NEW WAVE-POWER PLANS
By Harry Hutchinson

A manufacturer of buoys that generate electric power from ocean waves has entered an agreement with Lockheed Martin that may result in a large-scale wave-power generating station off the Pacific Coast of the United States. The manufacturer, Ocean Power Technologies Inc. of Moorestown, N.J., and Lockheed Martin, have signed a letter of intent to collaborate on a utility-scale wave-power project.

According to a statement released by the companies, Ocean Power Technologies will provide project and site development expertise, build the power and control systems of the plant, and provide its proprietary PowerBuoy technology, which converts the rise and fall of waves to energy that can run a generator.
Lockheed Martin will provide construction, systems integration, and deployment of the plant, as well as operations and maintenance services.

Low profile: The visible portion of a wave-power generating buoy from Ocean Power Technologies.

Charles Dunleavy, Ocean Power’s chief financial officer, said the next step will be to work out an engineering services agreement. The companies said they have worked together before on smaller systems for U.S. homeland security and maritime surveillance consisting of the PowerBuoy integrated with Lockheed Martin’s advanced acoustic sensors, signal processing, and communications systems.

The prospective wave power project between Lockheed Martin and OPT is expected to be off the coasts of either California or Oregon.

According to Dunleavy, Ocean Power has begun work to develop one site off Reedsport, Ore. The project has received funding of more than $2 million, part from the local power cooperative, PGNC Power, and the majority from the Department of Energy. Dunleavy said the plan is to install 10 PowerBuoys, which will have a combined nameplate capacity of 1.5 MW.

According to Howard Luebcke, Lockheed Martin’s director of renewable energy business development, “This agreement is another step in Lockheed Martin’s effort to support our national security through energy independence built around zero-emission renewable energy sources.”

In November 2007, Lockheed Martin teamed with Starwood Energy Group to pursue utility solar generation projects in North America and has been pursuing multiple utility-scale opportunities. In December 2008, Lockheed Martin broke ground for construction of a solar power test bed to support these efforts, thus demonstrating its systems engineering and resources commitment to the renewable power generation market. 

EXPLORING NANO MEASUREMENT
By Harry Hutchinson

ASME Emerging Technologies is organizing a workshop to address challenges of measuring nanoscale phenomena, with the aim of helping the adoption of nanotechnology in the energy industry.

The organizers call it the “Nanoscale Measurement Challenges for Energy Applications Global Workshop.” It is scheduled for April 26 through 28 in Albany, N.Y. The National Institute of Standards and Technology, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering of the State University of New York at Albany are sponsors.

According to Raj Manchanda, ASME’s director for emerging technologies, nanotechnology is believed by many to hold the key to increasing the efficiency of energy systems and lowering the costs of energy production. Increased application of nanotechnology to energy, however, requires new or improved means of measuring physical phenomena.

The workshop will identify the “grand challenges” for measurement of properties at the nanoscale. Speakers will discuss current properties measured at the nanoscale for energy applications, current measurement techniques, and improvements that are needed.

Details including registration information are available through the ASME conferences Web site at
http://www.asmeconferences.org/nanomeasurement09.      

ROCKET MARMALADE
By Jean Thilmany

Engineers and food scientists at several universities are now at work developing a new type of gelled fuel with the consistency of orange marmalade and intended to improve the safety, performance, and range of rockets for space and military applications.

Gels are inherently safer than liquids because they don’t leak, said Stephen Heister, Purdue University professor of aeronautics and astronautics. He’s a lead researcher at work on the project, which is funded by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory in Adelphi, Md.

“It’s kind of like orange marmalade without the rind,” Heister said of the gel that the five-year project is intended to create. “We’re going to make this gel and push it through holes and study how it flows and how big the drops are.”

The gels would allow the military to better control rockets because motors running on gelled fuels could be throttled up and down and controlled more precisely than conventional rockets that use solid propellants, Heister said.

“You can turn the engine on and off, you can coast, go fast or slow,” he said. “You have much greater control, which means more range for missiles. The gelled propellants also tend to have a little more energy than the solid propellants.”

The project is a multidisciplinary effort, Heister said. The team includes researchers from mechanical engineering, aeronautics and astronautics, food science, and agricultural and biological engineering at Purdue, as well as researchers from Iowa State University and University of Massachusetts.

