A KEY STANDARD ENTERS NEW EDITION
By Steve Weinman
The ASME Y14.5 standard on geometric dimensioning and tolerancing, which establishes language to communicate function and relationships of part features, has been reorganized and expanded for the first time in more than a decade. The 2009 edition replaces one that was published in 1994.
The authors of the standard say that, in an age of increasingly complex machines, consistent symbols, terminology, and specifications for design intent on engineering drawings for production have become vital. The standard helps ensure that parts manufactured from a technical drawing will have the desired form, fit, function, and interchangeability.
By providing uniformity in drawing specifications and interpretation, geometric dimensioning and tolerancing reduces controversy, guesswork, and assumptions during manufacture and inspection.
According to the committee that developed the standard, some of the important changes in the 2009 edition are:
• An expansion of the concept of feature of size.
• Explanation of datum references in terms of degrees of freedom.
• Allowing for customization of the degrees of freedom constrained by datum feature references.
• Expanding composite position tolerance explanations to include three segments.
• Simplification of the explanation of composite tolerances.
• Clarification of surface boundaries taking precedence over axis methods of interpretation.
• Expansion of the explanation of profile tolerances.
Additionally, the subject matter has been restructured for better readability, with profile, orientation, and form now in separate sections, and material within sections reorganized.
ASME CERTIFICATE MILESTONE IN NUCLEAR RENAISSANCE
By Jeffrey Winters
There has been a lot of talk of a comeback in the nuclear industry, but it sometimes feels that the real renaissance is in PowerPoint presentations and architectural renderings. However, in a tangible sign of progress, ASME recently issued an owner’s certificate to the South Texas Project Nuclear Operating Co., which is planning to build two new reactors at its Bay City, Texas, facility.
ASME grants owner’s certificates to companies that have demonstrated they have met the necessary management standards for safely operating a nuclear power plant. The certificate is not a reflection of the technical quality of the reactor. That is covered by other sets of standards. The owner’s certificate is deemed important enough that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission requires it before a company can build a new reactor.
“It is the first certificate of this type issued in 20 to 25 years,” said Alan Bagner, director of accreditation and certification at ASME. “It’s a sign that the nuclear industry is beginning to come back.”
As part of the certification process, the company had to develop a 22-chapter operations manual and submit to in-depth questioning from an auditor sent by ASME. Based on the results of this review, an ASME committee voted to grant the certificate in mid-November 2008.
In spite of clearing this hurdle, there is still quite a bit of work to be completed before the STPNOC can begin installing safety-related equipment. Indeed, Mark McBurnett, vice president for oversight and regulatory affairs at STPNOC, said that the company doesn’t expect to receive an NRC operating license until 2011, and construction likely won’t be completed until 2015.
“People say 2015 sounds like an awfully long time in the future,” McBurnett said. “But it doesn’t sound like enough time to us. We still have a lot to do.”
MANUFACTURING ADVICE
By Harry Hutchinson
The Web-based manufacturer Quickparts has introduced a new service: design for manufacturing consultation for rapid prototyping and injection molded parts.
According to the company, the DFM service allows customers to take advantage of the experience of the Quickparts manufacturing team. The service is offered free of charge to customers working with Quickparts on new rapid prototyping and injection molding projects.
According to Patrick Hunter, Quickparts’ vice president of sales and marketing, the service is intended to help customers save money on tooling by identifying elements of a design that could present manufacturing problems.
CONSORTIUM SUNSET
By Harry Hutchinson
The Consortium on Standards and Conformity Assessment, a U.S. government-funded effort
to promote U.S. codes and standards in China, is winding down its operations.
The consortium was formed by four standards-issuing organizations—ASME, the American Petroleum Institute, ASTM International, and CSA America—and was funded through the U.S. Department of Commerce.
The group says the consortium has met its goals, and that each member has established a presence in China, and will operate separate offices in the future.
ASME will be represented in China by ASME Asia Pacific LLC. It will maintain an office in Beijing. The phone number is (86-10) 5109-6032.
ONLINE GREEN SOURCE
By Harry Hutchinson
An online engineering database, Knovel, has added a new subject area: sustainable energy and development.
The company, which operates from the Web site www.knovel.com, said that it developed the subject area to meet the growing demands of engineers around the world for relevant and reliable data on sustainability topics.
The sustainable energy and development area includes information on renewable energy, energy efficiency, sustainable agriculture, sustainable industrial development, sustainable urban development, and water resources and conservation. The material includes texts from publishers including EarthScan, Elsevier, McGraw-Hill, Oxford University Press, Springer, Wiley, and Woodhead.
Knovel is an online resource that helps engineers find reliable technical information. Subscribers can search and manipulate data in various forms. They also can create and export functional elements, such as charts and tables.
