Project acronym ALEM
Project ADDITIONAL LOSSES IN ELECTRICAL MACHINES
Researcher (PI) Matti Antero Arkkio
Host Institution (HI) AALTO KORKEAKOULUSAATIO SR
Country Finland
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), PE8, ERC-2013-ADG
Summary "Electrical motors consume about 40 % of the electrical energy produced in the European Union. About 90 % of this energy is converted to mechanical work. However, 0.5-2.5 % of it goes to so called additional load losses whose exact origins are unknown. Our ambitious aim is to reveal the origins of these losses, build up numerical tools for modeling them and optimize electrical motors to minimize the losses.
As the hypothesis of the research, we assume that the additional losses mainly result from the deterioration of the core materials during the manufacturing process of the machine. By calorimetric measurements, we have found that the core losses of electrical machines may be twice as large as comprehensive loss models predict. The electrical steel sheets are punched, welded together and shrink fit to the frame. This causes residual strains in the core sheets deteriorating their magnetic characteristics. The cutting burrs make galvanic contacts between the sheets and form paths for inter-lamination currents. Another potential source of additional losses are the circulating currents between the parallel strands of random-wound armature windings. The stochastic nature of these potential sources of additional losses puts more challenge on the research.
We shall develop a physical loss model that couples the mechanical strains and electromagnetic losses in electrical steel sheets and apply the new model for comprehensive loss analysis of electrical machines. The stochastic variables related to the core losses and circulating-current losses will be discretized together with the temporal and spatial discretization of the electromechanical field variables. The numerical stochastic loss model will be used to search for such machine constructions that are insensitive to the manufacturing defects. We shall validate the new numerical loss models by electromechanical and calorimetric measurements."
Summary
"Electrical motors consume about 40 % of the electrical energy produced in the European Union. About 90 % of this energy is converted to mechanical work. However, 0.5-2.5 % of it goes to so called additional load losses whose exact origins are unknown. Our ambitious aim is to reveal the origins of these losses, build up numerical tools for modeling them and optimize electrical motors to minimize the losses.
As the hypothesis of the research, we assume that the additional losses mainly result from the deterioration of the core materials during the manufacturing process of the machine. By calorimetric measurements, we have found that the core losses of electrical machines may be twice as large as comprehensive loss models predict. The electrical steel sheets are punched, welded together and shrink fit to the frame. This causes residual strains in the core sheets deteriorating their magnetic characteristics. The cutting burrs make galvanic contacts between the sheets and form paths for inter-lamination currents. Another potential source of additional losses are the circulating currents between the parallel strands of random-wound armature windings. The stochastic nature of these potential sources of additional losses puts more challenge on the research.
We shall develop a physical loss model that couples the mechanical strains and electromagnetic losses in electrical steel sheets and apply the new model for comprehensive loss analysis of electrical machines. The stochastic variables related to the core losses and circulating-current losses will be discretized together with the temporal and spatial discretization of the electromechanical field variables. The numerical stochastic loss model will be used to search for such machine constructions that are insensitive to the manufacturing defects. We shall validate the new numerical loss models by electromechanical and calorimetric measurements."
