ELECTRIC SUPERHIGHWAY
by Jeffrey Winters  

It's been some 20 years since physicists first discovered ceramics that, at relatively warm temperatures, can act as superconductors—that is, carry volumes of electric current with virtually no resistance. In April, a length of cable 2,000 feet long was installed in the New York electric grid by the Long Island Power Authority, making it the first instance of such a cable becoming part of a commercial power system.

Previous installations of the technology, notably one by National Grid in Albany, N.Y., were experimental and not seen as a real part of the grid, said Jack McCall, the head of transmission and distribution technology for American Superconductor in Westborough, Mass.

Three superconducting cables, shown entering the ground, can carry as much power as the overhead lines seen at the left.

Although the materials are known as high-temperature superconductors, they don't exhibit their special properties above -321°F. To get the cables that cold, they are designed as hollow tubes with superconducting ribbons wrapped around a channel filled with liquid nitrogen; the utility must maintain a flow of cryogenically cooled fluid through the cable for it to remain operational.

The result, however, is that the utility can run a great deal of power through a very small space. The 138,000-volt LIPA installation is designed to handle as much as 574 megawatts of electricity. And, thanks to the line's low impedance, it can draw power from lines that might otherwise be overloaded, reducing potential bottlenecks on the Long Island grid. "It's part of the east-west transmission line that forms the spine of the network on Long Island," McCall said. "This cable is a bypass of a portion of the normal transmission line."

American Superconductor expects that Con Edison will install a similar cable in the New York City grid in the next year. McCall added that one outcome of this installation is that LIPA now views high-temperature superconducting cable as a non-experimental technology that can be considered for any high-voltage transmission application. "This says that the cable technology has now arrived," McCall said.

CONTROLS FOR COAL PLANTS
by Peter Easton  

A South Carolina utility has ordered Wet Flue Gas Desulfurization systems from Babcock Power Environmental Inc. for two coal-fired plants, according to the supplier's parent company, Babcock Power Inc. in Danvers, Mass. South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. ordered the WFGD systems for its Wateree Station in Eastover and Williams Station in Goose Creek.

The contract includes the supply of two WFGDs complete with absorber island, limestone preparation, and gypsum dewatering systems, with complete flue duct and structural steel components to integrate the systems into the power plants. The systems are designed for up to 98 percent SO2 removal efficiency with the specified coal.

Williams Station produces 640 megawatts of electricity, while Wateree Station, powered by two Riley supercritical pulverized coal boilers, generates 700 MW. The contract has an approximate value of $100 million and is scheduled for completion in 2009.

South Carolina Electric & Gas is a regulated public utility engaged in the generation, transmission, distribution, and sale of electricity to approximately 639,000 customers in 24 counties in the central, southern, and southwestern portions of South Carolina. The company also provides natural gas service to approximately 303,000 customers in 34 counties in the state.

Babcock Power Inc. is a leading supplier of technology, equipment, and services to the power generation industry.

INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE
by Peter Easton  

ISO has just published a new version of the SI Guide, a small manual for the use of the International System of Units (Système International d'Unités).

The SI is a comprehensive metric and decimal system based on units and derived units. The seven base units measure length, mass, time, electric current, thermodynamic temperature, amount of substance, and luminous intensity.

The 32-page SI Guide should be useful for many people, including engineers, scientists, technical writers, teachers, and students. More information is available on the ISO's Web site, www.iso.org.

SETTLEMENT REACHED IN FASTENER PATENT SUIT
by Harry Hutchinson  

A manufacturer of fasteners, PennEngineering, says it has settled a patent-infringement lawsuit with one of six defendants. Details of the settlement, with Richard Manno & Co. Inc. of West Babylon, N.Y., were not disclosed.

Richard Manno & Co. was one of six defendants named in a complaint filed by Penn-Engineering in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas. PennEngineering, which is based in Danboro, Pa., had attended a trade show in Las Vegas last November and believed that products offered by the six companies infringed some of its patents.

The suit says a number of products are involved, including various designs of panel fasteners and self-clinching fasteners.

