Man from Mysore Creates India’s First Electric Concept Bike Without an Engineering Degree.

An innovative mind should not be judged by the degrees it possesses, and Mysore-based Santosh has proved it. He holds a job at a pharmaceutical company to support his family. But when he is not working, he spends hours on his hobby of creating new motorbikes. He has now unveiled his latest creation, India’s first electric concept bike.

The bike is known as Nisttarkya which translates to ‘unimaginable’. It weighs 40 kg and runs on a 36 V, 350 W. The bike is juiced up by three 36 V rechargeable batteries. Santosh says that he built the bike using parts from old bikes and second-hand equipment.

From the looks of it, the design of the Nisttarkya looks like a slimmer lightcycle from the Tron movies. The rider can direct the bike using the handlebars that are placed on the front wheel. The ride position may appear weird and may also look physically taxing, but Santosh said that being a concept, the design was supposed to be ambitious. He adds that companies can take inspiration from his design and create a more user-friendly design.

It took Santosh about Rs. 60,000 to create the bike while being employeed in a full time job. He has also received mentions in the Limca Book of Records for his previous bike called the Moosshiqk which is the smallest electric bike in the world.

So if you wanted to build a dream bike of your own, but are worried that you don’t have an engineering degree, well then Santosh can be your inspiration. Go ahead and create your own Nisttarkya.

Arresting minor leak by OLS (On line sealing) clamp on pipe lines handling HC fluid

1. Firstly make attempt to temporary seal the minor leak/seepage by applying cold 5 minutes putty.

2. Carry out thorough thickness measurement by UT (Ultrasonic Testing) detector covering surface area at distance of 150 mm (minimum) from the leak spot.

3. If thickness reduction is not significant (i.e. not below the nominal thickness minus corrosion allowance),we can proceed for installing suitably designed two halves bolted clamps on leak spot with provision for injecting the furmaniting compound at pressure not above 30% of operating pressure.

4. Inject furmaniting compound as explained above.

5. This will work for 12 month with periodical top up of furmaniting compound at interval of every 3 months.

6. Normalize pipe line (i.e.remove clamp) and replace leaking pipe in next S/D opportunity for long term reliability.

Risk associated in operation of Hydro jetting machines

Most of the process industries prefer to clean the heat exchangers tube and shell by high pressure (15000 psi to 20 000 psi) hydro jetting machines. This cleaning operation is having high potential for risk of human injury if due safety measures not taken by users. Any accidental contact of water jet would cause severe injury to human being sometimes it will be fatal also. The machine itself should be adequately equipped with safety features like pressure relief valve in pumping installation; recirculation system should be reliable, high pressure flexible hose connection should have flanged connection in place of threaded connections. The machine operator should wear Mandatory PPEs besides special PVC suits covering entire body. Area of work station should be barricaded properly to ensure that no one can approach the work place area.

During temporary idling of cleaning operation, pumping system should be kept in circulation and main stream of jet should be kept off to avoid any accident.

One standby man should stand near control panel for emergency stop of the motor. He should also be in proper PPEs.

What do you think about this helicopter-plane hybrid drone, which takes off like a helicopter but flies like a plane?

Happy New Year to All Mechanical Engineers.

Thermoelectric power plants could offer economically competitive renewable energy

INSIDES:—A new study predicts that large-scale power plants based on thermoelectric effects, such as small temperature differences in ocean water, could generate electricity at a lower cost than photovoltaic power plants.

Liping Liu, Associate Professor at Rutgers University, envisions that thermoelectric power plants would look like giant barges sitting in the tropical ocean, where electricity is generated by heating cold, deep water with warm, shallow water heated by the sun. Liu has published a paper in the New Journal of Physics in which he analyzes the feasibility of such power plants.

"This work is about the new idea of large-scale green power plants that make economic use of the largest accessible and sustainable energy reservoir on the earth," Liu told Phys.org , speaking of the oceans. This is because the sun heats the surface water to a temperature that, in tropical regions, is about 20 K higher than water 600 m deep. Essentially, the surface water acts as a giant storage tank of solar energy.

