SD Science Junction

Hello. Welcome to SD Science Junction

Scroll down for recent posts.  Check page menu at top of left column for more information about South Dakota Science Junction and posting and commenting here.  Suggestions welcome. Thanks for taking a look here and hope you find something interesting and maybe even useful for development of science and technology and related industries here in South Dakota.

Chemicals and O-Ring Compatibility

The information in the Parker handbook may be useful for builders, repairmen, and scientists.  Something to page through on a wet, snowy, cold day..or night.

Parker O-Ring PDF Handbook-- 57 pages of chemical lists and Applicable O-Rings

Of course, those concerned about the environment don't want leaks because of somebody cheaping out and using the wrong O-Rings to contain some chemical.  And, If they or you want to get just a little concerned about all the chemicals in our environment, this also provides a 57-page list of chemicals.  The link below was found by TypePad and has nothing to do with O-Rings, but a computer finds stuff about plasma rings. The link on carbon dioxide comes from R&D Magazine.  Free subscriptions are available..  Subscribe to R&D Print or E-Mag.

--- By Doug Wiken based on link information found by Brant D. Wiken

Related articles

4/7/2013 -- HAARP generates Plasma Rings -- diagram looks EXACTLY like what we see on RADAR

It's Grab-A-Byte Time at SBB!

Carbon dioxide could help produce valuable chemical cheaply

*** Dangerous 6-outlet electric extensions and related Science

At my primary blog Dakota Today, I have a couple posts on my experience with an overheated six-outlet extension cord with switch and breaker on it.  One of my highschool and college friends was graduated from SDSM&T with an Electrical Engineering degree.  He has worked for over 40 years with that work associated with computer hardware; mostly logic design. He taught myself a number of programming languages over the years, and that has really come in handy for him. He wrote many ad hoc programs to facilitate logic design projects. My Dakota Today post caught his attention and he sent me the e-mail copied below.

Your Dakota Today post on that melted 6-outlet extension cord is interesting. I use space heaters to heat bedrooms in the winter. A few years ago I had a heater plugged into one of those six outlet expanders that are inserted and screwed down directly at a wall outlet, in place of the faceplate. I smelled something, and realized that the expander was heating up and melting. Since then, I plug heaters directly into wall outlets.

I measured the current that one of my heaters uses (a photo of my current measuring adapter is attached). The current was 10.5 amperes, which at 120 volts makes the effective resistance 11.43 ohms. I then wrote a little program to plot the resistance of a defective connection vs. the power dissipated at the connection (see attached graph).

The graph shows that a resistance of only 0.5 ohms would dissipate about 50 watts, which is more than enough to create problems (for comparison, two of my old solder irons draw only 20 watts and 41 watts, respectively).

When a connection starts to heat up, the oxidation and impurities would likely increase the resistance, which would cause an avalanche effect. The dissipated power peaks out at 315 watts when the bad connection resistance matches the effective heater resistance.

My analysis assumes that the effective resistance of the heater would stay constant as the connection resistance changes. This probably isn’t strictly true, but I doubt if it changes enough to affect the results significantly.

Note that a resistive connection actually reduces the current drawn through the breaker, so the breaker won’t give any protection for this (unless, as you note, the heat creates a short).

Two label images (front and back) from one of my heaters are also attached. Based on our experience, the advice on the label looks pretty good.

John

The label John refers to is at Dakota Today. His e-mail above provides reason for believing the label and similar warnings. This is a good indicator of the value of scientific knowledge in daily life. Below is a chart his software generated. It shows a view of the likely results of poor connections escalating into localized heat in the wrong places.

Click on image for a larger version.

Below is the C Code John wrote to generate above.  Below that is a photo of the connector he made to measure current.

