Machine design, tập 84, số 04, 2012

Scion FR-S Chevrolet Tru 140S Chevrolet Lincoln MKZ MARCH 22, 2012 MACHINE DESIGN.com ELECTRICAL/ELECTRONIC A piece of aluminum has more free energy content than succinctly, explains wh

RADIOS IN SPACE: SDRs FOR THE SPACE STATION,

page 20 WILL ALUMINUM ION BATTERIES MAKE LITHIUMION OBSOLETE?

page 38

A GLIMPSE OF THE FUTURE THROUGH CONCEPT CARS, page 44 ENGINEERING FOR THE OTHER 90%, page 52

March 22, 2012

A Penton Media PublicationTune in to EngineeringTV.com

RS# 101

                    

RS# 102

AUTOMOTIVE

This year’s Detroit Auto Show featured several concept cars, everything from micromini pickups to flashy high- ertrains showcased, including several all-electric cars and gas-powered concepts also held their own.

Conventional engines

The low, sleek FR-S (front-engine, rear-wheel-drive) sport car from Scion could help you forget the boxy de-

signs the company is known for It carries a 200-hp, 2-liter

a lower center of gravity and a front-to-rear weight ratio

as well as more torque throughout the powerband without manual or automatic transmission.

Chevrolet is looking to connect with car buyers under the age of 30, hoping to tap into some of their estimated

Code 130R, a four-seat coupe It features a 1.4-liter bocharged EcoTec engine that can crank out 150 hp or shutting off the engine at stops, regenerative braking, and

tur-Whether consumers want conscious electric cars, gas- burning performance or economy,

eco-or a hybrid of the two, the world’s automakers seem ready to build it.

Resources:

Acura, http://tinyurl.com/76emwt6 BMW, http://tinyurl.com/7mrc2nn Chevrolet, http://tinyurl.com/88wdrvd Infiniti, http://tinyurl.com/mmao8n Lexus, http://tinyurl.com/7oy3zdz Lincoln, www.lincoln.com Scion, http://tinyurl.com/7fhzzct Smart car, www.smartusa.com Toyota Motor Sales USA, http://tinyurl.

com/article/concept-kiosks and other social media to gather opinions and suggestions.

The MKZ concept car is the next step in the reinvention of Lincoln,

accord-ing to that company’s Vice President of Global Product Development, Derrick roof rail to the right rail, The four-door, four-seat sedan can be equipped with when the MKZ comes to the showrooms, it will carry a 300-hp, 3.7-liter en- gine, the same one found in the MKS It might also have an optional twin-turbo

3.6-liter EcoBoost V6 with about

a possibility.

The car boasts a continuously controlled damping suspension, drivers when the vehicle strays from its lane And in a retro touch, the car’s automatic transmission is controlled using pushbuttons.

Hybrids

The NS4 from Toyota uses a

next-generation plug-in hybrid drive, which should get better accelera- charging times, and be smaller and lighter, compared to the current Prius

smoothing torque during accelerations These features economy.

The other youth-targeted concept car from Chevy

is the Tru 140S, a streamlined front-wheel-drive sports

engine and powertrain features as the Code 130R.

Chevy plans to market both of these cars soon and with the features young under $20k, fuel econ- omy of at least 40 mpg, as integration, a heads-

up display, and Chevy’s MyLink connectivity.

To get this audience’s opinions on what the in- terior and dashboard will take the cars to sev- eral major auto shows, and college campuses

Scion FR-S

Chevrolet Tru 140S

Chevrolet

Lincoln MKZ

MARCH 22, 2012 MACHINE DESIGN.com

ELECTRICAL/ELECTRONIC

A piece of aluminum has more free energy content than succinctly, explains why scientists are now trying to per- fect batteries based on chemistry that involves aluminum

more energy into a given space than the lithium-ion teries that seem to be in the headlines these days for all the wrong reasons.

bat-Aluminum is the most abundant metallic element and the third most abundant of all elements on the planet

abundance brings the promise of aluminum-based ies that are relatively cheap.

batter-The key quality of aluminum that makes it geous in battery chemistry is the fact that it is trivalent, result is that battery charge/discharge reactions (per for- mula unit) involving aluminum transfer three electrons compared with only one with lithium So an aluminum- ing the same power: Aluminum-based batteries have a

advanta-406 W-hr/kg for those based on lithium ion.

Problem is, there are a number of obstacles that have made it tough to devise a practical aluminum-battery discharge cycle They also give off hydrogen This behav- based battery that could be sealed And aluminum used film Both factors reduce the efficiency of battery reac- tions over time Unfortunately, these effects can take place have been impractical for most applications.

Goodbye tolithium-ion batteries?

Inexpensive aluminum may battery chemistries that pack more punch than today’s lithium-ion cells.

MARCH 22, 2012 MACHINE DESIGN.com 38

Authored by:

Leland Teschler

Editor leland.teschler@penton.com

Resources

Cornell University, Energy Materials Center,

http://www.emc2.cornell.edu/news/story/

Science%20news.html

Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Aluminum

Battery Research, http://www.ornl.gov/adm/

article/lithium-ion-VOLUME 84ISSUE 4MARCH 22, 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.

www.machinedesign.com/rsc

38

44 20

and Navigation Testbed will

communicate with both Earth

and space-bound radios

Goodbye to lithium-ion

batteries?

