Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Is to Create New Company Unit Dedicated to Car Air-Conditioner Business

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, ltd. (MHI) has recently launched the MHI Climate Control Co., Ltd to operate as the preparatory unit for creating a brand new company, responsible solely for car air-conditioners business.
On September 27, 2012 MHI and MHI Climate Control signed the absorption-type company split agreement under which the latter company is obliged to take over MHI’s car air-conditioner business, starting from January 2013. Then, all the operations launched by MHI Climate Control will be delivered under a new corporate name. While creating a new company, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is going to focus on establishing the resilient business structure, able to comply with the rules of highly competitive market. The new company will be mainly engaged in manufacturing, engineering and general sales issues of car air-conditioner products and service parts. It’s going to be based in Kiyosu City, Aichi Prefecture and will start operating with the team of 300 employees.

Major Japanese Companies Put A Halt On Their Manufacturing Operations in China

As reported by Reuters, the Japanese manufacturer of heavy machinery, Komatsu Ltd has recently announced that it was forced to cease all the production processes in three plants based in Shadong province, as a result of anti-Japan demonstration that has swept across the country.
Toyota Motor Co. has also temporarily suspended some of its manufacturing operations in China. Toyota used to produce the vehicles in China through joint ventures in Tianjin and other cities. Unfortunately, Toyota spokesman refused to unveil any further details concerning the suspended operations.
Similarly, Sony Corp. has stated that they were going to suspend two, out of their seven plants in China, just the same day Toyota did, but again, no further details were disclosed.
The anti-Japan manifestations have been incited by a recent decision of the Japanese government to buy the disputed islands in the East China Sea from their private owners, who, by the way, are Japanese. The islands are referred to as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China. 

A New Roof-and-Attic Design System Turns Out to Be Efficient

A brand new type of roof-and-attic system tested at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory manages to keep homes cool during summer and warm in winter. That multi-seasonal versatility is something brand new in roof and attic design and the history of construction industry.
The newly-tested system uses controls for radiation, convection and insulation, which includes a passive ventilation system pulling the air from the attic into  an inclined air space above the roof. That improves the efficiency to a great extent.
Owing to that system, the heat, that would otherwise have gone into the house, is carried up and out. The good news is that the new system design can be retrofitted with almost all roofing products, as the design is based on the use of foiled covered polystyrene insulation, fitting over and between rafters in new construction or can be attached on top of the already existing shingle roof system.
In the nearest future the system is going to be upgraded to become even more cost-efficient. That is why the scientists keep working on designs with lower initial installation costs and some further reduction in the costs, overally.

Are Nanotubes Able to Tell of the Bridge Collapse Risk?

A few years ago, in 2007, the I-35W bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis tumbled down and killed 13 people, injuring 145.  The collapse was then blamed on a design deficiency which resulted in a gusset plate failure during the continuous construction work.
Recently, the interdisciplinary group of scientists at the University of Delaware has been developing a novel structural health monitoring system that could prevent disasters of that kind in the future. The two affiliated faculty members in the UD Center for Composite Materials have received a 3-year $300.000 grant from the National Science Foundation to find out if there’s any use of the carbon nanotube composites as a sort of “smart skin” for the built structures.
In the preliminary examination, the two researchers  found that a carbon nanotube hybrid glass-fiber composite attached to small-scale concrete beams, created the conductive skin, incredibly sensitive to changes both in strain and the development of damage. The nanotubes remained totally integrated into complex fiber composite systems, imparting new functionality without  the necessity to alter the microstructure of the composite.
As the preliminary results look more than promising, the researchers are now going to face such issues as sensor processing, characterization and modeling followed by testing of components and complete structures.

Revolution in Construction is About to Come: New Space- Age Insulating Material

The important  change in the world’s lightest solid material and the best insulating material, as it has been reported lately, may result in putting more of that space-age wonder into buildings, clothing and other common uses.

The electrifying news concerning the development of a new, flexible aerogel  - so light it was nicknamed  “solid smoke”, was announced on the 224^th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society.

Traditional aerogels, made from silica that is found in beach sand, usually break and crumble easily. In time, scientists have improved the durability of the aerogels. New materials can be up to 500 times stronger than their silica equivalents. A really  thick piece of the aerogel is able to manage the weight of a car. They can also be produced in a thin and flexible forms, making them suitable for all the construction and commercial uses.

The improved aerogels would be perfect for a new series of super-insulating clothes keeping people warm, tents and sleeping bags, home refrigerators  and freezer walls. Even  NASA considers using a heat shield made from the flexible aerogel  that will inflate like a balloon when the spacecraft enters the atmosphere. The stronger and more durable aerogels have been produced in two ways. One involved making changes to the core structure of traditional silica aerogels. Another was based on polyimide and then inserting brace-like crosslinks in order to strengthen the whole structure.

The Study on the Offshore Use of Vertical-Axis Wind Turbines

The wind energy researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have been re-evaluating vertical axis wind turbines (VAWTs) in order to help solving some of the energy-generating problems concerning the offshore breezes.

Although the idea of VAWTs has been known since the first days of wind energy research,  now the VAWT architecture can transform the offshore wind technology.  It offers three major advantages that are able to cut down on  the wind energy costs. 

