omniomni/omni-engineering huggingface dataset:
Firefly Balloons. FireFly Balloons is an American hot air balloon manufacturer that started as The Balloon Works (TBW) in 1972 in Statesville, NC. The company is one of the oldest hot air balloon manufacturers in the United States, behind Raven Industries (founded by Ed Yost), SEMCO and Piccard Balloons.  The origins of the company's designs can be traced to the work of Tracy Barnes in the late 1960s.

Design and development
Tracy Barnes' designs introduced many of the features found in modern hot air balloons.

The parachute top, which replaced spring tops, explosive tops and inverting envelopes used previously, did much to improve the safety and maneuverability of balloons.  Additionally, the T-3 burner offered a modern and high-powered burner with redundant capability in the event of a primary burner failure, in the form of the "Fire 2" jet.

Barnes introduced the distinctive zig-zag envelope to reduce fabric waste and the use of glossy, heat resistant polyester instead of nylon for envelopes.  This material choice resulted in a higher maximum envelope temperature of 300 degrees Fahrenheit.   Barnes also designed a distinctive triangular basket to offer increased volume, tipping resistance and corner stowage of three fuel tanks. Barnes' most significant contribution was in drastically simplifying venting and deflation by inventing the parachute top. Later Barnes would invent the FlexNet Envelope, which prevented the possibility of envelope tears growing beyond a single panel. The type certificates issued to The Balloon Works are still the basis of the popular line of balloons produced by FireFly Balloons. Often, early balloons manufactured by the company are referred to as "Barnes" balloons, however this was never the actual company name. The company's name from 2000 on has been FireFly Balloons.

Tracy Barnes is no longer directly involved with FireFly, instead he presently works on unmanned and advertising blimps through his company The Blimp Works.

Among the characteristic design features of FireFly balloons are:

Triangular baskets
Zig-zag (or chevron) patterned envelope gores
Toggle and loop envelope fasteners
maXflite silicone coated rip-stop Nylon is now used in envelopes, Polyester was used in older systems.
Bulbous gores

References

The History of Ballooning
FireFly 7 Flight Manual
National Balloon Museum
Tracy Barnes Ballooning Hall Of Fame
National Balloon Museum Hot Air Balloon History
The Blimp Works - Tracy Barnes Blimp Company
About Tracy Barnes - On The Blimp Works
About FireFly Baskets

External links

Manufacturing companies based in North Carolina
Aircraft manufacturers of the United States
Balloon manufacturers
Counterion condensation. Counterion condensation is a phenomenon described by Manning's
theory (Manning 1969), which assumes that counterions can condense 
onto polyions until the charged density between neighboring monomer charges 
along the polyion chain is reduced below a certain critical value. In the model the 
real polyion chain is replaced by an idealized line charge, where the polyion 
is represented by a uniformly charged thread of zero radius, infinite
length and finite charge density, and the condensed counterion layer is 
assumed to be in physical equilibrium with the ionic atmosphere surrounding 
the polyion. The uncondensed mobile ions in the ionic atmosphere are treated 
within the Debye–Hückel (DH) approximation. The 
phenomenon of counterion condensation now takes place when the dimensionless 
Coulomb coupling strength 
, 
where  represents the Bjerrum length and 
 the distance between neighboring charged monomers. 
In this case the Coulomb interactions dominate over 
the thermal interactions and counterion condensation is favored. For many standard 
polyelectrolytes, this phenomenon is relevant, since the 
distance between neighboring monomer charges typically ranges between 2 and 3 Å and 
 7 Å in water.
The Manning theory states that the fraction of "condensed" counter ions is , where "condensed" means that the counter ions are located within the Manning radius .
At infinite dilution the Manning radius diverges and the actual concentration of ions close to the charged rod is reduced (in agreement with the law of dilution).

Criticism 
The counterion condensation originally only describes the behaviour of a charged rod. It competes here with Poisson-Boltzmann theory, which was shown to give less artificial results than the counterion condensation theories.

References 

 

 

Polyelectrolytes
Salts
Iranian Rail Industries Development Co. Iranian Rail Industries Development Co (IRICO) (, Iriku) is an Iranian manufacturer of passenger rolling stock. The company was founded in 2003 and began series production of rail vehicles in 2009. The company has several license manufactured rolling stock in cooperation such as Hyundai Rotem, Siemens, Stadler & CRRC Puzhen.

History
Iranian Rail Industries Development Co (IRICO) was founded in with the aim of domestic manufacture of rolling stock including metro, suburban, light rail and monorail vehicles. A $45 million investment established a factory in Abhar, Zanjan province Iran.

Production at the plant began in February 2009 after a formal inauguration in December 2008; at inception the plant had a capacity of 100 vehicles p.a. with single shift working.