As Liu explains, thermoelectric power plants would work by harvesting the energy of ocean waves to pump cold water from a few hundred meters deep up through a long channel. As the cold water nears the surface, it enters a heat exchanger where it is heated by surface water on the outside. The heat exchanger acts as an electric generator, as its tubes are made of thermoelectric materials that can transfer heat through their walls and directly convert temperature differences into electricity.

Large-scale, ocean-based thermoelectric power plants would have many advantages. For one, the "fuel" or temperature differences are free, unlimited, and easily accessible. Also, the plants do not take up space on land. Because they have no moving solid parts, they would have low maintenance costs. In addition, the power output does not depend on the time of day or season. And finally, the method is green, as it does not release emissions.

Small-scale thermoelectric generators are already used commercially in applications such as microelectronics, automobiles, and power generation in remote areas. In these designs, the conversion efficiency is the most important factor because the fuel accounts for the largest portion of the cost.

Most commercial devices have a conversion efficiency of around 5% to 10% of the ideal Carnot efficiency, with state-of-the-art devices achieving efficiencies of up to 20%. Although research is currently being done to further improve the efficiency, there are still limits to how high it can go.

In the new paper, Liu shows that large-scale thermoelectric power plants wouldn't need to operate at extremely high efficiencies to be economically competitive; instead, the key would lie in engineering simple structures such as laminated composites in order to support mass production. These improvements focus on the conversion capacity, which, unlike efficiency, can be improved by orders of magnitude. In other words, because the fuel is free and in limitless supply, large-scale thermoelectric power plants could make up with their sheer size what they lack in efficiency.

The Rimac Concept_One is no everyman’s car. It is an electric supercar out of Croatia that costs a fortune as in, $1 million.

Needless to say, most of us will be lucky to even see one of these, let alone touch one, let alone ride in one, let alone own one. Still, it’s a beauty worth mentioning, and I’m hopeful it will get produced in 2015. As of now, 88 initial cars are planned for production in 2015. The Rimac Concept_One can reportedly go from 0 to 60 mph in 2.8 seconds, and has a horsepower of 1,088. Yep, that’s a “supercar.” Rimac Automobili recently landed a good bit more investment in order to produce the initial 88 cars. 

Types of Diodes (Engineering)

Amazing Engineering (Engineering )

Mechanical Inventions Meet The Robot RoboSimian (Engineering)

It is designed to extend humanity's reach, going into dangerous places such as a nuclear power plant during a disaster scenario such as we saw at Fukushima. It can take simple actions such as turning valves or flipping switches to stabilize the situation or mitigate further damage.

Engineering - Engineers Reach New Heights with Pioneering ‘Flying Wing’ Project

Members of the AMRC Design and Prototyping GroupUAV team, left to right Sam Bull, Mark Cocking, Keith Colton, Daniel Tomlinson, John Mann and Garth Nicholson.

The team, from the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre’s Design and Prototyping Group, gained worldwide publicity when they used their expertise to develop an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV).

Now, they have taken another step forward, developing their original glider to incorporate electric-powered, ducted fan engines.

Members of the team recently returned from Salt Lake City, after being invited to deliver a presentation on the UAV project to an aerospace manufacturing conference organised by SAE, the global association for aerospace, automotive and commercial vehicle industries engineers and technical experts.

The project is designed to showcase the Group’s skills and technological capabilities – particularly for helping small and medium-sized manufacturers to develop new products and move into new markets.

Making the glider involved developing new techniques that rapidly reduced the time, the amount of materials and the cost of manufacturing components using 3D printing technology.

Creating the latest version of the UAV has involved further advances in making functional parts using Rapid Manufacturing (RM) technology.

These include developing new manufacturing techniques for producing carbon fibre components and making component jigs, fixtures and moulds, as well as parts of the UAV’s airframe, by Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM).

The team succeeded in making the central body of the UAV, complete with the twin engine ducts and complex internal features, as a single, printed part, demonstrating how RM technologies can replace assemblies involving multiple components.

Designers also improved pitch control by creating a moveable “Duck Tail” that uses concepts similar to those recently used in Formula One racing to harness the air leaving the UAV’s engines for aerodynamic effect

Last, but not least, the team designed a launch catapult, using a number of RM parts.

The catapult is capable of propelling the UAV into the air with an acceleration up to three times that of gravity, achieving a launch speed of 12 metres a second or just under 30 miles an hour.

