ABEC News for March 2009
|
ORGANIZES
LECTURE From Professor Emeritus Gordon G. Shepherd On "Global measurements of winds in the upper atmosphere using a Doppler Michelson Interferometer"
Will be on March 29, 2009 – Sunday starting at 12:30 – noon, in the lower Hall of the Macedono - Bulgarian East Orthodox Cathedral “Sts. Cyril and Methody”. 237 Sackville Street, Toronto, ON, M5A 3G1, Tel: 416 368 2828. |
TRAINING
Skills for Change
Engineering Your Future (EYF) ***
http://www.skillsforchange.org/eyf/index.html
Teach in Ontario
http://www.skillsforchange.org/teachinontario/index.html
Skills for Change is a
United Way
Member Agency
791 St. Clair Avenue West · Toronto, Ontario · P 416.658.3101 · F
416.658.
TRAINING
|
|
|
|
|
***** The Engineering Connections *****
Engineering Connections:
Software
Skills Enhancement Program
School of Applied Technology
Humber Institute of Technology & Advanced Learning
205
Humber College Boulevard
Toronto, Ontario, M9W 5L7
Tel: 416-675-6622 ext. 4742
www.appliedtechnology.humber.ca/ite
Training in Engineering Software Applications
Obtain advanced training in AutoCAD, SolidWorks, PLCs, and many other technology and software application specific to your discipline of Engineering.
Engineering
Skills
Learn up to date engineering codes & standards, project management fundamentals, work safety methods and practices, professional engineering standards and requirements for licensing in Ontario.
AutoCAD
Skills Assessment
Opportunity to obtain an assessment of your AutoCAD skills to determine your competency level.
Academic
Credential Evaluations
Opportunity to have your academic credentials evaluated for Canadian equivalency.
Workplace
Communication
Have your English Language skills assessed and attend workshops to enhance your workplace communication skills to be more effective engineering interviews.
Job
Search
Understand the Canadian labour market, learn effective job search strategies, develop a professional resume, receive ongoing support in job search and access engineering contacts through a full-time job developer.
|
|
|
|
ADMISSION REQUIREMENTS:
- Be an Internationally Trained Engineer in Mechanical, Civil, and/or Electrical disciplines
- Be a recent immigrant
- Be legally entitled to work in Canada
- Have educational qualifications with a minimum equivalency to a four year Canadian Bachelor's degree
- Have achieved a Canadian Language Benchmark level 7/8
- Up-to-date engineering experience in a related engineering field with current labour market demand in Ontario
- Have good computer literacy skills in Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
- Attend an information session and successfully complete an application interview
- Humber will provide the opportunity for Canadian Language Benchmark, Academic Credentials and AutoCAD Skills Assessments to qualified candidates as appropriate.
|
|
|
www.appliedtechnology.humber.ca/ite
Information sessions for the next intake ( May 25 - Aug. 29, 2009) will be held every Monday starting March 2, 2009.
NEWS
Jordan, Russia sign nuclear deal
by Staff Writers
Amman (AFP) Feb 26, 2009
|
|
Russia, which is helping Iran build its first nuclear plant, inked a preliminary cooperation deal with Jordan on Thursday to pave the way for producing nuclear power in the energy-poor kingdom. Under the agreement, Russia will help Jordan, which imports around 95 percent of its energy needs, build power and desalination plants as well as research centres, Jordan Atomic Energy Commission head Khaled Tukan said. "A final agreement will be signed in Moscow by the end March," Tukan told state news agency Petra after signing the deal with Nikolai Spassky, deputy director of the Russian Federal Agency for Nuclear Energy. "It's key to boost Jordan's peaceful nuclear programme." Jordan's 1.2 billion tonnes of phosphate reserves are estimated to contain 130,000 tonnes of uranium, whose enriched form provides fuel for nuclear plants. The government wants the first such plant to be ready by 2015. The kingdom is the latest Arab country, including Egypt and pro-Western Gulf states, to announce plans for nuclear power programmes in the face of Shiite Iran's controversial atomic drive. The United States, Israel and other countries suspect Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons but Tehran insists its atomic programme is purely for peaceful purposes. Russia has been involved in building a power station in the Iranian Gulf port of Bushehr for the past 14 years. Tehran began testing the 1,000-megawatt plant on Wednesday, saying it could go on line within months. http://www.nuclearpowerdaily.com/reports/Jordan_Russia_sign_nuclear_deal_999.html |
University Of Alberta and NINT Researchers Make Solar Energy Breakthrough
by Staff Writers
Edmonton, Canada (SPX) Feb 27, 2009
|
|
The University of Alberta and the National Research Council's National Institute (NINT) for Nanotechnology have engineered an approach that is leading to improved performance of plastic solar cells (hybrid organic solar cells). The development of inexpensive, mass-produced plastic solar panels is a goal of intense interest for many of the world's scientists and engineers because of the high cost and shortage of the ultra-high purity silicon and other materials normally required. Plastic solar cells are made up of layers of different materials, each with a specific function, called a sandwich structure. Jillian Buriak, a professor of chemistry at the U of A, NINT principal investigator and member of the research team, uses a simple analogy to describe the approach: "Consider a clubhouse sandwich, with many different layers. One layer absorbs the light, another helps to generate the electricity, and others help to draw the electricity out of the device. Normally, the layers don't stick well, and so the electricity ends up stuck and never gets