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Wonderblog! Fun And Cool Articles For The Village School Newspaper!
by Ethan Song You’ve probably heard the word Tesla before. The word has been used before to describe a scientist and an electric car company. Only recently has it applied to something totally new and beautiful: the Tesla solar roof. Solar Cells You’ve probably seen large blue rectangles perched upon a roof, and you probably know they are solar panels. But with the new Tesla solar roof, it will be much harder to spot exactly which houses have this new solar roof. This new solar roof is designed to blend in, using specialized glass tile, color louver films (the next section), and a solar cell. So how do solar cells work? A solar cell is comprised of two main layers made of silicon: N-type silicon and P-type silicon. Regular silicon has a neutral electronegativity (charge), so N and P-type silicon is necessary, because they are negatively and positively charged, respectively. These are two forms of doped silicon. A common dopant for P-type silicon is boron gas, while phosphorus gas is often used for N-type silicon. The two layers of the silicon are connected by a conductive wire. When photons strike the N-type silicon, the electrons are conducted through the wire into the P-type silicon, creating an electric current. Solar cells are very good for the environment, because they harness the boundless energy of the sun for human use, and when combined with the Tesla Powerwall or Powerwall 2, the energy is stored in a lithium ion battery for night use and cloudy-day use. One of the downsides of solar cells is that when exposed to high temperatures, they are not as effective, and sometimes even cease working on such days. The Tesla solar roof uses high efficiency solar cells, which minimizes the negative effects of high temperatures, but the issue still exists. Color Louver Films Color louver films are often installed into computer screens so that anyone looking from an angle will not be able to see the screen, but in this case, they are inserted into the glass solar tile to hide the solar cells, and give them color. When viewed from the street, the cell is opaque, but when facing the sun (usually the rays are perpendicular to the cells), they are transparent to allow maximum light exposure. Inside the film, there are microscopic tubes that are made of transparent material, but often coated in an opaque, colored substance. The tubes are parallel, in this case, to the light source, and perpendicular to the solar cell, allowing light to pass through the glass, and through the film, and to hit the solar cell. On the other hand, when viewed from a shallow angle, the opaque coating of the tubes does not allow the viewer to see the cell, while still allowing them to see a beautifully colored panel. The Whole Enchilada When combined together, the three components make up a functional, strong, and beautiful glass solar tile, and many glass solar tiles make a beautiful and environmental roof. The cell is covered with strong tempered glass, which resists impact, and does not obstruct light exposure. Compared with terra-cotta or clay roof tiles, the glass tile is much stronger. While allowing for functionality, Tesla and SolarCity incorporated some special features never seen before into this solar roof to allow it to be beautiful. The roof comes in four types: French textured slate, textured glass, Tuscan glass, or smooth glass. They are all colored glass tiles, only with slightly different hues. All are just as functional, and just as beautiful.
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by Ethan Song Imagine being on an airplane. Listen to the comforting rumble of the jet engine outside your window. Ever wonder how it works? In a regular jet engine designed for commercial airplanes, there are large turbofans to suck in air. As air goes through the blades, a portion of the air enters the core. The rest “bypasses” the core and takes a shortcut to the back of the engine. In the core, the first main component is a compressor to raise the pressure above regular atmospheric pressure at the altitude of roughly 35,000. This way, if fuel is injected, then it will immediately ignite. So, next, up to twenty nozzles spray fuel into the ignition chamber. This part of the engine is usually made of ceramic to withstand the 2700° heat. After igniting, they become hot gases pushing out of the engine. The gases then pass through the turbine, and the turbine spins, also spinning the intake fan blades and the compressor. The gases are then mixed with cool air to reduce the noise of the jet engine, and then they are pushed out of the nozzle. Supersonic Jet Engines (Ramjets) A ramjet follows a similar concept to the standard subsonic (slower than sound) jet engine. If you want to travel at speeds higher than ≅763 mph, then you need a different type of jet engine. In a standard jet engine, there are a lot of moving parts at risk of being broken off. However, in a supersonic ramjet, there are no moving parts at all. At high speeds, it is easy to compress air. The air is just forced into a narrow space, and is compressed. There is no need for intake fans and/or compressors. The next component is the combustion chamber. Fuel is injected through nozzles, and ignites, creating high pressure exhaust gases to produce thrust. The gases exit the engine through the nozzle. This type of engine works best at around Mach 3 (approx. 