Having turned their 2kg glider into a 3.5kg powered UAV, capable of cruising at around 20 metres a second, or almost 45 miles an hour, the team members’ next challenge will be to replace the electric ducted fans with miniature gas turbine engines and seeking to double the UAV’s wingspan to three metres.

The team is also looking at using novel methods of controlling flight to replace conventional elevons, employing vapour polishing for finishing some printed components, including composite moulds, and developing structural batteries – batteries made from carbon composites that could act as part of the UAV’s structure.

Senior design engineer Dr Garth Nicholson said: “The project was a success on all levels, from team building, experience gained in structural and systems design and design for manufacture through to testing and validation of Computational Fluid Dynamics.

“The aircraft was developed using both an incremental design philosophy, as well as trialling experimental manufacturing techniques in carbon fibre production”.

Lead additive manufacturing engineer Mark Cocking said the UAV project pushed the limits of design for Rapid Manufacturing, making the transition from theory to reality.

Engineering - Building a Time Machine for the Weather

Climate science has always been a tricky business. Though in the last half-century sophisticated computers, satellites and a world-wide-web of data collectors have made that job a bit easier. But

what if you wanted to look into the weather systems that ruled the globe a century ago? Would you be able to find an accurate and comprehensive record of global precipitation? Until recently the answer was "no".

Samuel Shen, a professor of mathematics at San Diego State University, recently unveiled an astonishing piece of software. Called the spectral optimal gridding of precipitation (SOGP), Shen's new tool is designed to help researchers accurately view weather patterns since 1900. With the ability to view weather anywhere between global and local-scale, SOGP can help researchers better understand weather patterns as they've developed over time.

“In the past, only a couple dozen scientists could do these reconstructions,” Shen said. “Now, anybody can play with this user-friendly software, use it to inform their research, and develop new models and hypotheses. This new tool brings historical precipitation reconstruction from a ‘rocket science’ to a ‘toy science.’”

Although Shen's new software is a revelation for those looking into the Earth's meteorological past, its powers aren't relegated to the rear-view. Scientists working at the forefront of meteorology can leverage data derived from SOGP to make more accurate inferences about their research and reveal more about the future of Earth's climate.

Engineering - Great Birmingham Run entrants warned of rail engineering works

Thousands of people due to take part in the Bupa Great Birmingham Run are being warned about rail engineering work that may affect travel plans.

Train operator London Midland said there will be no services between Coventry and Birmingham, until 10:24 BST on Sunday.

About 21,000 runners are expected to take part in the 13.1-mile race, which starts just after 10:00.

London Midland said the work was "unavoidable".

A spokesman for the run said: "It's unfortunate that some people's travel plans have been affected by the engineering works but we hope this doesn't impact too significantly on their enjoyment of the day.

"We will continue to work with Birmingham City Council and public transport providers to provide access to the event, and with that in mind the 2015 date of 18th October has already been announced."

Engineering - Hacking cellphones to save the rainforest

Topher White says that he has a solution to illegal rainforest logging operations. His company, Rainforest Connection, is running a Kickstarter campaign to fund their real-time rainforest protection system. The basic idea of the project is to use parts from recycled cell phones as listening posts in the rainforest, alerting their team when a chainsaw is being used.

The Kickstarter video starts with some bold claims, including a United Nations quote that deforestation is a leading cause of climate change.  Neil Young jumps in with some naturalist wisdom, telling us that this technology enables the forest to talk to the world. Then we're told that fifty to ninety percent of the logging done in rainforests is illegal.


Rainforest Connection is billed as the world's first real time technology for protecting the rainforests. After a chainsaw is detected by the listening devices an alert is sent to rangers who can act on the information. Additionally, an app allows people from around the world to hear the rainforest. An example of the app is on the Kickstarter page.

Listening devices are installed by local activists and the campaign video assures us that the final product will be much smaller and camouflaged than the prototypes shown. There aren't many details as to the hardware or software involved in the project but several process photos are shown on the campaign page and the company's Flickr page.

As Kickstarter campaigns go, asking people to donate for a cause, even an amazing cause mixing sustainability concerns and a maker attitude, can be a hard sell. Rainforest Connection is looking for $100,000 by July 29 to fully fund their project in Indonesia. If enough money is raised two other projects in Africa and the Amazon rainforest are planned.