Aluminum is cheap, easy to

find, and can be used to devise

batteries having a higher energy

density than that from

lithium-ion batteries

Concept cars 2012:

A glimpse of the future

Here’s a look at what the automotive

industry is planning for the future

Back to the future?

Designing for places that

can’t afford high tech

MARCH 22, 2012 MACHINE DESIGN.com

2

PUMPS VALVES POWER UNITS

RS# 103

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Energy savings estimator

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A Nobel Prize for

engineers?

It is relatively easy to name a few big-name scientists off the top of your head

It is nearly impossible for the average Joe or Jane to do the same for engineers

No wonder, then, that engineers often complain that they get no respect from the public Surveys of public perception bear out this impression A Harris Poll in 2007 found that only 30% of Americans hold engineers in high regard

But a new competition aims to change all this Called the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, it will be run by the Royal Academy of Engineering The winner gets more than a bowling trophy This contest will award £1 mil-lion to an engineer or group of engineers responsible for what judges feel

is the world’s greatest modern-engineering advancement which has had a demonstrable benefit for humanity

You might think of the Queen Elizabeth Prize as a Nobel Prize for neers That’s certainly the feeling you get from conversations with its judging panel “The Nobel has been about people who have generated knowledge that has somehow improved human welfare,” says Professor Calestous Juma, an international development expert with Harvard University and one of the Prize judges “But if somebody identifies the fact that you can kill a bacteria using a compound, somebody else has to figure out how to actually make it into a drug The people who manufacture the drug are never honored, only the people who came up with the idea The Queen Elizabeth Prize honors those who translate the ideas into practical solutions.”

engi-The Queen Elizabeth Prize could put engineering on equal footing with science, where many would argue it deserves to be After all, several Nobel-winning achievements wouldn’t have been possible without engineering achievements that preceded them For example, says Juma, “We would not have had advances in science without new observational instruments that were developed by engineers.”

There are numerous engineering prizes today, but they lack visibility In contrast, Juma thinks the Queen Elizabeth Prize will help change the public image of engineers to one of people who solve global problems “Over the past 50 years, there have been a lot of negative perceptions of engineering,”

he says “When a dam breaks, people initially blame the dam and then blame shifts to engineers Environmentalists blame engineers for being the source

of environmental problems So engineers are under enormous scrutiny and must constantly defend their actions But if you look at all the improvements

in human welfare, we are really reaping the benefits of engineers, people who maintain and fix things.”

You might wonder how in the world Prize judges will be able to quantify the “benefit to humanity” of specific entries that could conceivably range from rocket engines to medical devices That’s a good point, Juma admits

“We are just getting started If we got into a discussion about categories, it would delay the whole thing by five years The trust that runs the prize will have to grapple with those kinds of questions,” he says

Interestingly, Juma hopes the Prize will get the attention of young people

in particular “Look at science fairs for school kids,” he says “Though they’re called science fairs, the exhibit tables usually display something constructed

as an engineering project We want to help young people get to the point of saying, ‘I want to go out and solve a practical problem and not just debate it.’”

—Leland Teschler, Editor

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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 EDITOR

Robert J Repas, Jr.

robert.repas@penton.com

INDUSTRY COVERAGE AUTOMOTIVE, PACKAGING,

1300 E 9th St Cleveland, OH 44114-1503 RS# 109

RS# 108

RS# 110

sponsible for a wave of “bad” ent releases I do not know exactly why this has happened, but it seems many inventors, both cor-porate and individuals, have got-ten patents on weak inventions

pat-or have cut cpat-orners in the revision process to generate tons of patent releases with low-quality content

or even material that should have never been patented

I have heard this directly from

my patent agent, from other ventors, and from those involved with patents So now we’re stuck with a lot of patents issued for stuff that, when anyone looks at it, says: “No way, this cannot be pat-ented,“ But it is

in-So the rightful owners of these half-baked patents will use the full extent of the law to protect their intellectual property, even if they kill streams of innovation in the process, along with manufactur-ing jobs, a host of careers, and a long list of suppliers

We need business people, ticians, and inventors to demand that the patent system be made fair and workable and a powerful driver of technology and business once again Just recently there have been announcements about tightening the patent rules and supervision This is a good start

poli-George Guillaume

The problem with eliminating patents is that there is a class of start-up businesses focused on making totally new technologies

One more engineering

movie

I may be a bit late in responding

to the best engineering movies,

but one movie that should be

in-cluded has to be “The World’s

Fast-est Indian.” It’s a classic tale of a

guy in New Zealand with nothing

more than garage-shop tools who

builds a motorcycle (including

the engine castings) that breaks

Your editorial is interesting and

in-formative, however there is a flip

side (“R&D doesn’t mean

inno-vation,” Oct 6) From a corporate

perspective, patents can and are

used as marketing tools and legal

weapons However, at the other

end of the spectrum, the patent

system is also a doorway for the

“little guy” to take a chance and

develop a product without being

wiped out by major power players

in industry

My own tale of getting a

pat-ent is one of 10 years of hard work,

so far And any funds I could raise,

I put into R&D for the

opportu-nity to bring a product to market

that is technologically ahead of

the current offerings in an

indus-try dominated by a pair of

behe-moths These companies are

ruth-less in their market dominance

Without the patent system, small

entities and individuals such as

myself have no outlet for their

in-ventiveness So, although the big

players may misuse the system,

grass-roots innovation would

cer-tainly stagnate under the weight

of corporate power and market

domination without it

Tony Lorger

Having obtained two patents in

the U. S over the past 10 years, it

is my opinion that the patent

of-fice in the U. S., as well as those

in other countries, have been

re-that only makes business sense if there are patents

If there’s no way to prevent ple (or corporations) from stealing your technology, then you must either be the only one using that product, keep the details a trade secret, or give up, because any time you explain it to a competent manufacturer, its managers will just say: “Oh, we can do that,” and you’re out of business

