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Saturday 27 March 2010

Free, Useful, Attractive, Imaginative & Safe: Smart Material-Shape Memory Alloy-"Measuring Tape type" Steel supports Reflective Coating Armbands

I have just received my free reflective straps as promised on the EC Research-Industrial technologies page, cf. third image down on the page. One of my straps is sitting in front of me, as I write. The strap looks exactly like the web page image.

The offer opened on 15/01/2010. Hopefully there are still available. Just drop an email, as I did to the following address:

RTD-NMP-MATERIALS@ec.europa.eu

Technical description for geeks like me:
"The straps are made out of steel and normally lie flat due to their curvature along the width, but when tapped lightly against e.g. your arm or leg, they will curl themselves around as if like magic. This property is applied for example in retractable tape measures. The reflective surface consist of tens of thousands of micrometric PVC (polyvinyl chloride) prisms imprinted on the plastic surface: they collectively retro-reflect light, similar to the retro-reflectors used on road vehicles, thus improving your visibility. The European Commission wraps show (right side) a "firework" picture of a zirconium oxide with possible applications in ink-jet printing, as a courtesy from UNINOVA-CEMOP Centre

This is the sort of publicity for the profession I like, but...


It is a great pity that UNINOVA-CEMOP Centre's website does not appear to have been up-dated since 2003, when I visited today 27 March 2010.

I hope the EC publicity will stimulate them to correct this.
en référence à : European Commission - Research: Industrial technologies - Materials (afficher sur Google Sidewiki)

Thursday 25 March 2010

Reviews of "Materials and Environment" by M.F.Ashby published on MW, Google Books, and Amazon

I strongly recomment of M.F. Ashby's work. His clarity and sense of what constitutes a useful contribution to complex issues by reducing them to their essential elements is impressive.  Here is his latest contribution to address increasing concerns of enviromental issues and so help the materials community to act appropriately.
A great engineer and a blessing to the profession and to society as whole global reaching.




cf my recent post

Materials and Environment- Mothers of Inventions


James Alexander
BSc (Hons)[Strath-Glasgow] MBA-ICG[Paris] MIMM-Eur.Ing.[London]

Blogger Buzz: Blogger integrates with Amazon Associates ref My review of Nanomaterials by MF Ashby et al

Blogger Buzz: Blogger integrates with Amazon Associates

The book "Nanomaterials, nanotechnologies and design: an introduction for engineers ..." By M. F. Ashby, Daniel L. Schodek, Paulo J. S. G. Ferreira which I strongly recommend for both experienced professionals and teachers in the field as well as or even more so for all new comers to the field is available on Amazon (either on amazon.com or amazon.fr in english)

Blogger Buzz: Blogger integrates with Amazon Associates

Blogger Buzz: Blogger integrates with Amazon Associates

Sunday 21 March 2010

Materials and Environment- Mothers of Inventions

The above title is a declared objective of this blog appearing in first place in site header: "Materials Science and Engineering: Durable Development, Sustainable Development..."

My previous post but one published on 16 March 2010entitled,"Nanoscale, Nanomaterials: Basics - Calculate numbers of surface to volume atoms and much more." included embedding a Google book one of whose authors is by Prof. M.F. Ashby, FRS. whose work I admire greatly.

While researching work by his co-authors in particular by PJ Ferreira of The University of Texas at Austin,with the aim of commenting further on "Nano-things", I spotted not only Ferreira's abundant online publications which included work I had referenced very recently in fact by Carlton and Ferreira on the topic of Inverse Hall-Petch Relationship at the nanoscale (about 10nm)in Nanomaterials. Coincidences... While wondering how come my P.J. Ferreira became associated with Mike Ashby famous particularly for his work in Materials Selection for Engineering Applications a bit of lateral thinking led me to set aside for a moment considerations on how I intend to develop more on "Nano-thing" and focus a new on my blog's first declared focus the Title or Header support punch lines or Tags namely Durable Development, Sustainable Development..." ie. return to Mike F. Ashby.

EUREKA on two counts:

1. "Materials and the Environment – Eco-informed Material Choice" is the title of his second book published in 2009. An embeddable google preview is available for readers to preview in-depth. cf below or via on my RHS menu first entry in new list Materials and Environment.

2. A recent book review by fellow materials professionals appeared on Materials World book reviews I shall quote the reviews introduction "This book is an accessible introduction to environmental issues associated with materials selection. Anyone familiar with Professor Ashby’s other books will recognise his style and, as ever, he excels in presenting information in simple graphical form."...as I tried to convey in my earlier post on M.F.Ashby et al's other 2009 book on Nanotechnology.

The full review MW, Nov 2009, is freely available to all readers:
Materials and the Environment – Eco-informed Material Choice



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