When a go-kart racer knows the density of dry air entering the engine, he can tune his carburetor's efficiency accordingly and maximize performance. The problem is weather is always changing. To avoid any guesswork, John Cashon built an on-board weather station for go-karts. It monitors three atmospheric parameters (barometric pressure, relative humidity, and temperature), does the required math, and displays the dry air density on a PDA for quick, on-the-fly carburetor adjustments.
Go-kart weather station parts list
Amt
Part Description
Allied Part #
1
HIH-36010-002 humidity sensor
642-2252
1
MPX4115A barometric pressure sensor
858-4854
1
Trimming potentiometer 100 kOhm
754-1121
1
Voltage regulator +5V
568-3101
1
9V battery strap
839-3096
Additional parts required: PalmOS PDA, OrbForms Designer (OrbWorks Inc.) DAQ-100 data acquisition card (Integrity Instruments), PDA serial cable prototype board, enclosure, 9V battery, various capacitors and resistors.
Plastic may not be the most beloved of materials to the more environmentally minded, but Plasti 2012 aimed to mold a different opinion of the material in people's minds.
The rare earth element market has become steadily more rational, and new sources coming online will continue to reduce costs. Still, it is unlikely that prices will drop to their former lows.
Against a backdrop of mounting product complexity and a need to keep a lid on development costs, companies are recognizing a need to make simulation a more integral part of the design process. In response, vendors in the CAD world are building out CAE functionality as part of their CAD suites while simulation vendors are building tighter integrations to leading CAD tools. Keith Meintjes, Ph.D., Practice Manager, Simulation and Analysis at CIMdata, Inc., joins Design News CAD Editor Beth Stackpole in this radio program to explore the new face of integrated CAD and CAE, how companies are benefitting from this tighter partnership between platforms, and how integrating CAE earlier in the development cycle pays off in optimized product designs.
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