Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2019 i Popular Mechanics South Africa

1 APRIL 1939 300-Mile Railway to Carry Ships is Planned This month, 80 years ago, we reported on the planned construction of a ship-carrying railway, to be built by French engineers to move vessels 300 miles (482 km) over land from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. The intention was to eliminate a 1 200 mile (1 930 km) trip by water between the same ports. 2 APRIL 1946 Folding Paper is Fun For Everyone The timeless art of origami, or paper folding, filled three and a half pages of this edition. We presented a range of paper-folding projects, including instructions and detailed diagrams on creating a bird with flapping wings, and a frog that hops. 3 APRIL 1953 Stolen – $19 000 000 Car theft, it seems, was already a…

LATE LAST YEAR, an aeroplane weighing just over 2 kg, with the wingspan of an albatross, flew the 55 metre length of MIT’s duPont Athletic Center gym. It had no moving parts. Instead of propellers or a jet engine, the plane developed airflow and lift with electricity. Wires mounted in front of the wings contain positive electrodes, and the wings contain negative electrodes. A strong positive charge sends ions flowing back toward the wings. In the process, they bump into air molecules, creating wind – in this case, reaching 320 km/h – that flows over the aerofoil-shaped wings. (See illustration below.) According to Steven Barrett, the associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics who led the team that built the plane, this phenomenon – called ionic wind – has been known…

Steam locomotives are essentially boilers on wheels. For safety reasons, all boilers are subject to internal inspections and pressure testing, as the water and steam environment invites corrosion. When the time for boiler tube replacement arrives, the steam loco is stripped from its working state, down to firebox and boiler, so the work can be done. One of the major tasks is the descaling of the tube plates prior to pulling the tubes. Then the boiler tubes are replaced. In addition, all valves are serviced and the wear on all wearing surfaces, such as pistons, sliders, piston rods and tie rods is checked and parts are replaced, rebuilt or machined, depending on the findings.…

THE INDUSTRIES WITH THE MOST TO GAIN ARE ENVIRONMENTAL AGENCIES, MINING, AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY THERE’S BEEN AN explosion of data. It’s overwhelming and its impact is deeply underestimated. In fact, we now produce around 2.5 quintillion bytes of data each day, according to American software company Domo. With so much going around, you have to wonder how a data scientist would even begin to manage, analyse and visualise these incredibly complex amounts of information. The answer lies in geospatial analysis. ‘Geospatial’ means something that is related to the Earth by geography or location. In other words, geospatial analysis blends geographical references (think Google Earth) with data. Spatial statistics help data scientists extract more meaningful insights from geographical data. Everything in the world has some kind of spatial relationship, which can…

A BATTLE OF WITS that extends around the world is ceaselessly fought by the forces of Uncle Sam and the smugglers’ army. Thousands of men, keen of brain and firm of purpose, are enlisted on both sides, spending vast sums of money, and operating entire navies on the seas, and aeroplanes and motor fleets on land. Three US government services – the Customs- and Prohibition Bureaus and the Coast Guard – are directly involved in the battle to keep out contraband articles and collect the frontier tolls on others. Assisting them are the Department of Justice, with its own worldwide system of secret agents, and the Post Office department, whose inspectors exercise constant vigilance to keep the mails closed to the smuggler. Just how much revenue is lost annually by…

MARCH 1902 For the Madam ‘Deftness of a woman’s hand has opened up for her a new field of livelihood – marble cutting. Many women in the United States and Canada are engaged in the trade and some of them have acquired a skill which, it is said, can scarcely be equalled by the masculine marble cutter.’ FEBRUARY 1926 1 Where Women Learn the Way ‘Back to the Farm’ ‘Women have an instinctive love for growing things and get a keener enjoyment from cultivating them than men.’ AUGUST 1937 2 Body Energy Tester Finds Women Are Hardier Than Men ‘That women are hardier than men is the conclusion reached by Dr. Jakob A Stekol after tests with an instrument which measures the creation of body energy and the giving off…

DECEMBER 1939 1 War Machines of Land, Sea, and Air ‘No big gun at all but an aircraft spotter, the range finder is a “big brother” of the focusing device on your camera.’ FEBRUARY 1941 War Birds Without Wings ‘A fleet of super-giros, heavily armoured to stand off raiding planes, might hover over the arsenal, ready to meet dive bombers or any other attacking aircraft with a deadly barrage of shells discharged from cannons aboard each giro.’ MAY 1943 Your Hobby Can Help Win the War ‘Men whose hobby is model railroading, or who used their workbenches and tools simply for building garden furniture and knickknacks, are now a vital part of the arsenal of democracy, producing at home small parts for guns, tanks, and aeroplanes.’ SEPTEMBER 1948 2 How…

