Omron Automation Express (Omron @Xpress) will visit Kulliyyah of Engineering on Friday, 10th April, 2009. All Engineering Community including Academic Staff, Researchers, and Engineering Students are invited and most welcome for this once-in-life experience.
What is Omron Automation Express?
Omron Automation Express is a mobile demonstration unit, or modern lab carrying the state-of-the art automation solutions. Omron @Xpress will demonstrate the modern Sensing and Control Technologies. You can see a whole range of Omron products on display and can have “hands-on†experience in a testing area available in the bus.
Venue: Arrival of Bus at 09:00~09:30, Kulliyyah of Engineering Car Park,
We are happy to announce that the exhibition for all sections will be on 16th October 2008 (Thursday) for Term Projects regarding Computer Aided Drafting Course in Semester 1 of 2008/2009. The exhibition will take place between 08:30 and 12:00 o’clock in Computer Laboratory where we hold normal classes.
Thursday and Friday sections should be ready there to present their project. The presentation will not be through powerpoint presentations. Each team should find a proper corner in the computer lab to display the hardcopies of their work including posters, engineering drawings of individual components etc in their work. Be creative to include anything which you feel as essential.
If some students from the Friday section have other classes or important engagements such as quizzes, we suggest them to make some of the team members ready for presenting their project. In any case they can contact us.
Reward for Winning Team and Best Project
The winning team will earn a reward of RM200. If more than one team have the same points rewarded as winner, they will share RM200. If a project is not presented and submitted after exhibition on 16th 2008 Thursday, it is not eligible for the Reward.
Criteria to Select the Best Project
The selection of best project will be based on the following criteria:-
Professionality: The projects should comprise all professional components. First of all, when someone takes your hardcopies of your work they should be able to produce the product in your project without further consult to your team. The engineering drawings should be complete with proper dimensions, Bill of Materials (BOM) explanations etc. They should properly reflect an engineer’s design documents for someone else to properly produce your product in your project. The maximum reward for this component is 10 points.
Creativity: This is for rewarding the innovative and creative ideas. Making a project for producing an ergonomical bottle which can readily embed some space to carry cups inside is more creative than designing a stapler or pen. The maximum reward for this component is 5 points.
Complexity: This component is here for using the most sophisticated features of what you learned in the course. Creating a special thread is much more difficult than producing a simple cylinder. The maximum reward for this component is 5 points.
Feasibility: The project whould be feasible. You should explain in your report and presentation why your project is doable or feasible. The maximum reward for this component is 5 points.
Presentation: You should present your project in the exhibition in a nice manner. Concentrate on your posters, reports and other creative ideas during exhibition. The maximum reward for this component is 5 points.
Summary of Selection Criteria for Best Project
Professionality …………… 10 points.
Creativity ……………………. 5 points.
Complexity …………………. 5 points.
Feasibility …………………… 5 points.
Presentation ……………….. 5 points.
TOTAL …………………. 30 points.
Who will be selecting the best Project(s)?
Selection will be made by myself and the tutors/graders. There will be a total of 3 evaluators for the overall selection.
After Exhibition
After the exhibition, all projects should be submitted as hardcopies and softcopies on CDs. We wish everyone good luck.
Solar Tower Power Plant and Green Technology
The Solar TowerTechnology also known as solar updraft tower is a proposed type of renewable-energy power plant. Air is heated in a very large circular greenhouse-like structure, and the resulting convection causes the air to rise and escape through a tall tower. The moving air drives turbines, which produce electricity. A research prototype operated in Spain in the 1980s.
Solar Tower of Power Finds Home
The quest for a new form of green energy has taken a significant step with the purchase of a 25,000-acre sheep farm in the Australian outback. The huge alternative energy project isn’t driven by manure, but by a 1-kilometer-high thermal power station called the Solar Tower.
Schematic presentation of a Solar updraft tower is shown in the figure.
Description: Solar Tower Power Plant
The generating ability of a solar updraft power plant depends primarily on two factors: the size of the collector area and chimney height. With a larger collector area, more volume of air is warmed up to flow up the chimney; collector areas as large as 7 km in diameter have been considered. With a larger chimney height, the pressure difference increases the stack effect; chimneys as tall as 1000 m have been considered. Further, a combined increase of the collector area and the chimney height leads to massively larger productivity of the power plant.
