Date: 29th March 2017
Location: LT23
Time: 1.30pm
Duration: 3 hours
Team members who attended: All
Topics discussed (briefly):
Complete the online E-learning task together.
Discuss the videos to be created.
Edit the blog.
Tasks to be done before the next meeting and who has been assigned/agreed on doing them:
Finish our video so that we can make final amendments.
Problems arising if any: –
Plan of action: Everyone to do their part and meet up again next week.
Date: 22nd March 2017
Location: LT23
Time: 3.00pm
Duration: 1 hour
Team members who attended: All
Topics discussed (briefly): Continue working and improving on our parts allocated for the blog
Tasks to be done before the next meeting and who has been assigned/agreed on doing them:
Finish up blog before next week’s meetup so we can discuss about the video.
Problems arising if any: –
Plan of action: Everyone to do their part and meet up again next week.
Date: 15th March 2017
Location: LT23
Time: 3.00pm
Duration: 1 hour
Team members who attended: All
Topics discussed (briefly): What is our topic exactly, allocate work to members
Tasks to be done before the next meeting and who has been assigned/agreed on doing them:
Everyone to start working on their individual parts for the blog
Problems arising if any: –
Plan of action: Everyone to do their part and meet up again next week.
Oxygen is often heralded as one of the most important molecules known to man. It is involved in a wide array of reactions including combustion, rusting, and perhaps most importantly, respiration. Oxygen makes up about 21% of our atmosphere, and is usually abundant all around us in high enough concentrations to sustain human life, except above us. The reason for this is that the atmosphere thins with increasing altitude, and this is particularly relevant when it comes to the topic of commercial flights. While we usually pay no heed to the air we breathe in, there is in fact a lot of effort put into maintaining the air pressure of the cabins at an acceptable level (usually ~0.76atm). However, there are situations that could cause the air cabins to lose air pressure to the surroundings. In said situations, passengers have less than half a minute to react and utilise the deployed oxygen masks or risk passing out.
Airplanes are pressurized to artificially keep the cabin at a lower altitude so that people can breathe without discomfort. However, without a pressurized cabin, the air is too thin at high altitudes hence oxygen is too scarce for our body to function. The average person would pass out in about 15 to 20 seconds without the assistance of an oxygen mask.
Unlike diving tanks, where oxygen is compressed into a tank, oxygen is “stored” in a cocktail of chemicals located above each passenger seat. In the event that there is a sudden loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks will drop down from the panel above each passenger. The chemical mixture will only ignite to produce oxygen gas upon tugging of the mask. This method of production and delivery is more efficient and safer compared to compressed oxygen tanks.
This production method can be modified to suit the environment where oxygen is needed. For example, submarines operated in a high pressure closed-circuit environment and hence, the chemical mixture has to be contain in a metal casing that is able to withstand high pressures.
References used:
The truth and myths about oxygen masks on airplanes
www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travel-truths/truth-about-oxygen-masks-on-planes/amp/
Our team consists of Hilda Ting, Jeff Tee Jia Jun, Kelley Lim Ruili, Tan Yan Hwa, Gerald Mak, Thum Kai Yang. We come from a diverse background, with some of us in Chemistry courses, Bioengineering and Communication Studies.
(Topic allocated- Chapter 1: Air)
At any given moment, there are 7,000 aircrafts in the sky, with 23,911 commercial flights everyday, totaling 2 million aircraft passengers everyday. Despite such a large volume of daily commutes, in an environment that gives many anxiety, air travel is actually safer than travelling in a car. One of the reasons that has lessened injuries and fatalities arising from complications in air travel, is the deployment of oxygen masks when cabin pressure drops. Without these masks, passengers can lose consciousness in as little as 15 seconds. If they are properly used, pilots can safely land the plane with passengers breathing comfortably in the lower pressure.
How does this oxygen mask work though? Does oxygen flow from a central tank? In aircrafts, oxygen masks actually make use of a chemical reaction that produce oxygen. In this blog, we will explore how oxygen is produced and supplied to the passenger.
References used:
www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travel-truths/truth-about-oxygen-masks-on-planes/
http://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Chemical_Oxygen_Generators
http://www.militarysystems-tech.com/files/militarysystems/supplier_docs/Oxygen%20Generator%20brochure.pdf
Today we discussed the advantages and disadvantages of using the terms “ozone layer” and “ozone screen”. To a layman, the different associations with the word ‘layer’ and ‘screen’ will produce different preconceptions as to what the ozone is.
For example, an advantage of the term “layer” is that it is easily related to the idea of a layer amongst other layers in the atmosphere (stratosphere, troposphere, mesosphere). Conversely, it may imply something uniformly distributed across the globe, and thus lead to false visualisations of the layer.
For the term “screen”, the word directly relates to the function of the ozone in the atmosphere, which is, to sort of act as the earth’s sunscreen in absorbing UV rays. However, a disadvantage is the word “screen” being associated to something impermeable, blocking all UV radiation.
