Earlier editions in English

Editor-in-chief SINTEF: Anne Kathrine Slungård, Vice President, Corporate Communications

Editor-in-chief NTNU: Information Director Anne Katharine Dahl

BOOM IN ELDERLY POPULATION PUTS
PRESSURE ON HOSPITAL BEDS

Photo: Torstein Dalemark, Helse Midt-Norge

By 2020, the number of people in Norway over 70 years of age will be almost 40% higher than it is today. Prognoses made by SINTEF show that the demand for hospital beds due to a rise in the population of elderly people will increase by about 20%, from the 13000 beds available today to 15,300 in 2020.
The gap of 2,300 beds is equivalent to the total number of beds in Ullevål University Hospital in Oslo, St. Olav’s Hospital in Trondheim and Haukeland University Hospital in Bergen. “It is obvious that this problem cannot be solved purely by increasing the number of beds, and even if the length of stay can be reduced, such as by the introduction of new methods of treatment, we will also have to look for other solutions”, says Stein Ø. Petersen, a senior research scientist at SINTEF Health Research.
More emphasis on out-patient treatment for other age groups could help to solve the problem. This would free up some bed capacity, making more room for elderly patients. The SINTEF researcher also points out that older patients do not necessarily have to be put into hospital beds. The pressure on hospitals could be reduced by finding beds in nursing homes or

ESTABLISHING CONTACT WITH THE SURROUNDINGS

The mobile telephone is steadily expanding its field of operations. If you have a newer model mobile that can communicate using BlueTooth, this will be able to be used for more than conversations and SMS. You will soon be able to communicate with the groceries on special in the supermarket or the car accessories shop. In order to work, the technology is reliant on the shopping centre management investing in a content integration platform, and that the individual shops that you visit have installed electronic context tags, which are miniature computers attached to radio transmitters.

The tags and the content integration platform have been developed in a SINTEF co-ordinated European Commission project called AmbieSense. The tags are made so that they can either be connected directly to a computer network or communicate wirelessly with a content integration platform. The tags consume so little electricity that they can get the energy they require from the network cable. The main objective of the project is to develop technology that turns the environment itself into an information carrier. Other users are exhibitions or museums where visitors or other interested parties can access more detailed information on the featured items.

FIRE DISASTERS IN TUNNELS CAN BE AVOIDED

Tests carried out by SINTEF’s fire researchers show that new systems for fighting fires in tunnels can save motorists who have been trapped by smoke. These systems can be installed in existing tunnels. According to the scientists they reduce heat, smoke production and toxic fumes so much that we can survive, even if we find ourselves trapped in the smoke from a burning bus or trailer.
So far, scientists have tested high- and low-pressure water-mist systems (very small water droplets) as part of the EU project. Some of the tests were carried out in combination with foam. The systems have been specially adapted for use in tunnels.
The tests have shown that systems of this sort can quickly suppress even a bus or trailer fire. Success depends on early activation of the systems. According to SINTEF’s fire researchers, the suppression will usually be sufficient to prevent a fire from spreading to other vehicles, which will also make it safer for fire-fighters to enter the tunnel. The suppression will also be effective enough to save lives. The scientists have shown that radiated heat, smoke density and toxic fumes are reduced so much that people trapped in the smoke will normally be able to survive.

A THINK FOR SUMMER

Carl André Nørstebø, an NTNU student, has developed a natty convertible version of the Norwegian electric car called Think.

The purpose of Thinkster, as the convertible is called, is to demonstrate the advantages offered by this type of car. Mr. Nørstebø’s version of the car has a removable roof made from a soft fabric. It can be pushed backwards manually and folded onto the top of the rear window, or removed completely and stored in the boot. The rear and side windows can be lowered electronically, regardless of the position of the roof. The rear door can be removed to load larger items such as bikes and fishing equipment. The development of Thinkster has been a part of Mr. Nørstebø’s master’s degree in industrial design at NTNU.