out, leading to inefficient devices. We are working on the mayonnaise, the mustard, the butter and other 'special sauces' that bring the sandwich together, and make each of the layers work together. That makes a better sandwich, and makes a better solar cell, in our case". After two years of research, these U of A and NINT scientists have, by only working on one part of the sandwich, seen improvements of about 30 per cent in the efficiency of the working model. Michael Brett, professor of electrical and computer engineering, NINT principal investigator and member of the research team is optimistic: "our team is so incredibly cross-disciplinary, with people from engineering, physics and chemistry backgrounds all working towards this common goal of cheap manufacturable solar cells. This collaboration is extremely productive because of the great team with such diverse backgrounds, [although] there is still so much more for us to do, which is exciting." This multidisciplinary approach, common at the National Institute for Nanotechnology, brings together the best of the NRC and the University of Alberta. The team estimates it will be five to seven years before plastic solar panels will be mass produced but Buriak adds that when it happens solar energy will be available to everyone. She says the next generation of solar technology belongs to plastic. "Plastic solar cell material will be made cheaply and quickly and in massive quantities by ink jet-like printers.". More... |
Nano-origami Used To Build Tiny Electronic Devices
ScienceDaily (Feb. 27, 2009) — Folding paper into shapes such as a crane or a butterfly is challenging enough for most people. Now imagine trying to fold something that's about a hundred times thinner than a human hair and then putting it to use as an electronic device.
A team of researchers led by George Barbastathis, associate professor of mechanical engineering, is developing the basic principles of "nano-origami," a new technique that allows engineers to fold nanoscale materials into simple 3-D structures. The tiny folded materials could be used as motors and capacitors, potentially leading to better computer memory storage, faster microprocessors and new nanophotonic devices.
Traditional micro- and nano-fabrication techniques such as X-ray lithography and nano-imprinting work beautifully for two-dimensional structures, and are commonly used to build microprocessors and other micro-electrical-mechanical (MEMS) devices. However, they cannot create 3-D structures.
"A lot of what's done now is planar," says Tony Nichol, a mechanical engineering graduate student working on the project. "We want to take all of the nice tools that have been developed for 2-D and do 3-D things."
The MIT team uses conventional lithography tools to pattern 2-D materials at the nanoscale, then folds them into predetermined 3-D shapes, opening a new realm of possible applications.
Smaller, faster
The researchers have already demonstrated a 3-D nanoscale capacitor, developed in collaboration with MIT Professor Yang Shao-Horn, which was presented at the 2005 meeting of the Electrochemical Society. The current model has only one fold but the more folds that are added, the more energy it will be able to store. Extra layers also promote faster information flow, just as the human brain's many folds allow for quicker communication between brain regions, says Nader Shaar, a mechanical engineering graduate student working on the project.
Getting the materials to fold back and forth into an accordion-like structure has been one of the researchers' biggest challenges, along with getting the faces and edges to line up accurately.
They have worked out several ways to induce the nanomaterials to fold, including:
Depositing metal (usually chromium) onto the surface where you want
the fold to be. This causes the material to curl upward, but it does not
allow for right angles or accordion-type folds.
Directing a beam of helium ions onto the desired fold location. The
beams imprint patterns that will cause the material to fold once it's
removed from the surface. High-energy beams go to the bottom of the
material and cause it to fold up; ions from low-energy beams accumulate
at the top of the material and make it fold down.
Embedding gold wires in the material. A current running along the
gold wires interacts with an external magnetic field, creating a Lorentz
force that lifts the face. This technique is a form of directed
self-assembly, where the designer provides the template and then lets
the device assemble itself.
The folded shapes can be fabricated with a few different types of material, including silicon, silicon nitride (a type of ceramic) and a soft polymer known as SU-8.
Once the material is folded, the tricky part is getting the faces to align properly. The researchers have developed a few ways to do this successfully: one uses magnets; another involves attaching polymers to a certain spot on the faces and melting them with an electric current, sealing the two faces together.
They're still working on getting faces and edges of a folded cube to line up with nanoscale precision, but Shaar, co-supervised by associate professor of mechanical engineering Carol Livermore, has devised a promising method that uses three pairs of matching holes and protrusions to pull the edge and face into alignment.
The researchers are deep in the development phase of their nano-folded devices, but they are starting to think about how the technology could be used in the future. "We've got the core components figured out, and now we're just having fun with figuring out some applications," says Nichol.
A team of MIT researchers folded this polymer sheet into one corner of a cube. The edge of each face is about 800 microns. (Credit: Photo / Nader Shaar)
Adapted from materials provided by Massachusetts Institute of Technology.