Max ERC Funding
2 489 949 €
Duration
Start date: 2014-03-01, End date: 2019-02-28
Project acronym COMPASS
Project Colloids with complex interactions: from model atoms to colloidal recognition and bio-inspired self assembly
Researcher (PI) Peter Schurtenberger
Host Institution (HI) MAX IV Laboratory, Lund University
Country Sweden
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), PE3, ERC-2013-ADG
Summary Self-assembly is the key construction principle that nature uses so successfully to fabricate its molecular machinery and highly elaborate structures. In this project we will follow nature’s strategies and make a concerted experimental and theoretical effort to study, understand and control self-assembly for a new generation of colloidal building blocks. Starting point will be recent advances in colloid synthesis strategies that have led to a spectacular array of colloids of different shapes, compositions, patterns and functionalities. These allow us to investigate the influence of anisotropy in shape and interactions on aggregation and self-assembly in colloidal suspensions and mixtures. Using responsive particles we will implement colloidal lock-and-key mechanisms and then assemble a library of “colloidal molecules” with well-defined and externally tunable binding sites using microfluidics-based and externally controlled fabrication and sorting principles. We will use them to explore the equilibrium phase behavior of particle systems interacting through a finite number of binding sites. In parallel, we will exploit them and investigate colloid self-assembly into well-defined nanostructures. Here we aim at achieving much more refined control than currently possible by implementing a protein-inspired approach to controlled self-assembly. We combine molecule-like colloidal building blocks that possess directional interactions and externally triggerable specific recognition sites with directed self-assembly where external fields not only facilitate assembly, but also allow fabricating novel structures. We will use the tunable combination of different contributions to the interaction potential between the colloidal building blocks and the ability to create chirality in the assembly to establish the requirements for the controlled formation of tubular shells and thus create a colloid-based minimal model of synthetic virus capsid proteins.
Summary
Self-assembly is the key construction principle that nature uses so successfully to fabricate its molecular machinery and highly elaborate structures. In this project we will follow nature’s strategies and make a concerted experimental and theoretical effort to study, understand and control self-assembly for a new generation of colloidal building blocks. Starting point will be recent advances in colloid synthesis strategies that have led to a spectacular array of colloids of different shapes, compositions, patterns and functionalities. These allow us to investigate the influence of anisotropy in shape and interactions on aggregation and self-assembly in colloidal suspensions and mixtures. Using responsive particles we will implement colloidal lock-and-key mechanisms and then assemble a library of “colloidal molecules” with well-defined and externally tunable binding sites using microfluidics-based and externally controlled fabrication and sorting principles. We will use them to explore the equilibrium phase behavior of particle systems interacting through a finite number of binding sites. In parallel, we will exploit them and investigate colloid self-assembly into well-defined nanostructures. Here we aim at achieving much more refined control than currently possible by implementing a protein-inspired approach to controlled self-assembly. We combine molecule-like colloidal building blocks that possess directional interactions and externally triggerable specific recognition sites with directed self-assembly where external fields not only facilitate assembly, but also allow fabricating novel structures. We will use the tunable combination of different contributions to the interaction potential between the colloidal building blocks and the ability to create chirality in the assembly to establish the requirements for the controlled formation of tubular shells and thus create a colloid-based minimal model of synthetic virus capsid proteins.
Max ERC Funding
2 498 040 €
Duration
Start date: 2014-02-01, End date: 2019-01-31
Project acronym INTELHYB
Project Next generation of complex metallic materials with intelligent hybrid structures
Researcher (PI) Juergen Eckert
Host Institution (HI) OESTERREICHISCHE AKADEMIE DER WISSENSCHAFTEN
Country Austria
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), PE8, ERC-2013-ADG
Summary In a modern society, metallic materials are crucially important (e.g. energy, safety, infrastructure, transportation, health, medicine, life sciences, IT). Contemporary examples with inherent challenges to be overcome are the design of ultrahigh specific strength materials. There is a critical need for successful developments in this area in particular for reduced energy consumption, reduction of pollutant emissions and passenger safety. Alternative approaches include improved thermal stability and creep resistance of high-temperature alloys for energy conversion, which are generally used in power plants and turbine engines, high temperature process technology, and fossil-fuel driven engines. The ageing European society makes biomedical materials for implant and stent design also crucially important. A drawback of nearly all current high strength metallic materials is that they lack ductility (i.e. are brittle and hard to form)- or on the opposite side, they may be highly ductile but lack strength. The key concept behind INTELHYB is to define new routes for creation of tailored metallic materials based on scale-bridging intelligent hybrid structures enabling property as well as function optimization. The novelty of this proposal as compared to conventional ideas is that they apply to monolithic amorphous materials or bulk microcrystalline. The basis will be founded on innovative strategies for the design, synthesis and characterization of intrinsic length-scale modulation and phase transformation under highly non-equilibrium conditions. This will include the incorporation of dispersed phases which are close to or beyond their thermodynamic and mechanical stability limit thus forming a hierarchically structured hybrid and ductile/tough alloys. Alternatively, the material itself will be designed in a manner such that it is at the verge of its thermodynamic/mechanical stability.