WHISTLING UP SOME BUSINESS How many times has this happened to you? You hear a nice song on the radio and decide to buy it, but you cannot remember the title or the artist’s name. And your whistled tune isn’t enough for the salesperson at the music store to guess the song’s title. Now a new computer system makes it possible to find your song. Will Archer Arentz has developed a music search engine that can locate a song if just a few bars are whistled, hummed or sung into a microphone connected to a computer. The computer converts the sound into musical notes, and starts searching an archive containing 3,500 songs. The program calculates which song most closely resembles the notes and suggests a match. All you have to do is play the suggested song to see if it is the one you are looking for. You do not have to be musical or whistle in tune for the search engine to recognise the song. Nor do speed and pitch matter, says Mr. Arentz, who has completed a PhD at the Department of Computer and Information Science at NTNU.

EXTENDED OIL RECOVERY FROM GULLFAKS

Photo: Øyvind Hagen, Statoil

Statoil’s latest well on the Gullfaks field provides access to reserves that cannot be reached with standard drilling techniques.

Four SINTEF scientists helped to open up this new section of Norway’s money machine. During normal drilling, the well is filled up with heavy drilling fluid or “mud”. The idea is to maintain sufficient pressure in the well to prevent oil, gas and water from flowing into it during drilling operations. In some places on the continental shelf, however, the formation is so fragile that it will fracture if heavy mud is used. Fracturing can lead to a loss of drilling fluid, which makes continued drilling more difficult.

There is a danger of fracturing of this sort in one area of the Gullfaks field, because a ceiling formation that was destroyed by the extensive use of water injection lies over parts of the remaining petroleum reserves. However, this does not mean that the oil will have to be left in the formation. Underbalanced drilling has enabled Statoil to send a production pipeline down to it without destroying the weak ceiling rock. A lighter type of drilling fluid is employed in underbalanced drilling. The return flow of mud is also led through an adjustable valve, which allows the drilling crew to modify the well pressure quickly during drilling. This enables the well pressure to be kept high enough to prevent the well from collapsing, but not so high that it will fragment damaged formation strata.

Although oil and/or gas can now enter the well during drilling, this happens under controlled conditions. During drilling operations of this sort, the crew needs to have complete control of the pressure produced by the drilling fluid. The contribution of the SINTEF scientists to the drilling operation was a set of numerical simulations that could predict the pressure within a well while it was actually being drilled.

WAVE BOARDS DOWN THE HILL

Photo: Department of Product Design

Are you fed up with wooden sleds or plastic toys from the sports shop? NTNU student Mats Mathisen has designed a wave-shaped aluminium board with a birch grip and a black fabric cushion.

In the winter of 2003-2004, he and other freshmen in the Industrial Design Department, were given the task of designing a snow toy for 18- to 25-year-olds. The toy was also supposed to represent modern-day Norway. The material was aluminium. In addition, the students could use Norwegian solid wood and textiles. A majority of the students designed boards for sledding, and used materials to create a harmonic and clean-cut expression. Several of the snow toys will be exhibited at the opening of the new Norwegian Centre for Design and Architecture in Oslo.

CAREER HELP

Five female associate professors at NTNU have each been granted NOK 100,000 scholarships to further their careers and become full professors. The money is designed to allow the women to increase their research efforts and to publish more of their results, areas that are important when evaluating whether or not full professorships will be awarded. This is the seventh time the university has awarded these special qualification scholarships; a total of 42 women have benefited from the programme. Twenty have gone on to become full professors.

INTELLIGENT TECHNOLOGY COMING TO CARS

Photo: Rune Petter Ness

Broadband Internet connections will be installed in new vehicles within a few years. This will mean that drivers will be able to communicate with other cars, the roadside and traffic signs. And driver-support systems in vehicles will be widely available.

These systems have been a topic of discussion for several years, and been regarded as a Utopian dream. However, the technology needed for such systems has made a great leap forward with the introduction of a new communications standard known as CALM. The founding of the special interest society ITS-Norge last summer is another factor that is likely to accelerate this trend.

