Machine_Design_4_October_2012

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October 4, 2012

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MESHING FOR CFD, page 38

BETTER DIE CASTING, TIGHTER TOLERANCES, page 44

ADHESIVES THAT CURE WITH VISIBLE LIGHT, page 52

Getting

MOTION SYSTEMS

up and running fast

page 48

Its keyless hollow shaft and taper

bushings eliminate inefficient belts,

chains, and sprockets thus reducing

maintenance and energy costs while

enhancing system safety.

Its spacious air gap provides easy

mounting Its tightening bolts provide

easy dismounting No more tight

tolerances! No more keys!

Need retrofit? No problem TorqLOC

even mounts onto an existing shaft

that has a keyway

FASTENING/JOINING

Authored by:

Robert Michaels Vice President of Technical Sales

Master Bond

Hackensack, N. J.

Edited by Stephen J Mraz stephen.mraz@penton.com Resources:

Master Bond, www.masterbond.

com

Curing adhesives

with

“normal” light

A new adhesive from Master Bond cures under visible light (wavelength of

405 nm), not UV light It can cure in 15 to 30 sec and adheres well to glass, polycarbonates, acrylics, and metals.

Comparing light-curing adhesives

ADHESIVE VISCOSITY AT 75°F (CPS) COLORSHELF LIFE ORIGINAL UNOPENED CONTAINERS) SERVICE TEMPERATURE LED401 100,000 to

150,000 Clear 6 months 60 to 250°F

(51 to 121°C) LED401LV 60,000 to

80,000 Clear 6 months 60 to 250°F

(51 to 121°C) LED403Med 1000,000 to

150,000` Clear 6 months 60 to 250°F

(51 to 121°C)

A new group

of light-curing adhesives do not need UV light.

A new group of adhesives have Traditional light-cure adhesives, and 365 nm The difference of a few opens up a range of bonding, encap- sulation, and sealing applications light-curing adhesives.

On the factory floor, for example, shifting to visible light eliminates the need for expensive UV lighting In- ode (LED) lamps can handle the job

OCTOBER 4, 2012 MACHINE DESIGN.com 52

OEM SERVICES

Getting the knurl right

Adding a knurl to a machined metal part isn’t all that diffi cult

Any machine shop with the right tools can do it Knurling gets a lot more diffi cult, however, when you try to cast it as a surface feature.

One concern is that the raised portions of the knurl pattern tool The pattern may require slight modifi ca- tions near the parting line Typically, pattern changes are barely noticeable on the fi n- can also interrupt the knurled pattern, creat- ing a small fl at section near parting lines.

“Casting in a knurling pattern is harder than it looks,” says Dynacast’s Helmut Wolf The payoff , however, can be signifi cant if casting the pattern eliminates a machining operation Accord- ing to Wolf, there are a few design steps that simplify the task of making knurling a net-shape feature.

Consider ejection implications On the Dixon job,

Wolf recommended subtle changes to the geometry lets, and draft — to ease ejection from the tool He also slightly changed the pattern near the parting line These geometry changes cannot be seen or felt

by someone using coupling “They were made only for reasons of manufacturability,” Wolf says.

Consider cosmetics To eliminate disruptions gating can make

on the knurling pattern, Wolf was careful to locate gates on the cosmetic reasons.

Die casting the knurled sleeves on quick-connect couplings eliminated several machining operations and substantially reduced production costs.

Converting from machining (left) to die casting called for subtle changes

to the knurled pattern that are imperceptible to most users.

Pick the right part. Not all machined parts are good candidates for die casting Low-production volumes, also rule out die casting Looking beyond these obvious die casting, particularly when net-shape or near-net- shape casting replaces machining.

At Dixon, eliminating several machining operations tipped the scales in favor of die casting According to

Engineers often have an important decision to make

of production volumes, tolerances, features, and alloy method over the other.

Today, the choice is anything but clear ments in die-casting technology now make it possible required multiple machining operations By eliminat- ing machining steps, near-net-shape casting offers a

Advance-of many metal components.

The experience of Dixon Quick Coupling, a

manu-facturer of hose fittings and accessories, offers one such converted a knurled sleeve for a quick-connect cou- pling from machining to die casting.

Converting a proven machined part to a die ing can be a big step, says Cindy Karriker, the com-

cast-Net-shape castings that eliminate machining operations can cut costs.

Authored by:

Kenneth J Korane Managing Editor ken.korane@penton.com Resources:

Dixon Quick Coupling, www.

surface detail, and cutting the part in half The die-cast die casting less expensive “Multiple machining setups can drive a lot of cost,” Karriker says.

Add surface detail in the tool. One challenge in Dixon’s switch from machining to casting involved the machine, notes Karriker But machining the knurling

OCTOBER 4, 2012 MACHINE DESIGN.com

44 OCTOBER 4, 2012 MACHINE DESIGN.com 45

VOLUME 84ISSUE 15OCTOBER 4, 2012

Access our Reader Service Web site to quickly find and request information on the products and services found

in the pages of M ACHINE D ESIGN

How to mesh a real geometry

Die casting takes

on machining

Net-shape castings that

eliminate machining

operations can cut costs

Software speeds

valve-terminal commissioning

Valve terminals control numerous

devices and handle lots of

data New software makes

programming and setup

much easier

Curing adhesives

with “normal” light

A new group of light-curing

adhesives do not need UV light

Scope this out

An understanding of oscilloscope

operations, abilities, and limits

improves circuit-design analysis

and even troubleshooting

OCTOBER 4, 2012 MACHINE DESIGN.com

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EDITORIAL

Jobs and the reverse innovation mindset

EDITORIAL STAFF

LETTERS

SCANNING FOR IDEAS

Stand-alone lubricator keeps things humming

Quick connector simplifies pneumatic and hydraulic testing

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RS# 104

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What’s new online machinedesign.com

VIDEOS TELL ALL ABOUT NEW DOMORE PLC

AutomationDirect’s newest controller, the Do-more H2 Series,

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The Math Instruction video

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SMMA – The Motor & Motion

Assn has scheduled three courses

on November 6, prior to the start

of its Fall Technical Conference

They include Fundamentals

of Electric Motor Design,

Fundamentals of Brushless Motor

Control, and Permanent Magnet

Fundamentals Get more details at

www.smma.org.

