SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Convenor Valerie Conniff email valerie@vconniff.plus.com
The meetings are a presentation on a scientific or technical topic from a speaker or audiovisual presentation, followed by a question and answer session. Visits to places of scientific interest are arranged, usually during the spring or summer.
The group meets on the 2nd Tuesday afternoon of every month, except August, at Mitchel Troy Village Hall from 2.30 to 4.00pm. There is no restriction on membership and the subscription of £10 per year covers hire costs and speaker expenses. Meetings are open to the general membership but a charge of £2 per meeting is requested to cover set up costs.
The group meets on the 2nd Tuesday afternoon of every month, except August, at Mitchel Troy Village Hall from 2.30 to 4.00pm. There is no restriction on membership and the subscription of £10 per year covers hire costs and speaker expenses. Meetings are open to the general membership but a charge of £2 per meeting is requested to cover set up costs.
Date of next meeting: Tuesday, November 12th, 2.30pm Mitchel Troy Village Hall
Living with a Leaf Bob Handley, Monmouth U3A
Living with a Leaf Bob Handley, Monmouth U3A
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A message from Val We are a friendly group and an important part of our meetings is the informal discussion over a cup of tea after we have finished questioning our invited Speaker. There is no limit on membership and I welcome new members to our Science and Technology Group. No personal technical qualification is required to join the group, just a keen interest in science and technology in its broadest sense. Best wishes Val Previous Meetings and Trips |
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October 8th 2019 Life in the Freezer
This month we were privileged to have Dr Elizabeth Bagshaw, Senior Lecturer in the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences at Cardiff University, as our speaker. There could be no-one better qualified to address this topic as Dr Bagshaw has spent most of her professional life working in the field of Polar Science. She first visited the Antarctic during the first year of her doctorate research and has made three further trips since then as well as eleven visits to Greenland, where she now concentrates her research.
The Antarctic is the coldest, windiest, driest place on earth, Scott called it “an awful place” with temperatures reaching minus 90 degrees Celsius and winds of 200 miles per hour. No humans live permanently there, but scientists work on the science stations and it supports animals adapted to the cold such as penguins, seals, nematodes and tardigrades. Dr Bagshaw listed the survival strategies for creatures in these extreme conditions as furry, fatty, fluffy, fly or float and she illustrated this with examples.
It was not until 1999 that evidence of microbial life below the ice was discovered. As all living organisms need liquid water and an energy source to survive, it was difficult to imagine this being achieved under layers of ice where no sunlight could penetrate. The explanation lies in the existence of cryoconite holes. Cryoconite is a windblown dust, made up of small rock particles and microbes, which is deposited and builds up on glaciers and ice caps. This darkening of the surface absorbs solar radiation leading to the melting of the snow or ice below forming long cylindrical holes. The cryoconite sinks forming a deposit at the bottom which is known as a cryoconite hole. In winter an ice lid can form over the hole enclosing a small amount of water to sustain the microbes. These resulting ecosystems can survive for thousands of years without contact with the outside world.
Many different types of microbes, some heavily pigmented, have been identified and have found ways of adapting to their environment.
Dr Bagshaw’s research team have developed a “cryoegg” , a device the size of a grapefruit, which contains a circuit board and measures the temperature, pressure and conductivity of the surrounding meltwater. In Greenland this summer, a one and a half kilometer hole was drilled into the ice and the cryoegg lowered into the hole to collect data for analysis. These measurements will help us to understand how life can exist in these extreme conditions.
This research has wider applications: it can act as a model for life in Mars, it can predict what will happen when climate changes. On the biological side, microbes generate nutrients, what happens to them? What is in the melt water? These are but a few of the questions to be answered. It is remarkable that so much work has been done in twenty years , especially considering the experimental difficulties that have to be overcome. Valerie Conniff
10th September 2019 Solar Flight, Past, Present and Future Speaker: Phil Charlesworth
Phil Charlesworth is no stranger to the Science and Technology Group having previously talked about what he describes as his hobby, ‘amateur rocketry’. At this meeting Phil was talking about what used to be his day job at Airbus, until he retired and was poached by Liverpool Hope University.
Phil first talked about the generalities of solar flight which at the simplest means using solar energy to power a heavier than air machine which can stay in the air for a very long time, several days in fact. This is achieved by storing excess energy generated from solar cells to maintain flight during the hours of darkness. Although Phil admitted solar planes are in effect flying batteries, the planes do carry a small payload which is the reason for their development.
To do this you need a very light fuselage with a large surface area of wings which are covered in solar panels, a couple of electric motors, some batteries and an energy management system (EMS). The EMS controls all aspects of the flight by directing excess energy to the battery during the daytime and managing the flow of energy to the motors during the day and night, as well as providing energy to the payload which might be some sort of video-surveillance system. Using such a system it is possible to put a plane at heights of 17-18 km and keep it flying there for several days.
The reason for flying so high is that at that height the wind speeds are much lower than ground level so there is much less energy loss to resistance. However, the temperatures at that height place some very real pressures on the materials used, particularly for the batteries. The latitude the plane flies at is also important since at higher latitudes the ability to recharge the battery during winter months reduces the amount of flying time possible.
Phil made clear that the current state of solar powered flight is very much due to some modern technological advances including carbon fibre for weight reduction, ‘outrunner’ electric motors which being brushless greatly reduce friction losses, low temperature systems, computation fluid dynamics which has allowed improved low speed aerofoil design and 3D printing which has resulted in producing components more efficiently using less material. Other emerging technologies which have facilitated the developments in solar flight include very high specific energy batteries and very thin and flexible solar cells with efficiencies approaching 20% or more.
