bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Beating the Cold
Authors: Hutchinson Harry
Published: July 2018

This article focuses on aspects of an onboard fuel-distilling system aims to curb the belch of hydrocarbons from a cool starting engine. According to an expert, feeding an engine high-volatility fuel during warm-up can halve the hydrocarbon emissions during a 30-minute drive. Ronald Mathews, along with Rudy Stanglmaier, a former University of Texas Austin doctoral student now with the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, and two Ford engineers, Wen Dai and George Davis, have patented an on-board distillation system that can refine fast-evaporating species from fuel while the engine is running and set aside the product as a reserve to be used at start-up. Among the key elements of the system is a level sensor in the reserve tanks. If the reserve falls too low, a control system in the engine central processing unit will trigger the distillation while the engine is running warm. The research for the technology, called the onboard distillation system, was supported in part by the Texas Advanced Technology Program, with Ford underwriting the patent application process.
Blackout Punch
Authors: Raplee Jack
Published: July 2018

A California landscaper discovers an unorthodox solution to rolling blackouts, using remote power generation. The AuraGen remote power unit, under the hood of Sepulveda Building Materials’ service truck, could provide enough power to keep the company operating during a rolling blackout. With the onset of the summer months, rolling blackouts are likely to continue, possibly with increasing regularity as California’s energy crunch extends. The result is that many companies will still suffer more from the lack of power supply and the increasing heat. The mainframe computer, an IBM Power P C, is networked and communicates with the other stores using Strata model telephone tie lines from Toshiba Phone Systems. Al Fergades, director of vehicle maintenance for Sepulveda, suggested that the company run cables to his service truck and use the power from the onboard generator. The company has been able to evaluate exactly which office machines need to be operating when a power outage occurs again, because now it has had the chance to think about it.
Gears from Scratch
Authors: Sharke Paul
Published: July 2018

This article discusses plastic gears that are ideally suited to the power transmission demands of a rotary sprinkler. They operate in wet conditions without oil or grease. Despite many advances in plastic gear technology, users of metal gears have not begun trading in all their current cogs for plastic versions. In order to reduce the chance of plastic gears jumping teeth in its sprinkler head, Hunter Irrigation molded an asymmetric tooth on the pinion that drives the ring. According to an expert, mold enough of them and plastic gears eventually compete with, then surpass, the economics of metal gears. Closter, New Jersey-based Intech Corp. has developed a method of cutting gears from plastic to take advantage of the material’s strengths. LNP Engineering Plastics Inc. of Exton, Pennsylvania, makes pellets for manufacturers of plastic parts. Ed Williams, an LNP application development engineer and chairman of the AGMA Plastic Gearing Committee, said that despite limited engineering data for plastic gears, designers can find other ways to determine how well certain materials will suit an application. Compiled wear data exists for plastic based on thrust washer wear tests, for instance.
Heat Out of Small Packages
Authors: Joshi Yogendra
Published: July 2018

Compact cooling devices are taking shape to deal with the next generation of computer chips. One of the research projects, conducted at the University of Maryland under initial sponsorship from several private companies and federal government laboratories, studied liquid cooling. In order to avoid the design complexities associated with direct liquid cooling, and to make the device of near-term applicability to systems designers, the research team at Maryland decided to use indirect liquid cooling. The university researchers focused on the use of two phase thermosyphons to meet these requirements. Researchers conceptualized a two-chamber, closed-loop device with an evaporator chamber at the chip and a condenser some distance away connected through tubing. The working fluid tested in laboratory experiments was the dielectric coolant PF 5060 made by 3M Co. The University of Maryland and Hewlett-Packard team selected two test beds to evaluate the performance and ease of integration of these devices within existing high-performance computing systems.
High-Tech Healing
Authors: Thilmany Jean
Published: July 2018

Charles Taylor, an assistant professor in the surgery and mechanical engineering departments at Stanford Medical School, and his team are pioneering a method of modeling patients’ vascular systems to customize operations to each patient’s arterial system. He claimed that he will extend the worlds of computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided engineering (CAE) from the purview of engineers to that of vascular surgeons. A software program developed at Stanford University predicts improvement in blood flow yielded by vascular surgery options. A geometric model of an operative plan shows a contour plot of blood pressure at peak systole. With the Aspire system, doctors can compare the results of a bypass procedure with the surgical prediction modeled before the operation, as shown on this part of the system’s user interface. The Aspire system displays medical images downloaded from the actual patient slated to undergo vascular surgery, so surgeons can tailor the operation to the individual.
The Cold Reality of Power
Authors: Hull John R. , Phelan Patrick E.
Published: July 2018