Compression-molding

brochure

The new Victrex Compression

Molding Guide discusses how

to form large and intricate

parts out of advanced

thermoplastics It discusses

processes that can deliver

void-free moldings and

explains materials options for

making high-performance

parts that lower overall

costs in demanding oilfield,

transportation, electronics, and

medical applications Learn

more at www.victrex.com.

Quarter-scale V8 engine

The Stinger 609 is reportedly the world’s smallest production V8 engine At IMTS

2012, an engineer from Conley Precision

Engines discussed lubrication issues with

small engines, and how a new honing process overcomes the problem of

excessive oil flow See it at www.

609-Quarter-Scale-V-8-E;Only- Engineering-TV-Videos.

engineeringtv.com/video/Stinger-FREE WEBCAST: DESIGNING EFFECTIVE

SAFEGUARDING FOR MACHINES

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Attend this Webinar to learn how to design effective machine safeguarding

Experts from Schmersal will discuss types of hazards, various options for

separating guards and devices, different levels of circuit design, and how to

engineer a complete safety system The presentation will also review in detail:

• Fixed and movable guards.

• Reaching and guard-opening design

• Interlock switches, including limit, keyed, non-contact, locking, and

key-exchange versions.

Learn more and register at http://machinedesign.com/training.

CNC info

Fanuc FA America has launched

a Web site (www.fanucfa.com)

offering detailed info on the company’s CNCs, drives, lasers, and engineering support

An expanded Industries section tells users more about requirements for aerospace, ag and construction, automotive, energy, job-shop, medical, metal-fabrication, mold-and-die, and woodworking applications.

Medical nonwovens

Fabrico is hosting a discussion

on medical nonwovens on its

www.fabricoforum.com site

Design engineers can learn about nonwovens’ advantages over traditional woven textiles, pose question, and seek the advice of experts The FabricoForum is an open dialog where design engineers and others interested in materials and product assembly can read opinions and weigh-in on various topics.

OCTOBER 4, 2012 MACHINE DESIGN.com

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Booth 4337 RS# 106

Jobs and the reverse innovation mindset

When GE CEO Jeffery Immelt signed on to head up the President’s Council

on Jobs and Competitiveness, he began encouraging U. S manufacturers to export their goods as a way to promote U. S job growth Trouble is that for most manufacturers, exporting involves a lot more than just finding a dis-tributor and shipping products overseas

In truth, it might be easy for companies the size of GE to think about exporting, but obstacles in foreign markets can be close to insurmountable for the average manufacturer To understand the problem, consider reverse innovation, today’s trendy idea for U. S manufacturers Its basic premise is that you do the innovating in emerging markets, then somehow morph the resulting technology into something that can be sold here Manufacturers must take this tack, we’re told, because Indian and Chinese consumers aren’t interested in buying low-end or lightly modified goods that western manu-facturers make If true, that pretty much kills the idea that we can generate jobs in the U. S just by exporting to emerging markets

What kind of innovation do you need to sell stuff in places like India? An example is the ChotuKool refrigerator made in Mumbai It lists for $69 and relies on a Peltier module for cooling, so there is no compressor or plumb-ing to boost the cost This technique is only good for cooling to 36°F below the ambient temperature, but thanks to high-quality insulation, it is good enough for the low-income consumers it targets The fridge can also run on batteries if need be because of the notoriously unreliable grid system in India.The lesson of the ChotuKool, says Vijay Govindarajan, a business profes-sor at Dartmouth College, is that western appliance makers could undoubt-edly come up with similar offerings, but never by customizing one of their existing refrigerators ChotuKool developers went through several iterations working with rural Indians and Indian financial institutions involved with microfinance to come up with a product appealing to households earning about $5 a day That sort of collaboration is only possible by having a team

on the ground in India And that’s why it probably seems out of reach to level U. S manufacturers that can’t fund multiyear expatriate assignments in the developing world for their key employees

mid-The problem of resources becomes even clearer by considering the effort Deere & Co had to put into developing an agricultural tractor for India As Govindarajan reports, all Deere’s machines were too heavy and expensive for Indian farmers The tractor maker came up with a model having a mere

35 hp, but it was far from being just a low-end knock-off of an existing hicle After two years of market research in India — which included disas-sembling six rival tractors — Deere eventually came up with a design that addressed complaints from Indian farmers about maintenance by incorpo-rating new clutch technology developed for more-expensive models

ve-More to the point, Deere had to use a product-development process that employed about 120 people with many of them from Deere’s Indian opera-tions And manufacturing takes place in Pune, India, not here

The magnitude of these reverse-innovation efforts might seem reasonable

to manufacturers the size of Deere or GE But it’s not clear how any of this will result in U. S jobs, let alone products useful for U. S markets And so it

is with all but a handful of reverse innovations, despite the cheerleading by Jeffery Immelt

— Leland Teschler, Editor

The engineer’s choice

FOR ADVANCED APPLICATIONS

THAN !# TECHNOLOGY  AND

ITS HIGH EFlCIENCY ALSO

SAVES A WHOLE LOT OF

MANAGING EDITOR

Kenneth J Korane ken.korane@penton.com

SENIOR EDITORS

Leslie Gordon leslie.gordon@penton.com Stephen J Mraz stephen.mraz@penton.com

ASSOCIATE EDITORS

Lindsey Frick lindsey.frick@penton.com Robert J Repas, Jr.

