The aerospace industry is getting a boost in manufacturing its parts, making them safer and stronger, through a revolutionary new approach called 3D printing or "additive" manufacturing – a process which was invented at MIT in the late 1980s. In the traditional method, companies start with a hunk of metal (or other material).
Using milling machines and other tools, they cut or drill away material in order to create the desired part. In contrast, 3D printing builds parts layer by layer, adding material in just the right places to create the precise shapes needed.
For aerospace companies, this 3D printing or "additive" manufacturing offers the promise of making parts that are better and stronger, enabling them to build airplanes and rockets that are safer, more reliable, and better performing.
GE uses 3D printing to build jet engine fuel nozzles, for instance, instead of welding together 20 small pieces. Technology Review recently named additive manufacturing one of its 10 "Breakthrough Technologies."
But this new industrial revolution is being held back by a thorny problem. Tiny variations in parameters like temperature or raw material composition can subtly alter how each layer of material is laid down. As a result, it is extraordinarily difficult to build identical top-quality parts every single time.
The industry has recognized this problem, and is working hard to solve it. The most promising approach is meticulously monitoring all the relevant parameters as a part is being built, then processing the information to determine if the part meets all standards. That will ensure repeatability, consistency, and reliability.
Several companies are working on this idea, but one leader is Santa Fe, NM-based Sigma Labs, Inc. Sigma has developed sophisticated software that monitors the 3D process as a part is being built, and determines whether the product meets quality standards. Its Process Quality Assurance™ software is now being used in pilot projects at major aerospace manufacturers.
(This article originally appeared in NewsUSA)
The Department of Aerospace Engineering at CrescentInstitute was started in 2010. The Department offers a 4-Year full time B. Tech programme in Aeronautical Engineering and it has a team of well-qualified faculty members with rich industrial and academic experience.
The broad professional experience of the faculty members bring a flavor and strength to research and development activities of the department. ICT enhanced teaching techniques are also used in the department to supplement the regular chalk and talk lectures.
http://www.crescent.education/university/schools/school-of-mechanical-science/department-of-aerospace-engineering/overview/
The health benefits of salt will really surprise you. In fact, we even have a World Salt Awareness Week (March 12 to 18) to recognize all the many benefits of salt. Salt, or sodium chloride, is essential for life. In fact, no mineral is more essential to human survival than sodium because it allows nerves to send and receive electrical impulses, helps your muscles stay strong and keeps your cells and brain functioning. However, sodium chloride (salt) is a nutrient that the body cannot produce, and therefore it must be consumed.
The other component of salt, chloride, is also essential to survival and good health. It preserves acid-base balance in the body, aids potassium absorption, improves the ability of the blood to move harmful carbon dioxide from tissues out to the lungs and most importantly, supplies the crucial stomach acids required to break down and digest the foods we eat.
Because the level of salt consumption is so stable, it is an ideal medium to fortify with other essential nutrients such as iodine. Iodized salt was first produced in the U.S. in 1924 and is now used by 75 percent of the world's population to protect against intellectual disability due to Iodine Deficiency Disorders (IDD). Iodine is an essential element in healthy human life, enabling the function of thyroid glands to produce needed hormones for proper metabolism. When children in the womb don't get enough iodine from their mother, fetal brain development may be impaired. Iodized salt remains one of the greatest public health success stories.
Salt is also essential in hospital IV saline, which is standard therapy and the fastest way to deliver fluids and medications throughout the body. This saline drip doesn't just keep patients hydrated, it delivers a 0.9 percent solution of salt. Without this saline drip, patients can end up with low levels of sodium in the blood, resulting in a condition known as hyponatremia. This serious condition can lead to seizures, coma, permanent brain damage, respiratory arrest and death, and it is why the shortage of saline in hospitals is of such critical importance.
Salt is also a vital component of hydration. After exercise, it is critical to replace both water and salt lost through perspiration. That is why all athletes make sure they are consuming sufficient salt during and after a workout.
The average adult eats about 3,400 mg per day of sodium, according to The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, and this may be on the low side of the safe range. A 2014 study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, tested sodium consumption in more than 100,000 people in 18 countries. The study found that the healthy range for sodium consumption was between 3,000 and 5,000 mg per day.