This article highlights large-scale applications of high-temperature superconductors (HTS), based on copper-oxide ceramics, which have begun to occur in the United States. A number of major electric-power application projects have been undertaken as partnerships between the US Department of Energy and various companies. Superconductors are particularly appropriate for electric power applications because of the total lack of resistance in direct current applications and very low losses in alternating current. The low losses allow use of much higher current densities than can be achieved in normal conducting metals, such as copper or aluminum. An HTS transmission line has been operating at the Southwire Co. in Carrollton, GA, since January 5, 2000. Since then, the three 100-foot-long above-ground cables have supplied 1250 A at 12.4 kV to three manufacturing plants at the Southwire headquarters. During its first year of operation, the line supplied more than 5000 hours of operation at 100% load. Southwire’s HTS cables lose only about 0.5% of power during transmission, compared to 5 to 8 percent lost by traditional cables.
Space Cadets
Authors: Hutchinson Harry
Published: July 2018

This article discusses how experiments on microgravity plan to test the equations for flame behavior prediction. Houston is home to the Johnson Space Center, NASA’s headquarters for manned space flight programs. Ellington, a military base, serves as the space center’s home airport. NASA keeps a plane there called the Guppy, a freighter designed to ferry massive structures like those that will eventually wind up enlarging the International Space Station. The Guppy has a profile like Flipper swollen several stories high. The first time the team from Birmingham submitted its proposal, the idea was turned down, largely because of safety questions. The proposal went into rewrite and came back with a number of specific answers to questions of safety. The components for the experiment and the team’s trip to Houston were paid for largely by the Southern Co., a southeastern energy company where Hayes worked as a research intern when he was a student. He had talked to his boss, Steve Wilson, about money to support the microgravity experiment.
Stretching Dollars
Authors: Valenti Michael
Published: July 2018

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed technologies to lower maintenance costs for the Navy and to automate more tasks at the factory. The scope of the institute’s engineering research has also grown from its origins in textiles, ceramics, and early helicopter—or autogyro—design. Today, student and faculty researchers in Georgia Tech’s Logistics and Maintenance Applied Research Center—LandMARC—are using the latest information technology to reduce the maintenance and logistics costs for aircraft, I transit buses, and emergency vehicles. The first project undertaken by LandMARC is expected to reduce the cost of maintaining the US Navy’s aging fleet of Lockheed Martin P-3 Orion anti-submarine aircraft by more than $1 million per year. Georgia Tech and Navy personnel are concentrating on improving the diagnostic techniques for the Orion’s engine-driven compressor because it is the airplane’s single most costly repair item. The compressor supplies air to several key aircraft systems, including internal pressurization, engine start, and air conditioning.
Sole Mates
Authors: DeGaspari John
Published: July 2018

This article focuses on one of the harshest environments confronting industrial apparel that takes place where boots hit the floor of chemical and food processing plants. LaCrosse Rainfair of Racine, WI, a manufacturer of footwear and clothing, developed a dual-density outer sole that combines toughness and elasticity with resistance to chemicals, fats, and oils. The company fuses the outer sole directly to the soft upper sole of its Flex3 boot in a two-stage process. The Flexalloy compound has very good oil resistance compared with other materials used in other injection molded outer soles. This property is doubly valuable in the Flex3 boot since, by overmolding the outsole directly on the upper, the need for adhesives, which could degrade under aggressive attack and cause total product failure, are eliminated. It was observed that Flexalloy OR-based samples retain 74% of their original elongation, a property that correlates with elasticity, versus just 1% for flexible vinyl. When it is immersed in lard, the Flexalloy OR-based sample shrank 5%, compared with 6% and 84% swelling of the SEBS styrenic and thermoplastic olefin, respectively, and 13% shrinkage of the flexible vinyl.
Necessary Tools
Authors: Thilmany Jean
Published: July 2018

This article reviews that the rate of discovery obtained from an experiment or a computational model is enhanced and accelerated by using parallel computing techniques, visualization algorithms, and advanced visualization hardware. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, MD, team believe that high-performance computing speeds discovery within the sciences. It defines advanced computing methods as those technologies that possess capabilities beyond current state-of-the-art desktop computing. Visualization tools, for example, now extend beyond the three-dimensional computer-aided design model viewable on a desktop computer to include virtual reality software and hardware. A cave automatic virtual environment, called a CAVE, features four walls onto which an image is projected in 3D so that engineers feel they are standing in front of an object. Researchers at Iowa State and NIST’s engineers both say the future of technology won't happen without advanced computing methods, including visualization, virtual reality, and parallel computing.
Three Out of Two
Authors: Thilmany Jean
Published: July 2018

