Promoting engineering and technology, encouraging and supporting those contemplating a career in engineering or technology
Summary: A history of lighter than air flight, up to the present day; both balloon and dirigible.
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As explained by Bill Anthony in his opening remarks the talk was going to be split into two halves. The first part would be about the Greenpower Challenge and how both Town Close School and Langley School became involved. The second part, to be given by Denis Coltman, will describe how Langley School entered the competition and outline how their F24 car evolved to the successful vehicle that it has become.
Bill described how the Greenpower Charity grew from a realisation that youngsters of all ages and gender could be encouraged into engineering by a challenge that they could appreciate but was not beyond their technical capabilities. At the time it was realised that most youngsters were aware that electrical energy was vital for the future and that it was becoming important in transportation and that most youngsters were competitive. Thus the general Challenge which is to see who could build an electrically driven vehicle that could go the furthest for a given amount of electrical energy in a fixed time. As Bill stated absolutely classical STEM territory if correctly set up.
To keep matters under control it was decided that all teams should have identical batteries, motors and a basic safety structure. Outside this the teams can do what ever the like to improve performance, Importantly the students must be deeply involved in decision making and hands on skills as well as be the sole source of vehicle drivers. To cope with the wide school age range Greenpower actually set out three vehicle types; Goblin, F24 and F24+ with different constraints. Bill stressed that this talk concentrates on the F24 age range (11-16).
Dennis then described how his team at Langley went about developing their vehicle. In the early days they realised that friction both rolling and air drag were important features. They also learnt that battery charging history was vital and that batteries were very temperature sensitive in their efficiency. A lot of effort was put into designing and constructing lightweight streamlining and minimising wheel drag. Dennis was amazed at the enthusiasm that all members of his team showed and the skills they learnt. Dennis illustrated his section with many examples of where significant improvements were made to vehicle performance and how the team had contributed ideas.
Dr Miller opened her talk by telling her audience that she became really interested in fuel additives when she was appointed as General Manager of a company producing 2 hexile nitrates which are used to improve the efficiency of diesel engines when they are using certain types of fuel, Michelle explained that diesel crude can roughly be split into two classes; sweet and sour. Sweet being a fuel that ignites uniformly and cleanly producing relatively proportions of particulates whereas sour ignition produces higher particulate densities and is more erratic in its ignition characteristics. Particulates are not good if they get generally distributed in the atmosphere from a health point of view. Also, if particulates stay in the combustion environment for any length of time increase engine wear and reduce engine servicing intervals. Michelle hinted that the addition of hexile nitrates in the right amounts at a post refining stage sour fuels performance could be improved significantly.
Having indicated how she had arrived at her current situation, Michelle then indicated that it was important to realise that fossil fuels had reached an important crossroads. This was because of the global implications of the 2015 Paris COP agreement. The UK committed itself to reducing its output of greenhouse gases by 100% by 2050 and aimed to sell no new cars powered by fossil fuels. Dr Millers view is that current trends in infra structure replacement to allow sufficient numbers of non fossil fuel powered vehicles such as EVs or H2 is way behind target.
Michelle stated that some of the infra structure grid issues for charging EVs could be mitigated if some alternative non fossil fuels could be found to power vehicles. An obvious candidate is Hydrogen. as this fuel can either be used in a combustion configuration e.g. some JCB tractors or in a fuel cell electric power source environment as practised by several Japanese automotive companies. Sadly there are several problems associated with H2. One is that Hydrogen is chemically highly reactive especially if oxygen is around, Another according to Michelle is its molecular size is small so it is difficult to contain. However the major one is that the major production sources are currently based on fossil fuels; only a small amount is produced by the inefficient but GOP compliant electrolytic process.
Prof Jonathon Jones, Head of the John Innes Sainsbury Laboratory, opened his talk by stating that to cope with the worlds population growth by 2050 food production would have to increase by about 100%. Jonathon opined that this has to be done in a sustainable way ; land resources do not become exhausted and biological diversity must be maintained.
His view is that to be able to do this in an acceptable way in the western world consumer choice has to be assured. One of the problems with the way it was done in the 1990s was almost as if there was no choice; hence the pushback by so called concerned public of the time. However in those parts of the world where food shortages exist there was little objection to gene modification of plants.
Jonathon then gave a short description of what plant genes are and what role they play in plant development. He pointed out that if a gene study is done on plants what is found is that there is a wide range (sometimes called a diversity) of genes that make up a given plants general description. What plant breeders do is interbreed plants with certain desired characteristics to reinforce that characteristic. For example to prevent heavy wheat heads from stalk breakage it would appear to be sensible to reinforce plants with short strong stalks so that fewer of them break in sharp thundery rain conditions, This indeed has taken place over the years but as Jonathon emphasised this takes several decades.
Prof Jones indicated that since the early 1990s much progress has been made in the detailed knowledge of how plant genes are sequenced. He also indicated how genes can be altered by safely manipulating gene structures ( the method of gene editing) by inserting and deleting gene substructures to improve overall plant yields. As he indicated the same result could have been done by conventional plant breeding because of the wide gene diversity in a given plant butn it would have taken much longer. An interesting example of this gene editing method, described in a little detail by Jonathon, was tackling the problem of potato blight; one of the major infamous causes of the Irish Famine of the 1850s.
Shaun Faulkner, of Schneider Electric, opened his talk with a general overview of energy consumption in the marine environment particularly that in an operating port environment. In his opinion, it is clear that any new developments in ports have to be powered by electricity especially as there is a drive for new vessels themselves to be powered by electricity.
This implies that when a vessel of this type docks it will have to recharge its running batteries with energy as well as requiring standby power to keep its internal systems running whilst being docked. The implications for a given port in terms of supply requirements can be very demanding especially in the transition from the traditionally oil fired ships to the EV vessels. This is especially the case for a very busy port like Dover which is using its current land area almost to capacity. How does this port achieve the transition without causing significant disruption to current trading position? As Shaun pointed out another drive to moving to electrification is that most ships are significant polluters if they are oil powered. To minimise this most major shipping areas are now subject to regulations that limit the use of oil firing when docked. For instance Dover falls within the North Sea Emissions Control Area that requires all vessels to switch to shore based electrical power soon after docking.
The demands that a docking ship requires can be quite large. For instance when a 4000 passenger cruise ship docks in a port it needs to be supplied with sufficient power to keep its facilities, such as restaurants, air conditioning etc, working. This is equivalent to the demands of a small town. Some cargo ships especially those carrying frozen goods also have high power needs. Shaun spent a significant part of his talk outlining the problems involved and how they are being resolved. A particularly problem that UK ports face is that of synchronising AC supplies; most international vessels have 60HZ equipment whereas UK power is supplied at 50HZ.
Shaun used the final part of his talk discussing how the port of Dover was setting about meeting the transition challenge especially as one of its major ferry customers had made the unilateral decision to change all its vessels to electrical power. As already mentioned Dover is a 24 hour port that has already used most of its available land and is very constricted in usable corridors for the extra power needs that the transition requires. Shaun stated that there are solutions available but they are not going to be easy and they are certainly not going to be without problems.