Body Movement Generates Electricity in Miniature Device

UC Berkeley Electro-mechanical Design Laboratory

The UC Berkeley Electro-mechanical Design Laboratory is a member of the Pacific Rim Electro-Mechanical (PREM) Laboratory Research Consortium. The Laboratory is dedicated to the design and analysis of novel electrical motors and actuators. Established in 1988, it is a 1800 sq. ft facility located in room 2163 Etcheverry Hall. In addition to student offices and laboratory areas, the laboratory has developed unique facilities and capabilities for its work. Modeling and simulation (ANSYS for finite-element magnetics modeling) is performed extensively on Pentium based workstations. Pentium based personal computers are used for less intensive computation. Test equipment include structural dynamics analyzers, sound level analyzers, magnetic flux and gauss meters, piezoelectric accelerometers, and a Vibrac motor test stand. A TSI laser Doppler vibrometer is used for dynamics measurements in the presence of large magnetic fields. Most of the research effort during the past several years has been concentrated on the design, analysis, and optimization of novel, highly stable DC brushless motors and actuators. Close industrial ties are maintained with IBM, Quantum, Adept, Encap, Samsung, and Daewoo.

todedicate – посвящать

facilities – благоприятные условия

brushlessmotor – бесщеточный двигатель

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English Character

Foreigners have many ideas about what the English like. For example, some people say the English are always cold and reserved, this means that they don't talk much to strangers, and don't show much emotion. Some believe the English eat porridge for breakfast and read The Times every day.

English people are famous for their habit of politeness. It is considered polite to give up one's seat to a woman who is standing, to open a door for her, carry things for her, and so on. Most British people expect the person in front of them to hold the door open for them. People think you are rude, if you don't do this. Most British people queue when they are waiting for a bus or waiting to be served in a shop. British people keep their old traditions and are very proud of them. They are famous for their sense of humour. And, of course, English people are fond of sports. To many Englishmen cricket is both a game and a standard of behaviour. When they consider something unfair, they say "That isn't cricket".

The traditional love of English people for tea is well known. They like to drink tea with milk. They have their five-o'clock tea not only at home or in offices, but also in tea-rooms and tea-shops, which can be found in every town.

1.    What do foreigners usually think about English people?

2.    What is the favourite game of Englishmen?

3.    What is a well-known English tradition connected with tea?

3. Topic: “Vehicle Control System

№ 2

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In the 19 th century the manufacturing capabilities created by the Industrial Revolution were applied to the production of war materials. Technological innovation led to the development of rifled artillery, breech-loading rifles, machine-guns, and other weapons that revolutionised warfare. The resources of entire nations could now be turned to war, making possible conflicts of unprecedented scale and destructiveness. Although many government leaders saw the arms build-up in Europe as potentially disastrous, nothing was done to reduce armaments until the First Hague Peace Conference of 1899.

The First Hague Conference was convened at the initiative of Nicholas II of Russia to control arms development and improve the conditions of warfare. Twenty-six nations attended the conference which codified the laws and customs of land warfare. They defined the status of belligerents, and drafted regulations on the treatment of prisoners, the wounded, and neutrals. It also banned aerial bombardment (by balloons), dumdum (or expansion) bullets, and the use of poison gas. Most importantly, it established a court, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, for the arbitration of international disputes (although this court had no enforcement powers).

The Second Hague Peace Conference of 1907 was marked more by discord than discourse, a sign of the deteriorating world situation. However, it furthered the cause of mediation and arbitration of disputes by establishing additional courts to arbitrate cases involving ships' cargoes seized during war, and resolution of international debts. A Third Hague Conference was scheduled for 1915. Ironically, World War I caused its abandonment.

capability -способность

unprecedented scale – беспрецедентныймасштаб

aerial bombardment – воздушнаябомбардировка

discord - разногласие

HagueConference – Гаагская конференция

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Places to visit in London

London draws people from all over the world. Some come on business, some come to study, to work or on holiday. There is much in London which fascinates visitors and inspires the affection of Londoners. London shows examples of buildings that express all the different areas of its history.

