How much u know about Electrical and Electronic Engineering？Here you can know more..

What is it all about?
Electrical and Electronic Engineering is an exciting and dynamic field. Electrical engineers are responsible for the generation, transfer and conversion of electrical power, while electronic engineers are concerned with the transfer of information using radio waves, the design of electronic circuits, the design of computer systems and the development of control systems such as aircraft autopilots. These sought-after engineers can look forward to a rewarding and respected career.

What we do about it 

Electrical energy systems - encompass the study and design of electrical transmission systems, electrical machines and variable speed drives; high power electronic converters and high voltage engineering. This requires engineering on a grand scale, such as power distribution across Southern Africa.  Power generation from renewable resources, such as wind and sun, and electrical transport, such as battery electrical vehicles, are of growing importance in the electrical engineering field and postgraduate studies.

USM ChemE Trio Triumphs at NRIC 2011

Penang, 27 June – A young trio of researchers from the School of Chemical Engineering, Universiti Sains Malaysia, has made the school and the university proud when their research product won the Best Research Award at the National Research and Innovation Competition (NRIC) 2011.

The product, Alternative Sweetener from Biomass Waste for Healthier Lifestyle, was judged to be the sweetest of all among the 13 other products that won gold at the competition.

The young trio of Farahwahida Haron, 23; Fazreen Amira Ismail, 23 and Chong Meng Yeong, 24 were beaming with excitement and pride when their hard work and innovation were rewarded and recognized as beneficial to the society at large.

According to Farrahwahida, she and her group members did not expect their product to win the Best Research Award category since the competition this year at NRIC 2011 was deemed to be very strong with more than 120 research products vying for the top award.

The win, however, proved that the effort to focus research on sustainability-related issues is very relevant and appropriate to the pursuit of healthier living and sustainable development.

Farrahwahida added that, “We carried out the research to produce an alternative sweetener or xylitol from palm oil or corn waste because sweeteners are widely used in diverse products such as chewing gum and toothpaste.”

“Xylitol is also used by diabetics but the type that is being sold at the current market is rather expensive. With our product, we may be able to produce an alternative that is far cheaper besides optimising waste that is generated locally.”

Farrahwahida and her colleagues received RM 5,000 and a trophy together with certificates and gifts from USM’s Deputy Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs and Development, Prof. Dato’ Omar Osman.

Another young trio from the School of Chemical Engineering also won gold at NRIC 2011. Lidya Amira Zukimi, Yeap Swee Pin and Nur Amirah Mohd Ali, who were former undergraduate students of the School, have successfully integrated nano engineering ideas with tissue engineering concepts to come up with Functionalized Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes/Poly Lactic Acid Nanocomposite Scaffolds for Tissue Engineering that have great potential in solving problems of bone fractures and bone cancer.

What is .....???

What Is the Difference Between a Scientist and an Engineer?

A scientist is a person who has scientific training or who works in the sciences. An engineer is someone who is trained as an engineer. So, to my way of thinking, the practical difference lies in the educational degree and the description of the task being performed by the scientist or engineer. On a more philosophical level, scientists tend to explore the natural world and discover new knowledge about the universe and how it works. Engineers apply that knowledge to solve practical problems, often with an eye toward optimizing cost, efficiency, or some other parameters.

LED Thermal Characterization Gets Easier

One of the complex aspects of light-emitting diode (LED) system design is the thermal management. Do it right, and your LED lives a long, bright life. Analyze the thermals incorrectly, and you ruin your LED's performance, making it dimmer and causing it to fail prematurely.

A new method combines hardware measurement and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software to let engineers predict the heat inside an LED, or an integrated circuit, as well as in the systems and subsystems surrounding it. Engineers from Mentor Graphics, which developed the new methodology, say the ability to scientifically characterize the thermal behavior of the component, as well as its systems and subsystems, has been missing up to now.

Using T3Ster, thermal data from LEDs and IC packages can be ported to CFD software for system analysis.
Source: Mentor Graphics

"If you've solved the heat problems at the component level, it doesn't necessarily mean you've solved the subsystem level," John Isaac, director of market development for Mentor Graphics' System Design Division, told us in an interview. "And if you've solved it at the subsystem level, it doesn't necessarily mean you've solved it at the system level. You have to solve the problem at all three levels in order to end up with good thermal management in your final product."

SPEED OF "ELECTRICITY

1996 Bill Beaty

How fast does electricity flow? Well, it depends on what you mean by "electricity." The word Electricity has more than one contradictory meaning, so before we can talk about its flow, we have to decide on which of several "electricities" we really mean. For a discussion of electric current, see below. But for articles about fast-flowing electromagnetic energy, see the FAQ, this energy article, or an old email.

OK, then how about this. When we turn on a flashlight, something called an "electric current" begins to happen. Inside the flashlight bulb, the thin filament-wire gets hot because there is electric current in the metal. This current is a motion of something. How fast does this "something" move? This question can be answered.

