A MILESTONE FOR CODES & STANDARDS
By Harry Hutchinson
ASME Codes and Standards is planning a number of events to mark its 125th anniversary this year. The organization is planning presentations that can be given throughout the year at committee meetings, and also plans to host several events during the ASME Annual Meeting in June, where the boards that oversee Codes & Standards activities will meet.
According to Kenneth R. Balkey, Vice Chair of the ASME Codes and Standards Board of Directors, the planners of the celebration hope that the year's programs will reach all the current volunteers with some form of recognition for their dedicated efforts.
ASME Codes & Standards has grown into a major enterprise in the past century and a quarter.
The first standard, "Rules for Conducting Boiler Tests," was published in Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in May 1884. The rules were presented in a paper by William Kent, a mechanical engineer working at Babcock & Wilcox in New York, for discussion by other members.
Today, there are more than 4,000 volunteers serving under the direction of six supervisory boards as part of more than 700 standards development committees.
Events at the Annual Meeting will begin with a special anniversary reception on Monday evening and continue on Tuesday morning with a plenary session, during which an international panel will discuss the contributions that universal codes and standards have made to international trade.
Balkey is one of the panelists. Others who have been invited to speak are Peter J. Hanmore, head of technical standards and regional manager of Bureau Veritas Inspection Ltd. in the United Kingdom; Masaki Morishita, unit manager at the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute; B.P. Gupta, general manager of the Gas Authority of India Ltd., and John Fletcher, inservice inspection engineer at Pebble Bed Modular Reactor Ltd. in South Africa.
Also on Tuesday morning, Bernard Hrubala, the current Senior Vice President for ASME Codes and Standards, and June Ling, ASME's Associate Executive Director for Codes and Standards, will lead a seminar on the organization's process of developing standards and ways to make ASME standards better understood around the world.
The 2009 ASME Annual Meeting is scheduled for June 13–17 at JW Marriott Resort & Spa in Palm Desert, Calif.
GAINS FOR A HOT SEMICONDUCTOR
By Harry Hutchinson
A manufacturer says it has reliably reduced the presence of a fatal defect in silicon carbide semiconductor wafers by an order of magnitude, and expects further reductions. The manufacturer, Dow Corning Compound Semiconductor Solutions, said that the improvement will permit the material to be used economically in a wider range of applications, where its thermal properties can increase efficiency or reduce size.
Silicon carbide semiconductors can run much hotter without damage than many other semiconductor materials, so they can run reliably with simpler and smaller cooling systems. Used in power supplies, for instance, SiC semiconductors can reduce the energy load needed to cool banks of servers, which have become major consumers of electricity. SiC semiconductors are also applicable to hybrid and electric vehicles, solar and wind inverter systems, and motor controls.
Dow Corning says that, over the past two years, X-ray measurements of crystal quality show a reduced incidence of defects called micropipes from an average of 100 per square centimeter down to 10 per cm2. The company is on track to reduce the occurrence of micropipes to fewer than 5 per cm2 of silicon carbide, said Jim Helwick, global business director at Dow Corning Compound Semiconductor Solutions.
According to Dow Corning, the frequency of micropipes in silicon carbide has been a major challenge to the industry.
A device built over a micropipe will fail and so any part of the wafer containing the flaw must be rejected. The reduction of the flaws increases the yield from each wafer and will reduce costs.
“These improvements are critical to drive efforts to move silicon carbide device technology closer to high-volume manufacturing,” Helwick said.
The quality milestones were announced at the Seventh European Conference for Silicon Carbide and Related Materials in Barcelona, Spain.
Dow Corning currently offers 76 mm (3-inch) SiC polished wafers, epi-wafers, and epitaxy services. It plans to introduce 100 mm (4-inch) and semi-insulating SiC products later this year.
CELLULOSIC ETHANOL START-UP GETS VENTURE BACKING
by Alan S. Brown
A start-up company called Qteros, which plans to make ethanol fuel from non-food plants and wastes, has landed $25 million in additional financing from venture capital backers. Formerly known as SunEthanol, the firm in Amherst, Mass., is a spinoff of the University of Massachusetts.
Ethanol has attracted attention in the United States because it is made from renewable resources and can be blended into gasoline to reduce the nation’s dependency on imported oil. U.S. automakers have pledged that half the vehicles they build by 2012 will be able to use blends of up to 15 percent ethanol. Congress has mandated production of 36 billion gallons of ethanol per year by 2022.
The problem with ethanol is that processors make virtually all ethanol from such high-sugar food crops as corn and beets. Rising demand for ethanol is one of several factors that have driven corn to record-high prices, above $5 per bushel, during the past year.
If ethanol can be made from cellulose—from stalks, stems, husks, and cobs—it will not divert food stocks. In addition to agricultural residues, cellulose sources include mill and forest residues, urban wood waste, and crops grown for fuel (such as switchgrass and miscanthus). A 1999 study by Oak Ridge National Laboratory estimated that the United States could produce 512 million dry tons of biomass per year for delivery at less than $50 a ton.