The history of solar flight can be traced to the 1950s but most advances have been in the last 10 or 15 years. A surprising number of companies have tried to develop solar planes, possibly because of military applications but these have now largely receded in the face of more humanitarian possibilities like disaster monitoring, search and rescue and improving internet coverage in isolated communities and tsunami detection.
Although Phil says that his former company Airbus is probably 10 years ahead of other companies his work with Liverpool Hope University is progressing well to the extent that he is currently building a solar electric aircraft in his garage! I, for one, am envious that he has enough space in his garage to even consider such a project. Guy Moody
This month we were privileged to have Dr Elizabeth Bagshaw, Senior Lecturer in the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences at Cardiff University, as our speaker. There could be no-one better qualified to address this topic as Dr Bagshaw has spent most of her professional life working in the field of Polar Science. She first visited the Antarctic during the first year of her doctorate research and has made three further trips since then as well as eleven visits to Greenland, where she now concentrates her research.
The Antarctic is the coldest, windiest, driest place on earth, Scott called it “an awful place” with temperatures reaching minus 90 degrees Celsius and winds of 200 miles per hour. No humans live permanently there, but scientists work on the science stations and it supports animals adapted to the cold such as penguins, seals, nematodes and tardigrades. Dr Bagshaw listed the survival strategies for creatures in these extreme conditions as furry, fatty, fluffy, fly or float and she illustrated this with examples.
It was not until 1999 that evidence of microbial life below the ice was discovered. As all living organisms need liquid water and an energy source to survive, it was difficult to imagine this being achieved under layers of ice where no sunlight could penetrate. The explanation lies in the existence of cryoconite holes. Cryoconite is a windblown dust, made up of small rock particles and microbes, which is deposited and builds up on glaciers and ice caps. This darkening of the surface absorbs solar radiation leading to the melting of the snow or ice below forming long cylindrical holes. The cryoconite sinks forming a deposit at the bottom which is known as a cryoconite hole. In winter an ice lid can form over the hole enclosing a small amount of water to sustain the microbes. These resulting ecosystems can survive for thousands of years without contact with the outside world.
Many different types of microbes, some heavily pigmented, have been identified and have found ways of adapting to their environment.
Dr Bagshaw’s research team have developed a “cryoegg” , a device the size of a grapefruit, which contains a circuit board and measures the temperature, pressure and conductivity of the surrounding meltwater. In Greenland this summer, a one and a half kilometer hole was drilled into the ice and the cryoegg lowered into the hole to collect data for analysis. These measurements will help us to understand how life can exist in these extreme conditions.
This research has wider applications: it can act as a model for life in Mars, it can predict what will happen when climate changes. On the biological side, microbes generate nutrients, what happens to them? What is in the melt water? These are but a few of the questions to be answered. It is remarkable that so much work has been done in twenty years , especially considering the experimental difficulties that have to be overcome. Valerie Conniff
10th September 2019 Solar Flight, Past, Present and Future Speaker: Phil Charlesworth
Phil Charlesworth is no stranger to the Science and Technology Group having previously talked about what he describes as his hobby, ‘amateur rocketry’. At this meeting Phil was talking about what used to be his day job at Airbus, until he retired and was poached by Liverpool Hope University.
Phil first talked about the generalities of solar flight which at the simplest means using solar energy to power a heavier than air machine which can stay in the air for a very long time, several days in fact. This is achieved by storing excess energy generated from solar cells to maintain flight during the hours of darkness. Although Phil admitted solar planes are in effect flying batteries, the planes do carry a small payload which is the reason for their development.
To do this you need a very light fuselage with a large surface area of wings which are covered in solar panels, a couple of electric motors, some batteries and an energy management system (EMS). The EMS controls all aspects of the flight by directing excess energy to the battery during the daytime and managing the flow of energy to the motors during the day and night, as well as providing energy to the payload which might be some sort of video-surveillance system. Using such a system it is possible to put a plane at heights of 17-18 km and keep it flying there for several days.
The reason for flying so high is that at that height the wind speeds are much lower than ground level so there is much less energy loss to resistance. However, the temperatures at that height place some very real pressures on the materials used, particularly for the batteries. The latitude the plane flies at is also important since at higher latitudes the ability to recharge the battery during winter months reduces the amount of flying time possible.
Phil made clear that the current state of solar powered flight is very much due to some modern technological advances including carbon fibre for weight reduction, ‘outrunner’ electric motors which being brushless greatly reduce friction losses, low temperature systems, computation fluid dynamics which has allowed improved low speed aerofoil design and 3D printing which has resulted in producing components more efficiently using less material. Other emerging technologies which have facilitated the developments in solar flight include very high specific energy batteries and very thin and flexible solar cells with efficiencies approaching 20% or more.
The history of solar flight can be traced to the 1950s but most advances have been in the last 10 or 15 years. A surprising number of companies have tried to develop solar planes, possibly because of military applications but these have now largely receded in the face of more humanitarian possibilities like disaster monitoring, search and rescue and improving internet coverage in isolated communities and tsunami detection.
Although Phil says that his former company Airbus is probably 10 years ahead of other companies his work with Liverpool Hope University is progressing well to the extent that he is currently building a solar electric aircraft in his garage! I, for one, am envious that he has enough space in his garage to even consider such a project. Guy Moody
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