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The Beijing National Aquatics Center, also known as the Water Cube, is an aquatics centre that was built alongside Beijing National Stadium in the Olympic Green for the 2008 Summer Olympics. Ground was broken on December 24, 2003. The Aquatics Centre hosted the swimming, diving, synchronized swimming and water polo events during the Olympics. It had a capacity of 17,000 during the games that has been reduced to 6,000. It also has a total land surface of 65,000 square metres.
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Credit: NASA
A Space Shuttle External Tank (ET) was the component of the Space Shuttle launch vehicle that contained the liquid hydrogen fuel and liquid oxygen oxidizer. During lift-off and ascent it supplied the fuel and oxidizer under pressure to the three Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSME) in the orbiter. The ET was jettisoned just over 10 seconds after MECO (Main Engine Cut Off), where the SSMEs were shut down, and re-entered the Earth's atmosphere. Unlike the Solid Rocket Boosters, external tanks were not re-used. They broke up before impact in the Indian Ocean (or Pacific Ocean in the case of direct-insertion launch trajectories), away from shipping lanes and were not recovered.
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A drawing board (also drawing table, drafting table or architect's table) is, in its antique form, a kind of multipurpose desk which can be used for any kind of drawing, writing or impromptu sketching on a large sheet of paper or for reading a large format book or other oversized document or for drafting precise technical illustrations. The drawing table used to be a frequent companion to a pedestal desk in a gentleman's study or private library, during the pre-industrial and early industrial era.
During the Industrial Revolution draftsmanship gradually became a specialized trade and drawing tables slowly moved out of the libraries and offices of most gentlemen. They became more utilitarian and were built of steel and plastic instead of fine woods and brass.
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Credit: Martin Pettitt
A toolbox (also called toolkit, tool chest or workbox) is a box to organize, carry, and protect the owner's tools. They could be used for trade, a hobby or DIY, and their contents vary with the craft of the owner.
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Credit: Craven Brothers
A drill is a tool fitted with a cutting tool attachment or driving tool attachment, usually a drill bit or driver bit, used for boring holes in various materials or fastening various materials together with the use of fasteners. The attachment is gripped by a chuck at one end of the drill and rotated while pressed against the target material. The tip, and sometimes edges, of the cutting tool does the work of cutting into the target material. This may be slicing off thin shavings (twist drills or auger bits), grinding off small particles (oil drilling), crushing and removing pieces of the workpiece (SDS masonry drill), countersinking, counterboring, or other operations.
Drills are commonly used in woodworking, metalworking, construction and do-it-yourself projects. Specially designed drills are also used in medicine, space missions and other applications. Drills are available with a wide variety of performance characteristics, such as power and capacity.
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Credit: Allan J. Cronin
A difference engine is an automatic mechanical calculator designed to tabulate polynomial functions. The name derives from the method of divided differences, a way to interpolate or tabulate functions by using a small set of polynomial coefficients. Most mathematical functions commonly used by engineers, scientists and navigators, including logarithmic and trigonometric functions, can be approximated by polynomials, so a difference engine can compute many useful tables of numbers.
The historical difficulty in producing error-free tables by teams of mathematicians and human "computers" spurred Charles Babbage's desire to build a mechanism to automate the process. It is considered to be the world's first computer.
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ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer) was amongst the earliest electronic general-purpose computers made. It was Turing-complete, digital, and could solve "a large class of numerical problems" through reprogramming.
Although ENIAC was designed and primarily used to calculate artillery firing tables for the United States Army's Ballistic Research Laboratory, its first programs included a study of the feasibility of the thermonuclear weapon.
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A motherboard (sometimes alternatively known as the mainboard, system board, baseboard, planar board or logic board, or colloquially, a mobo) is the main printed circuit board (PCB) found in general purpose microcomputers and other expandable systems. It holds and allows communication between many of the crucial electronic components of a system, such as the central processing unit (CPU) and memory, and provides connectors for other peripherals. Unlike a backplane, a motherboard usually contains significant sub-systems such as the central processor, the chipset's input/output and memory controllers, interface connectors, and other components integrated for general purpose use.