Summary
In a modern society, metallic materials are crucially important (e.g. energy, safety, infrastructure, transportation, health, medicine, life sciences, IT). Contemporary examples with inherent challenges to be overcome are the design of ultrahigh specific strength materials. There is a critical need for successful developments in this area in particular for reduced energy consumption, reduction of pollutant emissions and passenger safety. Alternative approaches include improved thermal stability and creep resistance of high-temperature alloys for energy conversion, which are generally used in power plants and turbine engines, high temperature process technology, and fossil-fuel driven engines. The ageing European society makes biomedical materials for implant and stent design also crucially important. A drawback of nearly all current high strength metallic materials is that they lack ductility (i.e. are brittle and hard to form)- or on the opposite side, they may be highly ductile but lack strength. The key concept behind INTELHYB is to define new routes for creation of tailored metallic materials based on scale-bridging intelligent hybrid structures enabling property as well as function optimization. The novelty of this proposal as compared to conventional ideas is that they apply to monolithic amorphous materials or bulk microcrystalline. The basis will be founded on innovative strategies for the design, synthesis and characterization of intrinsic length-scale modulation and phase transformation under highly non-equilibrium conditions. This will include the incorporation of dispersed phases which are close to or beyond their thermodynamic and mechanical stability limit thus forming a hierarchically structured hybrid and ductile/tough alloys. Alternatively, the material itself will be designed in a manner such that it is at the verge of its thermodynamic/mechanical stability.
Max ERC Funding
2 499 920 €
Duration
Start date: 2014-02-01, End date: 2019-01-31
Project acronym MAMBA
Project Molecular mechanism of amyloid β aggregation
Researcher (PI) Sara Elisabet Snogerup Linse
Host Institution (HI) MAX IV Laboratory, Lund University
Country Sweden
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), PE4, ERC-2013-ADG
Summary Generation of toxic oligomers during aggregation of amyloid beta peptide (Abeta42) into amyloid fibrils is a central event in Alzheimer disease. Understanding the aggregation process is therefore one important step towards therapy and diagnosis of the disease. We propose a physical chemistry approach with the goal of finding the molecular mechanisms behind the process in terms of the underlying microscopic steps and the molecular driving forces governing each step. We will use methodology developed recently in our laboratory yielding unprecedented reproducibility in the kinetic data. The methodology relies on optimization of every step from production and purification to isolation of highly pure monomeric peptide, and inertness and minimized area of all surfaces. We will use cell viability studies to detect toxic oligomeric species, and selective radio-labeling experiments to pinpoint the origin of those species. In order to obtain insight into the molecular determinants and the relative role of different kinds of intermolecular interactions for each microscopic step, we will study the concentration dependent aggregation kinetics as a function of extrinsic and intrinsic parameters. Extrinsic parameters include temperature, salt, pH, biological membranes, other proteins, and low and high Mw inhibitors. Intrinsic parameters include point mutations and sequence extension/truncation. We will perform detailed kinetic studies for each inhibitor to learn which step in the process is inhibited coupled to cell toxicity assays to learn whether the generation of toxic oligomers is limited. We will use spectroscopic techniques, dynamic light scattering, cryogenic transmission electron microscopy and mass spectrometry coupled to HD exchange to learn about structural transitions as a function of process progression under different conditions to favor different microscopic steps. The results may lead to improved diagnostics and therapeutics of Alzheimer disease.
