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Title: Crystals turn roads into power stations
Source: [None]
URL Source: http://www.newscientist.com/article ... DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news
Published: Dec 10, 2008
Author: n
Post Date: 2008-12-10 13:03:24 by gengis gandhi
Keywords: None
Views: 107
Comments: 2

Crystals turn roads into power stations

* 10 December 2008 * Magazine issue 2685. Subscribe and get 4 free issues. * For similar stories, visit the Energy and Fuels Topic Guide

AN ENVIRONMENTALLY friendly road that positively welcomes heavy traffic may sound odd, but by placing piezoelectric crystals under the asphalt that convert vibration into electricity, Israeli engineers hope to harvest energy from passing vehicles.

Developer Haim Abramovich at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa says the crystals can produce up to 400 kilowatts from a 1-kilometre stretch of four-lane highway. His spin-out company, Innowattech, also based in Haifa, will begin testing the system on a 100-metre stretch of road in northern Israel in January.

Installing the technology need not produce unnecessary greenhouse gases, says Abramovich: "We're advocating that the system be fitted to roads only during routine maintenance, so there's no extra digging."

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#1. To: gengis gandhi (#0)

Uhhhh. Yep, right, ok.

Cynicom  posted on  2008-12-10   13:12:29 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#2. To: Cynicom (#1)

i know, God didn't dial you up and tell you about piezioelectricity.

nonetheless, the universe will have to struggle on without your consent.

Energy harvesting From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2008)

Energy harvesting (also known as Power harvesting or energy scavenging) is the process by which energy is captured and stored. Frequently this term is applied when speaking about small autonomous devices, like those used in sensor networks. A variety of different sources exist for harvesting energy, such as solar power, thermal energy, wind energy, salinity gradients and kinetic energy.

Traditionally electrical power has been generated from fossil fuels in large, centralized plants. Large-scale ambient energy, such as sun, wind and tides, is widely available but trickier to harvest. In urban areas, there is a surprising amount of electromagnetic energy in the environment as a result of radio and television broadcasting. Contents [hide]

* 1 Harvesting * 2 Motivation * 3 Devices o 3.1 Ambient-radiation sources o 3.2 Piezoelectric energy harvesting o 3.3 Pyroelectric energy harvesting o 3.4 Thermoelectrics o 3.5 Electrostatic (capacitive) energy harvesting o 3.6 Future directions * 4 See also * 5 References * 6 External links

[edit] Harvesting

Energy harvesting devices converting ambient energy into electrical energy have attracted much interest in both the military and commercial sectors. Some systems convert random motion, such as that of ocean waves, into electricity to be used by oceanographic monitoring sensors for autonomous operation. Future applications may include high power output devices (or arrays of such devices) deployed at remote locations to serve as reliable power stations for large systems. All of these devices must be sufficiently robust to endure long-term exposure to hostile environments and have a broad range of dynamic sensitivity to exploit the entire spectrum of wave motions.

Energy can also be harvested to power small autonomous sensors such as those developed using MEMS technology. These systems are often very small and require little power, but their applications are limited by the reliance on battery power. Scavenging energy from ambient vibrations, heat or light could enable smart sensors to be functional indefinitely. Several academic groups have been involved in the analysis and development of vibration-powered energy harvesting technology, including the Control and Power Group and Optical and Semiconductor Devices Group at Imperial College London, MIT, UC Berkeley and Southampton University.

Typical power densities available from energy harvesting devices are highly dependent upon the specific application and design of the harvesting generator. For motion powered devices, typical values are a few ¼W/cc for human body powered applications and hundreds of ¼W/cc for generators powered from machinery [1]

[edit] Motivation

The history of energy harvesting dates back to the windmill and the waterwheel. People have searched for ways to store the energy from heat and vibrations for many decades. One driving force behind the search for new energy harvesting devices is the desire to power sensor networks and mobile devices without batteries. Energy harvesting is also motivated by a desire to address the issue of climate change and global warming.

[edit] Devices

There are many small-scale energy sources that generally cannot be scaled up to industrial size:

* Piezoelectric crystals or fibers generate a small voltage whenever they are mechanically deformed. Vibration from engines can stimulate piezoelectric materials, as can the heel of shoe * Some wristwatches are already powered by kinetic energy, in this case movement of the arm * Thermoelectric generators produce energy from the heat difference between two objects. This is also used to power a type of wristwatch, as heat energy from the human body is radiated through the watch into the environment. * Special antennae can collect energy from stray radio waves or theoretically even light (EM radiation).[citation needed]

____________________________________________________________________________

Piezoelectricity From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Redirected from Piezoelectric) Jump to: navigation, search

Piezoelectricity is the ability of some materials (notably crystals and certain ceramics, including bone) to generate an electric potential[1] in response to applied mechanical stress. This may take the form of a separation of electric charge across the crystal lattice. If the material is not short-circuited, the applied charge induces a voltage across the material. The word is derived from the Greek piezein, which means to squeeze or press.

The piezoelectric effect is reversible in that materials exhibiting the direct piezoelectric effect (the production of electricity when stress is applied) also exhibit the converse piezoelectric effect (the production of stress and/or strain when an electric field is applied). For example, lead zirconate titanate crystals will exhibit a maximum shape change of about 0.1% of the original dimension.

The effect finds useful applications such as the production and detection of sound, generation of high voltages, electronic frequency generation, microbalances, and ultra fine focusing of optical assemblies. It is also the basis of a number of scientific instrumental techniques with atomic resolution, the scanning probe microscopies such as STM, AFM, MTA, SNOM etc, and everyday uses such as acting as the ignition source for cigarette lighters and push-start propane barbecues.

Megasonic cleaning uses the piezoelectric effect to enable removal of submicrometre particles from substrates. A ceramic piezoelectric crystal is excited by high-frequency AC voltage, causing it to vibrate. This vibration generates an acoustic wave that is transmitted through a cleaning fluid, producing controlled cavitation. As the wave passes across the surface of an object, it causes particles to be removed from the materials being cleaned. The technology was originally developed by the U.S. Navy as an element in anti-submarine warfare.[2]

if a people will not prosecute officials who subvert and violate the constitution, then the constitution has no authority over officials.

Gengis Gandhi, Troubled Genius

gengis gandhi  posted on  2008-12-10   13:27:04 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


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