The system has an adapter kit for mounting on a van or sport utility vehicle. The Condor consists of a remote-controlled camera mounted on a telescopic mast that extends up to 59 feet in the air, and can be rotated 360 degrees. The camera displays its images on a color monitor inside the vehicle, enabling the photographer to use the monitor's controls to aim the camera, bring the image into focus, and take the picture.

The Condor can capture images from various angles. The system is equipped with a Canon AOS300 Ultrasonic 24/85 mm zoom lens, although other lenses can be substituted to adjust the Condor's range.

A photographer in the van controls the Condor system's camera, perched atop its telescopic mast, to capture images of buildings at a fraction of the expense of snapping them from a helicopter.

By eliminating the need for a helicopter, the Condor system frees the photographer from the weather constraints of airborne picture-taking, as well as from the need to obtain authorization to fly over restricted sites. The Condor can be adapted to take photographs, digital images, or video, and when combined with an infra-red camera, can be used for thermographic imaging.

European photographers, including Yvonne Nagele in March-Holzhausen, Germany, and Jean-Paul Tilliere in Troyes, France, mount the Condor in a Volkswagen Transporter van and Citroen Berlingo, respectively, to take pictures for architects, builders, real estate brokers, and town planning authorities. The system is now being marketed in North America.

The site is www.ab.com/drives/ motors. The menu selection "manuals" leads to a list of publications. The glossary is identified as a "white paper" under the heading of "Motors."

Technicians paste the self-adhering stall flags liberally over a blade surface. Each flag hides a retro-reflective layer beneath a hinged flap. As long as airflow remains attached to the airfoil surface, the flaps stay down. Conversely, airflow that separates from the surface allows the flaps to lift, exposing the reflectors.

By shining a bright light on the spinning wind turbine while photographing it at 25 frames per second, experimenters can collect a pile of visual flow information. They can pinpoint where on the blades the airflow stalls.

Although double stalling had been studied, no one had come up with a satisfactory way to explain it. Energy Center researcher Gustave Corten and Herman Veldkamp of NEG Micon A/S in Randers, Denmark, suspected insects might play a role.

They noted several odd characteristics of wind turbines. Those that ran in high winds all the time rarely suffered drops in efficiency. But wind turbines operating in unsteady winds, upon returning to the same elevated wind speeds at which they had been operating, generated less, or sometimes more, electricity.

According to Corten, contamination had long been known to decrease airfoil performance. But contamination was thought to build up gradually, leading to the belief that power would drop off gradually, too. Because the data showed otherwise—that power decreased in steps—earlier researchers had rejected contamination as an explanation for double stalling, he said.

A shutter set to slow speed captured the whirling reflection of the stall flags for demonstration. For analysis, a faster lens is used to catch individual points of light.

The angle of attack along a turbine blade changes as the wind picks up. In light air, the angle of incidence between the airfoil and the flow is small. Consequently, air velocity at the leading edge where the air stagnates is low. In heavy wind, the area of maximum air velocity climbs onto the leading edge, where most insect residue lay.

To test their hypothesis, Corten and Veldkamp applied tape to the leading edges of one turbine's blades, while ensuring that the blades on a nearby unit remained clean. The tape roughened up the blades, approximating the effect of an accumulation of insect debris on the airfoils. Then, photographing the two turbines and stall flags at night under halogen illumination, Corten and Veldkamp demonstrated how the air flowed smoothly over dirty and clean blades in light breezes. As the wind blew harder, they showed how the taped blades disrupted the airflow. Graphs of power and wind speed for the dirty test turbine correlated closely to the same graphs of turbines under actual conditions.

Insects rarely fly in high wind. That explains the steady output of turbines during periods of strong winds. Insect debris accumulated on airfoils in light wind and lowered power output when turbines returned to high speed. After rain washed the dirty blades, however, power at high speed increased over its prior peak.

An NSK spokesman said the company would handle the order, worth an estimated 20 billion yen ($164.8 million U.S.) annually, at a plant it plans to open next year in Poland. The company aims to start production around October or November of 2002, he said.

NSK currently manufactures 1.2 million electric power-steering units a year in Japan and Britain.

The parts to be formed and assembled are called left- and right-side cab hold-down brackets. Each bracket consists of a rail, a subassembly, and three tap plates, which have projecting threaded tubes used for mounting. The components are welded to form a single unit. The assembled, U-shaped brackets are used in pickup trucks. After attachment to the cab floorpan, the brackets function as the mounting surface between the cab and the vehicle's frame as well as a secure attachment for the seating mechanisms through the tap plates. The brackets weigh about 10 pounds and measure 3 feet long and 8 inches wide.

