When the U.S. Postal Service has to install a materials handling system, one of the companies bidding for the job is likely to be Siemens Dematic Federal Systems Operations in Grand Rapids, Mich.

When Siemens Dematic installs a system, it must take measurements in some hard-to-reach areas. Part of its Tray Management System includes suspended upper-level conveyors that transport trays from operation to operation. Using a conventional plumb bob and tape measure would require two or three installers, working together to coordinate the design layout on the floor with measurements of the ceiling that will support the equipment.

The handheld Disto laser meter calculates distance, area, and volumes remotely.

According to Sam Hanson, installation manager at Siemens Dematic, a handheld laser measuring device, called Disto, has helped the company cut time and labor in this step of the installation process. He estimated that the company can save as many as 200 hours on typical jobs, which now can be accomplished with one person.

The Disto, from Leica Geosystems Inc. of Norcross, Ga., comes in four models, each with different capabilities.

The basic unit, Disto Lite, measures distances from 0.3 to 100 meters, is accurate to 3 millimeters, and calculates area and volume. The next step up, called Classic, adds measurement memory to aid in complex calculations and uses a built-in Pythagorean formula to calculate heights from remote locations despite obstacles. A model called Pro has an alphanumeric keypad so that measured values can be saved in a text reference. It can save up to 800 measurements and organize data for later use and has an output port that allows it to be connected to a computer. The top of the line, Pro a, reduces the margin of accuracy to 1.5 mm. Prices range from $495 to $845.

American Honda Motor Co. Inc. recently unveiled its gas-electric Civic Hybrid model.

It is Honda's second hybrid model, following the two-seat Insight, which the manufacturer bills as the most fuel-efficient vehicle sold in the United States. Like the Insight, the Civic Hybrid recharges its batteries automatically and the vehicle isn't "plugged in."

The Civic Hybrid uses a small gasoline engine coupled with an electric motor to provide fuel economy and performance. EPA fuel economy figures have not been completed yet, but are expected to be about 50 miles per gallon for both city and high- way driving.

The Civic Hybrid has a new, more advanced version of Honda's patented Integrated Motor Assist system. The 1.3-liter, four-cylinder engine features two sparkplugs per cylinder, allowing for more thorough combustion to increase fuel economy and reduce emissions. In addition, a newly developed cylinder deactivation system uses Honda's VTEC technology to idle three of the engine's cylinders during deceleration. This system reduces engine friction by 50 percent and greatly increases the amount of energy recovered during deceleration.

The Civic Hybrid will retain the Insight's idle-stop feature. When the car stops—at a traffic light, for example—the engine shuts off automatically, then restarts immediately when the driver lets off the brake pedal or puts the car into gear if it has a manual transmission. This automatic idle-stop system contributes to both greater fuel efficiency and lower emissions.
The 2003 Civic Hybrid is expected to cost approximately $20,000.

Workers at Mobley Industrial Painters Inc. of Deer Park, Texas, filled a Texas-sized coating project last April. The company was commissioned by Houston Fuel Oil Terminal Co. to prepare the interior surfaces of two giant crude oil storage tanks in Jacintoport, in the Houston Ship Channel.

Mobley had to abrasive-blast the inside walls and floors of each 225-foot-diameter, 62-foot-high tank, clean out the abrasive, and prepare a clean, dry surface for spraying on an epoxy coating. The epoxy would protect the tanks from accumulations of water.

A Munters desiccant dehumidifier sends warm, dry air into this giant oil tank in Jacintoport, Texas, so that it can be coated with epoxy.

The deadline for completing both tanks was 28 days—less than half the 60 days Mobley would ordinarily need. Complicating the task was the high humidity of southeastern Texas, exacerbated by heavy rains that fell just before the project got under way. Because of the humid air and cool outside temperatures, condensation formed easily inside the tanks. "We needed to first create a dry atmosphere and lower the dew point inside the tanks," said vice president Chuck Mobley. "We also needed to keep the temperature high enough to speed the cure rate of the coating."