Buckingham Palace is the official London residence of the Sovereign. The daily ceremony of the Changing of the Guards takes place in its courtyard. The palace was built in 1703 by the Duke of Buckingham.

Piccadilly Circus has become an important meeting point - for as well as sightseers. At its heart is a bronze fountain topped by a figure of a winded archer, known as Eros, the pagan god of love. This area is now famous for its theatres, clubs and shops.

The parks of London provide a welcome contrast to the great built-up areas. St. James's Park, Green Park, Hyde Park, and Kensington Gardens are linked together. They form 313 hectares of open parkland in the heart of London.

1.    Are there many places to visit in London?

2.    What can we see at Piccadilly Circus?

3.    Are there a lot of parks in London?

3. Topic: “Operating Irregularity of a Brake Gear

№ 3

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In 1934 the American inventor, Charles William Beebe, broke the record for deep-sea diving in a bathysphere, reaching a depth of 923 m off Bermuda in the Atlantic Ocean. The bathysphere was invented by Beebe and his engineer Otis Barton. It was a large, hollow steel ball, less than 1.5 m in diameter, with windows of Perspex. The bathysphere was lowered from a ship, using a powerful chain. Beebe and his successors discovered that some strange-looking creatures manage to live in the dark ocean depths.                                                                                     The aqualung was invented by the French oceanographer, Jacques Cousteau, in 1943. For the first time, divers could swim at depths of up to 30 m, without being attached by a line to a ship. The air supply is carried on the diver's back in cylinders, at high pressure. A tube takes the air to a mouthpiece, and a watertight mask with a glass front covers the eyes and nose. Thanks to the aqualung, any swimmer can explore the marvelous world below the surface of the water.     The bathyscaphe, invented by Belgian scientist Auguste Piccard in 1953, was the first deep-water vessel, which could explore the deepest parts of the ocean. Piccard had the idea for designing it after studying airships. The US navy bought Piccard's second bathyscaphe, the Trieste II, and in 1960 his son, Jacques, and naval officer Don Walsh descended more than 11,000 m to the bottom of the Marianas Trench. The trench lies in the Pacific and is the deepest known area in the oceans. From their steel ball beneath the craft they could see the extraordinary creatures that live at these depths.

inventor – изобретатель

Perspex – фирм. название органического стекла концерна ICI

successors – преемник

creature – создание, творение

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BANK HOLIDAYS

The Spring Bank Holiday is celebrated on the last Monday of May or on the First Monday of June, while the Late Summer Bank Holiday comes on the last Monday of August. These holidays were called Bank holidays because on these days banks were to be closed. Their observance is no longer limited to banks, they are public holidays now. On Bank Holidays the English people usually go to the country and to the coast. If the weather is fine many families take a picnic lunch or tea with them and enjoy their meal in the open air. Most traditional of all, there are large fairs, with swings, roundabouts, coconut shies, a Bunch and Judy show, hoop-la stalls and so on. These fairs are arranged on open spaces and the most famous of them is the huge one on Hamstead Heath near London (called Happy .Hamstead). Here you can see Cockney costers (street traders who wear suits or frocks, with thousand of little pearly buttons, also over their caps and hats. They hold horse and cart parades, where horses and carts are gaily decorated. On the fair ground there are hundreds of stalls. The noise is deafening. You can hear mechanical bands and the cries of the showmen and the laughter of the visitors.

1.    When are Bank Holidays celebrated?

2.    What do English people usually do on Bank Holidays?

3.    What can you say about fair ground?

3. Topic: “Brake”

№ 4

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If you are exhausted after a long walk, you may say that you've run out of energy. But your energy has not disappeared; it was converted into heat as you walked, and left behind in the air and the ground, making them slightly warmer. Indeed, it is impossible to destroy or create energy; it can only be moved or changed from one form to another. This is the Law of Conservation of Energy. What this means is that the total amount of energy after any change is always exactly the same as the total before. Energy is really never lost; it is just converted to another form.