robert.repas@penton.com

INDUSTRY COVERAGE: AUTOMOTIVE, PACKAGING,

EDITORIAL PRODUCTION

Denise Greco Editorial Production Manager Randall L Rubenking Art Director

RS# 110 RS# 109

MACHINE DESIGN.com

Imagine the conditions in the North Sea They take their toll on all types of equipment Bearings are no exception

At one of the major production platforms, failing motor bearings used to cause gas compressors to break down

as often as every third month Each time, that meant 25% lost production for several days

Jim Marnoch and his team provided SKF ProActive Reliability Maintenance services After thorough analysis

of the vibration signatures and the damaged bearings, they found a long term solution SKF NoWear bearings along with a new sealing arrangement made all the difference, allowing the compressors to run 6 times longer than before

At today’s high oil prices, for every breakdown that can be avoided, the platform operator saves tens of million dollars On top of that, these improvements also reduce health, safety and environmental risks It’s another great example of knowledge engineering

at work Find out more at www.skf.com/poke

The Power of Knowledge Engineering

Gas Export Compressor SKF ProActive Reliability Jim Marnoch, SKF

Maintenance

Secure your operations

with proactive maintenance

® NOWEAR is a registered trademark of the SKF Group RS# 111

what is immaterial until you fully understand the problem This is why some “solutions” wind up creating bigger problems

George Patterson

I totally agree with the ment that engineers want to do things themselves, or at least see their solution used to solve

assess-a problem I see it dassess-aily in myself

I’m a manager at a large company and run my own businesses as well I spend most of my time and efforts leading others but find myself quite often wanting to meddle in things I have already delegated to someone else I have also found I am too quick

to jump in and help when asked for assistance instead of pushing individuals to put in the extra ef-fort to complete it themselves

I constantly battle these issues and am slowly learning to lead and listen without taking sole re-sponsibility for the outcome

Roy Lemke

Good engineers don’t shrug off responsibility, regardless of what that consultant thinks Those who aspire to be managers are usually just look ing to dump the work load on someone else

I am tired of managers who are more than happy to “delegate”

to us engineers They get all the rewards, we get all the work, re-sponsibility, and heartache

Michael Crain

Can engineers manage?

Truly good engineers know their

disciplines well, have confidence

in their skills, and are eager and

effective at teaching those skills

to others, either subordinates or

superiors So, if the purpose of a

company’s senior management

is a successful design project,

this is the kind of manager they

need Too often, however,

man-agement’s purpose is not

suc-cess, but to save face or live up

to early commitments made by

people who did not understand

the problem Engineers are not

good at this role

Dan Haas

Engineers are logical,

no-non-sense people and can be

over-w h e l m e d b y n e over-w r u l e s a n d

regulations and a growing

bu-reaucracy They get discouraged

and frustrated by a stream of ISO

management reviews, new

com-pliance requirements, excessive

environmental restrictions,

per-formance reviews, having to work

for several bosses (customers,

regulators, management), as well

time and cost constraints Too

much time has to be sacrificed for

new procedures and not enough

spared for creative work

Engi-neers are simply better at

manag-ing projects than people

George Roxton

I have seen many excellent

en-gineers get bumped up to

man-agement and either burn out

because they tried to do

every-thing, or fail because they could

not motivate their engineers

Our company loses a lot of

brain-power this way

Al Klesczewski

One hurdle stopping engineers

from becoming good managers

is that when faced with complex

problems, they tend to break

them down, leaving out what

seems to have no bearing on the

situation This is done to

sim-plify things But when dealing

with complexity, you don’t know

Natural gas: A viable option?

Yes, the U. S should be using its abundant natural gas for trans-portation but not in the form of natural gas as your article suggests (“Should the U S Switch to Natural Gas for Transportation?” Aug 9) In-stead, it makes more sense to con-vert natural gas into a liquid fuel that can be used in existing auto-mobile and truck engines

I have been encouraged about the increased interest in using the Fisher-Tropsch process to conver t natural gas, coal, and biomass into liquid fuels Also an ethanol producer with a differ-ent process, Coskata, is claiming

to be able to generate a gallon

of ethanol using about $1-worth

of natural gas It makes no sense for the U. S to be importing oil when we have abundant energy resources that can be converted into liquid fuels

as ethanol, yet has twice the ergy yield It does not require modified engines to use it and can be handled and distributed using the existing infrastructure

en-Ralph Heady

Engineers can’t manage

Leland Teschler’s blog, “From the Editor’s Desk,” talked about a con-sultant who believes successful engineers lack the skills of suc-cessful managers Readers tend

to agree They also seem to agree that the U. S should use its natu-ral gas for transportation and kick the foreign-oil habit

OCTOBER 4, 2012 MACHINE DESIGN.com

12

All the Tools you Need for Embedded

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RS# 112

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Please include your name, address, and daytime phone number Letters may

be edited for brevity and to focus on essential points.

