Welding & Gases Today Editor’s Blog 
  

Cool compressed oxygen released from under-seat gas cylinders

Ford Motor Company is bringing to market the world’s first automotive inflatable seat belts, combining attributes of traditional seat belts and air bags to provide an added level of crash safety protection for rear seat occupants.

The advanced restraint system is designed to help reduce head, neck and chest injuries for rear seat passengers—often children and older passengers who can be more vulnerable to such injuries.

Vehicle safety sensors determine the severity of the collision in the blink of an eye and deploy the inflatable belts’ air bags.  Each belt’s tubular air bag inflates with cold compressed oxygen, which flows through a specially designed buckle from a cylinder housed below the seat.

The inflatable belt’s accordion-folded bag breaks through the belt fabric as it fills with air, expanding sideways across the occupant’s body in about the same amount of time it takes a car traveling at highway speed to cover a yard of distance.

The use of cold compressed gas instead of a heat-generating chemical reaction—which is typical of traditional air bag systems—means the inflated belts feel no warmer on the wearer’s body than the ambient temperature. The inflatable belt also fills at a lower pressure and a slower rate than traditional air bags because the device does not need to close a gap between the belt and the occupant.

The inflated belt helps distribute crash force energy across five times more of the occupant’s torso than a traditional belt, which expands its range of protection and reduces risk of injury by diffusing crash pressure over a larger area, while providing additional support to the head and neck. After deployment, the belt remains inflated for several seconds before dispersing its air through the pores of the air bag.

Ford is introducing inflatable rear seat belts on the new Ford Explorer, which goes into production this year for the North American market. Ford eventually plans to offer the technology in vehicles globally.

George Clooney may be the lead star of the new Hollywood film Up in the Air, but a major supporting role was provided by planet Earth through some amazing footage shot by the movie’s aerial director of photography, Dylan Goss.

Clooney plays businessman Ryan Bingham, a man who spends the majority of his life in airplanes and hotel rooms as he crisscrosses the country for his job as hatchet man for corporations that are downsizing and laying off employees.

During many of the airplane scenes, the audience shares Clooney’s airline-window view of the dazzling Earth below.

To capture these images, Goss spent a week in the ice-cold backend of a Cessna airplane flying at 15,000 feet (aerial photography is typically filmed at less than 1,000 feet), wrapped in winter clothing and breathing oxygen through a mask connected to a gas cylinder.

To keep his camera lens from clouding over in the frigid temperatures, Goss sealed the camera in a glass sphere that was attached to the plane’s fuselage. The sphere was then pumped full of argon gas to prevent the lens from fogging.

The result? Some amazing aerial cinematography that would not have been possible had it not been for Goss’s resourceful industrial gases applications.

The clock is ticking for NASA to stock the International Space Station with all the oversized parts necessary for the station to continue to function beyond 2010, when the Space Shuttle Program ends. After that, according to NASA, there will be no U.S. spacecraft big enough to carry large replacement parts to the station.

Atlantis docked at the space station on Nov. 16. Shuttle and space station astronauts are now hard at work unloading a staggering shopping list.

There are two express logistics carriers (ELCs) that are being installed on the station’s truss. Bolted to the ELCs will be 27,250 lbs. of spare parts, including two 600-lb. control moment gyro assemblies; a 415-lb. latching end effector; 1,702-lb. ammonia tank assembly; two 780-lb. cooling-system pump module assemblies; and equipment for future experiments. 

Crucial parts related to the industrial gases industry that were included in the Atlantis payload were two nitrogen tank assemblies weighing 550 lbs. each that will be used to pressurize the ammonia tank assemblies for the station cooling system; and a 1,240-lb. high-pressure gas tank filled with 220 lbs. of gaseous oxygen for the station’s ventilation system.

A significantly emptier Atlantis will return to Earth on November 27.

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Distributors who have customers in the electronics industry may be interested in know that researchers at UC San Diego have made a breakthrough in integrated circuits using a particle type called excitons that can operate at commercially available cold temperatures.

