In Episode 45, the S+H team examines the November issue’s feature story on common electrical safety errors. Also, T.J. Lentz, a lead health scientist at NIOSH, joins the podcast to discuss workplace chemical safety in the “Five Questions With …” segment.

The NFPA 70E Standard for Electrical Safety in the Workplace has been updated for 2015.

Wiha Insulated Electrician’s Knives come in three styles, including the Insulated Electrician’s Cable Stripping Knife, Insulated Electrician’s Straight Cable Stripping Knife and Insulated Hooked Stripping Knife.

In 2012, exposure to electricity resulted in 156 work-related deaths and 1,730 cases with days away from work, according to the 2015 edition of the National Safety Council’s “Injury Facts.”

Washington – A final rule updating OSHA standards for power line workers has cleared one of the final regulatory hurdles and could be published as soon as March.

Washington – OSHA on April 1 released its final rule on electric power generation, transmission and distribution; and electrical protective equipment.

Danatec’s Electrical Safety Training System NFPA 70E Online Training focuses on workplace electrical safety and the application of industry-accepted best practice consensus-based standards to effectively manage arc flash and electrical shock hazards.

The Voltclaw-12 Tool is leading to safer, faster and more productive work methods for electricians and maintenance professionals.

This value pack includes the all-nylon Voltclaw-12, the industry’s first nonconductive wire control tool, and the nonconductive to 1,000V Voltclaw Multi-Gauge.

The Greenlee REEL-X Line of Electrical Fish Tape is engineered to eliminate the biggest problems in traditional fish tape designs: fighting binds and jams in the tape, which can strain the shoulders and wrists of workers.

BRBe is an electric wheel brake for electric overhead travel- ing cranes at ports and steel mills, as well as other heavy-duty applications.

Although ever-present and used on a daily basis, electrical equipment requires constant awareness of its associated hazards, as well as training on appropriate use, storage and maintenance, the Indiana Department of Labor reminds employers and workers.

Arlington, VA — The Electrical Safety Foundation International has introduced several resources aimed at workers in “occupations that traditionally receive little to no electrical training.”

Arlington, VA — Aiming to promote electrical safety among people who are working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Electrical Safety Foundation International has published an infographic.

The candy features two mouth-puckering flavors and vibrant colors zapped together in each soft and chewy gummi worm, offering an unexpected twist on the classic Trolli experience.

Food and beverage manufacturers are focusing on reducing energy and materials by leveraging automation, capturing more data, sourcing modern processing equipment, and concentrating on quick “digital wins.”

The project, which is being funded by the California Energy Commission, kicks off in September 2024 and is expected to span a two and a half year period.

Oatly Group AB announced that for 2021 its two North American production facilities, located in Millville, N.J., and Ogden, Utah, sourced 100% renewable electricity for the first time.

The System 550 includes A2L refrigerant leak sensing and mitigation functionality and optional two-way cloud connectivity.

Formula 1 (F1) has been striving to become more environmentally friendly in recent years while still remaining relevant beyond the race track. The series has included more technology that is seen in street cars, such as small-displacement engines with turbos and hybridization. However, F1's CEO, Stefano Domenicali, has said in an interview with an Italian paper that the series will "never go electric." F1 sees synthetic fuels, also known as e-fuels, as the future of the series. These lab-created fuels are already in limited production but come with an extreme cost. However, this is not a problem for motorsport. F1's goal is to have e-fuels powering the grid by 2026 and then working towards finding a way to use them in passenger cars as combustion bans start to take effect in nations in the 2030s, just as F1 hopes to become carbon neutral.

The rotating substrate method of crystallite deposition is modeled, allowing computation of effective material coefficients of the layers resulting from the averaging. A worked numerical example particularized to 6mm ZnO is provided.

Monoclinic ferroelectric phases are prevalent in various functional materials, most notably mixed-ion perovskite oxides. These phases can manifest as regularly ordered long-range crystallographic structures or as macroscopic averages of the self-assembled tetragonal/rhombohedral nanodomains. The structural and physical properties of monoclinic ferroelectric phases play a pivotal role when exploring the interplay between ferroelectricity, ferroelasticity, giant piezoelectricity and multiferroicity in crystals, ceramics and epitaxial thin films. However, the complex nature of this subject presents challenges, particularly in deciphering the microstructures of monoclinic domains. In Paper I [Biran & Gorfman (2024). Acta Cryst. A80, 112–128] the geometrical principles governing the connection of domain microstructures formed by pairing MAB type monoclinic domains were elucidated. Specifically, a catalog was established of `permissible domain walls', where `permissible', as originally introduced by Fousek & Janovec [J. Appl. Phys. (1969), 40, 135–142], denotes a mismatch-free connection between two monoclinic domains along the corresponding domain wall. The present article continues the prior work by elaborating on the formalisms of permissible domain walls to describe domain microstructures formed by pairing the MC type monoclinic domains. Similarly to Paper I, 84 permissible domain walls are presented for MC type domains. Each permissible domain wall is characterized by Miller indices, the transformation matrix between the crystallographic basis vectors of the domains and, crucially, the expected separation of Bragg peaks diffracted from the matched pair of domains. All these parameters are provided in an analytical form for easy and intuitive interpretation of the results. Additionally, 2D illustrations are provided for selected instances of permissible domain walls. The findings can prove valuable for various domain-related calculations, investigations involving X-ray diffraction for domain analysis and the description of domain-related physical properties.