An assistant in the office of Judge Philip M. Pro, who is hearing the case, confirmed that lawyers for Penn-Engineering and Manno both filed in April for a dismissal of the complaint against Manno. The judge has approved the dismissal.

Also named in the suit are Shanghai Jingyang Import & Export Co. Ltd., Clinching Fasteners Co. Ltd., Shenzhen Hongyijin Metal Co. Ltd., Dongtai City Huawei Standard Component Corp., and Finexpress Fastener Co. Ltd.

$125 MILLION TO BOOST TURBOCHARGER CAPACITY
by Peter Easton  

Responding to growing demand, BorgWarner Inc. of Auburn Hills, Mich., will invest approximately $125 million to increase the company's manufacturing capacity for global passenger car turbochargers by more than three million units. The company said the increased capacity is expected to meet a growing demand for the company's fuel-efficient turbocharger technology and will support new business awards in North America, Europe, and Asia.

The investments include construction of new facilities in Mexico and Thailand, and expansion of facilities in Hungary and Poland. The added capacity will produce turbochargers for both diesel and gasoline engines. The spending for these projects will occur over the next few years.

North American turbocharger production for passenger cars is expected to more than double from 1 million units today to 2.3 million by 2013. Gasoline and diesel turbocharged engines are a key part of major automakers' future plans in North America. A turbocharger facility to be built on the BorgWarner campus in Ramos, Mexico, is expected to start production in mid-2010 to supply a major North American gasoline direct-injected engine program.

The third expansion of the Hungary plant will accommodate production of an advanced turbocharger system for a new gasoline engine program and programs for small diesel engines with critical European customers. The facility in Poland, which just began construction in March, is already sold to capacity and will move into a second phase of expansion immediately.

Demand for small diesel turbo-charged vehicles continues to rise sharply in Europe. Diesel turbocharger production is expected to grow 20 percent in Europe from about 11.8 million units today to 14.2 million units in 2013, according to BorgWarner. Over the same period, European gasoline turbocharger production is expected to more than double from about 1.6 million units to 3.8 million units.

Thailand was selected as a strategic location for expansion of turbocharger production in Asia. Current turbocharger demand in Thailand is increasing rapidly, with several Japanese and North American-based automakers in the process of expanding production there. Turbocharger production in Asia is expected grow 48 percent by 2013 to 6.7 million units.

BorgWarner Inc. is a product leader in highly engineered components and systems for vehicle powertrain applications worldwide. The Fortune 500 company operates manufacturing and technical facilities in 64 locations in 17 countries.

ASME RISK-ANALYSIS TOOL IS APPLIED TO CAMPUSES
by Harry Hutchinson  

A company formed by ASME that applies risk-analysis techniques to help authorities protect the infrastructure of the United States has turned its attention to the nation's college and university campuses.

The company, ASME-Innovative Technologies Institute, has received a grant from the American Insurance Group to develop a risk assessment system that will let institutions share information and best practices in protecting people and property.

The program for colleges is the RAMCAP for Higher Education Assessment Tool, or RAMCAP Campus. RAMCAP is an acronym for "risk analysis and management for critical assets protection."

Reese Meisinger, president of ASME-ITI, said that plans are under way to move the guidance to a formal consensus standard.

The project is overseen by an advisory group that includes representatives from about a dozen schools. Committee members include Mike Abbiatti, associate commissioner for information and learning technology of the Louisiana Board of Regents, and Robert Cruz, AIG's homeland security practice leader. Richard Benson, dean of engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, chairs the advisory committee.

Meisinger said the security program has been tested by a number of schools. One in southern California focused on earthquake hazards. The program has been used by a Louisiana campus that had been hard-hit by Gulf hurricanes.

The University of Texas of the Permian Basin, in Odessa, also has used it. According to Lail Grant, the school's safety coordinator, the campus sits in the middle of a natural gas field. The 580-acre campus has nine well sites and there is a collection line on the east border of the school grounds. The risk assessment for the campus is still in development, he said.