Heat can be stored inside the collector area greenhouse, to be used to warm the air later on. Water, with its relatively high specific heat capacity, can be filled in tubes placed under the collector increasing the energy storage as needed.[3]
Turbines can be installed in a ring around the base of the tower, with a horizontal axis, as planned for the Australian project and seen in the diagram above; or—as in the prototype in Spain—a single vertical axis turbine can be installed inside the chimney.
Carbon dioxide is emitted only negligibly while operating, but is emitted more significantly during manufacture of its construction materials, particularly cement. Net energy payback is estimated to be 2-3 years.[3]
A solar updraft tower power station would consume a significant area of land if it were designed to generate as much electricity as is produced by modern power stations using conventional technology. Construction would be most likely in hot areas with large amounts of very low-value land, such as deserts, or otherwise degraded land.
A small-scale solar updraft tower may be an attractive option for remote regions in developing countries.[3] The relatively low-tech approach could allow local resources and labour to be used for its construction and maintenance.
Announced several years ago, the 3,280-foot Solar Tower is one of the most ambitious alternative energy projects on the planet: a renewable energy plant that pumps out the same power as a small reactor but is totally safe. If built, it will be nearly double the height of the world’s tallest structure, the CN Tower in Canada.
The Solar Tower is hollow in the middle like a chimney. At its base is a solar collector — a 25,000-acre, transparent circular skirt. The air under the collector is heated by the sun and funneled up the chimney by convection — hot air rises. As it rises, the air accelerates to 35 mph, driving 32 wind turbines inside the tower, which generate electricity much like conventional wind farms.
But the Solar Tower has a major advantage over wind farms and solar generators: It can operate with no wind, and 24 hours a day. Thanks to banks of solar cells, the tower stores heat during the day, allowing it to produce electricity continuously.
Originally slated to be operational this year, construction of the massive project won’t begin until 2006 at the earliest, said Roger Davey, chairman of EnviroMission Limited, the Melbourne, Australia, company behind the venture.
But the purchase of the farm, which cost $1 million, near Mildura, Victoria, is a “very big step” in getting the project built, Davey said.
So far, the main impediment to building the tower has been the cost, with estimates ranging from $500 million to $750 million. Davey won’t say how much the project will ultimately cost but said the company is considering two new engineering innovations that will reduce construction costs and improve efficiency.
“It will make the project a totally different business case,” Davey said.
The timing couldn’t be better. With the price of oil topping $50 a barrel, many countries are looking for cheap energy and to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
“The time is now here,” Davey said. “The world is looking for a major renewable energy source.”
It’s estimated the Solar Tower will generate 200 megawatts, enough electricity to power 200,000 homes, and will keep 830,000 tons of greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere annually.
“Solar chimneys (towers) have become a hot area of research recently,” said S.A. Sherif, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of Florida, who wrote several papers on the technology in the early 1990s and is the technical editor of the Solar Energy journal.
by Stephen Leahy
Who is EnviroMission?
What is Solar Tower Technology?
What will a Solar Tower power station look like?
What materials will be used?
How many hours in a day will it generate electricity?
Where will the world’s first Solar Tower power station be built?
What factors are critical to site determination?
Can it be built?
Why hasn’t Solar Tower technology been developed before now?
Will power from Solar Towers be competitive?
Who is EnviroMission?
Melbourne based EnviroMission is a newly formed green energy public company that listed on the ASX on 6 August 2001. The company owns an exclusive licence to innovative Solar Tower technology. We aim to commercialise the first 200MW Solar Tower power station in Australia by before 2008.
What is Solar Tower Technology?
Solar Tower technology is not simply solar energy. Solar Tower technology is created when the sun’s radiation is used to heat a large body of air, which is then forced by the laws of physics (hot air rises) to move as a hot wind through large turbines to generate electricity. A solar thermal power station using Solar Tower technology will create the conditions to cause hot wind to flow continuously through its turbines to generate electricity.
What will a Solar Tower power station look like?
The power station will be based on German designed Solar Tower technology. It will look like an enormous greenhouse canopy with a very tall hollow ventilation Tower located at its centre.
The sun’s radiation will be collected and trapped under the transparent canopy, creating a massive force of air heated to around 35°C greater than the ambient temperature. The laws of physics will make this air move at 15 metres per second towards the cold air at the top of the Tower located in centre of the canopy. The powerful updraft will force the rising air to pass through large turbines positioned at the base of the Tower. The movement of the hot wind through the turbines will generate up to 200MW of clean, emission free electricity – enough electricity for 200,000 typical Australian homes.