This article reviews computer-aided design (CAD) software that is meant to function as more than a drawing tool; design offices and general contractors are still learning how to take advantage of its full potential even as the software systems mature. CAD systems are used to sell products before they are produced, to warehouse past designs in a central library, and to describe an intended design to a parts supplier. Traditional wisdom holds that 2D CAD systems are best suited to products with simple geometries that can be easily represented without considerable interpretive errors, products such as the nozzles. Often, 2D drawings can be ambiguous and are open to errors in interpretation, especially in cases of complex designs, according to the Queensland Manufacturing Institute (QMI) report. Century Tool wanted to use the 3D CAD software to check for interferences in the design of a part a customer had charged Century Tool with building.
Long-Haul Endurance
Authors: DeGaspari John
Published: July 2018

This article reviews that lasers are being investigated as a way to uncover tiny imperfections in crucial ceramic components of diesel engines. Heavy-duty truck engines are designed to operate for a million miles or more. In their search for components that resist corrosion and wear, manufacturers have developed engine parts from ceramics, which have found their way into a number of commercial engine applications over the last 10 years. Under some conditions, the materials hold up better than steel, but they are not immune to weaknesses of their own. The machining of ceramic parts, for example, can leave them with flaws that lead to early failure and defeat their purpose. The laser technique being developed at Argonne National Laboratory is intended to inspect the quality of ceramic parts after they are machined. So far, the laser technique has been developed to look for imperfections in silicon nitride, silicon carbide, and zirconia, among other ceramic materials.
No Turn of the Screw
Authors: Sharke Paul
Published: July 2018

This article reviews about Torx fasteners that are not that easy to remove and needs better access for the removal. There had been no way to fit any other tool but a screwdriver through the hole by which he had originally tried to unscrew the fastener. Better access means that to remove the tilt wheel assembly, a job involving pressed pins and more special tools. Torx fasteners were originated in the late 1960s,when the Camcar division of Textron, developed their design to overcome some of the limitations of other screw styles. The Torx design resisted cam-out better than did Phillips screws. It also reduced the drive angle to 15° from the high 60° angle of hexagonal socket head screws or the still higher 90° angle of the square socket, or Robertson, screw. The new Textron design also relies on a vertical sidewall as a way of increasing a drive bit’s engagement.
Building it Better
Authors: Valenti Michael
Published: July 2018

This article analyses strategies that are improving manufacturing in the aluminum and automotive industries. There are also high-performance plastics that can be injection molded in a single piece to replace assemblies of several metal parts. Automated controls enhance the precision of what were once manual operations and make them safer. Replacing assembled metal parts with injection-molded plastic components often reduces the number of manufacturing steps and their related costs, as well as the weight of the finished product. Advances in instrumentation and control technologies are enabling manufacturers to automate more and more operations, with increases in efficiency and productivity beyond human limits. Ormet Aluminum Mill Products Corp. in Wheeling, WV, recently upgraded the strip casting furnace operations at its coated aluminum and foil aluminum facility in Jackson, MI, this way.
Brawn + Brains > 1
Authors: Sharke Paul
Published: July 2018

This article highlights that shape memory alloys are finding their way into more earthbound applications. Alloys of nickel and titanium, named Nitinol after their primary constituents and for the Naval Ordnance Laboratory where they were discovered, can assume two shapes, depending on their crystal structure. Exhibiting martensitic structures at low temperatures and austenitic structures at higher ones, the alloys, in effect, remember two distinct patterns. Some aspects of intelligent machines, like detecting and adjusting the offsets in part location and tool dimensions, are almost routine, yet other aspects of smart machine tools are a long way off. Some areas await basic research. Making the goal of intelligent tools no less challenging is the difficulty of getting machine tool makers, sensor manufacturers, and other suppliers to the machinists’ trade to cooperate and share ideas in a normally competitive atmosphere.
More Gasoline from Crude
Authors: DeGaspari John
Published: July 2018

This article highlights that pushing a refinery distillation column to its limits to meet heightened demand is a tricky undertaking that could result in an unwanted phenomenon called column flooding. As petroleum is distilled, various components of the crude oil remain separated from each other on porous trays inside the column. During a flood, butane, gasoline, asphalt, and other distilled crude oil products begin to commingle with each other inside the column. By knowing the actual beginnings of flooding, the operator knows how much he can push the column to distill more products. The flooding predictor will identify the incipient flood point regardless of the grade of crude oil and will provide the operator with information to reduce throughput when necessary. The US Department of Energy has awarded a cooperative research and development agreement to second point. The Motiva refinery in Norco has signed on as a partner to run the flooding predictor on a commercial-scale distillation column. Data from those tests will be fed into the ongoing work at the University of Texas.
Children of the Corn
Authors: Ehrenman Gayle
Published: July 2018