Summary
Generation of toxic oligomers during aggregation of amyloid beta peptide (Abeta42) into amyloid fibrils is a central event in Alzheimer disease. Understanding the aggregation process is therefore one important step towards therapy and diagnosis of the disease. We propose a physical chemistry approach with the goal of finding the molecular mechanisms behind the process in terms of the underlying microscopic steps and the molecular driving forces governing each step. We will use methodology developed recently in our laboratory yielding unprecedented reproducibility in the kinetic data. The methodology relies on optimization of every step from production and purification to isolation of highly pure monomeric peptide, and inertness and minimized area of all surfaces. We will use cell viability studies to detect toxic oligomeric species, and selective radio-labeling experiments to pinpoint the origin of those species. In order to obtain insight into the molecular determinants and the relative role of different kinds of intermolecular interactions for each microscopic step, we will study the concentration dependent aggregation kinetics as a function of extrinsic and intrinsic parameters. Extrinsic parameters include temperature, salt, pH, biological membranes, other proteins, and low and high Mw inhibitors. Intrinsic parameters include point mutations and sequence extension/truncation. We will perform detailed kinetic studies for each inhibitor to learn which step in the process is inhibited coupled to cell toxicity assays to learn whether the generation of toxic oligomers is limited. We will use spectroscopic techniques, dynamic light scattering, cryogenic transmission electron microscopy and mass spectrometry coupled to HD exchange to learn about structural transitions as a function of process progression under different conditions to favor different microscopic steps. The results may lead to improved diagnostics and therapeutics of Alzheimer disease.
Max ERC Funding
2 499 920 €
Duration
Start date: 2014-02-01, End date: 2019-01-31
Project acronym Near-infrared probes
Project Near-infrared fluorescent probes based on bacterial phytochromes for in vivo imaging
Researcher (PI) Vladislav Verkhusha
Host Institution (HI) HELSINGIN YLIOPISTO
Country Finland
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), LS9, ERC-2013-ADG
Summary Non-invasive monitoring of deep-tissue developmental, metabolic and pathogenic processes will advance modern biology. Imaging of live mammals using fluorescent probes is more feasible within the near-infrared (NIR) transparency window (NIRW: 650-900 nm) where hemoglobin and melanin absorbance significantly decreases, and water absorbance is still low. The most red-shifted fluorescent proteins (FPs) of the GFP-like family exhibit fluorescence outside of the NIRW and suffer from low brightness and modest photostability. Natural bacterial phytochrome photoreceptors (BphPs) utilize low molecular weight biliverdin as a chromophore and provide many advantages over other chromophore binding proteins. First, unlike the chromophores of non-bacterial phytochromes, biliverdin is ubiquitous in mammals. This makes BphP applications in mammalian cells, tissues and mammals as easy as conventional GFP-like FPs, without supplying chromophore through an external solution. Second, BphPs exhibit NIR absorbance and fluorescence, which are red-shifted relative to that of any other phytochromes, and lie within the NIRW. This makes BphPs spectrally complementary to GFP-like FPs and available optogenetic tools. Third, independent domain architecture and conformational changes upon biliverdin photoisomerization make BphPs attractive templates to design various photoactivatable probes. Based on the analysis of the photochemistry and structural changes of BphPs we plan to develop three new types of the BphP-based probes. These include bright and spectrally resolvable permanently fluorescent NIRFPs, NIRFPs photoswitchable either irreversibly or repeatedly with non-phototoxic NIR light, and NIR reporters and biosensors. The resulting NIR probes will extend fluorescence imaging methods to deep-tissue in vivo macroscopy including multicolor cell and tissue labeling, cell photoactivation and tracking, detection of enzymatic activities and protein interactions in mammalian tissues and whole animals.