Direct measurements have been taken of nanoscale domain structure in ferroelectric lead zirconate titanate around a grain boundary. Characterizing the evolution of this structure under an electric field is critical for predicting dielectric and piezoelectric response.

The electric field responses of the average and local lattice strains and polar nanoregions of relaxor ferroelectric PMN-30PT single crystals were revealed by multi-scale and time-resolved X-ray diffraction under DC and AC electric fields.

The effect of an electric field on local domain structure near a 24° tilt grain boundary in a 200 nm-thick Pb(Zr0.2Ti0.8)O3 bi-crystal ferroelectric film was probed using synchrotron nanodiffraction. The bi-crystal film was grown epitaxially on SrRuO3-coated (001) SrTiO3 24° tilt bi-crystal substrates. From the nanodiffraction data, real-space maps of the ferroelectric domain structure around the grain boundary prior to and during application of a 200 kV cm−1 electric field were reconstructed. In the vicinity of the tilt grain boundary, the distributions of densities of c-type tetragonal domains with the c axis aligned with the film normal were calculated on the basis of diffracted intensity ratios of c- and a-type domains and reference powder diffraction data. Diffracted intensity was averaged along the grain boundary, and it was shown that the density of c-type tetragonal domains dropped to ∼50% of that of the bulk of the film over a range ±150 nm from the grain boundary. This work complements previous results acquired by band excitation piezoresponse force microscopy, suggesting that reduced nonlinear piezoelectric response around grain boundaries may be related to the change in domain structure, as well as to the possibility of increased pinning of domain wall motion. The implications of the results and analysis in terms of understanding the role of grain boundaries in affecting the nonlinear piezoelectric and dielectric responses of ferroelectric materials are discussed.

Lead-based relaxor ferroelectrics exhibit giant piezoelectric properties owing to their heterogeneous structures. The average and local structures measured by single-crystal X-ray diffraction under DC and AC electric fields are reviewed in this article. The position-dependent local lattice strain and the distribution of polar nanodomains and nanoregions show strong electric field dependence, which contributes to the giant piezoelectric properties.

X-ray mirrors for synchrotron radiation are often bent into a curved figure and work under grazing-incidence conditions due to the strong penetrating nature of X-rays to most materials. Mirrors of different cross sections have been recommended to reduce the mirror's slope inaccuracy and clamping difficulty in order to overcome mechanical tolerances. With the development of hard X-ray focusing, it is difficult to meet the needs of focusing mirrors with small slope error with the existing mirror processing technology. Deformable mirrors are adaptive optics that can produce a flexible surface figure. A method of using a deformable mirror as a phase compensator is described to enhance the focusing performance of an X-ray mirror. This paper presents an active piezoelectric plane X-ray focusing mirror with a linearly changing thickness that has the ability of phase compensation while focusing X-rays. Benefiting from its special structural design, the mirror can realize flexible focusing at different focusing geometries using a single input driving voltage. A prototype was used to measure its performance under one-dimension and two-dimension conditions. The results prove that, even at a bending magnet beamline, the mirror can easily achieve a single-micrometre focusing without a complicated bending mechanism or high-precision surface processing. It is hoped that this kind of deformable mirror will have a wide and flexible application in the synchrotron radiation field.

Large-bandwidth pulses produced by cutting-edge X-ray free-electron lasers (FELs) are of great importance in research fields like material science and biology. In this paper, a new method to generate high-power ultrashort FEL pulses with tunable spectral bandwidth with spectral coherence using a dielectric-lined waveguide without interfering operation of linacs is proposed. By exploiting the passive and dephasingless wakefield at terahertz frequency excited by the beam, stable energy modulation can be achieved in the electron beam and large-bandwidth high-intensity soft X-ray radiation can be generated. Three-dimensional start-to-end simulations have been carried out and the results show that coherent radiation pulses with duration of a few femtoseconds and bandwidths ranging from 1.01% to 2.16% can be achieved by changing the undulator taper profile.

