Madison Section Newsletter

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• Review of March Events

  March LMAG Meeting/tour: "Charter Street Heating Plant" (Review by Charles Cowie and Chuck Kime)  The tour of the Charter Street plant was conducted by Campus Utilities Engineer Jeffrey A. Pollei, P.E. Jeff summarized the history of UW heating and cooling plants and described the factors influencing the planning and design of the new Charter Street plant. The tour included the control room and control systems, the new 225,000 LB/HR natural gas boilers, the natural gas meter pit, the new utility tunnel and steam exit locations, the water treatment plant, the steam turbine generator, the campus cooling chillers and pumping systems, and the backup fuel oil tank. Jeff described the auxiliary equipment and technical features of each major piece of equipment included in the tour. You can read about the history of the Charter Street Heating and Cooling Plant here. Boldt, the construction contractor also has information on the plant here. More images by Chuck Cowie are available here.
  

March Section Meeting: “Magnetics + Mechanics + Nanoscale  = Electromagnetic Future" Our Mar 17 talk featured a talk by Dr. Greg Carman.  Instead of talking about the planned topic of CDs, Dr. Carman talked to us about his researching into future data storage technology. Dr. Carman recommended the book Innovators by Walter Isaacson.  The book is about how a collection of small innovations made computers possible.  He believes that his research into converting electricity into magnetism at a small scale may be part of similarly revolutionary technologies of the future. There is certainly room to improve data storage efficiency.  An internal combustion engine is about 20% efficient, and most people agree we need more efficient alternatives.  MRAM storage is 0.0003%.  Clearly this is an area with great opportunity for improvement. 

It has been known for centuries that current through a wire creates a magnetic field (See Fig. 1).  The trouble is if we do this on a small scale, we need a tiny wire, and wire resistance becomes a problem.  We need a different mechanism to do this.  One way is Dr. Carman's area of research, strain mediated multiferroics – research that uses materials whose magnetic field changes with mechanical strain (See Fig. 2).

We want a material whose magnetic field changes with electricity. The Curie brothers discovered piezoelectric material in 1880.  In 1894 they searched unsuccessfully for a magnetic “magnetoelectric” analog to this effect. In 2002, Dr Ryu demonstrated it's possible to laminate magnetoelastic materials to piezoelectric materials so an electric field can modulate the direction of a magnetic field.  In the late 2000s, researchers at Berkely started doing research on single-domain nanostructures.  (See Fig. 3)

Dr. Carmen's research uses a film of nickel 30-100nm thick. (See Fig. 4) The research could radically increase storage efficiency.  Good modeling is needed because it's impractical to work out the best geometries by trial-and-error.  Testing concepts on such a small scale is challenging.  There may be future applications beyond storage, such turning a string of molecules using changing magnetic fields to push liquid on a very small scale.  (See Fig. 5)

NOTE:  The talk was recorded and Dr. Carman's Presentation may be viewed here.

• Upcoming Meetings

  April ECN Meeting: This meeting builds on the information presented by Dominic DiMarco about "IoT" technology.  The meeting will demonstrate how easy it is to create a cloud server for several applications.  Please come and bring your own "Tales for the Cloud".
  
  April Section Meeting: This meeting will be Co-Sponsored by the Life Member Affinity Group and the Engineers in Medicine and Biology Chapter.  Dolly Ledin has spent many years helping to educate children. Her current role as Outreach Coordinator for the ARMS program at UW-Madison.  The Adult Role Models in Science (ARMS) program is founded on the basic idea that the best way to transform science education for children is to help adults. What's a scientific role model? It isn’t just someone who can present scientific information to children in an interesting way. It’s someone who’s there with them over time to cultivate their curiosity and excitement about science, help them think like scientists, and nurture both their desire to learn more and their belief that they can. It’s also someone who’s a role model to other adults, taking leadership in science education and outreach. Can IEEE members participate as role models? , Many of the LMAG are retired educators and several already participate in children's education. Join them!

• Volunteers Needed
  

  Micro Volunteers: Do you have some time to spare to help IEEE-Madison Section?  Perhaps you have a meeting topic that you would like to see us host and could find a speaker.   Maybe you have time to call a few members who might have forgotten to renew their membership. 
  
  Please consider sending some time helping with the Section activities.  Let me know (tjkaminski (at) ieee.org).

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