Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Technical English 3
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Descargado por Diego Avalos (luisdiag@gmail.com)
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Este proyecto nació a principios del año 2008 con el afán de lograr que todo
estudiante egresado de la Facultad de Ingeniería tenga conocimiento de Inglés
Técnico para poder aplicarlo tanto en sus estudios como en su desempeño
profesional.
This project started the first semester 2008 with the eagerness to obtain that all
withdrawn students of the Faculty of Engineering have knowledge of Technical
English, becoming it a necessity that the students apply this knowledge in their
studies as in their professional performance.
DEAN
Awareness / Acknowledgment
Contenido
LEAN MANUFACTURING ................................................................................................................................. 12
INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................... 12
LEAN MANUFACTURING GOALS.............................................................................................................................. 13
STEPS TO ACHIEVE LEAN SYSTEMS ........................................................................................................................... 14
DESIGN A SIMPLE MANUFACTURING SYSTEM ............................................................................................................. 14
THERE IS ALWAYS ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT ............................................................................................................ 14
CONTINUOUSLY IMPROVE ..................................................................................................................................... 15
MEASURE .......................................................................................................................................................... 15
HOMEWORK:...................................................................................................................................................... 16
PROCESS DIAGRAMS ....................................................................................................................................... 17
INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................... 17
OPERATIONS DIAGRAM ........................................................................................................................................ 18
IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS................................................................................................................................. 19
PROCESS FLOW DIAGRAM ..................................................................................................................................... 19
IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS................................................................................................................................. 20
PROCESS TRAVEL DIAGRAM................................................................................................................................... 20
IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS................................................................................................................................. 21
HOMEWORK ....................................................................................................................................................... 22
QUALITY CONTROL .......................................................................................................................................... 25
INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................... 25
QUALITY CONTROL CONCEPTS ................................................................................................................................ 25
QUALITY ASSURANCE ............................................................................................................................................ 25
MEASURING THE QUALITY ..................................................................................................................................... 26
2.1 EVALUATING THE QUALITY ............................................................................................................................ 26
INTRODUCING LEAN PROCESSES ............................................................................................................................. 27
LEAN TECHNIQUES ............................................................................................................................................... 27
VALUE STREAM MAPPING...................................................................................................................................... 27
THE 5S METHOD .................................................................................................................................................. 28
RAPID IMPROVEMENT EVENTS................................................................................................................................. 28
LEAN MATERIALS AND KANBAN ............................................................................................................................... 29
HOMEWORK ....................................................................................................................................................... 29
ALTERNATIVE ENERGY..................................................................................................................................... 32
INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................... 32
TODAY’S ENERGY SOURCES = FOSSIL FUELS................................................................................................................ 32
THE PROBLEMS OF THE USE OF THE FOSSIL FUELS......................................................................................................... 33
THE SOLUTIONS ................................................................................................................................................... 34
SOLAR ENERGY ................................................................................................................................................ 34
SOLAR HEAT ....................................................................................................................................................... 35
PHOTOVOLTAIC, OR SOLAR, CELLS .......................................................................................................................... 35
HOW SOLAR CELL ENERGY WORKS ........................................................................................................................... 36
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LEAN MANUFACTURING
Introduction
The elimination of waste is the goal of Lean, and Toyota defined three broad types of waste:
Muda
Mura
Muri
Muda: is a traditional general Japanese term for an activity that is wasteful and doesn't add value or is
unproductive and it is also a key concept in the Toyota Production System (TPS).
Mura: is traditional general Japanese term for unevenness, inconsistency in physical matter or human
spiritual condition.
Muri: is a Japanese term for overburden, unreasonableness or absurdity, which has become
popularized in the West by its use as a key concept in the Toyota Production System.
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Reduce time: Reducing the time it takes to finish an activity from start to finish is one of
the most effective ways to eliminate waste and lower costs.
Reduce total costs: To minimize cost, a company must produce only to customer demand.
Overproduction increases a company’s inventory costs due to storage needs.
The following steps should be implemented in order to create the ideal lean
manufacturing system:
1. Design a simple manufacturing system
2. Recognize that there is always room for improvement
3. Continuously improve the lean manufacturing system design
4. Measure
The core of lean is founded on the concept of continuous product and process improvement and
the elimination of non-value added activities. “The Value adding activities are simply only those things
the customer is willing to pay for, everything else is waste, and should be eliminated, simplified,
reduced, or integrated”(Rizzardo, 2003). Improving the flow of material through new ideal system
layouts at the customer's required rate would reduce waste in material movement and inventory.
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Continuously improve
A continuous improvement mindset is essential to reach a company's goals. The term "continuous
improvement" means incremental improvement of products, processes, or services over time, with
the goal of reducing waste to improve workplace functionality, customer service, or product
performance (Suzaki, 1987).
Measure
A set of performance metrics which is considered to fit well in a Lean environment is overall
equipment effectiveness, or OEE, which is a hierarchy of metrics which focus on how effectively a
manufacturing operation is utilized.
To keep things really simple, lean manufacturing has a base premise and overall goal “to get
more done with less” and this is effectively done, by:
Lean manufacturing involves some real positive, productive changes in businesses that will
have a measurable impact in the bottom line. Benefits of lean production could include:
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Homework:
Investigate the following terms related to lean manufacturing and give their definition:
Just in time Kanban Kaizen Poka Yoke
Suggested videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0Q-xaYior0&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SU01D-jTZcE&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q89qAbAAR3Q&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdHGTCXcJQU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKb84GafalI
Activities
Complete the next chart with the next definitions:
Lean manufacturing
Reduce Time
Continuously Improve
TPS
Improve quality
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PROCESS DIAGRAMS
Introduction
The process diagrams are very important in the manufacturing industry because they give us a
clear perspective of the processes with every step, including materials, time, distance and others. This
helps the engineers to interpret and analyze the manufacturing process and make decisions that will
improve the process without being there to watch how everything works.
In the header you will include all the relevant information such as: company name, analyst,
date, process, area, page number, type of diagram, etc.
In the body, you will draw the diagram that is required according the specifications of each
type and of the process.
And in the summary you will write all the steps that the process has, including time. Time is
the most important factor because we use it to calculate the process efficiency and productivity.
Example:
Header
Body
Summary
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Operations Diagram
Description Symbol
0.7 min
1 In a pot put 1 liter of water, in a stove
With high fire, let it boil
1 min
2 Take the 0.30 pounds of chocolate
out of the bag and put it into the pot
0.5 min
0.8 min
5 Get a cup and serve
0.5 min
6 Add the marshmallows
0.4 min
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Summary
Operation 6 10.5
Inspection 1 0.4
Combined 1 0.5
Totals 8 11.4
Important considerations
Note that the time is given in minutes; this is a standard for all the diagrams.
The diagram always is going to be drawn from right to left, even if it has simultaneous
processes or not.
The time is placed in the upper-left corner of the symbol.
A brief description of every step of the process is written at the right side of the symbol.
When numbering the process remember that you have to do it according to its function in the
diagram, and when you have a simultaneous process you have to write the number on the left
first and then in the right, as shown in the example.
The process flow diagram is a graphic representation of the steps that follows a chronologic
sequence of activities in a process or procedure, identifying them with symbols according to its
nature, and also includes all the considered important information that is needed for analysis. This
information could be distance, time, quantity, etc. This helps us discover and eliminate waste and
delays, making the process more efficient and increase the productivity in the manufacturing
industry.
In this diagram we include the storage, operation, inspection, combined, delays and
transportation symbols.
Description Symbol
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Inspection: is when we check how the process is going and also the
quality of the product during the manufacturing process.
Combined: this is an operation-inspection step and is used when in the
process you have to check the products during an operation.
Delay: this is used when nothing is being done in the process, It could be
the wait for other paralell process to finish before adding the product to
the asembly line.
Transportation: is when the product is moved more than 1.5
meters to the next step. This is because the human body Can move
something from one side to other between 0 and 1.5 m and its
irrelevant according to standars.
Storage: this is used at the beginning of the process when the
materials are taken from the raw materials storage and at the end
of it in the finished product storage.
As the operations diagram, it has the same parts: header, body and summary, and it’s
important to include in the summary the time and distance that you have in the diagram.
Important considerations
This diagram uses the same symbolism as the process flow and also the same structure, the only
difference is that we draw the diagram in a plan view of the manufacturing plant.
Remember to always draw the symbols in a 1 cm2 area. This is a standard for all the diagrams that
you’re going to draw.