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A valve is a device that regulates, directs or controls the flow of a fluid (gases, liquids, fluidized solids, or slurries) by opening, closing, or partially obstructing various passageways. Valves are technically fittings, but are usually discussed as a separate category. In an open valve, fluid flows in a direction from higher pressure to lower pressure. The word is derived from the Latin valva, the moving part of a door, in turn from volvere, to turn, roll.
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The SCARA acronym stands for Selective Compliance Assembly Robot Arm or Selective Compliance Articulated Robot Arm.
In 1981, Sankyo Seiki, Pentel and NEC presented a completely new concept for assembly robots. The robot was developed under the guidance of Hiroshi Makino, a professor at the University of Yamanashi. The robot was called Selective Compliance Assembly Robot Arm, SCARA. Its arm was rigid in the Z-axis and pliable in the XY-axes, which allowed it to adapt to holes in the XY-axes.
By virtue of the SCARA's parallel-axis joint layout, the arm is slightly compliant in the X-Y direction but rigid in the 'Z' direction, hence the term: Selective Compliant. This is advantageous for many types of assembly operations, i.e., inserting a round pin in a round hole without binding.
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Credit: Mixabest
An industrial robot is a robot system used for manufacturing. Industrial robots are automated, programmable and capable of movement on two or more axes.
Typical applications of robots include welding, painting, assembly, pick and place for printed circuit boards, packaging and labeling, palletizing, product inspection, and testing; all accomplished with high endurance, speed, and precision. They can help in material handling and provide interfaces.
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The 1940 Tacoma Narrows Bridge, the first Tacoma Narrows Bridge, was a suspension bridge in the U.S. state of Washington that spanned the Tacoma Narrows strait of Puget Sound between Tacoma and the Kitsap Peninsula. It opened to traffic on July 1, 1940, and dramatically collapsed into Puget Sound on November 7 of the same year. At the time of its construction (and its destruction), the bridge was the third-longest suspension bridge in the world in terms of main span length, behind the Golden Gate Bridge and the George Washington Bridge.
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Credit: Cepheiden
An electrical network is an interconnection of electrical components (e.g. batteries, resistors, inductors, capacitors, switches) or a model of such an interconnection, consisting of electrical elements (e.g. voltage sources, current sources, resistances, inductances, capacitances). An electrical circuit is a network consisting of a closed loop, giving a return path for the current. Linear electrical networks, a special type consisting only of sources (voltage or current), linear lumped elements (resistors, capacitors, inductors), and linear distributed elements (transmission lines), have the property that signals are linearly superimposable. They are thus more easily analyzed, using powerful frequency domain methods such as Laplace transforms, to determine DC response, AC response, and transient response.
A resistive circuit is a circuit containing only resistors and ideal current and voltage sources. Analysis of resistive circuits is less complicated than analysis of circuits containing capacitors and inductors. If the sources are constant (DC) sources, the result is a DC circuit.
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In electronics, a diode is a two-terminal electronic component that conducts primarily in one direction (asymmetric conductance); it has low (ideally zero) resistance to the flow of current in one direction, and high (ideally infinite) resistance in the other. A semiconductor diode, the most common type today, is a crystalline piece of semiconductor material with a p–n junction connected to two electrical terminals. A vacuum tube diode has two electrodes, a plate (anode) and a heated cathode. Semiconductor diodes were the first semiconductor electronic devices. The discovery of crystals' rectifying abilities was made by German physicist Ferdinand Braun in 1874. The first semiconductor diodes, called cat's whisker diodes, developed around 1906, were made of mineral crystals such as galena. Today, most diodes are made of silicon, but other semiconductors such as selenium or germanium are sometimes used.