ITS is an abbreviation for Intelligent Transport Systems, and the group aims to encourage the authorities and the Research Council of Norway to support an active role for Norway in the development of these techniques. Intelligent transport systems could provide answers to major challenges such as zero vision. The Scandinavian countries have been working actively for several decades on reducing traffic accident figures, via campaigns, training programmes, improvements in the highway network and higher vehicle standards. The potential for further reductions by these means alone seems to have gone as far as it can. Intelligent transport systems may therefore be the way to continue this trend.

CHECKING OUT PLASTICIZERS IN TOYS

Photo: Jan Helstad

A great number of toys, particularly soft toys for very small children, are still made of polyvinyl chloride.

PVC itself is a relatively stable plastic whose use does not involve any risk, but in its pure form it is hard, which makes it unsuitable for soft cuddly toys. On the other hand, PVC is cheap and durable, and toy manufacturers have solved the hardness problem by mixing it with other chemicals known as plasticizers. Softened PVCs may contain as much as 40 percent plasticizers.

For many years, phthalate esters were used for this purpose, but when the suspicion arose that these might act as hormone inhibitors, the maximum permitted content of phthalates in Europe was set at 0.1%, which meant in practice that they were forbidden. Phthalate esters have now been replaced by adipate and citrate esters, which are believed to present less of a hazard. Scientists have particularly focused on toys aimed at children less than three years old.

These children are reckoned to be most exposed to the potential dangers of plasticizers because they bite and suck their toys. As part of a European project called “Migratoys”, SINTEF, in collaboration with the research institutes AIJU in Spain, ITC in the Czech Republic and IISG in Italy, as well as the Danish Environmental Protection Agency, has developed a test procedure for PVC toys that incorporate new types of plasticizers. The results of the project will be presented to the other members of the EU in the near future, after which a number of other laboratories will trial the tests. The important thing is that analyses of identical products should produce identical results no matter which laboratory has performed them. When the analytical procedure has been approved, it will become a CEN standard for testing PVC toys in the EU in the future.

RUBBISH SORTER TO QUALITY-ASSURE FISH

A new machine checks automatically the quality of dried salt cod. The machine performs the tests automatically, more accurately and more cheaply, by means of infrared light.

The new technology could give Norwegian dried cod a competitive advantage in both price and quality. Until now, this job has been done manually by expert graders, who base their estimates of the quality and water content of the dried fish on years of on-the-job experience. This is a time-consuming task, which raises the price of dried cod. Some of the light shone on the fish is absorbed, while spectral analysis of the wavelengths that are reflected by the flesh indicate its water content. The machine will soon also be capable of being used to assess the quality of other types of food, such as meat, cheese and salmon – for example, their protein, fat and salt content.

The new technology was originally based on an advanced rubbish-sorting machine, which SINTEF scientists found that they could re-rig for use for a quite different purpose. The project was initiated by the Research Council of Norway and the Federation of Norwegian Fisheries and Aquaculture Industries (FHL).

IS BUTTERCUP SAFE IN HER STALL?

Every year, accidents happen in Norwegian cowsheds, due to the collapse of concrete structures in the agricultural sector.

One of the causes of incidents of this sort is that concrete that comes into contact with manure or manure gases can disintegrate, as the ingress of chloride salts causes the steel reinforcement bars in the concrete to corrode.

The “Concrete in Agriculture” R & D project, which has just come to an end, has generated new knowledge about the mechanisms that operate in manure cellars, and has revealed a lack of competence and quality in several areas. One out of every ten cow-sheds should probably have its load-bearing structures reinforced. SINTEF has carried out a thorough study of four manure cellars, in which the condition of the concrete and the causes of damage have been ascertained. It turns out that expensive repairs to concrete are not particularly relevant for manure cellars. On the other hand, the useful life of many buildings can be prolonged by several years if relatively simple and inexpensive maintenance or reinforcement measures are put into effect. Ventilating manure cellars and covering concrete that is exposed to manure splashing are some examples of preventive measures.