We all can be susceptible to the dangers of low-salt diets. In 2013 a task force of 12 professional medical, nursing and nutritional organizations assembled by the Pioneer Network published the "New Dining Practice Standards and their report concluded that low-salt diets were contributing to malnutrition and weight loss among a significant percentage of seniors in assisted living facilities. Low-salt diets can also cause seniors to suffer from mild hyponatremia, an electrolyte imbalance in the blood that can lead directly to walking impairment, attention deficits and a much higher frequency of falls.
Salt is indeed the flavor of life and essential to good health. But like all good things, consume it in moderation.
At Your Service: Harnessing Virtual Reality for Everything From Empathy to Football
In ‘Experience on Demand,’ the VR pioneer Jeremy Bailenson makes a compelling case that the medium will reshape society.
By Hope Reese (This article originally appeared in Undark)
ON THE morning of September 11, 2001, a 26-year-old woman stopped by a drugstore on the way to work at her office near the World Trade Center. When she left the store, she stood with a crowd on the street, looking up, transfixed by the smoke pouring out of a building. Then she saw the second plane hit the South Tower.
“As absorbing as books or videogames or television are, in their immersive effects they pale next to virtual reality.”
Nearly 3,000 people died in the 9/11 attacks, but there was a psychological toll as well: long after that day, at least 10,000 firefighters, police officers, and onlookers in NYC were estimated to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
This woman was one of them. For months, she was tormented by the horrific images she’d seen. Traditional behavioral therapy, in which she was prompted to recall her experience of 9/11, did not seem to be helping.
Enter virtual reality. JoAnn Difede, director of the Program for Anxiety and Traumatic Stress Studies at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City, realized that VR might enable the woman to become more emotionally engaged in recalling her memories from that fateful day. Using news footage and interviews, Difede and Hunter Hoffman, director of the VR Analgesia Research Center at the University of Washington, developed a virtual world that modeled the sights and sounds of lower Manhattan at the time of the attacks.
Strapped into VR headgear, the woman experienced a simulation of what it was like to be in lower Manhattan on September 11, 2001. After six sessions, the psychologists reported that the patient (whose identity they withheld) experienced reductions of 83 percent in symptoms of depression and 90 percent in symptoms of PTSD.
In his new book “Experience on Demand,” Jeremy Bailenson, founding director of Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, uses case studies like this to make a convincing case for the vast potential of VR to reshape everything from education to empathy to environmental conservation.
Bailenson is not the most detached observer. A VR pioneer whose involvement in the medium goes back nearly two decades, he is co-founder and “chief visionary” of STRIVR, a VR training company with clients including Walmart and the NFL. (The Arizona Cardinals were one of several NFL clients in 2015 and went on to a 13-3 record and a divisional title.) But it’s hard to argue with his overriding point: the interactive, 360-degree experience of VR gives it intrinsic advantages over traditional training methods, including video. “But as absorbing as books or video games or television are,” he writes, “in their immersive effects they pale next to virtual reality.”
The rise of VR in recent years — the global market has been projected to grow to more than $60 billion by 2022 — can be attributed to “a perfect storm of technological advancements, economic forces, and the bold actions of a few entrepreneurs,” Bailenson writes. Facebook’s acquisition of the VR company Oculus in 2014 was a major turning point, bringing new attention to the technology and promising to one day merge virtual and social media realities.
Still, one of the goals of Bailenson’s Stanford lab is to explore how VR can be used for human benefit, and “Experience on Demand” illustrates many of these applications. Perhaps the most intriguing is its use as what VR advocates call an “empathy machine.” Because VR feels so real, users come startlingly close to experiencing the world through someone else’s senses. A VR documentary called “Clouds Over Sidra,” co-created by artist and filmmaker Chris Milk with the support of Samsung and the United Nations, is the story of a 12-year-old girl inside a refugee camp sheltering 80,000 Syrians (population estimates vary). Just eight and a half minutes long, it had a profound impact on viewers: The United Nations reported that twice as many people donated after the experience of “Clouds Over Sidra” and two other VR documentaries.
As with any emerging technology, ethical questions about its use should be considered seriously before its widespread adoption. This rarely happens, and we often learn lessons after the fact. When the iPhone was introduced over a decade ago, few people foresaw the addictive potential of smartphones, to say nothing of physical effects like spine damage. As the VR pioneer Jaron Lanier has warned, the medium raises its own host of questions. Will it be used to help wealthy corporations get richer? With its power to immerse humans in alternate realities, how can it be used to manipulate others? Or spread propaganda?
