The Metal Processing Institute (MPI) at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), Mass., announces that it has been selected as one of four core academic facilities for the American Lightweight and Modern Materials Manufacturing Innovation Institute (LM3I).
Continue readingMissile canard for use in EAPS test flight
Liquidmetal Technologies Inc., Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif., delivered missile canards that are being fitted for a future test of Lockheed Martin’s (Bethesda, Md.) EAPS (Extended Area Protection and Survivability) missile.
Continue readingFlame-sprayed silver protects 40-ton generator rotor
RFI Screening Ltd., England, has selected Metallisation MK61 Flamespray equipment from Metallisation Ltd., England, to metal spray a 40-metric-ton generator rotor with fine silver. It was first sprayed with a 25-micron coating of molybdenum, to optimize the adhesion of the top coat of silver. A final coating of silver was then added to achieve the specified outside diameter on the shaft. In a typical application, a coating 250 microns thick of silver would be sprayed.
Continue readingWooden this be some skyscraper
For HSB Stockholm’s architectural competition 2023, three teams of architects produced innovative proposals for private residences of the future at three different locations in the center of Stockholm. Berg | C.F. Møller Architects are working in partnership with architects Dinell Johansson and consultants Tyréns on their entry. The team chose to build upwards, and has designed a 34-story residential building, which will be seen for miles.
Continue readingNIST Measurement tool targets the MEMS industry
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, Md., created a new measurement tool to help device designers, manufacturers, and customers see eye-to-eye on eight dimensional and material property measurements that are key to device performance.
Continue readingInstron LumeGen bioreactor provides controlled pressure and flow to 3D vessels
Instron, Norwood, Mass., is collaborating with the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh to understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms of ascending aortic aneurysms in patients with bicuspid aortic valve and other heritable disorders. Instron TGT will be providing the instrumentation and mechanical environment to develop a model and evaluate the diseased state in vitro.
Continue readingTimken to spin off engineered steels business
The Timken Co., Canton, Ohio, announces that its board of directors has approved a plan to pursue a separation of the company’s steel business from its bearings and power transmission business through a spinoff, creating two publicly traded companies. A leading global manufacturer of carbon and alloy bar, producing ingot-cast and continuous-cast steel bars for the automotive, bearing, energy and industrial market segments, the separation is designed to improve performance in both companies.
Continue readingContact Resonance Viscoelastic Mapping enables imaging of elastic and viscoelastic moduli
Asylum Research, an Oxford Instruments company, Santa Barbara, Calif., announces Contact Resonance Viscoelastic Mapping Mode, an option available exclusively for Asylum’s Cypher and MFP-3D Atomic Force Microscopes. Contact Resonance (CR) enables high resolution, quantitative imaging of both elastic storage modulus and viscoelastic loss modulus.
Continue readingConnecting the drops with 3D printing
Researchers from North Carolina State University, Raleigh, developed 3D printing technology and techniques to create free-standing structures made of liquid metal at room temperature. “It’s difficult to create structures out of liquids, because liquids want to bead up. But we’ve found that a liquid metal alloy of gallium and indium reacts to the oxygen in the air at room temperature to form a ‘skin’ that allows the liquid metal structures to retain their shapes,” says Dr.
Continue readingGrieve announces 550°F floor-level cabinet oven
Grieve Corp., Round Lake, Ill., announces the No. 1030 cabinet oven, a 550ºF floor-level electric cabinet oven, currently used for heating large gears at the customer’s facility. Workspace dimensions of this oven measure 48 x 48 x 60 in. The 40 kW heating system is installed in Incoloy-sheathed tubular elements to heat the oven chamber, while a 2000 CFM, 2-HP recirculating blower provides horizontal airflow across the workload. This oven features 6 in.
Continue readingFW Gartner licenses technology for laser cladding of steel rolls from South Africa’s CSIR
FW Gartner Thermal Spraying, Houston, and South Africa’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) have signed a licensing agreement on a laser cladding technology developed at CSIR. The agreement follows the earlier development of a novel laser-based process for the cladding of steel processing rolls, a key component in steelmaking, CSIR said. The technology was tested and proven at ArcelorMittal’s Vanderbijlpark plant over the past five years.
Continue readingAlfe helps design and heat-treat chassis and suspension for solar-powered car
Alfe Heat Treating, Fort Wayne, Ind., sponsor of the University of Texas Austin’s Solar Power Team, helped design and build the TexSun, a vehicle with an aluminum sub-frame and chassis. The 35-pound design is much lighter than the previous model’s 80-pound steel sub-frame and chassis. “The aluminum chassis was great because it is so much lighter,” said Alfe Vice President Dan Andersen.
Continue readingNanotechnology students build low cost Atomic Force Microscope using LEGO
The world’s first low cost Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) has been developed in Beijing by a group of PhD students from University College London (UCL), Tsinghua University and Peking University – using LEGO.
Continue readingResearchers explore the microworld using haptic optical tweezers
What if you could reach through a microscope to touch and feel the microscopic structures under the lens? In a breakthrough that may usher in a new era in the exploration of the worlds that are a million times smaller than human beings, researchers at Université Pierre et Marie Curie in France have unveiled a new technique that allows microscope users to manipulate samples using a technology known as “haptic optical tweezers.
Continue readingPeacock-colored polymer is flexible and thin
A synthetic material that mimics the brightest and most vivid colors in nature and changes color when twisted or stretched was developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge, UK. It could have important applications in the security, textile, and sensing industries. Instead of through pigments, these “polymer opals” get their color from their internal structure alone, resulting in pure color which does not run or fade.
Continue readingBubble lens bends light beams
Using a few tiny liquid bubbles to bend light beams could open the doors for next-generation, high-speed circuits and displays, according to new research at Penn State, State College. To combine the speed of optical communication with the portability of electronic circuitry, researchers use nanoplasmonics-devices that use short electromagnetic waves to modulate light on the nanometer scale, where conventional optics do not work.
Continue readingTata Steel opens French plant to heat treat 108-meter train rail
Tata Steel Europe, France, has built a new $16.5 million heat-treatment facility in Lorraine for the production of new harder-wearing 108-meter rail. An induction furnace heats the rails to 950°C, and compressed air then cools them quickly. The facility will allow the company to manufacture longer lengths of “super-hardened” rail for the first time.
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