X-ray crystallography is an established tool to probe the structure of macromolecules with atomic resolution. Compared with alternative techniques such as single-particle cryo-electron microscopy and micro-electron diffraction, X-ray crystallography is uniquely suited to room-temperature studies and for obtaining a detailed picture of macromolecules subjected to an external electric field (EEF). The impact of an EEF on proteins has been extensively explored through single-crystal X-ray crystallography, which works well with larger high-quality protein crystals. This article introduces a novel design for a 3D-printed in situ crystallization plate that serves a dual purpose: fostering crystal growth and allowing the concurrent examination of the effects of an EEF on crystals of varying sizes. The plate's compatibility with established X-ray crystallography techniques is evaluated.

The U.S. electric power delivery system is vulnerable to terrorist attacks that could cause much more damage to the system than natural disasters such as Hurricane Sandy, blacking out large regions of the country for weeks or months and costing many billions of dollars, says a newly released report by the National Research Council.

A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine urges Congress, federal and state agencies, and regulatory institutions to significantly increase their support for innovation for what the report’s study committee calls “increasingly clean” electric power technologies – nuclear power, carbon capture and storage, and renewables such as solar and wind. Some of these technologies have seen recent cost and price declines and are cost-competitive in certain locations.

With growing risks to the nation’s electrical grid from natural disasters and as a potential target for malicious attacks, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) should work closely with utility operators and other stakeholders to improve cyber and physical security and resilience, says a new congressionally mandated report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and private industry should invest now in order to have an operational fusion pilot plant in the 2035-2040 time frame, says Bringing Fusion to the U.S. Grid, a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

A new congressionally mandated report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine provides comprehensive recommendations for improving the U.S. electric power system so that it can adequately provide electricity to the nation in a safe, reliable, clean, resilient, and equitable way, especially as the U.S. pursues decarbonization of the energy supply.

Recent incidents have exposed vulnerabilities in the U.S. electric power system, which is made up of millions of components distributed across the continent. The National Academies have many resources aimed at better understanding the grid’s susceptibility, and how it can be improved and made more resilient to physical and cyberattacks, natural disasters, and other adverse events.

Ever alert to fresh money-making opportunities, fraudsters are blending physical and digital threats to steal drivers’ payment details

The ride-hailing company has advocated a shift to EVs for several years and has pledged $800 million to support its driver partners' switching entirely to EVs by 2040.

Up till now, the automaker reportedly maintained that low demand for 4x4 cars has led to the absence of off-road tech in its products. In a recent conversation with TOI Auto, Shailesh Chandra, Managing Director, Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles Limited, shed some light on the future of the company’s SUV portfolio and if the 4x4 drivetrain will make a comeback.

The announcement represents a significant step as part of Kellanova's Better Days Promise to advance sustainable and equitable access to food.

Combining heavy duty performance and energy savings technology, Vulcan has announced the launch of the CEF Countertop Electric Fryers, including the industry’s first ENERGY STAR certified countertop electric fryer.

Offering their customers the option of using microcomputer-based electrical controls for the popular piFLOW vacuum conveyors, Piab is introducing the first version of a new electrical control unit ECU-10.

The Prestige Series Hybrid Electric Water Heater from Rheem is Energy Star-rated and its high 3.55-3.70 UEF reduces operating cost.

NASCAR legend Ward Burton installed a Premier AL Smart Hybrid Electric Heat Pump Water Heater in his 1999 home, saving up to $300 monthly on electric bills. Homeowners can save 75% or more on energy costs with this unit.

Puronics is a residential and commercial water treatment products and services provider operating four company-owned service centers.

SunTouch ConnectPlus WarmWire Kits provide heat to warm floors and help keep bathroom, kitchen and entry way floors dry and safe.

The NextGen Boiler is a hydronic appliance that when installed, allows the homeowner to have peace of mind about their radiant heat applications.

Hiller announced a five-year partnership with The University of Alabama’s Athletic Department and Crimson Tide Sports Marketing.

This year, High 5 pLUMBING ranked No. 7 in the small business category.

SunTouch ConnectPlus WarmWire Kits makes for a simple electric floor warming installation. Provide heat to warm floors and help keep bathroom, kitchen and entryway floors dry and safe.

The Little Giant 16G Series 1 HP grinder pump is designed for tough wastewater applications. It has a silicon carbide mechanical seal for longer life and a 1 HP motor to prevent clogging.