-------------------------------------------------------------
/*
03/17/13 J. Logue -- initial release             Version 1.0
*/

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <ctype.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <time.h>   

int main()
{
  double Rh;   // resistance of heater
  double Rp;   // resistance of defective plug
  double Rt;   // total resistance
  double I;    // current
  double W_Rp; // watts dissipated in Rp

  Rh = 11.43; // heater resistance is assumed constant
  for(Rp = 0.0; Rp <= 20.1; Rp += 0.5)
  { // scan Rp from 0 to 20 ohms
    Rt = Rh + Rp;
    I = 120.0/Rt;
    W_Rp = (I * I) * Rp;
    printf("%4.2lf, %4.2lf\n", Rp, W_Rp);
  }

  return (0);
} // end function main

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Below is an image of the electric cable with male and female ends and a loop in a conductor wire allowing measurement of current.

Click on image for a larger version.

Any comments are welcome.  I hope readers here find the posts with basic information at Dakota Today interesting as well as seeing the above as indicating the value of science knowledge in daily life.  The science behind the "fiats" and warning labels is both interesting and useful.

*** Post by Douglas Wiken with information from John Logue.

 

Related articles

Space Heater Safety Tips Can Help Prevent Burns, Fires

Dangers of using space heaters

Electrical Problem to Blame for Residential Fire

Arc Fault Breakers

*** Decal-like Solar Cells...another South Dakota Opportunity?

Stanford researchers have worked out a way to essentially make peel and stick solar cells.

GIZ-MAG  Stanford Researchers create Peel-and-stick solar cells.

New appearances may be deceiving, but this looks like something with incredible potential for a state once calling itself a sunshine state and a coyote state.

Still waiting for South Dakota physicists to jump on the Thorium salt reactor plan.  We really wouldn't need to pay heed to the mid-east or anyplace else with fossil fuels if that idea could get moving.

 

MIT News...new glass invented

I received a pc magazine today that mentioned MIT had invented a new kind of glass with microscopic cones that might make the glass useful for cellphones where glare is a problem

MIT News--Through a Glass Clearly..fog, glare, dust resistant

South Dakota researchers and students might find the development interesting for solar collectors, fog-free medical equipment monitors, goggles, etc.

Link to PC World

--- Doug Wiken with information from PC World Print edition and MIT News

*** Something must be happening at Sanford Underground Lab.

KELO TV has some coverage of the Sanford Underground Lab at the old Homestake Mine in Lead.  Sure would be nice to get a little information on that, but Bill Harlan, chief propaganda minister for the project and founder of the blog Mt. Blogmore, does not believe blogs such as SD Scientific Junction or Dakota Today warrant any kind of notification of news releases or even notices at Sandord Underground Research Lab.

So look for that important stuff someplace else.

--- Doug Wiken with information from nowhere

*** College lectures archaic practice left over from Gutenberg Press days

I have sat through perhaps thousands of University course lectures and wondered since the first day if there couldn't be a better way to do this.  A professor or graduate assistant standing at the front of the room droning on with information that does not relate in a useful way to text material is something left over from 100s of  years ago when books were very scarce and very expensive.  That is not the case now and has not been for many years.

Right now (noon to 1PM, Jan 4, 2012) SDPB-Radio is running a program from American Radio Works titled "Don't Lecture Me".  The gist of it suggests that science and math lecture instruction is currently very ineffective uses of professors' and students' time. 

College instruction which is aimed primarily at sorting out unworthies such as that at SDSM&T prevents serious consideration of alternate instruction systems which might not waste the time and lives of 2/3 of the students who start at SDSM&T. 

If you want to get an idea of how science instruction/education must be changed if the US is not to languish in Science and technology becoming the equivalent of a third-world science country, listen to  "Don't Lecture Me". 

Systems based on scarcities of year 1440, do not make sense in 2012 and haven't made sense for many years.  Faculty administrators and professors have a cushy familiar system which benefits them primarily and their students only secondarily or thirdly or worsely {I know, but as my daughter used to say, "It could have been wuss, mommy.").

The South Dakota Board of Regents is failing nearly completely to seriously consider the time and resources of students.  The whole South Dakotahigher education system needs very fundamental re-working based on how humans actually learn.  But, don't hold your breath, this should have been obvious nearly 100 years ago.

by Doug Wiken opinion based Public Radio and enduring a score of years listening to lectures.