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Important considerations
Example: (For space reasons, this diagram doesn’t include the time and distance)
th
Company name: Industry S.A. Analyst: John Hamilton Date: Nov 20 , 2010
Process: production of ketchup Area: manufacturing plant Type of diagram: process travel
Page 1 of 1
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Summary
Operation 9
Inspection 2
Combined 2
Transportation 4
Delay 3
Storage 1
Totals 21
Homework
With the given videos, draw the operations diagram, the process flow diagram and the operations
travel diagram.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TI-dSckvw0Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5sNItVp9cA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Y5Auwf0nXE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3K3-stVK0lM
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Activities:
According to the picture below, determine what symbol each operation needs:
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Sawdust 6%
Waiting to be processed
Waiting to be processed
Devastation and Comprobation
Transfer to the pendulum
(forklift) Sawdust 0.38%
Sawdust
Cut and Comprobation
Waiting to be transported
Sawdust 0.32%
Transfer to the assembly area
Waiting to be transported (forklift)
Waiting to be processed
Waiting to be transported
Storage
Description Symbol No. of steps Time Description 2 Symbol No. of steps2 Time2
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QUALITY CONTROL
Introduction
Quality control is a critical concept in every industry and profession.
As globalization continues and the world become smaller, making it possible
for consumers to pick and choose from the best products worldwide, the
survival of your job and of your company depends on your ability to produce
a quality product or service. In this chapter, we define the term “quality”,
and we introduce some important quality control concepts and methods.
Quality Assurance
Quality assurance focuses on the ability of a process to produce or deliver a quality product or
service. This method differs from quality control in that it looks at the entire process, not just the final
product. Quality control is designed to detect problems with a product or service; quality assurance
attempts to head off problems at the pass by tweaking a production process until it can produce a
quality product.
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Employee training is critical to ensure that everyone involved in your process measures the
same specifications in the same way. You also need to collect data in a usable format so that you can
analyze it to determine the effectiveness of your quality process. The effectiveness of your quality
process is directly related to the quality of your data collection and analysis process. If you don’t have
a good data, you can’t make good decisions.
The most common way to analyze the data you collect is to use
statistics. Statistics serve many purposes within quality control:
Although, much of statistics allows you to look back only at was happened in the past.
Statistical Process Control (SPC) allows you to identify problems before they can negatively impact the
quality of your product or service. The basic idea behind SPC is that if you can spot a change in a
process before it gets to the point of making bad products, you can fix the process before bad
products hits the shelves.
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Lean processes are the latest diet craze in the world of quality control. Lean is a quality control
technique you can use to identify and eliminate the flab in your company’s processes. The “flab” is all
the dead weight carried by a process without adding any value.
Most company processes are wasteful in terms of time and materials, which often results in
poorer quality to the costumer – a concern of all businesses. Lean focuses in customer satisfaction
and cost reduction. Proponents of the technique believe that every step in a process is an opportunity
to make a mistake – to create a quality problem, in other words. The fewer steps you have in a
process, the fewer chances for error you create and the better the quality in your final product or
service.
You can apply the lean techniques in the following sections to all types of processes and
environments ranging from offices, to hospitals, to factories. In most cases applying lean concepts
doesn’t require an increase in capital costs – it simply reassigns people to more productive purposes
and of course, lean processes are cheaper to operate.
Lean Techniques
Value Stream Mapping
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The 5S method
Work areas evolve along with the processes they support. As an organization implements new
actions and tools, you must find a place for them “somewhere”. Over time, clutter can slowly build as
piles of excess materials or tools grow and gradually gum up the smooth flow of work.
The 5S method is an essential tool for any quality initiative that seeks to clear up the flow of
work. The 5S describe five Japanese attributes required for a clean work place:
Seiri (organization)
Seiton (neatness)
Seiso (cleaning)
Seiketsu (standardization)
Shitsuke (discipline)
No one knows a process like the workers who touch it every day. They know how the work
should flow, they can identify obstacles that slow everyone down, and they deal with problems that
never seem to go away.
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A company’s materials are essential for the organization to work well, but they also tied up a
large part of a company’s capital. And while the company does its business year in and year out, its
materials are, stolen, damaged, rotting, corroding, and losing value in many other ways.
A key part of the lean approach is to minimize the amount of materials (both incoming and finished
goods) you have sitting around in your facility. Excess materials hide problems with purchasing, work
scheduling, scrap rates, and so on. Eliminating this excess materials provides an immediate financial
benefit to your company – if you eliminate correctly.
You don’t want to eliminate so thoroughly that you cause shortages. One method you can use
to fix the problem of excess materials without causing shortages is Kanban. Kanban is a materials
system controlled by the customer. When the customer buys an item, action cascades back up the
production line to make one more of that item.
Homework
Suggested videos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7Z33tljMTQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdhC4ziAhgY
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Activities:
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ALTERNATIVE ENERGY
Introduction
You need energy to start your day. Your breakfast is the fuel your body needs to work. What
would you do if you ran out of your favorite cereal? You could buy another box. But what if the store
was all out, too? What if it wasn’t getting any more deliveries? What would you do then? The answer
seems simple; you’d have to find another food for breakfast. The world faces a similar problem; our
fuel resources are running low and could run out in your lifetime.
Most everything in the world needs energy to work. Think about the energy you use each day:
the lights you turn on, the bus or car you take to school, the computer you use for homework, the
television you watch before bed. Even while you sleep, energy runs your furnace heating your house
and the refrigerator keeping food from spoiling. It even runs the alarm clock that wakes you up in the
morning. Now think about how many people live on the Earth. With a population of more than 6
billion, the world uses a lot of energy.
1. Coal
2. Oil
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nylon backpack, and even your fleece jacket are all made from oil. Some homes burn oil for heat and
some power plants burn oil too. In many countries, however, oil’s main use is for transportation. Oil is
made into gasoline for cars, diesel fuel for trucks, and jet fuel for airplanes.
3. Natural gas
Companies drill for natural gas the same way they do for oil. Natural gas is highly flammable.
Gas stoves cook food with a lower flame. In the United States, and probably other countries, the
house’s heating system and water heater may use natural gas. Natural gas is also used in power
plants to create electricity.
Fossil fuels have been a useful source of energy, but we need to rethink how much we depend
on them. We need to consider three main facts. First, fossil fuel supplies are low. We use so much
energy that someday we’ll use up all of Earth’s fossil fuels. At the rate we use now fossil fuels,
scientists’ estimate that the world’s reserve will last 40 to 70 more years. What will happen after all of
the oil, coal, and natural gas have run out? How will
we travel from place to place? How will we light our
homes? How will we communicate with each other?
Finally, burning fossil fuels harms Earth. Coal, oil, and natural gas create a lot of air pollution.
The burning of fossil fuels releases harmful emissions that cause asthma and other health problems.
This pollution also leads to acid rain and snow. Many scientist and citizens are concerned about the
carbon dioxide released by burning fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide belongs to a group of gases known as
greenhouse gases. As these gases collect in the atmosphere, they act like the glass walls of a
greenhouse, trapping warm air close to Earth’s surface. This warming is natural, and long ago it made
the planet’s environment mild enough to support life. However, when human activities pump larger-
than-normal amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, more heat is trapped, and
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temperatures can grow unnaturally high. As a result, there can be major effects on weather that may
be devastating to the environment and all the people on Earth.
The solutions
What can we do about our energy problems? Instead of relying on fossil fuels, we need to
examine our “green” alternatives. Green energy is renewable – it is constantly being replaced and
won’t run out. Natural forces, such as wind, water, and sunlight are green energy sources. It’s not
easy to switch to green energy; however, we rely on fossil fuels every day. People would need to
spend huge amounts of money to change from one kind of fuel to another. We need to take action,
but first, we need to understand our energy alternatives, then we can make the best energy choices
to preserve our planet.
Solar energy
Solar Energy, the energy generated by the sun. This energy is in the form of electromagnetic
radiation and travels to the earth in waves of various lengths. Some of the radiation becomes evident
as heat, some as visible light. All life on earth depends ultimately on the sun's radiation. It warms the
earth and provides the energy that green plants use to make their food. (Without plants, there would
be no animals, since all animals must feed on plants or on plant-eating organisms.)
Since ancient times attempts have been made—with varying success—to put the energy from
the sun to practical use. In the third century B.C., the Greek mathematician and physicist Archimedes
is said to have used the sun's rays reflected from mirrors to set fire to an invading Roman fleet. In the
19th century, John Ericsson, designer of the ironclad warship Monitor, built an engine that was
powered by the sun's energy.
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Solar Heat
Solar heat supplies energy for a variety of uses. The preservation of fruits, vegetables, meat,
and fish by sun drying has been practiced for centuries. Some industrial products are also dried by the
heat of the sun. In some warm, arid regions, the heat of the sun is used to evaporate seawater or
brines to recover salt and other minerals.
Water for domestic use can be heated by solar energy by the use of roof-mounted devices
consisting of heat collectors through which water pipes pass. As the water is heated it flows into
storage tanks. Heat collectors can also be used to heat homes and other buildings. The sun's heat is
transferred to a fluid—usually water or air—which then heats the interior of the building. For heating
at night and on cloudy days, some form of heat storage is necessary. A common storage system
consists of an insulated tank to hold solar-heated water. In many regions, additional heat from a
conventional heating system is required for extended cloudy or cold periods.