The difficulty is that cellulose requires an expensive two-step pretreatment prior to fermentation. The first step breaks down the lignin that surrounds the cellulose, and the second uses enzymes to convert the exposed cellulose to simple sugars that microbes can convert to ethanol.
Qteros’s technology eliminates the enzyme treatment. The company’s proprietary process uses what it calls the Q Microbe, Clostridium phytofermentans, which produces enzymes that turn cellulose into sugars that can be digested and turn into ethanol. According to Qteros, the microbe not only eliminates costly enzymes, but it also simplifies the pretreatment steps at the start of the process.
Qteros claims it will be able to sell cellulosic ethanol to consumers for $1.05 per gallon once its licensed plants reach full production sometime in 2010. It expects to reduce costs further as its understanding of the microbe and process increases.
University of Massachusetts microbiology professor Susan Leschine discovered the Q Microbe in the woods of Massachusetts. The company is headed by president and CEO Bill Frey, who led DuPont’s biofuels division before joining Qteros in June 2008. He plans to use the company’s newly raised capital to build a commercial ethanol facility based on its current pilot plant.
The consortium of investors includes Venrock, Battery Ventures, BP, Soros Fund Management LLC, Long River Ventures, and Camros Capital.
$2.5 MILLION RAISED SO FAR FOR FEDERAL FELLOWS
By John Varrasi
The ASME Foundation has raised $2.5 million so far in its new fund-raising campaign to support the Society’s Federal Fellows program.
The campaign, named Engineering the Greater Good, is reaching out to corporate and individual donors in an effort to generate funding to expand one of ASME’s most successful government relations programs. According to Judith Kearney, the foundation’s director of development, donations have included $250,000 from Duke Energy and $1 million from an individual.
Federal Fellows provide engineering and technical expertise to policy makers in Congress and the White House, and at key government agencies. Over the past 35 years, ASME Federal Fellows have advised government leaders on environmental risk analysis, the security of the nation’s critical infrastructure, engineering education, codes and standards, energy, and other subjects affecting public policy.
Co-chairs of the Engineering the Greater Good campaign are John H. Sununu, former governor of New Hampshire and a White House chief of staff under the first President Bush, and William Jones, owner of J.W. Jones Consulting Engineers in Huntington Beach, Calif.
The campaign’s goal is to raise $5 million to expand the Federal Fellows program. Government officials have begun requesting the assistance of Federal Fellows at a rate exceeding the program’s current resources.
Individuals and companies interested in learning more about the foundation and the Engineering the Greater Good campaign can e-mail Judith Kearney at kearneyj@asme.org. Information about the Federal Fellows program is available at http://www.asme.org/NewsPublicPolicy/GovRelations/Programs/Federal_Government. cfm.
BRIEFLY NOTED
General Dynamics, the defense contractor based in Falls Church, Va., will acquire AxleTech International, a manufacturer of axle components, independent suspensions, and other aftermarket parts for military vehicles, commercial specialty trucks, and off-highway machines used in the construction, material handling, forestry, mining, and agricultural markets. AxleTech International employs approximately 1,000 workers worldwide and is based in Troy, Mich. /// Haydon Switch and Instrument Inc. has merged with Kerk Motion Products. The new company, HaydonKerk Motion Solutions, will continue to manufacture Haydon electric motors and linear actuators at Waterbury, Conn., and Kerk leadscrews, linear rails, and non-motorized actuators at Hollis, N.H. /// Honda Manufacturing of Indiana LLC dedicated its new auto plant in Greensburg that last month began producing the fuel-efficient, 4-cylinder Honda Civic sedan. Honda took the occasion of the Indiana plant opening to announce that it plans to transfer exclusive production of its compressed natural gas-powered passenger vehicle, the Civic GX, to Honda Manufacturing of Indiana in 2009. /// The Colorado State Capitol has unveiled a solar electric system, as part of its “Greening Government” project. The 10-kilowatt system was installed by Bella Energy of Louisville, Ky. /// ASME Turbo Expo — Gas Turbine Technical Congress and Exposition will be held June 8–12, 2009, at the World Center Marriott Resort and Convention Center in Orlando, Fla. The theme of the keynote session, according to Barry Nicholls, vice president of sales at Siemens Power Systems and the executive conference chair of Turbo Expo 2009, will address the rapidly changing global environment for gas turbine technology and the worldwide demand for increased performance in power and efficiencies. /// Lattice Technology of San Francisco, a developer of digital manufacturing applications using the XVL format, has released three packages of its XVL software targeted to three separate digital manufacturing functions: digital mockup, illustration, and process documentation. /// Simulia, a Dassault company of Providence, R.I., has released an upgrade to its finite element analysis software, Abaqus 6.8 Extended Functionality. |
