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In flight failure of RB 211-524 engine

October 25, 2010

WA Today reports:

Air safety investigators have found extensive turbine damage in the jet engine that exploded on a Qantas jumbo at 25,000 feet near San Francisco in August this year. Engine parts that were flung outwards tore not only a gaping hole on the far side of the engine cover but also peppered the near-side with holes, air safety investigators have revealed. As the engine vibrated, debris ejected through the engine hole hit the underside of the wing, puncturing the wing flaps, investigators have found.

 

A Qantas jet was forced to turn back to San Francisco after a hole was blown in the shell of the engine.

Flight QF74 failure of RB211-524 engine:Photo: Channel Ten

 

The findings are contained in a preliminary report by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) into the explosion on flight QF74, carrying 213 passengers and 18 crew, on August 30. The incident occurred 15 minutes after take-off.

The pilots shut down the engine, sought landing clearance, dumped fuel and landed safely at San Francisco, where the plane was met by fire crew, inspected and allowed to taxi to the terminal. “This was an exceptionally rare event and the first time Qantas has experienced this type of engine failure,” a Qantas spokesman said.

All of the engine’s turbine blades had either fractured or broken away, investigators said. There was also damage of other engine internals including vanes, bearings, speed probes and a turbine shaft. Further testing of engine components will be undertaken by Rolls-Royce, overseen by UK air safety investigators. The Rolls-Royce RB211-524 engine was removed from the aircraft and taken to Hong Kong for examination. The investigation is continuing.

 

Turbofan engine operation: Wikimedia

 

 

RB 211-524: aircraftenginedesign.com

 

The RB 211 family is a high bypass turbofan engine originally designed for the Lockheed Tristar. The 211-524 engine was developed with increased thrust and efficiency for the Boeing 747-200 and further improvements led to the 211-524 G and 211-524H for the Boeing 747-400 and for the 767. The 211 family has led to the Trent engines and some features of the Trent could be retrofitted to create the 211-524G-T and the 211-524H-T. A newer version of the same family the 211-535 series is used in Boeing 727’s and 757’s.

An industrial version of the RB211 is used for power generation and another inter-cooled version is used in marine applications.

The Rolls Royce Trent 1000 engine designed for Boeing’s Dreamliner has had some initial testing setbacks which seem to be fixed but which has caused some of the delays to the Dreamliner.


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Posted in Aviation, Engineering, Technology | 7 Comments »

Trade war! Cerium oxide price has risen 665% since April

October 22, 2010
Phase diagram of cerium in english

Phase diagram cerium: Image via Wikipedia

Freely translated from Dagens Industri

Cerium oxide, which is used to finish semiconductors and obtained from the rare earth element cerium, has risen in price from $ 4.70 per kg on April 20 to 36 U.S. dollars a kilo on Tuesday, October 19. An increase of 665 percent.

The price rise is primarily due to China scaling down its export quotas. In recent years there has been a gradual reduction of 5-10 percent per year, but in July alone it was reduced by 40 percent.  The country accounts for almost 95 percent of world supply of rare earths and in some cases almost 100 percent.

The official explanation from China is that the  country’s own industrial needs must be met first. These account  for 60 percent of global demand. Producing earth metals is a dirty business and China also gives environmental reasons as an explanation for the lower export quotas.

But many, especially in the U.S., suspect that it is a low-key trade war.

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Posted in China, Economy, Engineering, Environment, Technology | 2 Comments »

Resource depletion is imaginary

October 19, 2010

 

Limits of growth

Doomsaying: Image by net_efekt via Flickr

 

“Humanity’s demands on natural resources are sky-rocketing to 50 per cent more than the earth can sustain”

trumpets the WWF.

Similar headlines have been common-place for the last 40 years. “The Limits to Growth” in 1972 was not the first time such dire predictions were made. They only carried on from where Malthus left off with his  An Essay on the Principle of Population in 1798. And before Malthus there were plenty of alarmists and doom merchants  at least as far back as mankind has lived in complex societies where opportunists could exploit people by fears of catastrophes and impending doom.