RIDING THE INSIDE OF THE LANE, I banked into an underpass where the combination of the bright sunlight, my sunglasses, and the deep shadow underneath created a near blackout. I saw the outline of a gigantic pothole at the same time I went into it. No time to dodge or get up on the pegs. My small bike crunched into the hole, and all the air exploded out of my lungs. Dazed, but still upright, I eased over to the shoulder. The damage: two ruined rims and a cracked rear hub. The road surface had taken its toll, but I hadn’t spilled. I had thought of becoming a motorcyclist at least once a year for the last dozen years, and never got around to it. But last year, something clicked.…

HEALTHY FLOW FIX I read, with some interest, the article entitled ‘How to be handy-er’, in the recent December issue. There was some really good advice, on a range of subjects, but I found the insert called ‘The sink keeps clogging’ most disturbing. The use of Powafix was advocated to clear a blocked drain. In my view, this is really bad advice, as it’s promoting the use of caustic soda, a toxic and dangerous chemical, especially in inexperienced hands. Also, it destroys PVC piping and any natural bacteria in septic tanks, which is quite a common setup in South Africa. My advice would be to avoid toxic chemicals, and use bio enzymes instead. We need to start advocating as many ‘green’ solutions as we can, because our environment can’t take…

The sport of wingsuiting, or wingsuit flying, evolved from skydiving. Instead of dropping straight down, the pilots use specially designed suits that allow them to harness the airflow and fly forwards, covering significant distances too. Depending on the angle of the torso, shoulders, hips and knees, pilots turn and bank, and, at times, can achieve a glide ratio of 3:1. Flights are undertaken either from an aircraft, such as a plane or helicopter, or a fixed location, called a base-jump exit point. The Red Bull Air Force pilots (pictured) are masters in this field. This jump took place above Table Mountain in Cape Town (look carefully and you can see the upper cableway station), during their recent trip to South Africa. They were here for the filming of Barrier of…

ALL IT TAKES IS A prick… That was the promise that Elizabeth Holmes gave. She called her idea the ‘iPod of health care’. It would turn medical diagnosis on its head and revolutionise clinical labs as well as change an industry that hadn’t changed in decades. Too bad it was all a lie. Holmes’ acclaimed biotech Silicon Valley start-up, Theranos, received a lot of media attention. After all, Holmes was finally giving the medical industry a transformative, cost-effective and quick way to analyse blood. The idea being that a single drop, collected in a nanotainer, could be just as effective as drawing endless phials of blood. And without the need for needles, samples would be tested in a microwave-sized miniLab, something Holmes referred to as ‘the most important thing that…

1. ASUS ROG RAPTURE The impressive new ROG Rapture GT-AX11000 is one of the first routers in SA to use the new 802.11ax WiFi standard (aka WiFi 6), which provides better efficiency, throughput and range. It’s compatible with the current WiFi standards, including 802.11ac and 802.11n. It’s the world’s first 10 gigabit WiFi router with a 1.8 GHz quad core processor. It also has a 2.5 GBase-T port, dynamic frequency selection (DFS) band, WTFast, Adaptive QoS, and AiMesh for mesh WiFi systems. All of this adds up to a future-proof device that brings you lower latency and reduces ping rate. It will redefine what you thought a router was and make you wonder how you lived without it for so long. R8 499 (asus.com/za) 2. NOKIA 9 PUREVIEW The new Nokia…

IT TAKES COURAGE, INCREDIBEL FOCUS, THE RIGHT GEAR, AND MAYBE A TOUCH OF CRAZINESS. SYNCHROZISING ALL OF THESE ELEMENTS, THE RED BULL AIR FORCE WINGSUIT PILOTS TOOK A DIVE OFF THE MIGHTY DRAKENSBERG. YOU CALM YOUR breathing, and you jump. Right off the edge of the cliff. At first, there’s silence. Then, wind bombards your ears. For an instant time stands still as you commence your inevitable plummet. There’s no defeating gravity … or is there? You spread your arms, bracing your legs in a widened position. The web of fabric between them pulls tight, the ducts in the material open and your wingsuit seems to inflate around you, becoming rigid. Suddenly, instead of a vertical downward plunge towards a prompt and unavoidable reunion with Earth, you’re moving forwards, harnessing,…

IT WAS A CENTRE JAM – a potential man killer. Huge five-metre sawlogs, weighing up to 1 000 kg, crunched against one another like shoestring potatoes in a crazy man’s skillet. The wooden carpet that had been slithering, jostling, and churning toward the sawmill stopped dead. Logs were jammed up for nearly a kilometre back. The river boss was all over the place, trying to find the key log. When he spotted it, a dozen men set their peavey hooks into it and strained. No go. Then the river boss ordered a charge of dynamite. ‘Whoomp!’ went the explosion and a white plume of water shot skyward. That did it. ‘She’s a-pullin’!’ went up the cry. As the grumbling logs began to move downstream like half-submerged alligators, the men scrambled…