Energy is never lost, but it can be burnt up. Indeed, every time energy is used, some is turned into heat. This is why you feel hot after running and why light bulbs get hot. This matters because heat spreads thinly in all directions. So although energy is not lost, it is dissipated and is much harder to use again.

When wood burns, for instance, its energy is scattered through the air and is hard to use again. A little more becomes unusable this way each time energy is used — so the energy available to make anything happen (called free energy) gets less and less. Scientists use the word entropy to describe how much energy has become unusable. The less free energy there is, the greater the entropy. Entropy is at a maximum when there is no free energy left at all.

runout – выдыхаться

burnup – сжигать, расходовать

bulb – электрическая лампочка

scatter – рассеивать, размещать

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REMEMBRANCE DAY

Remembrance Day, the nearest Sunday to November 11, is observed throughout Britain in commemoration of those who lost their lives during the two World Wars. On that day special services are held in the churches and wreaths are laid at war memorials throughout the country. A great number of people gather at London Cenotagh to observe the two-minutes silence and to take part in the Remembrance Day Ceremony. The silence begins at the first stroke of Big Ben booming 11 o'clock. When the two minutes silence is over, members of the Royal Family and political leaders come forward to lay wreaths at the foot of the Cenotaph. Then comes the march past the memorial. On that day artificial red poppies are sold in the streets everywhere and people wear them in their button-holes. They are a symbol of mourning. The money collected in this way is later used to help the men who had been crippled during the war.

1.    When is Remembrance Day observed?

2.    Why is it called Remembrance Day?

3.    Why do many people gather at London Cenotagh on this day?

3. Topic: “Gearset”

№ 5

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The word entropy was coined by German physicist Rudolf Clausius in 1868, the idea dates back to the 1820s and a young Frenchman called Sadi Carnot. Carnot was trying to find out why a steam engine works. He realised it is because it is hot in one place and cold in another. The flow of heat energy from hot to cold drives the engine.

Clausius showed this is true for all forms of energy. Work is done and things happen because energy moves from areas of high energy (or temperature) to areas of lower energy —just as water falling over a dam can turn a water wheel.

The movement is strictly one way, from high to low. Left standing, a cup of hot coffee gradually cools down as it loses heat to the air around, warming the air very slightly. Eventually, the coffee is as cool as the air and there is no longer any energy difference to make anything happen. In this equilibrium state, entropy is at a maximum.

Clausius summed it all up in 1865 in two universal thermodynamic laws. The first Law of Thermodynamics is similar to the Conservation of Energy Law. It says that the total energy in the universe is fixed at the beginning of time and will remain so until the end. The Second Law of Thermodynamics is about the way energy is dissipated as heat every time it is used. This means the total entropy of the universe must increase. Eventually, scientists once argued, the universe will end because all energy will be nothing but heat. Few scientists agree altogether with this idea of Heat Death for the universe, but the two laws of thermodynamics are considered the most important scientific laws of all.

fall over - отказсистемы

water wheel - гидротурбина

equilibrium – равновесие, баланс

toincrease - увеличиваться

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English Traditions

If you arrive in Great Britain you'll hear the word "tradition" everywhere. Englishmen have sentimental love for things and traditions because they are old. They never throw away old things. For example, in many houses of Great Britain they have fire-places and though their bedrooms are awfully cold the English people don't want to have changes.

There is an unusual competition called Pancake races. In some villages and towns, there is a pancake race every year. Usually housewives take part in it. But pancake races are for everyone who likes to entertain. Students take part in all these races. One has to make the pancake first and then run tossing the pancake as he goes. It isn't an easy thing to do.

Each November, usually on the first Sunday of the month, a lot of old cars take part in a rally from London to Brighton. This is an unusual rally: each car taking part in it must be at least 60 years old. This is probably the reason that this celebration has become known as the Vintage Car Run. The Rally is not a race. Cars must not move faster than 20 miles per hour. The great thing is not speed but quality of performance. This celebration is the merriest motoring spectacle of the year and gives people a chance to see some fine old cars.

