To squeeze more performance from electric motors, engineers seek to minimize vibration and noise. This article highlights use of tolerance rings to mount motor bearings. Research shows that joints are less stiff than traditional press-fit or glue mounts, helping provide smoother operation — and extended bearing life.

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Designing equipment for oil exploration has objectives common to many bearing applications. But getting results in harsh environments requires exceptional components. Options include the first radial bearings using synthetic diamonds. They promise more load carrying capacity and up to 10x longer life for drills, pumps, and other heavy equipment.

Identification of unknown alloys often requires many steps before quantitative analyses can proceed. An X-ray technique automates the determination, saving time and reducing need for skilled technicians. The technique could prove useful in electroplating, finding alternatives for leaded solders, and verifying thickness and content in precious metals.

If you haven't kept your screw fastening tool inventory up to date, consider this thoroughly modern hybrid torque driver. It's the first torque control system that uses both air and electric power to set and control torque. The tool also automates screw counting, ensuring installation of all fasteners at the assigned torque setting.

Thermoplastic advanced composites offer amazing design flexibility to meet stiffness or strength to weight ratios. This video describes a process that offers: lower cost, faster manufacturing, and reduced scrap. It showcases composite parts, including a tough-as-titanium helicopter load floor comprised of carbon fibers and PEEK.

Seeking a roofing material that can withstand golf-ball sized hail and wildfires, one manufacturer selected a rigid polyurethane foam plastic. The simulated wood shakes are lighter weight, fireproof, and nearly non-absorbent. They resist fungus growth and freeze-thaw that can cause splitting, warping, and deterioration of wood materials.

Among copper alloys, beryllium copper scores well in hardness, strength, and wear-resistance. Add corrosion resistance, and you have a formula for hardware, including conductive springs. Adding silver plating helped widen this battery spring line, and raised the electrical and thermal conductivity to almost 70% of solid copper.

A few minutes can make all the difference in disaster avoidance. This hydraulic sleeving system offers a lower-cost alternative to metal shielding or re-routing hose lines, yet can contain 6,000 psi bursts and 3,000 psi pinhole leaks at 212 F. Energy and fluids are dispersed safely through channel clamps at the hose ends.

When there's plenty on the line, fear of failure does keep people from taking risks. The creative paralysis that fear of failure causes can keep new ideas off the drawing board, or lead to missed chances at product or process improvement. In this Honda Racing video titled Failure: The Secret to Success, winners talk about failures that motivated them to later successes.

Wonder cars like the Bat Mobile and Knight Rider's do-everything Trans Am wow us on the silver screen. But, have you ever wondered what technologies might go into real cars for real-life good guys? An answer comes in the first-ever car designed specifically for police. Among the technology features are: ballistic protection, voice activated controls, automatic license plate readers, night vision, and radiation detection.

Sustainability: Let the Market Choose

The push for green has paled in the dipping economy. Is product design sustainability down for the count? Consumers vote with their pocketbooks. Should government push reform, or should a free market decide?