SPORTS AND EATING DISORDERS

Students who exercise several hours a week are not more likely to suffer from eating disorders than students who exercise moderately, a new study has found. Instead, the predisposition to eating disorders seems to depend on the individual’s psyche, according to the results from a survey conducted among 1,500 university students from all over Norway.

The survey participants were mainly those who exercised and participated in popular sports. The survey is a part of a doctorial thesis written by Einar Kjelsås at NTNU. Mr. Kjelsås believes his results contradict conventional wisdom. Top athletes are thought to belong to a high-risk group where eating disorders are rampant. For this reason, it has also been a widespread belief that others who exercise more than average are also at risk. According to Mr. Kjelsås, a part of the explanation could be that performance in some sports is linked to the athletes’ weight. For people who exercise moderately, however, sports are associated with playing and recreation rather than performance. In the group where eating disorders were rampant, both men and women displayed clear signs of neuroses. They were nervous, tense, antisocial and suffered from guilt.

CURLING FOR THE BLIND

Photo: www.hemera.com

Curling, the sport that involves sliding a 18.1 kg stone across a stretch of ice toward a target circle, doesn’t seem like a sport that can be easily adapted to the blind. But now a group of students from various professional disciplines at NTNU wants to make it possible for the blind to be able to curl.

The trick lies in developing equipment for the stones that produces sound with different frequencies. The equipment means that only one team member must be sighted. The sighted team member places a transmitter at the location where the curling stone should go. The receiver is on the stone. When the grip on the stone points directly at the transmitter, it triggers a specific sound, and the player knows the stone is aimed in the correct direction. The group is also making a scale model with a magnetic plate where magnetic stones can be placed in the same arrangement as on the rink. This gives everyone an overview of the game and the ability to discuss their next move. The sighted team member can then place the transmitter accordingly. The project is being conducted under NTNU’s interdisciplinary teaching plan ‘Experts in team’.

STUDY OF SEAGOING MOTORWAY

Photo: MARINTEK

The limitations imposed by the highway network will not set a ceiling on Norwegian exports of fresh fish. Analyses carried out by SINTEF and a number of Norwegian industrial companies conclude that medium-fast vessels sailing from Western Norway to the Continent could offer a competitive alternative to trailer transport.

The figure shows a preliminary vessel design produced by Rolls Royce Marine. So far, the conclusions reached by the study are that: Sea transport would involve shorter transport times than road transport. Shipping is competitive with road transport even at less than 50% capacity utilisation. This means that vessels could travel back to Norway empty. A speed of 22 – 28 knots would provide good stability – i.e. not too much shaking of sensitive cargoes. Weather statistics for the North Sea show that only three percent of all sailings of such vessels would result in delayed arrivals. Logistics specialists and technology development experts are working side by side on the project.

Naval architects from Rolls Royce Marine have fed the project with preliminary designs for a medium-fast fresh-fish vessel, while specialists on cargo-carriers have also submitted proposals for technical solutions. All the data supplied have been used as a basis for the financial calculations. The project is being financially supported by the Research Council of Norway and the Norwegian Shipowners’ Association.

CD FROM NTNU

Ståle Kleiberg: Requiem for the victims of Nazi persecution

This opus has been written in memory of those who had to pay with their lives during the Nazi regime because of their ethnic origin or sexual orientation. The composition of the opus differs from the traditional Requiem mass and has three additional movements that are related to three histories of Jews, gipsies and homosexuals.

The CD was released on September 11, 2004. On the same day, the opus was performed in its entirety in the National Cathedral in Washington DC, where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his final speech before he was murdered. The requiem has been performed by Washington National Cathedral Choirs and Washington National Cathedral Chamber Orchestra, with conductor is Michael McCarthy. The CD, which is available in the USA and Europe, has been generously supported by NTNU’s rector. Ståle Kleiberg is an associate professor in musicology at NTNU, in addition to being a composer.