What materials will be used?
A Solar Tower has three major components: the collector zone (greenhouse), Solar Tower (chimney) and turbines.
The large roof of the collector zone will be covered translucent heat enhancing properties materials including glass, polycarbonate and polymer. The Tower will be constructed from reinforced high strength concrete. The large-scale turbines will be purpose designed and constructed from lightweight alloy materials like those used in aircraft manufacture.
How many hours in a day will it generate electricity?
EnviroMission’s Solar Tower is proposed to generate electricity 24-hours a day. The power station will be at its most efficient on the hottest days when energy is most needed and peak prices are paid for electricity.
Re-radiation of heat present in the ground under the collector zone will provide the energy source during the night. This special feature enhances the commercial viability of the power station and gives EnviroMission a consistent competitive advantage over other forms of renewable energy generation.
Where will the world’s first power station be built?
After an extensive search, EnviroMission has selected the site for the world’s first Solar Tower power station in the Buronga district of the Wentworth Shire in NSW and 25km north east of Mildura in Victoria. The proposed site confirms EnviroMission’s commitment to the Sunraysia Region of NSW and Victoria.
The project will need to meet the necessary planning approval codes, regulations and legislation of the Commonwealth, State and Local Government.
What factors are critical to site determination?
EnviroMission evaluated site suitability against the following criteria:
* Commerciality
* Access to Regional Infrastructure
* Solar radiation levels
* Weather patterns
* Geological stability
* Access to the electricity grid and transmission centres
* Geographic features
* Current land use and access to change of land use
* Environmental factors
* Federal Government support
* State Government support
* Local Government/regional support
Can it be built?
Prior to listing on the Australian Stock Exchange a technical review report prepared by Sinclair Knight Merz, one of Australia’s leading engineering specialists, independently assessed the Solar Tower’s design concepts and construction methods were well proven and it could be built in Australia.
A 50kW prototype Solar Tower plant was constructed and successfully operated in Manzanares, Spain, with involvement of the designer Professor Jörg Schlaich, and the Spanish Government in 1982. The prototype operated for seven years and conclusively proved the concept works. Data obtained from the prototype provided the basis for a scaled up 200MW generation plant.
Why hasn’t Solar Tower technology been developed before now?
Formerly referred to as Solar Chimney technology in academic literature - it is now marketed without the reference to chimney (to avoid confusion with the pollution associated with chimneys - this technology is emission free) - the Solar Tower has had in excess of A$35 million and twenty years of research and development invested in it. Now, more than ever before, the time is ideal to apply this technology.
For more than 100 years it has been relatively cheap, environmentally unaccountable and simple to dig up coal as a fuel source to produce electricity.
Enormous shifts in community values and understanding about the relationship between energy generation and its impact on the environment have evolved around the world. Combined with growing concerns about the relationship between energy generation with global warming and air quality a demand has evolved for alternative methods of electricity generation increasingly over the last 20 years.
Community concern about Australia’s over reliance on coal-based ‘black’ and ‘brown’ energy and the negative impact on the environment has helped to drive political change. There is now a legislated market for clean, green renewable energy, legislated as a Mandated Renewable Energy Target (9500 gWh annual renewable energy target by 2010) has opened the way for investment in new approaches to renewable energy generation. This recent incentive is important to the growth of renewable energy development including Solar Tower technology.
A further political incentive in the form of the Renewable Energy Credit (REC) developed by the Federal Government in 2001 has been developed to encourage new investment in renewable energy development, with the purpose of reducing greenhouse gases and increasing the amount of renewable energy output.
New materials, construction methods and government policy are now available to the extent that there is environmental, social and commercial advantage in the development of Solar Tower technology.
Will power from Solar Towers be competitive?
The selling price of Solar Tower renewable energy will be based on the average peak pool electricity price paid to generators plus an additional renewable energy credit incentive paid by retailers.
Further value is expected to be added to the internal rate of return through the emerging synthetic carbon trading instrument, where a premium is paid for a tradeable unit that represents a carbon abatement value - this form of trading will off-set carbon producing activity of companies needing to balance their carbon ledgers.
References
1. http://www.wired.com
2. http://www.enviromission.com.au/
3. wikipedia - Solar Tower
4. Youtube video service
Marmaray Project Marmaray Project is the acronym for Turkish words of Marmara and Ray as Marmara meaning the Marmara Sea and Ray meaning ‘Railway’. Marmaray Project is the key to success to the project called Iron Silk Road which aims at restructuring the historical Silk Road or Silk Route.