1. A lower turbine center of gravity ( allowing the improvement in stability afloat and lower gravitational fatigue loads).
2. Reduction in machine complexity.
3. Improved scalability to large sizes.

Furthermore, the drivetrain on a VAWT is at or, at least, near the surface, which provides the ease of maintenance and is less time-devouring. All the above-mentioned factors lead to the substantial reduction of the maintenance costs.

Sandia is carrying the research as a result of Department of Energy (DOE) solicitation for providing the advanced rotor technologies for the U.S. offshore windpower generation. The project is going to take 5 years and is going to cost $ 4.1 million. Eventually, it is also going to revolutionize the construction industry as VAWTs are elegant, mechanically simplistic and consist of fewer parts, because they don’t need a control system, pointing them towards the blowing wind to generate power.

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A New, Improved Method for Detecting and Measuring Bridge Damage

The rating systems worked out and developed by a group of Kansas State University scientists could prevent bridges from the risk of collapsing and make them so much safer, as a result of the introduced technology.
The group of civil engineers have been collaborating in the attempt to better detect and measure damage risk in concrete bridges. The researchers were successful at creating a rating system that is more accurate in describing the level of damage in a bridge. Such “bridge health index” can be also applied to other structures including dams, gas pipelines, buildings and airplanes. What an amazing discovery invented to the benefit of  construction  industry!
The collaboration between the researchers and engineers resulted in developing methods of taking bridge measurements and then using finite element analysis and neural network modeling to calculate things back and detect bridge damage. The problem may arise when the cracks in the bridge have indeed been measured, but there are no objective ways to calculate to what extent it is damaged.
At present, the researchers, supported by some graduate students have been building and training the health index system using synthetic bridges, which are able to simulate the way a bridge acts under specific conditions. As a result, a network based on thousands of simulations has been built. Hopefully, some final solution will be arrived at soon, the more so Kansas Department of Transportation provides some financial support for the research to continue.

The Future Is Now: Self – Healing Concrete a New Solution for the Construction Industry

What sounded like a fiction, even not so long ago, now has a chance to become perfectly real, together with the development of “self – healing” concrete by the researchers at Northumbria University. Is it the end of cracks in concrete buildings?
Dr Alan Richardson, a Senior Lecturer in Construction at the School of the Built and Natural Environment, has used a ground-borne bacteria (bacilli megaterium ) to create calcite, which is a crystalline form of natural calcium carbonate. Later on it can be used as a blocker to the concrete’s pores, which prevents water from entering the formula and prolongs the life of the concrete.
The bacteria, owing to which a breakthrough  discovery was possible is grown on nutrient yeast, minerals and urea, then added to the concrete itself. Supplied with its nutritive substances within the concrete, the bacteria has a perfect environment to breed and spread. As a result it acts as a filler, sealing the cracks and preventing any subsequent deterioration.
It has been widely hoped that the discovery of concrete-healing bacteria could lead to a cost-efficient solution for the construction industry and has the outstanding commercial potential.

Construction Industry Gets a Breakthrough Solution for Building Quake – Resistant Houses

Researchers from the Univesidad Politécnica de Madrid have succeeded in testing a new system that would contribute to building the earthquake resistant houses which are of high interest to third world countries, often suffering from such natural disasters.
The scientists have conducted some research resulting in the development of a brand new construction system: the Integral Masonry System (IMS). The tests proved that if a house is built with that stable permanent system that prevents cracking, the building can resist even the most severe earthquakes.
Nowadays, many buildings that have been erected within the seismic areas lacking the natural resources tend to be built with the use of the adobe, hollow bricks or concrete blocks. Those materials simply are not going to last when the earthquake occurs. The IMS is the alternative construction solution as it uses prefabricated trusses made with light and easy to install steel rods, that intersect in three directions thus forming walls and floors, then filled with mud, debris or blocks for walls.
The safety of the house prototype has been verified at the Antiseismic Structures Laboratory and at the Pontificia Católica Universidad del Perú in Lima. The results have proved that the developed system has high potential as it provides easy system of house building with typologies adapted to local residential construction that could be applied at a minimum cost.

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New Compound Likely to Become “Cool Blue” for Energy Efficiency in Construction Industry

The new type of durable, environmentally – friendly blue pigment that has been discovered at Oregon State University proved to possess the unusual feature of reflecting heat: a true “cool blue” compound, able to become essential in new approaches towards saving energy in buildings.
The discovery of the above - mentioned compound (which has recently received patent approval)  was a coincidence as it occurred while OSU scientists were studying some materials for their electrical properties. Its potential use to help reduce heat absorption on the roof and the walls of the potential building enhances the idea of creating the new material, considered for a number of commercial applications in construction industry.
The newly discovered pigment has infrared heat reflectivity of about 40 per cent, which is reasonably higher than most blue pigments characterize of. What is more important, the new pigment is durable, safe and quite easy to produce. It has also become an important trend in so-called “green construction” and raises the issue of energy efficiency. Last, but not least, such reflective coatings are more aesthetic than the ones used so far, have less thermal degradation and cut down on the “heat island” effect in cities and air contamination, owing to the lower energy use and power plant emissions.