Future rockets could require that gelled propellants be sprayed by fuel injectors into a motor’s combustion chamber at rates of thousands of pounds per second. Using the gelled propellants, however, will require a thorough knowledge of how the fuel breaks into droplets as it is being sprayed into the chamber.

That’s where Paul Sojka comes in. The Purdue professor of mechanical engineering and the project’s associate director is devising a way to take high-speed videos of the gelatinous fuel’s behavior.

“The fluid mechanics of gels are quite challenging,” Sojka said. “The viscous properties of the gel change depending on how fast it’s flowing, which is not true of common liquids such as water or gasoline.”

The project will also tap the expertise of food scientists and food engineers, who are accustomed to working with gels, said Carlos Corvalan, an associate professor of food science at Purdue University.

ONE FOR THE MICROGRIPPER
By Jeffrey Winters

When doctors use the term “minimally invasive surgery,” it’s a clear case of everything being relative. After all, while the incisions made aren’t as big as they once were (large enough to accommodate a surgeon’s hands) laparoscopic and related surgeries do involve shoving a stout tube tipped with cameras, grippers, and blades into the patient’s body.

But experiments conducted Johns Hopkins University researchers point to a day when biopsies and entire surgeries can be conducted using free-floating devices introduced through an injection. The experimental device was controlled via simple magnets and activated by application of mild heat.

The device, called a microgripper, is the size of a dust mote–about a tenth of a millimeter on a side. The device is made via photolithography of gold-plated nickel, and is shaped like a crab, with six three-jointed digits extending from a flat, hexagonal body. The joints in the digits have thin layers of chromium and copper arranged so that, under normal conditions, they bend. The digits are kept flat by the addition of a resin layer that blocks the joints.

Under the direction of David Gracias, a biomolecular engineer at Johns Hopkins’s Institute for NanoBioTechnology, the experimental microgripper was guided by magnets through a sample of water filled with microscopic beads. When the microgripper met a specific bead, the device was heated; the heat softened the resin, allowing the joints to flex and the digits to curl around the bead.

The device was also tested successfully on animal tissue samples.

There is still plenty of work to be done before free-range microgrippers replace standard endoscopic tools. The devices can, for now, grab something only once. After the resin melts and the digits fold in, the grip cannot be relaxed. In time, however, it may be possible to make a microscopic wireless tool that acts more like a microscale surgeon’s hand.

KEEPING WILDLIFE FROM WINDMILLS

A two-year-old voluntary program to balance the protection of wildlife with the development of renewable energy sources has led four companies to abandon proposed wind farm sites in Pennsylvania.

The program, called the Wind Energy Voluntary Cooperative Agreement, was introduced by the Pennsylvania Game Commission in April 2007. So far 20 of the state’s 24 wind power companies have agreed to monitor wildlife on proposed sites and to monitor wildlife mortality rates after sites have been developed.

According to the first annual report on the results of the program, “Three proposed wind sites have been abandoned by four different companies due to potential wildlife resource impacts.”

The report, for the period from April 18, 2007, to Sept. 30, 2008, said two companies abandoned the same site because it was close to a colony of endangered Indiana bats. Another site was considered too close to known waterfowl and raptor migration routes. The third site was considered too dangerous for both bats and birds.

The agreement requires companies to report one year of pre-construction surveys of wild birds and mammals in the project area, as well as two years of post-construction monitoring for mortality of birds and mammals in the project area. The companies have agreed to send counters to observe birds’ migration routes, to use acoustic sensors to measure bat activity, and to visit possible nesting sites in the spring.  

The report and the text of the Wind Energy Voluntary Cooperative Agreement are available through the game commission’s Web site, www.pgc.state.pa.us.

BRIEFLY NOTED

PennEngineering, a Danboro, Pa., manufacturer of several proprietary fastening products, has acquired 3V Fasteners Co., a Corona, Calif., company that specializes in precision aerospace fastener products. Terms of the transaction between the two privately held companies were undisclosed. /// The Automation Federation of Research Triangle Park, N.C., has developed an Automation Competency Model, a formal federal document defining the skills and competencies needed in the automation field. The federation worked with industry experts and representatives from the Department of Labor to develop the model.