Mechanical energy can be converted to electrical energy by using a dielectric elastomer generator.  The elastomer is susceptible to various modes of failure, including electrical breakdown, electromechanical instability, loss of tension, and rupture by stretch.  The modes of failure define a cycle of maximal energy that can be converted.  This cycle is represented on planes of work-conjugate coordinates, and may be used to guide the design of practical cycles.

Initially posted on Applied Mechanics News on 28 April 2007.

Hot rolling from ingot is the dominant fabrication method of producing plate, sheet, and foil aluminum products. It is a striking fact that the total rolling-plant recovery of aluminum process from ingot to final products is typically about 50%. This recovery loss causes enormous amount of energy waste both as remelt energy and energy to process material that is just recycled. Assuming the annual US domestic net shipments of sheet and plate products being 10,500 million lb, 10% improvement of the hot rolling recovery will result annual savings of $126 million per year for the US domestic aluminum industry. The annual domestic energy savings would be 2.54 trillion Btu. The environmental benefits include annual reduction of 2.32 million lb SOx , 1.01 million lb NOx, 303.2 million lb CO2, 0.67 million lb of particulate, and 11000 lb VOCsd .

The fundamental inability to reduce or eliminate these recovery losses is “lack of the integrated models that relate structural properties to manufacturing processes”. Currently, processing parameters are determined by trial and error and largely based on experience. This makes it difficult to optimize the process even on the macroscale level, and almost impossible from microstructure level. Research in the following areas are desirable: