Features Table of Contents

April 1998

feature articles

vacuuum degassing yields stronger steel
Processors are removing hydrogen or carbon from liquid steel to create stronger grades of this crucial industrial metal.

fixing a boiler with CFD
Computer-generated animations that depict flow within a stoker-fired power boiler have helped engineers solve a carryover problem at a paper mill.

electric plastics
Great things have been expected from electrically conductive polymers since their discovery in the late 1970s. Two decades later, commercial success has eluded the materials technology.

fluid-structure interactions
The fully coupled solution of fluid flows with structural interactions, a rapidly evolving discipline, represents the natural next step in simulating mechanical systems.

flexible automation on the line
Advances in hardware and software mean today's flexible automation systems can handle a wide array of manufacturing tasks with few configuration changes and little downtime.

roving over Mars
Operating nearly 125 million miles from home, the Sojourner rover had to be very reliable and highly mobile to forge a path along the Martian surface.