This article discusses that ethanol is a renewable fuel that is already well-entrenched and poised to spread into new arenas. Early in the automobile era, ethanol actually had a chance of becoming the primary fuel instead of the alternative. EI0 accounts for 10 percent of all gasoline sold in the United States. Its major advantages are that the ethanol fraction, derived from corn or other biomass, is reliable and renewable, and it is clean burning, composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. Ethanol is set to grab an even greater percentage of the gasoline blending market, due to the banning of the most commonly used gasoline additive, methyl tertiary butyl ether, in California, New York. In order for ethanol to become more widely used as a fuel, either the cost of production must be significantly reduced or a national standard, mandating the use of renewable fuels and providing incentives for their use, will have to be issued.
Power Player
Authors: Goodwin John L. , Mahr Daniel
Published: July 2018

This article discusses about power station, the Nucla Station, Nucla. This station meant a new fuel source and a major upgrade of the coal handling system, to trim production costs and enable the plant to process more of a lower-grade fuel. Nucla had the modest beginnings in the Rural Electrification Authority program, when Colorado Ute constructed it in 1959. The station had three stoker-fired boilers, each serving a 12-MW steam turbine. The plant provided reliable power to a scenic, but remote area on the western slope of Colorado. A primary advantage of AFBC technology is its ability to use lower-grade fuels that would perform poorly in other boilers. Tri-State reviewed Nucla’s fuel requirements and potential sources. The plant was trucking in coal from more than 100 miles away, which added a considerable cost. This expense could be trimmed if a local coal source was available. The combination of a new, cheaper source of fuel and a better, more economical coal handling system now enables the 40-year-old Nucla Station to thrive as a competitive power generator.
Retooling Cafe
Authors: DeGaspari John
Published: July 2018

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is focusing attention on fuel economy rules for light trucks. Some suggestions for reforms to certain CAFE standards have been published by the National Academy of Sciences in January 2002 in a report that examined the effectiveness of CAFE. The report suggests revising the structure of the light truck standards to reduce incentives to lower vehicle weight, because of the argument that weight increases safety. NHTSA is currently soliciting public comment for its possible CAFE reforms. The agency has not come up with definite targets for reform. It has stated some possibilities, including those in the National Academy of Sciences report, but is open to suggestions at this point. The National Academy of Sciences report analyzed the cost-effectiveness of the application of existing technology on various classes of cars and light trucks. The bottom line of the analysis is that proven technology can cost-effectively improve fuel efficiency, with light trucks showing the biggest opportunity for improvement.
Tuned to the Universe
Authors: Gibson Tom
Published: July 2018

The Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope has advanced the knowledge of astronomy with some key discoveries. It assisted in observing the first known double-pulsar binary systems, improving astronomers’ understanding of pulsars and allowing the most precise test yet of general relativity. The telescope would have an offset feed arm, meaning the sub-reflector at the focal point would lie outside the path of incident radio waves, increasing the viewing area by as much as 10 percent. Measuring 100 by 110 meters, the telescope’s oval reflector dish has two acres of surface area. The surface would consist of 2004 panels that could be adjusted in and out to fine-tune the shape of the surface. The basic structure of the telescope consists of the rotating lower section, known as the alidade, and the tipping structure, which tilts within it. The telescope operates over a greater band of wavelengths than any telescope before it and points with greater accuracy. It can zero in on targets within an arc-second, the angle subtended by a dime from a mile away.
Running On Air
Authors: Lisa Kosanovic
Published: July 2018

This article highlights that although much attention has been paid to fuel stream cleanliness, there has been little focus on the cleanliness of intake air, which is critical to proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell operation in two ways. First, air supplies the oxygen needed to complete the electrochemical reaction that produces electricity. Second, air carries water, a byproduct of the process, out of the fuel cell. Otherwise, water would flood the cell and prevent oxygen from doing its part. Los Alamos scientist Francisco Uribe believes that proton exchange membrane fuel cells are much more elegant than combustors, because they operate the way nature operates. Burning is an inefficient, brute-force method of extracting energy from fuel, but using electrochemical reactions to draw chemical energy out of the fuel is similar to what the human body does to get energy. Moreover, like the human body, a PEM cell can recover if it is exposed to fresh air after poisoning from certain contaminants, such as carbon monoxide.
From Foul to Fuel
Authors: Ehrenman Gayle
Published: July 2018

This article reviews a new approach to fuel cells that turns wastewater into clean water and electricity. Operating and maintaining a wastewater treatment plant is a costly proposition. New fuel cell technology that generates power while it cleans wastewater may offer a way to make clean water more available for developing and industrialized nations. Increasing the power output is another major goal. While the first-generation device did not provide much power, a more recent iteration of the microbial fuel cell generates enough electricity to power a small fan. The first generation of the design proved that it is possible to generate fuel and clean water using wastewater as a medium. Logan and his team are working on ways to boost the power production of the microbial fuel cell, lower the cost to produce it, and transition it from the lab to a mass-production device.
Simplifying Complexity-Again
Authors: Brown Alan S.
Published: July 2018