peo-Bryan Williams

Government versus private-sector jobs

After seeing so many ups and downs in the private sector, while

at the same time witnessing my friends who opted to work for the government (city, state or federal) enjoy so much stability, I can’t help but wonder if I made the right choice going to the private sector

And it‘s not just the stability Government engineers also enjoy very respectable wages, raises, re-tirement pensions, and vacations

It may not be as glorified a tion as in the private industry, but

posi-in this day and age, what would one rather have: the gold or the glory?

Overall, however, the U. S treats engineers quite well, though Eu-rope may be slightly better when

it comes to compensating neers But could this eventually make our products too expensive

engi-to be competitive in price?

Mean-MARCH 22, 2012 MACHINE DESIGN.com

12

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Regardless of the drive technology used, we thought ahead and integrated intelligence throughout This consistency makes you more effi cient — from planning to start-up and daily operation Your benefi ts are real: Increased productivity, improved energy effi ciency and maximum machine safety You can count on Rexroth to have the appropriate drive and control solution to meet your needs exactly.

Tough application, ingenious solution

Exactly

RS# 111

LETTERS

one a chance?” This question then gets dodged Employers are also quick to identify job applicants

as the problem and constantly complain that they cannot find skilled people

But you are right in that the schools have dumbed down the math and sciences This problem must be addressed People are closing their eyes to a situation they do not want to acknowledge

It will not get better on its own Companies are going to have to put time into people whether by their own choice or by govern-ment force If a person meets the educational requirements of the job, he or she should be given a chance to gain experience I am tired of hearing employers cry that they can’t find skilled people The employers are the problem and they have the solutions

do-a mdo-ahogdo-any ldo-amp is do-a ledo-arning experience Shop class was not carpentry prep; it was about com-mon sense, critical thinking, mak-ing intelligent decisions, and us-ing knowledge to create skill

Bring back shop class if you want a motivated, sharp, new generation of technical people

Pat Gallagher

The problem I am seeing is that companies do not want to put time into training people I have

a B.S in mechanical engineering from Purdue and feel I am not being given the chance to gain experience I have asked employ-ers “How do you get experience

if you do not want to give

some-while, China and India have a

defi-nite edge in that they have a large,

well-educated population used

to low wages and benefits They

can make the cheap widgets the

world is hungry for

Syed M Kadri

Where are our skilled

workers?

To answer the question your blog

asks, (“Why does the U.  S lack

skilled workers?,” Oct 13, From

Shop Floor to Software):

Genera-tions of American children have

been deprived of the

common-sense curriculum that comes with

using your hands Now it is up to

industry, or what remains of it,

to teach them what they did not

learn But industry doesn’t know

what to do They stopped serious

career training long ago

The popular narrative must

change to embrace the

accep-RS# 112 MARCH 22, 2012

MACHINE DESIGN.com

14

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SCANNING FOR IDEAS

Edited by Stephen J Mraz

For a feature on a CNC-driven plasma cutter,

scan this code or go to:

http://machinedesign.com/ article/cnc-plasma-cutter- from-techno-inc-for-small- shops-0302

rsc

The HD Series CNC router from Techno

Inc., New Hyde Park, N.Y (www.technocnc.

com), features solid construction with a

base frame made from heavy-duty tubular

steel that is welded, machined, and stress

relieved to ensure the base remains true

and steady over the machine’s life The

gan-try is also made of tubular steel with

rein-forcing ribs welded throughout the length

of the column

All electronics are housed in a

double-doored NEMA-4 enclosure This lets

techni-cians easily get into the cabinet to work on

power connections The enclosure can also

serve as a work table

The router uses several motors,

includ-ing a 4-hp high-speed spindle drive, a

10 hp unit powering a rotary-vane vacuum

pump, and a series of brushless stepper

motors that serve as the machine drives

The axes run on precision THK rails and

bearings for smooth, play-free motion The spindles use industry-standard ER collets which are fully programmable from 6,000

to 18,000 rpm The vacuum plenum table

is multizoned, letting operators switch from full-sheet processing to smaller part processing Zones can be

turned on or off using trol valves on the front of the router Gasketing can also be routed to accommo-date various material sizes and styles

con-Technicians can learn how to install, set up, and use the router by reading

a series of step-by-step manuals

Most machine functions can be controlled through a user-friendly handheld controller

RS# 401

Z axis

Precision ball screw

Gantry constructed of tubular steel

off using these control valves

Multizoned plenum table surface

vacuum-Tool-calibration pad

4-hp HSD high-frequency collet spindle

Cast-iron gantry

uprights have

heavy-duty gussets

MARCH 22, 2012 MACHINE DESIGN.com

16

easy to use

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SCANNING FOR IDEAS

The thin-cavity fluidic heat

exchanger from Third Millennium

Engineering, Plano Tex (www.

