Magazine

Vibration dampers have been invented that are incorporated as components within the stationary labyrinth seal assembly. These dampers are intended to supplement other vibration-suppressing features of labyrinth seals in order to reduce the incidence of high-cycle-fatigue failures, which have been known to...

An explosive bolt has been developed that has a one-sided dual initiation train all the way down to the pyro charge for high reliability, while still allowing the other side of the bolt to remain in place after actuation to act as a thermal seal in an extremely high-temperature environment. This...

A winch system provides a method for launch and recovery capabilities for kites and tethered blimps or balloons. Low power consumption is a key objective, as well as low weight for portability. This is accomplished by decoupling the tether-line storage and winding/ unwinding functions, and...

The quality of images generated during an infrared thermal inspection depends on many system variables, settings, and parameters to include the focal length setting of the IR camera lens. If any relevant parameter is incorrect or sub-optimal, the resulting IR images will usually exhibit inherent...

A hybrid photochemical-machining process is coupled with precision stack lamination to allow for the fabrication of multiple ultra-high-resolution grids on a single array substrate. In addition, special fixturing and etching techniques have been developed that allow higher0resolution multi-grid...

The requirement for scatterometer-combined transmit-receive gain variation knowledge is typically addressed by sampling a portion of the transmit signal, attenuating it with a known-stable attenuation, and coupling it into the receiver chain. This way, the gain variations of the transmit and...

The push-pull framework was developed in hopes that an infrastructure would be created that could literally connect to any given remote site, and (given a set of restrictions) download files from that remote site based on those restrictions.

Space weather is described as the variability of solar wind plasma that can disturb satellites and systems and affect human space exploration. Accurate prediction requires information of the heliosphere inside the orbit of the Earth. However, for predictions using...

A random-force method has been developed to predict dynamic loads produced by rocket-engine random vibrations for new rocket-engine designs. The method develops random forces at multiple excitation points based on random vibration environments scaled from accelerometer data...

The problem of global maxima of functionals has been examined. Mathematical roots of local maxima are the same as those for a much simpler problem of finding global maximum of a multi-dimensional function. The second problem is instability — even if an optimal trajectory is found, there is no...

Time is running out to enter the 2011 "Create the Future" Design Contest. Entries for the ninth annual contest are due by June 30th. Click here to submit your design idea. Sponsored by COMSOL, Creo - a PTC product, and Tech Briefs Media Group, the contest recognizes outstanding innovations in product design,...

Sensors Unlimited — Goodrich ISR Systems, Princeton, NJ, announces the SU640KTS, a large-format indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs) high-resolution shortwave infrared (SWIR) snapshot video camera. The imager meets all Conformite Europeene (CE) and U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) standards for radiated and...