Industrial installations that use large arrays of mirrors to produce intense solar heating have
been developed in a number of countries. A large solar furnace at Odeillo, in the French Pyrenees,
uses an array of thousands of movable mirrors to direct sunlight on a parabolic mirror. This mirror
focuses the sunlight on an oven, yielding temperatures of more than 6,000° F. (3,300° C.). The furnace
is used to study the effects of high temperatures on certain substances and for various industrial
processes.
In the southwestern United States, a few experimental installations have been built that use a
large array of computer-controlled mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto a boiler atop a high tower.
Steam produced in the boiler powers a turbine that generates electricity.
Photovoltaic cells convert sunlight directly into electricity. The cells are made of a
semiconductor material, usually silicon. A solar battery consists of an array of solar cells connected
together to generate electric power.
Solar batteries are the source of power on most artificial satellites. Solar batteries are used in
remote locations as a source of power for navigational buoys, irrigation pumps, and other equipment.
Small solar batteries are used in some calculators and wrist watches.
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To a very limited extent solar batteries have been used to supply electric power to businesses
and residences. However, photovoltaic cells are relatively costly to manufacture and are thus not
practical for generating large amounts of electricity commercially. Research in the use of photovoltaic
cells for solar energy is directed toward finding ways of increasing the efficiency of the cells and of
reducing their cost.
The solar cells that you see on calculators and satellites are also called photovoltaic (PV) cells,
which as the name implies (photo meaning "light" and voltaic meaning "electricity"), convert sunlight
directly into electricity. A module is a group of cells connected electrically and packaged into a frame
(more commonly known as a solar panel), which can then be grouped into larger solar arrays, like the
one operating at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.
PV cells also all have one or more electric field that acts to force electrons freed by light
absorption to flow in a certain direction. This flow of electrons is a current, and by placing metal
contacts on the top and bottom of the PV cell, we can draw that current off for external use, say, to
power a calculator. This current, together with the cell's voltage (which is a result of its built-in
electric field or fields), defines the power (or wattage) that the solar cell can produce.
That's the basic process, but there's really much more to it. On the next page, let's take a
deeper look into one example of a PV cell: the single-crystal silicon cell.
Silicon has some special chemical properties, especially in its crystalline form. An atom of sili-
con has 14 electrons, arranged in three different shells. The first two shells -- which hold two and
eight electrons respectively -- are completely full. The outer shell, however, is only half full with just
four electrons. A silicon atom will always look for ways to fill up its last shell, and to do this, it will
share electrons with four nearby atoms. It's like each atom holds hands with its neighbors, except that
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in this case, each atom has four hands joined to four neighbors. That's what forms the crystalline
structure, and that structure turns out to be important to this type of PV cell.
The only problem is that pure crystalline silicon is a poor conductor of electricity because none
of its electrons are free to move about, unlike the electrons in more optimum conductors like copper.
To address this issue, the silicon in a solar cell has impurities -- other atoms purposefully mixed in with
the silicon atoms -- which changes the way things work a bit. We usually think of impurities as
something undesirable, but in this case, our cell wouldn't work without them. Consider silicon with an
atom of phosphorous here and there, maybe one for every million silicon atoms. Phosphorous has
five electrons in its outer shell, not four. It still bonds with its silicon neighbor atoms, but in a sense,
the phosphorous has one electron that doesn't have anyone to hold hands with. It doesn't form part
of a bond, but there is a positive proton in the phosphorous nucleus holding it in place.
When energy is added to pure silicon, in the form of heat for example, it can cause a few
electrons to break free of their bonds and leave their atoms. A hole is left behind in each case. These
electrons, called free carriers, then wander randomly around the crystalline lattice looking for another
hole to fall into and carrying an electrical current. However, there are so few of them in pure silicon,
that they aren't very useful.
But our impure silicon with phosphorous atoms mixed in is a different story. It takes a lot less
energy to knock loose one of our "extra" phosphorous electrons because they aren't tied up in a bond
with any neighboring atoms. As a result, most of these electrons do break free, and we have a lot
more free carriers than we would have in pure silicon. The process of adding impurities on purpose is
called doping, and when doped with phosphorous, the resulting silicon is called N-type ("n" for
negative) because of the prevalence of free electrons. N-type doped silicon is a much better
conductor than pure silicon.
The other part of a typical solar cell is doped with the element boron, which has only three
electrons in its outer shell instead of four, to become P-type silicon. Instead of having free
electrons, P-type ("p" for positive) has free openings and carries the opposite (positive) charge.
Before now, our two separate pieces of silicon were electrically neutral; the interesting part
begins when you put them together. That's because without an electric field, the cell wouldn't work;
the field forms when the N-type and P-type silicon come into contact. Suddenly, the free electrons on
the N side see all the openings on the P side, and there's a mad rush to fill them. Do all the free
electrons fill all the free holes? No. If they did, then the whole arrangement wouldn't be very useful.
However, right at the junction, they do mix and form something of a barrier, making it harder and
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harder for electrons on the N side to cross over to the P side. Eventually, equilibrium is reached, and
we have an electric field separating the two sides.
This electric field acts as a diode, allowing (and even pushing) electrons to flow from the P side
to the N side, but not the other way around. It's like a hill -- electrons can easily go down the hill (to
the N side), but can't climb it (to the P side).
When light, in the form of photons, hits our solar cell, its energy breaks apart electron-hole
pairs. Each photon with enough energy will normally free exactly one electron, resulting in a free hole
as well. If this happens close enough to the electric field, or if free electron and free hole happen to
wander into its range of influence, the field will send the electron to the N side and the hole to the P
side. This causes further disruption of electrical neutrality, and if we provide an external current path,
electrons will flow through the path to the P side to unite with holes that the electric field sent there,
doing work for us along the way. The electron flow provides the current, and the cell's electric field
causes a voltage. With both current and voltage, we have power, which is the product of the two.
There are a few more components left before we can really use our cell. Silicon happens to be
a very shiny material, which can send photons bouncing away before they've done their job, so
an antireflective coating is applied to reduce those losses. The final step is to install something that
will protect the cell from the elements -- often a glass cover plate. PV modules are generally made by
connecting several individual cells together to achieve useful levels of voltage and current, and
putting them in a sturdy frame complete with positive and negative terminals.
How much sunlight energy does our PV cell absorb? Unfortunately, probably not an awful lot.
In 2006, for example, most solar panels only reached efficiency levels of about 12 to 18 percent. The
most cutting-edge solar panel system that year finally muscled its way over the industry's long-
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standing 40 percent barrier in solar efficiency -- achieving 40.7 percent [source: U.S. Department of
Energy]. So why is it such a challenge to make the most of a sunny day?
The sun radiates approximately 1000W per square meter, so a 10 x 10 cm solar cell is exposed
to nearly 10 watts of radiated power. Depending on the quality of the cell, it can produce an electrical
output of 1 - 1.5 watts. To increase the output, several cells are combined and connected to a PV
module. The connection of several PV modules is also referred to as a PV array.
Thermal energy can also create electricity. In a solar power plant, the sun heats a liquid until it
boils. Then the steam created from this boiling liquid runs a turbine to generate electricity. In order
for the liquids to boil, these power plants use mirror to focus the sun’s heat and increase its strength.
Some mirrors are curved and shaped like a saucer. Others are shaped like a trough or placed in a line.
Some new solar energy plants have a power tower. Thousands of mirrors surround the tower and
focus the sun’s heat to the top.
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The solar collectors absorb the sun’s rays, convert them to heat and transfer the heat to a
heat-transfer fluid. (The heat-transfer fluid is typically a glycol and water mixture in regions where
seasonal freezing in a concern.) The heat-transfer fluid is then pumped into a heat exchanger located
inside the water storage tank where it heats the water.
After releasing its heat via the heat exchanger, the heat-transfer fluid flows back to the
collectors to be reheated. The controller keeps the heat-transfer fluid circulating whenever there is
heat available in the solar collectors. In the winter, a boiler serves as an alternate heat source. Solar
thermal systems can be integrated into existing hot water systems with relative ease.
In most cases, solar thermal energy systems are designed to meet 100% of a household’s
energy demands for water heating during the summer months from May to September. During the
winter months, the boiler will likely be used for space heating and can also heat water during that
time. In this way, solar energy accounts for approximately 60% of the energy used to heat water
throughout the year.
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Generally speaking, the size of your solar thermal system will vary depending on the climate and
overall water usage. The following guidelines can be used to estimate your system requirements:
As you can see, evacuated tube type collectors are more efficient given the same area. This
may be something to consider if your rooftop is not very large.
Since household hot water requirements remain relatively consistent throughout the year, the
use of solar energy for hot water generation can be extremely cost-effective. The solar thermal
system can easily be designed to meet a specific household’s energy demands for hot water usage.
With a properly sized system, 50% to 65% of the annual hot water requirements would be provided
by solar energy – and during the summer, 100% could be achieved, allowing the conventional heating
system to be completely off during that time.
Wind Energy
Wind is moving air. The motion is caused by changes in air temperature. Warm air is light, and
cold air is heavy. When the land beats up during the day, it warms the air above it. This warm air rises
higher in the sky; while cold air moves down to fill the space left by the warm air. This movement of
air creates wind.