Marmaray is the name of a project to link the European and Asian halves of Istanbul by an undersea rail tunnel across the Bosphorus strait. The name Marmaray (Marmara Rail) comes from combining the name of the Sea of Marmara, which lies just south of the project site, with ray, the Turkish word for rail.
The Details of Marmaray Project
The Marmaray project includes a 13.6 km Bosphorus crossing and the upgrade of 63 km of suburban train lines to create a 76.3 km high capacity line between Gebze and Halkalı. The Bosphorus (Istanbul Strait) will be crossed by a 1.4 km earthquake-proof immersed tube, assembled from 11 sections, each as long as 440 feet and weighing up to 18,000 tons. The sections will be placed 56 meters below sea level, under 180 feet of water and 15 feet of earth. This tube will be accessed by bored tunnels from Kazlıçeşme on the European side and Ayrılıkçeşme on the Asian side of Istanbul. New underground stations will be built at Yenikapı, Sirkeci, and Üsküdar, and 37 other above-ground stations along the line will be rebuilt or refurbished. The station at Yenikapi will connect with Istanbul metro and light rail. The upgrade of the suburban lines requires the laying of a third track along most of the line to increase capacity to 75,000 passengers per hour in each direction. Signaling must also be modernized to allow headways of two minutes. Total travel time from Gebze to Halkalı will be 104 minutes.
Construction of the Marmaray project started in May 2004. Its completion, expected to occur in 2012,[7] is projected to increase the fraction of trips in Istanbul made by rail transport from 3.6% to 27.7%. If this takes place, Istanbul’s rail transport fraction will be third largest in the world, after Tokyo (60%) and New York City (31%).
The Marmaray project is currently two years behind schedule, largely due to the excavation of a Byzantine archaeological find on the proposed site of the European tunnel terminal. “In 2005, the dig ran into the remains of a fourth-century Constantinople port, Portus Theodosiacus.” Researchers are recovering what appears to be the only Byzantine naval vessel ever discovered, preventing the project from proceeding at full speed. Each day the tunnel’s progress is delayed is estimated to cost $1 million in revenue, yet Turkey cannot afford to destroy the site. For now the archaeological dig is taking prominence, but how the Turkish government handles the situation in the years to come is really what is in question. Some artifacts date back to the 6th millennium BC, the oldest settlements ever uncovered in Istanbul. Items found include amphorae, pottery fragments, shells, pieces of bone, horse skulls and nine human heads found in a bag.
Tunnel construction is only 12 miles from the active North Anatolian Fault, worrying engineers and seismologists. “Since AD 342, it has seen more than a dozen huge earthquakes that each claimed more than 10,000 lives.” Scientists calculate the chances of the area being hit by a quake of 7.0 or greater may be as high as 77 percent. Waterlogged, silty soil like what the tunnel is being built upon has been known to liquefy during a quake and engineers are injecting industrial grout down to 80 feet below the seabed to keep it stable. The walls of the tunnel will be made of waterproof concrete and a steel shell, each independently watertight. The tunnel is made to flex and bend similar to the way a skyscraper is constructed if an earthquake occurs. Floodgates at the joints of the tunnel are able to slam down and isolate water in the event of the walls’ failure.
Steen Lykke, project manager for Avrasyaconsult, the international consortium that’s overseeing the construction, sums it up saying, “I can’t think of any challenge this project lacks”.
Financing for Marmaray Project
The Japan Bank for International Cooperation and the European Investment Bank have provided major financing for the project. To date (April 2006), JBIC has lent 111 billion yen and EIB 1.05 billion euros. Total cost of the project is expected to be approximately 2.5 billion euros (3.6 billion dollars).
Iron Silk Road
Turkey is very busy nowadays with the great engineeringprojectIron Silk Road which will connect London to China, Malaysia and other countries. One will be able to go to London or Istanbul, or any cities in Europe or Asia from any of the membering cities in the new silk route without getting off the train. The Marmaray project in Istanbul is the key to success of the new Iron Silk Road.
What is Silk Road?
An ancient trade route between China and the Mediterranean Sea extending some 6,440 km (4,000 mi) and linking China with the Roman Empire. Marco Polo followed the route on his journey to Cathay.
What is Iron Silk Road?
Iron Silk Road is the project to rebuild the old Silk Road or Silk Route in history by railway. It is a multinational project combining major European countries in Europe including England, Greece, and many others. It also includes Asian countries including China, India and Malaysia. If project is successfully finished you can go from Kuala Lumpur to London without getting off the train.
