Month: June 2016

Mechatronics engineering

Mechatronics engineering

Mechatronics engineering

06/21/16

“What is the future of engineering?”

Day by day the nature of engineering is changing. It seems that as time goes on, all of the myriad of different disciplines of engineering seem to be coming closer together, almost like how trees that grow near each other slowly but eventually merge. Processes that used to be solely governed one field are now an intersection of many others. For example, automobile transportation used to be completely under the control of mechanical engineers, but with the advent of computer technology, cars now have a multitude of “smart” systems to account for greater control of the vehicle.To account for such change, an entirely new branch of engineering called Mechatronics Engineering has emerged to analyze and explore such intersections. Specifically, mechatronics focuses on the interactions between mechanical, electrical, computational, and control systems. A mechatronics engineer would take their knowledge about these systems and then apply it to create an entirely new machine. Examples of mechatronics technologies include industrial robots, rotary actuators, linear actuators, servos, and regenerative braking systems. The future of mechatronics is quite exciting, as digital systems become ever more integrated with mechanical equivalents.

 

Electric motors

Electric motors

Electric motors

06/20/16

“How can we use electric energy to create mechanical motion? ”

Given that energy is a conserved quantity, isn’t logical that energy in one form could be transformed into energy of another form? And since two of the most used forms of energy for human civilization is electrical and mechanical energy, wouldn’t it be useful if we can convert from one to another? This is the basis behind an Electric motor. Principally, an electric motor performs one simple function, it uses electrical energy to create mechanical motion.  Because they perform such a useful function, electric motors are one of the most prolific inventions of the human race. In fact, they are the most used electrical machines on the planet! Motors can be found as components in a wide range of machines, varying from regenerative braking systems to electric fans to rail transportation. Because of this, there are many types of electric motors, ranging in all types of technology.

 

Industrial robots

Industrial robots

Industrial robots

Isaac Gendler

06/19/16

“What are those strange machines that I see in factories?”

With the advent of modern mechatronics systems, a new type of machine has been introduced to the world, Industrial robots. As the name implies, industrial robots are programmable mechanical objects that are setup to perform industrial related tasks, such as manufacturing, welding, and assembly. In order to accomplish their tasks, most robots are set up with a programmable 6 Degrees of freedom movement system. Speaking of programming, industrial robots are able to perform their task 24 hours a day for years on end! In summation, Industrial robots are truly a marvel of the modern world

Rotary actuators

Rotary actuators

Rotary actuators

06/18/16

“Can we use actuators to produce rotational motion?”

If Linear actuators can create linear motion, wouldn’t it be logical that we could have a machine that produces rotational motion? This is the basic principle behind rotary actuators. As the name implies, rotary actuators use electric power to produce rotational motion. The motion may be continuous or discrete. Many different machines can be classified as rotary motors, such as stepper motors and servomechanisms.

Friction braking

Friction braking

Friction braking

06/17/16

“How do cars stop moving?”

One of the most necessary aspects of transportation is the need to stop the object from moving. Mechanical Engineers have devised a simple yet useful solution for wheel based systems known as friction braking. In friction braking, when a wheel needs to stop, two clamps will come down and force the wheel to stop moving, and since the car will keep on moving as a result of the conservation of momentum, friction from the ground combined with air resistance will wear down the velocity, effectively stopping the vehicle.

Regenerative braking

Regenerative braking

Regenerative braking

06/16/16

“Is it possible to convert the energy used by the breaks of the car into something useful?”

Motorized transportation manufacturers have always had to deal with braking systems. One annoying aspect of friction-based technologies is that all of the kinetic energy leaves the system once the motion has to come to a stop. However, wouldn’t be really practical if we transfer this energy somewhere else?  This is the basic idea behind regenerative braking.