This article focuses on the advantages of technology over manual intervention. Products are made to order in a process that spawns a stream of changes to CAD drawings, technical specifications, bills of materials, assembly instructions, and other documents. The secret of Swagelok’s success is workflow software, which helps automate and manage repetitive business processes, such as engineering change orders, document revision, review, and design release. It lets a computer automatically route drawings and documents to every person who needs them. Workflow software creates a single system for gathering all of the necessary history, measurements, and models. Swagelok and Evernham use workflow software to control and track the movement of information. Many larger companies, on the other hand, have used workflow software to move data automatically among applications. Such complex workflows are usually part of a larger product lifecycle management solution.
Eyes on the Line
Authors: Ehrenman Gayle
Published: July 2018

This article discusses vision-enabled robots that are helping factories to keep the production lines rolling, even when the parts are out of place. The automotive industry was one of the earliest to adopt industrial robots, and continues to be one of its biggest users, but now industrial robots are turning up in more unusual factory settings, including pharmaceutical production and packaging, consumer electronics assembly, machine tooling, and food packaging. No current market research is available that breaks down vision-enabled versus blind robot usage. However, all the major industrial robot manufacturers are turning out models that are vision-enabled; one manufacturer said that its entire current line of robots are vision enabled. All it takes to change over the robot system is some fairly basic tooling changes to the robot's end-effector, and some programming changes in the software. The combination of speed, relatively low cost , flexibility, and ease of use that vision-enabled robots offer is making an increasing number of factories consider putting another set of eyes on their lines.
Design with Depth
Authors: Thilmany Jean
Published: July 2018

This article discusses that how mechanical engineers will pair their already-familiar computer-aided design software with not-so-familiar three-dimensional (3D) displays for true 3D design. This is in accordance to a number of vendors' intent on supplying the newfangled computer monitors, within the next two decades. Although some of the devices are already on the market, affordable 3D monitors and displays seem to be more than a decade away, according to one university professor at work on such a project. Widespread adoption is still hindered by factors such as cost, software availability, and lack of a mouse-like device needed to interact with what’s on screen. Over the past 25 years, mechanical engineers have witnessed evolutionary change in design methods-from pen and paper to two-dimensional software and now to 3-D computer-aided design. While software makers have stepped up with sleeker and faster modeling capabilities, visualization lags. Computer users two decades out will carry out all business, web surfing, and gaming on 3-D displays. That next generation may well find the very idea of 2-D monitors to be as dated as record albums seem to teenagers today.
A New Dawn for Diesel
Authors: DeGaspari John
Published: July 2018

This article reviews that diesel engines are more expensive than gasoline engines and the lower fuel prices in the United States make buying decisions based on fuel economy alone unlikely. Many of the advancements have gone largely unnoticed by US drivers, who still view diesels as workhorses for large trucks. But some proponents of diesel say that a combination of higher torque, better fuel economy, and smooth, quiet engine performance could sway a significant number of drivers here to consider diesels for smaller, personal-use vehicles. Diesels provide better fuel efficiency than gasoline engines do and are well suited to heavy loads and continuous driving. Hauling a heavy load up a steep grade, the difference in fuel economy could be as high as 75 percent compared to conventional gasoline engines. Diesels could make a bigger impact on fuel consumption from a fleet perspective in this country, where people favor larger vehicles, than in Europe. Diesels deliver higher torque at lower speeds than gasoline engines, allowing drivers to get away with a comparatively smaller, lower horsepower diesel without sacrificing acceleration or towing capacity.
The China Road
Authors: Brown Alan S.
Published: July 2018

This article highlights China’s unusual combination of low wages, modern technology, and an enormous potential of internal market. It is easy to see that labor and materials costs are cheaper in China, but it is harder to pin down the costs of stolen intellectual property, complex supply chains, inflexible manufacturing schedules, and project management overhead. Low-cost labor and high-tech manufacturing have made China the leading destination for companies looking to cut costs by outsourcing production. China’s combination of low labor costs and modern technology-aided by lax intellectual property enforcement makes it a manufacturing powerhouse. It’s increasingly prosperous internal market enables efficiencies of scale. It takes time and commitment to make Chinese manufacturing relationships work. In some cases, they may not work at all. As companies learn the hidden costs of outsourcing, they may find it does not yield the promised savings. This is especially true for products that require customization, proprietary technology, or quicker reaction to market trends.
The Petroleum Bomb
Authors: Shultz George P. , Woolsey R. James
Published: July 2018

