BubbleDeck is a two-way hollow deck which utilizes plastic balls to reduce the use of concrete that has no carrying effect. By adapting the geometry of the ball and the mesh width, one may obtain optimized concrete construction, with the simultaneous maximum utility of both moment and shear zones.
The reinforcing mesh used in BubbleDeck catches, distributes and locks the balls in exact position. Meanwhile, the balls shape the air volume, control the level of the reinforcing meshes, and at the same time stabilize the spatial lattice.
Obvious advantages over conventional decks include reduced weight, increased strength, longer span (20 to 50 times the deck height; cantilevers approximately 10 times the deck height), fewer columns, and no beams or ribs under the ceiling. [via the BubbleDeck website; suggested by Paul Stanbridge, New York.]
Flex-Ability Concepts manufactures the Flex-C Trac system, which is a construction product used to build curved metal or wood structures. It can be used to frame curved walls, barrel ceilings, wavy ceilings, s-curves and columns.
Architects like Flex-C Trac because the strength, quality and uniformity of the finished curves are superior. It can be hand shaped on site to make curves of varying radii, or to easily match existing curves. Contractors claim it saves 60 to 80% of the time required to build a curved structure compared to conventional methods and results in a better-finished product. [via the Flex-Ability Concepts website; suggested by Blair Satterfield, Houston.]
Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., has developed the world’s first clear paint that repairs scratches on painted car surfaces, including scratches from car-washing machines, off-road driving and fingernails.
“Scratch Guard Coat” contains a newly developed high elastic resin that helps prevent scratches from affecting the inner layers of a car’s painted surface. With “Scratch Guard Coat” a car’s scratched surface will return to its original state anywhere from one day to a week, depending on temperature and the depth of the scratch.
The water-repellant paint also has a higher resistance to scratches compared with conventional clear paints. A vehicle painted with “Scratch Guard Coat” will have only one-fifth the abrasions caused by a car-washing machine compared with a car covered with conventional clear paint. Scratches from car-washing machines account for the majority of scratches to painted car surfaces.
“Scratch Guard Coat” is effective for about three years.
“Scratch Guard Coat” will be applied for the first time on an SUV model that is scheduled for a partial makeover in the near future. The paint will be applied to the car’s chassis, bumpers, door mirrors, among other parts. [via the Nissan website; suggested by Peter Ernst, Simsbury, CT]
Chris Glaister, Afshin Mehin, and Tomas Rosen of the Royal College of Art Innovation Unit have developed embedded devices which allow graphics, words and numbers to be displayed through concrete.
First, thermochromic ink is mixed with concrete. Second, nickel chromium wires, which heat up when electric current is passed through them, are set beneath the concrete surface. The area above the wire changes colour when a certain temperature is reached. The arrangement of these wires beneath the concrete allows the display of graphics and information.
This technology can be used where under-floor heating is installed, in swimming pools, and in bathrooms. Information can be displayed on concrete walls in office and public environments. [via the RCA Innovation Unit website; suggested by Shawn Gehle, Kansas City.]
Cars and homes have at least one thing in common: they consume energy in the form of oil or gas. Energy-efficient vehicles typically make use of lightweight materials and improved engine technologies, and soon home builders will also need to pay greater attention to environmental concerns in their designs. New legislation became effective in Germany last year which stipulates high energy-saving standards for new building construction and a reduction in the heat energy requirements in existing buildings. Apart from modern and efficient heating systems, thermal insulation makes the biggest difference. Vacuum insulation panels (VIP) could well be the material of the future.
Until now, such panels have been used primarily in cooling and refrigeration units. Now they are finding more widespread application as insulators for flat roofs. VIP’s work on the same principle as the thermos flask: when air is evacuated from the cavity of the double-walled container, heat conduction and convection decrease sharply. A metal layer on the surface further reduces the heat transfer by IR radiation. A VIP consists of a filler material such as compressed silica which is vacuum-encapsulated in a plastic barrier foil. “The real advantage is the amount of space that can be saved”, explains Dr. Klaus Noller of the Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging IVV. “Panels with a thickness of two centimeters insulate just as effectively as 20 centimeters of mineral fibers.” Noller, in charge of Functional Films at the IVV, is working together with three other Fraunhofer institutes and the firm Porextherm Dämmstoffe GmbH to develop panels suitable for use across the entire field of building materials.
