This volume contains a series of papers originally presented at the Symposium on Polymer Gels organized and sponsored by the Research Group on Polymer Gels,The Society of Polymer Science of Japan and co-sponsored by the Science and Technology Agency (ST A) and MIT!, Japan. The Symposium took place at Tsukuba Science City on 18th and 19th September, 1989. Recognized experts in their fields were invited to speak and there was a strong attendance from government, academic and industrial research centers. The purpose of the Symposium was to review the state of the art and to present and discuss recent progress in the understanding of the behavioral properties of polymer gels and their application to biomedical, environmental and robotic fields. Most of the papers and related discussions concentrated on the swelling behavior of hydrogels and chemomechanical systems, both artificial and naturally occurring, in which external stimuli of a physical or chemical nature control energy transformation or signal transduction. The recent great interest in chemomechanical systems based on polymer gels has stimulated considerable effort towards the development of new sensors and actuators, controllable membrane separation processes, and delivery systems in which the functions of sensing, processing and actuation are all built into the polymeric network device. Artificial chemomechanical systems, through the use of environmentally sensitive polymer gels, are emerging as interesting materials for mimicking basic processes previously only confined to the biological world, and commercially viable applications are also foreseen in the not-too-distant future.

This handbook surveys the range of methods and fuel types used in generating energy for industry, transportation, and heating and cooling of buildings. Solar, wind, biomass, nuclear, geothermal, ocean and fossil fuels are discussed and compared, and the thermodynamics of energy conversion is explained. Appendices are provided with fully updated data. Thoroughly revised, this second edition surveys the latest advances in energy conversion from a wide variety of currently available energy sources. It describes energy sources such as fossil fuels, biomass (including refuse-derived biomass fuels), nuclear, solar radiation, wind, geothermal, and ocean, then provides the terminology and units used for each energy resource and their equivalence. It includes an overview of the steam power cycles, gas turbines, internal combustion engines, hydraulic turbines, Stirling engines, advanced fossil fuel power systems, and combined-cycle power plants. It outlines the development, current use, and future of nuclear power.

This volume will prove of vital interest to those studying the use of renewable resources. Scientists, engineers, and inventors will find it a valuable review of ocean wave mechanics as well as an introduction to wave energy conversion. It presents physical and mathematical descriptions of the nine generic wave energy conversion techniques, along with their uses and performance characteristics. Author Michael E. McCormick is the Corbin A. McNeill Professor of Naval Engineering at the U.S. Naval Academy. In addition to his timely and significant coverage of possible environmental effects associated with wave energy conversion, he provides a separate treatment of several electro-mechanical energy conversion techniques. Many worked examples throughout the book will be particularly useful to readers with a limited mathematical background. Those interested in research and development will benefit from the extensive bibliography.

Discover the fundamentals and tools needed to model, design, and build efficient, clean low-carbon energy systems with this unique textbook.

"This book is an introductory text describing methods of harvesting electrical energy from mechanical potential and kinetic energy. The book focuses on the methods of transferring mechanical energy to energy conversion transducers of various types, including piezoelectric, electromagnetic, electrostatic, and magnetostrictive transducers. Methods that have been developed for collecting, conditioning, and delivering the generated electrical energy to a load, as well as their potential use as self-powered sensors are described. The book should be of interest to those who want to know the potentials as well as shortcomings of energy harvesting technology. The book is particularly useful for energy harvesting system designers as it provides a systematic approach to the selection of the proper transduction mechanisms and methods of interfacing with a host system and electrical energy collection and conditioning options. An extensive bibliography is provided to direct the reader to appropriate references for detailed material not included in the book"--

This book studies the principles of mechanical energy conversion used in renewable energy sources derived from air and water: wind power, tidal power, hydroelectric power, osmotic energy, ocean thermal energy and wave energy. Mechanical Energy Conversion presents twelve application exercises and their answers. They enable the reader to first understand the physical principles of mechanical energy converters and then learn the method for sizing them. The book also reinforces the concepts of fluid mechanics and hydraulic turbo machinery, which are required to solve the exercises. This book aims to instruct readers on how to design an energy system. For each renewable energy source covered – and based on the quantity of energy or power supplied – it describes the production process, explains how it works and calculates the characteristics and dimensions of its components.