Jan 10, 2018  -  Les Rapchak who has over four decades of experience in the compressed air field and over thirty years in specialty compressed air products, the Nex Flow™ brand has become a worldwide name with global sales. During 2017, Les made a commitment of getting information about health and safety benefits of thousands of Pneumatic products.  Utilizing the power of his LinkedIn profile he was able to provide hundreds of articles on important topics to his nearly 30,000 followers.

Jan 9, 2018  -  Kalmar has signed an agreement to acquire the port services business of Inver Engineering in Australia. The investment in Inver Port Services supports Kalmar’s goal of growing in services while strengthening and broadening its existing service capabilities throughout Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific. The acquisition was closed on 29 December 2017.

Jan 9, 2018  -  When aircraft manufacturers today are faced with a problem in a plane that has been in service for many years, they encounter a significant challenge “ tracing the history of the suspected part or component and chronology of events surrounding it to find the right fix. These could be issues or damages fixed right from the manufacturing process, flight test observations, customisations by lease operators, maintenance observations and changes, damages due to in-flight incidents such as a hard landing or bird strike and pilot logs from in-flight observations and issues.

All this data is spread out in multiple systems across organisations in the supply chain, and data gathering and reconciliation becomes an extremely challenging exercise. Some airlines spend as much as 90% of the time and effort finding and organising the data chronologically, and only 10% of time in finding the fix. And the aircraft are grounded during this time - massive revenue loss for an industry with high asset utilization targets.

Now imagine the savings that would be possible, if there were a system of records that brought together all of the information from all of these sources in one place, all organised in chronological order. With such a system, aircraft could be back in the air within just 20% of the time taken earlier. Enter blockchain!

By enabling all the parties to share their data on a common network as and when the data is generated, and using a common identifier for a part or component that lets the entire history be traced, blockchain could just be the solution to this challenge.

The manufacturing industry is experiencing significant transformation as blockchain streamlines processes and brings accountability among stakeholders. The technology is a powerful recorder of transactions enabling provenance tracking of goods and its movement through the supply chain.

Organisations today face challenges in coordinating with their stakeholders in the value chain, due to information asymmetry caused by silo-ed databases, resulting in inaccurate forecasts and delays due to insufficient inventory. In a globalised world, organisations procure and sell goods in different parts of the world. Their partners in the supply chain have increased exponentially, raising the need for a single source of truth.

Consumers also demand products that are crime-free, sustainable and of the highest quality. The ability to validate the ethical production of products and to trace its origin not only provides transparency, but also increases brand loyalty, brand value and revenue.

Blockchain has come to be recognised for its potential to create a fundamental, disruptive shift in the way information is processed, making them faster, accurate and tamper-proof. Organisations are recognising the inevitable force of this technology, and its ability to build an ecosystem that would transcend geographical barriers, its automation capabilities and the enormous cost benefit.

While Blockchain offers enormous potential, manufacturing companies need to leverage it in chosen business areas, where the impact of this technology is the most.

The aerospace industry is one of the sectors which stands to gain a lot from blockchain. Blockchain has various applications in the aerospace industry, such as supply chain management enabling stakeholders to trace the sub-components back to its manufacturers and access its quality details.

It also helps the stakeholders to streamline their inventory management by tracking the production of assets and the monitoring the inventory of their suppliers and customers. And as mentioned earlier, it can help quickly provide aeronautical engineers access to the history of the aircraft, and the damage and repairs to help accurately identify the problem and design the solution for the aircraft. Other Blockchain applications include:

Supply Chain Management

Inventory Management: OEMs procure goods from across the world to meet the demands of local customers, but stakeholders in the same city do not have the information required to plan their procurement and production activities.

Blockchain promises to end the struggle to coordinate between stakeholders in the value chain by bringing them on a single platform and creating a sole source of truth. Blockchain helps track products as they move along the supply chain providing real-time inventory updates to all the stakeholders. This helps manufacturers plan their procurement and production activities.

Provenance Tracking: Customer awareness has resulted in the need for organic food, crime-free and environmentally-sustainable products. Customers can use the blockchain to trace products and its constituents back to its origins. They can view quality certificates and certifications from third parties to verify the sustainability or ethical practices of the company.

The airline industry needs to track several components within a part or section of the plane. The ability to track components of a section and verify its presence is crucial for the airline industry. Blockchain helps the airline industry account for every component and assigns accountability among its suppliers for missing parts creating safe skies for all air travelers.

Counterfeit Prevention

Manufacturers struggle to stop the global supply chain fraud and leakage, which accounts for losses of over $300 billion per year. By tracking products through the supply chain, organisations can ensure counterfeit products do not enter the supply chain and provide customers a tamper-proof record of the product's lifecycle to verify authenticity.

