Navy developing nanotech to improve ships

[David]

ALBANY, New York (AP) -- With an eye to developing faster ships, the U.S. Navy has teamed up with a New York company and the University at Albany's College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering to develop an electronics system that will sharply reduce the size and weight of a warship's motors.

Researchers working on the multimillion dollar project hope to develop cryogenically cooler electronics systems that will greatly reduce the size and weight of power generators needed aboard the ships while making the vessels more maneuverable and reliable.

The impetus for the new system comes as the Navy grapples with surging electricity demand to power onboard systems while trying to keep the overall weight of the ships down.

"In going to the all-electric ship, it is absolutely essential to have high power density motors to drive the ship," said Donald Gubser, a scientist at the federal Naval Research Laboratory, which is spearheading the project for the Navy. "They need six times more than what is needed in a commercial liner. These are power-hungry machines."

A key aim is to reduce the size of a Navy ship's motors -- typically the size of a truck trailer -- by about half and cut the weight by a third. Conventional motors weigh up to 220 tons. Much of the reductions in weight and size stem from the use of nanotechnology in which scientists work at the atomic and molecular level -- at scales, for example, of 1/100,000th the diameter of a human hair -- to develop new systems.

The researchers have already proven the concept works with the help of more than $5 million in Navy funding since the project began in 2004, and are now working to develop a prototype by 2007.

"Our vision is doable," Gubser said. "The progress has been significant. There is no show stopper yet."

The college is now creating semiconductors for low-temperature functions while MTECH Laboratories, an electronics company, is using the semiconductors to create power system components such as inverters and inductors. Gubser and others at the Naval Research Lab are working on the superconducting wires.

Using nanotechnology, scientists create 200 millimeter wafers carrying 1,000 microchips on a disk smaller than a dinner plate.

The disks are stacked to create a power inverter module that works with no mechanical parts. The inverters are then combined with the ship's power systems that use superconducting lines that can conduct electricity without any resistance when cooled to minus 322 degrees Fahrenheit.

"This is an application we are trying to bring out to the real world," said MTECH's president, Michael Hennessy.

While commercial applications for the technology are years away, Hennessy said, it could eventually be used in aircraft, industrial plants and commercial buildings.

He said it was too early to put a cost figure on the inverters being created.

[SEATJERKER]

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...we have a lot of "Tech parks" up here, and some of the builds looks like very normal buildings, but you never know what those birds are doing,...

...We offer a lot to the military from many different angles around here, some public, some prob not so public, but I won't go into spec's here other then Pm's, or land line,...

...I'm sure Generous Electric, and a couple of the local Coll-edges are lending a hand , as U @ Alb, and RPI,...

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