Mail: Letters, M ACHINE D ESIGN ,

1300 E 9th St., Cleveland, OH

44114-1503, Fax: 216-621-8469 E-mail, Editorial:

uc ts and systems, are exac tly what we need and find so hard

to fund

Name withheld by request

The question asked in the title

is a great one I think the article

effectively addresses technical

aspects of natural-gas-powered

vehicles and some of the

chal-lenges but misses the

overpow-ering issues

T h e c u r re n t g e n e r a t i o n o f

cheap natural gas is mentioned

but not discussed Fracking has

significantly reduced the cost of

natural gas Electricity generated

using natural gas costs about

half that of electricity generated

using coal because of fracking

Wh i l e m a ny p e o p l e wo u l d n’t

think there are any problems

from this, some have polluted

water and land that was fracked

When a company says it is

pump-ing proprietary chemicals under

my house for fracking, I get a

lit-tle concerned why they can’t tell

me what is going into the ground

under my house But the cost

ad-vantages of fracked gas are so

compelling that these and other issues will have to be resolved

My answer to the question posed by the title is: absolutely

ye s U n fo r t u n a te l y, t h e co m panies selling me gasoline re -fined from crude at $4/gallon are not interested in selling me the equivalent in natural gas at

-$2/gallon or less If they were, it would have happened years ago

di-no wonder the program received the lion’s share of funding and has had the lion’s share of corruption (“ Two Sides of a Green-Energy Failure,” Aug 9)

ARPA-E, on the other hand,

RS# 113 OCTOBER 4, 2012

MACHINE DESIGN.com

14

quietly thrives

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Our patented Walking Ring and Hydrodynamic Journal Bearings maximize your pump life for the lowest cost of ownership With Direct Spring-to-Load Sensing and Torque Limiting Control, our vane pumps deliver the control your operation demands The Pressure Balanced Thrust Plates improve pump effi ciencies, and the variable volume and pressure compensated construction simplifi es circuit design, while reducing heat and noise to make even harsh work environments less harsh

SCANNING FOR IDEAS

Edited by Stephen J Mraz

Request free information via our Reader Service Web site at

www.machinedesign.com/

rsc

Keeping machinery well

lubri-cated is a critical step in

ensur-ing equipment runs

trouble-free But some lubrication points

can be difficult to access They’re

either in spaces too tight for

service staff to easily get to, or in

a hazardous area For these

situ-ations, engineers at SKF (www.

skfusa.com), with U. S

headquar-ters in Lansdale, Pa., have

de-signed the System 24 LAGD 125,

a single-point lubricator

The battery-powered

lubrica-tor automatically sends grease

to a lubrication point for one to

12 months, depending on the

amount of grease and frequency

of lubrication It uses a gas

gen-erator to create an inert gas that

pushes a piston down into the

4.25-fl-oz (125-ml) container of

grease The piston’s downward

stroke forces out the grease

Technicians set the

dispens-ing rate by adjustdispens-ing the electric

current going from the battery

to the gas generator This is done

using a simple dial mounted on

top of the container

Ambient temperature

af-fects the dispensing rate So

if temperatures top 105°F, the

unit runs twice as fast, and a

12-month setting will empty the

container in six months And at

15°F, the unit runs half as fast, so

a six-month setting empties the

container in 12 months

If space is particularly tight, a

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ver-sions can be mounted away

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use hoses to deliver the grease

RS# 401

Stand-alone lubricator

keeps things humming

Gas cell generates a pressurized, inert gas used to dispense lubricant.

Container is clear, letting technicians visually monitor dispensing rate.

Filled with lubricant

Piston ensures all lubricant gets used as container empties.

Time-setting slot lets technicians adjust flow rate.

Base of container matches piston profile, which lets the piston squeeze out practically all

of the lubricant.

Cartridge neck screws into lubrication point or accessories.

OCTOBER 4, 2012 MACHINE DESIGN.com

16

Bosch Rexroth Corporation

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For faster, easier, more economical development of handling systems, Rexroth’s

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RS# 115

SCANNING FOR IDEAS

The FasMate FN Series of connectors from FasTest Inc.,

Roseville, Minn (www.fastestinc.com), makes it easier for

technicians to test pneumatic, vacuum, and hydraulic

circuits, as well as perform filling, flushing, and

per-Quick connector

simplifies

pneumatic and hydraulic testing

formance evaluations A

split-collet assembly quickly

makes airtight connections

works with threaded ports ranging from / to ½-in NPT, as well as SAE, BSPP,

and metric sizes Pressure-assisted sealing securely locks the FasMate to

ports This improves safety for the technicians using the device

The connector can be set up to be triggered one of three ways

A squeeze lever provides simple, intuitive activation (shown in

the illustration) A pneumatic thumb valve is another

ergo-nomic choice that lets technicians insert or remove the

con-nector by pushing a button And a pneumatic pilot lets

tech-nicians have free use of both hands It does require a separate

air hookup, however It is easy to switch between these three trigger

assisted grip and seal

Pressure-Gripping collets

Tapered center pin

OCTOBER 4, 2012 MACHINE DESIGN.com

18

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REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK

ing down It’s the same for new

orders and proposal activity.”

Izquierdo says PMMI

compa-nies are still hiring, but at a slower

rate than at the beginning of the

year And some areas of the

pack-aging industry are seeing more

action than others

“Durable-goods packaging is holding up

reasonably well,” he says “Food

and beverage are both in

slow-growth mode, and pharma is in

extremely slow-growth mode.”

Flexible packaging is one of

the technologies seeing a lot

of interest in several corners of

the industry “The trend toward

flexible packaging has been

ac-celerated by economics,” says

Izquierdo “Some companies

are shifting to flex to keep costs

down Brand-name producers

are pushing back against

pri-vate labelers, sometimes They

are trying to maintain the same

price level, and one of the ways

they sometimes do this is by finding ways to cut down on the packaging,” says Izquierdo

Innovative ideas that

mini-mize packaging materials not only cut costs, they also promote sustainability by reducing the amount of energy expended on

PACKAGING

Are flexible containers

the future for sustainability?

The Flow Bottle concept puts a collapsing pouch in a reusable outer container Developer Pack Flow concepts says the outer container could be compostable material such as PLA.

