Browse Topic: Fire
With the exponential rise in drone activity, safely managing low-flying airspace has become challenging — especially in highly populated areas. Just last month an unauthorized drone collided with a ‘Super Scooper’ aircraft above the Los Angeles wildfires, grounding the aircraft for several days and hampering the firefighting efforts.
Innovators at NASA Johnson Space Center have designed a pneumatic nail penetration trigger system that drives a Li-ion battery cell into thermal runaway using a tungsten nail. By creating a targeted rupture in a battery cell’s outer casing, researchers can initiate an exothermic chain reaction within the battery, much like a short circuit, causing a spike in temperature that can lead to battery failure, fire or explosion.
Conventional solid polymer electrolyte batteries perform poorly due to structural limitations that hinder an optimal electrode contact. This could not eliminate the issue of “dendrites”, where lithium grows in tree-like structures during repeated charging and discharging cycles. Dendrites are a critical issue, as an irregular lithium growth can disrupt battery connections, potentially causing fires and explosions.
Batteries in electric vehicles can fail quickly, sometimes catching fire without much warning. Sandia National Laboratories is working to detect these failures early and provide sufficient warning time to vehicle occupants.
Nowadays, there are many technologies emerging like firefighting robots, quadcopters, and drones which are capable of operating in hazardous disaster scenarios. In recent years, fire emergencies have become an increasingly serious problem, leading to hundreds of deaths, thousands of injuries, and the destruction of property worth millions of dollars. According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), India recorded approximately 1,218 fire incidents resulting in 1,694 deaths in 2020 alone. Globally, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that fires account for around 265,000 deaths each year, with the majority occurring in low- and middle-income countries. The existing fire-extinguishing systems are often inefficient and lack proper testing, causing significant delays in firefighting efforts. These delays become even more critical in situations involving high-rise buildings or bushfires, where reaching the affected areas is particularly challenging. The leading causes of
In the fall of 2023, NASA hot fire tested an aluminum-based, 3D-printed rocket engine nozzle. What made the event remarkable is that aluminum isn’t typically used for additive manufacturing because the process causes it to crack, and it isn’t used in rocket engines due to its low melting point. Yet the test was a success.
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A global team of researchers and industry collaborators led by RMIT University has invented recyclable ’water batteries’ that won’t catch fire or explode.
Where there’s smoke, there will be no fire because a drone is already on the scene. At least that’s the hope of Zhaodan Kong, Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and his team at the University of California, Davis.
Northrop Grumman Corporation is developing AN/APG-85, an advanced Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar for the F-35 Lightning II. Northrop Grumman currently manufactures the AN/APG-81 active electronically scanned array (AESA) fire control radar, the cornerstone to the F-35 Lightning II’s sensor suite.
Rydberg Technologies, an Ann Arbor, Michigan-based quantum technology startup, demonstrated the use of an atomic receiver for long-range RF applications during the NetModX23 event hosted by the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (DEVCOM) C5ISR Center in December. The 2023 edition of NetModX featured 10 weeks of experimentation spanning 62 different technologies across 17 focus areas and five modernization priorities including “Future Vertical Lift, Long-Range Precision Fires, Network, Next Generation Combat Vehicle and Soldier Lethality,” according to the Army. A major goal sought by the C5ISR Center with NetModX is to take technologies that are nearing maturity from research labs directly into operational environments for assessments by active warfighters.
Cage structures made with nanoparticles could be a step toward making organized nanostructures with mixed materials, and researchers at the University of Michigan have shown how to achieve this through computer simulations.
The world community is constantly and rapidly moving toward the search for alternative and ecologically clean energy sources, including for transport, and Russia’s war against Ukraine only intensified and accelerated such processes. This trend in transport is reflected in the spread of battery-powered electric vehicles (BEVs) with zero emission of harmful gases. Electric cars are experiencing a rapid increase in numbers, accompanied by the emergence of lesser-known risks. Among these hazards are the occurrence of fires in electric vehicles, primarily caused by component failures, notably the widely prevalent lithium-ion batteries. Fires of such cars have a different character compared to fires of vehicles powered by an internal combustion engine vehicle (ICEV). In this study, using the fire dynamics simulator developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a BEV fire was simulated on the example of the Tesla Model S. For this, a description of the objects and their
It is well known that target state estimation and prediction methods can have a substantial influence on the outcome of long range, precision-oriented engagements. Due to this fact, a collection of techniques and algorithms have been developed for the purpose of minimizing the delivery error caused by target motion over the flight time of a munition. These legacy compensation techniques have typically come from direct fire, accuracy-oriented assets such as main battle tanks and attack helicopters. However, with the proliferation of unmanned vehicles in the battle space, the target state estimation and prediction capabilities could be extended into the indirect fire domain. The work conducted within examines the challenge of utilizing a reconnaissance drone partnered with a decoupled weapon platform to track a target, predict its motion, and calculate a lead. The information presented within establishes the framework required to enable this capability, develops the individual solution
This document provides guidance for in-flight rest facilities provided for use by cabin crew on commercial transport airplane. This document is applicable to dedicated cabin crew rest facilities with rigid walls. The facility includes a bunk or other surface that allows for a flat sleeping position, is located in an area that is temperature-controlled, allows the crew member to control light, and provides isolation from noise and disturbance.
This SAE Recommended Practice describes a test method for determination of heavy truck (Class VI, VII, and VIII) tire force and moment properties under cornering conditions. The properties are acquired as functions of normal force and slip angle using a sequence specified in this practice. At each normal force increment, the slip angle is continually ramped or stepped. The data are suitable for use in vehicle dynamics modeling, comparative evaluations for research and development purposes, and manufacturing quality control. This document is intended to be a general guideline for testing on an ideal machine. Users of this SAE Recommended Practice may modify the recommended protocols to satify the needs of specific use-cases, e.g., reducing the recommended number of test loads and/or pressures for benchmarking purposes. However, due care is necessary when modifying the protocols to maintain data integrity.
A research team at the University of Central Florida has developed technology that could prevent electric vehicle fires, like those caused by saltwater flooding from Hurricane Ian.
Among the limitations of electric vehicles (EVs) is the lack of a long-lasting, high-energy-density battery that reduces the need to fuel up on long-haul trips. The same is true for houses during blackouts and power grid failures — small, efficient batteries able to power a home for more than one night without electricity don’t yet exist. A major issue is that while rechargeable lithium metal anodes play a key role in how well this new wave of lithium batteries functions, during battery operation, they are highly susceptible to the growth of dendrites — microstructures that can lead to dangerous short-circuiting, catching on fire, and even exploding.
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