Blockchain enables aerospace industry to track products through the value chain, thus preventing counterfeits from entering the market and enabling customers to verify the authenticity of the product.

Equipment Automation

Smart contracts on the blockchain can be used to automate payment to suppliers and service providers. They can also be used to automate equipment to perform functions at specific instances. Sensors on equipment can capture data which can be used to certify the quality of products or smart contracts can stop production of faulty products if an anomaly is detected.

Equipment Maintenance Tracking

By tracking equipment procurement and their breakdown, blockchain enables manufacturers to trace faulty components back to their suppliers and reduce the downtime of production facilities.

In the airline industry, for instance, blockchain could help track aircraft through production, servicing and its entire lifecycle tracking parts usage and damage history. Data can then be made available for damage detection, analysis and repair of parts.

The manufacturing industry is on the verge of a blockchain revolution. By connecting every company and every customer it helps create greater transparency and trust and enable businesses all over the world. As more and more companies deploy blockchain in their supply chain, an ecosystem free from information asymmetry and counterfeiting seems a real possibility.

Source:  Deccan Herald (The writer is Vice President and Head of Center for Emerging Technology Solutions at Infosys)  |  December 24, 2017   |||

Jan 4, 2018  -  HSV’s final Holden Commodore-based model is a 2017 GTSR W1.  Australia’s semi-official tuner to Holden, HSV, has made a name for itself over the past three decades by churning out meaty muscle cars based on successive generations of rear-wheel-drive, V-8-powered Holden Commodores. All of that has come to an end, however, as HSV on Wednesday announced the construction of its final Commodore-based model.

Dec 29, 2017  -  Airbus has an order for 50 A321neo narrow-body aircraft from Qatar Airways, with deliveries to begin in 2019. The booking, which is valued at $6.35 billion at list prices, updates and expands an earlier contract placed by Qatar Airways in 2011.  The A321neo ACF (Airbus Cabin Flex configuration) introduces new placements for doors and other changes to the fuselage, so airlines can make more cost-effective use of cabin space and increase underfloor fuel capacity, for trans-Atlantic routes up to 4,000 nautical miles.

The A321neo is the largest variant of the OEM’s single-aisle, twin-engine A320 series jets with the “new engine option,” a choice of Pratt & Whitney PW1133G-JM or CFM International LEAP-1A engines. Along with the new engine options, the redesigned A320 series’ sharklet wing fixtures help to increase fuel efficiency and reduce CO2 emissions.

Qatar Airways selected the A320 series Airbus Cabin Flex (ACF) configuration, with relocated cabin doors and other modifications to the fuselage that give carriers the ability to increase seating, including more “underfloor” fuel capacity to support a range of up to 4,000 nautical miles (i.e., trans-Atlantic routes.)

The order is considered to be part of the airline’s ongoing route expansion effort; in 2017, it introduced new service to Western and Central Europe, Russia, and Southeast Asia, and more new destinations will be added in 2018. The airline also will be the global launch customer for the Airbus A350-1000 wide-body jet during the coming year.

“At a time when Qatar Airways is experiencing unprecedented growth and expansion the need for efficient, reliable and modern aircraft has never been greater,” commented Qatar Airways Group CEO Akbar Al Baker. “To answer our need for growth and additional capacity, the A321neo ACF is a world-class choice for our passengers and for our business. Qatar Airways is the fastest growing airline in the world and with this aircraft we will operate the youngest fleet whilst delivering unprecedented comfort and services to our customers.”

Source: American Machinest  ||  December 29, 2017   |||

The ‘Tornado 10th Anniversary Tour’ provides a taste of the very best that Britain has to offer from the highest quality local cuisine both on board and at carefully selected destinations en route, to the unsurpassed attention to detail in each cabin. - 

Dec 20, 2017  -  For anyone who has marveled at the richly colored layers in a cafe latte, you're not alone. Princeton researchers, likewise intrigued, have now revealed how this tiered structure develops when espresso is poured into hot milk.

"The structure formation in a latte is surprising because it evolves from the chaotic, initial pouring and mixing of fluids into a very organized, distinct arrangement of layers," said Nan Xue, lead author of a paper describing the findings in Nature Communications, and a graduate student in the lab of Howard Stone, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton.

Honing techniques for yielding sought-after layers by flowing liquids into each other could reduce costs and complexity in a range of applications.

"From a manufacturing perspective, a single pouring process is much simpler than the traditional sequential stacking of layers in a stratified product," said Stone. "In one application of this study, we are exploring the physics behind making a whole layered structure with one step, rather than one-by-one stacking of the layers."