FIRST AID CHEMICAL WIPE
By Harry Hutchinson
Research funded by the Department of Homeland Security has identified a new nonwoven fabric wipe as a significantly effective initial treatment for exposure to chemical warfare agents and toxic chemicals.
The wipe, designed by a researcher at the Institute of Environmental and Human Health at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, consists of an activated carbon core sandwiched between layers of nonwoven absorbent fabric, and is designed for people to use on themselves or their equipment if they are exposed to dangerous chemicals. The materials do not react with chemicals or neutralize them, but instead absorb and adsorb them to remove them from skin or other surfaces.
The wipe was singled out by a study conducted at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory led by senior project engineer William Smith, and conducted by Adam Love, a chemist. According to Smith, they screened 10 liquids and 30 solids—which included fabrics, carbon nanotubes, and powdered feathers—for effectiveness against mustard gas and other harmful agents. The work was performed for the Department of Homeland Security as part of a program to develop a low-cost personal chemical decontamination system, something that people could use on themselves as a form of first aid.
 The inventor of the Fibertect chemical decontaminant wipe (left) points out that it does not shed carbon particles, although the wipe in the M291 kit currently in use by the U.S. military (shown at right) does.
Smith said the team concluded that the Fibertect wipe “was the best match” with the top-performing liquid, which is RSDL, a decontaminant lotion developed in Canada. According to Smith, the most effective treatment was to use the wipe first to remove the agent from the skin and then, especially for nerve agents, treat any residual agent with RSDL.
The treatment would constitute first aid, and for many hazardous chemicals a person would likely need medical attention.
Seshadri Ramkumar, who supervises the Nonwovens and Advanced Materials Laboratory, designed the wipe and worked with scientists at the Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr. National Program for Countermeasures to Biological and Chemical Threats to evaluate its chemical retention. Ramkumar’s lab and the Zumwalt program are both part of the Institute of Environmental and Human Health. The nonwovens research work was funded by the U.S. Department of Defense.
According to Ramkumar, the wipe is effective at removing chemical warfare agents and toxic industrial chemicals. It can be used dry or with a liquid. One of the advantages over competing designs, he said, is that it absorbs dangerous chemicals and does not shed contaminated particles.
Texas Tech’s Office of Technology Commercialization has arranged to license the Fibertect technology to Hobbs Bonded Fibers in Waco, Texas. The company is organizing a marketing team for the product.
A description of the wipe and the test results were published online in a paper, “Next Generation Non-particulate Dry Nonwoven Pad for Chemical Warfare Agent Decontamination,” in December in the American Chemical Society’s journal, Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research.
RSDL was developed in Canada as a personal decontaminant and is FDA approved for use against chemical warfare agents. It is marketed by the RS Decon group, part of Bracco Diagnostics. Its senior sales director, Bill Scott, said RSDL is used by the U.S. and other militaries, and is effective against all known chemical warfare agents. It is a regulated product and is used by the military and first responders, but is not for sale to civilians.
SAFE NANOTUBE BREAKDOWN
By Jean Thilmany
Nanotubes are certainly small, but they’ve never been shown to be safe.
Now, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh say they’ve come up with a nontoxic way for carbon nanotubes to biodegrade. The finding, they said, could ease environmental and health concerns surrounding the nanotubes, which have promise for use in products from electronics to plastics.
Carbon nanotubes are rolls of graphite with walls one atom thick. Their diameter is one-hundred thousandth that of a human hair. The nanotubes test stronger than steel and are excellent conductors of electricity and heat. They can reinforce plastics, ceramics, or concrete; conduct electricity in electronics or energy-conversion devices, and are sensitive chemical sensors, said Alexander Star, an assistant professor of chemistry at the university.
“The many applications of nanotubes have resulted in greater production of them, but their toxicity remains controversial,” he said. “Accidental spills of nanotubes are inevitable during their production, and the massive use of nanotube-based materials could lead to increased environmental pollution.”
Research points to a convenient way of breaking
down carbon nanotubes, rolls of graphite with walls
an atom thick.
Star and a colleague, Valerian Kagan, say they have found that carbon nanotubes deteriorate when exposed to the natural enzyme horseradish peroxidase, also called HRP. Kagan is a professor in the university’s graduate school of public health.
“Nanomaterials aren’t completely understood. Industries use nanotubes because they’re strong. They can be used as semiconductors,” Kagan said. “But studies have shown that they can be dangerous. We wanted to develop a method for safely neutralizing these very small materials should they contaminate the natural or working environment.”
To break down the nanotubes, the team exposed them to a solution of HRP and a low concentration of hydrogen peroxide at 39°F for 12 weeks. Once fully developed, the method could be administered as easily as chemical cleanups in today’s labs, Star said.