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Credit: Teravolt
An operational amplifier (often op-amp or opamp) is a DC-coupled high-gain electronic voltage amplifier with a differential input and, usually, a single-ended output. In this configuration, an op-amp produces an output potential (relative to circuit ground) that is typically hundreds of thousands of times larger than the potential difference between its input terminals.
Operational amplifiers had their origins in analog computers, where they were used to perform mathematical operations in many linear, non-linear and frequency-dependent circuits. The popularity of the op-amp as a building block in analog circuits is due to its versatility. Due to negative feedback, the characteristics of an op-amp circuit, its gain, input and output impedance, bandwidth etc. are determined by external components and have little dependence on temperature coefficients or manufacturing variations in the op-amp itself.
Op-amps are among the most widely used electronic devices today, being used in a vast array of consumer, industrial, and scientific devices. Many standard IC op-amps cost only a few cents in moderate production volume; however some integrated or hybrid operational amplifiers with special performance specifications may cost over $100 US in small quantities. Op-amps may be packaged as components, or used as elements of more complex integrated circuits.
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Credit: Smial
A transformer is an electrical device that transfers electrical energy between two or more circuits through electromagnetic induction. Electromagnetic induction produces an electromotive force within a conductor which is exposed to time varying magnetic fields. Transformers are used to increase or decrease the alternating voltages in electric power applications.
A varying current in the transformer's primary winding creates a varying magnetic flux in the transformer core and a varying field impinging on the transformer's secondary winding. This varying magnetic field at the secondary winding induces a varying electromotive force (EMF) or voltage in the secondary winding due to electromagnetic induction. Making use of Faraday's Law (discovered in 1831) in conjunction with high magnetic permeability core properties, transformers can be designed to efficiently change AC voltages from one voltage level to another within power networks.
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A reservoir is a storage space for fluids. These fluids may be water, hydrocarbons or gas. A reservoir usually means an enlarged natural or artificial lake, storage pond or impoundment created using a dam or lock to store water.
Reservoirs can be created by controlling a stream that drains an existing body of water. They can also be constructed in river valleys using a dam. Alternately, a reservoir can be built by excavating flat ground and/or constructing retaining walls and levees.
Tank reservoirs store liquids or gases in storage tanks that may be elevated, at grade level, or buried. Tank reservoirs for water are also called cisterns.
Underground reservoirs are used to store liquids, principally either water and petroleum, below ground.
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Credit: Ytrottier
Many techniques have been developed for the measurement of pressure and vacuum. Instruments used to measure and display pressure in an integral unit are called pressure gauges or vacuum gauges. A manometer is a good example as it uses a column of liquid to both measure and indicate pressure. Likewise the widely used Bourdon gauge is a mechanical device which both measures and indicates, and is probably the best known type of gauge.
A vacuum gauge is an absolute pressure gauge used to measure the pressures lower than the ambient atmospheric pressure.
Other methods of pressure measurement involve sensors which can transmit the pressure reading to a remote indicator or control system (telemetry).
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A fire sprinkler system is an active fire protection method, consisting of a water supply system, providing adequate pressure and flowrate to a water distribution piping system, onto which fire sprinklers are connected. Although historically only used in factories and large commercial buildings, systems for homes and small buildings are now available at a cost-effective price. Fire sprinkler systems are extensively used worldwide, with over 40 million sprinkler heads fitted each year. In buildings completely protected by fire sprinkler systems, over 96% of fires were controlled by fire sprinklers alone.
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Credit: Tommy Halvarsson
A central heating system provides warmth to the whole interior of a building (or portion of a building) from one point to multiple rooms. When combined with other systems in order to control the building climate, the whole system may be an HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) system.
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Credit: Andrevruas
Water metering is the process of measuring water use.
There are several types of water meters in common use. The choice depends on the flow measurement method, the type of end user, the required flow rates, and accuracy requirements.
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Credit: Herman Gunawan
Water aeration is the process of increasing the oxygen saturation of the water.
There are several types of water meters in common use. The choice depends on the flow measurement method, the type of end user, the required flow rates, and accuracy requirements.
