Mechanical Engineering-CIME articles from January 2005

Mechanical Engineering-CIME archives from January 2005

Happy birthday!(editorial)(Joseph M. Juran)(Editorial)
January 1, 2005... A couple of weeks ago, on December 23, Joseph M. Juran, an ASME Fellow and recipient of the Society's highest award, Honorary Member, turned 100 years old. Juran is a living legend in the area of quality management. He is credited with...

Seven Sigmas flying?(letters)(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2005... To the Editor: In the article "Six Sigma for the Little Guy" in Engineering Management (November 2004), the authors, Mikel J. Harry and J. Douglas Crawford, state, "Six Sigma is equivalent to the airline fatality rate." Do they mean we...

Small beginnings.(letters)(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2005... To the Editor: It was gratifying to see the Nanotechnology section in ME magazine. ASME has been involved in nanotech for many years, at least since 1991, when I was the ASME Fellow at the Technology Administration of the U.S. Department of...

Not a disease.(letters)(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2005... To the Editor: As explained in your cover article on water ("Not a Drop to Drink," September 2003), there are significant problems to be solved in regard to supplying water (as well as food, housing, health care, energy, etc.) to the world's...

Motivated--or jobless?(letters)(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2005... To the Editor: Regarding the numbers stated in your editorial ("Engineering Over Politics," August 2004) on the number of graduate students enrolled in engineering, I think there is more to this than just citing an increase in numbers. ...

Trail blazer.(letters)(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2005... To the Editor: Paul Sharke's article in your August 2004 issue, "Not Even the Kitchen Sink," began with a summary of my son, Flyin' Brian's, through-hike of the three National Scenic Trails in 2001. Brian and I both enjoyed reading the story,...

Protecting clean water.(news & notes)
January 1, 2005... The water supply is one of the nation's crucial resources, but keeping it safe often calls for trips to a lab. There is technology for remote water quality monitoring, which can check turbidity and pH, or detect the presence of dissolved solids...

Fido back on all fours.(news & notes)(method for healing spinal injuries)
January 1, 2005... Researchers at Purdue University have successfully tested a method for healing spinal injuries in dogs, and hope it will be effective for treating human paralysis. Laboratory tests demonstrated that an injection of a liquid polymer,...

Diamond cuts glass.(news & notes)(microelectro discharge machining)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... A Pennsylvania State University mechanical engineering professor, Eric Marsh, has fashioned miniature drills and end nulls for cutting--or, more properly, machining--glass. On the level at which the tools work, glass behaves like aluminum,...

Super station.(news & notes)(matrix fault current limiter)
January 1, 2005... An experimental superconductive device designed to protect transmission lines is going to get a field test, possibly late next year. SuperPower Inc., the Schenectady, N.Y., company that developed the device, has struck an agreement with...

Ras Laffan Power Co. Ltd.(Briefly Noted)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... Ras Laffan Power Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of AES Corp., has opened the first independent power and desalination plant in the State of Qatar. The plant in the Ras Laffan Industrial City generates 756 megawatts of electricity and desalinates 40...

Adobe Systems Inc. of San Jose, Calif., which makes portable document format software.(Briefly Noted)(OKYZ S.A.)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... Adobe Systems Inc. of San Jose, Calif., which makes portable document format software, has acquired OKYZ S.A. of Paris, which makes three-dimensional collaboration software.

Bose Corp. of Framingham, Mass., acquired the assets of EnduraTEC Systems Corp.(Briefly Noted)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... Bose Corp. of Framingham, Mass., acquired the assets of EnduraTEC Systems Corp., a manufacturer of materials testing equipment in Minnetonka, Minn.

Federal Signal Corp. of Oak Brook, Ill., sold its Technical Tooling Inc.(Briefly Noted)(Sandvik Hard Materials )(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... Federal Signal Corp. of Oak Brook, Ill., sold its Technical Tooling Inc. subsidiary to Sandvik Hard Materials of Sandviken, Sweden.

Bombardier sold its interest in a freight car manufacturing joint venture.(Briefly Noted)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... Bombardier sold its interest in a freight car manufacturing joint venture, Greenbrier-Concarril, to its partner, Greenbrier Companies of Lake Oswego, Ore.