These results open the door to further development of safe and natural methods—with HRP or other enzymes—of cleaning up carbon nanotube spills in the environment and the industrial or laboratory setting, he said.
NO RENEWABLE BOTTLENECK
By Jeffrey Winters
It’s been an article of faith that one of the biggest roadblocks to boosting wind and solar generating capacity is the electrical grid. According to this argument, when they contribute only a few percent of the grid’s power, they are not a problem, but when the fraction gets above about one-sixth, the variability of wind and solar electricity creates a reliability problem that’s neither cheap nor easy to fix.
That assumption has been challenged by engineers at Stanford University in California, who have modeled that state’s power grid and demand curves. Assuming no improvements to the grid, the modelers added the power from eight large wind and solar generating stations that are in the process of being built.
Simulating both electricity demand and renewable output for typical days in summer and winter, the team discovered that solar and wind worked well together, with the highest wind output corresponding to night hours when solar stations can’t operate. What’s more, even if renewable energy sources made up as much as 70 percent of power generation on a summer’s day, the grid could handle that with only limited upgrades. The model suggests that only 31 of 5,000 California transmission lines would be at risk of overloading by 2016 in a renewable-heavy scenario, versus 11 lines in a scenario where most of the load is handled by natural gas plants.
The state of California has a target of 33 percent renewably generated electricity by 2020. There have been fears that this goal would strain the state’s transmission system. The study by Stanford’s Elaine Hart and Mark Jacobson indicates that renewable portfolio standards such as these will not overburden the system.
COAL-TO-LIQUIDS PLANT SET FOR WEST VIRGINIA
By Peter Easton
An independent power company, TransGas Development Systems LLC of Charleston, W.Va., plans to build a coal-to-liquids plant in West Virginia.
TGDS has filed a permit to build the $3 billion facility in Mingo County.
“West Virginia remains firmly committed to advancing coal-to-liquids technology. We are excited that TransGas Development Systems shares that goal and is prepared to invest in our state,” said Gov. Joe Manchin. “The decision to construct this coal-to-liquids plant will encourage more efficient use of our coal and help create more job opportunities.”
“This project has the potential to bring many well-paying jobs to West Virginia,” said Sen. Robert C. Byrd.
Projected to be operational by 2013, the plant will be built in Mingo County’s new energy park near Gilbert. The construction phase is expected to generate 3,000 jobs. When fully staffed, the facility will employ as many as 200 workers. TGDS estimates the facility will use up to 3 million tons of locally mined coal a year to produce more than 6.5 million barrels of gasoline.
TGDS has signed a licensing agreement with Uhde Corp. of America for the use of the new Prenflo gasifier reactor. The proprietary technology is under authorized license from Uhde GmbH in Germany.
The Prenflo technology handles all types of coal as well as petroleum coke, char, and biomass. In addition to producing gasoline, the gasification process produces economically valuable by-products, such as slag and fly ash used in construction. Uhde is a leading engineering company in the design and construction of industrial plants.
BRIEFLY NOTED
Progress Energy Florida and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection have announced an agreement designed to protect the environment and significantly reduce the company’s use of coal-fired power generation. As part of the agreement, the St. Petersburg-based company will retire the two oldest coal-fired units at the Crystal River Energy Complex in Citrus County after a new, advanced-design nuclear plant is built in Levy County. Doing so is expected to reduce the company’s carbon dioxide emissions by more than 5 million tons per year. /// Riley Power Inc., based in Worcester, Mass., said that it has received a contract from Interstate Power and Light Co. for the design and supply of a selective catalytic reduction system and low NOx burners for its Lansing Generating Station Unit 4, a 270-megawatt coal-fired power plant in Lansing, Iowa. /// The Boeing Co. has rescheduled the first flight of its 787 Dreamliner to the second quarter of 2009 and first delivery into the first quarter of 2010. The new schedule reflects a four- to six-month delay from the impact of disruption caused by the recent machinists’ strike along with the requirement to replace certain fasteners in early production airplanes. /// Advanced Metal Etching Inc. has expanded its Ligonier, Ind., plant. New equipment and workflow design are expected to yield a 70 percent capacity increase. The company specializes in photo-chemical etching of flat metal parts used in electronics, aerospace, and other products. /// Siemens PLM Software of Plano, Texas, is shipping version 10 of its Femap finite element analysis software. /// A maker of computer-aided-manufacturing software, DP Technology of Camarillo, Calif., has released version 10 of its Esprit Mold software. /// Wichita, Kan.-based Hawker Beechcraft Corp. has been awarded a contract by the U.S. Air Force with an estimated value of $171 million. The contract is for 23 extended-range special mission Beechcraft King Air 350ER turboprops. Deliveries will take place in 2009. |
