Designfax weekly eMagazine

Subscribe Today!

Archives

View Archives

Partners

Manufacturing Center
Product Spotlight

Modern Applications News
Metalworking Ideas For
Today's Job Shops

Tooling and Production
Strategies for large
metalworking plants

Siemens Meet at the Machine: Be productive from day one of new CNC machine delivery

Traditionally, many programming, validation, and training activities begin only after a machine is installed. Not anymore. Meet at the Machine is Siemens' new initiative uniting machine builders, software, and automation for next-level CNC through a continuous digital thread across engineering, programming, virtual validation, and execution. By pairing a Digital Twin with Digital CNC powered by SINUMERIK, manufacturers can prepare, validate, train, and optimize workflows before your specialized machine's physical delivery! TRAK Machine Tools is the launch partner -- see what they are doing.
Learn more.

How to master metal powder management in 3D printing

What's the real cost of "good enough" powder tracking for powder-bed fusion 3D-printing machines? According to Tim Wischeropp, CEO and Co-Founder of amsight, the technology is rife with hidden costs. Every cycle, every handling step, every exposure, and every mixing decision plays a part. Surprisingly, though, with the right strategy, users can turn their losses into a competitive edge. Learn how.
Read the full article.

Aluminum oxide filament for FDM printers

Virtual Foundry, the company that brought us 3D-printable lunar regolith simulant, has a new product called Aluminum Oxide Filamet™, giving users the power to print alumina parts using the FDM printers they already own. This composite 3D-printing material allows researchers, engineers, and makers to bypass expensive ceramic tooling and produce pure ceramic components in-house. Print using a 0.6-mm hardened-steel, standard-flow nozzle on virtually any open-architecture printer.
Get all the material specs.

New metal extrusion retrofit system helps manufacturers get into ShAPE

A new invention from the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory could soon help manufacturers more easily adopt the lab's patented Shear Assisted Processing and Extrusion (ShAPE™) technology, enabling faster manufacturing of superior extrusion products while reducing costs and energy use.
Read the full article.

Pneumatics: Dual guide rod cylinders and exhaust silencers

Automation-Direct has expanded its guided actuator lineup with compact 12-mm dual guide rod cylinders from Metal Work. Ideal for packaging and material handling, these double-acting cylinders feature 10-mm to 250-mm strokes, magnetic pistons, and integral sensor slots. Additionally, new durable acetal plastic silencers are now available in multiple NPT/BSPP sizes to reduce pneumatic exhaust noise.
Learn more.

Expanded injection molding capabilities

Pexco LLC has acquired Recto Molded Products and Legacy Extrusions, expanding its capabilities in complex injection molding, tooling, assembly, and engineered thermoplastic solutions for OEM manufacturers. The Cincinnati-based companies bring more than a century of manufacturing expertise, advanced production technologies, and value-added services that strengthen Pexco's ability to support customers from product design through full-scale production. Injection molding presses ranging from 55 to 500 tons.
Learn about Pexco and its value-added manufacturing services.

Custom 3D-printed steering wheel for jet dragster

Jet dragsters use General Electric J85 engines -- the same turbines pulled from U.S. military F5 Freedom Fighters -- mounted to a custom 26-ft chassis. The racers achieve quarter-miles in 5.5 sec, but standard metal parts can fail custom ergonomic needs. Traditional manufacturing of low-volume aluminum steering wheels demands long, 8-day lead times, high costs, and multi-piece assemblies. Larsen Motorsports solved this by replacing metal with continuous fiber 3D printing using the Markforged X7. Embedding continuous carbon fiber into an Onyx nylon matrix allowed them to target specific load paths, delivering a custom steering wheel that is stiffer, lighter, and faster to produce than aluminum.
View the video.

Application Spotlight: Light-duty ring in an air vent nozzle

Explore how a light-duty Spirolox^® retaining ring is used in an airplane air vent nozzle to regulate airflow. This application spotlight shows how the ring fits into a groove in the plastic housing, securing the nozzle during rotation. Designed for light loads and axial positioning, it offers a simple, economical solution that is easy to install and remove.
View this informative Smalley video.

Fasteners for automotive and agricultural equipment

Norm Fasteners has acquired an automotive fastener manufacturing plant in Plymouth, MI, expanding its North American footprint beyond sales, engineering, and logistics. The local facility produces metric fasteners (M4-M24) and engine bolts. Norm’s portfolio includes wheel bolts, studs, custom fasteners, and licensed MAThread^® and TAPTITE^® products, serving diverse automotive and industrial assembly needs.
Learn more or contact Belgin Tunce for more information.

3M Cooling Film for vehicle roofs launched

New 3M Cooling Film is a roof-applied heat-management solution designed to help keep vehicle cabins cooler, reduce cooling demand, and improve operational efficiency. The aftermarket product uses advanced thermal management technology to reflect more than 85% of solar radiation. Interior vehicle temperatures can be reduced by up to 10 degrees F with this product. Installs like graphics by professional installers using 3M adhesive technologies. Initially designed for fleet and rail operators.
Learn more.