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The process of converting the wind into mechanical energy starts with the wind turbine blades. There
are two different types of blade designs, lift type and drag type:
Lift Type: This is a common type of the modern horizontal axis wind turbine blade that you see at all
the big wind farms. This type of blade has a similar design of an airplane wing. As the air blows on both
side of the blade, it takes the air long to travel across the leading edge creating a lower air pressure and
higher air pressure on the tailing edge. This pressure difference ‘pulls’ and ‘pushes’ the blade around.
Lift type blades have much higher rotational speeds than drag type, which make them well suited for
generating electricity.
Drag Type – The first type of wind turbines created used a drag design. This type of wind turbine uses
the force of the wind to push the blade. A savonius is a perfect example of this design type, the wind is
resisted by blade and the wind’s force on it pushes it around. This design normally creates a slower
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rotational speed with a higher torque than a lift type design. This design has been used for centuries
for milling, sawing, pumping, but rarely used for energy generation on large scale.
The rotating blades are connected to a shaft which is connected to a generator. Some micro
wind turbines are designed to be direct drive, where the blades connect directly to a low RPM
generator, usually around 500+ RPM. The larger wind turbines make the use of gears to increase a
slow blade turn, sometimes as slow as 9 RPM, into 1800+ RPM that can be used to drive a generator.
These gears lose energy and cause additional cost, maintenance, and downtime. Many recent
advances and ingenuity has gone into improving the design.
Downwind machines have been built, despite the problem of turbulence, because they don't
need an additional mechanism for keeping them in line with the wind. Additionally, in high winds the
blades can be allowed to bend which reduces their swept area and thus their wind resistance. Since
turbulence leads to fatigue failures, and reliability is so important, most HAWTs are upwind machines.
HAWT advantages
The tall tower base allows access to stronger wind in sites with wind shear. In some wind shear sites,
every ten meters up the wind speed can increase by 20% and the power output by 34%.
High efficiency, since the blades always move perpendicularly to the wind, receiving power through the
whole rotation. In contrast, all vertical axis wind turbines, and most proposed airborne wind turbine
designs, involve various types of reciprocating actions, requiring airfoil surfaces to backtrack against
the wind for part of the cycle. Backtracking against the wind leads to inherently lower efficiency.
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HAWT disadvantages
Massive tower construction is required to support the heavy blades, gearbox, and generator.
Components of a horizontal axis wind turbine (gearbox, rotor shaft and brake assembly) being lifted
into position.
Their height makes them obtrusively visible across large areas, disrupting the appearance of the
landscape and sometimes creating local opposition.
Downwind variants suffer from fatigue and structural failure caused by turbulence when a blade passes
through the tower's wind shadow (for this reason, the majority of HAWTs use an upwind design, with
the rotor facing the wind in front of the tower).
HAWTs require an additional yaw control mechanism to turn the blades toward the wind.
HAWTs generally require a braking or yawing device in high winds to stop the turbine from spinning
and destroying or damaging itself.
When the turbine turns to face the wind, the rotating blades act like a gyroscope. As it pivots,
gyroscopic precession tries to twist the turbine into a forward or backward somersault. For each blade
on a wind generator's turbine, force is at a minimum when the blade is horizontal and at a maximum
when the blade is vertical. This cyclic twisting can quickly fatigue
and crack the blade roots, hub and axle of the turbines.
Vertical axis
It is difficult to mount vertical-axis turbines on towers, meaning they are often installed nearer
to the base on which they rest, such as the ground or a building rooftop. The wind speed is slower at a
lower altitude, so less wind energy is available for a given size turbine. Air flow near the ground and
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other objects can create turbulent flow, which can introduce issues of vibration, including noise and
bearing wear which may increase the maintenance or shorten its service life. However, when a
turbine is mounted on a rooftop, the building generally redirects wind over the roof and this can
double the wind speed at the turbine. If the height of the rooftop mounted turbine tower is
approximately 50% of the building height, this is near the optimum for maximum wind energy and
minimum wind turbulence.
VAWT subtypes
Darrieus wind turbine
Darrieus wind turbines are commonly called "Eggbeater" turbines, because they look like a
giant eggbeater. They have good efficiency, but produce large torque ripple and cyclic stress on the
tower, which contributes to poor reliability. Also, they generally require some external power source,
or an additional Savonius rotor, to start turning, because the starting torque is very low. The torque
ripple is reduced by using three or more blades which results in a higher solidity for the rotor. Solidity
is measured by blade area over the rotor area. Newer Darrieus type turbines are not held up by guy-
wires but have an external superstructure connected to the top bearing.
A Savonius is a drag type turbine, they are commonly used in cases of high reliability in many
things such as ventilation and anemometers. Because they are a drag type turbine they are less
efficient than the common HAWT. Savonius are excellent in areas of turbulent wind and self starting.
VAWT advantages
No yaw mechanisms is needed.
A VAWT can be located nearer the ground, making it easier to maintain the moving parts.
VAWTs have lower wind startup speeds than the typical the HAWTs.
VAWTs may be built at locations where taller structures are prohibited.
VAWTs situated close to the ground can take advantage of locations where rooftops, mesas,
hilltops, ridgelines, and passes funnel the wind and increase wind velocity.
VAWT disadvantages
Most VAWTs have a average decreased efficiency from a common HAWT, mainly because of the
additional drag that they have as their blades rotate into the wind. Versions that reduce drag produce
more energy, especially those that funnel wind into the collector area.
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Having rotors located close to the ground where wind speeds are lower and do not take advantage of
higher wind speeds above.
Because VAWTs are not commonly deployed due mainly to the serious disadvantages mentioned
above, they appear novel to those not familiar with the wind industry. This has often made them the
subject of wild claims and investment scams over the last 50 years.
Geothermal energy
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Homework
Investigate at least 15 technical words from this chapter that you previously did not know and
write the translation and definition of each
Investigate about the following topics: magma, and mantle
Watch the suggested videos. Then, answer this question: What could you do help to introduce people
to living a "green" life? What are some ways to change their way of thinking and living?
Suggested videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIU5fFmDeSc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_fvbO2VXjc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1HmY_ImHAg&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlG0xk93J-E&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJAbATJCugs&feature=fvw
Activities
Write in each square and explain some energy sources:
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Bioethanol production
In recent years, largely in response to uncertain fuel supply and efforts to reduce carbon
dioxide emissions, bioethanol (along with biodiesel) has become one of the most promising biofuels
today and is considered as the only feasible short to medium alternative to fossil transport
fuels in Europe and in the wider world.
Bioethanol is seen as a good fuel alternative because the source crops can be grown
renewably and in most climates around the world. In addition the use of bioethanol is generally
CO2 neutral. This is achieved because in the growing phase of the source crop, CO2 is absorbed
by the plant and oxygen is released in the same volume that CO2 is produced in the combustion of
the fuel. This creates an obvious advantage over fossil fuels which only emit CO2 as well as other
poisonous emissions. In the 1970s, Brazil and the USA started mass production of bioethanol -grown
from sugarcane and corn respectively. Smaller scale production started more recently in Spain,
France and Sweden mostly from wheat and sugar beet.
In recent years the concept of the bio-refinery has emerged, whereby one integrates
biomass conversion processes and technology to produce a variety of products including fuels,
power, chemicals and feed for cattle. In this manner one can take advantage of the natural
differences in the chemical and structural composition of the biomass feed stocks.
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What is Bioethanol?
The principle fuel used as a petrol substitute for road transport vehicles is bioethanol.
Bioethanol fuel is mainly produced by the sugar fermentation process, although it can also be
manufactured by the chemical process of reacting ethylene with steam.
The main sources of sugar required to produce ethanol come from fuel or energy crops. These
crops are grown specifically for energy use and include corn, maize and wheat crops, waste straw,
willow and popular trees, sawdust, reed canary grass, cord grasses, jerusalem artichoke,
myscanthus and sorghum plants. There is also ongoing research and development into the use of
municipal solid wastes to produce ethanol fuel.
Ethanol or ethyl alcohol (C2H5OH) is a clear colourless liquid, it is biodegradable, low in toxicity
and causes little environmental pollution if spilt. Ethanol burns to produce carbon dioxide and water,
is a high octane fuel and has replaced lead as an octane enhancer in petrol. By blending ethanol with
gasoline we can also oxygenate the fuel mixture so it burns more completely and reduces polluting
emissions. Ethanol fuel blends are widely sold in the United States. The most common blend is 10%
ethanol and 90% petrol (E10). Vehicle engines require no modifications to run on E10 and vehicle
warranties are unaffected also. Only flexible fuel vehicles can run on up to 85% ethanol and 15%
petrol blends (E85).
