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Britain, like many other countries, is investing large sums of money in high speed rail (HS2). The aim is to create space on overcrowded networks and enable large numbers of people to move more efficiently.
It means a new line that doesn’t physically overlap or affect existing regional services, but one that takes long-distance travellers onto new high speed trains with fewer stops, thus completing their journeys in less time than ever before.
Last year we wrote a post about the introduction of 3D printers to industry.
We made some assumptions about how education, engineering and architecture industries would be likely to use this latest technology. Well 18 months down the line, let’s take a look at the developments of 3D printers and see how they are being used.
The commercial cost of 3D printers has reduced and their use seems to have been incorporated into just about every industry possible.
Hollywood and the film industry has embraced 3D printing wholeheartedly, with costumes, models and monsters all now being made using 3D printing techniques. This 3ders.org article tells in more detail how the production of concept models etc. is much quicker and easier using the latest technology.
In the current economic climate, when all the news we see is about job losses, decline and closures it’s easy to forget that the UK has some great success stories.
Take the UK aerospace sector. A recent article in the Engineer by Jon Excell and Stuart Nathan highlights the fact that the UK has the world’s second largest aerospace sector, yet no-one really seems to recognise it.
The UK aerospace sector has bucked the trend of the economic downturn and continues to grow. UK firms design and manufacture some of the most talked about feats of engineering and the UK aerospace industry is recognised internationally as being one of the best in the world.
Electric Vehicles (EVs) first came into existence in the mid-19th century when electricity was among the preferred methods for motor vehicle propulsion, providing a level of comfort and ease of operation that could not be achieved by the gasoline cars of the time.
The internal combustion engine remains as the dominant propulsion method for motor vehicles, but electric power is certainly commonplace in other vehicle types, such as trains and smaller vehicles of all types.
UK scientists claim that by simplifying the power electronics they have developed a way to help Electric Vehicles travel further on a single battery charge. Lead by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) researchers have created a new material that they say can act as a more effective capacitor than those currently used in EVs, which require complex cooling systems.
5-axis machining is now used by many machining companies and allows machining of a part along 5 axes of motion compared to 3 axes in one setup. While this can be a cost saving factor, 5 Axis machining is used more often for complex contour work, which may need simultaneous movement of all 5 Axes.
Recent advances in software have helped make the conversion from 3-axis and 3+2 axis positioning to simultaneous 5-axis machining accessible to everyday numerical control programmers.
Although some of these techniques might require additional programming time, the benefits of reduced machining, setup time and reduced hand-polishing outweigh the costs.
Investment is the key to future success; so says Simon Jones, CEO of PRV Engineering, and after all, he should know. PRV Engineering are one of the fastest growing and most successful high precision engineering service providers in the UK. They owe it all to the fact that they are prepared to invest in their own future. In the same way that the government’s education policy was coined as being “education, education, education”, PRV’s philosophy would be coined as “investment, investment, investment!
The engineering sector is one of the fastest growing technical sectors in the economy. Recent advances in CAD/CAM, and new breakthroughs in programmable software packages are opening new pathways all the time. It’s vitally important that if an engineering company wishes to stay at the cutting edge of its industry, it understands that investment is the key. It must have the latest plant and machinery otherwise it will lose its competitive edge.
Pushing the boundaries of technology is always an exciting event, and there is no better place to be able to do it than within the Formula one Motorsport arena. The McLaren Group is one of the leading motorsport engineering companies, and at their engineering works in Woking, Surrey, they are constantly on the lookout for any technological advancements that can get them onto that winner’s podium.
Formula 1 is one of the highest, fastest innovators in the hi-tech engineering sector. Within the span of one racing season, over 90% of a car’s engine is redesigned by the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes Formula 1 racing team. Anything that can help them in pushing the boundaries of the technology is always pounced on and scrutinised with great alacrity. Just lately, the focus has been turned onto the inspection function.
New milling technology, that advances the traditional milling capability, has recently been announced. It comes courtesy of a new advancement from Vero UK in their Edgecam software range, and has been christened “Waveform Roughing Strategy”.
The New Milling Technology Deserves a few Plaudits
It’s a rare event when something new comes along in the engineering world, so this new milling technology deserves a few plaudits. Edgecam software is cutting edge stuff, if you’ll excuse the play on words. These software programs are specifically targeted at the high precision machining sector within the engineering industry. It’s state of the art CAM/CAD application which takes advanced tool-path engineering and seamlessly melds it with CAD output. The growing library of Edgecam software packages is intent on improving productivity through the manufacturing cycle.
Multi-tasking is the “in” phrase in engineering circles these days. It makes eminent sense. Why use a variety of machines to fabricate a component if you don’t have to? Every time you have to break a machine down and re-set it, it results in down time, and down time is unproductive time. The longer that any piece of kit remains idle, the less efficient any company’s production process will be.
In addition to the actual down time of the machine, there’s also the physical act of moving components around the shop floor to be considered. It’s not only labour intensive. You also run the risk of losing or miscounting items within a batch, or of course misplacing the batch altogether. With a multi-tasking machine, (where all of the various operations are done on the same piece of kit), there’s far less down time. The risk of losing or misplacing items is completely eliminated.
3D modelling and computerised simulation are still relatively new concepts in the engineering world. Their arrival has enabled the modelling and prototyping of components that have amazingly complex profiles. But in the greater scheme of things, they have also played a fundamental part in enabling man to land at the deepest place on Earth – the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the ravine that scores the sea bed of the western Pacific Ocean, stretching for some 1,500 miles off the coasts of Japan and China.
First Man at the Earth’s Nadir
Movie blockbuster director James Cameron made the historic dive last year, the first man ever to have made the dive to the deepest reaches on the planet. He seems to have an obsession with our oceans. In 1989 he directed “The Abyss”, the movie that revealed an alien civilisation living in the Cayman Trough, the deepest point of the Caribbean Ocean. Then in 1997 he directed movie blockbuster “Titanic”. The move in which Kate Winslet and Leonardo Dicaprio starred, dramatising the sinking of the White Line liner on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic from Southampton to New York in 1912. In 2005 Cameron part directed “Aliens of the Deep”, a documentary which explored the life-forms that dwelt around hydrothermal vents in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
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