Mighty big machine.(computing)(MJC Engineering & Technology Inc)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... ENGINEERS AT A HUNTINGTON BEACH, CALIF., machine shop have built what they claim is the world's largest computer numerically controlled metal-spinning machine. Metal spinning is the process of forming a piece of flat sheet metal over a...

On the same wavelength.(computing)(software radio technology)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... TODAY'S SOFTWARE RADIO TECHNOLOGY is at the same place personal computers were in the 1970s, according to Max Robert, a post-doctoral researcher at Virginia Polytechic Institute and State University in Blacksburg. The technology will be big,...

Same as with clay.(computing)(computer-aided design system )(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... AS TECHNOLOGY GOES, so go the instruments needed to develop it. Instruments, like microscopes, need to keep up with the quick pace of innovation. With that in mind, Olympus Corp. of Tokyo recently turned to a three-dimensional,...

Keep computer engineers.(computing)(Tau Beta Pi)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... COMPUTER SCIENTISTS ARE ENGINEERS. That's what the national college engineering honor society, Tau Beta Pi, recently concluded anyway, after heated debate among members. Some members had offered an amendment to the constitution that would...

These weights are wheelchair-accessible.(computing)(Nordic Gym)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... ATHLETES WITH SPECIAL NEEDS need specialized equipment. To that end, Nordic Gym, a Swedish company that makes gym equipment, recently introduced a line of weight training equipment for use by all athletes, including the physically disabled. ...

Paid up.(computing)(mechanical engineers using software)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... A MAJORITY OF ENGINEERS, it seems, believes that the profession is paying its dues. According to a survey commissioned by the Business Software Alliance, 60 percent of engineers reported that, to their knowledge, little or no unlicensed...

X-raying flow.(computing)(X-ray imaging system used for paper recycling )
January 1, 2005... THE PAPER RECYCLING PROCESS isn't pretty. But that's fine: we don't need to see it. The problem comes for scientists searching for a way to improve it. They need to study the complex way ink particles and contaminants are removed from recycled...

Flomerics.(Briefly Noted)(version 5 of Flovent airflow design simulation software)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... Flomerics of Southborough, Mass., has released version 5 of Flovent airflow design simulation software.

Samtech.(Briefly Noted)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... Samtech of Liege, Belgium, which develops CAE software, has released Samcef for Wind Turbines to design and analyze wind turbines and their transmission systems.

Sacit Steel Advisory Centre Ltd. of Budapest, Hungary, a developer of software products for steel selection, is shipping its Equist Silver software plug-in, an integrated database of steel engineering standards, for the Solid Edge CAD program.(Briefly Noted)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... Sacit Steel Advisory Centre Ltd. of Budapest, Hungary, a developer of software products for steel selection, is shipping its Equist Silver software plug-in, an integrated database of steel engineering standards, for the Solid Edge CAD program....

3D Systems Corp.(Briefly Noted)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... 3D Systems Corp. of Valencia, Calif., has introduced Viper HA, a new stereolithography system for manufacturing.

Ansys Inc.(Briefly Noted)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... Ansys Inc. of Canonsburg, Pa., has released Ansys 9.0, which features electromagnetic, computational fluid dynamics, and mesh-creation capabilities.

Tecnomatix Technologies Ltd.(Briefly Noted)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... Tecnomatix Technologies Ltd. of Herzlia, Israel, has issued FactoryLink 7.5, software that drives industrial human-machine interfaces.

Adobe Systems Inc.(Briefly Noted)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... Adobe Systems Inc. of San Jose, Calif., has brought out Adobe Acrobat 7.0, which lets those in a workgroup manage a range of business activities as well as convert documents to the portable document format.

Gibbs and Associates.(Briefly Noted)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... Gibbs and Associates of Moorpark, Calif., which makes computer-aided manufacturing software for programming CNC machines, is now shipping GibbsCAM 2004+.

Digital Immersion Software Corp.(Briefly Noted)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... Digital Immersion Software Corp. of Detroit is shipping version two of Presenter 3D for Autodesk Inventor. The software displays digital designs as a photo-realistic image.

Wolfram Research.(Briefly Noted)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... Wolfram Research of Champaign, Ill., has released version 2 of gridMathematica. The software lets scientists and engineers develop parallel applications and deploy them on a supercomputer.