tmeplano.com), uses

high-velocity gas flow to form a thin boundary layer that keeps circuits cool and isolated from possible contaminants or EMI/RFI

According to its developers, this heat exchanger is technically positioned between fans and heat-sink methods of cooling, and water-based cooling subsystems

The device consists of a transfer plate, a cavity spacer, cover plate, and a gas inlet and outlet Heat produced by circuitry

heat-or any other thermal load is conducted to the heat-transfer plate, which can be flat, round, or

any other shape A gas, typically compressed air, is sent into the thin (0.01 to 0.001-in.) gap created

by the cavity spacer mounted between the cover plate and heat-transfer plate Tests show that the thinner the gap, the better the cooling And placing cooling fins and channels in the gap make the cooling device less efficient and less reliable The air carries the heat away when it exits the cavity through the outlet

According to the developer, the compressed air can be replaced with nitrogen, oxygen, Freon, or similar gases, and the gas can be hot, cold, or room temperature

RS# 402

RS# 115

Cover plate

Gas inlet and outlet

Thermal load

Heat-transfer plate Cavity spacer

MARCH 22, 2012 MACHINE DESIGN.com

18

Compressed gas keeps

circuits cool

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RS# 116

REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK

Technicians move the

800-lb Scan testbed

so they can perform

weight and

center-of-gravity tests on it.

NASA payload

will test

software-defined radios

NASA will send its Space Communication and

Navi-gation (Scan) Testbed to the Space Station sometime

this year onboard a Japanese H-IIB launcher that will

take off from the Japanese Aerospace Exploration

Agency’s Tanegashima Space Center (Japanese

Aero-space Exploration Agency, or JAXA, is the Japanese

equivalent to NASA) During its five-year mission,

Scan will be attached to the exterior of the Station on

an Express Logistics Carrier, where it can freely

com-municate with both Earth and space-bound radios

as its software-defined radios (SDR) are tested and

evaluated Command and control of the $105 million

testbed will be handled by NASA from its Glenn

Research center in Cleveland

The testbed contains three SDRs: an S-band

ver-sion built by NASA and General Dynamics, West Falls

Church, Va., operating at 2.0 to 2.3 GHz; a Ka-band

ver-sion from the Harris Corp., Melbourne, Fla., operating

in the 22 to 26-GHz range; and a GPS/S-band radio from NASA that handles L1, L2, and L5 GPS signals in the 0.4 to 16-GHz range, as well as those in the S-band.Operators on Earth will be able to upload differ-ent operating environments for each SDR, which are analogous to a computer’s operating system, as well

as waveforms, analogous to apps or programs This lets operators optimize the radios for such functions as data transfer, voice communication, timing, or naviga-tion The waveforms, for example, consist of about 8 to

12 Mbytes of data and control an SDR’s receiving and transmitting frequencies, data compression, encryption

MARCH 22, 2012 MACHINE DESIGN.com

20

REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK

The Scan testbed will be one payload onboard an H-IIB rocket much like this one taking off from Yoshinobu Launch Complex at JAXA’s Tanegashima Space Center.

STRS standard for future updates

Once tested and proven, SDRs will let NASA or commercial space firms outfit spacecraft with one or two standard SDRs that can then be changed after launch to explore newly encountered phenomenon

or deal with failures and unforeseen incidents SDRs should save money in that only one or two of them can replace an entire communication suite and still provide backup redundancy Using SDRs should also save space and weight, two precious commodities on most spacecraft, along with development time And as SDRs are standardized and manufactured in larger vol-umes, the price for space-capable radios should come down SDRs could also become popular for wireless consumer devices MD

(if any), filtering, error correction, and sampling rates

Both OEs and waveforms are written to the

Space Telecommunications Radio System (STRS)

standard This will let engineers on Earth develop

news ones they can add to those uploaded before

launch NASA is also looking for companies and

schools to submit new waveforms to be evaluated

and checked Researchers will then experiment with

different combinations of OEs and waveforms to

determine the capabilities of spaceborne SDRs

Re-searchers will also catalog potential changes to the

Resources:

NASA, http://tinyurl.

com/6mhhzzq

General Dynamics’ SDR

Jet Propulsion Lab’s SDR

S-band antenna

Ka-band antenna

L-band antenna

Avionics

Power supply for traveling-wave tube amplifier

RF subsystem

S-band antenna

Gimbal controls

Up/down converter for Harris’ SDR

MARCH 22, 2012 MACHINE DESIGN.com 21

Thousands of enclosures

Hundreds of sizes

Next-day shipping

REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK

More than half a million pieces of

space junk — spent rocket stages,

broken satellites, and even tools

dropped by space-walking

astro-nauts — whiz around the Earth at

about 17,500 mph, according to

NASA The space agency tracks

16,000 of the larger pieces of

junk, those more than 4 in across

Space junk traveling at more than

25,000 fps poses a considerable

threat to operational satellites,

spacecraft, and astronauts Three

years ago, for example, an inactive

Russian satellite, Cosmos-2251,

slammed into a $55 million Iridium

satellite, destroying it and putting

2,000 more pieces of space junk

into orbit

To get some of the stuff

out of the way, researchers at

the Swiss Space Center, part

of the Swiss Federal

Insti-tute for Technology (EFPL)

in Lausanne, are developing

technologies for building a

space-craft capable of capturing orbiting

debris and taking it down through

the Earth’s atmosphere where it,

and the high-tech janitor, will burn

up

The initial target will be either

the Swisscube, a 10-cm cube

that weighs about 2.2 lb and was put into orbit in 2009 for a one-year mission, or Tisat, another 10-cm cube launched in

