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?

Leg Exoskelton Makes Walking 7 Percent More Efficient

A new leg exoskeleton can improve the efficiency of walking by 7 percent – and do it with no power source—according to scientists at North Carolina State University who published their research today in Nature. Their creation could be a big boon for people with low mobility.

The device provides support through the carbon fiber frame and attached springs, which act as secondary muscles in the device. The spring and frame combine act as a sort of calf muscle. In doing so, they reroute energy that would normally go through a person's calf muscle and tendons. The whole thing weighs a little more than a pound, and most users were able to ignore it after about 20 minutes of use.

The device is still in the beginning stages, and won't work for running. But it's a big step toward improving the efficiency of walking, whether its for a hiker or someone who needs a boost in efficiency to save their energy.

(new) Meet Loopwheel, the First Shock-Absorbing Wheel

Don't tell British designer Sam Pearce the wheel isn't ripe for reinvention. He came up with Loopwheels, a shock-absorbing, spokeless wheel that's perfect for bikes and wheelchairs.

Pearce told Wired that the idea came to him when saw a woman forget to lift the front wheels of her stroller when it hit a curb and the baby fell out. "If the wheel hits the curb at the wrong angle it's useless," he said. "So I just wondered, why can't you put the suspension into the wheel?"

He crafted a system where the shock would be absorbed into the wheel itself, but the idea seemed like such a no-brainer that Pearce said it didn't feel "relevant," and he sat on it. Two years later and 70 iterations after, he and his team created a "carbon composite construction" wheel.

The inside of the wheel flexes and adjusts when weight is pressed on it. The coolest part is that the center of the wheel, or the hub, moves while the rim stays rigid.

Pearce has launched a successful Kickstarter campaign to roll the wheel into development. The drawback: These futuristic wheels are expensive to make. Until he figures out a more effective manufacturing process, one of them will cost you $2,000.

Happy New Year 2015 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.