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Visit our booth #312 at the Commercial Vehicles Show in Chicago, IL, October 5-6, 2010
Extreme may be the new buzzword for dangerous sports and high-caffeine sports drinks, but for vehicle design engineers “extreme” has always
been part of the job.
“The challenge is to keep critical joints fail-safe not only under expected use, but also under extreme use,” said Frank Metelues, a design engineer at Dana Corporation, a leading supplier of axle, driveshaft, engine, frame, chassis, and transmission technologies to vehicle OEMs with $9.1 billion in worldwide sales last year.
“You’ve...
Whether the challenge is getting a bearing adapter to reliably withstand tremendous force in a U.S. locomotive bogie frame, retrofitting Chinese track to handle a doubling of train speed, or cutting maintenance costs in Brazilian freight cars, Spiralock thread form is proving crucial in a variety of applications.
"Some joints, especially below suspension level, must take the brute force of the track, and the direct impact of wheel on rail," says Steve Johnson, a Sr. Project Engineer at General...
With the lives of patients as well as the reputations of surgeons and medical device companies at stake, medical implants face some of the most rigorous performace requirements of any industry. Yet despite all the recent technology applied to implants, they still require simple fasteners to function properly. Once inside the body, these fasteners often must endure severe loading and shock for millions of cycles throughout the patient's lifetime.
Because these fasteners are so critical,...
Medical device manufacturers are securing their product against shock, vibration, and thread loosening to boost reliability and prevent warranty issues.
Failure is not an option when it comes to medical equipment. From critical or sensitive devices like lasers, MRI scanners, knee joints, and implantable pacemakers to instruments as straightforward as stethoscopes, when life or quality of life is at stake, medical equipment must be reliable.
In the medical field there's little room for the $...
Imagine harnessing the heat energy of a blast furnace while keeping the vibrational equivalent of a jet fighter's acceleration in check. This is essentially what diesel engine engineers worldwide must do to keep diesel trucks on the road and on schedule for thousands of operational hours. Yet for engine performance, reliability, as well as meeting emission standards, joint integrity must be maintained in critical areas such as turbocharger mounts, exhaust manifold joints and attachments, where...
Oshkosh Truck Corporation, a top U.S. manufacturer of heavy-duty military and commercial trucks, prides itself in manufacturing a top quality product that can perform under the most extreme weather and terrain conditions. The constant shock and vibration that the vehicles are are subjected to requires reliable locking in the threaded joints. It is critical that axles, frames, and chassis are securely fastened because failure in the field creates serious issues for military personnel due to...
A unique internal thread form is helping manufacturers combat vehicle vibration, shock and temperature extremes not only on the toughest earthbound applications but also on the frigid surface of Saturn's largest moon - for improved safety and performance as well as lower warrantee, service and assembly costs.
When the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft enters Saturn's orbit in July 2004, it will have endured - for the first time in human history - not only the vibration, shock and temperature extremes...
Extreme shock, G-force, vibration, and temperature cycles assault every jet, rocket and spacecraft repeatedly during thousands of hours of operational use. True mission success depends on how reliably these aerospace vehicles operate for the long haul. Whether the challenge is mounting critical aircraft avionics, clamping onboard generator cables for continuous power, or securing interplanetary satellite instrumentation, inadequate performance from conventional fasteners can diminish or even...
Managers and engineers are understandably hesitant to change familiar production practices, but benefits to the bottom line through better joint integrity as well as streamlined assembly and maintenance are proving to be strong motivators in a range of industries, which are rapidly adopting a unique thread form with exceptional resistance to shock, load and vibration. Production changeover to the thread form, offered by Spiralock Corp. is quick and seamless, usually requiring just an exchange...
After a seven-year, two billion mile journey strapped to the side of the Cassini orbiter, the Huygens probe decelerated 12,000 mph in less than two minutes, before parachuting to the frozen surface of Titan, Saturn's largest moon, on January 14th this year. Besides measuring wind, pressure, temperature, and electromagnetic fields in what scientists have called "the biggest mystery of the solar system," a microphone onboard Huygens let us hear for the first time what another world sounds like....