Unfortunately, today’s so-called conservationists have descended to the level of doom “merchants”. Either they are propagating fears of humanity running out of food or oil or coal or metals or water or rare earths or they are screaming about the Earth running out of biological species or of polar ice or sustainability.

But I am not convinced.

Actually, mankind destroys nothing. At the elemental level we neither create or destroy anything (except in the use of nuclear energy where some elemental transformation takes place and where some little mass is converted to energy). All the metals we use or the fuels we use are merely transformed from one compound to another and occasionally some molecules are reduced to their elemental form. The Earth as a system loses only heat (and if the global warming maniacs are to be believed we are not even losing that). The mass of the earth changes only by the accretion of meteors and the leakage of atmosphere and this change is of no material significance.

All the elements that were available remain available. The forms of compounds that we currently use and which have been created slowly by slow natural processes may well be used up. But so what? Mankind has always used what is available and when natural rubber was not enough we made synthetic rubber. We usually take what is available and transform it into the form we want. We take metal oxides, reduce them to the elemental metals and then recombine them into the qualities of steel or alloys we need. We take oil and convert it into plastics. We take plant material and make paper. We take other plant material and make oils. We take sand and make glass. We take limestone and make cement or concrete. We are a carbon-based life form. We use carbon in all its forms as diamonds and all organic materials and now as graphene for nano-materials. We take oil and make food. Nearly all the drugs we use are synthesised.

Even if we restrict ourselves to the known form of the resources we use, we cannot forget that 70% of the Earth’s surface is covered by water. We have not even begun to see what can be found there. Even the off-shore oil and gas we extract hardly scratches the (submerged) surface. We are crowding out some particular species but keep finding new ones. The number of mammals (but not necessarily species) in existence is increasing rather than reducing. The diversity of life in the sea is hardly touched.

The overwhelmingly pessimistic view of mankind and its future which drives the current-day conservationists to their creed of “stop everything” goes nowhere. “Stop the World, I wan’t to get off” is not something for me. A strategy for humanity – like any other strategy – cannot be based on “what not to do”.

I suppose it is the difference between an optimist and the doom sayers. I see no energy crisis – only some technological challenges to be met. I see no food crisis – only some tasks to be carried out, and these tasks do not need any technological breakthroughs. The Earth and the Sun will take care of climate as they see fit and our task is to adapt to whatever changes may come and not to waste our time in any futile attempt to try and control it. We could stop using all energy today and the Earth and the Sun will still cause climate change to happen and mankind is not even a bit player in that music.

I remain an optimist and I believe in the human ability to develop technology. As educational standards improve, human population will probably increase till about 2050, then reduce slightly from about 10 billion people and then stabilise at a very slow rate of growth. This development will be dynamically coupled to our rate of technological development which will continue but where we cannot predict the rate of breakthroughs appearing. A breakthrough in transportation methods (and since the invention of the modern internal combustion engine for transport in 1862, this is now overdue) or a breakthrough in food synthesising technology or finding new sources of energy (and I do not mean wind or solar) will have an obvious effect on quality of life and on rate of population growth.

A true environmentalist must be first concerned with the quality of life for humankind. The “environment” devoid of humans is no environment at all. I wish the so-called conservationists (who are not in my opinion true environmentalists) would stop telling me what not to do.

There is no resource crunch. There may come shortages of resources in the form we are used to but I have supreme confidence in our ability to develop the required technologies to keep improving on our quality of life – and to keep evolving.

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Posted in Behaviour, Engineering, Environment, Ethics, Evolution, Technology | 1 Comment »

Now UK joins the nuclear renaissance with 8 plants approved

October 18, 2010

The quiet nuclear renaissance continues with the UK now announcing its plans.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/8070810/Eight-new-nuclear-power-stations-despite-safety-and-clean-up-concerns.html

Chris Huhne, the UK Energy Secretary, has given the go-ahead for eight new nuclear power stations in Britain despite concerns about safety and the clean-up costs.

