11/96 mechanical engineering features

November
1996

feature article

virtual engineering on the right track
At General Motors' Electro-Motive Division, engineers are using a revolutionary product-development strategy to design, test, configure, and host customer "tours" of next-generation locomotives long before they've been built.

article abstracts

a re-engineered strike fighter takes off
By establishing a powerful computer infrastructure and a virtual-product-development strategy, engineers took a quantum leap in productivity, quality, and time to market for a next-generation fighter plane.

engineering systems face the future
The rapid pace of technological advances and increasing global competition call for an approach to engineering that integrates traditional disciplines in the field with economic and social perspectives.

job shops retool
A new generation of 3-D CAD/CAM software with superior visualization features and a common database to cut costs and cycle times is emerging.

CFD software improves pump design
Industrial engineers using computational fluid dynamics create highly accurate three-dimensional models of fluid flow to design the next generation of pumps.

designing safer flywheels
Researchers are developing ways to ensure that power-packed flywheel-battery systems stay safely contained.

shedding light on vibration
A nonintrusive technique for monitoring rotor-blade vibration using light probes has been applied to turbine-engine rotors and plant rotating equiptment

sensors reduce car emissions
Advnaced control and diagnostic sensors play a key role in antipollution devices such as catalytic coverters, electronic fuel injection, and exhaust-gas recirculation systems.