Towards innovative road cycle gloves for low vibration transmission

AbstractThis research activity aims to develop new cycling gloves. A first step was focused on the definition of the functional requirements through user centred design methods. Since vibrations coming to the hand-arm system of a cyclist have a considerable effect a second step was concentrated on the analysis of hand-arm vibrations in road cycling. The paper shows results of laboratory tests executed for three different hand sizes, three different frequency ranges, with two different type of gloves and without gloves. Load conditions used for the test were determined with a former field test. Results obtained were analysed using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), that showed no significant effect of existing gloves in reducing vibration transmissibility. This led to the need of new kind of cycling gloves that could reduce those vibrations and increase the cyclist's comfort

Sputtered Cathodes for Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells: Insights into Potentials, Challenges and Limitations

The level of Pt loadings in polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFC) is still one of the main hindrances for implementation of PEFCs into the market. Therefore, new catalyst and electrode preparation methods such as sputtering are of current interest, because they allow thin film production and have many cost saving advantages for electrode preparation. This paper summarises some of the most important studies done for sputtered PEFCs, including non carbon supported electrodes. Furthermore, it will be shown that an understanding of the main morphological differences between sputtered and ink-based electrodes is crucial for a better understanding of the resulting fuel cell performance. Especially, the electrochemical surface area (ECSA) plays a key role for a further increase in PEFC performance of sputtered electrodes. The higher surface specific activities ik,spec of sputtered compared to ink-based electrodes will be discussed as advantage of the thin film formation. The so- called particle size effect, known in literature for several years, will be discussed as reason for the higher ik,spec of sputtered electrodes. Therefore, a model system on a rotating disc electrode (RDE) was studied. For sputtered PEFC cathodes Pt loadings were lowered to 100 ?gPt/cm2, yet with severe performance losses compared to ink-based electrodes. Still, for Pt sputtered electrodes on a carbon support structure remarkably high current densities of 0.46 A/cm2 at 0.6 V could be achieved