The new nuclear power stations will be built near existing sites in in Bradwell in Essex, Hartlepool, Heysham in Lancashire, Hinkley Point in Somerset, Oldbury in South Gloucestershire, Sellafield in Cumbria, Sizewell in Suffolk and Wylfa in Anglesey.

Three sites in Dungeness in Kent and Braystones and Kirksanton in Cumbria were ruled out due to concerns over the impact on wildlife and the Lake District National Park. The new stations will not start generating power until 2018 so the Government also plans to allow existing nuclear stations to extend their life.

Nuclear Engineering International reports that

 

AREVA EPR

 

The government also signed a regulatory justification for the AP1000 and EPR reactor designs. Following 2004 regulations, it is required to justify that new reactors are worth the potential radiological risk. Following three consultations have taken place—one on the regulatory review, and one on each design—the government decided not to launch a further public consultation on the matter.

The AP1000 is a Westinghouse designed  1154 MWe PWR nuclear power plant. The EPR reactor is an advanced Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) offered by AREVA and which is being built in Finland, France and China.

 

Westinghouse AP1000: Westinghouse

 

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Indian MMRCA deal seems to be going to the US

October 17, 2010

I posted a few days ago about the joint RAF / IAF  exercises and its connection to the Indian need to acquire some 126 combat aircraft.

The $10.4 billion project to acquire 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) for the Indian Air Force is in the final stages of the selection process. Apart from the Eurofighter, the other five contenders in the hotly-contested race for the lucrative MMRCA project are the F/A-18 `Super Hornet’ and F-16 `Falcon’ (both US), Gripen (Swedish), Rafale (French) and MiG-35 (Russian).

 

F/A-18E/F Super Hornet (Neg#: Super Hornet )

F/A-18E/F Super Hornet: Boeing

 

While all the technical evaluations will no doubt be done by air-force  and MoD personnel, ultimately this is a political decision and the geo-political need to balance the growing Chinese might and to keep Pakistan in check will be paramount. The clear favourites in this game will be the US or the Russian aircraft. Domestically for the US government, an Indian order for either of the American fighters would be worth 27,000 jobs in the US. The commercial delegation accompanying Obama will be looking for a number of orders for nuclear power plant equipment to be finalised.

 

F-16 Figfhting Falcon: Lockheed-Martin

 

Considering

  • the timing of President Obama’s visit to India next month,
  • the visit of President Medvedev in December,
  • the political lobbying strength of the US,
  • the current concern in India about Chinese games in Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh,
  • the technical rather than political lobbying of Europe for the Eurofighter,
  • the absence of any political advantage with the Swedish Gripen,
  • the international weakness of Sarkozy in being able to support the French Rafale

the choice, I think comes down to Boeing’s F/A Super Hornet or Lockheed Martin’s F-16 Falcon. The strength of the MIG-35 lies in its continuity with the MIG’s that the IAF already has and the familiarity of HAL in Bangalore with the MIG. But, I think the US will be seen as much more politically useful in the balance-of-power game and India would not like that the Russian aircraft enjoy a monopoly position. Europe will be fobbed off with the British Hawk trainers.

But the play between the US and Russia is complex:

In return for Washington removing strategic hurdles (withdrawing entities like the Defence Research and Development Organisation from the US Entities List; easing the curbs on US high-tech exports to India), India could open up some of its lucrative markets to American companies.

The big-ticket transactions are the ones involving the defence market. India is expected to sign a deal with Boeing to buy 10 C-17 transport aircraft for about $3.5 billion during the Obama visit.

The Americans are hoping that the Indian government will also opt for what The Financial Times described as the world’s biggest military hardware deal and buy 100 multi-combat aircraft worth $11.8 billion from US defence manufacturers.

