TechFront
Research and Development in Manufacturing and Technology
Ultra-Strong MRIs Show Promise
for Neuroscience, Other Research
N
ew ultra-strong, high-field magnetic resonance im-
missions in technology, science and medicine,” said Richard
aging (MRI) full-body scanners under development
Hausmann, president and CEO of GE Healthcare, MR.
by GE Healthcare (Little Chalfont, Buckingham-
Teams of researchers using 7.0T MRI technology already
shire, UK) and Tesla Engineering UK (Pulborough, West
are making breakthrough observations and understanding
Sussex, UK) will be used by researchers to speed detection
of Alzheimer’s disease, traumatic brain injury and cognitive
and improve therapies for Parkinson’s disease and a host
physiology, Hausmann said. Researchers have shown promis-
of other disorders.
ing results using the GE 7.0T MRI technology with its GE
GE and Tesla Engineering on May 12 announced its
collaboration at the joint meeting in Milan, Italy, of the
Discovery MR 950 7T, an investigational medical device under
the US Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.
International Society for Magnetic
Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM) and the
European Society for Magnetic Resonance
in Medicine and Biology (ESMRMB)
under which the companies will build
7.0-tesla (7.0T) full-body MRI scanners.
Image courtesy Stanford University
Tesla Engineering is currently building a new plant in Storrington, UK, that
will manufacture 7.0T magnets, which
are much more powerful that the 1.5 or
3.0T magnets currently used in standard
MRI machines. These ultra-high-field MRI
systems are used in scientific and medical
research mostly for morphological and
functional imaging of the brain, although
A side-to-side comparison of brain images generated by 3T and 7T MRI machines.
their use is expanding to other areas. Tesla’s first production
A research team headed by Dr. Michela Tosetti at the
unit from the new factory will go to GE and is scheduled to be
IMAGO7 Research Foundation in Pisa, Italy, the home of the first
shipped in late 2015.
European GE 7T machine at the University of Pisa, has pub-
A 7T magnet uses similar technology to standard clinical
lished its findings online in the June 2014 issue of the publica-
magnets, noted Tesla Engineering’s Simon Pittard in GE Re-
tion Radiology in a paper entitled “MR Imaging of the Substantia
ports, and the 7T magnet is about 11' (3.4-m) long and weighs
Nigra at 7 T Enables Diagnosis of Parkinson Disease.” To down-
about 40 tons (362.9t). The 7T magnets uses 10 times more
load the research page, visit www.TinyURL.com/7-0TMRI. ME
wire and stores approximately five times more energy than a
3T magnet, Pittard said, and engineers cool the 7T magnet’s
wiring to 4º above zero to achieve superconductivity and generate its powerful magnetic field. “This agreement will enable GE
to deepen and broaden our collaborations with leading MRI
academics and visionaries, sharing our collective expertise and
Engineers Develop New Ceramic
Materials for Hydrogen Storage
R
esearchers at the University of California, San Diego, have
created new ceramic materials that hold potential for
July 2014
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ManufacturingEngineeringMedia.com
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Tech Front
safer, more efficient storage of hydrogen. The research team
using a simple, low-cost manufacturing method known as
engineered new compounds made from mixtures of calcium
combustion synthesis.
hexaboride, strontium and barium hexaboride, and were able
to demonstrate that the compounds could be manufactured
The research is at the proof-of-concept stage, but it shows
promise for potential hydrogen fuel cells in the future. The
work is part of a $1.2-million project funded by the National Science
Foundation, a collaboration between
SMARTER
WORKHOLDING
UC San Diego, Alfred University in
upstate New York and the University
Image courtesy Jacobs School of Engineering/UC San Diego
We’re Taking You to School in Chicago
Researchers have created
compounds made from mixtures of
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calcium hexaboride, strontium and
barium hexaboride for potential use
in hydrogen storage. A scanning
electron microscope image (top) of
hexaboride structure at the 5 micron
scale; (bottom) image at the 500
nanometers scale.
of Nevada, Reno. The manufacturing
process for the ceramics is faster and
simpler than traditional methods used
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to manufacture these types of materials.
The researchers presented their work
in March 2014 at the third International
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ManufacturingEngineeringMedia.com
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July 2014
Tech Front
Symposium on Nanoscience and Nanomaterials in Mexico.
“We are looking for solid materials that can store and release
hydrogen easily,” said Olivia Graeve, a professor at the Jacobs
School of Engineering at UC San Diego.
Storage of hydrogen has become increasingly important as
hydrogen fuel cells become more popular power sources. But
hydrogen, the lightest element on the periodic table, is difficult
Top-Flight Research Papers
T
he recent International Manufacturing Research Conference
2014, held June 9–13 in Detroit, brought together research
innovators who presented more than 350 papers at the co-located SME NAMRC, ASME MSEC and JSME ICM&P venues.
