A solar-powered airplane finished crossing the United States on Saturday, landing in New York City after flying over the Statue of Liberty during its historic bid to circle the globe, the project team said. The spindly, single-seat experimental aircraft, dubbed Solar Impulse 2, arrived at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport at about 4 a.m. local time after it took off about five hours beforehand at Lehigh Valley International Airport in Pennsylvania, the team reported on the airplane's website. Such a pleasure to land in New York! For the 14th time we celebrate sustainability," said the project's co-founder Andre Borschberg on Twitter after flying over the city and the Statue of Liberty during the 14th leg of the trip around the globe. The Swiss team flying the aircraft in a campaign to build support for clean energy technologies hopes eventually to complete its circumnavigation in Abu Dhabi, where the journey began in March 2015. The solar cr...
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| Ultra-hard glass |
The new material is thin as well as hard and is made using alumina, an oxide of aluminium. If successfully commercialized, it could increase the durability of glass used in the windows of buildings, cars and in smartphone displays. The team from the University of Tokyo and Japan's Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute have published their findings in Scientific Reports journal. The material belongs to a category known as oxide glasses, which mainly consist of silicon dioxide - but with their strength boosted by alumina. However, attempts to increase the amount of alumina have faltered in the past because it would cause the mixture to crystallise when it came into contact with the sides of its container, preventing a useful glass from being formed.
Atsunobu Masuno from the Institute of Industrial Science at the University of Tokyo and colleagues used oxygen gas to push the ingredients into the air and then used lasers to melt them. The resultant glass was colourless, transparent and extremely hard. A property called Young's modulus, which is an indicator of stiffness, was greater than that of some metals, and on its way to values associated with steel.
Another mechanical property, called Vickers hardness, was comparable with the highest values previously reported for oxide glasses.
"We will establish a way to mass-produce the new material shortly," Dr Masuno told the Asahi Shinbun newspaper. "We are looking to commercialise the technique within five years."
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