Summary
Non-invasive monitoring of deep-tissue developmental, metabolic and pathogenic processes will advance modern biology. Imaging of live mammals using fluorescent probes is more feasible within the near-infrared (NIR) transparency window (NIRW: 650-900 nm) where hemoglobin and melanin absorbance significantly decreases, and water absorbance is still low. The most red-shifted fluorescent proteins (FPs) of the GFP-like family exhibit fluorescence outside of the NIRW and suffer from low brightness and modest photostability. Natural bacterial phytochrome photoreceptors (BphPs) utilize low molecular weight biliverdin as a chromophore and provide many advantages over other chromophore binding proteins. First, unlike the chromophores of non-bacterial phytochromes, biliverdin is ubiquitous in mammals. This makes BphP applications in mammalian cells, tissues and mammals as easy as conventional GFP-like FPs, without supplying chromophore through an external solution. Second, BphPs exhibit NIR absorbance and fluorescence, which are red-shifted relative to that of any other phytochromes, and lie within the NIRW. This makes BphPs spectrally complementary to GFP-like FPs and available optogenetic tools. Third, independent domain architecture and conformational changes upon biliverdin photoisomerization make BphPs attractive templates to design various photoactivatable probes. Based on the analysis of the photochemistry and structural changes of BphPs we plan to develop three new types of the BphP-based probes. These include bright and spectrally resolvable permanently fluorescent NIRFPs, NIRFPs photoswitchable either irreversibly or repeatedly with non-phototoxic NIR light, and NIR reporters and biosensors. The resulting NIR probes will extend fluorescence imaging methods to deep-tissue in vivo macroscopy including multicolor cell and tissue labeling, cell photoactivation and tracking, detection of enzymatic activities and protein interactions in mammalian tissues and whole animals.
Max ERC Funding
2 496 946 €
Duration
Start date: 2014-05-01, End date: 2019-04-30
Project acronym RANMAT
Project "Random matrices, universality and disordered quantum systems"
Researcher (PI) Laszlo Erdoes
Host Institution (HI) INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY AUSTRIA
Country Austria
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), PE1, ERC-2013-ADG
Summary "Large complex systems tend to develop universal patterns that often represent their essential characteristics. A pioneering vision of E. Wigner was that the distribution of the gaps between energy levels of complicated quantum systems depends only on the basic symmetry of the model and is otherwise independent of the physical details. This thesis has never been rigorously proved
for any realistic physical system but experimental data and extensive numerics leave no doubt as to its correctness. Wigner also discovered that the statistics of gaps can be modelled by eigenvalues of large random matrices. Thus the natural questions, “How do energy levels behave?” and “What do eigenvalues of a typical large matrix look like?”, have surprisingly the same answer! This project will develop new tools to respond to the two main challenges that Wigner’s vision poses for mathematics.
First, prove that a large class of natural systems exhibits universality. The simplest model is the
random matrix itself, for which the original conjecture, posed almost fifty years ago, has recently been solved by the PI and coworkers. This breakthrough opens up the route to the universality for more realistic physical systems such as random band matrices, matrices with correlated entries and random Schrödinger operators. Second, eigenvalue statistics will be used to detect the basic dichotomy of disordered quantum systems, the Anderson metal-insulator transition. Third, describe the properties of the strongly correlated eigenvalues viewed as a point process.
Although this process appears as ubiquitous in Nature as the Poisson process or the Brownian motion, we still know only very little about it. Due to the very strong correlations, the standard toolboxes of probability theory and statistical mechanics are not applicable. The main impact of the
project is a conceptual understanding of spectral universality and the development of robust analytical tools to study strongly correlated systems."
Summary
"Large complex systems tend to develop universal patterns that often represent their essential characteristics. A pioneering vision of E. Wigner was that the distribution of the gaps between energy levels of complicated quantum systems depends only on the basic symmetry of the model and is otherwise independent of the physical details. This thesis has never been rigorously proved
for any realistic physical system but experimental data and extensive numerics leave no doubt as to its correctness. Wigner also discovered that the statistics of gaps can be modelled by eigenvalues of large random matrices. Thus the natural questions, “How do energy levels behave?” and “What do eigenvalues of a typical large matrix look like?”, have surprisingly the same answer! This project will develop new tools to respond to the two main challenges that Wigner’s vision poses for mathematics.
