Weight reduction in cars and other applications is driving use of innovative technologies such as glass microspheres in plastic compounds. Noble Polymers, a compounding business of Cascade Engineering, has developed a low-density polyolefin formulation using 3M glass bubbles that reduces the weight of TPO plastic parts up to 20 percent. A part on display at the 3M booth at this week’s National Plastics Exposition in Chicago incorporates glass bubbles (10 percent loading) to reduce weight of a seat frame from 2.25 pounds to 2.05 pounds. The glass bubbles replaced talc, and weight reduction wasn’t the only benefit. “We increased the flow of the compound by using specialty additives with the glass microspheres,” says Tim Patterson, business unit manager of Noble Polymers, Grand Rapids. MI. As a result, the mold cavity filled better for the complex design. The glass bubbles improve dimensional stability, reduce density and cut back on warpage, according to Louis J. Lundberg, business manager for transportation markets for the 3M Energy and Advanced Materials Division, St. Paul, MN. 3M announced a new line that has isostatic crush strength of 30,000 psi, expanding applications in several engineering plastics. These microspheres are 40 percent stronger than 3M’s previous leading high-strength glass microspheres and, at 17 microns, are approximately half their size. 3M Performance Additive iM30K has a density of 0.6 g/cc.
The 100-percent solar-powered Solar Impulse plane flies on a piloted, cross-country flight this summer over the US as a prelude to the longer, round-the-world flight by its successor aircraft planned for 2015.
GE Aviation expects to chop off about 25 percent of the total 3D printing time of metallic production components for its LEAP Turbofan engine, using in-process inspection. That's pretty amazing, considering how slow additive manufacturing (AM) build times usually are.
A $1,500, hand-operated, bench-model, plastic injection machine crowdsource-funded via Kickstarter can be used to mold small, quality, plastic parts inexpensively, on demand.
The federal government is launching competitions to kickstart three more manufacturing innovation institutes, including one focused on Lightweight and Modern Metals Manufacturing Innovation.
The airframe of Airbus's A350 XWB consists of a bigger proportion of carbon-fiber-reinforced composite structures than any other commercial jet to date: over 53 percent by weight.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 5
Early in my career, I worked as a draftsman and remember the days of drawing on vellum with numbered pencils and Mylar with plastic lead. This was a fun experience in the sense that I ...
I've been using workstations for more than 10 years and love finding ways to get more performance from my system. With demanding professional applications that require more power each ...
A lasting memory from my first job as an engineer in an auto assembly plant is standing on hard concrete at six in the morning, vending-machine coffee clutched in hand, listening to ...
For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution.
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