Bailenson acknowledges that VR is “an entirely new medium, with its own unique characteristics and psychological effects, and it will utterly change how we interact with the (real) world around us, and with other people.” He warns that “the inevitable widespread adoption of VR poses unique opportunities and dangers.” But “Experience on Demand” is mainly about the opportunities. Before we get swept up by its potential, we ought to think clearly about the dangers.
Hope Reese is a writer and editor in Louisville, Kentucky. Her writing has appeared in Undark, The Atlantic, The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, Playboy, Vox, and other publications.
As international travel gains popularity each year, new destinations are added to bucket lists and new travel gadgets and accessories appear on the market. The way we travel has changed in the past few decades, but that age-old itch to explore and discover new places and experiences remains the same. So how and why are people traveling now? The results of Visa's recently released Global Travel Intentions (GTI) Survey reveal some interesting travel trends - and tips - to keep in mind for 2018.
Simplifying payments abroad - For as long as anyone can remember, a standard part of traveling to a foreign country involved exchanging currency. Carrying cash involves time, planning, anxiety about losing money and often, wondering what to do with leftover cash once you return home. In fact, loss or theft of cash is the number one money concern for travelers while on trips. And 72 percent of people say working to get their hands on foreign currency prior to departure is a waste of time. With more than 46 million merchants accepting Visa around the world, a Visa card is the most important travel accessory you can carry.
TIP: Use your Visa card and pay in local currency for a competitive exchange rate. A whopping 87 percent of travelers have leftover cash after a trip. However, only 29 percent convert it back to currency that can be used at home. Avoid wasting money by sticking to your Visa card and only pulling out cash when needed.
People travel because of culture - Of all the places to go in the world, why is it some people choose one place over another? According to Visa's GTI survey, 41 percent of people cite "rich culture" and "friendly locals" as reasons to pick a destination. Although famous monuments, great museums and spectacular palaces continue to draw in visitors, the people who live in a traveler's destination are hugely important.
TIP: Hang with the locals. Check out fun events such as festivals and concerts to make sure you're not missing the best events in the city you're visiting. And don't forget local flavors of the country's national dishes.
Ideal vacations look a little different to everyone - What do you want to get out of travel? Is it to meet new friends, see something in person you saw on television, or fulfill a longtime dream? When vacationing, 63 percent of travelers are motivated by a combination of reward and achievement. That means to them, an ideal vacation has some combination of relaxation and experiencing new cultures or exotic locations.
TIP: Block out time on your trip to relax and reflect on the experience. It can be easy to plan activities and sights to see, but it's important to rest in between.
People are feeling optimistic about travel - Though they may be excited to get out of their comfort zone, some people have reservations about the safety of traveling to far-off locations, or worry about affording such a trip. However, according to the GTI Survey, people are not letting these factors keep them at home. Globally, only 17 percent of people cited security as a top concern and only 19 percent chose a destination because it fit their budget. What that says is that people are willing and eager to visit their dream destinations.
TIP: Budget your trip accordingly. A better understanding of what you can spend can help keep your mind at ease during travel. According to the GTI Survey, global travelers spend an average of $1,793 per trip. However, if you are following Tip #1, keeping cash transactions to a minimum will help in the budgeting process. While on vacation, look for Visa or PLUS logos at point-of-sale terminals or ATMs to ensure international payment cards are accepted.
Technology is the new travel companion - The traveler's well-folded map and dog-eared guidebook might be a thing of the past. As more travelers adopt digital technology, virtually everything they need to navigate fits right in the palm of their hand. What's more, 88 percent of travelers have online access while abroad and almost half, 44 percent, use ride-sharing apps to get around once they are on the ground.
TIP: Research apps or technology that might be helpful on your travels. Downloading your bank or credit card apps can help track your money while traveling. As technology continues to revolutionize our daily lives, so it will continue changing how we travel.
Staying on top of trends can allow travelers to plan accordingly. By budgeting, planning, avoiding cash and finding out the best ways to track spending, travelers can get the most from their dream travels - and their wallets.
