CHATTANOOGA ENGINEERS CLUB
 

NEXT WEEK _____________________________________________________
Monday, March 3 - noon
 
Topic:  The Sun - A very close look at our nearest star - Mitzi Adam, NASA
 
Throughout man’s history, no object received more attention and wonderment than the Sun. And appropriately so. The sun provides us with life-giving sustenance, keeping us warm and giving us light and rain to grow our cops. It is also provides a stepping stone to better understanding the universe. What it is and how it works have always been a mystery. It was until the past century that scientist have been able coax the sun into giving up some its secrets. Today’s more sophisticated instruments and space-borne observatories are providing us with a treasure chest of new discoveries. Mitzi Adams will describe some of those discoveries, and provide us with a clearer perspective of how the sun works.  Mitzi is a member of the National Space Science and Technology Center, a newly formed consortium, which includes scientists from many of Alabama’s universities, local businesses, and NASA. She will review what we know about flares and the solar-terrestrial connection and will discuss the types of data acquired at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center to support flare research. She says that solar flares and coronal mass ejections can strongly affect the local environment at the Earth.  Flares, characterized by a sudden release of energy within the solar atmosphere, result in the acceleration of electrons, protons, and heavier ions as well as the production of electromagnetic radiation from hard X-rays to km radio waves. Observations suggest that solar flares and sunspots are strongly linked. Furthermore, the global structure of the sunspot magnetic field can be correlated with flare activity.
 
March Invocation Chairperson:  Richard Smith
 
Menu:  Fried chicken tenders, Caesar salad, Macaroni & cheese, Green beans, and Pineapple pudding
 
 
OUR PREVIOUS MEETING _________________________________________
 
Tony Wheeler, of Wheeler & Associates, presented a developing solution to the inspection of wood poles.  The standard pole inspection has been to hit the base of the pole with a hammer and listen for a change in sound.  Hot Shot Radar Inspections has assembled a team of many companies working to develop and improve a set of instruments that can be flown on a helicopter to quickly inspect many wooden pole structures.  He explained the logical division of tasks and equipment to perform them.  Multiple computers are performing tasks simultaneously and are named according to their main task.  The data is recorded once on Doug (data storage).  Eva May (evidence manager) passes pointers to the data as it arrives to others ready the analyze and report the data.  Tim (target integration manager) keeps up with the exact location of the helicopter and the target poles to be inspected.  Tim is working fast as the helicopter moves quickly from pole to pole.  There is also an event controller named "Captain" and an operator interface named Ziggy.  Ziggy's screens displaying all the information about poles just past and poles being analyzed was the crowd's favorite.  The Hot Shot system requires three people:  a helicopter pilot, a system operator on the helicopter with the cameras and computers, and a person driving a tanker truck with fuel for the helicopter and also computers for downloading the data collected.  Helicopter time costs about $1800/hr.  The analysis can be done for about $35 per pole.  Multiple passes over years can compare previous scans to current scans.  Similar systems have been used for inspecting pipelines, bridges, railroad rails, and locating unexploded landmines and buried bodies.  These systems all look for changes in density.
 
Check our website at http://www.ChattanoogaEngineersClub.org for meeting summaries prior to last Monday.
 
A very special thanks to Judy Driggans for providing this meeting summary.  For the complete meeting details please check http://www.chattanoogaengineersclub.org/MeetingMinutes/CECMinutes022403.pdf .
 
 
FUTURE MONDAY MEETINGS ___________________________________
 
March 10: Properly Removing Hazardous Waste from Chattanooga - Carrie Hunt and Marty Bourquin, WR Grace & Co.
 
March 17: Chemical Warfare - Donald C. Thomas, PE, Consulting Engineer
 
March 24: Update on Diamond Chemical Vapor Deposition Technology - Dale Bradshaw, TVA - Power Delivery Technologies
 
March 31: FIELD TRIP: NRC Technical Training Facility - Jan Griffin (Tour subject to terrorist threat level being YELLOW or below)
 
April 21:  UTC Senior Design Projects
 

WHERE WE MEET _______________________________________________
Unless we note otherwise, all of our presentation meetings are held at the Cellar Restaurant in the Tallan Building, Union Square Downtown Chattanooga from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. Our meeting room and luncheon service are open by 11:30 a.m. Lunch buffet is $10.00 per person (inclusive). No reservation is required. Free parking is available in the Days Inn Motel (on Carter St. and MLK Blvd,) courtesy of the Days Inn management. When you park there, be sure to place a note on your dashboard indicating you are attending the Engineers Club meeting.
 
 
QUESTIONS, SUGGESTIONS ? _____________________________________
If you have any questions or suggestions about program items please call Brad Baucom at 423-648-3582 or e-mail him at bradbaucom@comcast.net. You can find references to other Chattanooga Engineers Club members at our web site: www.ChattanoogaEngineersClub.org .