Emerging Technologies

Bright, healthy and on the road — technology for your life. Technology should improve people’s lives — the aim of Texas A&M’s Dwight Look College of Engineering. Here is technology that does so.

By Gene Charleton

A difference has to actually make one, researchers say. For engineers, technology must make a difference in people’s lives.

“It’s not just finding new knowledge, but finding ways to put that knowledge to work for people,” says G. Kemble Bennett, dean of Texas A&M’s Dwight Look College of Engineering and Texas A&M University System vice chancellor for engineering.

Consider these developing technologies that will make a difference:

Putting the throb back in your heart

A properly pumping heart is essential to a healthy life. Almost 5 million Americans suffer from congestive heart failure, with 400,000 added each year.

This chronic condition often occurs in people over 60. Heart muscles grow and change shape, reducing pumping efficiency. Some patients can’t climb stairs without tiring and may have trouble walking or even getting out of bed.

Enter John Criscione, physician and assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, whom congestive heart failure has always fascinated and frustrated.

Working with CorInnova, a company he helped found, Criscione developed a cardiac compression device that fits around the heart like a flexible cup with hollow walls. Pumped-in air squeezes the heart, pushing blood out. Releasing the air lets the heart expand and fill with blood again. Implanted just after a heart attack, the device could restore damaged heart muscles, like physical therapy for the heart.

Keeping the wires live

We may take electricity for granted — until the lights go out. That happens to someone, somewhere, every day.

“More people are affected annually by numerous small outages than by the catastrophic failures that make the newspaper headlines,” says B. Don Russell, Regents Professor and J.W. Runyon Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and director of the Power System Automation Laboratory. The problem costs U.S. industry more than $80 billion yearly.

“It’s not just finding new knowledge, but finding ways to put that knowledge to work for people.”

-G. Kemble Bennett

Russell’s group has studied the power distribution system for more than 30 years. By the late 1980s, they developed a computerized monitoring system that can isolate faults and deenergize lines. In 1996, Russell and colleague Carl Benner won an R&D 100 Award (the “Oscars of Invention”) from R&D Magazine for this system and received 10 U.S. patents.

A newer system analyzes subtle current variations. It alerts technicians to repair or replace components before they fail, averting a large-scale outage. Russell and Benner filed 10 patent disclosures in 2005; 11 U.S. and Canadian power networks are testing the system.
 
Going deep for oil — really deep

Drilling for the oil that ends up as gasoline in your fuel tank is complicated, expensive and sometimes dangerous. Much of the oil is under the ocean, hard to get to.    

Dual-gradient drilling lets drillers reach such reservoirs. Developer Hans Juvkam-Wold holds the Holt Endowed Chair in the Harold Vance Department of Petroleum Engineering. Assistant Professor Jerome Schubert began working on the technology as Juvkam-Wold’s graduate student.

In underwater drilling, the hole in the seafloor connects to the platform or drill ship with drill pipe, which carries the drilling bit. Drillers pump thick drilling mud down this pipe to cool the bit and remove debris.

For the well’s first 3,000–4,000 feet, the mud simply flows back up and onto the seafloor. This rock section might contain water, natural gas or frozen methane. When methane and high-pressure water get into the bore hole during drilling, they can burp back up toward the surface (a “kick”). Uncontrolled kicks can become blowouts, threatening the well, drilling equipment and workers.

In deep-water drilling, a larger pipe, the riser, encloses the drill pipe. Instead of “pumping and dumping,” the mud is pumped down the drill pipe to the bit and then drawn back up through the riser to the surface for reuse.

Instead of a riser, dual-gradient drilling uses a separate seafloor pump and line. Valves circulate out kicks before they become blowouts. Drillers can also control well pressure, increasing efficiency.

In the Gulf of Mexico, dual-gradient drilling worked as simulations predicted. Two major energy companies are considering using dual-gradient technology.

“We know it works,” Schubert says. “We just have to convince the industry that it’s a worthwhile investment.”