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ECM Global Measurement Solutions
In greater Downeast Maine, boat builder Hodgdon Yachts plans for the construction of the 100-ft racing yacht called “New3” (also known as “New Cubed”). Set to be constructed and finished toward the end of the year, the vessel will be shipped to Australia for its first race. As Tim Hacket, the…
Richard Gates
Put your hands together. Now move them back and forth to rub them against each other. Feel that heat? That’s from friction. No matter if it’s between siblings or the gears of an engine, we usually think of friction as a bad thing, and often it is. Friction can cause things to heat up, wear down,…
Jennifer Lauren Lee
When a team of researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Physical Measurement Laboratory (PML) first tested a new kind of pressure sensor two years ago, initial results showed it was faster and had higher resolution than the centuries-old mercury-based method for…
NIST
Recently on the Taking Measure blog, we asked Tara Lovestead, a recipient of the 2016 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), a few questions about her life and work. She was recognized for her extensive application of new methods to rapidly and inexpensively detect…
Frank Lafleur
Sponsored Content
Among the many test and measurement tools available to the shop-floor professional, the videoscope (also known as a video borescope) is one of the most practical, with great portability and ease of use. Videoscopes allow users to inspect for flaws, faults, or deformations in…
Ryan E. Day
Sponsored Content
W hen you work on projects like NASA’s Space Launch System and deep-space radio telescopes, the opportunity for accolades and large revenues can be great. However, due to the massive scale and demanding tolerances of such projects, the opportunity to have your lunch eaten by…
NIST
They activate airbags. Keep aircraft correctly positioned in flight. Detect earthquakes or sudden vibrations in failing machinery. Guide military hardware. Monitor falls in elderly individuals and initiate calls for help. They rotate the display on a smartphone from vertical to horizontal, and…
Marc Silverstein
Every day, new technology creates smaller and smaller materials and components. In many industries these parts require high magnification, sometimes up to 1,000X, to see submicron features. This is accomplished using a compound or upright microscope, where the user can select the objective lens.…
April Lemois
Whether it’s budgeting season, or you’re preparing for the future, you need to make strategic decisions about where your allocations will go. As planning commences to replace your current coordinate measuring machine (CMM) or to add a new one, important business considerations such as prior-year…
NIST
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed the first widely useful standard for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the breast, a method used to identify and monitor breast cancer.
The NIST instrument—a “phantom”—will help standardize MRIs of breast…
Richard Wilkinson
During the course of its 100-plus year history, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has had some researchers and scientists known to be colorful characters who were also pioneers in their fields. For computer scientist Karen Olsen, one scientist who stands out was Ethel…
Zvonimir Kotnik
Sponsored Content
When engineers at Pratt & Whitney’s assembly operations in Middletown, Connecticut, set out to determine the final tolerances between a massive Airbus engine and its enclosing nacelle, they face the intersection of thousands of precisely designed dimensions.
Although most of…
John Elliott
Fly-fishing, one of my favorite hobbies, is a lot like process improvement. Here’s how: Fly-fishing seems very simple—you throw a line in the water and wait for dinner. Of course, it’s much more complicated than that because rainbow trout are clever; they won’t bite just anything.
You have to…
Sandia National Laboratories
Sandia’s Engineering Sciences Center helped mark National Engineers Week with a contest, asking Sandians to complete the following sentence: “You know you’re an engineer when… .” The contest drew dozens of endings for the sentence, and Sandians voted on which they liked best.
Barbara Lewis won…
Sandy Ressler
Happy belated Pi Day! No, not pie day, Pi Day, which was last week. Pi is that Greek character you’ve heard of but aren’t quite sure what the big deal is. Pi is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. As yawn-inducing as that may sound, it’s an important ratio because pi is the same…
NIST
Medical implants and spacecraft can suddenly go dead, often for the same reason: cracks in ceramic capacitors, which are devices that store electric charge in electronic circuits. These cracks, at first harmless and often hidden, can start conducting electricity, depleting batteries or shorting…
Carol Hockert
As happened with most every metrologist I know, I fell into metrology (the science of measurement) quite by accident. My degree was in chemical engineering, and I was probing the world around me to see what kind of work was out there for someone with my skills and interests. I learned of an…
NIST
NIST scientists have devised and improved a prototype instrument the size of a loaf of bread that can substantially increase the accuracy of length measurements in commerce. Perhaps surprisingly, it does so by achieving the most accurate measure of the refractive index of air reported to date.
An…
Diane Lee
Like many of you, I venture out on Saturday mornings to get groceries and gas. Until my college years, I never thought much about whether or not I paid the right amount at the pump, if the supermarket scale was correct, or if packaged foods actually contained the amount of product stated on the…
Exact Metrology
EVCO Plastics is an injection molding company that produces parts for myriad industries, including powered sports equipment, lawn and garden devices, agricultural and construction machinery, and medical and packaging machinery. Owing to the volume of work, coupled with the challenges of collecting…
Ryan E. Day
Sponsored Content
As global competition stiffens, manufacturing sectors of all stripes are embracing emerging technologies in order to meet customer demands. In the realm of metal casting, Pennsylvania-based Effort Foundry is leading the charge by investing in new technology as part of a…
Mark Esser
The nefarious Major Uncertainty has kidnapped Monsieur Kilogram, putting the world’s measurements of mass in jeopardy. As the world spirals into “Mass Hysteria,” the remaining SI Superheroes, champions of the metric system, leap into action to save the day, and hopefully Monsieur Kilogram as well…
Belinda Jones
The industrial metrology sector is an ever-changing landscape for 3D measurement professionals. In the thick of it you will find the Coordinate Metrology Society (CMS), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the UK's National Physical Laboratory (NPL)—each offering…
InnovMetric
Headquartered in Graz, Austria, the Andritz Group (composed of Andritz Hydro, Andritz Pulp & Paper, Andritz Metals, Andritz Separation, and Andritz Automation) is a leading global supplier of plants, equipment, and services provided to hydropower stations, the pulp and paper industry, the…
Rina Molari-Korgel
It is my pleasure to welcome you to this issue of CMSC World. Our 3D metrology community is small compared to the bigger circles of civil engineering, manufacturing engineering, or even quality engineering. An even scarcer sight is a female 3D industrial metrologist, such as me.
It has been and…