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Manufacturing & Prototyping

Composites and Economic Success

SAE International’s book, Economics of Composites, captures the state of the composites industry to assist engineering/technical professionals in charting a course for achieving economic success. The book...

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Materials

Polycarbonate Film Grade

Covestro’s (formerly Bayer MaterialScience) Makrofol SR906 is a polycarbonate film that offers good scratch and weathering resistance, making it suitable for use in automotive instrument panels. The clear, transparent film has a gloss-gloss surface finish. It is capped with a functional acrylic layer that includes an...

INSIDER

Software

Tool Nondestructively Characterizes Structural Materials as they Deform

Materials scientists are busy developing advanced materials, while also working to squeeze every bit of performance out of existing materials. This is particularly true...

News

Manufacturing & Prototyping

Lubricants for Cabin Noise Reduction

Lubricant solutions from Klüber Lubrication reduce stick-slip and eliminate cabin noise generated by vibration and friction in automobile interiors. Klüberalfa MR 3 is designed for friction points in vehicles where improved sliding and noise-damping behavior are required. The invisible oil remains in the lube...

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Manufacturing & Prototyping

Acoustic Engine Layer

Basotect TG melamine foam from BASF is used for the acoustic layer in Volkswagen EA888 engine covers. The use of Basotect on the engine cover helps to address multiple challenges faced by automakers: it provides enhanced...

Product Briefs

Materials

Light-Metal Shot Blasting

Walther Trowal’s new continuous feed tumblast machines have been specially adapted for gentle shot blasting of light metals like die-cast and forged aluminum and magnesium components. (Pictured is a forged...

Product Briefs

Manufacturing & Prototyping

Spot Welding of Non-Ferrous Metals

Coldwater Machine’s new SpotMeld system, available from its Solid State Joining Center, is based on Refill Friction Stir Spot Weld (RFSSW) technology. The system enables spot welding of aluminum (1000-7000...

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Materials

Conveyor Coating System

mycon GmbH recently implemented and commissioned the first coating device that it fully developed during the past several years, for a large industrial company in Ostwestfalen-Lippe. The customer’s inquiry led to the...

Technology Report

Manufacturing & Prototyping

High-Strength Aluminum Powder Developed for Additive Manufacturing in Aerospace, Automotive

Metal laser melting has made a successful leap from rapid prototyping to an approved manufacturing technology, and the method is increasingly becoming...

Briefs

Aerospace

Thermal Response of Ultra-High Molecular Weight Polyethylene (UHMWPE) Materials in a Flash Flame Test

Testing was performed on Ultra-High Molecular Weight Polyethylene (UHMWPE) fabric and composite material in a flash flame environment when...

Product Briefs

Aerospace

High-Temp Fluorosilicone Elastomers

Dow Corning unveiled a significant enhancement to its Silastic fluorosilicone rubber (FSR) portfolio at the SAE 2015 World Congress, developing a more heat-resistant FSR technology for applications in which...

Product Briefs

Automotive

CNC Marking Tool

A new generation of BZ-Marker marking tools from Markator makes it possible to easily change the marking pin by using pliers to pull it out; it is no longer necessary to send the marking tool to the manufacturer to change the pin. The BZ-Marker is suitable for CNC machining centers to generate a durable marking on many different...

News

Manned Systems

Styrolution Targets Interiors for Styrenics Growth

Based in Frankfurt, Pierre Juan manages sales and technical teams across 19 countries as the Global Automotive Vice President at Styrolution. The company describes itself as the leading...

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Automotive

Growing Natural Tire Rubber in North America

Despite ongoing advances in polymer chemistry and biochemistry, natural rubber made from rubber trees continues to be crucial to the global tire industry. This is because synthetic rubber often...

INSIDER

Energy

NASA Tests Aircraft Wing Coatings that Slough Bug Guts

Bug guts create drag, and drag increases fuel consumption. But aircraft of the future could be made more fuel-efficient with non-stick coatings NASA recently tested on Boeing’s...

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Automotive

Aluminum Frame Rails, New Alloy Castings from Alcoa Help Cut 2500 Lb from Tractor-Trailers

A custom tractor-trailer technology demonstrator built by Alcoa is outfitted with various current and “soon-to-be-available” aluminum solutions...

Product Briefs

Automotive

Nanotube Additive

Zyvex Technologies announces the Zyvex Nanotube Technology (ZNT) product family. Available online, ZNT is a polymer-modified carbon nanotube additive for a range of host matrices including epoxies, elastomers, thermoplastics,...

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Automotive

Hino Tweaks Materials to Improve Wear Resistance of Synchromesh Gears, Sleeves by 45%

Performance improvements in commercial vehicles (CVs) that serve to reduce driver fatigue as well as increase comfort and operability are important in the...

News

Materials

Cadillac Pursues Aluminum/steel Mix for New CT6 Luxury Sedan

Next fall, Cadillac’s new top-of-the-line model, the CT6 sedan, rolls out of General Motors’ big Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant and onto dealership sales floors nationwide...

Product Briefs

Manufacturing & Prototyping

Additive-Manufacturing Alloys

NanoSteel expands its additive manufacturing (AM) material capabilities to support metal 3-D printing of complex high-hardness parts and to customize properties through gradient material design. By delivering...

Technology Update

Manufacturing & Prototyping

Altair Optimizes 3D-Printed Structures for Complex, Lightweight Designs

Altair expects to better support the use of additive manufacturing (AM), or 3D printing, by releasing new OptiStruct solver capabilities for topology optimization. The...

News

Materials

Safety Screens

The Lee Company offers a wide variety of safety screens designed to protect critical fluid control components from rogue contamination. These screens are not intended to serve as system filters. Lee’s new boss mount strainers...

Product Briefs

Manufacturing & Prototyping

Low-Alloy Steel for Injection Molding

Product designers and engineers can now get injection-molded low-alloy steel prototypes and low-volume production parts at rapid manufacturer Proto Labs, Inc., to complement the company’s existing...

Product Briefs

Aerospace

High-Strength Steels

SSAB has launched Strenx, a new high-strength structural steel product brand that offers an extensive portfolio of high-strength steels designed for sectors where structural strength and weight savings are key competitive factors, especially in the lifting, handling, and transportation industry, where product is lifted and...

News

Automotive

Nano-Coating for Corrosion Protection

Daubert Chemical’s next-generation Nox-Rust 1290HP, to be launched by the specialty coatings and adhesives manufacturer at the SAE 2015 World Congress in Detroit, uses nanoscale chemistry to boost...

Product Briefs

Software

Specialty Adhesives

Three new adhesives from Dow Automotive Systems offer environmental benefits when bonding elastomeric materials to metal, engineering plastics, or other elastomers. Megum 5386, Thixon P-21, and Thixon 526 bonding agents are...

Executive Viewpoints

Design

As Equipment Innovations Evolve, Tires Must Keep Up

Technological advances touch every aspect of our lives today. We wake up to alarms, read emails on smart phones, trust a GPS to tell us how to get to our locations, and shop online.

Product Briefs

Materials

Low-Emissions Binder for Composites

BASF offers low-emissions Acrodur Power 2750 X binder for lightweight automotive composites with integrated functions. Designed for the production of natural-fiber composites for applications such as...

Product Briefs

Aerospace

Sheet Molding Composite

Tough Class A (TCA) Ultra Lite from Continental Structural Plastics (CSP) is a 1.2 specific gravity (SPg) sheet molding composite formulation that provides engineers the ability to design with a lower...