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At its trade fair "transport logistic", the transport sector presented numerous innovations - on land, in water and ...

TRAFFIC Navigating the Gigaliner and freight cars

At its trade fair "transport logistic", the transport sector presented numerous innovations - on land, in water and in the air.


The Iveco Z Truck is a concept vehicle for the freight transport of the future: the heart is a natural gas drive and the sophisticated aerodynamics. 
Photo: Photo (2): Christian Hartlmaier / Messe München

Stefan Rummel, Managing Director of Messe München, put it in a nutshell: "transport logistic (tl) is a reflection of the entire industry and its diversity". Although the hardware of transport technology was still the focus, the majority of the innovations were in less vivid logistics. It provides additional services that optimize transport processes. The large number of railway vehicles on the open air made it possible to perceive tl as a trade fair for rail freight. But appearances are deceptive: Of the 2160 exhibitors from 62 countries, only 10% came from the railway sector.
Rail freight traffic: A glance at the fair is an electric locomotive for all four European power systems and an additional diesel engine.Bombardier handed it over to the logistics service provider Rhenus at the tl. It will draw freight trains between Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, in the border region to Switzerland and between the Benelux countries and South-East Europe.
Even in the case of the freight cars that have been developed for the most part, there are always innovations - the first tank truck for chemical products made of aluminum. The waggon, which has meanwhile been approved by the Federal Railway Authority, is about 6 t lighter than the previous ones made of steel, and the payload is correspondingly higher. "No corrosion in the tank, positive environmental balance", says Olaf Feldbinder, managing director of the special field vehicles Feldbinder, further advantages. There is no comparable model on the market for DB Cargo's "Shimmns-ttu" carriages for the transport of wound metal bands. A new feature is the "opening and securing of loads from only one side and from ramps, to facilitate handling and increased work safety," explains Markus Turowski, DB Cargo.
Although logistics plays a crucial role in almost all areas, logistics is by no means all railways. Here as well, DB emphasizes its leading role in Europe with Schenker and DB Cargo. The new IT platform myRailportal is created for digital communication with customers.
With logistics, the construction and expansion of the Siberian land bridge to China has also been a factor. Shortly before tl, the first container train had arrived in London after 18 days of travel. The timely transport of car parts from Germany and the Czech Republic to the plants in the Russian Kaluga and in Nizhny Novgorod is managed by an IT system developed by DB.
Road transport: The DB4 platform has already just
launched the Collaboration Platform Drive4Schenker: "Around 30,000 transport partners in 20 countries can now recognize where there is still an additional load on their route and book free capacity immediately," says Schenker CEO Jochen Thewes. Another hot topic was the gigaliners, who had been admitted by the Federal Minister of Transport after a five-year field trial in December last year. However, environmental and transport associations have complained. The 25.25 m long "Gigaliner", which may be even longer in some countries, were to be seen at the logistics fair. Market leader Krone considers them unstoppable. They are controversial because of feared dangers in road traffic, but also because of the productivity gain for truck traffic,


Air transport: Airplanes did not have the tl to offer, but with the Air Cargo Europe its own fair in the fair. At around 200 booths of airlines from all over the world, major European airports and the aviation industry, airfreight with its sophisticated logistics was the focus. A dedicated conference program also focused on digitalization and its challenges.
Shipping: The ocean and inland waterways were also presented on the tl. Trimodal container transports with an envelope between water, road and rail offer economic and ecological advantages. The topic of discussion was, not least, the port hinterland traffic on the rail side, which is bound to the limits of its performance in Germany. In order to relieve the north-south axis via Hannover-Fulda, an "east corridor" is to be built through Magdeburg-Halle-Leipzig-Reichenbach-Hof to Regensburg by extending existing routes. Deutsche Bahn informed us that the sections between Uelzen and Stendal, which had only been single-track since 1945, are now being expanded again in two ways.
Article is taken from VDI.

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The first fuel-cell truck in the port of Los Angeles is expected to be operational in the coming month. ...

FREIGHT TRAFFIC : Fuel cell trucks tested

The first fuel-cell truck in the port of Los Angeles is expected to be operational in the coming month.