The biggest problem they presently face concerns the panel’s service life. Over time, air permeates the barrier film and degrades the effectiveness of the insulation. “The panels work well in refrigerators for up to 15 years. In house construction, however, you need films that hold at least ninety percent of the vacuum after 50 years”, emphasizes Noller. Multilayer ultra barrier films from different polymers are being further developed. In addition, they need to be as durable as possible. “But even when the film itself is damaged, the insulation material inside the VIP still works more effectively than conventional ones”, promises Porextherm Managing Director Hannes Reisacher. [via the Fraunhofer Institute.]
Recycling paper is often just about creating more paper, but a Minnesotan company by the name of All Paper Recycling has been taking recycled paper and converting it into a versatile new building material called ShetkaStone. Completely made from all types of recycled paper (including waxed paper, glossy paper, and magazines), plants, and cloth fibers ShetkaStone can be used to create anything from doors, counter tops, benches, molding, soap dishes, and more.
Created by Stanly J. Shetka, president of All Paper Recycling, Inc., the patented process involved in creating ShetkaStone creates a slurry made of the pre and post consumer waste which is then formed into the hardened product. Due to its recycled content, ShetkaStone has a 100% sustainable life cycle. Both the waste created in the manufacturing process as well as products that have become damaged or reached the end of the cycle can go back into the manufacturing process at ShetkaStone.
Paper products account for 40% of the solid waste in the US, and only a small portion (white and newspaper) are actually being recycled. The mission of All Paper Recycling, Inc. is “to reduce pre-consumer and post consumer waste through the creation of environmentally responsible products and building materials made from wastepaper, cloth or plant fiber.” [via Evelyn Lee: Inhabitat; suggested by Bonnie Duncan, Seattle.]
Scott White wants to make obsolescence obsolete. After nearly a decade of research, the associate professor of aeronautical and astronautical engineering, along with fellow scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has developed a plastic that heals itself like skin (translation: self-repairing PDAs, cell phones, garden hoses). When the polymer splinters, invisible capillary-like microcapsules filled with a liquid agent called dicyclopentadiene flow into the crack. As the liquid comes in contact with the powdery catalyst (black spots) embedded throughout, the two chemicals coagulate and harden, as in the center-fractured test polymer shown here.
The whole process is triggered by a fracture no more than 100 microns in length. Once repaired, the plastic regains up to 75 percent of its original strength. The regenerative material will hit the market in two to three years, showing up first in the sporting goods and automotive industries, then the aerospace, microelectronics, and medical sectors, where every component is mission critical. The next challenges are to extend the technique to substances such as ceramic and glass, and to develop a scheme that mimics the body even more closely. "Presently, once the capillaries in one area have broken open, the whole thing is over, and it's like any other plastic," says White. "So we're experimenting with a circulatory system that will pump in replacement fluid automatically." [via Jennifer Kabat]
University of Michigan has developed a new type of fiber-reinforced bendable concrete which looks like regular concrete, but is 500 times more resistant to cracking and 40 percent lighter in weight. Tiny fibers that comprise about 2 percent of the mixture's volume partly account for its performance. Also, the materials in the concrete itself are designed for maximum flexibility. Because of its long life, the Engineered Cement Composites (ECC) are expected to cost less in the long run, as well.
Traditional concrete has many problems including the lack of durability and sustainability, failure under severe loading, and the resulting expenses of repair. U-M's Victor Li believes that ECC addresses most of those problems. The ductile, or bendable, concrete is made mainly of the same ingredients in regular concrete minus the coarse aggregate, Li said. It looks exactly like regular concrete, but under excessive strain, the ECC concrete gives because the specially coated network of fibers veining the cement is allowed to slide within the cement, thus avoiding the inflexibility that causes brittleness and breakage, Li said.