PLM for small guys.(software exchange)
January 1, 2005... Capability: The product lifecycle management TrueEdge Pack is designed for young companies that want to get started with PLM. The PLM environment includes a product data repository bundled with an array of management tools, including...

Tracking Six Sigma data.(software exchange)
January 1, 2005... Capability: Six Sigma Cockpit 3.2 manages the data and processes required by Design for Six Sigma programs. It combines product and process Six Sigma characteristics like voice-of-the customer, system requirements, critical parameters, transfer...

Laser Mouse with no tail.(software exchange)
January 1, 2005... Capability: The 1000 Laser Cordless Mouse makes use of laser illumination and tracking to move steadily over any surface. The nearly singular wavelength of laser light can reveal greater surface detail than the red light-emitting diode used in...

Nuclear power simulation.(software exchange)
January 1, 2005... Capability: Relap/SCDAPSIM-Visa is a thermal-hydraulic analysis package to simulate nuclear power plant performance during normal and accident conditions. The package uses detailed simulation models, advanced numeric and coding techniques, and...

FEA coupled with design.(software exchange)
January 1, 2005... Capability: The Nastran finite element analysis program NeiWorks can be embedded in SolidWorks CAD software to give designers immediate FEA insight into the structural, thermal, and vibration characteristics of their designs. Analysis results...

Mass transit goes lite.(Materials And Assembly)(GE Advanced Materials signed an agreement with China Railway Long Dragon New Composite Materials Co. Ltd)
January 1, 2005... The interiors of railway passenger cars in China are slated for an upgrade in advance of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. GE Advanced Materials in Pittsfield, Mass., signed an agreement with Beijing-based China Railway Long Dragon New Composite...

Better fixture.(Materials And Assembly)(kinematic couplings)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... A three-legged stool will rest flat on a floor without rocking; a four-legged stool may not. In design terms, the latter is said to be over-constrained. Designers solve a similar problem with kinematic couplings, which hold workpieces in...

Strength in nanoclay.(materials and assembly PolyOne Corp.)(Maxxam LST from )
January 1, 2005... A pair of automotive companies have begun to use a new injection molding compound that, according to the supplier, receives added resilience and strength from the inclusion of nano-scale particles of clay. The supplier, PolyOne Corp. in Avon...

Getting some backbone.(materials and assembly)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... When Eddie Paul, a noted inventor and car customizer, needed to build a mechanical shark for use on a cable television program, one of his materials sources was Sheffield Plastics Inc. The Sheffield, Mass., firm produces Makrolon, a...

Meeting less rejection.(Materials And Assembly)(CAE Services )(Mold-Vac 10,000)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... Some molds, by their very design, trap air or gas--a byproduct of the plastic--inside during the injection molding process. The trapped gas may cause imperfections, such as lines and marks on the surface of the finished plastic part. A...

Tag, you're it.(materials and assembly)
January 1, 2005... Many manufacturers hope that radio-frequency identification tags may become what the barcode was to the last quarter-century: a ubiquitous source of information on products wending their way along the supply chain. But before these tags can...

Offshore outsourcing: How far does it go?(washington window)
January 1, 2005... After some members of ASME raised concerns regarding the recent media coverage of the offshore outsourcing of professional services, the Society's Board on Government Relations conducted a confidential, random survey of 5,000 non-academic...

A new dawn for diesel: will Americans pay the price to put light-duty diesels on U.S. highways?(Fuels & Combustion)
January 1, 2005... trucking is the lifeblood of the freight business in this country and diesel engines are its beating heart. Each year some 2.6 million trucks--nine out of 10 of which are diesel-powered--haul nine billion tons of goods along U.S. highways. That...

Idle hour: truckers are the next target of the clean air force.
January 1, 2005... Pull into a rest area late at night and you'll hear them--dozens of diesels sawing away at the moonlit hours as their drivers sleep. Collectively, long haul truck idling in the United States burns more than 800 million gallons of fuel a year,...

Soup to nuts: CAD is not just for engineers anymore. In fact, it never was.
January 1, 2005... from the time she was knee-high to a grasshopper, as she puts it, Kathy Dickinson knit, sewed, and crocheted clothes for dolls. The hobby stayed with her into adulthood and, eventually, she started a small home-based business selling vintage...