Toyota's truck, whose electric motors are fueled by a fuel cell, is to transport goods in the port area of ​​Los Angeles quietly and without pollutants.
           Photo by Dewhurst Photography / Toyota Motor North America

Toyota is serious: In the port area of ​​Los Angeles, the first fuel-cell truck is to transport goods from summer onwards - silently and without pollutants. The world's largest automotive manufacturer has been driving innovations for decades. In 1997, Toyota had made the hybrid drive in the car salon-capable with the Prius. Since 2014, the Mirai model has been the world's first fuel cell car to be produced in large series. Now follows the still nameless hydrogen-based Brummi.The trial will take place under the name "Project Portal" in collaboration with the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and the Energy Authority California Energy Commission (CEC).
The basis is the US truck manufacturer Paccar, the model is a Kenworth. The fuel cell truck develops around 500 kW and a maximum torque of almost 1800 Nm. This is made possible by two fuel cell stacks, which are already being used in the Mirai (fuel consumption: hydrogen combined 0.76 kg / 100 km), as well as a 12 kWh, relatively small battery. The acceleration capability of the concept car, which weighs up to 36 t, is clearly above its combustion engine-driven counterparts, according to the manufacturer. The range reaches Toyota with more than 320 km per tank filling, as emissions only in the driving drift steam.
"The deployment will start immediately when the construction of the hydrogen station in the port of Los Angeles is completed. The vehicle has actually been ready for a long time, "says Uwe Breuer, press technician at Toyota. The port has been suffering from smog since the 1960s. The truck complies with the US truck specification "Class 8" for heavy trucks with three or more axles. In the future, its drive system is to enable virtually silent and harmless freight and freight traffic without compromising everyday convenience. The system is designed for ranges of 200 km, so that the truck has to be refueled only once a day and reserves for unforeseen journeys remain.
"Hydrogen-based fuel cell technology has enormous potential to become the driving force of the future," said Bob Carter, executive vice president of Toyota Motor North America. According to hydrogen-fueled passenger cars and buses produced by Toyota, the Group is now entering the heavy commercial vehicle segment. "With the use of this emission-free fuel cell truck concept, Toyota is a sign that many people hope to follow," explains Mary D. Nichols, the agency's director, who would also like to encourage other truck manufacturers to invest in this technology. In addition to "Project Portal", Toyota is also trying to pave the way for other areas of the fuel cell. The company is successively expanding the hydrogen storage grid network in California and has entered into a partnership with Shell.
Toyota is not the only manufacturer to produce heavy trucks with hydrogen-based propulsion. In addition to Esoro (hydrogen truck based on a MAN TGS 18.320), the new manufacturer Nikola had to be upset at the end of 2016. The Nikola One is to bring it to a power of 735 kW and powered by six radically electric motors (320 kWh traction battery). It should accelerate to 100 km / h in 30 s and have a braking distance that is half as long as the standard truck.
When the Nikola One can be delivered is not yet known. But it is well known that Nikola initially only wants to supply the markets in North America with the fuel cell model. In the models for other world markets, a gas-fueled gas turbine behind the driver's cab is to serve as a generator.
Article is taken from: VDI

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Against the resistance of Germany, the EU lowers the upper limit for nitrogen oxide emissions from brown coal pow...

ENVIRONMENT :Concerns about nitrogen oxide


Against the resistance of Germany, the EU lowers the upper limit for nitrogen oxide emissions from brown coal power plants.

The Weisweiler brown coal power station is one of the industrial plants with the highest pollutant emissions throughout Europe. (Photo: panthermedia.net/Werner Nick)

For more than 3,000 smaller and larger combustion plants, the EU is now redefining the state of the art.Experts from the Member States, the European Commission, as well as industrial and environmental associations had been struggling to achieve the best available technologies (BAT).

The EU reference number now largely agreed with the BAT reference document, albeit with minor changes. The emission of particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides (NOx) and mercury will be stricter in four years.

"The German-led brown coal lobbies were overruled", reveals Christian Schaible from the European Environment Bureau (EEB). This lobby also included Bulgaria, Finland, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary.

"The vote was very short," adds Schaible. A qualified majority of 65% was necessary. These reached 20 EU countries with a voting weight of 65.14% so grade. Before this, Greece was agreed with the package with a vote weight of 2.11%, after it was decided that the new BAT requirements for the use of heavy fuel in diesel engines on islands would only apply from 2030 onwards (by comparison, Germany's weight of votes) 16.06%).

The reference document was controversial. Thus, the Federal Government interfered with the values ​​for NOx emissions from brown coal power plants (300 MW heat output). In normal operation, an upper limit of 200 mg NOx / m³ was used in annual mean. In the future, there should be a range of 85 mg to 175 mg NOx / m³.

However, the Federal Government considers the upper limit value to be not appropriate and instead proposed 190 mg / m³. "We have relied on the scientific assessment of the Federal Environmental Agency," says Stephan Gabriel Haufe, spokesman for the Federal Environment Ministry. 


But a combination of measures is not prescribed, emphasizes UBA specialist Rolf Beckers. "The application of only combustion technology measures is also regarded as BAT". A recent UBA survey in the federal states in which lignite-fired power plants are operated showed that the annual power plants release between 160 mg and 195 mg NOx / m³ with firing technology optimization.

