1.2GW of offshore and onshore wind was installed last year

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1.2GW of offshore and onshore wind was installed last year

Read more: http://www.theengineer.co.uk/channels/skills-and-careers/in-depth/career-opportunities-in-offshore-renewables/1016243.article#ixzz2Ujjogygo

I drove up to my parents the other day via a route I had not taken for a year, along the route a new wind farm had sprung up, dozens of multi MW turbines, apparently most went in over a period of only a few months once the tracks cables and bases were in place. Several a week being finished off. Now the support crew is something like twenty full time maintainers. Not sure if this is really the hope of the industrial heartlands, it’s not bad but heatedly the sustained work the towns these behemoths rise near, need.

Same with the sea based units, though the ports the support vessels sail from will get more than the maintenance base of a land based array.

Now for something somewhat different

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In a gerotor motor, the outer ring’s gear teeth remain stationary while fluid flow turns the internal rotor. This drawing is of a six-pointed gerotor assembly. To see a motor’s internal components in action, view the YouTube video, Motion Study of the Gerotor Motor at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iooA0mJzEIE.

Machine Design has always been one of the best engineering teaching magazines out there and this article on hydraulic motors is an example of why. Informative and elegant graphics, straight forward, intelligent and direct (without dumbing down) explanatory prose. OK it’s about hydraulic motors but it’s cool, neat, etc, especially in this age of the maker revolution.