Nano-Set'14 -- Engineering Competition

The present energy crisis and future energy demands have triggered a significant interest in the development of energy sources and efficient power generators to cater the needs across the globe. Therefore, it is the need of the day to take initiative in this area.

COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Lahore is going to organize a three day International conference on the impact of nanoscience on energy technologies (NanoSET-2014) from 18-20 March 2014.

The purpose of this conference is to bring together ideas and solutions from all over the world where researchers, engineers, academics as well as industrial professionals from diverse backgrounds will share their thoughts for further development in building renewable sources of energy. The conference will cover areas like Clean Energy, Solar, Hydro, Wind, Biomass, Fuel Cell, batteries and energy utilization by means of environmental and economically sustainable technologies.

To deliberate on the energy technologies and to share their achievements in this area, experts from the international Universities especially; from KTH (Sweden), Delaware (USA), Manchester (UK), UCL (UK), St. Andrews (UK), Edinburgh (UK), Aalto (Finland), Tianjin (China), Tsinghua (China), Hebei university (China), and Lancaster University (UK) are expected to participate. The organizers/participants of the conference would be able to provide solutions based on the need of the 21st century after having free and frank deliberations on the energy issues. It can also help to make Energy Policies for the country.

eDrawings for Android

Imagine you are going to purchase a part from another country for a particular task. Although you know the function performed by the part when installed on assigned place but there is a question. How this part looks like? Through which mechanism, the corresponding part perform the required task?

The integration of computers with graphical capabilities is the best solution to this problem. Now, by using 3-D modeling softwares, not only one can develop a 3-D model but also the transmission of this model in the form of e-file is as easy as drinking the water in front of sweet water fountain.

But the global community is still feeling that something is missing. The modern society is now using micro devices like smart phones, tablets etc. They need something so that they can view the 3-D models on their micro-devices.

As we can see that with respect to smart devices operating systems ‘ANDROID’ is the most powerful and biggest stakeholder. But unfortunately, the global community using android technology is restricted with respect to 3-D viewing capabilities. Now this dead front is over, and the credit goes to SolidWorks for introducing eDrawings viewer for android operating systems.

Now the eDrawings viewer is available on Google play store. It can be downloaded from the following link:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.solidworks.eDrawingsAndroid

eDrawings viewer is a sophisticated android app aiming at providing the all viewing facilities with respect to three dimensional models. With the help of this app you can view different parts created in SolidWorks as well as the assemblies. This app is capable of transforming the e-file into readable format. Also this app is capable of producing the drawings with transferable format.

This app is designed by keeping in view the fully integrated touch technology. You can pan, zoom, rotate model with the swipe of just a finger. So you can say that this app just a step to transform the e drawings into physically touchable things (in a sense).

Here are some of the features of this great app announced by SolidWorks blog:

• Intuitive and easy-to-use user interface
• Open 3D (EASM, EPRT, SLDASM, SLDPRT), 2D (EDRW, SLDDRW) and associated files from any source: email attachments, cloud storage services (Dropbox, SkyDrive, Google Drive, Hightail, and others), Web and FTP sites and network folders.
• Zoom, pan and rotate your 2D or 3D CAD data using multi-touch
• Animate 3D standard views
• Browse your 2D drawing sheets
• View your designs in full screen and double tap to fit it on screen
• Sample files included

Here are some requirements to run this application:

eDrawings for Android supports any Android device running Android 4.0 or higher. It is optimized for use with 7″ – 10″ tablets form factors, including the Google Nexus 7, Google Nexus 10, Samsung Galaxy Tab 7 and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.

So to enhance the experience of 3-D modeling it is recommended to download and install this app immediately on your android device and enjoy the 3-D models library of SolidWorks.

Review By: Engr. Ammar Aziz (BS-Mechanical Engineering)

What is Dielectrophoresis? How it is important to separate, diagnose and control the human blood cells with the diseased cells?

Dielectrophoresis
Actually when a dielectric particle is subjected to a non-uniform electric-field, it
experiences a force. The charge on that particle is not the main cause of this phenomenon, as we might expect. Because non-charged particles also experience the same sort of force when subjected to non-uniform magnetic field. The strength of the force depends upon the medium in which that particle is placed and particle’s electric properties. This force also depends upon the shape and size of the particle.

The consequence of our above interpretation is that as this force is shape and size dependent, so it is reasonable to assume that the two particles with different size/shape experience different magnitude of force when subjected to non-uniform magnetic field. By using this force, it is obvious that we can separate the particles of different sizes with a great accuracy. This force can also be used for orienting the particles with particular shape/size according to requirement.
 
Reason of Dielectrophoresis
Dielectrophoresis occurs when a body is suspended in a non-uniform electric field. Under the action of this non-uniformity of electric field, the body is polarized. In other words, the oppositely charged atomic particles, which constitute that body, are accumulated on the opposite corners of the body. Note that it is not necessary for the body to be already charged before exposure to non-uniform magnetic field. Due to this pole formation, the body experiences a force along the electric field lines. As the field is non-uniform so under the action of this force the body moves along the electric field lines.

                                   Fig (1): Step by Step illustration

Dielectrophoresis Implementation for diagnosing, separating and controlling the viable cells. Dielectrophoresis is a well-established and effective means for the manipulation of viable cells. Various applications have been found, ranging from electro fusion, to individual cell manipulation, and to differential separation from cell mixtures. Its effectiveness, however greatly depends upon the utilization of very low electrical conductivity media.

Actually blood is also a combination of particles. The basic unit of blood is blood cell. The shape/size of blood cells in a blood of a healthy person is almost identical. But when this healthy person is attacked by some disease, then these cells fight a fierce battle with the germs of that disease. As a result of which the shape of blood cell is changed and they become distorted. So, these blood cells are subjected to electric field of particular varying intensity range to exert a force on the unwanted cells to separate them from the pure ones.

This process can also be used to diagnose the disease, by working on the same grounds. Actually as we discussed earlier, that electric field exerts a force depending upon the shape/size. The outcome of this statement is that, the bodies with different shapes interact differently with electric field lines. So from this difference of interaction we can determine the disease’s nature.

Another important implementation is to grow a particular structure on a silicon chip. This structure is grown so carefully by using state of the art techniques. The blood is forced to pass through this chip. Different blood particles interact differently with the structure on the chip depending upon their shape and size. This interaction is recorded by micro-controller embedded onto the chip and hence the disease is diagnosed.

Research update: Electric fields can push droplets from surfaces

Researchers at MIT have followed up on their discovery that droplets of water acquire an electric charge when jumping from certain condenser surfaces by finding a way to make use of that effect: They found that by applying an electric field to the system, the droplets “jump” more rapidly away from the surface. In this way, the efficiency of heat transfer from that surface can be nearly doubled.
The work is reported in the journal ACS Nano by MIT postdoc Nenad Miljkovic, associate professor of mechanical engineering Evelyn Wang, graduate student Daniel Preston, and former postdoc Ryan Enright.
The finding could have a number of applications, Miljkovic suggests, including in prevention of ice buildup on refrigerator condensing coils and improved cooling of high-performance computer chips.
Miljkovic and his co-workers had originally found, earlier this year, that a particular kind of nanopatterning of condenser surfaces — producing a superhydrophobic surface — could cause pairs of droplets to jump from those surfaces because of energy released when they coalesce. That phenomenon alone could produce a 30 percent improvement in the efficiency of heat transfer from condenser surfaces, they found. Then, in a serendipitous discovery, they noticed that these droplets spontaneously acquired a positive electric charge as they jumped away.
Harnessing that discovery, the researchers have now found that grounding the condenser surface and applying a negative voltage to a wire mesh tube surrounding it attracts jumping droplets away from the surface and toward the mesh — preventing a push back to the surface by the pressure of surrounding water vapor. That phenomenon is “one of the bottlenecks” to improving the efficiency of heat transfer, Miljkovic says.
Because of that vapor entrainment, he says, “not all of the droplets jump away and escape the surface: Some go back, and that can reduce the performance.” The droplets’ return can cause water to build up on the surface, and reduce heat transfer and lead to ice buildup in freezing conditions. But the applied electric field can sharply reduce these problems, Miljkovic says.
Together, the patterned surface and the applied electric field can lead to nearly a doubling of heat-transfer efficiency over today’s best condenser surfaces, Miljkovic says. He calls the new process “electric-field-enhanced condensation.”
This effect could lead to a decrease in the energy and maintenance needed to run commercial refrigeration units, such as those used by supermarkets, he says, by preventing ice buildup on the condenser coils. Some companies that manufacture such equipment have already shown interest in the technology, Miljkovic says.
The system could also improve the efficiency of advanced condensation-based cooling systems, such as the vapor chambers and heat pipes used in some advanced microprocessor chips, where a buildup of water on the condensing surface interferes with heat transfer.
Miljkovic suggests that simply applying a positive charge to the nanostructure beneath the hydrophobic coating on the superhydrophobic surface, removing the negatively charged mesh, and electrically grounding the condenser casing could provide the same effect by repelling droplets. This could provide a simpler system, and one that would be easier to add to existing condenser designs.
While the laboratory tests used for this research involved scalable, nanostructured copper tubing and mesh, Miljkovic stresses that the effects are independent of the materials used: For example, less-expensive aluminum tubing with proper nanostructuring will work as well.
In addition to enhancing heat transfer, the process could also be used to enhance the performance of self-cleaning surfaces based on jumping droplets, Miljkovic says: As droplets bounce away from a surface, any dust or dirt particles on that surface tend to be carried away with them. The more thoroughly the droplets are removed, the cleaner the surface.
The research was supported by MIT’s Solid-State Solar-Thermal Energy Conversion Center (S3TEC), funded by the U.S. Department of Energy; the Office of Naval Research; and the National Science Foundation.
(Source: MIT News)