If you think Superman is fast, talk to Marcus Knudsun. His "Z accelerator"
uses a magnetic field to hurl tiny plates at speeds up to 20 km/sec. At 20 times
faster than a bullet fired from a rifle, the tiny plates are fast enough to
leave most Superheroes in the dust and also help aerospace and
telecommunications engineers simulate how space debris affects the metal skin of
orbiting satellites and space observatories.
Knudson is a physicist at Sandia National Labs who is researching how
materials react to pressure and temperature. "The impact velocities of space
debris can be quite high, on the order of 20 km/sec.," says Knudson.
"The amount of mass that is launched to high velocity is limited to a pellet
weighing a couple hundred milligrams," he says. "The technology will allow
testing of debris shields, something that would be of interest to NASA and the
communications industry."
The technique is said to be the fastest, cheapest, and easiest way to
determine how materials react to high pressures and temperature. The
characteristics are expressed in formulas called "equations of state." The
equations aid the understanding of how materials react in extreme applications.
For more information, contact Knudson at (505) 845-7796 or mdknuds@sandia.gov.
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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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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