In automobile systems, an AC motor is used to transfer energy from the car’s battery into the motion of the wheels. However, once the brakes are activated, the motion of the car’s wheel will reverse. This effectively transform the systems from a motor into a generator, with the new motion causing the current the flow in the opposite direction, therefore charging the battery! Even with an efficiency of only around 20%, the extra energy can be used to allow hybrid engines to have better mileage or allow electric cars to go farther

Regenerative braking systems are controlled by regenerative braking controllers. The regenerative braking controllers monitor how fast the vehicle is moving and how much torque is able to generate electricity to be fed back into the batteries. This information allows the controller to decide to if the speed is to high for the regenerative braking system to handle (in which case the old-fashioned friction braking system will take over).

In summation, regenerative breaking is an ingenious technology that uses creative ways to recover power. In fact, these machines have been found powerful enough to convince companies and organizations such as Tesla and the New Dehli metro to implement them in their products!

Fuses

Fuses

Fuses Isaac Gendler

06/15/16

“How can we make sure that too much electrical current does not overwhelm a wire? ”

One of the most devices aspects in modern electronic is that of the Fuse. A circuit breaker fuse ensures that too much current does not flow through a wire. The design of a fuse is very intuitive. First of all, the fuse is in the middle of a conducting wire. The fuse made out of a material that breaks up if a certain amount of current overwhelms the threshold. In case of such an event does happen, the circuit breaker will self-destruct and thereby disconnect the circuit and stop the current. An analogy for circuit breakers would be like a person who witnesses the outflow of spending money from an organization, and immediately stops all transactions if the money flow becomes too high.  Circuit fuses are found all over the world in nearly every environment, as they are a necessity to modern safety systems.

AC electricity

AC electricity

AC electricity     06/14/16

“What is AC electricity?”

When one first starts to learn about the basic concepts of electricity and circuitry, they are first introduced to the conceptually easier and more primitive DC electricity.However, the most commonly used form of electricity for power transmissions in the modern age is known as AC electricity.

A generator for AC electricity works as follows. A shaft that contains magnetic materials is encass in series of windings. When the generator turns, the electromagnetic interactions between all of the materials will induce a voltage that alternates with time (hence the name Alternating current).

However, what makes AC power vital for long distance transportation is the transformer. Before AC, there was a problem, households require a lower voltage for safety  purposes, but transferring low voltage over a long distance is inefficient due to the IR power loss, or the fact that the higher the current, the more energy will be dissipated over a long distance. But with the introduction of a transformer, this dilemma can be solved. Since AC currents are constantly changing, they produce magnetic fields around their paths. If one is to place a ring of loops near this magnetic field connected to a different circuit, then another current can be induced. What is particularly fascinating about transformers is that both circuits can have different voltages! The way that this works is that the value for magnetic flux will be different depending on the number of loops, so if the “receiving” side has more loops, the transformer will be a step up transformer and the other side will have a higher voltage, while the reverse is true for one with less wires (“step down” transformers). Therefore, the voltage for power transmission can be extremely high and can “step down” once it becomes close to a user’s home.

Pressure volume diagrams

Pressure volume diagrams

Pressure volume diagrams              06/13/16

“How can we empirically model the change in pressure and volume of a gas?”

In order to model the change in pressure and volume of a gas, Scientists and Engineers have created a framework known as Pressure volume diagrams. P-V diagrams are very simple, the Pressure and volume of an object will be represented by a cartesian coordinate system with the Pressure on the vertical axis and the Volume on the horizontal. When work is added to the system, the change in volume and pressure is recorded along an arc length. The volume under this curve represents the change in work in the system. The return process does not have to be symmetric, so often a P-V diagram could possibly have a different return curve.
Let us illustrate with the following example. Imagine gas with a piston in a machine.The state of the gas gas starts at point 1 on the graph. Heat is then added, which the increase the pressure. The normalization process then starts, which decreases the pressure and increases the volume, causing the state to go to poin 2. Heat is then extracted, which causes the state to go to point 4, and the reverse normalization process starts, which causes everything to go back to the begining at point 1.