As it had in the past, Mobley sought the assistance of the Moisture Control Services division of Munters Corp. in Amesbury, Mass. Munters's Gulf Coast representative, Ken Armstrong, suggested that Mobley use his firm's propane-fired desiccant dehumidifiers to remove moisture from the storage tanks and dry their surfaces.

Each unit was connected to a storage tank by flexible ductwork. When activated, the dehumidifiers drew outside air and sent it through a wheel of silica gel. The desiccant wheel removes most of the moisture from the air stream, which was sent into the storage tanks to dry moisture.

The dehumidifier's desiccant wheel is continuously dried, or reactivated, by propane-fueled heaters. The heaters also warmed the arid air sent into the storage tanks, which improved the cure rate of the epoxy. The hot, dry air eliminated the need for a separate heating unit to bake the coating and reduced cure time.

As a result, Mobley personnel were able to work continuously in a humidity-controlled environment, 24 hours a day for 13 days straight on each tank, to meet their deadline.

Penn State University electrical engineering professor Kenji Uchino has developed a small ultrasonic piezoelectric motor that can be fabricated cheaply from everyday materials. A flattened metal tube lined with piezoelectric lead zirconate titanate serves as the stator. The material deforms under applied voltage. A rod and spring rotor spins as the stator flexes.

A mere 4 mm long, a slender piezoelectric motor could fit a variety of applications.

Medical applications seem ready-made for the miniature motors, especially for devices such as urinary cath-eters, where smaller is better. Kidney stone procedures today use catheters that are about 3 mm in diameter. The 1.8-mm-diameter motor that Uchino has developed could shrink that dimension considerably.

Endoscopy, too, might benefit by having a source of inexpensive motors. And procedures tied to magnetic resonance imaging, such as brain surgery, could use a source of motion that is not magnetic.

In prior research, Uchino fabricated his motors from piezoelectric tubes. But they proved costly to make.
Now, he and his research group fashion them from aluminum, stainless steel, plastic, or brass, depending on the application. By using common materials, the group is aiming for economical mass production.

The motors spin slower than their conventional miniaturized electromagnetic cousins.

Though rarely seen on the roads today—barring a parade—older-model automobiles, such as a 1965 Mustang or a 1973 Cadillac Eldorado, remain an obsession for many vintage-car buffs.

While owners can restore and improve their automobiles using aftermarket parts and, frequently, their own countless hours of labor, getting a complete vintage look can be hard when relying on off-the-shelf parts, according to the owners of PML Inc., an Inglewood, Calif., computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing engineering services company.

Engineers at PML have started using technology to produce underhood car parts that look like classics. Vintage car buffs report that they frequently can restore the entire body, but the cars usually require a new engine, said David Tolin, president of the engineering services company. No one, least of all the vintage car owner, likes to open the hood of a 1965 Mustang to see a 2002 engine.

PML uses software from VX Corp. to turn out valve and transmission covers that mirror the originals in classic automobiles.

To make new engines look like classics, Tolin's company has developed valve and transmission covers that mirror the originals. For a 1950s Cadillac, the aluminum blue and red covers contain a machined-in Cadillac logotype. To get the look just right, PML employees reverse-engineer the original part, Tolin said.

"We take a valve cover, reverse-engineer it, cast it, and then machine whatever the customer wants on that valve cover," he said.

The company uses integrated CAD and CAM software from VX Corp. of Palm Bay, Fla. The integrated software can be used for both the design and manufacturing.

The valve covers typically cost PML $10,000 to $15,000 to produce, which is why the company focuses on valve covers for cars that have traditionally been popular restoration models.

To lower its costs, the company is seeking to form relationships with current engine makers who might want their names featured on the old-fashioned valve or transmission covers. The company is helping car enthusiasts who want to learn to use a CAD package but lack the resources to machine their own parts. These car buffs can embellish and personalize a basic computer model of a car part using either their own data and a standard CAD model of the part or a model they've created. They can then send the file to PML, which will cast and machine the part out of aluminum or magnesium, Tolin said.