Royal Clippert, tooling manager at Schaller Corp., said that the part size, number of components, and the addition of a secondary forming process required installation of two new welding cells to produce hold-down brackets for the left and right sides of the cab.

This welding cell produces a pickup truck cab hold-down bracket.

The company had been using a combination of automated and manual operations to produce parts consisting of three components. Those systems comprised a four-station rotary table, eight welding guns, and a materials-handling person.

The two new cells, which were supplied by Custom Machines Inc. of Adrian, Mich., eliminate the manual operation, except that the part is loaded by hand. The new cells—one for the left bracket and one for the right—include a secondary forming press; an intracell materials-handling robot; two seven-axis servo robots equipped with resistance welding guns; a six-station, 89.2-inch-diameter table; a fourth robot that unloads and packs the assemblies into their shipping containers, and a feed and positioning table for the tap plates.

A stamping press forms a flange on the main rail. The first robot picks up the rail and loads it at the first position of the indexing table. It then picks up the subassembly from its load conveyor and places it in position on the rail. The table rotates to the first welding station, where the robot welds three tap plates in place and places two welds on the subassembly. The table rotates to the second station, where a robot completes eight additional welds on the subassembly. Sensors in the cell monitor the positions of the parts, and there is also a station for checking threads on the subassembly.

The final rotation moves the assemblies into position for unloading. A robot places them in shipping containers that hold up to 102 units. A single cell attendant delivers the parts to the cell and removes the shipping containers when full directly to the shipping department for delivery to the automaker's assembly operations.

The cycle time to complete one hold-down bracket, including the forming operation and packing step, is 23.5 seconds, resulting in about 153 pieces per hour.

According to the project's consulting engineers, Ove Arup and Partners, New York, the building's small footprint meant that only a 1/16-inch error was permissible in most cases in installing the HVAC equipment. The gear included dehumidifying heat pumps designed by Dectron Internationale of Atlanta. The heat pumps cool, heat, and remove moisture from the 38,000-square-foot Institute.

Contractors painstakingly installed Dectron dehumidifying heat pumps within the narrow confines of the Austrian Cultural Institute in New York.

Center Sheet Metal, the project's mechanical contractor, had to place two Dectron heat pumps into the subcellar of the building. The contractors rigged and very slowly lowered the pumps down the elevator shaft with less than one-inch clearance on all sides. It took the contractors two days to lower the units approximately 30 feet.

A third Dectron heat pump serves the 100-seat theater. The company designed the heat pump to be 104 inches long, 72 inches wide, and 24 inches tall so it would fit in the ceiling of the theater's mezzanine-level restroom, leaving an inch of clearance on each side. This fit is so tight that the entire heat pump must be lowered with jacks for routine servicing, such as changing its filter.

Because only a single wall separates the heat pump and the theater, the project's engineers commissioned Dec-tron to build quiet compressors and fans so that theater patrons would not be disturbed.

The power generation facility will be managed by Augusta Park Energy LLC, an affiliate of El Paso Merchant Energy.

The 340-megawatt peaking facility will supply electricity to the wholesale market during high demand periods to supplement the power generation of existing base load facilities.

Tisza Eromu, a unit of U.S. power giant AES Corp., said that in terms of the agreement, Alstom Combustion Services would rehabilitate the two plants at a cost of one billion forints each ($3.43 million).

The company said that rehabilitation of the plants would start in September.

Windsor, Conn.-based Alstom will provide a GTX100 gas turbine and heat recovery steam generator to supply an extra 43 megawatts for the municipal utility of Redding, Calif. The turbine and HRSG will be incorporated with three gas turbines and a wood-fired steam turbine generator that already serve the city.

The revised ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code is now available from ASME International. The code covers aspects of boiler and pressure vessels from design to fabrication, including use of materials, welding, and nondestructive testing.

Oshkosh Truck Corp. of Oshkosh, Wis., which makes trucks and truck parts for several industries, is acquiring Geesink Norba Group, a Dutch maker of garbage trucks. The deal, for $127.5 million in cash, is part of Oshkosh's plan to expand its sale of waste disposal vehicles worldwide.

Delphi Automotive Systems of Flint, Mich., sold its Bryce facility in Cheltenham, England, to Woodward Governor Co. of Rockford, Ill., for an undisclosed price. Delphi determined that heavy industrial engines were outside its future product strategies, which focus on the auto diesel business.

The Ford Motor Co. Fund is donating $25 million to launch the Center for Environmental Leadership in Business, a division of Conservation International, to help companies contribute to conservation and reduce their impact on the environment. Companies that use the center's services will be asked to help cover the cost of their projects.

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