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Credit: Kerina yin
Tensile testing, is also known as tension testing, is a fundamental materials science test in which a sample is subjected to a controlled tension until failure. The results from the test are commonly used to select a material for an application, for quality control, and to predict how a material will react under other types of forces. Properties that are directly measured via a tensile test are ultimate tensile strength, maximum elongation and reduction in area. From these measurements the following properties can also be determined: Young's modulus, Poisson's ratio, yield strength, and strain-hardening characteristics.Uniaxial tensile testing is the most commonly used for obtaining the mechanical characteristics of isotropic materials. For anisotropic materials, such as composite materials and textiles, biaxial tensile testing is required.
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Credit: Three-quarter-ten
The Rockwell scale is a hardness scale based on indentation hardness of a material. The Rockwell test determines the hardness by measuring the depth of penetration of an indenter under a large load compared to the penetration made by a preload. There are different scales, denoted by a single letter, that use different loads or indenters. The result is a dimensionless number noted as HRA, HRB, HRC, etc., where the last letter is the respective Rockwell scale (see below).
When testing metals, indentation hardness correlates linearly with tensile strength. This important relation permits economically important nondestructive testing of bulk metal deliveries with lightweight, even portable equipment, such as hand-held Rockwell hardness testers.
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Credit: User:Tariqabjotu
The Vickers hardness test was developed in 1921 by Robert L. Smith and George E. Sandland at Vickers Ltd as an alternative to the Brinell method to measure the hardness of materials. The Vickers test is often easier to use than other hardness tests since the required calculations are independent of the size of the indenter, and the indenter can be used for all materials irrespective of hardness. The basic principle, as with all common measures of hardness, is to observe the questioned material's ability to resist plastic deformation from a standard source. The Vickers test can be used for all metals and has one of the widest scales among hardness tests. The unit of hardness given by the test is known as the Vickers Pyramid Number (HV) or Diamond Pyramid Hardness (DPH). The hardness number can be converted into units of pascals, but should not be confused with pressure, which also has units of pascals. The hardness number is determined by the load over the surface area of the indentation and not the area normal to the force, and is therefore not pressure.
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The Charpy impact test, also known as the Charpy V-notch test, is a standardized high strain-rate test which determines the amount of energy absorbed by a material during fracture. This absorbed energy is a measure of a given material's notch toughness and acts as a tool to study temperature-dependent ductile-brittle transition. It is widely applied in industry, since it is easy to prepare and conduct and results can be obtained quickly and cheaply. A disadvantage is that some results are only comparative.
The test was developed around 1900 by S.B. Russell (1898, American) and Georges Charpy (1901, French). The test became known as the Charpy test in the early 1900s due to the technical contributions and standardization efforts by Charpy. The test was pivotal in understanding the fracture problems of ships during WWII.
Today it is utilized in many industries for testing materials, for example the construction of pressure vessels and bridges to determine how storms will affect the materials used.
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In metalworking, casting means a process, in which liquid metal is poured into a mold, that contains a hollow cavity of the desired shape, and then allowed to cool and solidify. The solidified part is also known as a casting, which is ejected or broken out of the mold to complete the process. Casting is most often used for making complex shapes that would be difficult or uneconomical to make by other methods.
Casting processes have been known for thousands of years, and widely used for sculpture, especially in bronze, jewellery in precious metals, and weapons and tools. Traditional techniques include lost-wax casting, plaster mold casting and sand casting.
The modern casting process is subdivided into two main categories: expendable and non-expendable casting. It is further broken down by the mold material, such as sand or metal, and pouring method, such as gravity, vacuum, or low pressure.
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Extrusion is a process used to create objects of a fixed cross-sectional profile. A material is pushed through a die of the desired cross-section. The two main advantages of this process over other manufacturing processes are its ability to create very complex cross-sections, and to work materials that are brittle, because the material only encounters compressive and shear stresses. It also forms parts with an excellent surface finish.