COMPUTER-AIDED GOLD WASHING

Photo:Ole Martin Hansen

Gold fever has once again hit Bindalen in Nordland, some 70 years after the last gold rush.

Bindal Gruver, a local company, thinks it has found gold and has started test drillings. However, the company needs detailed information about how the gold is blended in with other minerals in the deposit. Kari Moen, a research fellow at the Department of Geology and Mineral Resources Engineering, may have the answer to the company’s problem. Moen uses an electron microscope to photograph different mineral samples. Computer analyses allows her to obtain details on the gold content of the sample: Where is it, how much is there and to what particles is the gold attached? These data are not easily obtained with older techniques.

The Department of Geology and Mineral Resources Engineering, along with the Materials Technology study programme, will form a centre for where companies can bring samples for analysis. The project is being supported by three Norwegian mining companies: Titania AS near Egersund, Hustadmarmor AS near Molde, and Norwegian Crystallites AS in Tysfjord.

NTNU GOES GLOBAL

Globalization has been recognized as NTNU’s sixth strategic priority area, a move that has made the newly established programme one of the university’s six most important research areas. NTNU is the first university in Norway to adopt globalization as an interdisciplinary strategic research area at the institutional level. The university’s other five priority areas were established in 1999. The plan is to focus research activity on two main areas: Production Systems in a Globalized World, and The Cultural and Social expressions of Globalization.

OLD SHIPWRECKS DISCOVERED

Photo: Marek E. Jasinski

Archaeologists from NTNU have discovered two 18th-century shipwrecks 200 metres deep in the ocean near Bud, on the west coast of Norway.

One wreck is partly visible, although it is somewhat covered by sea sediments. The shipwreck is 60 metres long. Several objects are also visible on the sea floor, including glass bottles, pottery, porcelain, parts of the ship’s rig and guns. The ship’s bell (picture) has been raised. The date on the bell reads 1745. A smaller shipwreck, assumed to have been built around 1800, was also found. The discoveries were made in connection with marine archaeological explorations conducted by NTNU under contract with Norsk Hydro AS. The work is being done in connection with the mapping of the underwater pipeline route for the gas field project known as Ormen Lange. The archaeological team used remote-operated submersibles to explore the sea floor.

BOOK FROM NTNU

GENDER AND TECHNOLOGY Merete Lie (editor):«He, She and IT – Revisited.

New Perspectives on Gender in the Information Society», Gyldendal Akademisk. Perceptions of gender and technology should be reconsidered in the era of the information society, according to nine researchers who contributed to the book He, She and IT – Revisited.

The book takes a synoptic look at the differing relationships that men and women have with technology, and explores common stereotypes that have evolved with the development of the Information Age. Are computers just boys’ toys? New and evolving perceptions of gender and technology continuously confirm this common perception. However, researchers in the book tell of girls who use information technology with great enthusiasm. The book also addresses the ways in which public policies have tried to include women in the information society. Prof. Lie is a professor at the Department of Interdisciplinary Cultural Studies at NTNU.

DEPRESSION CAUSED BY INFLAMMATION

Mental illnesses can be related to inflammation in the body, a group of researchers at Sanderud Hospital outside Hamar has found.

The group discovered the link when they were treating deeply depressed patients with electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). ”These findings came as a great surprise. They have shed new light on what goes on when people are depressed,” says Knut Hestad, a psychologist at Sanderud Hospital and professor at the Department of Psychology, NTNU. Hestad has often pondered the plight of patients who became depressed without any obvious external cause. While the patients underwent ECT treatment, the researchers measured the level of TNF-alpha, a signal protein that our bodies produce in reaction to inflammation and infection. The level of TNF-alpha was initially very high in depressed patients, but decreased proportionally with the depression during the ECT treatment.

A control group of depressed patients who did not receive this treatment, but who were treated with medication and therapy, did not experience the same reduction in the level of TNF-alpha. This is the first study in the world that has established a connection between depression, TNF-alpha and ECT. The results have been published in The Journal of ECT, and the article was awarded last year’s prize for best scientific article.