Next month’s Tech Front will include full coverage of
to store as it tends to diffuse through the walls of pressurized
research presentations from NAMRC (sponsored by the
tanks, and it also needs to be compressed in order to occupy
North American Manufacturing Research Institution of SME),
manageable amounts of space when stored.
MSEC (Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference),
The resulting ceramics are crystalline structures in a cage of
sponsored by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers’
boron. To store hydrogen, the researchers would swap the cal-
Manufacturing Engineering Div., and ICM&P (International
cium, strontium and boron with hydrogen atoms within the cage.
Conference on Materials and Processes), which is cosponsored
The researchers mixed boron with metal nitrates and organic
by the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers and ASME.
fuels, such as urea, in a box furnace at temperatures below 400º
Advance conference highlights include several papers
C (752º F). The nitrates and organic fuels ignite, generating heat
from the 42nd NAMRC that earned high rankings in the peer-
that then drives the reaction without the need for an external
review process. The best paper distinction was awarded to
source of power, a method known as combustion synthesis. ME
“Fiber Orientation Angle Effects in Machining of Unidirectional
drilling of holes and routing of edges. Unidirectional CFRP
laminate disks are cut orthogonally to study the influence of
fiber orientation angle (FOA) between 0° and 90° and cutting
condition on forces and chip formation. For high feed, cutting
force increases with FOA up to 90°; for low feed, cutting force
decreases beyond 65°. Significant tool flank wear even in
these short-duration experiments causes thrust and cutting
forces to increase significantly for FOA from 0 to 60°. For 65°
Schematic showing continuously changing fiber orientation angle over one tab, over one-quarter revolution.
CFRP Laminated Composites,” by NIST Intelligent Manufacturing Systems Div. (Gaithersburg, MD) researchers V. Mad-
to 80° FOA, force signals change cyclically. A small spike
(“chirp”) in cutting force seems to correlate to fibers being
pulled out in clumps and is followed by lower forces in subsequent machining revolutions.
A novel electrohydrodynamic (EHD) jet printing technology
havan (also of Wichita State University; Wichita, KS), B. Lane
using silver nanoink is introduced in “Drop-on-Demand E-Jet
and E. Whitenton, and G. Lipczynski of Boeing Research &
Printing of Continuous Features with AC-Pulse Modulation on
Technology (Huntington Beach, CA).
Highly Insulating Substrates,” by Chuang Wei, Hantang Qin,
The paper addresses operations of high interest to the
aviation industry—machining of composites, for example,
Yuan-shin Lee and Jingyan Dong of North Carolina State University (Raleigh, NC) and Chia-Pin Chiu of Intel Corp. (Phoenix).
™
Tech Front
By modulating pulse frequency, pulse voltage amplitude
and pulse duration, EHD jet printing behavior can be controlled for printing speed and droplet size. Printing speed can
be controlled by pulse frequency, and droplet dimension is
controlled by the voltage or the pulse duration. Moreover, the
process alternates the charge polarity of the consequent droplets by using the AC-pulse voltage to neutralize the charge on
the printed droplets. By minimizing the effect of the residue
charge, high-resolution printing of continuous patterns is
possible for application to many flexible electronics and high-
thread cutting
in
materials
Carmex’s specially engineered combination of
carbide substrates and advanced multi-layer
coatings deliver higher production, improved
finish, and longer tool life.
density packaging applications.
Developed for medium to high cutting speeds
in conventional materials including stainless,
Carmex BMA inserts are available in a wide
range of sizes.
Carmex recently introduced BLU combines
high strength and high wear resistance in stainless
and hard-to-machine metals including Inconel
and Titanium.
In the high-speed grinding machine setup, an infrared
camera, not shown, observes the cutting region from the
side along the cutting edge. The white line on the disk
indicates the fiber direction.
Another notable NAMRC paper covers the laser-driven,
noncontact variant of micro-transfer printing, which is rapidly
emerging as an effective pathway for large-scale heterogeneous materials integration. In “Multi-Physics Modeling for
Laser Micro Transfer Printing Delamination,” by Ala’a M.
Al-okaily and Placid M. Ferreira of the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign (Urbana, IL), an opto-thermo-mechanical
model is developed to understand the laser optical absorption
and thermally-induced strains around the ink-stamp interface
during the LMTP process. The model will be used in planning the process parameters (laser pulse duration, stand-off
distance), estimating the ink-stamp temperature rise during
New Carmex HBA – Superior performance
in such tough materials as hardened steel up
to 62 HRc, hardened cast iron and super alloys
including Hastelloy, Inconel, and Nickel base alloys.
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the LMTP process and understanding the LMTP process
capabilities and delamination mechanism. Further, experimental observations are used to calibrate the model and verify
its predictions.
For more information on these or other research papers from
NAMRC, MSEC and ICM&P, contact publications@sme.org. ME
TechFront is edited by Senior Editors Patrick Waurzyniak,
pwaurzyniak@sme.org, and Ellen Kehoe, ekehoe@sme.org.
July 2014
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