omniomni/omni-engineering huggingface dataset:
Micro-combustion. Micro-combustion is the sequence of exothermic chemical reaction between a fuel and an oxidant accompanied by the production of heat and conversion of chemical species at micro level. The release of heat can result in the production of light in the form of either glowing or a flame. Fuels of interest often include organic compounds (especially hydrocarbons) in the gas, liquid or solid phase. The major problem of micro-combustion is the high surface to volume ratio. As the surface to volume ratio increases heat loss to walls of combustor increases which leads to flame quenching.

The development of miniaturized products such as microrobots, notebook computers, micro-aerial vehicles and other small scale devices is becoming increasingly important in our daily life. There is a growing interest in developing small scale combustors to power these micro-devices due to their inherent advantages of higher energy density, higher heat and mass transfer coefficients and shorter recharge times compared to electrochemical batteries. The energy density of hydrocarbon fuels is 20-50 times higher than the most advanced Li-ion concept based electrochemical batteries. The concept of the micro-heat engine was proposed by Epstein and Senturia in 1997. Since then, substantial amount of work has been done towards the development and application of such small scale devices to generate power through the combustion of hydrocarbon fuels. Micro-combustors are an attractive alternate to batteries as they have large surface area to volume ratio, due to which, significant amount of heat is transferred through the walls which leads to flame quenching. However, the increased rate of heat transfer through solid walls is advantageous in the case of steam reformers used for hydrogen production.

B. Khandelwal et al. have experimentally studied the flame stability limits and other characteristics in a two staged micro combustor. They found out that staged combustor leads to higher flame stability limits, in addition to that they also offer higher temperature profiles which would be helpful in utilizing the heat produced by combustion. Maruta et al. have experimentally studied the flame propagation characteristics of premixed methane air mixtures in a 2.0 mm diameter straight quartz channel with a positive wall temperature gradient along the flow direction.  This was a simple one-dimensional configuration to study flame stabilization characteristics in microchannels.  Other researchers have studied the flame stabilization behavior and combustion performance in a Swiss roll combustor, micro-gas turbine engines, a micro-thermo-photovoltaic system, a free piston knock engine, a micro-tube combustor, radial channel combustors, and in various other types of micro-combustor.

References

Combustion
International Society for Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization. The International Society for Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization is a learned society in the field of multidisciplinary design optimization that was founded in October 1991. It has more than 1000 members in 45 countries. The current president is Wei Chen (Northwestern University). The society is an affiliated organization of the International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (IUTAM).

Objectives 
The objectives are:
 to stimulate and promote research into all aspects of the optimal design of structures and related topics, including engineering systems consisting partially of structures and/or fluids;
 to encourage practical applications of optimization methods and the corresponding software development in all branches of technology;
 to foster the interchange of ideas amongst various fields contributing to structural and multidisciplinary optimization;
 to support the role of optimization in multidisciplinary design;
 to provide a framework for the organization of meetings and other means for the dissemination of knowledge on structural optimization; and
 to promote teaching of structural optimization in tertiary institutions.

The society works towards these objectives by organizing a biennial "World Congress of Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization" and publishing an official journal, Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization, in collaboration with Springer Science+Business Media.

Past Presidents 

 1991-1995: George Rozvany (Founder President) 
 1995-1999: Raphael Haftka
 1999-2003: Niels Olhoff 
 2003-2007: Martin P. Bendsøe 
 2007-2011: KK Choi 
 2011-2015: Ole Sigmund 
 2015-2019: Cheng Gengdong

References

External links 
 

Organizations established in 1991
International learned societies
Mathematical optimization
Stadtpilot. Stadtpilot is a project of the Braunschweig University of Technology, Germany. Following the qualification for the DARPA Grand Challenge (2007) with the project CarOLO, this project aims to send the cars Henry and Leonie on a course through the Braunschweig inner city (Stadtring).

On October 8, 2010, Leonie was sent on the Stadtring course in real urban traffic; reportedly being the first in the world to do so.

Footnotes 

Self-driving cars
Research and development in Germany
South African Class 35-600. The South African Railways Class  of 1976 is a branch line diesel-electric locomotive.