"Only four of 28 German lignite blocks reliably emit 175 mg / m³," says Beckers. There are two in each case at the locations Lippendorf in Saxony and Schwarze Pumpe in Brandenburg. But also brown coal power plants in Greece have been emitting less than 175 mg / m³ since 2010, Schaible adds. He considers the derivation of the 175 mg value to be appropriate. And he has no objection to a combination of measures.

"The 175 mg can be safely met with SNCR technology," said Bernd von der Heide, Managing Director of the Essen company Mehldau & Steinfath Umwelttechnik, as well as Wolfgang Schüttenhelm, responsible for business development and technology at ERC Technik in Buchholz.Both companies are using this technology in waste incineration and biomass plants as well as in Eastern European lignite and brown coal power plants. The NOx emissions can thus be reduced by 30% to 50%, in addition to measures in terms of combustion technology. 

For example, ERC has retrofitted Block 3 of the world's largest brown coal power plant in Bełchatóv in Poland with an SNCR facility in 2016. "Since then, the valid NOx limit value of 200 mg / m³ has fallen below 50 mg / m³," emphasizes Schüttenhelm.

SNCR is not a marvel, says Anlagenbauer von der Heide: "We arrange several lances around the furnace in the boiler, through which we can reduce the amount of NOx in the flue-reducing agent." These are chemicals which, under the action of heat, ammonia (NH3) Which reacts with NOx to form nitrogen and water vapor. 

Important is the temperature, supplemented by the heath. The reaction of NH3 with NOx proceeds favorably between 950 ° C and 1030 ° C. If, however, it becomes hotter than 1200 ° C in the furnace, the reducing agent itself burns into nitrogen oxides. This can happen in many power stations at full load. "We then cool the flue gas by selectively sucking in the lance."

But the political discussion is not yet finished. The tussle continues. Now, exceptions and the upcoming revision of the large combustion plant regulation are being disputed.

"In the interests of proper implementation, licensing authorities may grant exemptions in individual cases", Haufe explains. They may permit slightly higher annual emissions if the 175 mg upper limit can only be met with disproportionate expenditure.

However, the UBA expects only minor improvements in air quality. "In the brown coal power plant, the NOx emissions would drop by an average of 10 mg / m³," says Beckers. This corresponds to a reduction in the annual freight by 5% - and thus by a good 4500 t. The total NOx cargo of 1.22 million tonnes from all sources would thus drop by less than 0.4%. The load with nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in inner cities would not drop measurably.

However, the release of nitric oxides would decline significantly, the Federal Government did not follow the 175 mg target, but the technical possibilities, Schaible said. "We demand a NOx annual limit of max. 85 mg / m³ for power stations that will still run until 2027. "To do this, the plants would have to catalyze their flue gas catalytically - as is already the case today with coal-fired power plants. "If a power plant block goes off the grid by 2024, Schaible would accept an upper limit of 150 mg / m³, which is achievable with the cheaper SNCR variant.

In addition, Schaible considers the retrofitting with SNCR or SCR as justifiable. "Both economically worthwhile in just a few years." He points to figures from the European Environment Agency in Copenhagen: every ton of saved NOx emissions reduces health costs and damage to the environment of up to € 19,000.


Article: VDI

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Networked cars, autonomous driving, electric cars and car sharing - the car industry is changing. This will also dram...

Car industry changing: These changes are in the Automotive manufaturing

Networked cars, autonomous driving, electric cars and car sharing - the car industry is changing.This will also dramatically change jobs in the industry.

Auto Manufacturing: In the classic production most changes are expected.
 
(Photo: BMW)

When it comes to BMW, Daimler, Opel and Volkswagen, the word "Autobauer" usually comes to mind. The term is, however, really no longer correct. "The formula for the mobility of the future is 'software times services'", says Prof. Stefan Bratzel , Director of the Center for Automotive Management (CAM) at the Fachhochschule der Wirtschaft in Bergisch Gladbach. This sounds complicated at first. But it really only means that the car industry will do much more than build vehicles in the future.
The signs are already visible: corporations such as BMW and Daimler already have their own car-sharing offers, which means that they are also becoming a car rental company from the pure manufacturer. The increasing networking turns cars into rolling computers. And assistants and autopilots take the driver more and more work - and could even drive cars all by themselves in the future.

As a result, major changes are also taking place in the car industry. After all, all these new business models and autopilots have to be developed: from company consultants, data experts and software specialists. It is no wonder that the big automobile groups are looking for such specialists . And even in the construction of the vehicles themselves will change according to unanimous expert opinion much.

