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GOOD IDEAS
RECEIVE SUPPORT
AIR STREAMS
CONQUER
THE WORLD
A new, revolutionary cooling technology
offers completely new heat transfer
possibilities. The method is silent and
extremely effective. It can make existing
cooling systems better and cheaper,
as well as offering new ways of cooling
electronic and industrial equipment of
various kinds.
– One problem connected with the
cooling of materials is that air is a very
poor conductor of heat. A fan can be
used to blow away hot air to accelerate
the cooling process, but the material
always retains a thin layer of air around
itself that slows down the heat transfer,
explains Anna Borgström.
Together with her colleague Roderick
Barrett she has developed the cooling
technology used by Aureola Swedish
Engineering. The method is based on
fundamental physical phenomena that
the two Royal Institute of Technology
students use in a new way.
– We can manipulate air molecules
that are in direct contact with a heated
object so that they are repelled, thus
increasing natural heat transfer by a
factor of eight. We can even determine
the direction the molecules are moving
in and thus create circulation without a
fan, says Roderick Barrett.
A broad patent has been applied for,
and both inventors are still secretive.
All they will say is that the method does
not require surface treatment or moving
parts, that it is silent and uses almost
no energy. The VINN NU award was the
first of many.
– The money came in very useful, but
above all we got a lot of publicity. Several
of the companies that we are collaborating
with today called us after the competition,
says Anna Borgström. They have
great plans for the future. Cooling technology
is a multibillion euro industry, and
she believes that one of their cooperation
ventures with interested companies will
soon result in their first product.
The technology offers new possibilities
for the electronics industry, for
example when it comes to cooling
laptop computers or flat-screen TV
sets. Large industrial structures that
require extensive fan systems and more
efficient air heating are other potential
applications.
Quick help at sea
ject was Torbjörn Henriksson, managing
director of Kockum Sonics.
– We started with people spread out
everywhere, but they had a very interesting
mix of skills, says Torbjörn Henriksson.
As project leader, his first task
was to produce order out of chaos and
achieve effective cooperation in order to
make the best possible use of everyone’s
skills. Evidently he succeeded. Today a
working prototype has been installed in
M/S Skåne, a ferry operating the Trelleborg-Rostock
route.
SCS is an active security system
which, in the event of a leak on board or
cargo displacement, automatically starts
evaluating the stability of the ship and
simultaneously predicting its condition
at various intervals, in particular its final
condition. An automatic alarm is also
connected to the shipping company’s
on-call team so that people on land can
also receive up-to-date information about
From “chaos” to an exciting innovation.
Kockum Sonics’s new prototype Safety &
Cargo System shows how the twists and
turns of an innovation process can lead
to success in the end.
But such a project often needs one
or more driving forces to see it through.
One of these driving forces in this prothe
condition of the ship. This project
is included in VINNOVA’s safety at sea
programme, which was launched in 2001
in order to build up research and development
in this area. It is financed with funds
that were left over when the burial of M/S
Estonia was called off.
Keys to security
A pin-on-card is a smart card; you enter
the pincode in a keypad on the card itself.
It can be used, among other things,
as a pass card and bank card. Security
is guaranteed since the code is saved
on the card and not in a computer that
reads it, which would make it possible to
trace the number. The product is based
on a new intelligent technique called
RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification),
which was developed by the Swedish
company Cypak. The pin-on-card won
the European IST prize in competition
with 430 products from 29 countries!
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