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Credit: Jenks1492
Powder metallurgy (PM) is a term covering a wide range of ways in which materials or components are made from metal powders. PM processes can avoid, or greatly reduce, the need to use metal removal processes, thereby drastically reducing yield losses in manufacture and often resulting in lower costs.
Powder metallurgy is also used to make unique materials impossible to melt or form in other ways. A very important product of this type is tungsten carbide (WC). WC is used to cut and form other metals and is made from WC particles bonded with cobalt. It is very widely used in industry for tools of many types and globally ~50,000t/yr is made by PM. Other products include sintered filters, porous oil-impregnated bearings, electrical contacts and diamond tools.
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Injection moulding is a manufacturing process for producing parts by injecting material into a mould. Injection moulding can be performed with a host of materials, including metals, (for which the process is called diecasting), glasses, elastomers, confections, and most commonly thermoplastic and thermosetting polymers. Material for the part is fed into a heated barrel, mixed, and forced into a mould cavity, where it cools and hardens to the configuration of the cavity. After a product is designed, usually by an industrial designer or an engineer, moulds are made by a mouldmaker (or toolmaker) from metal, usually either steel or aluminium, and precision-machined to form the features of the desired part. Injection moulding is widely used for manufacturing a variety of parts, from the smallest components to entire body panels of cars. Advances in 3D printing technology, using photopolymers which do not melt during the injection moulding of some lower temperature thermoplastics, can be used for some simple injection moulds.
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Credit: U.S. Army Signal Corps
Machining is any of various processes in which a piece of raw material is cut into a desired final shape and size by a controlled material-removal process. The processes that have this common theme, controlled material removal, are today collectively known as subtractive manufacturing, in distinction from processes of controlled material addition, which are known as additive manufacturing. Exactly what the "controlled" part of the definition implies can vary, but it almost always implies the use of machine tools (in addition to just power tools and hand tools).
Machining is a part of the manufacture of many metal products, but it can also be used on materials such as wood, plastic, ceramic, and composites. A person who specializes in machining is called a machinist. A room, building, or company where machining is done is called a machine shop. Machining can be a business, a hobby, or both. Much of modern-day machining is carried out by computer numerical control (CNC), in which computers are used to control the movement and operation of the mills, lathes, and other cutting machines.
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A lathe is a machine tool that rotates the workpiece on its axis to perform various operations such as cutting, sanding, knurling, drilling, or deformation, facing, turning, with tools that are applied to the workpiece to create an object with symmetry about an axis of rotation.
Lathes are used in woodturning, metalworking, metal spinning, thermal spraying, parts reclamation, and glass-working. Lathes can be used to shape pottery, the best-known design being the potter's wheel. Most suitably equipped metalworking lathes can also be used to produce most solids of revolution, plane surfaces and screw threads or helices. Ornamental lathes can produce three-dimensional solids of incredible complexity. The workpiece is usually held in place by either one or two centers, at least one of which can typically be moved horizontally to accommodate varying workpiece lengths. Other work-holding methods include clamping the work about the axis of rotation using a chuck or collet, or to a faceplate, using clamps or dogs.
Examples of objects that can be produced on a lathe include candlestick holders, gun barrels, cue sticks, table legs, bowls, baseball bats, musical instruments (especially woodwind instruments), crankshafts, and camshafts.
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Grinding is an abrasive machining process that uses a grinding wheel as the cutting tool.
Grinding practice is a large and diverse area of manufacturing and toolmaking. It can produce very fine finishes and very accurate dimensions; yet in mass production contexts it can also rough out large volumes of metal quite rapidly. It is usually better suited to the machining of very hard materials than is "regular" machining (that is, cutting larger chips with cutting tools such as tool bits or milling cutters), and until recent decades it was the only practical way to machine such materials as hardened steels. Compared to "regular" machining, it is usually better suited to taking very shallow cuts, such as reducing a shaft’s diameter by half a thousandth of an inch or 12.7 μm.