 

*** Exploit Ethanol advantages in engines designed for the high Octane Fuel

I suspect every real scientist is aware of the advantages of ethanol as a fuel, but also the disadvantage that by weight, ethanol has only about 66% as much energy as does gasoline. Alcohol does have the advantage of a 100 Octane however and that allows higher compression engines and relatively high turbo boost pressures.

Recently on Dakota Midday at SDPB-Radio, "Bob" the Caller, made it seem that ethanol was some kind of devil's plot because he could not run it in his old motorcycles or if he did he got reduced mileages.  He kept ranting until it appeared he was saying that ethanol had negative energy since he claimed more gasoline would be needed with the more alcohol used.  This is total nonsense even if alcohol used with lower compression ratios has only 66% of the energy of gasoline.

Yesterday, I read an article in CAR AND DRIVER titled too cutely "Driving under the Influence".  Even so, it has interesting information and history.  Take a look at an image of the page below.  Click on it for a larger version.

Click for larger more readable version.  Sized to print well on lettersize paper.

We in South Dakota already produce ethanol, and can produce methanol using our stranded wind energy.  Research and development or intelligent tinkering with existing engines to run optimally with alcohol would seem to be in the interests of the South Dakota economic development.  SDSM&T Mechanical Engineering and Chemistry Departments and the same at SDSU might think about some research projects for students using the ideas suggested in the CAR AND DRIVER article.  Get Car and Driver

-------- Written by Doug Wiken with information from Car and Driver Magazine.

*** Butanol, ethanol, methanol, etc

NPR Science Friday (Sept 2, 2011) just interviewed David Mullin of Tulane University concerning his research  on using biomass such as newspaper to produce butanol.

Wikipedia on Butanol fuel  has information comparing energy density of fuels and more information on producing such fuel.

Mullin discussed an idea which has seemed to make sense to me for sometime.  Oil refineries such as that planned by Hyperion in South Dakota should have adjacent facilities which might use some of the waste heat energy to speed production of ethanol or butanol.  Getting such arrangements worked out by competing energy systems might only occur if government regulation required it.  Don't hold you breath waiting for South Dakota regulators to do anything that sensible however.

I hope to have more information on this later.  Actually I had more information here and wonderful Typepad decided that it should be deleted.  It has taken to highlighting text by itself which makes a mess of trying to add information and then finding a paragraph of links has been deleted instead.

--- Written (partially finished even) by Douglas Wiken based on NPR Science Friday story

*** Pretty enough to be church windows

A Discovery site has a collection of images of prehistoric (40 million years or more old) feathers captured in amber. The images in the album almost look like photos of stained glass church windows.

Color Images of Dinosaur feathers in Amber  

All seriousness aside, I suspect these images are less likely to appear in church window art than images of St. George slaying dragons. 

Science work is a tool for slaying mythology.

--- written by Doug Wiken with information from DISCOVER and Wikipedia

*** What about 10,000 engineering internships in Obama Jobs speech?

In his recent speech to Congress concerning job growth in the USA, President Obama stated the following:

Already, we’ve mobilized business leaders to train 10,000 American engineers a year, by providing company internships and training. Other businesses are covering tuition for workers who learn new skills at community colleges. And we’re going to make sure the next generation of manufacturing takes root, not in China or Europe, but right here, in the United States of America. If we provide the right incentives and support — and if we make sure our trading partners play by the rules — we can be the ones to build everything from fuel-efficient cars to advanced biofuels to semiconductors that are sold all over the world. That’s how America can be number one again. That’s how America will be number one again.

I haven't searched for more information on that, but it would seem that might offer some extra opportunity for South Dakota engineering students at SDSM&T and SUSD and also perhaps for companies employing engineers in South Dakota.  If you have more information, let everybody know with a comment.

*** By Douglas Wiken