Between September 1976 and June 1978, the South African Railways placed one hundred Class  General Motors Electro-Motive Division type GT18MC diesel-electric locomotives in branch line service. In 1977, one more Class  locomotive was built for Columbus Stainless in Middelburg, Transvaal.

Manufacturer 
The Class  type GT18MC diesel-electric locomotive was designed by General Motors Electro-Motive Division (GM-EMD) and built in two batches for the South African Railways (SAR) by General Motors South Africa (GMSA) in Port Elizabeth. Fifty were delivered between September 1976 and May 1977, numbered in the range from  to , and another fifty between May 1977 and June 1978, numbered in the range from  to .

In addition, another single Class  GT18MC locomotive was built new in 1977 for Columbus Stainless, a large stainless steel plant which was established in Middelburg, Transvaal in 1965.

Distinguishing features 
Of the GM-EMD Class 35 locomotives, the Class  and  are visually indistinguishable from each other.

Service 
The Class 35 family is South Africa's standard branch line diesel-electric locomotive. The GM-EMD Class  were designed for light rail conditions and they work on most branch lines in the central, eastern, northern and northeastern parts of the country. A number of them also saw service in Richards Bay working the Golela line.

Works numbers 
The Class  builder's works numbers are listed in the table.

Liveries 
The Class 35-600 were all delivered in the SAR Gulf Red livery with signal red buffer beams, yellow side stripes on the long hood sides and a yellow V on each end. In the 1990s many of them began to be repainted in the Spoornet orange livery with a yellow and blue chevron pattern on the buffer beams. Several later received the Spoornet maroon livery. In the late 1990s many were repainted in the Spoornet blue livery with outline numbers on the long hood sides. After 2008 in the Transnet Freight Rail (TFR) and Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA) era, many were repainted in the TFR red, green and yellow livery and at least one was repainted in the PRASA blue livery.

Illustration

References 

3450
C-C locomotives
Co′Co′ locomotives
Co+Co locomotives
Electro-Motive Division locomotives
GMSA locomotives
Cape gauge railway locomotives
Railway locomotives introduced in 1976
1976 in South Africa
Depauperate ecosystem. A depauperate ecosystem can be defined as an ecosystem that lacks species richness or species diversity. This leads to significantly low biodiversity often due to a lack of necessary resources to support life. As a result, depauperate ecosystems often exhibit less complexity by having fewer predators and competing species. Because of this, depauperate ecosystems are often more slow-growing than more complex ecosystems. 

Islands are often an example of depauperate ecosystems because they exhibit lower species diversity and lex complex food webs than continental ecosystems. This can make colonization of depauperate ecosystems more difficult as the colonizing species can exhibit drastic trophic level alterations.

References

Further reading

Ecosystems
Ecology terminology
Habitat
Zyvex. Zyvex is a molecular nanotechnology company, founded by James R. Von Ehr II in 1997.

In April 2007, the corporation split into four components: Zyvex Technologies, Zyvex Instruments (focused on tools, instrumentation, and applications for the semiconductor and advanced research markets), Zyvex Labs, and Zyvex Asia. The family of companies has since produced notable achievements such as the more than 170 patents, which are used in the companies own products or licensed to other companies. These include a number of techniques for dispersing carbon nanotubes in polymers and other high-performance composite materials used in semiconductor fabrication. The company has also developed software such as the technology for automating the atom-plopping.

In 2009, Zyvex announced the creation of Zyvex Marine, a new division that focuses on the design and development of advanced maritime platforms. By 2010, the division was able to produce a lightweight prototype craft that features 75 percent less fuel consumption.

Zyvex Technologies was acquired by OCSiAl in 2014, a Luxembourg-based carbon nanotube manufacturer and this was said to have created the world's largest nanotechnology company. The merger expanded Zyvex's portfolio with the addition of new products in health care, automotive, and sports such as medical prosthetics, aerospace coatings, and even hockey sticks. Zyvex has contributed to the nano-retina which is a prosthetic visionary device and has also contributed to nano-probing devices used in microscopes.

References

External links 
 

Technology companies established in 1997
Nanotechnology companies
Wright Model D. The Wright Model D was built to sell to the United States Army for an observation aircraft. It was similar in design to the Wright Model R with a 6-60 motor. The Model D could fly 66.9 mph and climb 525 feet per minute, but its excessive landing speed discouraged the Army from ordering more.