1 ‘I had to tell somebody, anybody, that we’d busted straight through the sound barrier. But the transmissions were restricted. “Hey Ridley!” I called. “Make another note. There’s something wrong with this Machmeter. It’s gone completely screwy!” ‘ – Chuck Yeager, ‘Breaking the Sound Barrier,’ October 1997 2 ‘All successful inventors know about depositions. They learn to live with them the way one learns to live with arthritis.’ – Tom Wolfe, ‘Land of Wizards,’ July 1986 3 ‘Space is where great scientific and commercial breakthroughs of the future will be made. Space is where we can achieve progress in making our country safer from ballistic missile attack. Space is also where medicines of the future will be made, and where some of our children may make their living.’ – George…

JUNE 2016 Open a bottle of wine with a shoe Should you find yourself with a bottle of wine and no corkscrew, and you are the type of person who wears shoes, you are wearing the solution to your problem. Remove one shoe and place the bottle of wine inside, so its bottom rests where your heel would go. Find a sturdy wall that will not scuff – brick is best. Holding the shoe and bottle so the bottle is parallel to the ground, repeatedly bang the flat of the heel against the wall. The cork will work its way out of the bottle; when enough has protruded, pull it out manually. Return your shoe to your foot. (Note: won’t work with synthetic corks.) NOVEMBER 1931 Egg white polishes leather…

What the heck is a motion sculpture? FOR ATHLETES AND DOCTORS, understanding how the human body moves through space is essential. But the nuance and complexity of human motion defies modelling. (And photos or raw video aren’t easy to analyse.) So a team of MIT researchers created MoSculp, an AI system that processes video to create 3D ‘motion sculptures.’ MoSculp starts by detecting a human body in a video. Then, an algorithm identifies points of reference – typically knees, elbows, and hips. It creates a 3D model of the body and stitches a series of models together, creating one extended visual representation of the entire sequence of movements – which can even be 3D printed. The MoSculp team sees the tool as a resource for training: a budding tennis player…

ROHAN VOS, the owner and founder of Rovos Rail, bought several coaches at an auction in 1985 and took them to the Railway Preservation Society’s yards in Witbank for rebuilding and restoration. His dream was to restore four of them and hitch them to a South African train as a family caravan. The dream grew bigger and bigger, and eventually Rovos Rail was born, with the first train consisting of a locomotive and seven carriages setting off on a journey to what was then the Eastern Transvaal on 29 April 1989. It had just four paying passengers, friends, family and some members of the press. There were many setbacks and challenges over the years, but with the determination and vision of Rohan and the support of family members, Rovos Rail…

Other workers should be twice as far [from the person felling the tree] as the height of the tree that’s being felled. Identify ‘hangers’ and ‘widow-makers’ – those branches that may dislodge and fall into the work area from above. Fuel the saw at least 3 metres away from ignition sources. The fuel container [should not] exceed 19 litres in capacity. Ensure electric chainsaws are tested and certified by a nationally recognised testing laboratory. Extension cords shall be sized strictly according to the chainsaw manufacturer’s instructions. Start the saw on the ground or another firm support with the brake engaged. Keep both hands on the handles and maintain secure footing. Do not cut directly overhead. Shut off or release throttle prior to retreating. Shut off or engage the chain brake…

IN LAST MONTH’S column, we chatted about food-grade oils, and, more specifically, how the term ‘food grade’ often misleads people, including maintenance engineers, into believing these oils are edible, when in fact their use is restricted to incidental contact with food. In most cases, the term ‘food grade’ refers to H1 lubricants that have been refined to a point where they are mostly tasteless and odourless but, nonetheless, are still not suitable for human consumption in quantities that exceed 10 parts per million. In much the same way, there are several applications around your home where certain lubricants should not be used, or they’re best avoided because other, better, solutions may be available. Unfortunately, when it comes to multipurpose lubricants, a large number of their so-called uses come from public…

IT’S 2001, in Lausitzring, Germany. Former F1 driver and Italian hot-shoe, Alessandro ‘Alex’ Zanardi, is battling for the lead of an IndyCar race held at Germany’s EuroSpeedway. He dives into the pits needing a perfect stop to maintain position against a fast-lapping Alex Tagliani. Every split second counts. He floors it with his tyres not yet up to temperature and loses control re-entering the track. Spinning backwards up a section of banked oval adjacent to the pit-lane exit, Zanardi and Tagliani are on a collision course that’ll change Zanardi’s life forever. Tagliani, travelling at 300+ km/h, broadsides Zanardi’s near-stationary car. Witnesses say it was like a bomb going off, so massive was the impact, so vast was the destruction. Zanardi lost both his legs in the crash, and it was…

THE MOTORING landscape is one of the most interesting to follow. Change is inevitable, and everywhere, from the levels of autonomy that are being tested, to electric cars going mainstream, to the technology that is being packed into vehicles today. From a South African point of view, we still have to contend with the ever-increasing fuel costs. While it is difficult to predict where the next five years will take us, in the mean time we’ve rounded up a bunch of electric cars that are heading our way within the next year or two. JAGUAR I-PACE By the time this issue of Popular Mechanics hits the shelves, the shiny Jaguar I-Pace would have launched in South Africa. Jaguar’s first all-electric vehicle, the I-Pace, made its global debut in March 2018…