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| Philip Loveday next to the laboratory’s heavy duty railway line on which he conducts experiments with ultrasound to detect breakages |
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| Philip Loveday adjusts an instrument in the laboratory that measures vibrations. |
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| Philip Loveday is one of those CSIR employees who accumulates too much leave. However, he still raves about a fishing trip in the Seychelles that he recently took with some of those accumulated leave days |
The Pulitzer winning writer, journalist and political commentator, Walter Lippmann, once said: “You cannot endow even the best machine with initiative; the jolliest steam-roller will not plant flowers.”
Scientists in the field of smart structures and materials may just take him up on that – not on the flower planting part of his statement but on the initiative part. Because objects with initiative are commonplace these days. We don’t even realise all these are doing to keep us safe and informed.
Think of the braking systems most cars are manufactured with – the ones that keep you from losing control of the vehicle once it starts spinning. This technology is a smart system in action. Another example is an earth-based telescope that continually adapts its optics to compensate for the influence of turbulence in the earth’s atmosphere.
Smart structures and materials can sense changes in its environment and respond to it without human intervention. That fits the description of initiative, doesn’t it? The sensing and actuation capabilities are linked by some sort of processing, which may be implemented electronically.
Currently, a hot R&D topic in this field is to use the technology to harvest energy. For instance, sensors that are placed on bridges to monitor vibrations can transmit the information wirelessly, thereby eliminating the need for cabling. However, the sensors’ batteries need to be replaced periodically. Ways are now being sought to harvest energy from the bridge’s vibrations to recharge the battery so that no maintenance is required.
At the CSIR, work done in the area of smart structures and materials mostly concentrates on piezoelectric sensors and actuators. Piezoelectric materials can convert mechanical energy (such as the vibration of a bridge) to electrical energy and vice versa. Dr Philip Loveday is the research group leader for this interesting field of engineering.
“The world is changing all the time and it is doing so in incremental steps – you don’t even notice it,” says Loveday. “When I started working at the CSIR in 1991, the very first project that I was assigned to was the development of a vibratory gyroscope. Back then, it was still a research topic. Today, almost every car on the road is fitted with one to measure the rate at which the car is turning and to apply appropriate breaking if the car is spinning. This, I think, is a good example of how the field of smart structures and materials contribute to the world, without most of us even noticing.”
A gyroscope is a device that senses rotation in space and have been used in navigation systems for the past 70 years. Vibratory gyroscopes are solid-state devices that can be manufactured cheaply in large quantities and can therefore be used in motor cars or new products such as the Segway Personal Transporter.
Both Loveday and the CSIR have moved on to different projects in the field of smart structures and materials since then. He says that his work assists local companies to better their own products. “We add bits of technology and capabilities that assist industrial partners to do things that they would otherwise not have been able to do.”
A project he is passionate about involves detecting breakages in heavy-duty railway lines – a worldwide problem that is labour-intensive and therefore expensive without the assistance of technology. He explains how it works: “Ultrasound is transmitted along welded railway lines and picked up further along the rail by a sensor. If a breakage occurs somewhere between the transmitter and the sensor, the railway authorities are notified and an inspector and maintenance team sent out.”
Right now Loveday’s aim is to extend the distances that the transmitter and sensor can realistically be placed apart (currently approximately 1.5 km), which would reduce the cost of the system. Ultimately, however, the goal is to detect cracks in the rail before complete breaks occur.
Loveday, who was born in New Zealand but raised in the Eastern Cape and Johannesburg, completed his B- and Master’s degrees in mechanical engineering at the University of Witwatersrand. After four years at the CSIR, he spent a year at the Centre for Intelligent Material Systems and Structures at Virginia Tech in the USA, completing courses for a PhD. He returned to the CSIR where he conducted his PhD research before defending it at Virginia Tech.
Something that Loveday finds truly interesting is the CSIR’s ability to deliver products or actual applications and not just research. “I come into contact with many international researchers and their work. In general, at the CSIR we function in small groups with very limited resources in comparison to most institutions within the international community. Yet in each research area we can typically showcase more than one industrial application for our research, which is rare in academic circles. I think it speaks volumes about our impact and dynamic nature.”
He also links it up with the CSIR’s ability to adapt to change. “This is a great place to work, especially for young people. I’m amazed at this organisation’s ability to change and how often it happens. I would suggest to everyone in these changing times to know what it is they want to do and to focus on that. Who knows how your research may contribute to change the world?”
CSIR Communication:
Petro Lowies , email: PLowies@csir.co.za
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