Development
The aircraft was built to fulfill a request by the United States Army for a speed scout.

Design
The single seat aircraft was made from ash and spruce wood coated with aluminum powder. It used forward mounted finlets ("blinkers" in Wright terminology) to stabilize the aircraft. It was powered by the last six cylinder engine built by the Wright Brothers with a rubber band drive on the flywheel. The 406 cubic inch engine ran at 1,400 to 1560rpm powering two counterrotating propellers via chains.

Operational history
Orville Wright considered the Model D “the easiest to control of any we have ever built” with the exception of the high landing speed.
The United States Army acquired two aircraft in August 1912. One of the two was wrecked and rebuilt during trials. On May 3, 1913 the "speed scout" S.C. no 19 was accepted, and on June 6, 1913 the second aircraft was accepted. Both were not flown regularly and were retired in 1914.

The 1913 engine is on display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

Specifications (Wright Model D)

References

Notes

Single-engined twin-prop pusher aircraft
1910s United States military reconnaissance aircraft
Model D
Aircraft first flown in 1912
Yakovlev AIR-1. The Yakovlev AIR-1 (VVA-3) was a 1920s Soviet two-seat light biplane, the first aircraft designed and built by Aleksandr Sergeyevich Yakovlev.

Development
Yakovlev designed his first aircraft while working at the Zhukovsky Military Aviation Academy; the aircraft was a two-seat light biplane powered by a  ADC Cirrus piston engine. Although the directors of the academy were opposed to the design, the aircraft was built in the Academy Club on his own time.  Originally designated VVA-3 (Military Aviation Academy-3) Yakovlev later redesignated it the AIR-1 in honour of Alexei Ivanovich Rykov, the country's premier (the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars) and the president of the Osoviakihm. The first flight on 12 May 1927 was flown by Yakovlev's friend J.I. Piontkovsky, who later rated the flying qualities as excellent; Piontkovsky later flew the aircraft non-stop from Sevastopol to Moscow in 15½ hours, a distance of 1240 km. In 1928 Yakovlev produced an improved variant, the AIR-2; six were built between 1928 and 1931 fitted with different five-cylinder radial engines. One aircraft powered by a Siemens engine was designated AIR-2S and was fitted with floats designed by V B Shavrov.

Variants
AIR-1
Prototype with a  ADC Cirrus engine.
AIR-2
Improved variant fitted with either a Siemens, Walter NZ-60 or NAMI M-23 radial engine.
AIR-2S
AIR-2 fitted with two wooden floats.
VVA-3
Original designation of the AIR-1

Specifications (AIR-1)

References

Notes

Bibliography

External links

 Yakovlev AIR-1

1920s Soviet and Russian civil utility aircraft
1920s Soviet and Russian sport aircraft
AIR-1
Biplanes
Single-engined tractor aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1927
Aircraft with fixed conventional landing gear
Single-engined piston aircraft
The God Engines. The God Engines is a 2009 science fiction/fantasy novella by John Scalzi.

Synopsis 

The story takes place in a universe where space travel is accomplished by chaining intelligent, human-like creatures called gods to a spacecraft and torturing them to drive the ship. The people are ruled by an organization called the Bishopry Militant, who worship a powerful being. Captain Ean Tephe is completely faithful to the Bishopry, but his faith comes under test when he is assigned a secret mission in which his ship's god seems to have a keen interest.

Reception
The God Engines was a finalist for the 2009 Nebula Award for Best Novella and the 2010 Hugo Award for Best Novella. Publishers Weekly called it "ferociously inventive, painfully vivid, dispassionately bleak and dreadfully memorable", and compared it to a collaboration between J. G. Ballard and H.P. Lovecraft.

References

External links
 First chapter of The God Engines, at Scalzi.com

2009 American novels
2009 science fiction novels
2009 fantasy novels
American science fiction novels
American fantasy novels
Science fantasy novels
Religion in science fiction
American speculative fiction novellas
Works by John Scalzi
Subterranean Press books
Thaden T-1. 