Fiber-reinforced concrete is not new, but Li believes that U-M's ECC - under development for the past 10 years - is vastly superior to other fiber-reinforced concretes in development today. The key is that ECC is engineered, Li said, which means that in addition to reinforcing the concrete with microscale fibers that act as ligaments to bond the concrete more tightly, scientists design the ingredients in the concrete itself to make it more flexible.
"The broad field of micromechanics has tried to understand how composite materials behave," Li said. "We went one step further and used the understanding as a material design approach in the development of ECC." [Excerpted from the University of Michigan website; suggested by Shawn Gehle, Kansas City.]
The Sensatex Solution utilizes a groundbreaking electro-optical textile, the Wearable Motherboard Smart Shirt, to seamlessly incorporate sensory capabilities with radio and computing devices, representing a highly effective and unobtrusive means of integrating broad-based sensors with the human body.
By supporting voice and data communications from multiple sensory locations through one wireless backbone, the Sensatex Solution provides an extremely versatile framework for a host of biomedical monitoring applications. The Smart Shirt eliminates the need for loose wires and discomfort experienced by many current patient monitoring devices, while also reducing the false alarm rates associated with their use. Its dependable and unobtrusive monitoring environment remains virtually transparent to the patient, while improving communications with remote monitoring locations, maintaining quality of patient care, and reducing healthcare costs. [Excerpted from the Sensatex website; suggested by Ralph Martin, Seattle.]
Self-cleaning glass has been described as an impossible dream, yet Pilkington now offers a glass called Activ which they claim does just that. Activ's unique dual-action uses the forces of nature to help keep the glass free from organic dirt, providing not only the practical benefit of less cleaning, but also clearer, better-looking windows.
Pilkington Activ is an ordinary glass with a special surface on the outside that exhibits the unique dual-action. Once exposed to daylight, the surface chemically reacts in two ways: First, it breaks down any organic dirt deposits and second, rain water 'sheets' down the glass to wash the loosened dirt away.
From certain angles Activ has a slightly greater mirror effect than ordinary glass, with a faint blue tint. Otherwise, the glass is just like any other. The PhotoActiv surface is an integral part of the glass itself, so it can only be affected if the glass itself is damaged; for example, by pointed objects, abrasive cleaners or steel wool. Tests have also shown it will not flake off or discolor, and the surface should last as long as the glass itself.
The surface contains harmless chemical substances already found in the home, in such things as toothpaste and paint. In fact, with only small amounts of cleaning agents needed, Activ self-cleaning glass is supposedly kinder to the environment than ordinary glass. [via the Pilkington website; suggested by Margaret Montgomery, Seattle.]
CoreTough is a honeycombed truss-wing-formed composite wall sandwiched between a seamless, one-piece, thick outer facing and a thinner inner facing with no rivets required.
The CoreTough power structure starts with plastic sheet material like polyethylene, ABS, surlyn, polystyrene, or polycarbonate. The core material is then formed with Phelps Engineered Plastics proprietary CoreTough process which, through heat and convection, the core sheet is expanded to the desired honeycomb thickness and geometry. When mated with the specified facing, it becomes a material with a high degree of rigidity.
CoreTough is "pound for pound, lighter than aluminum and stronger than steel," and solves the four problems traditionally experienced with traditional aluminum sheet and post body construction: leakage, rust and corrosion, dents and dings, and weight management.
The lampshade shown above at the far right was designed by Jun Takagi and manufactured with CoreTough material. [Excerpted from the AR Haire website; suggested by Dana Rochex, Seattle.]
Plasphalt
Along with pitch, lime, and gravel, this 2-mile stretch of I-25 in New Mexico is reinforced with another ingredient: plastic. Purple flecks from a toothbrush here, a bit of green tubing there. Gary Fishback and Erik Bowers of Albuquerque's TEWA Technology are paving the nation's roads with plasphalt - a proprietary mix of asphalt and recycled plastic. Though plasphalt costs 10 percent more than the straight alternative, it lasts 25 percent longer. Plus, it diverts 27 percent of all waste from landfill to highway. Right now, TEWA's best local suppliers are Philips Semiconductors, Intel, Coca-Cola, and Sandia National Laboratories. [via Michele Pentz,
Wired]
