Joining & Assembly

Miniature Spring Performance Tester

In order to qualify miniature springs, manufacturers of these systems rely on commercially available testers that are designed for large-scale springs (>0.5" diameter). Commercially available spring test...

Answering Your Questions: With EV Battery Assembly, Why Adhesives Over Fasteners?

A reader asks an industry expert why adhesives are a better option for battery assembly in electric vehicles.

Cable Construction for Machine Vision Connectivity

Along with the onslaught of Internet of Things (IoT) and wirelessly enabled devices, cloud connectivity has become a major benefit for a range of applications from commercial to military. As of...

New on the Market: August 2019

Circular Connectors Binder USA, Camarillo, CA, introduced the 720 Series of miniature circular connectors with a snap-in IP67 twin distributor. The distributor — a single male connector into two female...

Combustion Gas Heat Exchanger

Two very challenging problems facing the U.S. and the world are energy security and global climate change, largely due to dependence on fossil fuels. Cost-effective technologies have been developed that are capable...

Nickel Titanium Alloy Ball Bearings

Innovators at NASA's Glenn Research Center have developed a new method for making small-diameter, high-grade ball bearings that are less than 0.25” in diameter thanks to the development of a new alloy made...

Light-Activated Micro-Pump

Even the smallest mechanical pumps have limitations, from the micro-fabrication techniques required to make them to the fact that there are limits on their size. A laser-driven photoacoustic microfluidic pump was...

A Work of Art: Researchers Create Complex Actuators, Automatically

MIT's new way of automatically creating actuators is a bit like solving a Rubik's Cube.

New Products

Fully Automated Beam Monitoring System Ophir-Spiricon (North Logan, UT) has announced Ophir® BeamWatch® Integrated, a fully automated, non-contact laser measurement system designed to measure critical beam parameters in...

New on the Market: July 2019

Sensor Controller The induSENSOR MSC7401 sensor controller from Micro-Epsilon, Ortenburg, Germany, is used for displacement and distance measurements and is operated with LVDT and LDR measuring gauges and...

New Products

Rotary Ball Spline NB Corporation of America (Hanover Park, IL) released a rotary ball spline that can be used for both rotational and linear motion. Applications include SCARA robots, the vertical shaft of assembly equipment,...

New on the Market: June 2019

Code Generator dSPACE, Wixom, MI, offers Version 4.4 of TargetLink code generator software that features controller modeling with MATLAB® code from MathWorks. It describes algorithms and behavior directly with...

Calculating the Estimated Fatigue Life of a Disc Spring

In discussing fatigue life, it is important to distinguish between disc springs and conical spring washers, as they differ by design and intended usage. Conical spring washers are designed...

Plastic Bearings Redefine the Wheelchair

For wheelchair users, the feeling of uneven ground can seem all too familiar. Determined to make ride discomfort a thing of the past, Israel-based SoftWheel has completely reinvented the wheel for a...

Joining Gun Bonds Metal and Plastic in Seconds

The connection of plastics and metals poses a challenge due to the different physical properties of the two materials. All conventional joining options, such as bonds using adhesives or rivets,...

Cryogenic Cam Butterfly Valve

Typical butterfly valves cannot seal at both ambient and cryogenic temperatures. At cryogenic temperatures, valves grow and shrink, changing critical dimensions such as distance between the disc and seat. Ideally,...

Rotary Electrical Contact

Researchers have developed a fundamentally new type of rotary electrical contact that addresses the two limitations of conventional brush/slip ring technology: 1) short operating lifetime due to sliding-contact wear,...

A Leech-Like Robot Climbs Up the Walls

Doctoral Programs student Ayato Kanada came up with his leech-like robot in a place you’d least expect it: His bathroom.

Facility Focus: NASA Marshall Space Flight Center

Founded on July 1, 1960, Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL is one of NASA’s largest field centers. Marshall engineers designed, built, tested, and helped launch the Saturn V...

Industrial Blue Lasers

What Does It Takes to Change the Game? Industrial lasers are integrated into manufacturing and fabrication facilities around the world. Every moment, there is an industrial laser somewhere that is cutting, etching, or...

Advances in Laser Welding Technology

There have been many changes in laser technology over the past 30 years. With each advancement comes new challenges and opportunities. The CO2 laser with 10-micron wavelength was king for many of those years...

Miniature Bearings Play a Major Role in Mars 2020 Mission

TimkenNorth Canton, OHwww.timken.com As NASA prepares for the launch of its newest Mars rover in 2020, Timken engineers have designed and tested its miniature precision bearings for the...

5 Ws of Foldable Mechanical Devices

Who Manufacturers across medical, space, aviation, military, and automotive industries could use the technology to build complex machines that integrate with surfaces to be very compact, but can deploy to do...

New on the Market: May 2019

Position Sensors Novotechnik, U.S., Southborough, MA, introduced Vert-X 2900 Series sensors that measure angular position and are available in single or redundant versions. Users can specify configurations including...

Understanding the Basics of Gas Spring Application

When choosing a gas spring for a particular application, it’s imperative to have a basic understanding of the workings and terminology used when specifying gas springs. This article offers...

New Products

Bearing Sensor ABB (Zurich, Switzerland) introduced the ABB Ability™ smart sensor that enables health checks for bearings. The smart sensor technology provides an early indicator of potential problems by assessing the condition...

New on the Market: April 2019

Wave Springs Smalley, Lake Zurich, IL, announced a Nested Spirawave Wave Springs series. The multiple-turn, flat wire wave springs are coiled in parallel to produce two to three times as much force as traditional...

Extrans Permeation Measurement System

Many applications in science and industry require an apparatus that creates a controlled amount of a fluid introduced into another fluid. For instance, some material corrosion testing applications require...