The Thaden T-1 Argonaut was a 1920s American eight-seat all-metal cabin monoplane, built by the Thaden Metal Aircraft Company of San Francisco, California.

Description and history
The Thaden T-1 was a high-wing strut-braced monoplane, constructed of corrugated aluminum, and powered by a  Pratt & Whitney Wasp radial engine. It had a fixed conventional landing gear with a tailskid. Only one example was built (X3902); its first flight was on 15 January 1928, and its final flight ended in 1933 in a crash in Alaska. In 1986, the wrecked fuselage was recovered, and is now on display at the Hiller Aviation Museum in San Carlos, California.

Specifications

See also

Thaden T-2
Thaden T-4

References

Notes

Bibliography

1920s United States airliners
Economy of San Francisco
High-wing aircraft
Single-engined tractor aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1928
Thaden T-2. 

The Thaden T-2 was a 1920s American four-seat all-metal cabin monoplane built by the Thaden Metal Aircraft Company of San Francisco, California, USA.

Design and development
The Thaden Metal Aircraft Company was formed by Herbert von Thaden, a former United States Army Signal Corps pilot and engineer, to work on developing the first American all-metal aircraft. Following on from the strut-braced T-1 the T-2 was a smaller four-seat high-wing cantilever monoplane with flaps, powered by a  Comet radial engine.

Specifications

See also

Thaden T-1
Thaden T-4

References

Bibliography

1920s United States civil utility aircraft
Economy of San Francisco
Single-engined tractor aircraft
High-wing aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1928
Thaden T-4. 

The Thaden T-4 Argonaut was a 1930s American four-seat all-metal cabin monoplane built by the Thaden Metal Aircraft Company of San Francisco, California.

Design and development
The T-4 was the third and last design of the Thaden Metal Aircraft Company which had been formed by Herbert von Thaden, a former United States Army Signal Corps pilot and engineer, to work on developing the first American all-metal aircraft. The T-4 was a high-wing monoplane powered by a  Wright Whirlwind radial engine. It had a fixed conventional landing gear with a tailwheel. Two aircraft were built.

Specifications

See also

Thaden T-1
Thaden T-2

References

Notes

1930s United States civil utility aircraft
High-wing aircraft
Single-engined tractor aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1930
Hanriot H.35. The Hanriot H.35 was a 1920s French intermediate training monoplane designed and built by Avions Hanriot.

Design and development

The H.35 was developed from the earlier H.34 basic trainer and was a two-seat strut-braced parasol  monoplane. The H.35 was powered by a  Hispano-Suiza 8Ab piston engine. Twelve aircraft were built for use with the Hanriot flying school and also the Societe Francaise d'Aviation at Orly. 
 
A 1925 development of the H.35 was the H.36 which was a twin-float equipped version powered by a  Salmson 9Ac piston engine. An order for 50 H.36s was placed by Yugoslavia.

Specifications (H.35)

References

Notes

Bibliography

1920s French civil trainer aircraft
H.35
Single-engined tractor aircraft
Parasol-wing aircraft
Xylan (coating). Xylan is a fluoropolymer-based industrial coating, most commonly used in non-stick cookware. Generally, it is applied in a thin film to the target material to improve its durability and non-stick properties.

Development
Consumer demand for non-stick coatings with improved durability drove research in the 1960s. DuPont, at that time focused on improving housewares, developed important properties of nonstick coatings through research. DuPont scientists found that adding Fluorinated ethylene propylene to the hard, adhesion-promoting binder resins produced one-coat products that were more durable than earlier Teflon formulations. In 1969, when Xylan was developed, Tefal and Teflon accounted for nearly all of the fluoropolymer coatings industry.

Applications
Xylan is generally used to reduce friction, improve wear resistance, and for non-stick applications. Additionally, it can be used to protect a metal from corrosion. The most commonly known application is in non-stick cookware but Xylan coatings have also been used extensively in the automotive industry and for corrosion protection in the oil and gas industry.

Xylan is the umbrella trademark for most of the Whitford Corporation fluoropolymer coatings line. Xylan is made of low friction, wear resistant composites of fluoropolymers and reinforcing binder resins. Xylan coatings can be one-, two- (primer and top-coat), and three- (primer, mid-coat, top-coat) coat conventional and reinforced (filled) coating systems.