Benefits
Bioethanol has a number of advantages over conventional fuels. It comes from a renewable
resource i.e. crops and not from a finite resource and the crops it derives from can grow well (like
cereals, sugar beet and maize). Another benefit over fossil fuels is the greenhouse gas emissions. The
road transport network accounts for 22% of all greenhouse gas emissions and through the use of
bioethanol, some of these emissions will be reduced as the fuel crops absorb the CO2 they emit
through growing. Also, blending bioethanol with petrol will help extend the life of the diminishing oil
supplies and ensure greater fuel security, avoiding heavy reliance on oil producing nations.
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By encouraging bioethanol’s use, the rural economy would also receive a boost from growing
the necessary crops. Bioethanol is also biodegradable and far less toxic that fossil fuels. In addition, by
using bioethanol in older engines can help reduce the amount of carbon monoxide produced by the
vehicle thus improving air quality.
Another advantage of bioethanol is the ease with which it can be easily integrated into the
existing road transport fuel system. In quantities up to 5%, bioethanol can be blended with
conventional fuel without the need of engine modifications. Bioethanol is produced using familiar
methods, such as fermentation, and it can be distributed using the same petrol forecourts and
transportation systems as before.
Bioethanol Production
Ethanol can be produced from biomass by the hydrolysis and sugar fermentation processes.
Biomass wastes contain a complex mixture of carbohydrate polymers from the plant cell walls known
as cellulose, hemi cellulose and lignin. In order to produce sugars from the biomass, the biomass is
pre-treated with acids or enzymes in order to reduce the size of the feedstock and to open up the
plant structure. The cellulose and the hemi cellulose portions are broken down (hydrolysed) by
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enzymes or dilute acids into sucrose sugar that is then fermented into ethanol. The lignin which is
also present in the biomass is normally used as a fuel for the ethanol production plants boilers. There
are three principle methods of
extracting sugars from
biomass. These are
concentrated acid hydrolysis,
dilute acid hydrolysis and
enzymatic hydrolysis.
Production Process:
1. Grinding Grain
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Yeast is a facultative anaerobe. In an aerobic environment, it converts sugars into carbon dioxide and
water. In an anaerobic environment, it converts sugars into carbon dioxide and ethanol. Thus, for an ethanol
industry, it is important to exclude significant oxygen from its system. This fermentation process is relatively
slow process, so it is important for an industrial use to make it faster. Usually, a propagation tank is employed.
In this tank, mash, water, enzymes, nutrients, and yeast are mixed to re-hydrate the yeast.
3. Distillation:
4. Dehydration
Bioethanol Usage
Chemicals
A number of chemicals are produced in the ethanol industry and potentially even more in the
2nd. generation bioethanol industry, serving a wide range of uses in the pharmaceuticals, cosmetics,
beverages and medical sectors as well as for industrial uses. The market potential for bioethanol is
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therefore not just limited to transport fuel or energy production but has potential to supply the existing
chemicals industry.
Transport Fuel:
Bioethanol has mostly been used as a biofuel for transport, especially in Brazil. Indeed
it was in Brazil where the first bioethanol fuelled cars emerged on a large-scale. Although
generally unknown to the average consumer, a large volume of bioethanol is already used in
Europe as it is blended with petrol at 5%. It is used as a substitute for lead as an oxygenating additive
and has a high octane rating, which improves performance. Although the eventual target is the
private consumer, few are aware of bioethanol’s potenial to, at least, partly replace petrol as
a transport fuel in Europe.
Bioethanol producers
Fuel suppliers
Car manufacturers
The government
Fuel Cells:
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components). They are, however, regarded as very reliable for the duration of their lifespan and
are often used for emergency power.
In addition, an increase in the demand of bioethanol may burden on our money. This is because,
currently, ethanol production is supported by huge subsidies coming from our tax. Besides, an
increase in the ethanol production means an increase in the demand of corn . This may cause an
increase in the corn price. Today, corn is everywhere in our meal.
Therefore, there are still so many concerns to say bioethnaol is a real ideal energy source.
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Activities
Use the box below to describe the picture of the Bioethanol production where you can see the
different steps of the process:
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Ethanol can be produced from biomass by the hydrolysis and sugar fermentation processes.
By encouraging bioethanol’s use, the rural economy would never receive a boost from growing the necessary
crops:
An increase in the ethanol production means an inrease in the demand of corn. This may cause a decrease in
the corn price.
The most common blend is 10% ethanol and 90% petrol (E10):
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3. With the next picture do a “Proccess diagram” to recognize the activity in each part of the Bioethanol
production writing each specification in the square below.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Lean Manufacturing:
References
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Gears
Gears are used in tons of mechanical devices. They do several
important jobs, but most important, they provide a gear reduction in
motorized equipment. This is key because, often, a small motor spinning
very fast can provide enough power for a device, but not enough torque.
For instance, an electric screwdriver has a very large gear reduction
because it needs lots of torque to turn screws, but the motor only produces a small amount of torque
at a high speed. With a gear reduction, the output speed can be reduced while the torque is
increased.
Another thing gears do is adjust the direction of rotation. For instance, in the differential
between the rear wheels of your car, the power is transmitted by a shaft that runs down the center of
the car, and the differential has to turn that power 90 degrees to apply it to the wheels.
There are a lot of intricacies in the different types of gears. In this article, we'll learn exactly how the
teeth on gears work, and we'll talk about the different types of gears you find in all sorts of
mechanical gadgets.
On any gear, the ratio is determined by the distances from the center of the gear to the point
of contact. For instance, in a device with two gears, if one gear is twice the diameter of the other, the
ratio would be 2:1.
One of the most primitive types of gears we could look at would be a wheel with wooden pegs
sticking out of it.
The problem with this type of gear is that the distance from the center of each gear to the
point of contact changes as the gears rotate. This means that the gear ratio changes as the gear turns,
meaning that the output speed also changes. If you used a gear like this in your car, it would be
impossible to maintain a constant speed -- you would be accelerating and decelerating constantly.
Many modern gears use a special tooth profile called an involute. This profile has the very important
property of maintaining a constant speed ratio between the two gears. Like the peg wheel above, the
contact point moves; but the shape of the involute gear tooth compensates for this movement.
Types of Gears
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Spur gears are the most common type of gears. They have
straight teeth, and are mounted on parallel shafts. Sometimes,
many spur gears are used at once to create very large gear
reductions. Spur gears are used in many, like the electric
screwdriver, dancing monster, oscillating sprinkler, windup alarm
clock, washing machine and clothes dryer. But you won't find
many in your car. This is because the spur gear can be really loud. Each time a gear tooth engages a
tooth on the other gear, the teeth collide, and this impact makes a noise. It also increases the stress
on the gear teeth. To reduce the noise and stress in the gears, most of the gears in your car
are helical.
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On straight and spiral bevel gears, the shafts must be perpendicular to each other, but they must also
be in the same plane. If you were to extend the two shafts past the gears, they would intersect.
The hypoid gear, on the other hand, can engage with the axes in different planes.
This feature is used in many car differentials. The ring gear of the differential and the input pinion
gear are both hypoid. This allows the input pinion to be mounted lower than the axis of the ring
gear. Figure shows the input pinion engaging the ring gear of the differential. Since the driveshaft of
the car is connected to the input pinion, this also lowers the driveshaft. This means that the driveshaft
doesn't intrude into the passenger compartment of the car as much, making more room for people
and cargo.
Worm gears are used when large gear reductions are needed. It is
common for worm gears to have reductions of 20:1, and even up
to 300:1 or greater. Many worm gears have an interesting
property that no other gear set has: the worm can easily turn the
gear, but the gear cannot turn the worm. This is because the
angle on the worm is so shallow that when the gear tries to spin
it, the friction between the gear and the worm holds the worm in
place. This feature is useful for machines such as conveyor
systems, in which the locking feature can act as a brake for the
conveyor when the motor is not turning. One other very
interesting usage of worm gears is in the Torsen differential,
which is used on some high-performance cars and trucks.
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Rack and pinion gears are used to convert rotation into linear
motion. A perfect example of this is the steering system on
many cars. The steering wheel rotates a gear which engages
the rack. As the gear turns, it slides the rack either to the right
or left, depending on which way you turn the wheel.
Rack and pinion gears are also used in some scales to turn the
dial that displays your weight.
Bearings
The concept behind a bearing is very simple: Things roll better than they slide. The wheels on
your car are like big bearings. If you had something like skis instead of wheels, your car would be a lot
more difficult to push down the road.
The bearing above is like the one in a barstool. It is loaded purely in thrust, and the entire load comes
from the weight of the person sitting on the stool.
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Types of Bearings
There are many types of bearings, each used for different
purposes. These include ball bearings, roller bearings, ball thrust
bearings, roller thrust bearings and tapered roller thrust bearings.
Roller bearings like the one illustrated below are used in applications
like conveyer belt rollers, where they must hold heavy radial loads. In these
bearings, the roller is a cylinder, so the contact between the inner and outer
race is not a point but a line. This spreads the load out over a larger area,
allowing the bearing to handle much greater loads than a ball bearing.
However, this type of bearing is not designed to handle much thrust loading. A
variation of this type of bearing, called a needle bearing, uses cylinders with a
very small diameter. This allows the bearing to fit into tight places.