As Pack Expo, the

develop-ment Vice

Presi-dent Jorge

Izqui-erdo “Things are

gradually

slow-Pouch

Hard chipboard insert

Full Half full Empty

Contents remain

in pump dispenser

pump dispenser

OCTOBER 4, 2012 MACHINE DESIGN.com

20

Traditional pump-type containers can be holding up to 15% of their contents when they cease dispensing product New pouch designs such as those from Pack Flow Concepts make for more sustainable packaging by dispensing all but a tiny amount

of their contents that remains in the pouch nozzle An ancillary benefit is that the product makes no contact with outside air, a plus when dispensing material that can oxidize Shown is a concept for dispensers pushed up from the bottom The firm also has a version that dispenses when squeezed from the side.

One of the attractions of pouchlike containers is that they can ship in a collapsed state, as illustrated by Pack Flow Concepts They can be separated just before filling and expanded

“We have talked to people about the pouch making How you

do that depends on what the end user wants Attaching the pouches to the board needs to be worked out.“

Eckert says there are several options for making the pouch For example, it could be created as a cylindrical bottom bag on a man-drel with the bottom plate affixed via hot-melt glue The top plate could be affixed by heat sealing the bag opening to a lip on the underside of the top plate Alter-natively, it could be created as a cylindrical tube with bottom and top plate heat sealed to lips on both the top and bottom plate.Another approach would be to create a gusseted pouch and heat seal the pouch opening to the lip

on the underside of the top plate The bottom plate might then be affixed with hot-melt glue This option keeps the pouches at-tached at their sides to provide more structural integrity The pouch sides have perforated cuts that facilitate tearing one pouch from its neighbor MD

piece of chipboard at their top and bottom,” he explains “A pal-let that might hold 4,000 plastic bottles could hold 15,000 of these pouches.” Thus, their packing is volumetrically more efficient than that of empty plastic bottles

Pack Flow Concepts points out that blow-molded bottles typi-cally stack in layers on pallets or in random containers mounted on pallets (which requires machinery

to sort and orient for filling) The cost of transporting empty bot-tles is determined by the volume required rather than weight, so the cost per pound can be steep

The machinery to sort and orient bottles uses multiple hard tooling fixtures for each model of bottle

The company says so far it has seen interest in its packaging concept from makers of hand lo-tion It is also looking for machin-ery makers able to fabricate the equipment needed for handling the pouches “We need a device

to unload and feed them onto

a line, a device to open them so they can go to a fill station and then a seal station,” says Eckert

handling and the

mate-rial sent to land fills

An example that will

be up for discussion at

Pack Expo comes from

Pack Flow Concepts LLC,

Pittsford, N. Y It consists

of a reusable outer

con-tainer holding a pouch: To refill

the container, buy another pouch

The pouch dispenses practically

all the product it holds, unlike

ex-isting designs “The problem with

existing dispensers like those for

hand lotion is that between 7 to

15% of the product remains in the

container when you are finished

with it You don’t have that

prob-lem with our design,” says Pack

Flow Concepts Marketing & Sales

Director Gene Eckert

Called a Flow Bottle, the

com-pany’s design employs a pouch

having a rigid top plate containing

a lip that creates working

inter-faces for the outer container and

sliding top The pouch also has a

bottom plate sized so it can

en-gage a recessed lip on the bottom

of the outer container This keeps

the pouch taut so all the contents

can be emptied

The beauty of this approach,

says Eckert, is that the pouches

can ship to their filling point as

flat material This saves a lot in

shipping, he says “The unique

thing about the pouches is that

they connect as a group to a

filling sequence

Refills as shipped, as expanded

Decentralized Servo Drives iX

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The Advantages for the

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Continuous Power up to 5 kVA

3D printing with ceramics

Researchers at the University of the West of England Center for Fine

Print Research in the U. K claim that materials used in an ancient

Egyp-tian technique might work well for printing 3D prototypes of ceramic dinnerware Printed objects would create their own glaze and need only one firing

The ancient technique made “faiences,” a special kind of glazed enware Artisans created faiences by mixing ground quartz or sand crys-tals with sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, and copper oxides

earth-Artisans then added water to create a paste, which they shaped by hand into small objects, or poured into a mold Heating

the objects caused them to generate a glaze in the form of thin, hard layers of various colors, depend-ing on the recipe

According to the Center’s Director Stephen Hoskins, research for 3D printing focuses on functional materials such as UV polymer resins, hot-melted ABS plastics, inkjet binders, or laser-sintered powders He also says researchers have already 3D printed ceramic objects

“To understand printing with ceramic, imagine an empty bin with

a platform on top that holds a thin layer of ceramic powder,” says Hoskins “To print a bowl, say, the machine deposits binder in the form

of a ring onto the ceramic powder This forms the first layer of the bowl The build platform drops slightly and an automated arm pushes more powder onto it, covering everything The process repeats until the object is complete Next, the now-full bin of compacted powder is left to dry After about an hour, researchers lift out the dried block and dust the loose powder off of the object, which is embedded in the middle of the block They place the object in an oven for drying and then put it in a kiln for firing Last, researchers glaze the object and re-fire it at higher temperatures This method can print complex shapes because powder completely surrounds and supports objects being printed during each step.”

According to Hoskins, the current project offers the theoretical possibility of developing a printed, single-fired, glazed ceramic object

— which is impossible with current technology Needless to say, the Egyptian faiencelike material would reduce the time it currently takes

to print prototypes for the ceramics industry MD

to make an faiencelike material suitable for 3D printing They also aim

Egyptian-to boost the number

of available colors.