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Credit: Mass Communication Specialist Senior Chief Andrew McKaskle
Welding is a fabrication or sculptural process that joins materials, usually metals or thermoplastics, by causing fusion, which is distinct from lower temperature metal-joining techniques such as brazing and soldering, which do not melt the base metal. In addition to melting the base metal, a filler material is often added to the joint to form a pool of molten material (the weld pool) that cools to form a joint that can be as strong, or even stronger, than the base material. Pressure may also be used in conjunction with heat, or by itself, to produce a weld.
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Credit: Airman Jessica Struble
Soldering is a process in which two or more items (usually metal) are joined together by melting and putting a filler metal (solder) into the joint, the filler metal having a lower melting point than the adjoining metal. Soldering differs from welding in that soldering does not involve melting the work pieces. In brazing, the filler metal melts at a higher temperature, but the work piece metal does not melt. In the past, nearly all solders contained lead, but environmental and health concerns have increasingly dictated use of lead-free alloys for electronics and plumbing purposes.
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Credit: Lucasbosch
A micrometer, sometimes known as a micrometer screw gauge, is a device incorporating a calibrated screw widely used for precise measurement of components in mechanical engineering and machining as well as most mechanical trades, along with other metrological instruments such as dial, vernier, and digital calipers. Micrometers are usually, but not always, in the form of calipers (opposing ends joined by a frame), which is why micrometer caliper is another common name. The spindle is a very accurately machined screw and the object to be measured is placed between the spindle and the anvil. The spindle is moved by turning the ratchet knob or thimble until the object to be measured is lightly touched by both the spindle and the anvil.
Micrometers are also used in telescopes or microscopes to measure the apparent diameter of celestial bodies or microscopic objects. The micrometer used with a telescope was invented about 1638 by William Gascoigne, an English astronomer.
Colloquially the word micrometer is often shortened to mike or mic.
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Credit: Freeformer
Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computer systems to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. CAD software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve communications through documentation, and to create a database for manufacturing. CAD output is often in the form of electronic files for print, machining, or other manufacturing operations. The term CADD (for Computer Aided Design and Drafting) is also used.
Its use in designing electronic systems is known as electronic design automation, or EDA. In mechanical design it is known as mechanical design automation (MDA) or computer-aided drafting (CAD), which includes the process of creating a technical drawing with the use of computer software.
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Computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) is the use of software to control machine tools and related ones in the manufacturing of workpieces. This is not the only definition for CAM, but it is the most common; CAM may also refer to the use of a computer to assist in all operations of a manufacturing plant, including planning, management, transportation and storage. Its primary purpose is to create a faster production process and components and tooling with more precise dimensions and material consistency, which in some cases, uses only the required amount of raw material (thus minimizing waste), while simultaneously reducing energy consumption.
CAM is now a system used in schools and lower educational purposes.
CAM is a subsequent computer-aided process after computer-aided design (CAD) and sometimes computer-aided engineering (CAE), as the model generated in CAD and verified in CAE can be input into CAM software, which then controls the machine tool. CAM is used in many schools alongside computer-aided design (CAD) to create objects.
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Credit: National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Manufacturing Engineering
Computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM) is the manufacturing approach of using computers to control the entire production process. This integration allows individual processes to exchange information with each other and initiate actions. Although manufacturing can be faster and less error-prone by the integration of computers, the main advantage is the ability to create automated manufacturing processes. Typically CIM relies on closed-loop control processes, based on real-time input from sensors. It is also known as flexible design and manufacturing.
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Credit: Luigi Chiesa
A fractionating column or fractionation column is an essential item used in distillation of liquid mixtures so as to separate the mixture into its component parts, or fractions, based on the differences in volatilities. Fractionating columns are used in small scale laboratory distillations as well as for large-scale industrial distillations.
