Aerospace sensors that listen for arthritis in patients. A cruise ship adds a sail. And a $1 million prize is awarded for a home hydrogen dispenser. This is your weekly news brief.
Listening for Arthritis
Acoustic emission sensor technology used in aerospace could help detect the sound of cracking in people’s joints, an early sign of osteo-arthritis. Engineers at Cardiff University in Wales working to develop an OA-tracking skin patch. They say the patch could reduce the cost of diagnosis using X-ray and MRI scans. The researchers will test prototype knee patches to compare the sounds of healthy joints with those of early-stage OA.
Sail Helps to Power a Ferry
An LNG-fueled cruise ferry operated by Finnish shipping company Viking Line is to be retrofitted with a Rotor Sail. The Viking Grace sails between Finland and Sweden and will be equipped with one medium-sized Sail unit that is 24 meters tall and 4 meters in diameter. The installation is scheduled for the second quarter of 2018, and is expected to reduce fuel burn and fuel costs. The sale is a version of the Flettner rotor—a spinning cylinder that uses the Magnus effect to harness wind power to propel a ship.
Million-Dollar Prize Winner
The U.S. Department of Energy named SimpleFuel as the winner of a $1 million H2 Refuel H-Prize Competition. The prize challenged U.S. innovators to deploy an on-site hydrogen generation system that uses electricity or natural gas to fuel hydrogen , and that can be used in homes, community centers, and small businesses. SimpleFuel designed a system capable of delivering up to 5 kg/day of hydrogen produced via water electrolysis to vehicles at pressures up to 700 bar. The SimpleFuel prototype generated and dispensed more than 180 kg of fuel cell-quality hydrogen to power a Hyundai Tucson fuel cell electric vehicle during the three-month test period. That was enough for more than 10,000 miles of driving.
Electronics360 features a teardown of the Sony PlaystationVR. And Engineering360 looks at how the auto airbag recall is testing global supply chains. These features plus reference materials, newsletters and product guides are available at the Engineering360 and Electronics360 web sites.
