Category: Technology

SOLIDWORKS 2018 Debuts

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SOLIDWORKS is back again in the year 2018. The package has some added tools, enhancements and features to give you a completely new experience. Right from the welcome screen, the application has new and improved data management capabilities, integrating CAM feature along with some other innovative functionalities making it again your best design partner.

Pen and Touch-Enabled Devices: The application supports new touch-enabled capabilities. This is one of the most significant changes that came with SOLIDWORKS 2018. Now, you can make sketches using a touch-enabled pen. The application even supports customized mouse gestures making it more user-friendly and interesting to use.

Adding Granular Details: SOLIDWORKS 2018 has come up with new capabilities to work with assemblies such as Adding Mates Between Hidden Surfaces, Misaligned Mates, and Smart Explode Line Tool. The application has also introduced a new Tab and Slot feature for the sheet metal design. Now you can create the inspection documentation directly from 3D models.

CAM Integration: The most promising feature that SOLIDWORKS 2018 brought about is the CAM integration. The feature is called SOLIDWORKS CAM and works as a new application. The capability leverages CAM technology which is pretty interesting software in itself. Such integration will automate the entire manufacturing programming.

Enhancing the Complete Cycle: SOLIDWORKS 2018 comes with an integrated approach that works with your product right from design to manufacturing. This is done by putting the part or the assembly model in the Centre of the action. The concurrent collaboration capabilities of SOLIDWORKS 2018 keeps the data well managed so that you can create a design using manufacturing strategy across the product development workflow.

Ease in CNC Programming: The application has come up with new part and assembly machining, a 2.5 axis milling, and two-axis turning features. Such a feature is capable to make CNC (computer numerical control) programming less time consuming and simple.

Automating the Manual Inspection Process: The revised version of SOLIDWORKS has automated inspection capabilities. This feature helps you to save time skipping the manual inspection process. Dassault now claims that the 2018 version can carry out the article inspection process and generate reports in minutes.

Dealing with the corrupted files: If your repair attempts fail to resolve a corrupted file, SOLIDWORKS 2018 now prompts you to extract your geometrical details if data about the body is still intact. You can use this extracted data to create a new model.

Self-Healing Electronics: A Superpower from Sci-Fi Transformed to Everyday Devices

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Inspired by the Wolverine an X-Men character, a group of researchers created transparent, self-repairing and a highly stretchable material with electronical activation capabilities. This material is suitable especially to improve the performance of electronic devices such as smartphones and robots. Such material is created by combining a stretchable polar polymer with an ionic salt. Some of its features are:

  • This material has stretching capability to expand itself up to 50 times its size.
  • It can automatically repair itself within 24 hours of damage.
  • One of its applications can improve the battery lifetimes of the electronic devices.

One of the professors from the team believes that the market will have a range of self-healing products within the next three years such as the smartphone screens. Self- repairing robots is the most exciting application the scientists are working on. Although this material will change the lifestyle of people, scientists are still exploring it’s applications.

Four Key Advanced Manufacturing Technologies Used in Aerospace

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Advanced Manufacturing technologies have become one of the most important parts of the Aerospace industry. This is because of the unique challenges that the aircraft designers deal with. The aircraft designs need to consider the environmental conditions using strong materials that are both lightweight and temperature resistant. Such designs require micro and Nano- machining techniques. Here are four advanced machining technologies that are used in the Aerospace industry.

Additive Manufacturing  

The Aerospace industry was quick to identify the benefits and potential of Additive Manufacturing to design its planes. The technology uses Power-Bed laser printing systems to build its most components. Additive manufacturing technology is used to build structures that work within the fuselage with features such as reduced weight and reduce heat. An additive manufacturing technique, commonly known as the Fused Deposition Modeling, is used to create semi-hollow parts of the aircraft wings by both adding strength and reducing weight.

Composite Materials

Composite materials are widely used to design aircraft. Aerospace engineers prefer using these materials because of their favorable characteristics of flexibility, strength, temperature and chemical resistance. Composite materials and advanced polymers in the design help to improve performance and reduce lifecycle costs. These materials also reduce the overall weight of the aircraft cutting short their fuel consumption and carbon emissions.

