Road vibrations, airport noise to produce energy?
July 21st, 2011 - 8:41 pm ICT by IANSWashington, July 21 (IANS) Researchers are working on methods to convert road vibrations and airport runway noise into usable energy.
University of Buffalo theoretical physicist Surajit Sen and colleagues suggest how altering the shape of grain-to-grain contact areas between the particles underlies this process.
Under “normal” circumstances, when the particles are perfect spheres, exerting force on the first sphere in the chain causes energy to travel through the spheres as a compact bundle of energy between three to five particle diameters wide, at a rate set by Hertz’s Law.
But Sen and his collaborators have discovered that by altering the shape of the surface area of each particle where it presses against the next, it is possible to change how the energy moves, the journal Physical Review E reports.
While this finding is yet to be demonstrated experimentally, Sen said that “mathematically, it’s correct. We have proven it”, according to a Buffalo statement.
“We could have chips that take energy from road vibrations, runway noise from airports — energy that we are not able to make use of very well — and convert it into pulses, packets of electrical energy, that become useful power.”
–Indo-Asian News service
st/mn/tb
- New way to turn waste heat into power could make cars, factories more efficient - Oct 01, 2010
- New, 'smart' solutions to drone out those annoying car noises - Mar 12, 2011
- iPhone app helps kids do virtual drives - Jul 21, 2011
- Vibrations to help in energy harvesting - May 07, 2012
- Space travel could thrill but also kill - Mar 13, 2012
- Possible discovery of new sub-atomic particle could upset rules of physics - Apr 18, 2011
- Heartbeat to keep future pacemakers ticking - Mar 04, 2012
- Indian scientists dismiss reports on 'god particle' - May 01, 2011
- Heathrow's Third Runway plans in jeopardy - Sep 07, 2012
- Sand can behave like water - Jun 25, 2009
- New method tracks radiation levels faster - Nov 09, 2011
- Scientists harvest waste energy to turn water into usable hydrogen fuel - Mar 12, 2010
- Scientists simulate 'God particle's' expected sound - Jun 23, 2010
- It could be possible to create matter, antimatter from vacuum, say experts - Dec 09, 2010
- Cheap soundproof latex tiles can silence noisy neighbours - Feb 23, 2010
Tags: airport noise, airport runway, airports, asian news, collaborators, colleagues, diameters, electrical energy, hertz, indo, news service, particle, particles, sphere, spheres, surface area, theoretical physicist, university of buffalo, usable energy, vibrations