Agreement on the latter aircraft will be more complicated since India is also negotiating with the Russians to jointly build a Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft, which is expected to be the finest of its kind when operational. The Russians will also sell 150 Sukhoi-30 MKI fighters, the best of its kind, to the Indian Air Force.

India expects to conclude the agreement for the FGFA with the Russians when President Dmitri Medvedev visits New Delhi in December, a visit which will probably match the Obama excursion in its strategic significance, if not in its symbolism.

But Obama cannot return from India “empty-handed” and my “guess” would be that the Boeing F-18 Super Hornet will be the winner but that the “price” will include some other advanced US equipment as well. And perhaps the Russians will  supply some 200 Sukhoi-30 MKI but maybe not the MIG 35.

But none of  of these is as advanced as the F-22A Raptor from Lockheed-Martin. But that is not on the table – yet.

 

File:Two F-22A Raptor in column flight.jpg

Two F-22A Raptor in column flight: Lockheed Martin

 

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Posted in India, Technology | 1 Comment »

Virgin Galactic’s VSS Enterprise makes its solo flight

October 11, 2010

 

Drop test (Virgin Galactic)

The Enterprise spaceship is released from underneath the Eve carrier plane

 

Virgin Galactic conducted the first piloted gliding flight of its commercial suborbital spaceship, the VSS Enterprise, today, releasing the winged rocket plane from the WhiteKnightTwo mothership at an altitude of 45,000 feet above the Mojave Desert.

With Scaled Composites pilot Pete Siebold and copilot Mike Alsbury at the controls, the futuristic twin-tail spacecraft glided to a touchdown at the Mojave Air and Space Port 11 minutes after its release from WhiteKnightTwo, also known as Eve. The craft was not equipped with a rocket motor for the glide test.

“The VSS Enterprise was a real joy to fly, especially when one considers the fact that the vehicle has been designed not only to be a Mach 3.5 spaceship capable of going into space but also one of the world’s highest altitude gliders,” Siebold said in a Virgin Galactic press release.

Branson said he expects rocket-powered test flights to begin next year, followed by test flights into space “hopefully by the end of next year.”

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-19514_3-20019149-239.html#ixzz121kUYP79

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11511604

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Posted in Aviation, Engineering, Future Transport, Space, Technology | 1 Comment »

The quiet nuclear renaissance is already under way

October 10, 2010

 

The map shows the commercial nuclear power pla...

Commercial and planned nuclear plants around the world: Wikipedia

 

In spite of political posturing of many kinds,  nuclear power capacity worldwide is steadily increasing  with 58 reactors under construction in 15 countries. Most reactors on order or planned are in Asia, though there are plans for new units in 65 countries. In many countries which already have nuclear plants in operation significant capacity addition is being created by plant upgrading.

Quietly, the nuclear renaissance is already under way and the lead is in Asia.

The 2nd International Conference on Asian Nuclear Prospects 2010 (ANUP 2010) gets under way tomorrow at Mahabalipuram near Chennai, India.

Speaking on the occasion, chairman, Indian Atomic Energy Commission, and secretary department of atomic energy Srikumar Banerjee said that the major issue facing the sector was waste management.  R.K. Sinha, vice president, Indian Nuclear Society and director, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, said around six new countries are interested to have atomic power plant and many of them will have one by 2030.

Of the 58 nuclear reactors currently under construction world-wide, 35 are in Asia (23 in China, 6 in Korea, 4 in India and 2 in Japan).

The Deputy Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Y.A. Sokolov said that current nuclear expansion remains centred in Asia. Of the twelve constructions started in 2009, ten were in Asia.

