Tom Vales Experiments

High Frequency Electricity

This experiment was done by science prof Tom Vales. He spoke and demonstrated different objects such as the sterling engine, Peltier Junction and the Mendocino motor.

1.    The Stirling Engine

Is 80% efficient. Is a hot air engine and it works by having hot air or other gases. It uses a displacer, and is set at different temperature levels so there could be a net conversion of heat energy so it can mechanically work.

How it works?

In this case Tom Vales used one carton cup, has 2 plates, a upper plate, and a lower plate. It’s 200 years old. Its sitting on a cup of hot water and it has a 4 degree Celsius.

The bellow picture is an example of a stirling engine, although it is not based of two of such as Tom Vales used.

2.     The Peltier

The Peltier effect was a discovery Jean Charles Athanase Peltier made when he was investigating electricity.

He joined copper wire and bismuth wire together and connected them to each other, then to a battery. When he switched the battery on, one of the junctions of the two wires got hot, while the other junction got cold.

In this experiment by Tom Vales, Tom used 2 cups and two metal tags. One piece of metal is in cold water and are piece of metal in hot water. It generates a sendi-cunducted type of energy.

The biggest use for this for example is in a computer, but it gets severely hot.

3.    Mendocino Motor:

The person who invented this was from Mendancine California. The motor consists of a four-side rotor block in the middle of a shaft. The rotor block has two sets of windings and solar cell attached to each side.

The shaft is positioned horizontally and has a magnet at each end.

There is an additional magnet that sits under the rotor block and provides a magnetic field for the rotor.

When light strikes one of the solar cells, it generates an electric current thus energizing one of the rotor windings.

This produces a magnetic field, which interacts with the field of the magnet under the rotor. This interaction causes the rotor to turn.

The light hits the solar cell and hits the light and magnet. It turns 90 Celsius and it floats.

There’s notification, it has a use as a teaching tool, and you have solar energy, magnets. They can be done as big as you want.

4.    Piezo Electic Effect

This is a type of electric motor based upon the change in shape of a piezoelectric material when an electric field is applied.

The elongation in a single plane is used to make a series of stretches and position holds.

There are small piece of small crystals that has wires, and has a button.

It will make high voltages in the other direction. It uses as a radiogram meter in which it generates sparks.

Overall, Tom Vales experiment where grate, such an amazing way of experiencing how we can create electicity in so many different ways.

Fukushima Daiichi

Fukushima Daiichi was one of the one of the largest earthquakes in the recorded history of the world occurred on the east coast of northern Japan March 11 2011. The Great East Japan Earthquake of magnitude was of 9.0 at 2.46 pm.

This earthquake also generated a major tsunami, causing nearly 20,000 deaths. Electricity, gas and water supplies, telecommunications, and railway service were all severely disrupted and in many cases completely shut down. These disruptions severely affected the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, causing a loss of all on-site and off-site power and a release of radioactive materials from the reactors.

   Facts 

*  All three cores largely melted in the first three days.

*   The accident was rated 7 on the INES scale, due to high radioactive releases in the first few days.

*    After two weeks the three reactors (units 1-3) were stable with water addition but no proper heat sink for removal of decay heat from fuel. By July they were being cooled with recycled water from the new treatment plant. Reactor temperatures had fallen to below 80ºC at the end of October, and official ‘cold shutdown condition’ was announced in mid December.

*   Apart from cooling, the basic ongoing task was to prevent release of radioactive materials, particularly in contaminated water leaked from the three units.

*  There have been no deaths or cases of radiation sickness from the nuclear accident, but over 100,000 people had to be evacuated from their homes to ensure this.

Now, Japan is about to embark on a cleanup that could cost at least $100bn – on top of the cost of compensating evacuees and decontaminating their abandoned homes.

Fukushima Daiichi’s manager, Takeshi Takahashi, conceded that decommissioning the plant could take 30 to 40 years.

The leadership of the American Nuclear Society commissioned the American Nuclear Society Special Committee on Fukushima to provide a clear and concise explanation of what happened during the Fukushima Daiichi accident, and offer recommendations based on lessons learned from their study of the event.

By the end of this year, Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) says it will begin removing fuel assemblies from the reactor and placing them in a nearby cooling pool, where they will remain for four years before being stored in dry casks in a purpose-built facility on higher ground.In total, workers will have to extract more than 11,000 new and used fuel assemblies from seven badly damaged storage pools.

Work to remove melted fuel won’t begin until 2021, and the entire decommissioning project is expected to take up to 40 years.

Works Cited

http://fukushima.ans.org/

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/fukushima_accident_inf129.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_Nuclear_Power_Plant