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Ball thrust bearings like the one shown below are mostly used for low-speed applications and cannot
handle much radial load. Barstools and Lazy Susan turntables use this type of bearing.
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65
A piston replaces the potato in the potato cannon. This piston is connected to the crankshaft by a
connecting rod. As the crankshaft revolves, it has the effect of "resetting the cannon." Here's what
happens as the engine goes through its cycle:
The piston starts at the top, the intake valve opens, and the piston moves down to let the
engine take in a cylinder-full of air and gasoline. This is the intake stroke. Only the tiniest drop
of gasoline needs to be mixed into the air for this to work. (Part 1 of the figure)
Then the piston moves back up to compress this fuel/air mixture. Compression makes the
explosion more powerful. (Part 2 of the figure)
When the piston reaches the top of its stroke, the spark plug emits a spark to ignite the
gasoline. The gasoline charge in the cylinder explodes, driving the piston down. (Part 3 of the
figure)
Once the piston hits the bottom of its stroke, the exhaust valve opens and the exhaust leaves
the cylinder to go out the tailpipe. (Part 4 of the figure)
Now the engine is ready for the next cycle, so it intakes another charge of air and gas.
The motion that comes out of an internal combustion engine is rotational, while the motion produced
by a potato cannon is linear (straight line). In an engine the linear motion of the pistons is converted
into rotational motion by the crankshaft. The rotational motion is nice because we plan to turn
(rotate) the car's wheels with it anyway.
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V - The cylinders are arranged in two banks set at an angle to one another.
Flat - The cylinders are arranged in two banks on opposite sides of the engine.
Spark plug
The spark plug supplies the spark that ignites the air/fuel mixture so that combustion can occur. The
spark must happen at just the right moment for things to work properly.
Valves
The intake and exhaust valves open at the proper time to let in air and fuel and to let out exhaust.
Note that both valves are closed during compression and combustion so that the combustion
chamber is sealed.
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Piston
A piston is a cylindrical piece of metal that moves up and down inside the cylinder.
Piston rings
Piston rings provide a sliding seal between the outer edge of the piston and the inner edge of the
cylinder. The rings serve two purposes:
They prevent the fuel/air mixture and exhaust in the combustion chamber from leaking into the sump
during compression and combustion.
They keep oil in the sump from leaking into the combustion area, where it would be burned and lost.
Most cars that "burn oil" and have to have a quart added every 1,000 miles are burning it because the
engine is old and the rings no longer seal things properly.
Connecting rod
The connecting rod connects the piston to the crankshaft. It can rotate at both ends so that its angle
can change as the piston moves and the crankshaft rotates.
Crankshaft
The crankshaft turns the piston's up and down motion into circular motion just like a crank on a jack-
in-the-box does.
Sump
The sump surrounds the crankshaft. It contains some amount of oil, which collects in the bottom of
the sump (the oil pan).
Engine Problems
So you go out one morning and your engine will turn over but it won't start... What could be wrong?
Now that you know how an engine works, you can understand the basic things that can keep an
engine from running. Three fundamental things can happen: a bad fuel mix, lack of compression or
lack of spark. Beyond that, thousands of minor things can create problems, but these are the "big
three." Based on the simple engine we have been discussing, here is a quick rundown on how these
problems affect your engine:
Bad fuel mix - A bad fuel mix can occur in several ways:
You are out of gas, so the engine is getting air but no fuel.
The air intake might be clogged, so there is fuel but not enough air.
The fuel system might be supplying too much or too little fuel to the mix, meaning that
combustion does not occur properly.
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There might be an impurity in the fuel (like water in your gas tank) that makes the fuel not
burn.
Lack of compression - If the charge of air and fuel cannot be compressed properly, the combustion
process will not work like it should. Lack of compression might occur for these reasons:
Your piston rings are worn (allowing air/fuel to leak past the piston during compression).
The intake or exhaust valves are not sealing properly, again allowing a leak during
compression.
There is a hole in the cylinder.
The most common "hole" in a cylinder occurs where the top of the cylinder (holding the valves and
spark plug and also known as the cylinder head) attaches to the cylinder itself. Generally, the cylinder
and the cylinder head bolt together with a thin gasket pressed between them to ensure a good seal. If
the gasket breaks down, small holes develop between the cylinder and the cylinder head, and these
holes cause leaks.
Lack of spark - The spark might be nonexistent or weak for a number of reasons:
If your spark plug or the wire leading to it is worn out, the spark will be weak.
If the wire is cut or missing, or if the system that sends a spark down the wire is not working
properly, there will be no spark.
If the spark occurs either too early or too late in the cycle (i.e. if the ignition timing is off), the
fuel will not ignite at the right time, and this can cause all sorts of problems.
Many other things can go wrong. For example:
If the battery is dead, you cannot turn over the engine to start it.
If the bearings that allow the crankshaft to turn freely are worn out, the crankshaft cannot
turn so the engine cannot run.
If the valves do not open and close at the right time or at all, air cannot get in and exhaust
cannot get out, so the engine cannot run.
If someone sticks a potato up your tailpipe, exhaust cannot exit the cylinder so the engine will
not run.
If you run out of oil, the piston cannot move up and down freely in the cylinder, and the
engine will seize.
In a properly running engine, all of these factors are within tolerance.
As you can see, an engine has a number of systems that help it do its job of converting fuel into
motion.
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Electric motor
An electric motor is an electromechanical device that converts electrical energy into mechanical
energy.
Most electric motors operate through the interaction of magnetic fields and current-carrying
conductors to generate force. The reverse process, producing electrical energy from mechanical
energy, is done by generators such as an alternator or a dynamo; some electric motors can also be
used as generators, for example, a traction motor on a vehicle may perform both tasks. Electric
motors and generators are commonly referred to as electric machines.
Electric motors are found in applications as diverse as industrial fans, blowers and pumps, machine
tools, household appliances, power tools, and disk drives. They may be powered by direct current,
a battery powered portable device or motor vehicle, or by alternating current from a central electrical
distribution grid or inverter. The smallest motors may be found in electric wristwatches. Medium-size
motors of highly standardized dimensions and characteristics provide convenient mechanical power
for industrial uses. The very largest electric motors are used for propulsion of ships, pipeline
compressors, and water pumps with ratings in the millions of watts. Electric motors may be classified
by the source of electric power, by their internal construction, by their application, or by the type of
motion they give.
Some devices convert electricity into motion but do not generate usable mechanical power as a
primary objective and so are not generally referred to as electric motors. For example, magnetic
solenoids and loudspeakers are usually described as actuators and transducers, respectively, instead
of motors. Some electric motors are used to produce torque of force.
Terminology
In an electric motor the moving part is called the rotor and the stationary part is called the stator.
Magnetic fields are produced on poles, and these can be salient poles where they are driven by
windings of electrical wire. A shaded-pole motor has a winding around part of the pole that delays the
phase of the magnetic field for that pole.
A commutator switches the current flow to the rotor windings depending on the rotor angle.
A DC motor is powered by direct current, although there is almost always an internal mechanism (such
as a commutator) converting DC to AC for part of the motor. An AC motor is supplied with alternating
current, often avoiding the need for a commutator.
A synchronous motor is an AC motor that runs at a speed fixed to a fraction of the power supply
frequency, and an asynchronous motor is an AC motor, usually an induction motor, whose speed slows
with increasing torque to slightly less than synchronous speed. Universal motors can run on either AC
or DC, though the maximum frequency of the AC supply may be limited.
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DC motor
A DC motor is an electric motor that runs on direct current (DC) electricity. DC motors were used to
run machinery, often eliminating the need for a local steam engine or internal combustion engine. DC
motors can operate directly from rechargeable batteries, providing the motive power for the first
electric vehicles. Today DC motors are still found in applications as small as toys and disk drives, or in
large sizes to operate steel rolling mills and paper machines. Modern DC motors are nearly always
operated in conjunction with power electronic devices.
AC motor
An AC motor is an electric motor driven by an alternating current.
It commonly consists of two basic parts, an outside stationary stator having coils supplied with
alternating current to produce a rotating magnetic field, and an inside rotor attached to the output
shaft that is given a torque by the rotating field.
There are two main types of AC motors, depending on the type of rotor used. The first type is
the induction motor, which runs slightly slower than the supply frequency. The magnetic field on the
rotor of this motor is created by an induced current. The second type is the synchronous motor,
which does not rely on induction and as a result, can rotate exactly at the supply frequency or a sub-
multiple of the supply frequency. The magnetic field on the rotor is either generated by current
delivered through slip rings or by a permanent magnet. Other types of motors include eddy
current motors, and also AC/DC mechanically commutated machines in which speed is dependent on
voltage and winding connection.
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DIGITAL ELECTRONICS
Digital electronics represent signals by discrete bands of analog levels, rather than by a continuous
range. All levels within a band represent the same signal state. Relatively small changes to the analog
signal levels due to manufacturing tolerance, signal attenuation or parasitic noise do not leave the
discrete envelope, and as a result are ignored by signal state sensing circuitry.