In addition to the new plants under construction, numerous power reactors in USA, Belgium, Sweden and Germany, for example, have had their generating capacity increased. In Switzerland, the capacity of its five reactors has been increased by 12.3%. In the USA, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved 126 uprates totalling some 5600 MWe since 1977, a few of them “extended uprates” of up to 20%. Spain has had a program to add 810 MWe (11%) to its nuclear capacity through upgrading its nine reactors by up to 13%.  Some 519 MWe of the increase is already in place.  For instance, the Almarez nuclear plant is being boosted by more than 5% at a cost of US$ 50 million. Finland boosted the capacity of the original Olkiluoto plant by 29% to 1700 MWe. This plant started with two 660 MWe Swedish BWRs commissioned in 1978 and 1980. It is now licensed to operate to 2018. The Loviisa plant, with two VVER-440 (PWR) reactors, has been uprated by 90 MWe (10%). Sweden is uprating Forsmark plant by 13% (410 MWe) over 2008-10 at a cost of EUR 225 million, and Oskarshamn-3 by 21% to 1450 MWe at a cost of EUR 180 million.

Commissioner William C. Ostendorff, United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave the Keynote Address at  the Emerging Issues Policy Forum, Powering the Future 2010 Conference on 4th October in Florida. During his speech he said:

Despite the global financial crisis over the last two years, there still appears to be great interest in nuclear power worldwide. In September, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released its annual nuclear power projections. In these projections, the IAEA estimates that up to 10.4% of global electricity will come from nuclear reactors by the year 2030. This estimate is higher than last year’s estimate, which was up to 9% from nuclear power by 2030. The IAEA also made projections out to the year 2050, which estimated a maximum share of 11.9% from nuclear reactors.

Since the 2008 timeframe, the number of countries interested in the introduction of nuclear power has risen from 43 to about 65. Most of these countries are in Asia and Africa. At the same time, the number of countries planning to phase out their reactors has dropped. For example, you may have read that the German government decided last month to extend the life spans of its nuclear plants while alternative energy sources are developed.

I want to touch on one more subject before I close. I believe that it is important for the public to have trust and confidence in a strong regulator. A recent report from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) compared nuclear accident risks with those from other energy sources. What caught my attention was the impressive safety record of the nuclear industry compared to other energy sectors.

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Posted in Development, Economy, Energy, Nuclear Power, Technology | 1 Comment »

Voice print technology led to arrests of alleged terrorists in Europe

October 8, 2010

Officials who apparently thwarted an alleged terror plot against Europe used voiceprinting technology to catch several suspects.

 

By the time you are 18 you have a unique voice print:derlinguist.com

 

The British Government Communications Headquarters used voice identification technology to help uncover the plot according to a report in the Canadian Press. Several of the voices were recorded along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

Police in southern France on Tuesday arrested 12 suspects in sweeps against suspected Islamic militant networks, including three men linked to a network recruiting fighters for Afghanistan.

In one of the cases, nine suspected Islamic militants were detained in southeastern Marseille and its suburbs, and authorities turned up at least one automatic rifle and a pump gun, the officials said.

In Tuesday’s other roundup, two men were arrested in Marseille and another in southwestern Bordeaux on suspected ties to a Frenchman arrested in Naples, Italy, last month accused of links to an Afghan recruiting ring.

Officials in Germany were tightlipped Tuesday on details of a U.S. missile strike in Pakistan’s rugged mountain border area where Pakistani officials said eight German militants were killed.

U.S. officials believe a cell of Germans and Britons was at the heart of the Europe terror plot. Germany’s ARD public television cited unidentified sources Tuesday as saying four of the Germans killed in the missile attack were of Turkish descent.

Developers of voice biometric technology say it can be more useful than traditional fingerprint analysis in fighting terror. The private sector has already embraced the technology, with U.S. probation officers using it to monitor offenders, and Canadian call centres using it to identify customers. Israel’s largest bank, Bank Leumi, says it has been using voice biometrics for the past decade to deter fraud and boost customer safety.

U.S. and British intelligence run an international eavesdropping program that gathers huge amounts of information. So big is the overload that the National Security Agency is building a massive storage centre in Utah to handle the mountains of data.