The inspiration for the research project came from an unsolicited, emailed picture of a layered coffee drink sent to Stone. With Xue looking for a project to take on as he started his graduate work, he initially investigated the concept by preparing lattes in the lab, using store-bought coffee and milk.

After several tries, it became clear to Xue that staying within only certain parameters, such as temperatures and pour rates, allowed for a characteristic café latte. These efforts hinted at the underlying, quantifiable physics that had to be involved in its liquid structure formation.

To control their model of latte layering with more precision, Xue and colleagues opted for a stand-in recipe that would make a barista shudder: dyed water substituting for the hot coffee, and salty, denser water for the warm milk.

A panel of light-emitting diodes and a camera then illuminated and captured the movement of fluids within the concoction. The researchers seeded the mixture with tracer particles, which scattered light from a green laser beam, to further track the faux-latte's internal dynamics, a technique called particle image velocimetry. Finally, numerical simulations were run to compare the collected data with various models of the evolving system of intermixing liquids.

The overall analysis showed that the primary mechanism behind the layering is a phenomenon known as double-diffusive convection. It occurs when stacked-up fluids of different densities, impelled by gravity to mix their contents, exchange heat through the movement of their constituent materials. Within a given mixture, denser, cooler liquids sink, while lighter, hotter liquids rise. This sinking and rising stops, however, when the local density in a region within a latte approaches an equilibrium. As a result, the fluid there has to flow horizontally, rather than vertically, creating distinct bands, or layers.

Through their experiments, the researchers examined how the velocity of the fluid injection of the warm milk matters as well. If poured too slowly, the denser fluid will mix too evenly as it flows into the less-dense fluid. A faster pour rate causes the former to punch through the latter and trigger the rapid movements that culminate in the desired layering when density equilibria are established.

Additional work needs to be done to characterize the layering effect demonstrated in lattes to extend control of it to other leveled liquids and semi-solids. But the preliminary findings from Xue and his colleagues already have shown how the activity within a common beverage could lead to uncommon insights. The same can be said for this engineering project focusing on cheese."This result shows the beauty of fluid mechanics and is very significant," said Detlef Lohse, a professor of fluid mechanics at the University of Twente in the Netherlands who was not involved with the study. "I think it will have bearing on various industrial flows and mixing procedures in so-called process technology, in which mixing of fluids with different densities by the injection of one into the other is omnipresent."

Lohse further pointed out how the Princeton research could help in better explaining heat- and salinity-dependent flows of water in Earth's vast oceans, a phenomenon that has key implications in climatology and ecology. "The most awesome finding may be that there is perfect analogy between the layering in a cafe latte," said Lohse, "and the known and extremely relevant layering of water with different temperatures and salt concentrations in the ocean."

For more coffee-related engineering, check out Adding Up the Perfect Cup.

Source: The Engineer Princeton University  ||  December 14, 2017   |||

Dec 20, 2017  -  Delays in collecting containers from the Ports of Auckland is costing the road freight transport industry and their customers, and end consumers could ultimately pay the price.  The introduction of automated straddle carriers by the Port has reduced the working area at the container terminal and queue jumping by some trucking companies is creating delays of up to three hours for a truck to pick up a container.

As a result, the road freight transport industry is looking at charging customers for the time trucks sit idle at the Port, waiting to pick up containers.

In the past trucks have usually only had to wait 20 to 30 minutes to pick up a container, but the continued growth in container freight of between five and ten per cent a year is putting more pressure on the Port’s operations.

National Road Carriers CEO David Aitken says the issue has been building for years but recent increases in wait times mean it is reaching the stage where the industry may have to act.

“The time is coming when the industry as a whole may agree to charge for waiting time which will add to costs for end consumers.”

The problem is a complex one, he said, with no easy fix.

While the road transport industry is calling for the Port to be transparent around its booking system and not let some drivers push in when they do not have a slot booked to pick up a container, the solution is not that simple.

“Our industry and customers also have to be more organised and plan ahead at least 24 hours when they ask us to pick-up a container,” said Mike Herrick, the Managing Director of TDL Ltd.

The industry is incurring increased costs with more staff working shifts to pick-up containers at night, as well as the cost of the delays.

Passing costs on to customers when they can no longer be absorbed is becoming a real possibility.

“It’s been happening in Australia for a long time. It has become an acceptable part of the costs of doing business there,” said Top Tranz Ltd Managing Director Marcus de Kort.

“The delays have become the norm,” said Barry Mackenzie, the Managing Director of Philpott Airfreight Ltd. “It’s very frustrating. I know the Port has got to provide a service to the ships and turn them around promptly, but they should also be providing a better service to us.”