2010 for the Swiss that has lived its mission

out-Once the new spacecraft, CleanSpace One, is in orbit, techni-cians will adjust its trajectory to match that of the target satellite It must also get close enough to the

target to latch on to it and possibly stow it inside This task could be complicated if the target is tum-bling Then CleanSpace will de-orbit itself, head back into Earth’s atmosphere and burn up

EFPL researchers hope to velop a family of ready-made, inexpensive satellites that can col-lect and get rid of a variety of dif-ferent types and sizes of satellites They estimate the first one will cost about $11 million MD

de-Swiss to develop “janitor” spacecraft

of Naval Research in less than six months Tests

at the Navy’s China Lake facility found that the

solar panels provide 85% of their rated ac and dc output even at temperatures of 116°F With testing complete, the units are going into production and will soon be deployed MD

ENergy System), will

let Marines in the

field recharge

bat-teries and power

hybrid devices will

eliminate the need

for soldiers to haul

generators and fuel,

as well as a large

sup-ply of batteries The

original goal of the

project was to reduce

the cost of

transport-ing fuel and to limit

risks to troops by reducing the

need for resupply missions

A Greens toolkit lets Marines enter their expected

mission and see which and how many components of

the solar array they need to take The arrays are also

sized to fit easily in Hummers and other transport

vehicles, and several can be ganged together

Greens was designed and developed by the Office

Marine Corps looks for a few good solar cells

REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK

The population of the desert city Las Vegas has

soared by over 30% in the past decade, a trend that

has severely strained local electrical companies in

terms of finding water to run through their cooling

towers (Contrary to popular belief, Las Vegas does

not get all or even most of its electricity from the

Hoover Dam Most of that power gets sent to

Califor-nia and Arizona.)

To reduce the utilities’ need for cooling water,

lo-cal electric plants are urging customers to switch to

natural-gas-powered heat pumps for cooling and

heating, which use 85% less electricity One company,

Southwest Gas, even went so far as to design an

all-gas-powered heat pump that is more efficient Key to

the project was optimization of the heat exchanger,

which relied on testing, modeling, and simulation help

from researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Tests in the lab’s two environmental chambers

re-vealed that the initial design had shortcomings Further

analysis revealed that uneven airflow across the heat

exchanger created a 10 to 15°F difference between the

warmest and coolest areas of the exchanger Normally,

this type of problem is handled by rearranging

compo-nents and making more room for air to circulate But in

this case, the fact that the heat pump had to sit on

con-sumers’ roofs limited its size and weight

Engineers at Oak Ridge used fluid-dynamics

model-ing to simulate airflow paths within the unit and then

rearranged components in it until the team came up

with a workable design that reduced temperature

dif-ferences in the heat exchanger to only 1 to 2°F while

keeping size and weight within the targeted ranges.The new heat pump is 25% more efficient than other gas-powered heat pumps on the market, which means energy savings could pay for the unit in three years The technology has been licensed to

Intellichoice Energy under the name NextAire and

has earned a spot on R&D magazine’s list of top

tech-nological advances in 2011

Oak Ridge and Southwest Gas are now trying

to boost the efficiency of a smaller residential heat pump The new appliance will use water heating and heat from the external combustion engine running the pump to improve overall efficiency The team also plans to add an alternator and storage batteries that will let the device generate and store electricity in off-peak hours MD

A better heat exchanger is key to

RS# 118 MARCH 22, 2012

MACHINE DESIGN.com

24

Fabricator Auto Metal

Craft, Detroit, uses

SpaceClaim 3D CAD

software to import

suppliers’ 3D models

for prototyping

assem-blies That’s because the

software can open files

from any CAD package,

be-cause the large number

of parts involved would

otherwise take a long

time to accurately

as-semble,” says co-owner

of Auto Metal Craft

Kevin Woody “For

in-stance, an automobile instrument

panel can have 50 parts, while an

appliance assembly can contain

over 100 resistance welds.”

Auto Metal Craft is typically working with 20

cus-tomers on a total of 80 projects at any given time At

one time, the complexity of projects, combined with

issues in converting data, kept the company from

tak-ing on more work But SpaceClaim from SpaceClaim

Corp., Concord, Mass., easily handles complex parts

and data conversion For example, engineers can

im-port several different file formats to build assemblies

and then create accurate fixtures around them With

other software, this can take up to 10 hr With Claim, it takes 10 min

Space-SpaceClaim also lets users alter designs, less of the software they were created with, instead of starting from scratch “The software lets you pull, push, move, fill, cut, and combine models,” says Woody.SpaceClaim also has features specific to the auto-motive industry that let Auto Metal Craft and other shops work in the same modular grid-coordinate sys-tem as their automotive customers

regard-Additionally, the software supports model prep for FEA, which is helpful for simulating die manufacturing

RS# 119

MARCH 22, 2012 MACHINE DESIGN.com 25

When

GORE® Electronic Materials

Enhance performance and

Laser scanning for artists?