In 2004 Rotem entered into a technology transfer and manufacturing agreement (value €110 million) with IRICO for the supply of passenger trainsets; 24 units were to manufactured by Rotem in 2006, 24 assembled from CKD kits by IRICO, and the remainder manufactured by IRICO with Rotem assistance. The trains were manufactured for the Raja Passenger Train Company.

In 2010 IRICO won a contract to supply 135 vehicles for the Shiraz Metro.

In March 2016 IRICO was acquired by IGG Group.

The DMU contract was extended in December 2017 to another contract for supplying 450 DMU cars for increasing passenger transportation capacity of Iran. The first 150 vehicles will be built at Hyundai Rotem's plant in Changwon, Korea. The remaining 300 vehicles will be assembled locally by Iranian Rail Industries Development (IRICO). All 450 cars will be delivered within 78 months of contract signing. has been awarded a $US 856 million contract by Iranian Islamic Republic Railways (RAI ) to supply 150 three-car DMUs.

See also
 Iranian railway industry

References

External links
 , Official site (archived)

Rolling stock manufacturers of Iran
Manufacturing companies based in Tehran
Iranian entities subject to U.S. Department of the Treasury sanctions
CP Class 4700. Class 4700 are a series of medium power electric locomotives built by Siemens for Comboios de Portugal, the state owned railway company of Portugal. They were built to replace the CP Class 2550 locomotives dating from the early 1960s. Siemens were the natural choice for the original order for 15 machines, placed in 2006, as they built the older Class 5600 locomotives in the 1990s. An option for 10 further locomotives was provided for, and this was taken up in 2007, with delivery following on from the original batch.

EuroSprinter family
The 4700 locomotives are part of the EuroSprinter family of modular locomotives built by Siemens for European railway companies. These 4700 kW engines are a downgraded version of the ES64U4 (4700 kW).

These engines belong to the last EuroSprinter generation, featuring safer cabs.

Cab design
The machines feature a new cab design, meeting the latest EU safety directives in crashworthiness, a design which was continued with the Class 18 locomotives built for the Belgian state railway company.

The new Siemens Vectron also use this successful cab.

References 

Electric locomotives of Portugal
Railway locomotives introduced in 2007
Siemens locomotives
Bo′Bo′ locomotives
5 ft 6 in gauge locomotives
William Edgar (engineer). William Edgar CBE (born 1938) is a British mechanical engineer, who was President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 2004.

He is a graduate from Strathclyde University and Birmingham University with an MSc in Thermodynamics and Fluid Mechanics.
In 1990, he became Chief Executive of the National Engineering Laboratory.

He gave the George Stephenson Lecture on "The challenges of offshore oil and gas deepwater".
He was Director of Seaforth Engineering, which built the Underwater Training Centre at Fort William, Scotland and the National Hyperbaric Centre at Aberdeen. 
He was a Group Director of the John Wood Group, was Chairman of the J.P. Kenny Group for ten years, and on the board of Subsea UK.

He was appointed CBE in the 2004 New Year Honours.

References

External links

1938 births
Living people
Alumni of the University of Strathclyde
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Fellows of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers
British mechanical engineers
Alumni of the University of Birmingham
Andrew Robertson (engineer). Andrew Robertson FRS D.Sc MIMechE, MICE, Wh.Ex (30 January 1883 in Lancashire – 22 October 1977) was a British mechanical engineer.

Education
He was the son of a marine engineer and was apprenticed at his father's works - J. Robertson & Sons in Fleetwood, Lancashire. He was a graduate of the University of Manchester, with a first-class honours degree, a Fairbairn engineering prize and a Whitworth Exhibitioner in 1904.

Career and research
He was a demonstrator and tutor at the university. He investigated mild steel with Gilbert Cook.
During World War I, he worked at the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough Airfield.

He was appointed Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Bristol. 
In 1924, he was elected Principal of the college and dean of the faculty.
A room is named for him at Bristol University.

Awards and honours
Robertson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1940. His candidature citation stated that he was  "Distinguished for his experimental researches in problems relating to the strength of materials. Much of this work was done during the War (his study of the elastic properties of timber calls for special mention) and has not been published under his own name, but his papers on the drop of stress which occurs at yield (with G Cook), and on the strength of solid and tubular struts are classic. He has played a great part in the building up of the Engineering School at Bristol. Member of the Advisory Council DSIR".

Robertson was a Whitworth Exhibitioner in 1904, and later went on to be President of the Whitworth Society in 1947.

References

1883 births
1977 deaths
Engineers from Lancashire
People from Fleetwood
Fellows of the Royal Society
Alumni of the University of Manchester
Bat algorithm. The Bat algorithm is a metaheuristic algorithm for global optimization. It was inspired by the echolocation behaviour of microbats, with varying pulse rates of emission and loudness. The Bat algorithm was developed by Xin-She Yang in 2010.