Calculating risks: can the science that judges the safety of nuclear plants secure the infrastructure of a nation?
January 1, 2005... SOMEBODY HAS TO MAKE SECURITY DECISIONS, and lots of them, if the country is to spend its defense resources wisely. Money and manpower always have limits, and there are always risks left to cover. But some things need more protection than...

Engineering for the spectacle: technology on the stage keeps reaching higher.
January 1, 2005... A design revolution is taking place in entertainment, and technology is playing a major role. Just as computer graphics have enhanced movies and video games, live entertainment, too, is showcasing spectacles requiring...

The true harnessing of steam: a club of professional men in New York City became America's mechanical brain trust.(The First 125 Years)
January 1, 2005... On April 27, 1865, the steamship Sultana was chugging up the Mississippi with more than 2,200 people on board. At 3 a.m., with the boat situated about seven miles north of Memphis, Tenn., three of the four boilers powering the craft exploded....

LatchTool unveils unique hydraulic technology.(new products)
January 1, 2005... THE LATCHTOOL GROUP OF COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO., introduced its patented PowerCylinder, a product that uses a new category of high-flow check valves and integrated hydraulics that could impact a number of industries. For example, a 5-inch...

Linear actuators.(new products)
January 1, 2005... DANAHER MOTION. WOOD DALE. ILL. Portescap 20DAM Series digital linear actuators have a linear force up to 108 oz. and linear step resolutions of 0.001, 0.002, and 0.004 in. They also have 2.5 watts off power for fast response times and precise...

Flexible fittings.(new products)
January 1, 2005... CLIPPARD INSTRUMENT LABORATORY INC..,CINCINNATI, OHIO. Newly designed fittings combine the functionality of the company's Push-Quick Series with the flexibility and security of the MJQC Quick Connect line with no circuit interruption. These...

System combination.(new products)
January 1, 2005... TRANSDUCER TECHNIQUES, TEMECULA, CALIF. This system Combination is made up of the MLP, or mini low-profile load cell, and the DPM-3 panel mount meter. The system is suitable for a variety of industrial and OEM force measurement and weighing...

Trims and seals.(product information)
January 1, 2005... TRIM-LOK INC., BUENA PARK, CALIF. The company's 40-page four-color catalog details the edge trims and trim seals that are the focus of its products. It also covers plastic profiles, tools, tubing, gaskets, packaging options, and accessories....

Pneumatic selection and installation.(product information)
January 1, 2005... IMI NORGREN INC., LITTLETON, COLO. Up-to-date product and application information is available to pneumatic automation engineers in a new brochure. A module option selector shows combinations of a fieldbus I/O system. Circle 185 on Reader...

Cam clutches.(product information)
January 1, 2005... EMERSON POWER TRANSMISSION. ITHACA, N.Y. A six-page specification guide for the Morse KK cam clutch line provides information about inch and millimeter dimensions, torque capacity, maximum overrunning speed, drag torque, radial load capacity,...

Tower of power.(product information)
January 1, 2005... QUALITY TRANSMISSION COMPONENTS. GARDEN CITY PARK. N.Y. The 368-page Q460 catalog features timing belts and pulleys in 11 profiles. The belts are made of fiberglass-reinforced neoprene, and the pulleys of aluminum, steel, and nylon. According...

Fluid connections.(product information)
January 1, 2005... PARKER HOSE PRODUCTS. WICKLIFFE. OHIO. Catalog 4400 US is a guide to the company's hoses, fittings, crimping equipment, assembly equipment, adapters, and accessories. Specifications, illustrations, drawings, applications, and ordering...

Fresh air.(product information)
January 1, 2005... KAESER COMPRESSORS INC., FREDERICKSBURG. VA. An eight-page guide, Designing Your Compressed Air System, helps designers determine the right system to ensure a supply of clean, dry air at a consistent pressure. The guide addresses issues such as...

Don't move a nanometer.(global positioning system, Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory)
January 1, 2005... People have become used to the Global Positioning System pinning down their whereabouts to within a meter or so. And MEMS-based motion detectors can sense movements as small as a micron. Now researchers at Sandia National Laboratories in...