New products within the Industry

The next step in our aluminum housing series is to determine where the cup interference is going. If we press a cup with 100µm interference into a ...

The interference fit that cups should have in an aluminum housing seems to be a subject that comes across my desk in regular intervals. Of course, ...

I recently had a supplier give me a call to let me know that we had some outdated paperwork floating around that was going to wind up costing us a ...

Engineers are often challenged with the seemingly impossible task of doing more with less. Customers want more power transmitted in a smaller space, they want more efficient designs, and, of course, they want to spend less money. So engineers are always looking for ways to squeeze the most out of their mechanical systems. They’re constantly working to maximize power density, increase energy efficiency and reduce costs to meet their customers’ needs.

It seems preposterous in the whimsical, wireless world of today, but in 1977 cinema’s greatest visioneers came together and decided the pinnacle of robotic technology in the future would be a motorized trash can.

The use of motor current signature analysis (MCSA) for motor fault detection — such as a broken rotor bar — is now well established. However, detection of mechanical faults related to the driven system remains a more challenging task. Recently there has been a growing interest for detection of gear faults by MCSA. Advantages and drawbacks of these MCSA-type techniques are presented and discussed on a few industrial cases.

When comparing bearing suppliers, engineers are often left with few options other than to compare dynamic load ratings and corresponding life calculations. Of course, we can look at steel and manufacturing quality; but if we are comparing sources of similar quality, those items may not provide a large contrast. It often surprises people to learn that bearing capacities are calculated values, not tested values. Lately, however, a trend is emerging for bearing suppliers to increase their ratings for higher performance bearings that have premium features such as higher quality steel and specilaized heat treatment. Bearing companies are under intense competitive pressure to make every feature add to the dynamic capacity of their bearings because it is very well understood that an increase in capacity adds to the bottom line.

Bill Walton – a 7 foot tall anomaly from the annals of basketball history who wears tie-dye shirts, listens to the Grateful Dead and, according to his own outlandish proclamations, hasn’t taken an indoor shower in 35 years – is well-known for looking at average accomplishmentsand being overcome with extreme fits of emotion.

Questions by readers answered by Experts in the field.