Robotics

Robots are used in the aerospace industry to manage the labor-intensive process, particularly when lifting and handling tasks are to be done. The industry is using powerful robots in its manufacturing plants to move and join aircraft parts. Robotics is also taking care of manufacturing process that is hazardous to people such as painting and welding.

Laser Beam Welding

This technology offers rapid and high precision work as compared to the traditional welding techniques. Laser welding is, therefore, a preferred solution for handling materials when repeatability and high accuracy is required. The most advantageous property of this technique is that it transfers very little heat to the material that is welded. This way it does not create a heat affected zone around the weld, ultimately not compromising the strength and performance of the material.

With the widespread use of these technologies, the aerospace industry has also inspired several other industries to use these technologies in the manufacturing process. These techniques have undoubtedly simplified the manufacturing processes and reduced costs to a greater extent. Their accuracy and precision have reduced the number of failure points in the manufacturing process.

HYPERLOOP TRAIN TECHNOLOGY- A GREAT TRANSFORMATION IN TRAVEL INDUSTRY

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The cutting edge technology today is making the unthinkable things happen. Another concept that emerged recently was – The Hyperloop concept. Proposed by the billionaire inventor Elon Musk, CEO of the aerospace firm SpaceX and the man behind Tesla, this technology will enable pods to travel with an immense speed in a low-pressure environment.

  • The Hyperloop proposed by Musk is made up of two massive tubes that extend from San Francisco and Los Angeles.
  • The Hyperloop pods carrying the passengers will travel through these tubes at speed over 700 mph.
  • This will be done by planting magnetic accelerators for propulsion along the length of the tube that will propel these pods carrying people forward.
  • The company, Hyperloop One already completed and tested its first prototype of 500m in the Nevada desert. This revolutionary transport is said to introduce its first working Hyperloop system by the year 2021.

TECHNOLOGY WILL CHANGE EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES IN THE FUTURE

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The rapid pace at which technology is developing is something that the world has never seen. This exponential growth of technology brings a threat of extinction to the traditional employment.  Moreover, the business that does not keep up with this pace will experience huge disruptions.

FIVE MILLION JOBS WILL GET WIPED OUT

World Economic Forum (WEF) in its report, “The Future of Jobs”, forecasted that technology will snatch away more than 7 million jobs and will provide approximately       2 million jobs. The report urged the governments of various countries to prepare the workforce of their nation to accommodate with the changing future. If the work force is not prepared for the change, it will lead to unemployment and inequality. Additionally, there has always been an argument about the effect of technological change on developing and under-developed countries. In the globalized economy, the companies prefer to invest in advanced economies. Such decision will affect the job opportunities of the developing countries. For example, the demand for assembly work in developing and under-developed countries would reduce if the robots take over their jobs in the high-income countries. For sustainable development, the technological investment should be in-line with the United Nation Sustainable Development Goals.

With the favorable economy, automation will first target the jobs that are non-skilled and that lack human contribution.  For example, robots will replace the workers cutting keys in a hardware store. Another example is software replacing the clerks in a law office to prepare discovery.

EMPLOYMENT IN AUTOMATION

A survey from Economic Modeling  Specialists International and Career Builder revealed that many employers were replaced with automation. But 68% of the surveyed companies mentioned that the adoption of automation resulted in new positions.    Another 35% said that automation created more jobs prior to its adoption.          As a result, if one hand of technology shows the fear of taking away jobs, the other hand provides some assurance of providing new jobs.

EMPLOYMENT IN ENGINEERING FIELD

The growth of technology is expected to increase the jobs in the field of engineering and architecture. New employment opportunities for approximately 67,200 new jobs in the U.S. alone is expected in the following fields,

  • Architectural Engineering
  • Mechanical Engineering
  • Civil Engineering
  • Environmental Engineering
  • Biomedical Engineering
  • Petroleum Engineering

The growth of Computer Aided Designing (CAD) has also become a demanded skill in the architectural and engineering industry. Additionally, the trends in CAD predict that its demand will keep growing the upcoming years. The main reason behind this demand is the shift of companies from traditional design to CAD.