Industry News

NAM Report: Workers Making Solid Gains

According to the National Association of Manufacturers’ (Washington, D.C.) Annual Labor Day Report, during the past 12 months, 95-million working Americans, representing 82 percent of the workforce, received real wage gains, and manufacturing workers led the group, earning 30 percent more than the average wage for the private sector workforce. This marks the broadest gain in real wages since 2000 when 95 percent of the workforce experienced real wage gains.

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Induction Atmospheres, Amysa S.A.
Sign Marketing Agreement

Induction Atmospheres (IA), Rochester, N.Y., and Amysa Induction S.A. of Switzerland announced a marketing relationship that covers European sales and service for IA’s VF line of industrial vacuum furnaces. Amysa will help IA expand its European vacuum furnace business. The furnaces are used to heat parts of virtually any shape in a high-temperature, high-vacuum environment. Designed for continuous flow manufacturing in the work cell, the compact furnaces are ideal for brazing or heat treating parts of unusual shapes and repairing “orphan” parts from other heating processes.

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NPL Development Improves
Thermocouple Accuracy

Researchers at the National Physical Laboratory, Teddington, Middlesex, UK, Britain's measurement standards facility, developed metal alloys that reduce the uncertainty of thermocouple temperature sensors at high temperatures to within a degree. This allows boosting the high-temperature heat treatment of jet engine components, which translates to improved material properties and more efficient engine operation.

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New Insight on How Liquids Form Bubbles

Chemical engineers at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind., claim to have discovered a fundamental flaw in the conventional view of how liquids form bubbles that grow and turn into vapors, which takes place in industrial processes and many other everyday occurrences. The findings raise questions about some aspects of a theory dating back to the 1920s that attempts to describe the underlying molecular mechanism behind a phenomenon called “homogeneous nucleation.” The research could lead to a more precise understanding of the “phase transition” that takes place when bubbles form, grow, and then become a vapor, which could, in turn, have implications for industry and research.

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ORNL Wins Tech-Transfer Awards

Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tenn., won six awards, including project of the year, from a federal laboratory group for transferring technologies to the private sector. The inventions include a new superconducting wire, a method for finding defects in semiconductors, a device that uses acoustics to detect chemical residue from a distance, high-temperature electronics for use in oil drilling, and a high-powered search engine. IC-221M cast nickel aluminide won project of the year. Furnace hardware made of the material improves the operation of heat-treating furnaces by minimizing the need for frequent furnace shutdowns, provides significant savings in energy and cost.

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GIFA, METEC, THERMPROCESS,
NEWCAST 2007 Successful Events

According to Messe Dusseldorf, Chicago, Ill., results of a visitor and exhibitor survey show that more than 97% of the 77,000 attendees and the 1,700 exhibitors gave the four technology trade fairs, GIFA, METEC, THERMPROCESS and NEWCAST (held June 12-16, 2007) good ratings. THERMPROCESS 2007, 9th International Trade Fair and Symposium for Thermo-Process Technology, had 289 exhibitors compared with 276 in 2003. More than 7,000 visitors (up by 27% over 2003) attended the event to gather information on the area of thermo-process technology and 45% came from outside of Germany. Interest was mainly in industrial furnaces and heat treatment systems (75%), fireproof and heat insulating furnace components and machines (34%), and measurement and control technology and data communication (26%).

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