First, prove that a large class of natural systems exhibits universality. The simplest model is the
random matrix itself, for which the original conjecture, posed almost fifty years ago, has recently been solved by the PI and coworkers. This breakthrough opens up the route to the universality for more realistic physical systems such as random band matrices, matrices with correlated entries and random Schrödinger operators. Second, eigenvalue statistics will be used to detect the basic dichotomy of disordered quantum systems, the Anderson metal-insulator transition. Third, describe the properties of the strongly correlated eigenvalues viewed as a point process.
Although this process appears as ubiquitous in Nature as the Poisson process or the Brownian motion, we still know only very little about it. Due to the very strong correlations, the standard toolboxes of probability theory and statistical mechanics are not applicable. The main impact of the
project is a conceptual understanding of spectral universality and the development of robust analytical tools to study strongly correlated systems."
Max ERC Funding
1 754 717 €
Duration
Start date: 2014-03-01, End date: 2019-02-28
Project acronym USMS
Project Ultra Strong Materials
Researcher (PI) Reinhard Pippan
Host Institution (HI) OESTERREICHISCHE AKADEMIE DER WISSENSCHAFTEN
Country Austria
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), PE8, ERC-2013-ADG
Summary The theoretical strength of metals and ceramics is about 10% of their Young’s modulus. Although whiskers reach strength values close to this limit they cannot be used in the design of load bearing structures. Currently the typical strength of the structural materials in use is only in the range of few % of this theoretical limit. Premature plastic deformation and failure due to flaws are the main reasons for this distinctive lower limit. For engineering applications, adequate fracture toughness is required which permits a ductile behaviour and certain strength even in the presence of flaws or cracks. The strength of the strongest metallic materials is only 10 % of the theoretical limit. Increasing the strength of metallic high strength materials by a few percent is usually associated with an unacceptable decrease in fracture toughness and results in a very flaw sensitive strength similar to that known for ceramics. In pearlitic steel wires it was possible to overcome this 10% limitation significantly. In the last years for the first time a strength of 6.3 GPa was obtained for this material which is about 30% of the theoretical limit or 3 times stronger than other high strength steels. The group of the PI has shown that these wires have an exceptional toughness equivalent to a high damage tolerance. The proposed ERC-grant should permit the analysis of the phenomena for this superior combination of strength and ductility. The knowledge of the essential required architectural features of this nano-composite and the necessary properties of the individual phases as well as their interfaces will be used to design nano-architectures also in other materials to obtain such exceptional properties. The developed skill in the generation of nano-composites from coarse constituents will be used for the production of similar nano-composites, the proof of developed concepts, and the generation of new ultra strong materials.
Summary
The theoretical strength of metals and ceramics is about 10% of their Young’s modulus. Although whiskers reach strength values close to this limit they cannot be used in the design of load bearing structures. Currently the typical strength of the structural materials in use is only in the range of few % of this theoretical limit. Premature plastic deformation and failure due to flaws are the main reasons for this distinctive lower limit. For engineering applications, adequate fracture toughness is required which permits a ductile behaviour and certain strength even in the presence of flaws or cracks. The strength of the strongest metallic materials is only 10 % of the theoretical limit. Increasing the strength of metallic high strength materials by a few percent is usually associated with an unacceptable decrease in fracture toughness and results in a very flaw sensitive strength similar to that known for ceramics. In pearlitic steel wires it was possible to overcome this 10% limitation significantly. In the last years for the first time a strength of 6.3 GPa was obtained for this material which is about 30% of the theoretical limit or 3 times stronger than other high strength steels. The group of the PI has shown that these wires have an exceptional toughness equivalent to a high damage tolerance. The proposed ERC-grant should permit the analysis of the phenomena for this superior combination of strength and ductility. The knowledge of the essential required architectural features of this nano-composite and the necessary properties of the individual phases as well as their interfaces will be used to design nano-architectures also in other materials to obtain such exceptional properties. The developed skill in the generation of nano-composites from coarse constituents will be used for the production of similar nano-composites, the proof of developed concepts, and the generation of new ultra strong materials.
Max ERC Funding
2 445 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2014-03-01, End date: 2019-02-28