Sculptor Somers Randolph in New Mexico not only sells his artwork, he also laser scans it and saves it as computer models These can then be

used to reproduce the original works at any size on a 3D printer NVision

in Coppell, Tex., provides the laser-scanning service

“I often spend two to three months creating a shape in marble or other stone,” Randolph says “But for 30 years, once I made and sold them, they were gone forever Although technically I still own the forms of all the sculptures I’ve sold, in the past it was never practical to store or reproduce them.”

Recently though, he discovered laser scanning, which can create computer models of physical shapes regard-less of the complexity

“I chose NVision because it can handle any size ture I send them, and they provide fast, affordable turn-around,” says Randolph

sculp-Laser scanning works by projecting a line of laser light onto the surfaces to be measured, while a camera con-tinuously triangulates the changing distance and profile

of the laser line as it sweeps along The position and entation of the scanning head is also continuously moni-tored by a highly accurate device as data is captured

ori-Instead of collecting points one by one, the scanner picks up tens of thousands of points every second This means that digitizing even the most-complicated part can often be accomplished in an hour or two

“I look forward to having all my best sculptures scanned,” says Randolph “Computer models make it easy to reproduce shapes either in plastic with a 3D printer or as a bronze casting I feel good knowing these shapes will be preserved for the future.” MD

A technician at NVision laser scans one of Somers Randolph’s sculptures

Resources:

NVision Inc.,

www.nvision3d com

RS# 120

MARCH 22, 2012

GORE® Wire and Cable

When reliability, durability, and performance can be compromised

by harsh environments, GORE ® Wire and Cables offer the best solution.

Attend Stanford University

for free – online

Professors at Stanford College of Engineering were surprised when

almost 300,000 people signed up to take one of the college’s three most

are graded automatically Exercises that test ing skills, as well as midterms and finals, are also graded automatically The tests include a variety

cod-of questions, so students can take the same test several times and be confronted with new and dif-ferent questions

Instructors say students should expect to vote at least 12 hr weekly to watching the videos, studying course materials, and doing assign-ments, just as on-campus students should How-ever, online students get only limited access to professors, though online forums let off-campus students discuss topics Unfortunately, even if on-line students complete the courses successfully, they earn no college credits or degrees MD

de-COMSOL CONFERENCE 2012 — CALL FOR PAPERS

Oct 3-5 — The 8th annual Comsol Conference on multiphysics

simu-lation is calling for paper and poster submissions Important dates

include: June 15 – Early-bird abstract submission (receive a reduced

registration rate of $195); July 27 – Final abstract submission; Aug

10 – Abstract approval notification; Aug 24 – Author registration

deadline; Aug 31 – Paper submission deadline; and Aug 31 – Poster

Professor Andrew Ng uses tablet-recording

technology he developed to instantly display

notes for his interactive video lecture.

popular engineering courses online for free this past fall

Although the courses — chine Learning, Intro to Artifi-cial Intelligence, and Intro to Databases, as well as seven others — are in English, reg-istrants come from over 190 countries Over 40% are from the U. S, and the second larg-est block of students is from India The only major country not represented is China, due

Ma-to the firewall its government erected to keep out certain information

The three new courses consist of lectures delivered

as short, interactive video clips that students can watch

at their own pace The videos include in-frame quizzes that

RS# 121

MARCH 22, 2012

Tilt-wheel suspension technology:

The F400 research vehicle from

Mer-cedes-Benz features an active

sys-tem that tilts the wheels, varying the

camber angle on outer wheels from

0 to 20°, depending on road

condi-tions Used with asymmetric-tread

concept tires, it is said

to give 30% more lateral stability than conventional systems with fixed cambers and standard tires

Better lateral stability

improves the vehicle’s grip on the road and gives it greater cornering stability.When the vehicle takes a corner, the outer wheels tilt in, leaving only the inner area of the tires in contact with the road The inner tread area is slightly rounded off, similar to motorcycle tires When driving straight, the tires’ outer portion contacts the road for good high-speed and low-noise per-formance The active camber control works with an active-suspension sys-tem This suspension adjusts springing and damping with changing road con-ditions for a smooth ride, with nearly

no body roll even under extreme cornering

30 YEARS AGO — 1982

Sophisticated gear lab opened: The

tiny feeler gage on the high-precision measuring instrument shown can de-tect minute variations on the surface of gear teeth The device is one of several new machines in a new truck-axle gear

laboratory opened by Eaton Corp The

facility is being used exclusively

to design and develop high-precision gear-ing, which will mean quieter and longer-lasting axles for medium and heavy-duty trucks, according to the company

50 YEARS AGO — 1962

Rough-water power boats, called

Zodiacs, can be deflated and stored in a valise Available in three overall lengths (from 10½ to 15 ft), the inflatable is said

to be exceptionally seaworthy, having

a large buoyancy reserve even when completely

flooded

Speed is

20 knots with an 180-hp outboard

Standard equipment (also tucked away

in the valise) includes floorboards, ing bar, apron supports, thwart, bellow, leak stoppers, and repair kit Zodiacs

lock-are built by R.F.D Co Ltd., Godalming,

Surrey, England MD MARCH 22, 2012

MACHINE DESIGN.com

28

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REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK

EXPANSION

B&R Industrial Automation

Corp., Roswell, Ga., has opened

two new engineering support and

sales offices in the U. S Besides

of-fering support, the new offices in

Mequon, Wis., and Eagan, Minn.,

will offer seminars and training

sessions B&R delivers art tools to address automation challenges, including openSafety, OPC, PCs, and dedicated PLCs

state-of-the-Gems Sensors & Controls,

Plain-ville, Conn., a manufacturer of tomized, application-engineered

cus-sensors, controls, solenoid valves, and subassemblies, has opened

a 4,000-sq-ft medical-processing area at its headquarters The pro-cessing area will improve medical product manufacturing layouts by providing better material/product workflow

SOFTWARE STREAMLINES COST-ESTIMATING

PROCESS McNally Industries LLC, Green-

wood Village, Colo., has chosen Costimator cost-estimating soft-

ware from MTI Systems Inc., West

Springfield, Mass., to streamline its cost-estimating process, increase estimating speed, and enhance the accuracy of its quotations.McNally Industries is a provider

of product design, testing, and build-to-print manufacturing ser-vices, as well as a prime contractor for hydromechanical and electro-mechanical systems MTI Systems offers cost-estimating, quoting, and process-planning software for the manufacturing industry

AWARDS Omron Industrial Automation,

Schaumburg, Ill., presented Braas

Co with its “Distributor of the Year”

award for outstanding sales formance in Iowa and Wisconsin Braas Co., Eden Prairie, Minn., is a distributor of industrial automa-tion products

per-NAME CHANGE Phillips Plastics Corp., Hudson,

Wis., is in the process of

chang-ing its name to Phillips-Medisize

Corp., to reflect its acquisition of Medisize Inc.

The company’s new domain site

will be phillipsmedisize.com

How-ever, the company will continue

to operate both medisize.com and

phillipsplastics.com for the

foresee-able future

RS# 123 MARCH 22, 2012 MACHINE DESIGN.com

30

TOGETHER WE CAN

GROW YOUR BUSINESS

When you’re looking to move your business to

the next level, you have a partner in Molex We

provide the most dependable solutions for the

most demanding applications A complete suite

of Brad automation products for connectivity,

www.molex.com /brad/md RS# 124

Multiphysics tools let you build simulations that accurately

replicate the important characteristics of your designs The

key is the ability to include all physical eff ects that exist in

the real world Order a free CD containing 700 multiphysics

presentations at www.comsol.com/conference/cd

METAL FORMING: Fluid-Structure Interaction

(FSI) in the cast and mold of an aluminum extrusion

process The isosurfaces show the dynamic viscosity

in the non-Newtonian aluminum fl ow.

Bring ideas to life with

REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK

industrial-gear manufacturer

Uni-gear Industries Inc David Brown

is a provider of industrial gearing support and solutions

EIS Inc., Atlanta, a subsidiary of Genuine Parts Co., has acquired

the assets of Light Fabrications

Inc (“Light Fab”) in Rochester, N. Y

Light Fab is a custom-engineered fabricator of flexible materials EIS

is a distributor of process als, production supplies, specialty wire and cable, and value-added fabricated parts Genuine Parts is

materi-a distributor of replmateri-acement pmateri-arts for the automotive and industrial markets

BOARD ANNOUNCES NEW FOUNDING MEMBER

The National Workforce

Solu-tions Advisory Board has a new

founding member — Ron Bullock,

chairman of Bison Gear and

Engi-neering, St Charles, Ill Sponsored

by ACT Inc., the National force Solutions Advisory Board strives to build a common frame-work for workforce development that links education and workforce development, aligns workforce development with industry needs, and matches individual skills with employer requirements

own-Gilman USA own-Gilman is a provider

of mechanical slides and spindles

STOCK MARKET LISTING CUI Global, the parent company

of CUI Inc., Tualatin., Oreg., is

listed and trading on the NASDAQ Capital Market The company also completed a $10,000,000 equity

raise with the help of Merriman

Capital Inc and its London

advi-sor, Prosdocimi Ltd MD

dressed to recipients @animatics.

com will continue to be received

and forwarded.)

ACQUISITION David Brown, Traverse City, Mich.,

has acquired Montreal-based

ACQUISITION UPDATE

Animatics, Santa Clara, Calif.,

ac-quired by Moog Inc., East Aurora,

N. Y., last year, will shortly unveil

a new logo — Moog Animatics

The company says that all e-mail

should be addressed to recipients

@moog.animatics.com (E-mails

ad-RS# 125 MARCH 22, 2012 MACHINE DESIGN.com

32

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RS# 126

RS# 127

Do we need a

sustainability

standard?

Last issue, Machine Design carried an article about Underwriter Laboratories’

ULE 880 Sustainability for Manufacturing Organizations It’s for manufacturers

that want to tout their sustainability credentials to eco-conscious consumers

(UL is also working on a version for service-providing companies.)

Here’s a little about the standard It covers five domains, which cover

sustain-ability, the environment, and even human rights The domains break down

into seven prerequisites, 19 core indicators, 74 leadership indicators, and 25

innovation indicators, and companies can earn 1,025 points after totaling the

score from all those indicators With categories carrying ambiguous titles such

as internal stakeholder engagement, product stewardship, workplace integrity,

and human-rights issues, the process of filling out the form(s) to apply for

cer-tification will probably make income taxes seem simple And companies must

reapply every year or at least be reaudited, showing they improved to maintain

ULE 880 certification But is all this necessary?