Metaphor 
The idealization of the echolocation of microbats can be summarized as follows: Each virtual bat flies randomly with a velocity  at position (solution)  with a varying frequency or wavelength and loudness . As it searches and finds its prey, it changes frequency, loudness and pulse emission rate . Search is intensified by a local random walk. Selection of the best continues until certain stop criteria are met. This essentially uses a frequency-tuning technique to control the dynamic behaviour of a swarm of bats, and the balance between exploration and exploitation can be controlled by tuning algorithm-dependent parameters in bat algorithm.

A detailed introduction of metaheuristic algorithms including the bat algorithm is given by Yang where a demo program in MATLAB/GNU Octave is available, while a comprehensive review is carried out by Parpinelli and Lopes. A further improvement is the development of an evolving bat algorithm (EBA) with better efficiency.

See also 
 List of metaphor-based metaheuristics

References

Further reading 
Yang, X.-S. (2014), Nature-Inspired Optimization Algorithms, Elsevier.

Nature-inspired metaheuristics
Andrew Ives. Andrew Ives is a British automotive engineer.

He is a graduate of Brunel University with a First Class Honours in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, and of INSEAD.

He is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering Technology.

He worked for Lucas Industries for thirty years.
He worked with Jaguar Racing.
He oversaw the development of engine electronics for the Metro 6R4 super rally car.
He was Principal Consultant to Saturn Electronics and Engineering Inc.

References

Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
Alumni of Brunel University London
INSEAD alumni
Fellows of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers
W. Alec Osborn. W. Alec Osborn,  (born 1939) is a British mechanical engineer.

Osborn attended Grantham College, where he apprenticed with British Racing Motors, working on projects including the BRM Formula 1 H16 and V12 engines.

Starting in 1969, he worked at Perkins Engines, from design engineer to chief engineer. 
He became a consultant in 2002.

He is on the boards of the Deacon's School, and Hereward Community College. He became director of the Thomas Deacon Academy in 2004. Osborn has received an MBE (Member of the British Empire) for his services to education.

In 2002, he was made a Freeman of the City of London, and was made a fellow of the IMechE in 1991. He is on the Dewar Trophy Technical Sub-Committee.

References

External links

Living people
1939 births
Fellows of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers
Members of the Order of the British Empire
Alumni of Grantham College
John Baxter (engineer). John Baxter,  (born 1951) is a British nuclear engineer, and currently the Group Engineering Director at BP.

Education
Baxter was educated at Strathclyde University, reading mechanical engineering. 
He studied for a postgraduate degree at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, then trained as a Royal Navy Submarine Officer.

Career
Baxter was a Submarine Engineer Officer, and served on a Polaris nuclear submarine carrying out refitting. His subsequent career with the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority included running the Dounreay and Windscale nuclear sites, and forming Hunting BRAE plc which ran the UK Atomic Weapon plants.  In 1996 he was appointed to the UKAEA Board by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.

Prior to BP he was the Group Engineering Director of the UK electricity utility Powergen plc.

Baxter is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of The Royal Society of Edinburgh.  He is also a Fellow of a number of engineering institutions and was the President of both the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and The Welding Institute.  He is the Master of the Worshipful Company of Engineers and a Court Assistant of the Worshipful Company of Tallow Chandlers.

He has been awarded honorary doctorates from Robert Gordon University in 2008 and Strathclyde University in 2011.

He advises the UK Ministry of Defence on oil industry matters and holds the rank of Colonel in the Engineer and Logistic Staff Corps of the Royal Engineers.

From 2000 to 2013 he was a member of the Defence Nuclear Safety Committee advising the Secretary of State on the safety of the UK nuclear weapon and nuclear submarine programmes.

He is a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and the Institution of Engineering and Technology and the Royal Academy of Engineering and a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Engineers.

He advises the MoD on the oil industry concerns.

Baxter was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2016 New Year Honours for services to engineering, education, and the energy sector.

References

External links

1951 births
Living people
Alumni of the University of Strathclyde
BP people
British nuclear engineers
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Fellows of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers
Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
Royal Navy officers
Engineer and Railway Staff Corps officers
Masters of the Worshipful Company of Engineers
Akaflieg München Mü22. The Akaflieg München Mü22 is a single-seat research glider designed and built in Germany from 1953.

Development

Mü22(a) 
The first aircraft built by Akaflieg München after World War II was the Mü22, with typical 'Munich School' construction of steel tube fuselage with wooden wings and tail-unit. Design of this high performance glider with 30% laminar flow forward swept wings and vee tail started in 1953 with construction complete in late 1954 at the Akaflieg München workshops at Prien.

