At the beginning of the 1990's a preeminent aircraft manufacturer embarked upon the first "paperless" design of a passenger jet. In keeping with this paradigm they sought a new "flexible" tooling technology that reduced the need for fixed or "hard" tooling and its attendant storage racks full of fixtures and monuments. The idea was to make use of computer-generated data sets to reconfigure a holding fixture into any form needed, eliminating the need to fabricate many different single purpose holding tools.

Almost every form of today’s consumer products – from cars to computers, appliances to aerospace mechanisms – rely on an ever-increasing number of sensors, switches and electrical connections to function properly and keep the operator informed about equipment condition. Unfortunately, every year many of those products fall victim to faulty connectors that interrupt operation and lead to component failure, thus increasing warranty claims. Applying the right lubricant to the electrical contacts can eliminate or reduce many of these problems. Find out how synthetic lubricants can increase component operating life, enhance performance and add quality to today’s component designs.

Do you finish machine builds with custom products, but find they're expensive and time consuming to design and procure?

In this illustrated eBook, we explain how to design systems incorporating configurable power transmission components with geometry perfectly tailored to your system — to boost efficiency and minimize your reliance on custom parts. Example exercises include the full design of a linear actuator, and then a detailed course on how to specify one unique, application-specific locating pin.

The manufacturing industry has faced many challenges over the past decade. Increased global competition, fickle consumers, increased product complexity, and a volatile economy have made a manufacturer's ability to quickly respond to changing market conditions vital. As a result, the ability to quickly and effectively share design data with a growing number of design participants has become crucial.

You are probably already familiar with 3D
scanning-to-printing as a way to build
scaled, facsimile models of real-world
products. But suppose you are, say, a bottle
manufacturer that needs to reverse-engineer
large handleware complete with little ribs in
the grips. Or a Tier One aftermarket supplier
needing to capture a difficult shape in an
automobile interior, such as the area between
the windshield and instrument panel. Or even
a natural history museum needing a replica of
a huge dinosaur bone for an educational exhibit.
Whatever the industry -- whether manufacturing,
health care, cultural heritage, or
even arts and entertainment -- a significant
barrier to 3D scanning has been the expense,
bulkiness, and inconvenience of traditional
equipment.

A recent independent study reports best-in-class companies are twice as likely to use fluid-flow simulation as their counterparts. However, until recently, high costs and difficult-to-use programs kept computational fluid dynamics (CFD) mostly in the hands of research, academia, and large OEMs. Fortunately, a newer approach called engineering fluid dynamics (EFD) now places CFD on the desktop of the everyday engineer. Application examples might include building a better shield for laser optics, curbing constriction in a flow valve, and improving the thermodynamic efficiency of huge heat exchangers.