Intercity tram lines reduce the traffic congestion and pollution caused by private cars, but carry a hefty price tag. It costs an average of $27 million per mile to build tram lines in France, too high a price for medium-size cities of 100,000 to 150,000 inhabitants. Saint Ouen-based manufacturer Alstom Transport is looking to reduce those costs by 40 percent by developing technological innovations in rolling stock and infrastructure at a mile-long test track it laid in La Rochelle.

Alstom's Citadis tram cars are testing new equipment that is designed to reduce the cost of installing tram lines in cities.

The test site covers more than 57 acres in La Rochelle, in the southwestern province of Charentes-Maritime. The site is a joint venture between Alstom, a major local employer, and the city of La Rochelle. The test vehicles are Alstom's Citadis trams.

Among the cost-cutting techniques Alstom is testing at the site is its patented Appitrack system of modular track, which can save time over conventional track laying.

Noise reduction is another goal at the La Rochelle site. To that end, Alstom is testing a ground-level static power supply called Aliss and autonomous, onboard power systems to replace overhead electric catenary equipment.

A MEMs fabrication system inspired by rapid prototyping techniques is about to get its first trial run in the commercial world.

The system, known as electronic fabrication, or EFAB, builds structures in layers that can be anywhere between 2 and 15 microns thick. The manufacturing system is controlled by masks generated from a CAD file.

After the masks are made, manufacturing does not require a cleanroom.

Adam Cohen, chief executive of MEMgen Corp. in Burbank, Calif., said the company built structures of more than 38 layers and expects to take that beyond 100 layers in the near future. "You can do what you do with rapid prototyping," Cohen said. EFAB can create a variety of arbitrary shapes in microscale.

MEMgen's CAD file for a microscale gimbal mirror.

The company was formed around the EFAB process and plans to offer fabrication services to manufacturers rather than sell the system itself, Cohen said. He added that MEMgen is looking for manufacturers to develop devices that will test the system, in what he called "essentially a beta test."

MEMgen is the exclusive licensee of the process, which was developed at the University of Southern California.

An article in the March 2000 issue discussed EFAB as a developing technology to create MEMS with more varied architecture. At that time, the process was in the lab at USC, and Cohen was the project leader. He is no longer affiliated with the university.

USC holds the patents and has licensed them to MEMgen in return for equity in the company.

Chile's state-run oil company, Empresa Nacional de Petroleo, has commissioned Foster Wheeler Ltd., based in Clinton, N.J., to design and build a coker facility at its existing refinery in Concon, Chile. Construction is scheduled to begin this year, and when completed in 2005, the plant will convert 20,000 barrels of heavy oil per day into petroleum coke.

Paris-based Alstom will provide two heat recovery steam generators, or HRSGs, for the Sunrise II Power Project, a 570-megawatt, combined-cycle plant located near Fellows, Calif. The HRSGs will recover heat from the exhaust of two natural gas-fired General Electric 7FA combustion turbines after they begin their scheduled operation in June 2003.

Simucad of Union City, Calif., a maker of design behavioral simulation tools, has released its Verilog Hardware Description Language (HDL)-based logic and fault simulators, called HyperFault-64 and Silos-64.

French automaker Peugeot Citroen and Japan's Toyota Motor Corp. have selected the Czech Republic town of Kolin, roughly 35 miles east of the capital, Prague, as the site for a plant to jointly produce small cars for the European market. Vehicle production is expected to start in 2005. Peugeot and Toyota chose the site for its proximity to major markets, industrial expertise in the Czech Republic, availability of land and the accessibility of transportation networks, they said.

Union Pacific Railroad has signed a one-year demonstration lease for the hybrid Green Goat switcher locomotive, which is built by Railpower Technologies Corp. of Vancouver, British Columbia.

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