RAMCAP Campus consists of an interactive program that will be made available to post-secondary educational institutions once the beta testing is completed this summer. It considers three areas separately: natural hazards, personal security, and building security. A cost/benefit analysis decision tool is also built in to the software.

The user completes forms and drop-down menu items using information that should be readily available at the institution. The output of RAMCAP Campus consists of a series of quantitative and qualitative scores that provide an indication of the safety and security at the campus with respect to a broad range of possible threats.

Risk to buildings and capital equipment is a calculation that weighs the threat frequency, the vulnerability of the facility, and the consequences of the event, expressed in dollars. The cost includes replacement value of the facility, lost revenue to the institution, and other costs that can be attributed directly to the event.

Risk to individuals is expressed as the likelihood of death or injury to people at the institution.

According to ASME-ITI, it is intended to provide institutions of higher learning, as well as parents, students, and the public, with the means to determine the risks from hazards that may reasonably be expected at each institution. An understanding of relative risk can guide security and safety officials in planning for extreme events at their schools.

Risk analysis calculates the probability and consequences of failures so that appropriate action can be taken to forestall them. Factories, for instance, use risk analysis techniques to judge the best maintenance intervals for machinery, and military planners to rate the soundness of missions.

SOLAR PAINT
by Jean Thilmany  

When engineering researchers at Swansea University in Wales were researching how sunlight degrades paint, they had a light bulb moment—one that could result in easy access to energy from light.

Dave Worsley, a reader in the university's materials research center, is investigating ways of painting solar cells onto the flexible steel surfaces commonly used for cladding buildings.

"We've been collaborating with the steel industry for decades, but we've tended to focus on improving the long-term durability and corrosion resistance of the steel," Worsley said. "We haven't really paid much attention to how we can make the outside of the steel capable of doing something other than looking good."

Paint is applied to steel when the steel is passed through rollers during the manufacturing process. Swansea researchers hope that the same approach can be used to build layers of the solar cell on steel. The researchers' aim is to produce cells that can be essentially painted onto a flexible steel surface at a rate of 100 to 130 square feet per minute.

The materials should be more efficient at capturing low light radiation than traditional solar cells, meaning that they are better suited to the British climate, Worsley added.

The potential for the product is as high as the number of buildings erected each year, he said.

BRIEFLY NOTED 

Kubotek USA of Marlborough, Mass., has upgraded its computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing software to Kubotek KeyCreator to version 7.5. /// MicroMain Corp. of Austin, Texas, which makes asset and facility management software, has released MicroMain Tool Tracking version 7.1, a tool management software used with the vendor's maintenance management system. /// Boeing says the first of its new 777 twin-engine freighters has been towed out of its factory in Everett, Wash., and is being prepared for flight test this summer. Boeing says the 777 will fly farther and provide more capacity than any other twin-engine cargo airplane. The company expects to deliver its first 777 freighter to Air France in the fourth quarter. /// LMI Aerospace Inc., a provider of design engineering services, assemblies, kits, and structural components to the aerospace, defense, and technology industries, has created a Composites Technology Center of Excellence. The center will provide engineering, manufacturing, test, and certification services to the aerospace industry. LMI's subsidiary, D3 Technologies, will direct the center. LMI Aerospace, based in St. Charles, Mo., acquired San Diego-based D3 Technologies Inc. in July 2007. /// Ametek Technical & Industrial Products of Kent, Ohio, has acquired Reading Alloys, a privately held, niche specialty metals producer. With annual sales of approximately $80 million, Robesonia, Pa.-based Reading Alloys specializes in titanium master alloys and highly engineered metal powders used in the aerospace, medical implant, military, and electronics markets. Ametek is a manufacturer of electronic instruments and electromechanical devices with 2007 sales of more than $2.1 billion. /// Kiewit Corp., based in Omaha, Neb., has formed a new group, Kiewit Power, designed to enhance service offerings in the power sector. Kiewit Power brings together two Kiewit Corp. subsidiaries, which have recently changed their names. Kiewit Industrial Co. is now Kiewit Power Constructors Co., while Bibb and Associates Inc., is now Kiewit Power Engineers Co.