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“Spotlight on Design: Insight” features an in-depth look at the latest technology breakthroughs impacting mobility. Viewers are virtually taken to labs and research centers to learn how design engineers are enhancing product performance/reliability, reducing cost, improving quality, safety or environmental impact, and achieving regulatory compliance. As global concerns about the negative consequences of greenhouse gases on the environment increase, regulatory agencies around the world are taking serious steps to address the issue of tailpipe emissions In the episode “Fuel Efficiency: Fuel Economy Testing” (12:05), engineers at the EPA’s National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory demonstrate how different vehicles are tested for emissions, and AVL’s technical team shows how accurate tailpipe emissions can be measured and reported.

Finding ways to reduce the amount of fuel burned per flight takes top priority in aircraft operations and design. Three experts show how the smallest on-board components can make a huge difference.

Silicones have been utilized in multiple industries in the last 50 years and their applications are still expanding as technology grows. Ice phobic coatings, as an example, have been utilized on lock walls, navigation channels, wind turbines, hydropower intakes, and aircraft. Without protection these applications have a high risk of failure in the functions they perform. For example, ice build up on an aircraft?s aerodynamic surfaces increases drag which reduces lift during flight operations. Utilizing a silicone ice phobic coating significantly reduces the adhesion of ice to aerodynamic surfaces. Compared to other polymeric materials, silicones are known for their broad operating temperature range and lend themselves to excellent performance in a variety of harsh environments. Especially in low temperatures where ice adhesion is a concern, silicones retain their elastomeric physical properties and low modulus.

The foundation of many production aircraft assembly facilities is a more dynamic and unpredictable quantity than we would sometimes care to admit. Any tooling structures constructed on these floors, no matter how thoroughly analyzed or well understood, are at the mercy of settling and shifting concrete, which can cause very lengthy and costly periodic re-certification and adjustment procedures. It is with this in mind, then, that we explore the design possibilities for one such structure to be built in Belfast, North Ireland for the assembly of the Shorts C-Series aircraft wings. We evaluate the peak floor pressure, weight, gravity deflection, drilling deflection, and thermal deflection of four promising structures and discover that carefully designed pivot points and tension members can offer significant benefits in some areas.

Simulation-based tolerance analysis is the accepted standard for dimensional engineering in aerospace today. Sophisticated 3D model-based tolerance analysis processes enable engineers to measure variation in complex, often large, assembled products quickly and accurately. Best-in-class manufacturers have adopted Quality Intelligence Management tools for collecting and consolidating this measurement data. Their goal is to completely understand dimensional fit characteristics and quality status before commencing the build process. This results in shorter launch cycles, improved process capabilities, reduced scrap and less production downtime. This paper describes how to use simulation-based approaches to correlate the theoretical tolerance analysis results produced during engineering simulations to actual as-built results. This allows engineers to validate or adjust as-designed simulation parameters to more closely align to production process capabilities.

Translating service information into multiple human natural languages is a major expense for multinational corporations. Indeed corporations spend significant amounts to reduce their translation expense by managing the reuse text and its translation. The new frontier in reducing translation expense is translation avoidance, eliminating text through using illustrations and animations to communicate. Presenter Arnold Taube