Major changes in production
To build a good electric motor, for example, requires knowledge other than the design of classic combustion engines, says Bratzel. This is because such an engine is only made efficient by good control software. For this reason, programmers are mostly required. And chemists will also play a much greater role in engine development in the future, the expert believes. Because they know what is going on in the battery of an electric motor - and also how to optimize it.
But the biggest changes are probably in the classic production, that is, where cars actually roll off the tape. As in many other industries, even more robots will take on some work in the car industry. "We generally see a high degree of substitutability for manufacturing technicians," says Katharina Dengler of the Institute for Labor Market and Professional Research (IAB) of the Federal Agency for Labor.

4 percent are substitutable

The scientist examines jobs for their sustainability - that is, to what extent they can be replaced by a machine. The result is partly sobering: "64 percent of the jobs in the production engineering professions can already be handled by computers or machines," explains Dengler. Which is exactly what depends on the particular job: cleaning work is not yet good enough for robots, they are already top in car body construction.
Almost two-thirds of sustainability, however, does not mean that two-thirds of the jobs in the factory centers of auto connectors will be eliminated. "Jobs will only disappear completely in the rarest of cases, they will change," says Dengler. It is also conceivable that entirely new professions are created, or that jobs retain their title, but in ten years they look quite different from what they are now.
With the triumph of robots, the entire production process of the auto industry will also change. "In the coming years, we will see a departure from the assembly line in the automotive industry, towards a modular assembly," says Ralf Bechmann from the auditing firm Ernst & Young. "In concrete terms this means, for example, that each location of an automobile group will be able to produce any vehicle in future, no longer just individual series and derived variants."

"Multidisciplinary work always more important"

In order for this to happen, the factories must also become more flexible, including the employees. "In the future, it will no longer be the case that every employee performs the same work step every day," says Bechmann. "Instead there will be constantly changing requirements and a frequent change of workplace."
And, of course, other specialists will also be sought in the future. Not every production worker has to be an IT specialist , says Bechmann. Knowledge in mechatronics and software development would be increasingly in demand. "Multidisciplinary work is becoming increasingly important in the auto industry, just like lifelong learning and high willingness to learn," says Dengler. This applies to all employees, no matter in which job and with which qualification.

"More flexible and thus more attractive"

This sounds like a lot of stress, but it does not have to be bad for the employees. Bechmann assumes, for example, that companies in the auto industry will in the future invest much more in further education and also have to look after their employees. The competition for qualified job entrants is great - and their number finally.
"In general, it will be more important for companies to be more flexible and thus more attractive for companies," says Bechmann's colleague Silvia Hernandez, meaning flatter hierarchies and alternative career and working time models, better work-life balance and family leave, as well as time-outs. "For example, we already have start-ups within large corporations, with the corresponding impact on working practices and corporate culture," says Hernandez

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Memristive or so-called ReRAM memories are regarded as the storage devices of the future.  They are extremely fast and ...

ELECTRONICS : Switching mechanism

Memristive or so-called ReRAM memories are regarded as the storage devices of the future. They are extremely fast and energy-saving - and the stored information is maintained even after a power failure.
View into the photoemission microscope: On switching, the oxygen concentration of the active layer changes.
Photo: Research Center Jülich / Regine Panknin
However, they have not known exactly how they work. Researchers from Aachen, Jülich and Grenoble have now jointly deciphered this with the help of an electron microscope.
In principle, the memory process in the case of memreric cells is successful because their electrical resistance is not constant.  By applying a voltage it can be changed and reset. For example, a low resistance represents the logical "1" and a higher represents the "0". In this way, practically every information can be stored in a binary code. 

However, the technology has not yet matured in order to displace the current storage types. As the origin of the switching, chemical reactions on the nanoscale are assumed, but they could not prove experimentally. And without proper knowledge of these processes, the memories can not be used optimally. 

"Up to now, it was thought that during the switching process, oxygen vacancies migrate in the oxide layer," says Regina Dittmann of Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ). "But this could not explain the switching in our cells." Therefore, they examined them in a transmission electron microscope. Special procedures can also be used to examine small changes in the chemical and electronic structure with atomic resolution.

"This is how we discovered that during switching, the total oxygen concentration in the so-called active layer changes," says Dittmann. "By applying electrical voltage, an electrocatalysis is thus set in motion, which ensures that oxygen is constantly installed and removed in the oxide layer between the two electrodes." Together with the long-expected redistribution of the vacancies, the resistance of the device changes.

The researchers hope to be able to adjust the properties of future components more specifically. As a result, significantly higher changes in the resistance could be achieved, which should facilitate the integration of the cells into complex chips.


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