Every day, many
thousands of people around the world use powder inhalers for the treatment of
respiratory diseases. These devices are predominately made from plastic parts.
Some are manufactured by Almirall Sofotec, one of the top 80 pharmaceutical
companies in the world in terms of sales, and market leader in its native
Spain.
When designing military ground vehicles, lighter is always better. Engineers in the U.S. military are well aware of the challenge of reducing
weight, particularly for the next generation of military vehicles still in
development. One such vehicle is the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle or JLTV.
The growing desire to reduce fuel consumption has caused manufacturers of all modes of transportation to be more willing to implement the use of light-weight materials, even where there is a cost penalty. However, use of new materials in a given application always carries some risk that must be mitigated through analysis and testing.
ArvinMeritor has opened a new 100,000-square-foot facility in Canada to remanufacture transmissions, axle carriers and steering gears for heavy trucks.
July 26 marked the 20th anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act. The law has changed our physical and social landscape, but we still have work to do.
Manufacturers
are always looking for ways to maximize their skilled employees. One way is to
free them from lower-valued tasks-such as pulling carts and delivering palletized
materials. Daimler Trucks NA LLC is one such manufacturer
that has found a more cost-effective way to complete these tasks: use the GT3
tugger, a vision-guided industrial mobile robot.
Crash
dummies are crucial in evaluating the performance of side curtain air bags in a
rollover. First Technology Safety Systems Inc. manufactures crash test
dummies and computer crash simulation models for automotive, military and
aerospace applications. To confirm that the new design matched dummies
built from the original mold, FTSS used a hand held laser scanner.
In late 2009, the NASA
Engineering and Safety Center completed a series of critical, full-scale,
physical tests to help predict how the Composite Crew Module would
perform under simulated flight conditions. Performed at Langley Research
Center, the tests focused on material tradeoffs between metals and composites
in space structures.
On Jan. 11, 2010-exactly
three years to the day that the Chevrolet Volt concept car debuted-General
Motors manufactured the first advanced lithium-ion battery for the Volt at its
Brownstown Battery Pack Assembly Plant in Brownstown Township, MI.
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