The quick answer

Inside the wires, the "something" moves very, very slowly, almost as slowly as the minute hand on a clock. Electric current is like a flow of syrup. Even maple syrup moves too fast, so that's not a good analogy. Electric charges flow as slowly as a river of warm putty. And in AC circuits, the moving charge doesn't move forward at all, instead it sits in one place and vibrates. Energy can flow fast in an electric circuit because metals are already filled with this "putty." If you push on one end of a column of putty, the far end moves almost instantly. Energy flows fast, yet an electric current is a very slow flow.

Researchers Develop ‘Micro-Lattice’ Cellular Structured Material Having Lowest Density

Scientists at the University of California-Irvine, the California Institute of Technology and HRL Laboratories have synthesized the world’s lightest metal having a density of 0.9 mg/cc, a value 100 folds lesser than the density of Styrofoam.

New metal - which is 99.9 percent air - is so light that it can sit atop dandelion fluff without damaging it. (Credit-New metal - which is 99.9 percent air - is so light that it can sit atop dandelion fluff without damaging it.)

The researchers have published their results in the Science journal. The new material’s low density is caused by its special ‘micro-lattice’ cellular structure, which contains 99.99% of air and 0.01% solid at the millimeter, micron and nanometer scales.

Zhong Lin Wang Receives 2011 Materials Research Society Medal

Zhong Lin Wang, Regent’s Professor of the Georgia Institute of Technology has been awarded a 2011 Materials Research Society Medal for his technology innovations based on zinc oxide nanostructures on November 30 2011 at the society’s fall meeting conducted in Boston.

Regent’s Professor Zhong Lin Wang has received a 2011 MRS Medal for his work on zinc oxide nanowires and nanobelts for a broad range of applications. (Credit: Nicole Cappello )

The award has been presented to Wang for his works in the discovery and development of zinc oxide nanobelts and nanowires and the design and production of piezotronic devices, nanowire-based sensors and nanogenerators for energy production.

Wang is best recognized for his nanogenerator that produces electrical current using the zinc oxide nanostructures’ piezoelectric properties. Through extensive research, his research team has improved the output of the nanodevice and today a cluster of linked nanogenerators can generate as high as 30 V that is efficient to power up traditional electronic parts such as LED displays. The discovery of nanogenerators paved the way for the development of self-powered nanodevices.

We Construct, We Destruct

Branches of Civil Engineering

Civil Engineering careers may be pursued in a specialised field or in general terms: Examples of specialised fields include:

• Structural: Bridges, Roads, Towers
• Transportation: Roads, Traffic control, Airports
• Water: Dams, Pipelines, Purification
• Geotechnical: Foundations, Excavations and Fills
• Construction: Construction of Projects
• Urban: Municipal Services, Development and Maintenance of Towns
• Railway and harbour: Railway network, Harbour Facilities
• Environmental: Impact Studies, Social and Natural Environments
• Informatics: Data Capturing, computers for enhancing civil engineering activities

Career types in Civil Engineering

Engineering is a collective term for activities involved in manufacturing and building things. There are very few things in our everyday lives that did not involve engineering at some stage in their development and/ or production.

Crash-Optimized Composites Advance Automotive Designs

By Ann R. Thryft
The use of composites in cars is picking up pace. Both glass and fiber-based composites are slowly invading non-structural areas of commercial production vehicles and even the structural areas of specialty cars, where crash-optimized composites must be used.

Glass fiber reinforced materials are the major type of composites used in automotive manufacturing that replace metal, especially in high volume production. Several new crash-optimized glass fiber composites from BASF offer greater impact strength than previous materials in the same class. Designed initially for car body parts that protect pedestrians outside the vehicle, the automotive polyamides are part of BASF's glass fiber reinforced polyamide 6 family. The company introduced them at FAKUMA 2011, held at the Friedrichshafen Exhibition Centre in Friedrichshafen, Germany.

 

A part made with crash-optimized Ultramid B3ZG3 CR can withstand static torsion of over 240°C, making it possible to substitute composites for metal in vehicle parts such as steering wheel components, body inserts and seat structures.
(Photo courtesy of BASF.) 

A part made with crash-optimized Ultramid B3ZG3 CR can withstand static torsion of over 240°C, making it possible to substitute composites for metal in vehicle parts such as steering wheel components, body inserts and seat structures.
(Photo courtesy of BASF.)

Electric vehicles set to charge ahead

Concerns over rising oil prices and security of supply are driving a sea change in the motoring industry with battery powered electric vehicles gradually appearing on our roads. But many technological challenges remain before the majority of vehicles on the road will be battery powered. 

Two principal types of battery are used in electric vehicles. Nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries are largely used in hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), where they sit alongside an internal combustion engine. These are heavy and store relatively little energy. They are useful for 'in town' driving, where a petrol or diesel engine is uneconomical. They recharge when the car is braking, turning kinetic energy into electrical energy, or when the car is cruising on its conventional engine. 

The Nissan Leaf is part of the vanguard of lithium ion battery powered electric vehicles now hitting the road

The other option is lithium ion (Li-ion) batteries, which can store far more energy than NiMH. However, Li-ion is still not good enough if electric vehicles are to compete with conventional vehicles. The main issues are the distance that an electric vehicle can travel before it needs to be recharged, cyclability - the number of times the battery can be discharged and recharged without losing significant performance - and cost.