PIPE OF PEACE FOR WILD REINDEER

Photo: Per Jordhøy

Norway is the only country in Europe where remnants of the original stock of wild reindeer can still be found.

Today, there are some 30,000 wild reindeer left in Norway, divided into 23 groups. The smaller the group, the more vulnerable it is. These stocks should be managed, but how? Landowners, tourists, local inhabitants and conservationists often have different interests. The project ’Wild reindeer and Society’ is a cooperative effort between NTNU and the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research. Researchers and representatives from several institutions – people who far from agree on reindeer management – are working on the project. The goal is to gather existing knowledge, contribute to new research projects and agree on a vision of what the Norwegian reindeer stock should look like in 50 years. The hope is that the project will enable the collective to shape a policy for future management.

FALSE PERCEPTIONS OF IMMIGRANT WOMEN

Photo: Per-Anders Roenkvist

A new SINTEF report puts paid to the myth that immigrant women are not interesting in joining the labour market.

Immigrant women are less active in working life than Norwegian women, and less than men with an immigrant background. However, this does not mean that Norwegians’ perceptions of immigrant women as a homogeneous, passive group are correct.

Data collected by SINTEF researchers Berit Berg and Tove Håpnes show that many immigrant women would like to work. According to the two women, the Norwegian authorities have indicated that integration into the labour market requires immigrants to obtain suitable qualifications. However, Berg and Håpnes believe that the challenges involved are at least as great on the employers’ side. “Our material includes a number of examples of immigrant women not obtaining work even when they are suitably qualified. Employers will have to do something about their own attitudes and become a bit more solution-oriented and adaptable”, say the two researchers.

CONTRACTORSHIP IN FOCUS

NTNU is the first university in Norway to establish a separate centre for contractorship. The main focus of the centre will be the commercialization of research- and technology-based business ideas.

COCA-COLA GOES IN FOR CO2 TECHNOLOGY

Photo: The Coca Cola Company

Following an intensive four-year R & D programme, The Coca-Cola Company (TCCC) has come to the conclusion that CO2-based refrigeration will be the best technology for the nine million coolers and vending machines that it owns all over the world.

The huge job of replacing HFCs with CO2 will take some time, but several promising prototypes have already been produced, and a number of units will be installed at the Olympic Games in Athens this year. Until now, HCFs (such as R-134a), compounds whose greenhouse effects are 1000 – 3000 times as powerful as CO2, have been used as refrigerants.

The CO2 which will be used as a refrigerant from now on will be extracted and recycled from the environment, which means that it will not be the source of any additional emissions to the atmosphere. The use of CO2 as a refrigerant is based on a technology developed by Professor Gustav Lorentzen (1915 – 1995) at NTNU more than 15 years ago. The world wished to abandon the ozone-destructive chemicals that were circulating in refrigeration and air-conditioning systems. Lorentzen and his colleagues rediscovered CO2 as a working medium, and their pioneering efforts resulted in a series of patents in the the operation, control and design of CO2-based systems. SINTEF has been a member of the group that carried out the very first evaluations of CO2 for TCCC.

RUST TRACED WITH ULTRASOUND

Photo: Rune Petter Ness

Ultrasound can be used to check foetal development, measure breast tumours and for many other medical applications.

But now, researchers have developed a way to use ultrasound to track the development of rust on ships. Because rust makes hull plates thinner, the thickness of the plates can be measured using ultrasound, making it fairly easily to determine if and where a ship has rusted. The test involves an external scan of the hull, performed by lowering an ultrasound beam into the water. The results are ready after just a few hours.

Current methods for finding and measuring rust are far more expensive than this new use of ultrasound. Conventional techniques require that the tank be emptied and cleaned before random samples are taken inside the hull with a manual probe – and it usually takes weeks before the results are ready. The new method has been developed by former SINTEF employees who now work for Sensorlink, a private company. The technique has been patented, and a mini-version of the device has also been developed. The full-scale device will be approximately 50 metres long. A newly established enterprise called ShipScan, comprised of Thor Egil Solhaug, Børre Tingstveit and Benjamin Golding, all students from NTNU’s Entrepreneur School, will bring the product to market. The business idea was one of the finalists for DnB NOR’s 2004 innovation prize in March and won the 2004 Venture Cup in May.