RS# 118

OCTOBER 4, 2012

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RS# 119

REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK

Four small servomotors, one per

wheel, now keep pipe crawlers

balanced as they travel

hun-dreds of miles atop oil pipelines

looking for dangerously

cor-roded sections of pipe

Over 1,000 miles of pipe on

Alaska’s North Slope feed oil to the

800-mile-long Trans-Alaska Pipeline

that transports crude oil from

Prud-hoe Bay to the southern coastal

port of Valdez Harsh arctic

condi-tions, along with the water, sulfur,

carbon dioxide, and

microorgan-isms in crude oil, can lead to a

pipe-line losing up to 70% of its mass to

corrosion during its lifetime

Unfor-tunately, some sections of pipe

cor-rode faster than others, raising the

probability of oil spills in the arctic

tundra The crawlers ferret out

cor-roded sections using

nondestruc-tive testing (NDT) such as gamma

radiation and digital X-rays

Envision CmosXray LLC,

Anchorage, Alaska, is a pioneer

in the design, development, and

use of these robotic gymnasts It’s

not uncommon to see a crawler

traveling along the pipeline forming inspections at tempera-tures below –40°F

per-Early crawlers only operated on

a small range of pipe diameters,

so each pipe size needed its own machine Engineers at Envision wanted to come up with a single machine that could handle pipe diameters ranging from 4 in to

4 ft To complicate the task, port structures holding the pipe-

sup-lines above the ground add eral layers of steel and additional obstacles to the crawler’s journey.Placing a motor on each wheel lets the crawler nimbly maneuver over supports while carrying the radiation source and expensive imaging equipment needed for testing Each motor must be in sync with the other three so the crawler doesn’t fall of the pipe With limited space on the crawler

sev-Pipe crawlers keep creeping,

thanks to SmartMotors

RS# 120 OCTOBER 4, 2012

MACHINE DESIGN.com

24

precise speeds for their imaging system as corrosion analysis relies

on accurate imaging An eter senses the rise and fall of the pipe, as well as the position of the crawler on top of the pipe Smart-Motors read the inclinometer sig-nals, letting each adjust the wheel’s velocity and acceleration to keep crawler speed constant despite ob-stacles, winds, and surface condi-tions like ice and snow MD

inclinom-remote operation because of the freezing winds, icy and uneven ground, and heavy equipment traveling overhead generate safety concerns Specialized wire-less communications lets crawlers operate up to 1,500 ft from their operator

Alaskan pipelines also rise and fall with the landscape So pipe crawlers must cope with these el-evation changes while maintaining

for motion-control hardware,

Envi-sion engineers chose the relatively

small SmartMotor from Moog

Ani-matics, in Santa Clara, Calif Each

SmartMotor has an external

differ-ential encoder that creates a ratio

of speeds in the drive wheels for

steering the pipe crawler Controls

built into the SmartMotor helped

simplify the onboard and remote

motor-control system Operators

controlling the crawlers must use

pipe crawler prior to

its run Four Animatic

Smartmotors synchronize

the independently driven

wheels and keep the

crawler centered atop

its precarious perch as it

travels along the snaking

pipeline.

RS# 121

Marcel Proust once said, “The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” When that landscape is 165 million miles away, those new eyes are likely to be image sensors mounted in high-resolution cameras Such is the case with the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity, now exploring the Martian landscape using four camera “eyes” to capture color images of the Red Planet.

Each camera

on Curiosity uses a KAI-

2020 image sensor made

by Truesense

Imaging Inc in

Rochester, N Y

The KAI-2020 can capture a full 2-megapixel image (1,600

× 1,200 pixels) using an interline-transfer CCD with high dynamic range, low dark current, and an electronic shutter that provides precise exposure control

Each of the four cameras supports a different phase of Curiosity’s mission The Mars descent imager was active during the rover’s descent, capturing hundreds of natural-color images

of the planet’s surface to give NASA

an initial visual framework of the landing site for early operations

The hand lens imager will take close-up color images of rocks and surface material at resolutions up to 14.4 μm per pixel That resolution level permits detection of objects smaller than the width of a human hair.Finally, the Mast Camera carries two separate cameras that use lenses

of different focal lengths for objects near and far MastCam-34 uses a fixed 34-mm focal-length lens while the MastCam-100 lens focal length is fixed

at 100 mm At that length, the MastCam-100 can detect objects about the size of a baseball at a distance of 0.6 miles The MastCam is the imaging workhorse of the rover and will be used to take color, multispectral color, stereo, and high-definition video views of the terrain explored by Curiosity

All cameras can capture images in full color at over four full-resolution frames-per-second The MastCam cameras can also capture full-color 720p high-definition video (1,280 × 720 pixels) at 6 fps. MD

RS# 122

OCTOBER 4, 2012 MACHINE DESIGN.com

26

Others say they’re FAST

Proto Labs’ entire operation is optimized to deliver quick-turn CNC machined and injection molded parts in as fast as one business day

We manufacture parts every day for thousands of customers, many of whom come to us at the last minute with dozens of designs they need

to test ASAP Since 1999, we’ve produced tens of thousands of molds, and shipped tens of millions parts to our customers all over the world

Sure, it’s our technology that allows us to make your parts faster than anyone else We back it up with large-scale global manufacturing facilities with hundreds of CNC machines and injection molding presses

on three separate continents

Whether your project calls for a few machined parts or thousands of molded parts from 50 diff erent designs—we have the scale to meet your needs Every time!

