Developing Engineers

Tribology is one of those funny things that pervades the everyday lives of absolutely everyone who lives anywhere in the world – and yet is almost unknown amongst the general public, and more worryingly amongst many business leaders and politicians as well.  Even a lot of engineers are surprisingly clueless about it!

That’s not to say people aren’t aware of the obvious physical effects of tribology, just that very few of the people who should do, actually realise just how important the understanding and correct application of tribology is.

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“What do you get if you add 8 years of mechanical engineering education, Scouting, 10m of Swedish timber, a ridiculous number of nuts and bolts, some garden hose, and about 100 man-hours?”

The start of a very poor joke?  No, I’m afraid not – but let me tell you what it does make…

A few days ago I set off for Sweden to spend a weekend building a prototype of some pedal-powered rigs for the World Scout Jamboree that’s going to be held near Kristianstad in August.  I thought I’d give a quick update about how we got on…

The weekend was a long one, but after starting on Friday with three hours sleep before our flight to Stockholm, and many hours spent in Swedish electronics and hardware stores, we were ready to go!

Powered by nothing but (illicitly smuggled) Yorkshire Tea, homemade Swiss role and the finest Swedish knock-offs of a famous American biscuit brand, we worked late into Friday night, were up bright and early Saturday (which was surprisingly easy as the Sun comes up at around 3am there) for a 14 hour stint… and then did the same again on Sunday! By around 9pm, we were finished.

What did we achieve? Well, our amazing spiral pump worked like a charm.  Running some rope off the bike’s rear rim and around a pulley wheel, we were able to make the pump spin beautifully via a custom made lubricated bearing (which I definitely think qualifies me to be called a tribologist!) and chuck out some water at a pretty good rate.

Even better than that, by mounting a DC scooter motor behind the rear tyre, and through a mere £100 (~1000SEK) worth of electronics, Dave (narrating), Miles and myself were able to achieve this…

Lighting a car bulb may not seem like much, but that’s a wonderfully smoothed and controlled 12.08V output you’re witnessing there – no mean feat, I can tell you! And yes, I am the slightly delirious, haggard looking idiot holding the bulb in the video.

Whilst there are some (a lot of) design changes to be made before we build the other 5-7 rigs in Sweden next month, it just goes to show what you can do with a bit of know-how and carpentry skills (and 10m of Swedish pine, a scooter motor, some garden hosepipe and plumbing fittings).  To be honest, for some therapeutic relaxation, I can’t think of anything better than your own DIY engineering project (though I suppose I would say that!)

To keep up with our progress, follow #WSJ2011bikes or @R_Thornton on Twitter.  More news to follow…

I’d like to make an early statement of intent on the purpose of this post, the title of which was initially something like:

Brunel, atmospheric caper, Composites, Valley of death ,Tallow, Tribology, Nuclear crisis and in the end convention wins the day !

… but I decided not to.

The underlying issue I do aim to deal with is that of Energy sources, since the Japanese disaster has now caused us all to again rethink, what type do we, or can we rely on to deliver efficiency and that can also leave a lower carbon footprint without having us all screaming Armageddon everytime something goes wrong with it.

Brunel’s atmospheric caper

Those that sit around me Monday – Friday, 9 a.m – 5 p.m who still own a Texas Instrument T1-53 calculator, know of Brunel’s failure at re-inventing the Railway with his Atmospheric version which eventually failed because rats like animal fat or Tallow as it is called, which was required to keep the leather (Yes, leather was used) on the pipes (train tracks) supple. It lasted about a year because the vermin responsible for the black plague chewed through it.

I first heard of this from the man in the picture to your right, who spoke at a relaunch event for sogeclair aerospace (Formerly Clairis Technologies) whom I work for.

He is from the National Composite Center (NCC) here in bristol though unfortunately I do not remember his name or position (Please comment If you do)

Composites

He commented that if Brunel had designed his atmospheric railway around now, when the National Composite Center is just opening, his rat problem would have been solved, not by pesticides or a really good pest control company but by the wide array of composite materials now available or which are in development. Composites are now of such importance to engineers, not only in the Aerospace Industry where they are increasingly looked to, to solve several design dilemmas (Airbus A350 XWB is made of 53% composite materials).

Our Guy also used the phrase ‘Valley of death’ to describe the eventually forgotten position most ideas end up being in, whilst attempting to make the leap from concept to actual working product, from blue sky research to money making realities.

Valley of Death

Many end up here simply because, the application for their ideas, however brilliant, cannot be found. In the case of Brunel, it had to compete with convention, which it failed at in terms of cost. People were delighted to, for the first time, go on a train journey without being covered in soot from the traditional locomotive train engine. Cost wise, the atmospheric train simply did not match up, atmospheric traction cost 3s (shillings) 1d (pence – Latin, denarius) per mile, compared to 1s 4d for conventional steam Engines.

Energy

This is our final stop on the joyride through terms and names that seem unrelated to the aim I stated in the first sentence. Brunel failed because he couldn’t compete with his rival, convention. Also, his timing was off, he was about a century too early ! though this should not encourage anyone to now pick up the idea as we now have Magnetically Levitated Trains (MagLev).

Many Alternatives are aiming to topple fossil fuels, the convention, they have to match the cost and fast, which so far they haven’t done.

I will not say that there is still a big question mark on global warming in a bid to be at my most controversial, many have done this and I do not wish to surpass them or reiterate their opinions or facts depending on whether you’re a member of Greenpeace or Jeremy clarkson’s fan club, but it is too soon and I am yet to see concrete evidence presented for the case for global warming. However big you consider the question mark to be, there is one.

Who knows, this Japanese Nuclear disaster, putting a a BIG QUESTION MARK ON NUCLEAR ENERGY as a viable rival to convention might just be the right timing for other sources to step up or follow suit.

The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor riches to the intelligent, nor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all.

All I can do is sit back and watch intently how this tussle for dominance plays out, maybe in the end, convention will again win.

In my post, I might seem to be somewhat of a leech, responding to what others say, said, done or did. I’ll explain the reason for this is simply because it never ceases to get people’s counter reaction, which is the whole point of this blog – a platform for engineers to air their issues, concerns e.t.c.

In this, I’m reacting to an earlier on ‘the knack’.

… But what happens after you’ve discovered ‘the knack’ after you’ve taken apart your first VCR and cannot figure out how to put it back together again?

How do you know what area you would like to specialise in?

How do you decide on what area to specialise in, in your chosen field of Engineering?

The answers to these questions constantly changed for me till the start of University in 2005 and Aerospace Engineering won the first, simply because it was the most interesting. I thought ‘those gigantic birds in the sky, how do they manage to do that’.

Now that I’ve started work in the Aerospace industry, I’ve found that sooner or later, I’ll have to decide on a particular area to focus on.  My work right now is in Design, it’s what I studied at university but I find myself drawn to ‘technical authorship’ or similar, since I enjoy writing hence my presence on this blog. On how my career is going to pan out, I do not know but watch this space.

Perhaps I’ll end by posing a question to the most specialist, specialist person on here – Rob Thornton,

…Why Tribology?