NEW MICRO INSTRUMENT CONTROLS MEDICINE FLOWS

SINTEF research scientists at the Micro and Nanotechnology Laboratory in Oslo have developed a flow metre with fluid channels thinner than a strand of hair.

The new device controls that patients receive the correct dosage of medicine.The new invention is a micro-technological control instrument that can measure medicine flows. The active components in the sensor are only a few thousandths of a millimetre thick and the tiny device can measure liquid amounts of less than one-millionth of a litre. The invention means much safer dosing for patients reliant on a continual supply of medicine from medicine pumps, such as patients with cerebral palsy. When the medicine pumps are surgically inserted under the skin, small volumes of muscle relaxant medication can continually be released by the spinal cord to control spasms. Cancer patients can use a portable morphine pump for pain relief, while diabetic patients can have the pleasure of a medicine pump for roundthe- clock insulin dosing. The tiny invention has already generated considerable attention with business enquiries from three international medical equipment producers.

ON A CLEAN UP MISSION IN MOLDOVA

Photo: Kåre Helge Karsteinsen, SINTEF Materials and Chemistry

Moldova, the western part of the former Soviet republic of Moldovia, has large stockpiles of pesticides, which are partly stored in wretched conditions on private and co-operative farms.

Moldova has received NATO subsidies for the destruction of environmental poisons. The aim is to get everything into a central store, with the thought of finally destroying it. Researchers from SINTEF have been commissioned by NATO to travel to Moldova to map occurrences and plan the clean up of now prohibited pesticides.

“The conditions are 10 times worse than in Vietnam where we worked on the same task,” says SINTEF researcher Kåre Helge Karstensen, who travelled round in Moldova for a week to look at the conditions. “There are around 2000 tonnes here. Soldiers are now about to fill plastic barrels, which will be transported to a central store.”

“The usual method of destruction is at cement factories, but first we need to do some analysis on heavy metals which don’t burn in the oven but go up the chimney. We also need to carry out analysis concerning chlorine, which can ruin cement production if there is too much of it.”

SUPER FAST CARGO SHIP

Illustration: MARINTEK

If you take a Polynesian canoe, add creative engineers, modern propulsion technology and advanced calculation programs, you get a pentamaran.

The pentamaran or super fast cargo ship of the future is constructed and designed at MARINTEK in close co-operation with English consultancy company Nigel Gee and Associates Limited. The final polish of the ship, which has the descriptive name Seabridge, is currently taking place at the Ship and Ocean Laboratory in Trondheim.

The ship is 300m long, as slim as a pen and crosses the Atlantic Ocean in less than a week – even if it is fully loaded with heavy articulated lorries. The boat has five hulls. The main hull is so long and narrow that it requires four support hulls to maintain stability. Two of the support hulls are under the water, while the other two are just above the surface. With its special form, the vessel can maintain a speed that other cargo ships can just dream of: a cruising speed of 40 knots (75 km/h). With such velocity, the enormous cargo ship will compete with land transport. The idea is that it will transport heavy cargo along the coat of the United States, in the Mediterranean and between northern and southern Europe to relieve the increasing congestion on the roading network.

OPENING OF NEW GEMINI CENTRE

The Gemini centre for Electric Power and Energy Systems has been launched. This is the seventh such centre, which are designed to foster new and closer cooperation between NTNU and SINTEF. This formal arrangement is also meant to increase the groups’ visibility, and improve the overall quality of work. The centres’ vision is to form "internationally outstanding” partnerships. The other six Gemini centres are concerned with Materials and Energy, Road and Transport, Energy Supply and Building Climatization, Applied Frost Engineering, Marine Constructional Engineering, and Robust Material Choice and Design – offshore applications.