Use of the laminar flow NACA 63 (3)-618 aerofoil section imbued the Mü22 with a good glide ratio at a high speed which was ideal for competition cross-country flight, in contrast to the low speed Mü Scheibe section used for previous sailplanes at Akaflieg München. To maintain strength with reduced weight and to eliminate turbulence from gaps and protuberances the Mü22 was built without airbrakes, relying on the use of the 70 degree trailing edge split flaps and the skill of the pilot in side-slipping for approach control. The high performance of the design was demonstrated during flight testing after the first flight on 29 November 1954 at Riem, as well as by placing second in the German National Gliding Championships in 1959. The Mü22 was also flown extensively to investigate mountain flying during which the Mü22 suffered a serious accident late in 1959 and was damaged beyond repair.

Note: Originally the Mü22 was not given the 'a' suffix. This suffix was applied after the  Mü22b was built to differentiate between the two aircraft.

Mü22b 
The second Mü22, given the suffix 'b', followed the design principles of the original crashed version but introduced an all-flying vee-tail and a smoother fibreglass covered forward fuselage to reduce drag. Construction of the laminar flow wings, using plywood skin over closely spaced ribs, gives an accurate profile which has remained true since manufacture. Flight testing commenced in 1964 but was marred, on 5 June 1964, by the failure of a bolt attaching a bearing in the tail unit, the tail fluttered dramatically breaking the tail unit off the fuselage. The pilot, Dipl.-Ing. Frodo Hadwich, bailed out safely and the glider impacted relatively softly enabling repairs to be carried out.

The relatively high performance of the Mü22b makes the aircraft popular for cross-country tasks but the landing characteristics, without airbrakes, require practice for smooth landings. The Mü22b continued to fly at the  Akaflieg München gliding club, until at least 2002, and has also competed in recent competitions, flown by Heiko Hertrich in 1986, completing a 586 km triangle for the Barron Hilton Cup, as well as completing a 650 km triangle flown by Jan Skedelj.

Variants 
  Akaflieg München Mü22(a)  – The original aircraft with fixed vee-tail and fabric covered steel tube fuselage.
  Akaflieg München Mü22b – The second aircraft, built to replace the crashed Mü22 with fibreglass covered fuselage and all-flying vee-tail.

Specifications (Mü22b)

References

External links

 

1950s German sailplanes
Mu22
Mid-wing aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1954
V-tail aircraft
John Walter Baxter. John Walter Baxter CBE (4 June 1917 in London–21 October 2003) was a British civil engineer.

Baxter left Westminster City School at the age of 16. He was a graduate of the City & Guilds College, with a BSc in engineering.

He worked for Trussed Concrete Steel Company from 1936 to 1941, Royal Dutch Shell from 1941 to 1952. He met Guy Maunsell and joined the firm of Maunsell, Posford, and Pavry in 1952. John Baxter was a founding partner of the new firm of G Maunsell & Partners in 1955 and was a senior partner from 1959 to 1980. He was responsible for designing the Westway.
His work appears in ICE Proceedings. 
He was appointed CBE in the 1974 New Year Honours and was elected president of the Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers in 1986.

He married Jessie in 1941 and they had a daughter.

References

British civil engineers
1917 births
2003 deaths
Engineers from London
Alumni of Imperial College London
People educated at Westminster City School
Presidents of the Institution of Civil Engineers
Presidents of the Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers
OPS 3762. OPS 3762, also known as FTV-2355, was an American reconnaissance satellite which was launched in 1964. It was the first radar imaging satellite to be launched, and the only Quill spacecraft to fly. Its mission was to demonstrate radar imaging techniques for future missions. However, the programme was cancelled before any more satellites were launched.

OPS 3762 was successfully launched aboard a Thrust Augmented Thor SLV-2A Agena-D carrier rocket, flying from Launch Complex 75-1-1 at the Vandenberg Air Force Base. The launch, which was the last orbital launch of the year, occurred at 19:08:56 UTC on 21 December 1964, and successfully placed the spacecraft into the low Earth orbit in which it conducted its mission. Owing to concerns that using radar over the Soviet Union may have been seen as provocative, OPS 3762 conducted imaging tests over the Northwestern United States instead.

OPS 3762 was a  spacecraft, based on the Agena-D which also served as the upper stage of its carrier rocket. It operated for four days. Its orbit had a perigee of , an apogee of , 70 degrees of inclination, and an orbital period of 88.8 minutes. Its side looking airborne radar produced images, which were returned in a KH-4 film capsule at the end of the mission. OPS 3762 itself remained in orbit until 11 January 1965, when its orbit decayed and it reentered the atmosphere. OPS 3762 completed its mission successfully.

See also

 1964 in spaceflight

References

Spacecraft launched in 1964
Space synthetic aperture radar