April 13, 2006

Linear actuators from Artificial Muscle Inc., Menlo Park, Calif. (artificialmuscle.com), rely on an electroactive polymer that expands or contracts in response to a voltage input.

Lean design programs cut waste that is hard to see.

With designers looking for compact bearings for turntable applications such as positioning and inspection tables or radar antenna mounts, Kaydon Bearings Div., Muskegon, Mich., designed the Real-Slim TT Series of thinsection bearings.

Aerospace engineers are on the cusp of developing composites that can repair themselves.

Innovation is more than generating novel ideas and products. It is about creating good, profitably producible, highly marketable products, and doing so on a consistent basis. That's the innovation Hamel is referring to in the quote above-not novelty for novelty's sake, but new things that are needed and wanted by the market.

On any given consulting engagement, we typically hear management lamenting its inability to hire and keep good people.

Case IH, a leading farm-equipment manufacturer, uses System E2 Energy Chain to house and protect hydraulic cables on its line of 1200 ASM Series Planters.

The Hannover Fair kicks off later this month in Germany. Hannover has long been billed as the premier industrial event in Western Europe and a place where you are likely to get a look at the latest technology Europe has to offer.

Difficulties that plague die-stamping operations include overfeeds, underfeeds, slugs, and missed hits.

Hydraulics is noted for packing a lot of power into compact packages, and today's Formula 1 racing cars are taking advantage of this feature with great success.

Modular load-sensing valves control flow and pressure, permitting simpler, more-versatile hydraulics.

Most FEA students quickly learn that finer meshes usually produce more accurate solutions.

When a job calls for designing nonstandard gearing, you might crunch through the AGMA or ISO calculations or turn to one of several gear-design programs.

Concept cars take the runway at the industry's premier show in Detroit.

Ground-fault circuit interrupters (GFCIs), also called earth leakage or residual-current circuit breakers, can sense leakage current to earth ground from live parts and interrupt the circuit automatically when leakage current exceeds a predetermined value.