TECHBUZZ PAGE-3
NANOTECHNOLOGY-THE FUTURE IN THE
MAKING
Nanotechnology is an umbrella term that covers many areas of research
dealing with objects that are measured in nanometers. A nanometer (nm)
is a billionth of a meter, or a millionth of a millimeter. In this edition of
Arrowhead, you will learn how nanomachines will manufacture products,
and what impact nanotechnology will have on various industries in the
coming decades.
In the early 20th century, Henry Ford built a car manufacturing plant on
a 2,000-acre tract of land along the Rouge River in Michigan. Built to
mass-produce automobiles more efficiently, the Rouge housed the
equipment for developing each phase of a car, including blast furnaces, a
steel mill and a glass plant. More than 90 miles of railroad track and
conveyor belts kept Ford's car assembly line running. The Rouge model
was lauded as the most efficient method of production at a time when
bigger meant better.
The size of Ford's assembly plant would look strange to those born and
raised in the 21st century. In the next 50 years, machines will get
increasingly smaller -- so small that thousands of these tiny machines
would fit into the period at the end of this sentence. Within a few decades,
we will use these nanomachines to manufacture consumer goods at the
molecular level, piecing together one atom or molecule at a time to make
baseballs, telephones and cars. This is the goal of nanotechnology. As
televisions, airplanes and computers revolutionized the world in the last
century, scientists claim that nanotechnology will have an even more
profound effect on the next century.
Building with Atoms
Atoms are the building blocks for all matter in our universe. You and
everything around you are made of atoms. Nature has perfected the
science of manufacturing matter molecularly. For instance, our bodies are
assembled in a specific manner from millions of living cells. Cells are
nature's nanomachines. Humans still have a lot to learn about the idea of
constructing materials on such a small scale. Consumer goods that we buy
are made by pushing piles of atoms together in a bulky, imprecise manner.
Imagine if we could manipulate each individual atom of an object. That's
the basic idea of nanotechnology, and many scientists believe that we are
only a few decades away from achieving it.
FRP- FIBER REINFORCED POLYMERS
We all know that a large number of structures like bridges, houses etc.
get deteriorated before their lifetime usually do to corrosion, crack
development and other discrepancies. Due to this a lot of time and
money is wasted. In this column we will talk about this material FRP
(Fiber Reinforced Polymer) which will help us to come over the
problem of structural repairs.
FRP is a composite material comprising a polymer matrix
reinforced with fibers, basically a cloth in the form of laminates of
fabrics. The fibers are usually fiberglass, carbon or aramid, while the
polymer is usually an epoxy, vinyl ester or polyester thermosetting
plastic.
FRP’s are commonly used in the aerospace, automotive,
marine and construction industries. It also finds an application in the
strengthening and external reinforcement of beams, columns, repair
of bridges, seismic retrofitting etc.It has umpteen qualities that makes
its performance at par with other steel and alloy materials
FRP Composites:
FRP ''Composite materials'' are materials made from two or more
components. One component is often a strong fiber such as fiberglass,
or carbon fiber that gives the material its tensile strength, while
another component (called a matrix) is often a resin such as polyester
or epoxy that binds the fibers together, transferring load from broken
fibers to unbroken ones and between fibers that are not oriented along
lines of tension.
Nanotechnology is a hybrid science combining engineering and
chemistry. Atoms and molecules stick together because they have
complementary shapes that lock together, or charges that attract. Just like
with magnets, a positively charged atom will stick to a negatively charged
atom. As millions of these atoms are pieced together by nanomachines, a
specific product will begin to take shape. The goal of nanotechnology is
to manipulate atoms individually and place them in a pattern to produce a
desired structure. There are three steps to achieving nanotechnology-
produced goods:
 Scientists must be able to manipulate individual atoms. This
means that they will have to develop a technique to grab single
atoms and move them to desired positions. In 1990, IBM
researchers showed that it is possible to manipulate single atoms.
They positioned 35 xenon atoms on the surface of a nickel
crystal, using an atomic force microscopy instrument. These
positioned atoms spelled out the letters "IBM."
 The next step will be to develop nanoscopic machines, called
assemblers, that can be programmed to manipulate atoms and
molecules at will. It would take thousands of years for a
single assembler to produce any kind of material one atom at
a time. Trillions of assemblers will be needed to develop
products in a viable time frame. In order to create enough
assemblers to build consumer goods, some nanomachines,
called replicators, will be programmed to build more
assemblers.
 Trillions of assemblers and replicators will fill an area smaller
than a cubic millimeter, and will still be too small for us to see
with the naked eye. Assemblers and replicators will work
together like hands to automatically construct products, and
will eventually replace all traditional labor methods. This will
vastly decrease manufacturing costs, thereby making
consumer goods plentiful, cheaper and stronger.
The promises of nanotechnology sound great, don't they? Maybe even
unbelievable? But researchers say that we will achieve these capabilities
within the next century. And if nanotechnology is, in fact, realized, it
might be the human race's greatest scientific achievement yet, completely
changing every aspect of the way we live.
-Vivek Bisht (B.E. Ist Year, Mechanical)
The real danger is not that computers will begin to
think like men, but that men will begin to think like
computers.
—Sydney J. Harris
FRP Systems:
FRP system forms can be categorized based on how they are delivered to
the site and installed. External FRP reinforcing systems come in a variety
of forms including
1) Wet lay up systems,
2) Procured systems and
3) Near Surface Mounted Systems (NSM).
There are three broad divisions into which applications of FRP in civil
engineering can be classified:-
1. Applications for new construction,
2. Repair and rehabilitation applications, And
3. Architectural applications.
Disadvantages:
FRP has the following disadvantages:-
1. It’s very costly, but if we view in a broader prospective then it is
comparatively cheaper than replacing the whole structure, so
even its high costs are not hampering it to become a civil
engineers favorite construction material.
2. One of the major disadvantage of FRP is that it is highly skill
dependant – it usually depends on the bond – remember if the
bond is not there then FRP is not there
3. UV degradation, photo-degradation (from exposure to light)
It can hence be concluded that FRP is emerging as a major construction
material and has wide application in repair works too.
-Mansha Swami (B.E. Ist Year, Civil)