Writing this major review for SAE has been a real eye-opener. I had the privilege of working with 19 experts, many world leaders in their fields. They provided technical inputs on topics as diverse as future battery technologies, critical metal mining, the impact of particulates on public health, green hydrogen production and balancing electrical demand.Read more about SAE EDGE™ Research Report: Pathways to Automotive Decarbonization[…]

For this major review carried out for the Society of Automotive Engineers, I interviewed engineers at the global leader in additive manufacturing (AM) technology. A few of the contributing companies include EOS, Liebherr-Aerospace, Renishaw, DM3D and Norsk Titanium. I brought their views together to understand the state of the art in AM for structural aerospaceRead more about Additive Manufacturing Review for SAE[…]

The problem with wind and solar is intermittency and storage. Hydrogen is often seen as the solution – an ideal way to store this energy. The availability of cars like the Toyota Mirai, or hydrogen-powered buses, leads many people to believe a hydrogen revolution is just around the corner. In this article I explain whyRead more about The problem with hydrogen[…]

I recently carried out a review of bicycle manufacturers in Europe and was really surprised to see how strong the growth is in this sector. The most competitive operations are lean and highly automated. Being close to the market gives them the edge in terms of controlling quality and responding to market demand and servicingRead more about Growth of bicycle manufacturing in Europe[…]

It’s often assumed that confidence in a measurement equates to confidence a product conforms. However, we can only measure at discrete points on a surface, while GD&T relates to the entire surface. We don’t know what is happening on the surface between the measured points. This is known as the intrinsic uncertainty of the measurand.Read more about Intrinsic Uncertainty: The Elephant in the Room[…]

Composites offer significant advantages where high strength and low weight are required. These materials are, unfortunately, also very difficult to recycle. Composites consist of fiber reinforcement embedded within a polymer matrix. The polymer may be a thermoset, such as epoxy, or a thermoplastic, such as polyester. Separating the fibers from the matrix is a hugeRead more about Low-Cost Recycled Composites for Automotive[…]

Achieving right-first-time manufacturing requires regular calibration and verification of production machinery. On-machine measurement makes this even more important. Achieving rapid, automated and fully traceable calibration of machine tools is a priority for high-value manufacturing. The Etalon Multiline system gives this capability. To carry out a calibration, the machine must only move its spindle or probeRead more about Etalon Multiline Enables Self-calibrating Machine Tools[…]

In this article, I show that the conventional method for calculating uncertainty is not always reliable. In fact, it is generally only exact when the measurement can be represented by a simple linear equation and the input uncertainties are all normally distributed. Whenever the measurement is more complex, there will be errors in the wayRead more about Why simulation is the future of uncertainty evaluation[…]

When I’m designing a linkage mechanism I often have some particular motion that I need to achieve. In this article I explain the first step in this process, defining the joint positions and linkage lengths required to produce a particular motion. I have found that the constraint-based sketcher within SolidWorks provides an ideal tool forRead more about Using CAD to Synthesize Mechanisms[…]

Frequency scanning interferometry uses a tunable laser to provide highly accurate distance measurements. It was first developed by researchers at the University of Oxford who were working on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. The UK’s National Physical Laboratory (NPL) has taken this state of the art technology and developed it into a much moreRead more about NPL Brings Frequency Scanning Interferometry to Large-Scale Manufacturing[…]