The circuit operates using excitons at 125 degrees Kelvin, equivalent to -234 degrees F. The temperature is achieved with commercially available and affordable liquid nitrogen. Earlier circuits required temperatures of -457 degrees F., which was only achievable in specially outfitted labs and at significantly higher cost.

Computers based on the breakthrough technology could convert excitons into light simply by having the particles reach the end of the circuit. Optical circuits that use electrons must convert the electrons to light for use in communications devices; excitons do this by nature.

The goal of the researchers is to create efficient devices based on excitons that are operational at room temperature and can replace electronic devices where a high interconnection speed is necessary. The research is still in the early stages of development.

Las Vegas hosts the world’s largest helium balloon

 Now here’s an industrial gas contract worth vying for: Cloud Nine, the world’s largest helium balloon, is now taking thrill seekers for rides above the Las Vegas Strip.

 Cloud Nine is a tethered balloon that can carry up to 30 passengers at a time in a customized gondola that offers 360 degree views of Las Vegas from 500 feet in the air. The seven-story-wide, eleven-story-high balloon is illuminated from within, making it visible for miles during night flights.

 The attraction was developed by Cloud Nine Entertainment and designed by the French company Aerophile. The European-style balloon was originally commissioned for The America’s Cup yacht race in Valencia, Spain. Cloud Nine was inspired by similar balloon attractions in Paris, Hong Kong and Dubai.

Be warned—the ride doesn’t come cheap. Tickets are $17.50-$22.50 for kids 12 and under and $22.50-$27.50 for adults.

The Infrastructurist, a Web site for the construction industry, recently took a look at ten infrastructure-related jobs with bright prospects.

According to the site, in spite of the economic downturn, the global infrastructure sector is poised to see $35 trillion in spending over the next two decades. Moreover, the jobs in question tend to be the sort that can’t be outsourced overseas.

“Most infrastructure work is domestic by nature, after all,” the report says. “And these jobs also tend to be tied to real-world technical skills—unlike many that were lost when America’s bubble economy deflated last year.”

As a follow-up to that report, The Infrastructurist recently added five more “hot jobs” to that initial list. At the top of the list—Certified Arc Welding Technician.

“Arc welding is a common technique of fusing metals, and robotic arc welding—as the name suggests—is this process as preformed by robots,” the site says. “Automation ensures a higher quality of the weld—up to 50 percent better—and increases productivity by up to three times. Who maintains these armies of welding robots? A robotic arc welding technician, of course. As Jeff Noruk, president of industry firm Servo Robot puts it, ‘Robots are like babies. They need care every single day.’”

This is very good news for GAWDA distributors, especially considering that before anyone can claim this “hot job,” somebody else has to invest in the technology and the gases and welding products necessary for this technician to do his job.

$35 trillion in infrastructure spending over the next two decades. Now that’s what I call a market!

Companies look to propane and other environmentally friendlier gases to chill products

Gas distributors whose product lines includes such gases as propane will be interested in a new use for such gases for their ability to chill food products with less energy and almost none of the global warming issues related to current refrigerants.

Some of the world’s largest consumer product companies are promoting freezers and refrigerators in the U.S. that use propane, butane and other coolants that don’t trap heat in the atmosphere as much as Freon and other conventional refrigerants.

The new so-called hydrocarbon coolers—already popular in Europe—are being tested by the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream company stores. At the same time, General Electric is seeking approval to market a home refrigerator in the United States that uses a hydrocarbon refrigerant.

The new freezers capitalize on the way hydrocarbon gases absorb heat when they change from a liquid to a gas. If hydrocarbon coolants are accidentally released into the atmosphere, their effect on trapping heat is more than 1,000 times less than conventional refrigerants.

The appliances cost about the same as similar conventional freezers and use about 10 percent less electricity.

The Environmental Protection Agency is now monitoring the propane and other gas freezers being used by Ben & Jerry’s and will make a final determination on their safety sometime in 2010.