by cidaut | Feb 5, 2016 | Sin categoría
The REMAGHIC project continues its journey. On the 1st of February started the sixth month of work. Work packages 1 and 2, are in full swing, with the analysis of the main sources of waste, and at the same time preliminary work with the life-cycle assessment (WP5) has begun. All these tasks have been accompanied by the management and dissemination and communication works (WP6 and Wp7).
On 24th– 25th of February 2016 the general meeting of all the consortium will be held at CIDAUT Foundation facilities, CIDAUT is the project coordinator. The meeting will focus on reviewing the status of the work performed and planning tasks for the next 6 months including an overview of next year.
Complementing all these activities, this meeting will be used to perform two workshops, one about LCCA and other about risk management.
In addition, attendees will have the opportunity to visit the facilities of CIDAUT Foundation.
by cidaut | Feb 5, 2016 | Sin categoría
CIDAUT is a member of VRUITS project consortium which, among other activities, is assessing three different technologies regarding pedestrian and cyclists’ safety.
The main target is further developing and enabling the commercialization of these technological initiatives based on pedestrian and cyclists’ safety, which have been experimentally applied in Valladolid, Alcalá de Henares (both in Spain) and Helmond (the Netherlands). These initiatives are derived from the work performed within VRUITS project (“Improving the Safety and Mobility of Vulnerable Road Users through its Applications”).
In Valladolid (Spain), a smart pedestrian crossing was launched thanks to this project. In this crossing a camera allows counting the number of people waiting to cross in a traffic light and lets them pass if the number of people and the waiting time reaches a certain value. Thanks to this system urban agglomerations can be avoided, as the threshold is set to 17 people, and the mobility and safety are improved for pedestrians.
Another location of VRUITS project is placed in Alcalá de Henares (Madrid, Spain). A technological system has been implemented at a urban intersection in which a traffic light detects the pedestrian trajectory and decides whether to extend the green light duration or not. This way, people with special mobility needs can be detected and as their crossing will take longer time, the traffic adapts to their safety. Additionally, a smartphone app has been developed in which the user can ask for a traffic light to turn green, which has been very favourably viewed by users with disabilities who can not access some traffic lights buttons.
The final project location is situated in Helmond (the Netherlands), where VRUITS project has set up the third initiative, which relates to cyclists’ protection. There is an infrastructure element that detects cyclists and send a signal to a vehicle, which processor can communicate if there is a risk of collision both for the driver or the cyclist, and if the crash is imminent, an emergency braking system is activated.
It is important to remark that some of these advanced technologies systems pass almost unnoticed in Spain, but whenever they are showed and explained, the acceptation becomes very good in cities and for those people with special mobility needs. These initiatives can be transferred to any other country, and several industrial partners have been contacted for further research actions. All these measures have been thought with vulnerable road users in mind.
by cidaut | Nov 16, 2015 | Sin categoría
VRUITS (Improving the Safety and Mobility of Vulnerable Road Users through ITS Applications) is a research project co-funded by the European Commission under the 7th Framework Program. The Project VRUITS investigates how safety, mobility and comfort of vulnerable road uses can be improved with intelligent transport systems. 12 partners from 8 different countries take part in this research project.
On September 23rd, CIDAUT Foundation, as VRUITS project partner, organized a session for dissemination of the results obtained from pedestrian demonstrators developed in Spain within the project. In the session also participated SICE and POLIS, as project partners, and Valladolid City Council, as project Associated Member.
The session intended to be a country-based dissemination event as a way to promote demonstration activities as well as the project as a whole on the local and national level to authorities and ITS industry. The aim was to the establish the session as a disseminator towards other cities in the country and also served as a way to get the necessary local, regional and national stakeholders on board for the implementation of VRUITS concepts. The event counted on the participation of more than 30 attendees belonging to authorities, ITS industry and research-oriented organizations, among them, the Major of Valladolid. Moreover, local and regional media mentioned the session, including press news, radio interviews and a short filmation included in local TV within daily news.
At the start of the session, POLIS presented Key mobility trends in Europe, focussed on cyclist and pedestrians. Afterwards, Valladolid City Council showed actions focussed on mobility in Valladolid within the last years. Then, CIDAUT Foundation presented an overview of VRUITS project to the attendees. Finally, systems oriented to pedestrians located in Valladolid and Alcalá de Henares were explained by CIDAUT Foundation and SICE, and results of the trials as well as conclusions drawn from the statistical analysis of the data collected during pilot tests performed within VRUITS project were shown by CIDAUT Foundation.