This article highlights the dependence on petroleum and its products for the major share of the world’s transportation fuel create special dangers in our time. These dangers are all driven by rigidities and pot entail vulnerabilities that have become serious problems because of the geopolitical realities of the early 21st century. Those who reason about these issues solely on the basis of abstract economic models that are designed to ignore such geopolitical realities will find much to disagree with in what follows. Although such models have utility in assessing the importance of more or less purely economic factors in the long run. The attractiveness to the consumer of being able to use electricity from overnight charging for a substantial share of the day’s driving is stunning. The average residential price of electricity in the United States is about 8.5 cents per kilowatt-hour.
Efficient—And Vulnerable
Authors: Singer Bryan
Published: July 2018

This article focuses on Internet-based technology that has amply increased the productivity of factories, but the simple act of giving an Internet protocol access to a plant-floor device makes it a potential Internet target. Everything on Internet-based systems, from trade secrets to the main control system of a production line, needs protection from this new set of risks. In managing risk of any kind, including risk associated with our information systems, the challenge we have as manufacturers is in knowing what to protect and how to protect it. Companies need to protect the systems that provide value to their businesses, but they must apply protection in proportion to the risk and value. People must know security processes and procedures, and must follow them. Continual training is necessary to keep employees informed and aware of what they must do to protect the factory and its information. Policies are put in place by management and describe how people are expected to comply with the processes and procedures, and management must enforce those policies and procedures.
Different Strokes
Authors: Abrams Michael
Published: July 2018

This paper discusses the designs and development of human-powered vehicles (HPV). Several new records have been set with what are called HPV. In the space of three weeks, Fast Freddy Markham sets a new record for the longest hour-long ride-53.34 miles-an d Greg Kolodziejzyk put more miles under his tires in 24 hours than anyone in human-powered history, 650.5. Markham and his foes have a chance to ride their HPVs only at competitions, since they need a crew to help get them in and out of their sealed shells. Weaver has set many speed records himself and has beaten Markham in several top speed races. Markham's approach makes the most sense for an hour-long race, where there is plenty of time for experience to shine and technology to break down. It is found that while Markham's hour-long record is likely to remain unbroken for sometime Weaver still holds the US record for top speed, having hit 78.02 mph in his Cutting Edge in 2001.
Right On Track
Authors: Hutchinson Harry
Published: July 2018

This article describes features of the U.S. National Rail Safety Action Plan. Under this program, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) the agency is addressing numerous factors that can contribute to accidents. Some of its solutions are procedural, addressing human behavior and the effects of fatigue. Others involve evolving technology meant to assure that the road itself is safe. The track technology promises to let the railroads perform predictive rather than reactive maintenance on their roads. According to FRA, its National Rail Safety Action Plan, begun in 2005, is working. After a three-year plateau, the total number of accidents declined slightly, about 2.4 percent, in 2005 and dropped by 8.5 percent in 2006. The FRA argues that the rules are not based on scientific observation, and to correct that, the agency is developing statistical models based on work histories that will predict when fatigue may be nearing a critical point.
Why Hands Matter
Authors: Brown Alan S.
Published: July 2018

This paper illustrates various aspects of technological advancements in designs and functioning of prosthetic hands. Schunk, a top supplier of robotic grippers, believes humanoid hands will make robots more flexible and eliminate tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of auxiliary equipment. Shadow Robot's hand can grip an egg or a pair of pliers. The company is building hands that mimic human motion for service robots, which will act like valets to perform a variety of tasks for their masters. With a hand, a robot could determine if it could get to a part and then configure its hand to get to the location and grasp the part. Touch Bionics’s i-LIMB hand combines an independently powered thumb and index finger with three fingers that move in unison. Muscle contractions in the forearm control its movement. It can peel a banana, lifting a credit card off a table, or holding a briefcase. It is expected that surgeons in hospitals may use robotic humanoid hands to perform delicate operations in remote locations.
Robots of the Sea
Authors: Borchardt John K.
Published: July 2018

Remotely operated vehicles (ROV) capable of operating at greater depths are under development by research institutions and commercial manufacturers. ROVs are essential to the development of offshore oil and gas reserves below ocean waters 3000 to 4000 meters deep. ROVs come in many shapes and sizes. Heavy-duty models can weigh several tons and have 250-horsepower motors. The largest are used to dig trenches for laying underwater pipelines. ROVs of 15 kilograms or less can examine the interior of pipelines and other small cavities or carry out tedious operations, such as checking ship hulls for terrorist devices. Larger ROVs are used at depths down to 1000 meters. DOER Marine in Alameda, California is working with Northern Illinois University to develop an ROV capable of being lowered through a borehole drilled though an ice sheet to enter the underlying ocean. ROV manufacturers are working toward super-reliability, so that vehicles can be put on the sea floor to operate for six to eight months at a time and be based at subsea facilities.
The Death of the Filing Cabinet
Authors: Thilmany Jean
Published: July 2018