1.    Why is there a fire-place in many houses of Great Britain?

2.    Who do usually take part in Pancake racing?

3.    How many years at least must be a car taking part in a rally?

3. Topic: “Cohesion”

№ 6

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Body Movement Generates Electricity in Miniature Device

A new class of devices aims to convert energy created from body movement, the stretching of muscles or the flow of water to power future nanoscale components.

These so-called "nanogenerators" would be less bulky than traditional energy sources such as batteries. Zhong Lin Wang of the Georgia Institute of Technology and graduate student Jinhui Song have created a prototype nanogenerator that produces electrical current through the bending and relaxing of zinc oxide nanowires. When the nanowires flex, they emit a piezoelectric discharge, which is electricity generated by certain materials under mechanical stress. A nanometer is one billionth of a meter; a human hair is roughly 100,000 nanometers wide. Because zinc oxide is non-toxic, the new nanogenerator could be implanted safely into the body.

"Our bodies are good at converting chemical energy from glucose into the mechanical energy of our muscles," Wang said. "These nanogenerators can take that mechanical energy and convert it to electrical energy for powering devices inside the body." Wang thinks such devices could be used wherever mechanical energy is available. The hydraulic motion of seawater would work, or the motion of a foot inside a shoe. "You could envision having these nanogenerators in your shoes to produce electricity as you walk," Wang said. "This could be beneficial for soldiers in the field, who now depend on batteries to power their electrical equipment. As long as the soldiers were moving, they could generate electricity." The device is detailed in the March 14 issue of the journal Science.

bulky – противоположный, противоречащий

mechanicalstress – механическое напряжение

dependon – зависеть от

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WHO RULES BRITAIN

The United Kingdom is a parliamentary monarchy. It means that there is the King or the Queen and a parliament. The powers of the monarch are limited. They say that the Queen reigns but she does not rule.

The British Parliament is the supreme legislative authority in the United Kingdom and consists of two Houses: the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The opening of Parliament is a very picturesque ceremony.

The House of Commons is an assembly elected once in five years. There are 630 members in this House. Members of the House of Commons receive a salary for their parliamentary work. Members of the House of Commons belong to different political parties. The sitting of the House each day is opened by the procession of the Speaker.

The Members of the House of Lords are not elected by the population. The seats in the House of Lords are hereditary. In the House of Lords there are more than 800 peers. The House of Lords is presided over by the Lord Chancellor. The monarch appoints the Prime minister who is a leader of the party that has won the elections.

1.    What kind of country is the United Kingdom?

2.    Why do we say that the powers of the monarch are limited?

3.    How many members are there in the House of Commons?

3. Topic: “Car Frame”

№ 7

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A transformer is a device that transfers energy from one electrical circuit to another by magnetic coupling without requiring relative motion between its parts. A transformer comprises two or more coupled windings, and, in most cases, a magnetic core to concentrate magnetic flux. A voltage applied to one winding creates a time-varying magnetic flux in the core, which induces a voltage in the other windings. Varying the relative number of turns in the windings determines the ratio of their voltages, thus transforming the voltage from one circuit to another. The transformer principle was demonstrated in 1831 by Faraday, though practical designs did not appear until the 1880s.Within the decade, the transformer was instrumental during the "War of Currents" in seeing alternating current systems triumph over their direct current counterparts, a dominant position that remains to the present. The transformer has since shaped the electricity supply industry, permitting the economic transmission of power over long distances. All but a fraction of the world's electrical power has passed through a series of transformers by the time it reaches the consumer.                                                                  One of the simplest of electrical devices, the transformer is also one of the most efficient, with large units attaining efficiencies in excess of 99.75%. Transformers come in a range of sizes from a thumbnail-sized coupling transformer hidden inside a stage microphone to huge gigawatt-rated units used to interconnect portions of national power grids. All operate with the same basic principles and with many similarities in their parts, though a variety of transformer designs exist to perform specialised roles throughout home and industry.

electrical circuit – электрическаясхема      

magnetic coupling – индуктивнаясвязь                                                                                                                     to apply to – использовать, применять                                     supply - снабжение, поставка

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