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RS# 123

REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK

Hydraulic fracturing,

or fracking, pumps

a liquid mixture into

wells drilled into shale

to make it easier to

extract natural gas But

controlling that process

to keep it safe and

pro-ductive takes constant

monitoring To help in

that task, drillers often

use MBS pressure

trans-mitters from Danfoss,

Baltimore, to control the

pump intake, lubrication

oil, and filter pressure

on fracking setups MBT

pressure sensors, also

from Danfoss, monitor

hydraulic fluid,

lubrica-tion oil, and water in the

MACHINE DESIGN.com

28

RS# 125

REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK

10 YEARS AGO — 2002

Fish and chips: An

inte-grated circuit may play a key role

in collecting data about the habitat

salmon prefer during their two to

three-year ocean migration,

accord-ing to University of Rhode Island

researcher Godi Fischer

The IC

is powered

by a tiny tery that produces 1 μA of current

bat-The chips will be sealed in epoxy for durability and attached to dorsal fins

of fish They are programmable, so temperature data can be collected as

often as desired A prototype will be tested on salmon this year Retrieval rates are expected to be about 5%

30 YEARS AGO — 1982Search and rescue satellite: The

Tiros-N/NOAA Series of cal satellites will have an additional role, beginning in 1983, when the Advanced Tiros-N evaluates an inter-national search and rescue system

meteorologi-To be known

as NOAA-8

in orbit, the satel-lite is the latest in

a series designed and built by RCA

Astro-Electronics for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Admin- istration In addition to its regular

weather-watch duties, the satellite will relay distress calls from ships and aircraft equipped with emergency beacons It also will carry instru-ments for monitoring variations in radiation to Earth

50 YEARS AGO — 1962Rigid urethane foam construction

makes the 12-ft KorKi unsinkable, strong, and inexpensive, according

to its builder, the Glastex Co.,

Mon-mouth, Ill A 7/8-in layer of urethane, foamed in place between inner and outer shells of 1/16-in laminated fiberglass, provides buoyancy for KorKi’s size and weight: The boat can support the weight of more people than can climb aboard

Closed-cell structure of the foam also adds strength — carrying a 400-lb test load and powered by

a 15-hp motor, KorKi was edly beached under full power and rammed into pilings without suffer-ing structural damage MD

www.rexnord.com

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your business, Rexnord delivers what’s needed to run a successful

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Brands you can trust.

Visit us at PACK EXPO, October 28-31, Booth #E-7629

RS# 126

REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK

PARTS IN 10 DAYS

ProtoFastParts.com, a service from

Rub-ber Industries Inc., Shakopee, Minn.,

uses production-grade tooling and

dedi-cated molding equipment for quicker

processing and faster production-run

start-ups Once materials are selected and

formulated, Rubber Industries will build

a single cavity mold and produce 12 sample parts in 10 working days Go to

ACQUISITION

Helurobotics, the former business

unit of Helukabel, Elgin, Ill., will merge with Robotec Systems, which

Helukabel recently acquired The pany will operate under the Robotec Systems name and offer a complete range of robotic cabling services from system analysis, consultation, and planning to design, installation, and warranty maintenance

com-MicroStrain Inc., Williston, Vt., has

agreed to purchase Lord Corp., Cary,

N. C MicroStrain will embed its tial and energy-harvesting wireless sensors into Lord vibration-control products

iner-Microstrain manufactures inertial measurement systems, microdisplace-ment transducers, wireless-sensor net-works, and energy-harvesting tech-nologies Lord specializes in adhesives, coatings, and motion-management technologies

PERSONNEL

Resonetics, Nashua, N. H., a supplier

of polymer micromachining services and systems for the life-sciences industry, has named Tom Burns as Chief Executive Officer He was vice president of business development at

Tegra Medical.

Resonetic provides micromachining solutions and systems for medical-device and diagnostic manufacturing

laser-RS# 127 OCTOBER 4, 2012 MACHINE DESIGN.com

32

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RS# 128

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RECOGNITION

Bimba Manufacturing Co., Monee,

Ill.; Caterpillar Inc., Joliet, Ill.; and

Parker Hannifin Corp., Cleveland,

have reached the NFPA Education

and Technology Foundation’s

“Legacy Builder” giving level by ing $25,000 in cumulative donations

giv-to the Foundation

NFPA says these gifts help build a sustainable funding stream for criti-cal fluid-power research, education, and recruitment programs The NFPA Education and Technology Founda-tion, located in Milwaukee, supports educational programs and research

in fluid power

CONTRACT AWARDED

SKF, Lansdale, Pa., will supply

gi-ant main bearings and related

technologies for Caesars

Enter-tainment Corp.’s Las Vegas High

Roller observation wheel on the Las Vegas Strip To be complete in

2013, the 550-ft-tall wheel, eclipsing the famed 443-ft-tall London Eye, will feature two SKF spherical roller bearings, the largest ever produced

at the SKF manufacturing facility in Gothenburg, Sweden The Las Vegas High Roller is the centerpiece of The LINQ, a planned $550 million, open-air retail, dining, and entertainment district situated between Imperial Palace and Flamingo Las Vegas.SKF was awarded the contract

by American Bridge Co.,

Coraopolis, Pa MD

RS# 129 OCTOBER 4, 2012 MACHINE DESIGN.com

34

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RS# 130

Senior Editor

fered from depression resulting from work pressures; and one in 10 had visited a doctor for stress-induced neuroses Perhaps most telling, only 38% of the respondents thought their employer did enough to address the problem It’s probably fair to say that these figures mirror those of just about any devel-oped nation, including the U. S Symptoms

of workplace stress include feeling anxious, irritable, and apathetic Many employees find

it difficult to concentrate and suffer from headaches and muscle tension So how do you survive without going bonkers?