This paper highlights managing engineering documents electronically—that is, via a computer system on which users share files—enables all engineers to be on the same page, literally. But benefits extend far beyond what is called as version control. Those engineering firms that need to keep documents to comply with regulatory requirements find the software to be vital. Digital management prevents too many cooks (or engineers) from spoiling the design soup by ensuring only one person at a time gets to make changes to a drawing or document. Workflow management means incipient designs can pass between pertinent mechanical engineers, analysts, and manufacturing engineers at the proper time in the design cycle. The experience of the engineers at AWB Engineers, a consulting firm in Salisbury, Md., is pretty typical of the benefits of managing documents electronically. While the engineers there were doing their best to control the overwhelming number of documents, CAD files, change orders, and the like that flowed through the company every day, managers still ran into trouble.
5 Myths
Authors: Cerri Steven
Published: July 2018

This report highlights that nearly every mechanical engineer confronts the question of whether to move into management, and every manager is faced with selecting a new manager from the ranks of the engineering staff. By most accounts, this selection process is at best hit-and-miss, with as many new engineering managers succeeding as failing. One myth states that because you are doing such a good job as a mechanical engineer, you can obviously manage other mechanical engineers doing tasks similar to yours. Another myth states that if you learn a few basic “concrete skills” like Microsoft Project, or how to conduct performance reviews, or how to develop schedules and budgets, or learn the corporate policies and procedures, then you can be a manager. There is also a belief that management ability will come to you if you spend time working with other managers in your organization. Once managers and potential management candidates understand the importance of people skills, self-awareness, and communication skills, the selection of the next management candidate is a process based upon training and the willingness of the candidate to venture into a new area of career development.
Self-Help
Authors: Skakoon James G.
Published: July 2018

This article discusses various aspects of self-help. In popular psychology, self-help is all about solving personal problems without professional intervention. In mechanical design, it implies letting the design deal with a problem from within, rather than intervening with more structure or force. The article also illustrates that authors on self-help like to organize variations of the self-help principle into taxonomies; however, categorizing is often unnecessary. One of the examples of self-help is balanced doors, which have special, articulated hinges so wind does not blow them open. Yet they open easily, and fully, when pulled or pushed. Self-help is an important feature of the control surfaces-rudders and elevators-on many airplanes. Balance weights on the opposite side of the pivot reduce the pilot&s control column forces and eliminate flutter by changing the center of mass. Examples in the article highlight that a half-nut for a lead screw drive can benefit from self-help.
Mightiest Wind
Authors: Winters Jeffrey
Published: July 2018

This article explores the increasing use of wind turbines for generating power. It also discusses that changing the economics of wind power can make it more practical for deep-ocean turbines to harness strong, steady offshore winds. Engineers around the globe are focusing on creating conventional motors that can improve performance of wind turbines. Companies have found that a direct-drive generator built with superconducting windings would produce twice as much power per volume as a conventional generator, with a small parasitic loss due to cryogenic cooling. The prospect of producing more power per tower, which would be the net effect of using 10 MW turbines, might enable more offshore wind projects to become economically feasible. Sinovel, a Chinese generator company, is already planning to build 5 MW machines using existing technology. Once 10 MW machines become available, it is conceivable that they would quickly adopt them for offshore installations. It would be a step toward clearing the coal-fed brown haze that envelopes much of East Asia.
The Power of the Past
Authors: Thilmany Jean
Published: July 2018

This article discusses how some young engineers, fabricators, machinists, artists, and plumbers are helping revive old steam engines for art and archaeology's sake. The volunteers at Kinetic Steam Works labor to recondition steam engines that will power kinetic artistic installations. Since its inception, the collective has restored a steamship and sent it down the Hudson River as part of an artistic excursion. It has created and demonstrated a Baker fan—originally used to test the horsepower that a steam engine generated. Similarly, William Gould, a design consultant in San Diego is also trying to revive old steam engines. With help from original blueprints and SolidWorks computer-aided design software, he has detailed an 1879 Mason Bogie locomotive to discover exactly how it operated, something historians could not quite determine. Photoshop software allowed him to exactly match the train's color scheme based on a few paint chips from an original model.
Performance Testing on Transonic Rotors
Authors: Gannon Anthony J. , Hobson Garth V.
Published: July 2018

This article discusses the performance testing of transonic rotors at the Turbopropulsion Laboratory at the Naval Postgraduate School. The Mach number is one of the most important parameters in the case of high-speed compressors. In order to limit power consumption in a test machine, the simplest change is to scale down the machine. A second concept to reduce the power consumption of the machine once it has been scaled down is to throttle the flow before the rotor rather than after it. As a high-speed rotor compresses the incoming air by around 1.4–1.6 times, the air leaving it is appreciably denser than that coming in. If one throttles upstream of the rotor, the exhaust air leaves the machine at atmospheric pressure, which means that the incoming air is below atmospheric pressure. With upstream throttling, care has to be taken to provide long enough ducting ahead of the test compressor to present as uniform as possible flow after the flow rate measuring nozzle.
Safety First
Authors: Lewis Peter R.
Published: July 2018

