Materials & Manufacturing

Articles: Materials

Simulating Material Migration

Accurately tracking and predicting the subsurface migration of specific materials over time and over multiple phases is critical to efficient and effective strategy development and deployment in a growing number...

INSIDER: Manufacturing & Prototyping

New Fabrication Technique Creates More Efficient Plastic Solar Cells

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new strategy for fabricating more efficient plastic solar cells. The work has implications for...

INSIDER: Manufacturing & Prototyping

Technique Could Lower Costs of Making Bioplastics and Biofuel

While abundant in nature, cellulose is difficult and expensive to find in pure or high-quality form. A Swedish research team has developed an efficient, accurate, and...

INSIDER: Sensors/Data Acquisition

Supersonic Spray Yields New Nanomaterial for Bendable, Wearable Electronics

A new, ultrathin film that is both transparent and highly conductive to electric current has been produced by a cheap and simple method devised by an...

Products: Motion Control

Vertical Lift Module

Modula OnePick from Modula (Lewiston, ME) combines the company’s vertical lift technology with an automated system for picking or replenishing a single product directly from the bay. Using a secure delivery interface...

Products: Manufacturing & Prototyping

Reversible Hard Jaws

Reversible hard jaws from Dillon Manufacturing (Springfield, OH) are suitable for ID and OD workholding. The jaws are designed to hold a specific range of part sizes and are usually used for first operation workholding....

Products: Robotics, Automation & Control

Collaborative Robot

Rethink Robotics (Boston, MA) introduced Sawyer, a smart collaborative robot designed to execute machine tending, circuit board testing, and other precise tasks. The robot modifies its behavior to respond to changing and...

Products: Manufacturing & Prototyping

Manufacturing Connectivity

Sandvik Coromant (Fair Lawn, NJ) introduced the CoroPlus™ platform for connecting manufacturing tools and software. The platform gives users access to product and application data through connected software and...

Products: Robotics, Automation & Control

Part Positioners

Yaskawa Motoman (Dayton, OH) expanded its line of RM2 ferris wheel-style robotic part positioners. The positioners have two servo-driven trunnion/station axes on opposite sides of a central “sweep” axis. One station is...

Products: Robotics, Automation & Control

Automatic Multi-Pallet Changer

Midaco Corp. (Elk Grove Village, IL) offers an automatic multi-pallet changer for 5-axis and standard vertical machining centers (VMCs). It can load and unload 19 aluminum pallets, one at a time, on any new or...

Products: Robotics, Automation & Control

Cable Retraction System

The triflex® RSE pullback system from igus (East Providence, RI) uses a simple linear retraction without bends, fiber rods, or rollers. The system consists of a drylin® linear guide with carriage, elastic cord for...

Products: Manufacturing & Prototyping

Collaborative Robot

Kawasaki Robotics (Wixom, MI) introduced the duAro collaborative robot. The dual-arm, horizontal articulated robot can safely collaborate with humans in work operations due to its low-power motors, soft body, speed, and...

Briefs: Materials

Aerofoam

Aerofoam is a unique foam composite insulation with improved thermal and acoustic insulation properties. The novelty of this invention comes from combining a polymer foam with a unique inorganic filler in a way that maximizes...

Briefs: Materials

Process for Preparing Aerogels from Polyamides

Sometimes referred to as “solid smoke,” aerogels are the world’s lightest solid materials, composed of approximately 85% air by volume. Polyamide aerogels open up a whole new world of...

INSIDER: Robotics, Automation & Control

Morphing Wing Could Enable More Efficient Manufacturing and Flight

A new morphing wing architecture could greatly simplify the manufacturing process and reduce fuel consumption of aircraft by improving the wing’s aerodynamics, as well...

INSIDER Product: Manufacturing & Prototyping

BGA Socket

Ironwood Electronics (Eagan, MN) recently introduced a new BGA socket design using high performance elastomer capable of 75GHz, very low inductance and wide temperature applications. The GT-BGA-2052 socket is designed for 17x17 mm...

Products: Manufacturing & Prototyping

Product of the Month: November 2016

Wolfram Research, Champaign, IL, released Mathematica 11 technical computing software that features more than 500 new functions, including improvements in machine learning, 3D printing and geometry,...

INSIDER: Materials

Thermal Metamaterial for Waste-Heat Harvesting in Power Plants and Factories

An international research team has used a thermal metamaterial to control the emission of radiation at high temperatures, an advance that could bring devices...

News: Medical

Smart Threads Could Save Lives

Engineers are joining forces with designers, scientists, and doctors at Drexel University to produce new biomedical textiles, and the resulting smart clothes are not only fashionably functional but could also...

Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping

Low-Power-Consumption, Single-Mode Quantum Cascade Lasers Fabricated Without Epitaxial Regrowth

Quantum cascade (QC) lasers employ intersubband electronic transitions in semiconductor quantum well structures to generate emission at specific...

Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping

A Versatile Three-Dimensional Printing Approach

NASA has developed a versatile method and associated apparatus for constructing and using a conductive filament in various applications of 3D printing. It uses an attractive polymer...

Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping

Puncture-Healing Thermoplastic Resin Carbon-Fiber Reinforced Composites

NASA’s Langley Research Center has developed carbon fiber reinforced composites with self-healing properties. The initiation and propagation of damage to carbon...