The fluoropolymers utilized in Xylan coatings consist of PTFE, PFA, and FEP. The properties listed below may not apply to all Xylan coatings as the fluoropolymer and resin content and type can have significant effects on each property.

Properties

References

Coatings
Wittman Big X. The Wittman Big X is a four seat high wing variant of the Wittman Buttercup. The aircraft received serious attention from both Fairchild Aircraft, and Cessna Aircraft in the post World War II aviation boom.

Development
On a cross-country fuel stop at Hagerstown, Maryland, with Wittman's design, the Buttercup, Fairchild engineers expressed an interest in the design and even entered into negotiations for possible production of the aircraft. With the onset of World War II, production plans were shelved, but Fairchild contacted Wittman and proposed that a four-seat version would be marketable. Wittman designed the four-place "Big X" soon afterward.

When Fairchild did not follow up on production offers, Wittman was contacted by Cessna in Wichita, Kansas, to demonstrate the lightweight and strong spring steel landing gear of the Big X. Cessna bought the plane and its production rights in order to use the gear on its new Cessna 195 taildragger. Wittman later produced an updated version in a two-place configuration called the Wittman Tailwind that became a popular homebuilt aircraft.

Design
The Big X was built in the same manner as Buttercup. It was steel tube fuselage with fabric covering and all-wood wings. The original Big X featured a 130 hp Franklin engine, later upgraded to a 150 hp.

Operational history
Big X was used as a companion plane and baggage hauler during Wittman's years as an air racer. The original aircraft was rebuilt by Forrest Lovley in 1980.

Specifications Wittman Big X

Notes

References

Homebuilt aircraft
Big X
Aircraft first flown in 1945
Single-engined tractor aircraft
United States sport aircraft
High-wing aircraft
Hansa-Brandenburg W.20. The Hansa-Brandenburg W.20 was a German submarine-launched reconnaissance flying boat of the World War I era, designed and built by Hansa-Brandenburg.

Design and development
Due to the need to be stored and launched from a submarine aircraft carrier, the W.20 was a small single-seat biplane flying boat that was designed to be assembled and dismantled quickly. It had a slender hull on which was mounted a biplane wing and a conventional braced tailplane. It was powered by a seven-cylinder, 80 PS Oberursel U.0 rotary engine — basically a German-made near-clone of the Gnome Lambda pre-war French rotary — mounted on struts between the wings driving a pusher propeller. The pilot had an open cockpit just forward of the lower wing. Because of the slender hull stabilising floats were fitted below and at the end of the lower wings. The submarine intended to carry the W.20 was not built and only three W.20s were built.

Specifications (3rd built)

See also

References

Notes

Bibliography

W.20
1910s German military reconnaissance aircraft
Flying boats
Submarine-borne aircraft
Single-engined pusher aircraft
Biplanes
Rotary-engined aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1918
Joseph Fogerty. Joseph Fogerty, CE, FRIBA, (1831-1899) was an Irish civil engineer, architect, and novelist active in mid-to-late-nineteenth-century Limerick, London, and Vienna.

Born in Limerick, he studied under his father, engineer John Fogerty in Limerick before entering the University College, London in 1856, later working in London for Sir John Fowler.  He was elected Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects on 9 February 1880 after being proposed by Henry Currey, Edwin Nash and Charles Barry.  Three of his novels, Lauterdale, Caterina and Countess Irene, were published. He died at his house, Enderby, in Sydenham.

He was the brother and uncle of architects William Fogerty and John Frederick Fogerty, respectively. He married Hannah Cochrane (d. 1910), of Limerick and they had a daughter, Elsie Fogerty (born in Sydenham on 16 December 1865), who became a notable teacher of speech.

References

External links
 

1831 births
1899 deaths
Irish railway mechanical engineers
Engineers from County Limerick
Architects from Limerick (city)
Alumni of University College London
Fellows of the Royal Institute of British Architects
Irish male novelists
19th-century British novelists
19th-century Irish architects
19th-century British male writers
19th-century Irish novelists
19th-century Irish engineers
Writers from Limerick (city)