There are already established standards that cover these factors ISO 14001,

for example, helps companies protect the environment OHSAS 18001 covers

workplace safety, and OSHA and states have reams of laws covering the same

topic Finally, for those who want proof they’re on the right side of human rights,

there’s SA 8000

It’s also fair to ask how another layer of nonvalue-adding bureaucracy will

help companies survive and thrive All the money, man-hours, and resources

poured into gaining ULE 880 certification will not make products better or less

expensive Large companies, such as carmakers and telecommunication firms,

might establish a new department to satisfy ULE 880 requirements and handle

the paperwork Some already have a Vice President of Sustainability

Mean-while, smaller job shops and manufacturers looking to “brand” their

sustain-ability will pile more “small tasks” on already overworked employees This is yet

another distraction from jobs they were hired to do

If engineers are doing their jobs, products they design and manufacturing

processes involved will use as little energy and as few raw materials as

pos-sible and still meet EPA, FDA, and applicable regulations Good engineers also

specify legally obtained materials that are least expensive but fulfill application

requirements They don’t get bonuses for increasing the amount of wasted

materials or specifying rainforest woods and gold when pine and steel will do

Good engineering is inherently environmentally conscious And no successful

company exposed to real competition can tolerate wasteful designs and remain

in business for long

But sustainability certification has an upside: it creates new jobs For

ex-ample, one group of people ready to cash in are the consultants They will

hap-pily become sustainability auditors, willing to oversee a company’s ULE 880

submission Others will become sustainability facilitators who will gladly (for a

fee) navigate companies around ULE 880 pitfalls and toward certification And

as sure as the sun rises, software companies will develop sustainability tools

tar-geted at streamlining ULE 880 certification

As an experiment, I’d like to run an ULE 880 audit on a medium-sized

company’s efforts at gaining that ULE 880 certification Tote up all the CO2

ex-pelled by clerks verifying and compiling long lists of facts and figures, count the

trees cut down to supply the paper, and the coal burnt to power the computers

crunching the numbers and processing reports And don’t forget to account for

all productivity lost because the Dept of Sustainability needs its figures ASAP I

think such an audit would reveal that sustainability isn’t quite sustainable

— Stephen J Mraz RS# 128

MARCH 22, 2012

ADVANCED MANUFACTURING

Engineers at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Rapid Prototype lab used the facility’s Arcam EBM machine to build the entire articulated robot arm, including the hand.

Arcam AB in Sweden recently

patented an electron-beam

melting (EBM) technique that

ad-ditively builds complex parts out

of titanium The process

economi-cally builds parts at relatively low

volumes EBM is thus suitable for

the orthopedics and aerospace

and defense industries Similar

to other additive techniques, a

“sliced” CAD model of the

com-ponent is transferred to the

work-ing memory of the machine The

production chamber is loaded

with metal powder and a high

vacuum is drawn A high-power

(3.4-kW), computer-controlled

electron beam melts thin layers of

the metal powder, based on each

CAD layer, gradually building up

the part The vacuum ensures melt

purity and good end-part material

properties

In principle, users can use any

metal or metal alloy, says Arcam

President Magnus René “But

be-cause most manufacturers use the

machines to build hip and knee

implants and aerospace parts,

we keep the focus on titanium.”

Arcam has commercialized several

titanium alloys that comply with

current industry specs Customers

can also use alloys from different

suppliers

Electron-beam melting lends

itself well to orthopedic implants

that are designed to have specific

lattice structures “The bone grows

into the lattice spaces and fixes the

implant in a stronger way than do

conventional machined implants,”

says René “Today, roughly 2% off

all hip implants worldwide are

manufactured on an Arcam

ma-chine For additive manufacturing,

that is a large number.” The

tech-nique can also be used to build

perfectly dense implants Roughly

1.2 million hip and knee-implant procedures are carried out world-wide every year

“Most people think that EBM is used mainly to make patient-spe-cific implants,” says René “But it is also widely used to make standard implants,” he says “Companies compete for a slice of that market with many different products For example, divide the 1.2 million into, say, 10 different manufactur-ers, divide the result into maybe two or three designs, and then di-vide every design into 10 different sizes — what comes out is around 4,000 implants/company/year.”

In aerospace, electron-beam melting is still at the stage where companies are mostly making prototypes and manufacturing low-volume parts for defense, says René “A big advantage is weight savings To produce a part with

a conventional manufacturing method and make it lighter means more machining More machining means higher costs But with elec-tron-beam melting, only the mate-rial necessary to build the part is used So it is less costly and faster

to use electron-beam melting for certain aerospace parts than it would be to, say, CNC cut them on

a multiaxis machine tool Parts are not only less costly, they are just as strong,” adds René

Also important in aerospace

is that EBM can generate parts difficult to build using any other technique “For example, electron-beam melting can use titanium aluminide, a material notoriously difficult to machine,” says René.The machines can produce parts from about 12-in diameter

by 10-in high down to ½ × ½ ×

¼ in (for spinal implants)

“Like all other manufacturing technologies, engineers must design for the process,” says René

“Those skilled at designing for an additive technology will have no problem designing for electron-beam melting For example, for parts that will be cut, it might not make sense to design in a lot

of detailed features In contrast, electron-beam melting imposes

no penalty whatsoever to design with lot of curves or intricate shapes MD

36