One helpful Web site, http://tinyurl.com/d7csa6, suggests these stress-busters:

Don’t be a hero. In other words, don’t try to do it all The world will continue without hardly a ripple should you keel over So you might as well relax Ironi-cally, a more relaxed approach frees your creative juices and helps you better handle heavy workloads

Make to-do lists Cross off items as you complete them Plan ahead and stick

to the schedule This approach helps you feel less overwhelmed In addition, if your desk or office is messy, file important things and throw away the clutter Just knowing where everything sits helps you use time more efficiently and cuts stress

Think positively. Sounds trite, but focusing on the downside of every ation drains you of energy and motivation Pat yourself on the back for your accomplishments, even if no one else does

situ-Let go. Many things in life and at work, particularly other peoples’ behavior, are beyond our control Rather than worrying about what others think or do, focus on the way you choose to react to problems After all, you are the only person you can control

And, an informal poll among stressed-out friends and employees provided these tips:

Shake it up. Occasionally jiggle your arms and legs while humming under your breath (You might want to do this when no one else is around.) These ac-tions are said to warm up the link between the brain and the body, helping you stay more fluid

Don’t aim for “perfect.” No situation or decision is ever flawless Trying to attain perfection in everything simply adds unnecessary stress And when you set unrealistic goals or try to do too much, you’re bound to take a fall Instead, just do your best No one can ask for more

Leave your work at work. Everyone wants to appear the model employee Fat chance if you are a sleep-deprived wreck Leave your work worries behind, and don’t bring extra work home

Forgo heavy drinking. Alcohol can help cut the edge and might make you feel better for awhile But heavy drinking doesn’t address the underlying prob-lem It might temporarily eliminate symptoms of stress But in the long run, the ensuing addiction will only make you spiral further into the black hole

What tactics do you use to overcome workplace stress? Send them in, and we might print them here. MD

Stressed at work?

The difficult economy and countless layoffs have many people feeling lucky to even have a job But as companies continue to do more with less, workplace stress is on the

rise The mental-health charity Mind in the U. K (www.

mind.org.uk) recently surveyed 2,000 employees In all,

half said that morale at work was low; one in five

suf-RS# 131

How do you handle stress without going bonkers?

OCTOBER 4, 2012

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8IFOGBJMVSF JTOPU

As CEO of MFG.com, I speak with owners of job shops

every day about their businesses The good news is that

they are busy and most say they have plenty of work In

fact, many report they are turning away customers —

customers who would like to bring offshore manufacturing work back to

the U. S Why are they turning away potential business and not creating jobs

that the U. S badly needs? Because they cannot find enough skilled

machin-ists, toolmakers, and fabricators

This will not come as a surprise to anyone

in the manufacturing industry, but we have an

across-the-board shortage of skilled

manufac-turing talent in the U. S When manufacmanufac-turing

started leaving the U. S to chase cheap labor,

many people lost their jobs and thought those

positions would never return We told those

people America had transitioned to a service

economy, and they needed to retrain for the

service industry We told our children to go to

college, not trade school, and to stay clear of

manufacturing because it was a sunset

indus-try So it is no surprise that we find ourselves in

the midst of a manufacturing talent crisis and

yet have millions of unemployed college

grad-uates with degrees in business and liberal arts

Market forces work It is no secret that there

are openings for good-paying jobs In many cases trade-school grads will be

more competitive than four-year business majors American manufacturers

are desperate for skilled workers and they’re offering $50,000, sometimes

$60,000, in starting salaries Earning potential is huge, especially as industry

expands due to the reshoring trend

People are rushing to get the training they need to transition from a

ser-vice job to a skilled manufacturing job As such, trade-school enrollment is

up dramatically and trade schools are trying to find ways to accommodate

the influx of students after years of shrinking their capacity

As I mentioned, market forces work and we all know the theories of

sup-ply and demand There is a shortage of job-shop capacity in the U. S right

now because much of China’s cost advantage has eroded and companies

want to move production closer to home As such, the job shops have more

business and customer inquiries than they can handle, so they do what any

for-profit business would do: They take advantage of that leverage and raise

prices, increasing their profits In the short term, this is good for the

own-ers and for the in-demand workown-ers who are receiving wage increases and

overtime

My concern is for the longer term We have to be careful not to raise

prices so much that we drive customers back offshore, just as many eager

students are graduating from trade school and gaining valuable hands-on

manufacturing experience It would be a shame to have to tell them again to

retrain for a service-industry job MD

MFG.com is an online marketplace that matches buyers of industrial goods to suppliers with

suitable equipment, expertise, and capacity.

Edited by Kenneth Korane

across-of skilled manufacturing talent in the

U. S.

RS# 132

OCTOBER 4, 2012

company was having preprocessing difficulties dealing

with CAD geometry as is A challenge was to generate

sufficient boundary-layer resolutions

To address this problem, we meshed a geometry of one

of Hydac’s oil filters in a CFD-meshing program called

Pointwise Hydac wanted to see how the software handles

complex geometries in real life

The flow path between the diffuser at the end of the

oil-filter inlet (small-diameter horizontal tube) and main

filter body (large-diameter vertical tube) is complex The

steps to meshing such a geometry show how real-world

problems of this type typically proceed (At the end of each

step, we provided a count of the main Pointwise

opera-tions (PW), the keyboard strokes/mouse clicks (KM), and

an estimate of the time for that step.)

1 Import native CAD file. The meshing software can

import native CAD formats, including SolidWorks (part

and assemblies), immediately solving Hydac’s first set of

problems There was no need to use an intermediate CAD

format such as IGES, and Hydac could mesh directly on

analytic CAD surfaces

Model size tolerance is an important consideration

when importing CAD files into the software Pointwise

recommends adjusting the model-size tolerance to within

about an order of magnitude of the largest spatial

dimen-sion of the geometry Setting the appropriate model-size

tolerance helps the software’s geometry kernel interpret

and process the geometric information with the highest

accuracy To maintain maximum integrity, this step must

Hydac USA in Bethlehem, Pa.,

which provides fluid-power

products, recently decided to

assess computational

fluid-dynamics (CFD) software to

analyze flow in models But the

Here is the hydraulic oil- filter geometry

as imported from SolidWorks Flow enters from the right and is filtered

in the large vertical body in the center Interior details are not shown for proprietary reasons The hydraulic oil filter geometry

is courtesy of Jim Cardillo at Hydac.

OCTOBER 4, 2012 MACHINE DESIGN.com

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