Put your head against your car’s comfortable head rest and you may be resting against a pile of soy plants. The tier-one auto supplier, Lear Corp., has developed SoyFoam, a soybean oil-based flexible foam material for automotive interior applications, including the stuffing in the arm and head rests. SoyFoam has a lower environmental impact than traditional non-renewable petroleum-based foam, since it is 24 percent renewable.
Ford Motor Co. is the first automaker to show interest in Lear’s SoyFoam. In 2004, Ford partnered with Lear to commercialize soy applications with initial work concentrating on the molding of headrest and armrest components.
Lear is also collaborating on SoyFoam development with the United Soy Board’s New Uses Committee (a group of 64 farmers and agricultural industry leaders), as well as Urethane Soy Systems Co., Bayer Corp. and Renosol Corp.
Lear representatives say their “research and testing has proven that SoyFoam solutions will withstand a mass-production environment and meet or exceed performance requirements” of traditional materials.
For 3D printing to make the jump from rapid prototyping to manufacturing, engineers will need to find easier ways to move products from their CAD screens to their printers.
Gigabit and PoE are two networking technologies moving ahead in tandem as industrial users power remote Ethernet devices such as IP security cameras at 1,000 Mbps over existing CAT5 cable.
New versions of BASF's Ecovio line are both compostable and designed for either injection molding or thermoforming. These combinations are becoming more common for the single-use bioplastics used in food service and food packaging applications, but are still not widely available.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 5
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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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