Almog Aley-Raz, whose Israel-based company PerSay Ltd. supplies governments and businesses around the world, said that using voice biometrics could allow officials to scan a large number of phone conversations for a several suspects’ voices, greatly streamlining intelligence work.

“An entry-level server enables you to run 100 streams of audio against maybe 100 voiceprints,” he said, noting that in some cases dozens or even hundreds of servers could be run back-to-back to comb through intercepted calls. Aley-Raz accepted that the technology had its flaws — it is vulnerable to background noise and poor audio quality, for example, and can become confused when people start talking over one another.

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Chang’e-2 enters 12 hour lunar orbit

October 6, 2010

Chang’e-2 enters 12 hour lunar orbit

China’s second unmanned lunar probe  Chang’e-2, completed its first braking Wednesday, which decelerated the spacecraft and successfully allowed it to enter a 12-hour orbit, according to the Beijing Aerospace Control Center (BACC). Chang’e-2, following instructions from the center, started the first braking at 11:06 a.m. and entered the 12-hour elliptical moon orbit 32 minutes later. It was the first braking for Chang’e-2. The space- probe needs to brake another two times before it can enter the designed 118-minute working orbit. The braking “laid a solid foundation” for Chang’e-2 to carry out scientific explorations in its final orbit, BACC said in a press release.

Compared with Chang’e-1, it is more challenging for Chang’e-2 to brake as it must do so at a closer distance to the moon and at a higher speed. A Long-March-3C carrier rocket carried Chang’e-2 into space blasting off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, in southwest China’s Sichuan Province, at about 7 p.m. Friday.

To acquire more detailed moon data, Chang’e-2 will enter a lower lunar orbit about 100 km above the surface, compared with the 200-km altitude of Chang’e-1, according to the control center. Before its first braking, the lunar probe had traveled nearly 350,000 km.

Screen shows the virtual animation of the first braking of Chang'e II lunar probe in Beijing Aerospace Control Center in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 6, 2010. China's second unmanned lunar probe, Chang'e II, completed its first braking Wednesday, which decelerated the satellite and successfully made it enter a 12-hour orbit, according to the Beijing Aerospace Control Center. (Xinhua/Tian Zhaoyun) (xzj)

Cheng'e - 2 enters 12 hour lunar borbit

Two satellites into orbit

In other news today a Long March 4B rocket carrying two satellites of the “Shijian VI-04” group lifted off from the launch pad in Taiyuan, capital of north China’s Shanxi Province, Oct. 6, 2010. The satellites which have entered their space orbits will carry out probes on space environment and radiation and conduct space science experiments, according to the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center.

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Posted in China, Science, Space, Technology | 2 Comments »

Getting a silkworm to behave like a spider

October 4, 2010

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-09/uond-nda092910.php

A research and development effort by the University of Notre Dame, the University of Wyoming, and Kraig Biocraft Laboratories, Inc. has succeeded in producing transgenic silkworms capable of spinning artificial spider silks. “This research represents a significant breakthrough in the development of superior silk fibers for both medical and non-medical applications,” said Malcolm J. Fraser Jr., a Notre Dame professor of biological sciences. “The generation of silk fibers having the properties of spider silks has been one of the important goals in materials science.”

Silkworms and cocoon:University of Cambridge, Department of Materials Science

Natural spider silks have a number of unusual physical properties, including significantly higher tensile strength and elasticity than naturally spun silkworm fibers. The artificial spider silks produced in these transgenic silkworms have similar properties of strength and flexibility to native spider silk.

Until this breakthrough, only very small quantities of artificial spider silk had ever been produced in laboratories, but there was no commercially viable way to produce and spin these artificial silk proteins. Kraig Biocraft believed these limitations could be overcome by using recombinant DNA to develop a bio-technological approach for the production of silk fibers with a much broader range of physical properties or with pre-determined properties, optimized for specific biomedical or other applications.

The wonders of spider silk

(more…)

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