2301.81 mph) because at those speeds, the air is moving at just the right speed: fast enough to be compressed, and slow enough so that the air will not be too hot after compression. If the air is too hot, then the hot exhaust gases will not provide much thrust (the plane will also get hot from traveling through high speed air). When the plane travels faster than that, you need a scramjet (supersonic combusting ramjet). Supersonic Combusting Ramjet Engines (Scramjets)The scramjet is what you need when you go faster than Mach 5 (approx. 3836.35 mph) because at these speeds, a ramjet will not be effective. The X-43A was an unmanned experimental aircraft that used scramjets. But, like ramjets, scramjets only operate at hypersonic speeds. Scramjets are still experimental, and are not used often. Like ramjets, scramjets rely on high craft speed to assist in the compression of the air. But, unlike in ramjets, the air in scramjets remain at supersonic/hypersonic speeds, while the air in ramjets is slowed down to subsonic speeds. A scramjet is composed of three main components. First, there is a converging inlet into which super/hypersonic air enters, and is compressed as the airways narrow. Next, there is the combustor, where gaseous fuel is injected through nozzles and burned. Finally, there is a diverging nozzle used to accelerate the exhaust to produce thrust. Scramjets are much easier to manufacture than turbojets because there are no moving parts. Unfortunately, due to aerodynamic heating (a problem in high-speed vehicles), with no protective heat shield of some sort, a hypersonic craft will heat up to dangerously high temperatures, and possibly melt the material the craft is made of. This is one of the main reasons that scramjets are not being used. So now you know the three main categories of jet engines. The next time you are on a plane, you will know how the engines under the wings of the plane work. Sources: https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/UEET/StudentSite/engines.html http://science.howstuffworks.com/transport/engines-equipment/ramjet.htm by Ethan Song Ever wondered how much fuel the average plane uses? Take a guess. Now let me tell you. Drumroll…. 1 gallon of fuel PER SECOND. It is simply crazy to think about. If you had a ten hour flight, each hour, the plane would be combusting 3,600 gallons of fuel to send you to your destination. Currently, one of the most fuel efficient engines is the GEnx Jet Engine, designed for the Boeing 747-8 and Boeing 787-8 and 787-9 airplanes. The GEnx-1B engine was designed specifically for the B-787-8 and B-787-9 planes, and the GEnx-2B engine was designed for the B-747-8. The GEnx 1B engine has a lower fan blade count, from 22 to 18, and they are made of carbon fiber, to reduce the weight of the engine. The engine also has an advanced low-pressure turbine (LPT). It contains Titanium Aluminide blades in stages 6 and 7 which reduces the engine weight by up to 400 lbs, and that contributes to fuel efficiency. This engine also uses twin-annular pre-swirl (TAPS) combustor, which like many other parts, contributes to fuel efficiency. The GEnx-1B and 2B will offer up to 15% improved fuel efficiency and 15% less carbon emissions compared to the GE CF6 jet engine. These features greatly reduce engine weight, reduce emissions, and increase engine efficiency. Sources: http://www.geaviation.com/commercial/engines/genx/ by Leeann Shaw and Madeleine "Maddy" Mau What email service do you have? Gmail, Yahoo, Windows live, Hotmail, Outlook or others as well? Have you ever wondered if that email was safe or if it was fast enough? Best Email Services The best email service is Gmail. It is secure, user-friendly and very efficient. If you use Gmail to email a friend who also has Gmail, your friend will get the email in a matter of seconds! The second best email service is Microsoft Outlook. Outlook isn't as good as Gmail but it'll do if you want to send good email. OK Email Services An OK email service is Yahoo. Yahoo is not that good anymore because it’s security is low. Worst Email Services The worst email services are Hotmail and Windows Live. Hotmail's security is good but the email takes a long time to pass through and you don't even know if the person on the other end is going to receive good email or not. Let's say your best friend has a Hotmail account and you are sending them an email Friday night to tell them that you are going to have a party on Sunday. The email will probably not even pass through by Sunday and you will be really sad that your friend never got the email. Windows Live is a really bad email service of inferior quality to any other. The speed is horribly slow and the security is very uncertain and you don't even know if the email shows up on the other end; it takes so long and the person on the other end use doesn't reply. For instance, I sent my friend Mateusz, (who uses Windows Live), an email on Saturday. The email didn't arrive until 2 weeks after I had sent it and the response had a lot of weird mutations in it, and was cut off in the middle. So now you know all the email services; which ones to avoid, which ones to trust. And I hope that you send better email in the future. Happy emailing! |