In most cases the number of these states is two, and they are represented by two voltage bands: one
near a reference value (typically termed as "ground" or zero volts) and a value near the supply
voltage, corresponding to the "false" ("0") and "true" ("1") values of the Boolean domain respectively.
Digital techniques are useful because it is easier to get an electronic device to switch into one of a
number of known states than to accurately reproduce a continuous range of values.
Digital electronic circuits are usually made from large assemblies of logic gates, simple electronic
representations of Boolean logic functions.
Advantages
One advantage of digital circuits when compared to analog circuits is signals represented digitally can
be transmitted without degradation due to noise. For example, a continuous audio signal, transmitted
as a sequence of 1s and 0s, can be reconstructed without error provided the noise picked up in
transmission is not enough to prevent identification of the 1s and 0s. An hour of music can be stored
on a compact disc using about 6 billion binary digits.
In a digital system, a more precise representation of a signal can be obtained by using more binary
digits to represent it. While this requires more digital circuits to process the signals, each digit is
handled by the same kind of hardware. In an analog system, additional resolution requires
fundamental improvements in the linearity and noise characteristics of each step of the signal chain.
Disadvantages
In some cases, digital circuits use more energy than analog circuits to accomplish the same tasks, thus
producing more heat which increases the complexity of the circuits such as the inclusion of heat sinks.
In portable or battery-powered systems this can limit use of digital systems.
In some cases, digital circuits use more energy than analog circuits to accomplish the same tasks, thus
producing more heat which increases the complexity of the circuits such as the inclusion of heat sinks.
In portable or battery-powered systems this can limit use of digital systems.
On the other hand, some techniques used in digital systems make those systems more vulnerable to
single-bit errors. These techniques are acceptable when the underlying bits are reliable enough that
such errors are highly unlikely. A single-bit error in audio data stored directly as linear pulse code
modulation (such as on a CD-ROM) causes, at worst, a single click. Instead, many people use audio
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compression to save storage space and download time, even though a single-bit error may corrupt
the entire song.
Construction
A digital circuit is often constructed from small electronic circuits called logic gates that can be used to
create combinational logic. Each logic gate represents a function of boolean logic. A logic gate is an
arrangement of electrically controlled switches, better known as transistors.
Each logic symbol is represented by a different shape. The actual set of shapes was introduced in 1984
under IEEE\ANSI standard 91-1984. "The logic symbol given under this standard are being increasingly
used now and have even started appearing in the literature published by manufacturers of digital
integrated circuits."
The output of a logic gate is an electrical flow or voltage, that can, in turn, control more logic gates.
Logic gates often use the fewest number of transistors in order to reduce their size, power
consumption and cost, and increase their reliability.
Integrated circuits are the least expensive way to make logic gates in large volumes. Integrated
circuits are usually designed by engineers using electronic design automation software (see below for
more information).
Logic Families
Design started with relays. Relay logic was relatively inexpensive and reliable, but slow. Occasionally a
mechanical failure would occur. Fanouts were typically about ten, limited by the resistance of the
coils and arcing on the contacts from high voltages.
Later, vacuum tubes were used. These were very fast, but generated heat, and were unreliable
because the filaments would burn out. Fanouts were typically five to seven, limited by the heating
from the tubes' current. In the 1950s, special "computer tubes" were developed with filaments that
omitted volatile elements like silicon. These ran for hundreds of thousands of hours.
The first semiconductor logic family was resistor-transistor logic. This was a thousand times more
reliable than tubes, ran cooler, and used less power, but had a very low fan-in of three. Diode-
transistor logic improved the fanout up to about seven, and reduced the power. Some DTL designs
used two power-supplies with alternating layers of NPN and PNP transistors to increase the fanout.
Transistor transistor logic (TTL) was a great improvement over these. In early devices, fanout
improved to ten, and later variations reliably achieved twenty. TTL was also fast, with some variations
achieving switching times as low as twenty nanoseconds. TTL is still used in some designs.
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Emitter coupled logic is very fast but uses a lot of power. It was extensively used for high-performance
computers made up of many medium-scale components (such as the Illiac IV).
By far, the most common digital integrated circuits built today use CMOS logic, which is fast, offers
high circuit density and low-power per gate. This is used even in large, fast computers, such as theIBM
System z.
Recent developments
In 2009, researchers discovered that memristors can implement a boolean state storage (similar to
a flip flop, implication and logical inversion, providing a complete logic family with very small amounts
of space and power, using familiar CMOS semiconductor processes.
The discovery of superconductivity has enabled the development of rapid single flux quantum (RSFQ)
circuit technology, which uses Josephson junctions instead of transistors. Most recently, attempts are
being made to construct purely optical computing systems capable of processing digital information
using nonlinear optical elements.
Logic gate
A logic gate is an idealized or physical device implementing a Boolean function, that is, it performs
a logical operation on one or more logic inputs and produces a single logic output. Depending on the
context, the term may refer to an ideal logic gate, one that has for instance zero rise time and
unlimited fan-out, or it may refer to a non-ideal physical device.
Logic gates are primarily implemented using diodes or transistors acting as electronic switches, but
can also be constructed using electromagnetic relays (relay logic), fluidic logic, pneumatic
logic,optics, molecules, or even mechanical elements. With amplification, logic gates can be cascaded
in the same way that Boolean functions can be composed, allowing the construction of a physical
model of all of Boolean logic, and therefore, all of the algorithms and mathematics that can be
described with Boolean logic.
In the next table you will find the common gates with their symbol, truth table and the respective
boolean algebra description.
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INTPUT OUTPUT
A B A AND B
0 0 0
AND
0 1 0
1 0 0
1 1 1
INTPUT OUTPUT
A B A OR B
0 0 0
OR A+B 0 1 1
1 0 1
1 1 1
INTPUT OUTPUT
A NOT A
NOT
0 1
1 0
INTPUT OUTPUT
A B A NAND
B
0 0 1
NAND 0 1 1
1 0 1
1 1 0
INTPUT OUTPUT
A B A NOR B
0 0 1
NOR
0 1 0
1 0 0
1 1 0
INTPUT OUTPUT
A B A XOR B
0 0 0
XOR
0 1 1
1 0 1
1 1 0
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INTPUT OUTPUT
A B A XNOR
B
XNOR or 0 0 1
0 1 0
1 0 0
1 1 1
Karnaugh map
Karnaugh Maps are used for many small design problems. It's true that many larger designs are done
using computer implementations of different algorithms. However designs with a small number of
variables occur frequently in interface problems and that makes learning Karnaugh Maps worthwhile.
In addition, if you study Karnaugh Maps you will gain a great deal of insight into digital logic circuits.
Example :
Pairs of 1's are grouped as shown above, and the simplified answer is obtained by using the following
steps:
Note that two groups can be formed for the example given above, bearing in mind that the largest
rectangular clusters that can be made consist of two 1s. Notice that a 1 can belong to more than one
group.
The first group labelled I, consists of two 1s which correspond to A = 0, B = 0 and A = 1, B = 0. Put in
another way, all squares in this example that correspond to the area of the map where B = 0 contains
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1s, independent of the value of A. So when B = 0 the output is 1. The expression of the output will
contain the term
For group labelled II corresponds to the area of the map where A = 0. The group can therefore be
defined as . This implies that when A = 0 the output is 1. The output is therefore 1 whenever B = 0
and A = 0
Hence the simplified answer is Z = +
Example 2:
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Principles of Telecommunications
Telecommunication is the transmission of information over significant distances to communicate. In
earlier times, telecommunications involved the use of visual signals or audio messages via coded
drumbeats, lung-blown horns, or sent by loud whistles, for example. In the modern age of electricity
and electronics, telecommunications now also includes the use of electrical devices such as
telegraphs, telephones, and teleprinters, the use of radio and microwave communications, as well as
fiber optics and their associated electronics, plus the use of the orbiting satellites and the Internet.
A revolution in wireless telecommunications began in the first decade of the 20th century with
pioneering developments in wireless radio communications by Nikola Tesla and Guglielmo Marconi.
Marconi won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1909 for his efforts. Other highly notable pioneering
inventors and developers in the field of electrical and electronic telecommunications include Charles
Wheatstone and Samuel Morse (telegraph), Alexander Graham Bell (telephone), Edwin Armstrong,
and Lee de Forest (radio), as well as John Logie Baird and Philo Farnsworth (television).
Basic elements
A basic telecommunication system consists of three primary units that are always present in some
form:
A transmitter that takes information and converts it to a signal.
A transmission medium, also called the "physical channel" that carries the signal. An example
of this is the "free space channel".
A receiver that takes the signal from the channel and converts it back into usable information.
For example, in a radio broadcasting station the station's large power amplifier is the transmitter; and
the broadcasting antenna is the interface between the power amplifier and the "free space channel".
The free space channel is the transmission medium; and the receiver's antenna is the interface
between the free space channel and the receiver. Next, the radio receiver is the destination of the
radio signal, and this is where it is converted from electricity to sound for people to listen to.