Istanbul, where giant tubes of steel are being submerged as part of an ambitious rail tunnel.
Giant tubes of steel, more than 130 metres long and weighing thousands of tonnes, are being submerged in the waters off Istanbul’s historic peninsula as part of an ambitious project to link the European side of the Turkish metropolis with its Asian part and open the way for an “Iron Silk Road” between Europe and Asia.
“You will be able to go from Europe to Asia without getting off the train,” said Serap Timur, a spokesman for Turkey’s General Directorate of Railways, Harbours and Airports Construction, or DLH. The DLH runs the ambitious Marmaray project that plans to connect Europe and Asia with a two-way rail system.
The project in the Sea of Marmara at the mouth of the Bosphorus took another step towards completion this month, when the seventh of eleven sets of double steel tubes was lowered to the sea bed. The Bosphorus, one of the world’s busiest water ways, was closed for traffic for the duration of the operation. The two pieces of steel tube separated by a dividing wall measured 135 metres in length and weighed 18,000 tonnes.
With this latest addition, the tunnel at the bottom of the sea has reached a length of 945 metres. Four more double tubes are to be put in place before the end of the year, giving the tunnel its final length of 1.4km. There will be an additional 12.2km of tunnel under land.
With the first trains planned to begin operation by 2011, Marmaray will cost an estimated US$2.6 billion (Dh9.5bn) and will be able to carry 75,000 passengers an hour between Europe and Asia when the link reaches its full capacity in 2015. The project has fallen behind schedule, however, because construction work for the tunnel and new railway stations has unearthed important archaeological finds from the Roman and Byzantine periods, including 32 ancient ships.
Marmaray is to ease inner-city traffic and make it easier for Istanbulites to get from the European shore of their city to the Asian side or vice versa, by offering them a quicker alternative to ferry boats and the two giant motorway bridges spanning the straits. According to the DLH, the 76km trip from the suburb of Gebze on the Asian side to Halkali on the western outskirts of Istanbul’s European part takes more than three hours today. Once Marmaray is in operation, travel time will drop to one hour and 45 minutes.
“But it will not only be a suburban train,” Ms Timur said. “The tunnel will also be open for freight and international passenger trains at certain times.” Rush-hour periods in the morning and the evening are likely to be reserved for inner-city trains, she said.
Turkey has big plans for its railway network that suffered from underfunding in the past. Test runs of a high-speed train link between Istanbul and the capital of Ankara have begun, while plans to connect other cities with modern train links are in the pipeline.
In addition, work is about to start on the Turkish section of a new rail link between Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan. Ankara has put aside roughly $300 million for work on its side of the border with Georgia, including the construction of a 76km long railway near the eastern city of Kars. When completed, the new rail link will provide an uninterrupted train connection from China to Turkey, a vision that has made Turkish politicians and media talk of an “Iron Silk Road” in the making.
Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan signed an agreement for the rail link last year. “This project will go through Kazakhstan to China and through Marmaray to London,” Abdullah Gul, Turkey’s president, said at the ground-breaking ceremony in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi in November. He said the project would “change history” and revive “the historic Silk Road”.
Known since antiquity, the Silk Road, a bundle of trade routes between the Mediterranean and China, received its name because it was the route silk from China made its way to Europe. Its importance declined in the Middle Ages as explorers opened new sea routes for trade.
But the ancient tradition of the Silk Road can be revived and turned into a source of revenue, Turkey believes. Tourism and especially freight transport take centre stage.
“Our efforts to establish an uninterrupted rail link from Europe to Central Asia, which started in 2004, have entered their ultimate phase,” Binali Yildirim, the transport minister, said recently. “We will finish the project, which carries a big significance for Turkey strategically and economically, in three years.” A total of 30m tonnes of freight will be transported on the new link in the medium term, Turkish press reports have said.
Turkey has been trying to position itself as a rail link between Asia and Europe. Total rail freight transport between the two continents was worth $75bn a year, Suleyman Karaman, the head of Turkey’s state railway operator TCDD, said late last month. Press reports put the potential revenue Turkey could generate with the help of the international freight train connection at $7bn annually.
Russia and Iran have proposed different routes that would leave Turkey in the cold, Mr Karaman said. This is why the Marmaray project was of utmost importance for the country. “If the project is not finished [as soon as possible], we will be bypassed,” he said.
