Stories
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Products: Materials
Nozzles
The Lee Company, Westbrook, CT, offers single- and multi-orifice lube nozzles in a variety of configurations. The nozzles may include HI-BAR® safety screens for additional protection that can be...
INSIDER: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
A simple, inexpensive method uses ultraviolet light to control particle motion and assembly within liquids. The method encourages particles to gather and organize at a specific location within a liquid...
Blog: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Professor Jordan Raney spoke with Tech Briefs about what’s possible when you can embody 3D-printed objects with logic.
Blog: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Professor Sherry Towfighian spoke with Tech Briefs about how a new MEMS design will improve our cell phones and power lines.
Products: Test & Measurement
Laptop Computers
Eurocom, Nepean, ON, Canada offers Sky “C” Series laptop computers based on the Z370 Intel chipset and using CPU-upgrade-able, LGA1151 socket-based processors. They support up to 128 GB of...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
3D printing allows for the efficient manufacture of complex geometries. A very promising method is direct laser writing in which a computer-controlled focused laser beam acts as a pen and produces the desired...
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Painting of surfaces having numerous facets and/or curved surfaces is a time-consuming process that requires the application of several coats (layers) of paint. Such surfaces are often found on...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Lamina emergent compliant mechanisms (including origami-adapted compliant mechanisms) are mechanical devices that can be fabricated from a planar material (a lamina) and have motion that...
Facility Focus: Robotics, Automation & Control
NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) has been a leader in human space exploration for more than half a century. Established in 1961 in Houston, TX as the Manned Spacecraft Center, the center...
Briefs: Materials
Automated Fiber Placement (AFP) machines can be susceptible to tow-tape defects such as gaps and overlaps. These can reduce strength between 7% and 32%....
Briefs: Test & Measurement
Check valves are traditionally designed as a simple poppet/spring system where the spring is designed to equal the force created from the sealing area of the valve seat multiplied by the...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Soft, 3D-printed structures have been created whose movements can be controlled with a wave of a magnet, much like marionettes without the strings. The structures that can be magnetically manipulated...
Briefs: Medical
Researchers have developed a customizable soft robot that fits around a heart and helps it beat, potentially opening new treatment options for people suffering from heart failure.
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
NASA's Glenn Research Center developed a novel means of articulating the outboard portion of an aircraft wing to create the optimal geometry for given flight conditions. The Spanwise Adaptive Wing (SAW) concept employs a...
Briefs: Test & Measurement
Infrared motion detectors can cover only a limited amount of space, a person has to be within the detector's line of sight to be detected, and lights can go off when a person remains still...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
For many highly stressed engineering applications like bearings and gears, contaminated steel parts can lead to devastating outcomes such as an emergency shutdown or the end of a mission. Ensuring that these critical...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Pulsed laser vaporization (PLV) production of single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) on traditional Co/Ni catalyst was explored with respect...
Briefs: Materials
Composite Material Cools Itself Down Under Extreme Temperatures
A material, inspired by nature, can regulate its own temperature and could be used to treat burns and help space capsules withstand atmospheric forces. The research used a network of multiple microchannels with active flowing fluids (fluidics) as a method and proof-of-concept to...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
A technique was developed that uses a specially adapted 3D printer to build therapeutic biomaterials from multiple materials. The advance could be a step toward on-demand printing of complex...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
A low-cost 3D bioprinter was built by modifying a standard desktop 3D printer with a syringe-based, large volume extruder (LVE). The extruder works with most open-source fused deposition modeling (FDM)...
Articles: Communications
This column presents technologies that have applications in commercial areas, possibly creating the products of tomorrow. To learn more about each technology, see the contact information provided for that innovation.
Briefs: Nanotechnology
In biology, there are many examples where light induces movement or change — think of flowers and leaves turning toward sunlight. Magnetic elastomeric composites were developed that move in different ways...
Briefs: Aerospace
Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL) Aircraft with Vectored Thrust for Control and Continuously Variable Pitch Attitude in Hover
Most fixed-wing VTOL unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) take off vertically, then transition to horizontal flight. This is a new type of UAV that has unique capability. It can vary its hover position from “nose up”...
Briefs: Aerospace
Innovators at NASA's Glenn Research Center have designed a superior seal assembly that is durable and highly dependable in extremely harsh environments. This...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Researchers have developed a new ultrasound transducer that could dramatically lower the cost of ultrasound scanners to as little as $100. Conventional ultrasound scanners use piezoelectric crystals to...
Articles: Photonics/Optics
Ultrashort pulse (USP) lasers for precision micromachining can minimize or avoid undesirable thermal effects that limit feature resolution, edge quality and, ultimately, product functionality. This is because...
Articles: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
With the computational power and software available today, numerical simulation is a real option to quickly get answers to complicated technical, scientific, and engineering questions. Not only has the hardware doubled...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
A New Twist Makes Rotating Machinery More Efficient and Quieter
Derived from a design approach for a new wing known as PRANDTL-D, this technology achieves similar improvements for propellers and other rotating machinery.
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Reusable Breakaway Mounting Device
Breakaway devices are used to mount objects to systems or structures (for example, cars, drones, helmets, buildings) and prevent damage when the objects fall away from the system. Unfortunately, even in ideal scenarios, many of these devices have limitations. Breakaway bolts and shear pins have the complication of...
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Webcasts
Upcoming Webinars: AR/AI
The Real Impact of AR and AI in the Industrial Equipment Industry
Upcoming Webinars: Motion Control
Next-Generation Linear and Rotary Stages: When Ultra Precision...
Upcoming Webinars: Energy
Hydrogen Engines Are Heating Up for Heavy Duty
Podcasts: Medical
How Wearables Are Enhancing Smart Drug Delivery
Podcasts: Power
SAE Automotive Podcast: Solid-State Batteries
Podcasts: Power
