To assist paper mills in stopping a six week or less bearing replacement schedule, the doctor bearing was introduced in the early '90s. The multi-row radial bearings are still operating after a decade-plus of service. Adapting to white water processing, they eliminate corrosion, maintenance, paper web breaks, and unplanned downtime.

Custom parts usually boost expense, but a Midwestern antenna manufacturer found an exception to the rule. A review of options for bushings in an elevation assembly of a folding TV antenna for RVs showed that solid metal parts were more expensive than powder-metal parts and limited designers to off-the-shelf components.

CalTech unveiled super-light, lower cost structural materials that may rival titanium. Created for aerospace components, the ductility, strength-to-weight ratio, and corrosion resistance of titanium baned metallic-glass composites are dubbed the toughest engineering materials in existence. Ongoing work aims to lower densities to the sub-5 g/cc range.

Grand plan of a new NSF program: supplant the globe's commonest light source: incandescent bulbs. It's a tech that's changed little since foundational 1880s patents. RPI researchers will investigate solid-state technologies like light-emitting diodes that are more efficient, durable, and tunable than incandescent or fluorescent lamps.

If applying lubricants, sealants, UV-curing adhesives, or cyanoacrylates delivers inconsistent, unrepeatable results, think about evaluating alternatives to your benchtop dispenser. This 'air free' system's driver uses a linear drive instead of pneumatic pressure, and promises of higher repeatability, dot-to-dot, than other units.

With a decade-plus of history, digital human modeling's most significant advances may be recent tools from software vendors. They offer more integration with existing CAD/CAE systems enabling mainstream mechanical engineers to conduct analyses that had required high-end analytic tools and human factor or ergonomic specialists.

For more on this subject, subscribe to GlobalSpec's e-Newsletter DirectU2 The world of Design & Analysis Software.

What concepts dominate hardware decisions? Then also consider some new rules regarding oft-misunderstood mechanisms of friction and wear. Practical guidelines like 'prefer pivots to slides, and flexures to either'; but also lessons that might lead to low friction designs without lubricants, specialty materials, or rolling elements.

Engineers deploy technologies to protect systems from unauthorized access, accidental triggering, or harm from environmental exposure like water jets. For panel control processes, choices include tamper-resistant, momentary, or maintained action pushbutton switches. Its above-panel profile of 1.8 mm ranks among the industry's shortest.

Scientists say flexible people live longer. Others add that real understanding comes from considering both sides of an issue. So, give some ground when reading why scientists changed their minds — especially after years of arguing opposite conclusions. That's the nifty idea behind John Brockman's latest anthology, largely about technology and education. It presents the revised positions of 150 'leading thinkers' on everything from machine artificial intelligence, to football, and even to life elsewhere in our galaxy.

In the scorched, usually-cloudless desert outside Las Vegas rests one of the best hopes to furnish electrical power a lot more efficiently. It involves a new twist on one of the oldest methods of harnessing solar energy: mirrors. On a grand scale. Huge reflectors concentrate enough heat to generate steam and drive garden-variety turbines. A single square mile of mirror field can generate as much as 80 MW.

Can We Protect Intellectual Property?

How important is your company's IP? Are your top products based on protected IP? Can IP be sufficiently protected in this era of global markets and endless file sharing? Is it worth it?