Main conclusions reported during the season were:
- Implemented systems allow for collecting accurate data on pedestrian flows and tendencies, thus enabling a better traffic management in the surroundings of the installation.
- It has been demonstrated that pedestrian mobility was improved. In Valladolid test site, waiting time of the pedestrians at the crossing dropped 20% after system implementation and, accordingly, pedestrian congestions were also reduced.
- Most users do not consciously perceive the implementation of the systems, neither the mobility improvement that has been reached due to said implementation. Nevertheless, it has been established that the users unconsciously perceived aforesaid mobility improvement through a comparative analysis of the questionnaires filled prior and after the implementation of the system.
- Once the objectives and benefits of the systems are explained to the users, they value them quite positively, although mistrust has been occasionally detected as some users are afraid of the potential use of the systems as penalising devices.
- Some specific vulnerable user groups value particularly well the systems, as occurred with disable people that gave their opinion about the system implemented in Alcala de Henares.
by cidaut | Nov 16, 2015 | Sin categoría
27/08/2015 by cidaut
On Friday 25th of September the Valladolid Science Museum presented the 10th congress “European Researchers´ Night”. This event is an initiative from European Union organized by Valladolid University under the motto ‘Scientifics for a better future’. This event offered a delightful evening with educational activities for all the attending public, being the main objective to bring closer the researchers and their knowledge to the general public, achieving a general improvement in the research environment. In this congress, universities, research centres and museums of fourteen cities around Spain have taken part.
Within the “European Corner”, researchers of several universities and some companies have shown and explained innovative projects funded by European commission. CIDAUT has exhibited to the assistants the different activities developed in the EVolution project.
EVolution is a research project funded by the European Commission under the 7th Framework Programme. The objective of the project is to develop new materials which will significantly reduce the weight of the new generation of hybrid and electrical vehicles.
The EVolution project started in November 2012 and has a duration of 4 years. It is funded by the European Commission under the NMP Programme of the Seventh Framework Programme. The project is organised into ten Work Packages which each play a crucial role in the implementation of the project.
CIDAUT is in charge of one demonstrator, the structural node, the main objective, is to implement an innovative solution for aluminium components, a co-cast joint between different elements produced with different manufacturing processes.
The technology developed by CIDAUT, a green sand mould casting process, provides the media to link different parts when they are placed into a sand mould and then molten aluminium flows around them. After casting operation, a heat treatment process could be applied in order to improve the microstructure obtained during the slow solidification process. This process required the absence of pores inside the component and in order to maintain a good fluidity, thick sections and addition of silicon are necessary.
by cidaut | Nov 16, 2015 | Sin categoría
Last September 10th, the REMAGIHC consortium met in Brussels to kick-off the project. All partners gathered at Covenant Building, headquarters of DG RTD, to present the working plan and the tasks to be carried out during the first year of the project.
REMAGHIC, New Recovery Processes to produce Rare Earth-Magnesium Alloys of High Performance and Low Cost, aims at contributing to Europe’s rare earth recovery and magnesium recycling technologies, improving the efficiencies of these processes and advancing the technology readiness levels for a new generation of industrial processes that will produce new low cost competitive alloys for a wide variety of sectors across Europe’s manufacturing value chain.
All partners introduced their companies to the EC Project Officer, highlighting their respective role in the project: Fraunhofer ICT, Fundación TECNALIA, Catholic University of Leuven, Grupo Antolin, Relight, ITRB, Piaggio Aero, Pininfarina and Meotec are coordinated by Fundación CIDAUT.
During the meeting, all work package leaders presented their work plan for the first year of the project. REMAGHIC will start by defining the best way to recover the rare earth elements from industrial wastes, and the magnesium alloy from the scrap, dross & slug. The specific REE will be then used to alloy with recycled magnesium in order to obtain cheaper alloys to be used by Grupo Antolin in their casting facilities and tested to check they achieve with the end users request.
At the same time, the dissemination activities started by defining the project logo and the contents on the public website. This work package is also responsible for setting the Advisory Board; this is formed by industries interested in REMAGHIC results, and will act as test ground for the application of the developed framework and specific applications.
On the following month REMAGHIC consortium will start updating the public website with news related to REE recovery as well as the partial results achieved by the project. Once the public deliverables are approved by the EC, they will also be uploaded in the website. So do not forget to follow from December 2015 on our website in order to be updated on REMAGHIC!
