or rifle stock?

I've been hit with a wave of revival for my fascination with blacksmithing, and, in particular, sword-smithing and armor-smithing. In order to have any hope in pursuing this interest, I need a furnace (of sorts) that is capable of heating iron, and eventually steel, to red-hot temperatures. I would prefer this to work in conventional means, and not involve the use of gas. In addition, it would be a definite plus if it was of minimal size, which leads me to my question: Is there any way that I can concentrate the heat and increase the resulting temperature of the interior of a heating chamber? I know adding a permanent bellows (basically, a continual fan blowing up f…

hello ...i have a question, (im a bit of a newbie to this theory stuff!) in a basic refrigereation cycle there are 4 basic components: evaporater, compressor, condensor and expander. and a working fluid (wf) or refrigerant flowing through the whole sytem - so the in the evaporater, the wf absorbs the heat from heat source. - next the wf goes through compressor which compresses it and raises temp. - next wf goes through condensor and releases heat to the heat sink, hence ruducing wf temp. - wf then passes through expander which expands the wf, cooling further the temp. - cycle repeats. so my question, which is probably a silly one, is why is there a n…

I have a thought about a Stirling cycle refrigerator. I know that a stirling engine when reversed will generate a heat difference. And yes they are being built. What I don't understand is where does the cooling occur? Does it occur in the normal heating portion of the engine or the cooling portion? I think it is the heating portion, but if that part gets cooled down, does the other part of the engine get heated up? If we can connect a second stirling driven by heat from focused sunlight to the cooling stirling we can create a stirling-stirling refrigerator, can't we? What temperature can focused sunlight get to? Also, is there a way to calculate the amount of heat…

Doesn't this have to be the home of an electrical engineer? I don't know how old this video is but the guy has talent. http://members.cox.net/transam57/lights.wmv Has anyone done anything similar?

I'm thinking about attepmting to construct my own vacuum pump to conduct various "experiments" and maybe some sciency stuff. i tried a vacuum cleaner pump and then 2 in series but the vacuum produced was pretty crap only dropped 10kPa i'm looking to make something that can produce a vacuum of >1kPa Whats the best method to go about this.

In the space we can create energy but we cannot create materials ( fuel’s ) . I think and read a lot about magnetic propulsion but I cant find any good schematic description. I don’t know if there is any ( maybe NASA have something ) I will like to see what you think about this , this is all my idea I will start with basic principle of how my mechanism will work We have 4 electromagnets 2 of them are flouting on the magnetic railroad (or in basic appliance they can be on the wheel and slide on the surface of railroad )and the other 2 are fixed on the end of the ship or vehicle. When we put power in the electromagnets they will start moving and push the veh…