Sometimes, telecommunication systems are "duplex" (two-way systems) with a single box of
electronics working as both a transmitter and a receiver, or a transceiver. For example, a cellular
telephone is a transceiver.[25] The transmission electronics and the receiver electronics in a
transceiver are actually quite independent of each other. This can be readily explained by the fact that
radio transmitters contain power amplifiers that operate with electrical powers measured in the
watts or kilowatts, but radio receivers deal with radio powers that are measured in the microwatts or
nanowatts. Hence, transceivers have to be carefully designed and built to isolate their high-power
circuitry and their low-power circuitry from each other.
Telecommunication over telephone lines is called point-to-point communication because it is
between one transmitter and one receiver. Telecommunication through radio broadcasts is called
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broadcast communication because it is between one powerful transmitter and numerous low-power
but sensitive radio receivers.[25]
Telecommunications in which multiple transmitters and multiple receivers have been designed to
cooperate and to share the same physical channel are called multiplex systems.
Telecommunication networks
A communications network is a collection of transmitters, receivers, and communications channels
that send messages to one another. Some digital communications networks contain one or more
routers that work together to transmit information to the correct user. An analog communications
network consists of one or more switches that establish a connection between two or more users. For
both types of network, repeaters may be necessary to amplify or recreate the signal when it is being
transmitted over long distances. This is to combat attenuation that can render the signal
indistinguishable from the noise.
Communication channels
The term "channel" has two different meanings. In one meaning, a channel is the physical medium
that carries a signal between the transmitter and the receiver. Examples of this include the
atmosphere for sound communications, glass optical fibers for some kinds of optical communications,
coaxial cables for communications by way of the voltages and electric currents in them, and free
space for communications using visible light, infrared waves, ultraviolet light, and radio waves. This
last channel is called the "free space channel". The sending of radio waves from one place to another
has nothing to do with the presence or absence of an atmosphere between the two. Radio waves
travel through a perfect vacuum just as easily as they travel through air, fog, clouds, or any other kind
of gas besides air.
Modulation
The shaping of a signal to convey information is known as modulation. Modulation can be used to
represent a digital message as an analog waveform. This is commonly called "keying" – a term derived
from the older use of Morse Code in telecommunications – and several keying techniques exist (these
include phase-shift keying, frequency-shift keying, and amplitude-shift keying). The "Bluetooth"
system, for example, uses phase-shift keying to exchange information between various
devices.[29][30] In addition, there are combinations of phase-shift keying and amplitude-shift keying
which is called (in the jargon of the field) "quadrature amplitude modulation" (QAM) that are used in
high-capacity digital radio communication systems.
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Modulation can also be used to transmit the information of low-frequency analog signals at higher
frequencies. This is helpful because low-frequency analog signals cannot be effectively transmitted
over free space. Hence the information from a low-frequency analog signal must be impressed into a
higher-frequency signal (known as the "carrier wave") before transmission. There are several different
modulation schemes available to achieve this [two of the most basic being amplitude modulation
(AM) and frequency modulation (FM)]. An example of this process is a disc jockey's voice being
impressed into a 96 MHz carrier wave using frequency modulation (the voice would then be received
on a radio as the channel "96 FM"). In addition, modulation has the advantage of being about to use
frequency division multiplexing (FDM).
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Frequency modulation
In telecommunications and signal processing, frequency modulation (FM) conveys information over
a carrier wave by varying its instantaneous frequency. This contrasts with amplitude modulation, in
which the amplitude of the carrier is varied while its frequency remains constant.
In analog applications, the difference between the instantaneous and the base frequency of the
carrier is directly proportional to the instantaneous value of the input-signal amplitude.
Digital data can be sent by shifting the carrier's frequency among a range of settings, a technique
known as frequency-shift keying. FSK (digital FM) is widely used in data and faxmodems. Morse
code transmission has been sent this way, and FASK was used in early telephone-
line modems. Radioteletype also uses FSK. FM modulation is also used in telemetry, radar, seismic
prospecting and newborn EEG seizure monitoring. Frequency modulation is known as phase
modulationwhen the carrier phase modulation is the time integral of the FM signal. FM is widely used
for broadcasting music and speech, two-way radio systems, magnetic tape-recording systems and
some video-transmission systems. In radio systems, frequency modulation with
sufficient bandwidth provides an advantage in cancelling naturally-occurring noise.
Applications
MAGNETIC TAPE STORAGE
FM is also used at intermediate frequencies by analog VCR systems (including VHS) to record both
the luminance (black and white) portions of the video signal. Commonly, the chrome component is
recorded as a conventional AM signal, using the higher-frequency FM signal as bias. FM is the only
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feasible method of recording the luminance ("black and white") component of video to (and
retrieving video from) magnetic tape without distortion; video signals have a large range of frequency
components – from a few hertz to several megahertz, too wide for equalizers to work with due to
electronic noise below −60 dB.
These FM systems are unusual, in that they have a ratio of carrier to maximum modulation frequency
of less than two; contrast this with FM audio broadcasting, where the ratio is around 10,000.
Consider, for example, a 6-MHz carrier modulated at a 3.5-MHz rate; by Bessel analysis, the first
sidebands are on 9.5 and 2.5 MHz and the second sidebands are on 13 MHz and −1 MHz. The result is
a reversed-phase sideband on +1 MHz; on demodulation, this results in unwanted output at 6−1 =
5 MHz. The system must be designed so that this unwanted output is reduced to an acceptable level.
SOUND
FM is also used at audio frequencies to synthesize sound. This technique, known as FM synthesis, was
popularized by early digital synthesizers and became a standard feature in several generations
of personal computer sound cards.
RADIO
Edwin Howard Armstrong (1890–1954) was an American electrical engineer who invented wideband
frequency modulation (FM) radio. He patented the regenerative circuit in 1914, the superheterodyne
receiver in 1918 and the super-regenerative circuit in 1922. Armstrong presented his paper, "A
Method of Reducing Disturbances in Radio Signaling by a System of Frequency Modulation", (which
first described FM radio) before the New York section of the Institute of Radio Engineers on
November 6, 1935. The paper was published in 1936.
FM is commonly used at VHF radio frequencies for high-fidelity broadcasts of music and speech.
Normal (analog) TV sound is also broadcast using FM. Narrowband FM is used for voice
communications in commercial and amateur radio settings. In broadcast services, where audio fidelity
is important, wideband FM is generally used. In two-way radio, narrowband FM (NBFM) is used to
conserve bandwidth for land mobile, marine mobile and other radio services.
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In the amplitud shift keying (ASK), the carrier amplitud sinusoidal switches between two values to ask
the PCM code. For example, the value 0 can be transmitted as an amplitud of A volts, while the state
1 can be transmitted like a sinusoidal signal of amplitud of B volts. The ASK resulting signal is
modulated pulses, called brands, that it represent with the 1 state, and spaces that represent the 0
state.
Example:
ASK([1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 ],2)
PSK MODULATION
In the Phase Shift Keying (PSK) Modulation, the carrier phase switches according the signal state of
the binary signal. In this kind of modulation, the gap is of 180º if transmitted a 0, the gap is of 0º if
transmitted a 1.
Example:
PSK([1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 1],2)
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FSK MODULATION
In the Frequency Shift Keying (FSK) modulation, the carrier frequency changes according the
modulated value. This mean, for the 0 you’ll have a frequency f1 and for 1 you’ll have a frequency f2.
Example:
PSK([1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 1],2)
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Lean Manufacturing:
References
Lean Manufacturing: tools, techniques, and how to use them; William M. Feld, St. Lucie Press,
2000.
Lean Manufacturing: Implementation strategies that work; John Davis, Industrial Press, 2009.
Suggested readings:
Process Diagrams
References
Ingeniería Industrial: métodos, estándares y diseño del trabajo; Benjamín Niebel, McGraw-Hill
Interamericana, 2009-
Suggested readings:
Quality control
References
Quality control for dummies; Larry Webber, Michael Wallace; For Dummies, 2006.
86
Process Quality Control: troubleshooting and interpretation of data; Ellis Raymond Ott, Edward
Schilling, Dean Neubauer; ASQ Quality Press, 2005.
Suggested readings
Fundamentals of industrial quality control; Lawrence Aft; St. Lucie Press, 1998
Statistical quality control using excel; Steven Zimmerman, Marjorie Icenogle; ASQ Quality
Press, 2003.
In-process quality control for manufacturing; W.E. Barkman; M Dekker; 1989.
Alternative Energy
References
Alternative energy: Beyond fossil fuels, Dana Meachan Rau, Capstone press 2010.
Alternative energy: political, economic, and social feasibility, Christopher A. Simon, Rowman &
Littlefield, 2007.
Suggested readings:
Alternative energy: a beginner’s guide to the future of energy technology, Marek Walisiewicz,
DK Pub. 2002
Alternative energy, S. Vandana, APH Publishing, 2002
Alternative energy: facts, statistics, and issues, Paula Berinstein, Oryx Press, 2001.
Heat transfer
References
Suggested readings:
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