Recent Patents on Engineering - Volume 5, Issue 3, 2011

Fuel cells enable to convert the chemical energy of fuels directly into electricity, i.e. without involving any thermo-mechanical energy conversion steps. Thus fuel cells are not limited by the Carnot efficiency experienced by conventional thermo-mechanical power generators. From variety of available fuel cells, solid-oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) seems to be well-suited for large-scale power generation applications. However, for large-scale deployment of SOFCs further technological advancements are still needed. Therefore, the current review investigates significant patented developments utilising SOFCs in power generation applications over the last 5 years (2007-2011). The focus is on key technical barriers limiting the development of SOFC technology in relation to power generation applications. The review presents and discusses appropriate solutions disclosed in recent patents. The key technical barriers together with their patented solutions relate to the thermal resistance of SOFC's materials, fuel reforming techniques, energy conversion efficiency, the use of novel materials, architecture design, and techniques for improved fuel utilisation.

The paper presents design aids for stability limit state design of wide flange beam-columns I-sections that can be used by the structural engineers to achieve cost-effective designs. Current design provisions ignore the influence of the web/flange size in the design of beam column members. Design curves are provided for various compression/bending stress ratios. The influence of the flange/web width (b/d) ratio on the web stability is also highlighted. The variation of post-buckling deflection for various stress ratios is also presented. Related patents to the subject are also provided.

Traditionally, urban models in many applications such as urban planning, disaster management, and computer games only require visual accuracy. However, more recently, updating urban infrastructure combined with the rise of mega-cities (i.e. those with populations over ten million) has motivated researchers and users to utilize city-scale models for engineering purposes (e.g. tracking pollution monitoring, optimizing solar panel placement), which necessitates high geometric accuracy. Currently, a major bottleneck lies in the cost of generating accurate, geo-spatially referenced models. This paper presents the evolution of some of the efforts to automatically produce such models. Specifically, recent advances in airborne laser scanning can rapidly acquire accurate, spatial data for large geographic areas in hours, but due to the size of the data sets, coupled with difficulties of capturing and portraying complex structures, many post-processing issues have only recently been addressed to a level sufficient to begin to facilitate automation, especially of building surface reconstruction. Automation is a critical step for further processing and utilization of airborne laser scanned data for engineering-based, urban modeling. This paper presents recent development of the methods for building detection and extraction, with an emphasis on patents and other contributions related to automated processing of airborne laser scanning data.

The outstanding thermal properties of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have generated considerable interest and research activity. A very promising application is the use of vertically aligned arrays of CNTs as thermal interface materials (TIMs) for electronic systems. TIMs require a high thermal conductivity, a low thermal interface resistance with the adjacent microprocessor and heat sink, and significant mechanical compliance to help minimize the impact of mismatched thermal expansion coefficients. However, due to high thermal interface resistances of CNT films, more detailed measurements and improved fabrication methods are needed. This review paper presents current patents and last experimental/ computational techniques investigating heat transfer and limiting mechanisms of CNTs, CNT-thermal interface structures, CNT-polymer nanocomposites (PNCs), and thermal boundary resistance (TBR) of the CNTs and different surrounding matrices (metals, nanofluids and polymers). Effects on directional thermal conductivities of aligned CNTs in PNCs/TIMs are predicted using a random walk simulation. The TBR of CNT-matrix and inter-CNT contact significantly affect the effective thermal transport properties including anisotropy ratios. When CNT-CNT contact is significant or CNT-CNT TBR is low (relative to the CNT-matrix TBR), then heat transport is dominated by CNT-CNT contact effects, rather than CNT-matrix interfacial effects. The effects of CNT orientation, type (single-versus multi-wall), inter-CNT contact, volume fraction and TBR on the effective thermal conductivities of CNT-PNCs/ TIMs are quantified. The simulation results agreed well with reported experimental data for randomly-oriented SWNT-epoxy and polymethyl methacrylate nanocomposites. These simulation results can be very useful for developing techniques to enhance the effective thermal conductivity of composites using conductive nanomaterials embedded in matrices, and assist experimentalists in interpreting heat conduction measurements.

Humidity is one of the main causes of decay in buildings, particularly rising damp. The treatment of this phenomenon in historical buildings is very complex due to the thickness and heterogeneity of the walls. Moisture transfer in the walls of historical buildings is in direct contact with the ground leads to the migration of soluble salts, which are responsible for many building pathologies. Traditional methods of dealing with this problem (chemical or physical barriers, electro-osmosis, etc) have proved to be somewhat ineffective or are too expensive. In the recent years, experimental and in-field research into the effectiveness of wall base ventilation systems (natural or hygro-regulated-HUMIVENT device) to reduce the level of rising damp, conducted at the Building Physics Laboratory, Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, has yielded interesting results. This paper presents recent patents and publications in the rising damp area and describes a new system called HUMIVENT for treating rising damp in historical buildings based upon a hygro-regulated wall base ventilation system. Finally, we analyse the results obtained in laboratory and the following implementation of the system in a church in Northern Portugal. It was a defined criteria to avoid condensation problems inside the system and crystallizations/dissolution problems at the walls.

Ultrasound, today, with non-invasive and non-destructive features, has taken place between most popular and widely used diagnostic tools. Being inexpensive and portable has made ultrasound a tool that is preferred widely in medical diagnostic applications. Ultrasound thickness measurement devices are based on A-mode scanning and echo-ranging principle. This study examines the patents related to ultrasonic thickness measurement systems which are widely used in diagnostic medicine. In this paper, it has been revealed that, these systems are used in various fields of medicine to carry out thickness measurement, even of very thin and delicate tissues, such as blood vessels, without requiring surgical intervention.

The patents annotated in this section have been selected from various patent databases. These recent patents are relevant to the articles published in this journal issue, categorized by the processes and technologies related to various disciplines of engineering sciences....