“Sometimes the boats are late arriving, but there is no space to store containers,” said. “Yes, there will be a bit more room when the updated automation process has finished, but the freight volume is increasing all the time.”

Mr Mackenzie said there were often queues of trucks, but straddle carriers to load the containers onto them were sitting idle without drivers, compounding the delay problem.

“The space is jammed with containers, often they have to shift three or four to get the one we are picking up.”

The Port operates a booking system, so transport companies can reserve a time to pick-up a nominated container. Only so many slots are available each hour, with some flexibility allowed due to Auckland’s increasing traffic congestion.

“But if the system starts running behind time it can never catch up,” said Mr de Kort. “If a truck sits idle for two to three hours its work schedule for the rest of the day is disrupted and it can’t meet other commitments during the day.”

Larger companies had more resources to juggle against hold-ups at the Port said Mr Herrick, but smaller fleets could often not deploy a different truck to do a job originally scheduled for the one held up at the Port.

“The problem is certainly worse at the moment with the pre-Christmas peak,” said Mr de Kort. But when the Port reduced staff numbers at off peak periods the problem has continued.

With exports expected to reach their annual peak volume early in 2018 the delays at the Port are expected to continue.

“When we moved to night shifts, the problem was solved for a while,” said Mr Herrick. “But now we operate 24/7 five days a week, with shorter hours at the weekend.”

Complicating the process are the different booking systems used by the Port, the Metro Port at Te Papapa and the six-empty container depots around the city where containers are stored in between use.

National Road Carriers Association is the largest nationwide organisation representing companies involved in the road transport industry. It has 1700 members, who collectively operate 15,000 trucks throughout New Zealand.

| A National Road Carriers Association release  ||  December 19, 2017   |||

Dec 20, 2017  -  Virgin Hyperloop One has set a new speed record at its DevLoop test center outside of Las Vegas. During its third test phase, which was completed on December 15, an unmanned test pod reached a speed of nearly 387 km/h (240 mph) while running through an evacuated cylinder depressurized to 0.0002 atmospheres (0.003 lb/in²), or the equivalent air pressure of an altitude of 200,000 feet (37 mi, 61 km) above sea level.

According to Virgin Hyperloop One, the December tests not only saw a record speed run that broke the company's previous best of 310 km/hr (193 mph), but included trials of a new airlock system to allow the pods to move between the 500 m (1,600 ft) evacuated tube and normal air pressure, as well as the electric motor, controls and power electronics, magnetic levitation and guidance, and pod suspension systems. The end goal is to develop a transportation system capable of carrying passengers and freight through a system of tubes at airline speeds across continental distances.The prototype travel pod being loaded into the test cylinder

In addition to the speed record, the company confirmed the rumors that Sir Richard Branson had been named non-executive Chairman of Virgin Hyperloop One. The founder of Virgin Group, Sir Richard's Chairmanship comes on the heels of the Group's investment in the company and his joining Hyperloop One's board of directors in October 2017. Since then, the company has rebranded itself as Virgin Hyperloop One.

In further revelations, Virgin Hyperloop One announced that Caspian Venture Capital and DP World have invested an additional US$50 million in the enterprise.

"I am excited by the latest developments at Virgin Hyperloop One and delighted to be its new Chairman" says Sir Richard. "The recent investment by our partners Caspian Venture Capital and DP World sets up the company to pursue opportunities in key markets in the Middle East, Europe, and Russia as it develops game changing and innovative passenger and cargo ground transport systems."

Check out video of the record-breaking run via the source link below.

Source: Virgin Hyperloop One  || December 20, 2017   |||

Dec 19, 2017  - The challenges of high pressure have kept metal 3D printing from gaining widespread application in hydraulics technology, but we may begin seeing 3D-printed components in specialized applications.

One advantage of hydraulics technology is its high power density. Hydraulic pumps are typically a small fraction the size of the electric motors that drive them, and the size and weight differential between pumps and gas or diesel engines is even more pronounced. An even bigger advantage is with actuators. Hydraulic cylinders only a few inches in diameter can generate forces to lift thousands of pounds, crush rock and concrete, or form high-strength steel into rugged components.

Of course, another advantage of hydraulics is its ability to control direction, speed, torque, and force using anything from simple manually operated valves to sophisticated electronic controls to command valves automatically. And even though electronic control of hydraulic valves continues to advance, processes improvements for manufacturing the valves themselves have not been as dramatic. But that has started to change.

Where We Are and May Be Going

Cartridge valve technology is widely used to integrate several control functions into a single manifold. Centrally locating multiple valves within a manifold can dramatically reduce

Continue here to read the full article written by Alan Hitchcox for Hydraulics & Pneumatics Hydraulics & Pneumatics  ||  December 14, 2017   |||