This article analyses distinct reasons why defective products reach market and measures that engineers need to take while designing safe and reliable products. The article also presents different case studies of product failure and what should be learnt from these disasters to prevent them from happening in future. Sometimes these mistakes are made from misguided sense of frugality. One of the case studies is about the largest class-action lawsuits ever filed in the United States involved the failure of domestic plastic piping installed for hot water heating systems in the late 1980s. Warnings of premature failure must be heeded if future disasters are to be prevented, especially for large structures where inspection is mandatory. Investigators suggest that rather than be embarrassed by engineering failures, engineers should study them to understand why things went so wrong. Product failures must be analyzed by unbiased investigators, individuals who cannot be pressured by overzealous managers or finance officers. However, all engineers should be aware of their basic responsibility to design safe and reliable products.
Cooling the Electronic Brain
Authors: Bar-Cohen Avram , Geisler Karl J. L.
Published: July 2018

This article discusses findings of some immersion cooling studies carried out to define the potential of direct liquid cooling of three-dimensional chip stacks. Four possible immersion cooling strategies were assessed. These included two active cooling strategies and two passive cooling strategies. The cooling densities for all four immersion cooling techniques were determined assuming the use of Fluorinert FC-72, a commonly used perfluorinated dielectric liquid. For passive systems, the cooling densities ranged from 25 W/cm3 for natural convection to 200–400 W/cm3 for pool boiling. For active technologies, the densities were 100–300 W/cm3 for forced convection and more than 2000 W/cm3 for flow boiling. It was found that the optimum die spacings for both single- and two-phase direct cooling was in the range of 0.2–0.6 mm for typical microelectronics geometries, though substantial cooling densities could be achieved at less-than-optimum spacings.
Our Boiler Feedwater Pumps Just Do Not Perform Like Before
Authors: Wamsley Gary
Published: July 2018

This article discusses the performance problems associated with process water pumps. It highlights that at a boiler steam load in the 25% to 40% range, an automatic recirculation (ARC) valve is simply not accurate enough to detect a minimum pressure differential change of possibly 1–2 psig when the boiler drum level control valve closes for short-duration process demand changes. Converting the ARC valve to an electronic controller does not work reliably either. The amperage change is difficult to discern at low feedwater flow rates. Failure of the valve to open is a recipe for pump cavitation and becoming “steam bound.” If the boiler trips on “low water,” plant production can be affected immediately. For larger boilers with high-capacity, high-horsepower feed pumps, the ARC valve often becomes an energy conservation (cost) issue.
Performance Optimization of Wind Turbine Rotors with Active Flow Control (Part 1)
Authors: Pechlivanoglou G. , Nayeri C.N. , Paschereit C.O.
Published: July 2018

This article describes the performance optimization of wind turbine rotors with active flow control. The active Gurney flap concept was tested in the wind tunnel under dynamic AoA variations to simulate unsteady inflow conditions. A high-deflection micro flap was actuated by four digital electric servos with a maximum deflection rate of 360°/sec. A custom code was created to allow dynamic AoA variations of the test wing with simultaneous dynamic force measurements. During the dynamic investigations, various control strategies were tested, starting from standard PID controllers with semi-empirical parameter tuning models to Direct Inverse Controllers with neural network tuning strategies and pure self-learning neural network controllers. The results of the closed-loop measurements using the manually tuned PID controller showed a reduction potential for the dynamic lift loads in the range of 70% as well as a stable controller behavior. The Direct Inverse Controller not only showed a load reduction of 36.8%, but also significant improvement potential with respect to its fine-tuning.
Solar Hybrid Combined Cycle Performance Prediction: Influence of GT Model and Spool Arrangement
Authors: Barigozzi G. , Franchini G. , Perdichizzi A. , Ravelli S.
Published: July 2018

This article investigates the influence of GT Model and Spool Arrangement on solar hybrid combined cycle (CC) performance. To investigate the way the GT interacts with the solar system, two commercial codes were used. A “user-defined” GT model was first developed on the basis of design conditions performance, then carefully calibrated against manufacturer data to accurately predict its off-design behavior depending on load and ambient temperature conditions. To assess the influence of GT model and spool arrangement on the solarized CC performance, the following GTs were selected: the single-shaft Siemens SGT800 and two two-shaft engines: the heavy-duty GT Siemens SGT750 and the aeroderivative GE LM6000. It was observed that the single-spool SGT-800 assures the lowest power penalty. The SGT-750 appeared to provide the highest fuel saving in the middle of the day, both in winter and summer, and the highest solar fraction as well.