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Credit: Paweł Michalik
A boiler is a closed vessel in which water or other fluid is heated. The fluid does not necessarily boil. (In North America, the term "furnace" is normally used if the purpose is not to actually boil the fluid.) The heated or vaporized fluid exits the boiler for use in various processes or heating applications, including water heating, central heating, boiler-based power generation, cooking, and sanitation.
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Credit: Siemens Pressebild
A turbine is a rotary mechanical device that extracts energy from a fluid flow and converts it into useful work. The work produced by a turbine can be used for generating electrical power when combined with a generator or producing thrust, as in the case of jet engines. A turbine is a turbomachine with at least one moving part called a rotor assembly, which is a shaft or drum with blades attached. Moving fluid acts on the blades so that they move and impart rotational energy to the rotor. Early turbine examples are windmills and waterwheels.
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Credit: DeltaFalcon
In electronics and electrical engineering, a fuse is a type of low resistance resistor that acts as a sacrificial device to provide overcurrent protection, of either the load or source circuit. Its essential component is a metal wire or strip that melts when too much current flows through it, interrupting the circuit that it connects. Short circuits, overloading, mismatched loads, or device failure are the prime reasons for excessive current. Fuses can be used as alternatives to circuit breakers.
A fuse interrupts an excessive current so that further damage by overheating or fire is prevented. Wiring regulations often define a maximum fuse current rating for particular circuits. Overcurrent protection devices are essential in electrical systems to limit threats to human life and property damage. The time and current operating characteristics of fuses are chosen to provide adequate protection without needless interruption. Slow blow fuses are designed to allow harmless short term currents over their rating while still interrupting a sustained overload. Fuses are manufactured in a wide range of current and voltage ratings to protect wiring systems and electrical equipment. Self-resetting fuses automatically restore the circuit after the overload has cleared, and are useful in environments where a human replacing a blown fuse would be difficult or impossible, for example in aerospace or nuclear applications.
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Credit: ArnoldReinhold
In electrical engineering, a switch is an electrical component that can break an electrical circuit, interrupting the current or diverting it from one conductor to another.
The mechanism of a switch may be operated directly by a human operator to control a circuit (for example, a light switch or a keyboard button), may be operated by a moving object such as a door-operated switch, or may be operated by some sensing element for pressure, temperature or flow. A relay is a switch that is operated by electricity. Switches are made to handle a wide range of voltages and currents; very large switches may be used to isolate high-voltage circuits in electrical substations.
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Credit: ArnoldReinhold
A fan is a machine used to create flow within a fluid, typically a gas such as air.
The fan consists of a rotating arrangement of vanes or blades which act on the fluid. The rotating assembly of blades and hub is known as an impeller, a rotor, or a runner. Usually, it is contained within some form of housing or case. This may direct the airflow or increase safety by preventing objects from contacting the fan blades. Most fans are powered by electric motors, but other sources of power may be used, including hydraulic motors and internal combustion engines.
Fans produce flows with high volume and low pressure (although higher than ambient pressure), as opposed to compressors which produce high pressures at a comparatively low volume. A fan blade will often rotate when exposed to a fluid stream, and devices that take advantage of this, such as anemometers and wind turbines, often have designs similar to that of a fan.
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A pump is a device that moves fluids (liquids or gases), or sometimes slurries, by mechanical action. Pumps can be classified into three major groups according to the method they use to move the fluid: direct lift, displacement, and gravity pumps.
Pumps operate by some mechanism (typically reciprocating or rotary), and consume energy to perform mechanical work by moving the fluid. Pumps operate via many energy sources, including manual operation, electricity, engines, or wind power, come in many sizes, from microscopic for use in medical applications to large industrial pumps.
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Credit: Idaho National Laboratory
A gas compressor is a mechanical device that increases the pressure of a gas by reducing its volume. An air compressor is a specific type of gas compressor.
Compressors are similar to pumps: both increase the pressure on a fluid and both can transport the fluid through a pipe. As gases are compressible, the compressor also reduces the volume of a gas. Liquids are relatively incompressible; while some can be compressed, the main action of a pump is to pressurize and transport liquids.