Test your knowledge: High-temp adhesives

Put your knowledge to the test by trying to answer these key questions on how to choose the right high-temperature-resistant adhesive. The technical experts from Master Bond cover critical information necessary for the selection process, including questions on glass transition temperature and service temperature range. Some of the answers may surprise even the savviest of engineers.
Take the quiz.

New Air Holster Safety Air Gun Mount

EXAIR's new Model 5930 Air Holster provides a simple and convenient way to keep Safety Air Guns secure and within easy reach at workstations throughout a facility. Designed to give operators a designated location for their air gun when not in use, the Air Holster helps prevent misplaced tools while keeping work areas organized and efficient. Its practical design makes it an ideal addition to manufacturing, assembly, maintenance, and other industrial workstations where Safety Air Guns are frequently used.
Learn more.

Southco access hardware in rail applications

Discover how Southco's rail access hardware solutions help improve safety, reliability, and operational efficiency across modern rail networks. The video showcases a range of rail applications where Southco's access hardware plays a critical role, including driver cabins, lighting systems, tray tables, headrests, armrests, and other passenger and operator touchpoints. Designed to support dependable performance in demanding moving environments, Southco's solutions help operators streamline maintenance processes, minimize downtime, and enable more proactive asset management.
View the video.

Multi-zone tension leveler for hard-to-flatten alloys

Redex USA's Levelflex^® is a modular, multi-zone tension leveler engineered for continuous processing lines, including coating and heat treatment of aluminum alloys and where flatness is critical to coating adhesion and downstream formability. By stretching material within 95% of its yield strength, it corrects stubborn flatness defects in fewer passes. It comes in open-loop pure stretch or closed-loop tension measurement modes to optimize surface integrity and eliminate crossbow.
Learn more.

Hold any shape with ID and OD Form Holding Clamps

These simple OD and ID clamping solutions from Fixtureworks clamp onto your part in one easy operation, eliminating the need for custom fixtures. They allow users to clamp onto the inner or outer diameter of small-size, irregularly shaped work parts fast. Lots of options.
Learn more.

Scientists develop way to strengthen PVC products -- may mean less microplastic pollution too

Researchers have developed a way to make one type of plastic material more durable and less likely to shed dangerous microplastics.

The study identified a secure way to attach chemical additives to polyvinyl chloride (PVC).

Found in everything from toys, construction supplies, and medical packaging, PVC plastics currently rank third among the most used plastics worldwide. Despite its widespread use, pure PVC is brittle and sensitive to heat, and manufacturers can only utilize it after stabilizing its properties with other chemicals.

However, these additives, or plasticizers, are only a short-term fix for stabilizing PVC. Over time, plasticizers leach from the plastics, which allows the material to deteriorate into potentially hazardous organics and microplastics. Now, a team led by Christo Sevov, the principal investigator of the study and an associate professor in chemistry and biochemistry at The Ohio State University, found that using electricity to permanently affix those chemical additives can prevent such unwanted reactions.

"Instead of mixing in those chemicals, our method involves chemically bonding the plasticizer compound directly to PVC by grafting them onto the backbone of the polymer," said Sevov.

Altering PVC molecules in this way allows for them to become more durable and resistant to chemical changes, eventually leading to materials with more robust properties.

"This is really one of the few examples that we have where there's this much control over changing the properties of PVC," said Sevov. "So this is the first step in controllably modifying PVC to give it properties you're interested in, whether it's hard, stretchy, or soft."

The team did run into some challenges; synthetic polymer modifications often fail because the reactions were originally developed for small-molecule analogs, not big-molecule analogs such as pure PVC. To solve this, researchers optimized the catalyst they used in their process, and through trial and error, were able to overcome the issues that arise when editing big molecules.

The study was recently published in the journal Chem.

Outside of making leaps in organic chemistry, the team's work also has implications for the environment, as putting a cap on how quickly plastics degrade can do much to curb the release of microplastics -- tiny pieces of plastic debris -- into our surroundings.

Today, scientists know that these particles, which have been found to pollute the air, water, and our food supply, are harmful both to humans and wildlife. The average person likely ingests between 78,000 and 211,000 of these particles every year.

However, as experts are beginning to understand the long-term impact microplastics have on Earth, organic chemists are racing to find ways to phase them out of everyday life, said Sevov.

"Many chemists are shifting their efforts to studying big molecules and developing new chemistries for upcycling, recycling, and modifying well-known polymers," he said. For example, trying to recycle PVC products can cause further degradation to the material due to the high temperatures it takes to convert plastic into something else, so the process isn't very efficient.

However, using Sevov's method, "You can potentially reuse the material many, many more times before it really begins to fall apart, improving its lifetime and reusability," he said.

In the future, more control over which materials will be safe for consumers will come once efforts to fix PVC leakage can be reliably scaled up, something that the study emphasizes that, at the moment, is possible with their method alone.

"There's no better way to do this on the scale you would need for commercial PVC modification, because it is an immense process," said Sevov. "There's still a lot to play around with before we solve the microplastic situation, though now we've laid the groundwork for how to do it."

Source: The Ohio State University

Published November 2024

Rate this article