The UTA student team that recently received a patent for a smart bandage type of device it designed several years ago as part of the team's senior design project. Pictured from left are: Andrew Patin, Kyle Godfrey, Letia Blanco, Christopher Bryan Alberts and Christopher Grace. All graduated with degrees in engineering.

Arlington, Texas – Two faculty advisers – Engineering Professors Panos Shiakolas and Pranesh Aswath – advised and guided a student team, led by Letia Blanco, about five years ago in designing and building a smart bandage. It allowed more efficient healing of wounds and delivery of multiple drugs on their own time schedules to the wound, but Blanco wasn’t sure what would become of it.

That design team now has a patent on their invention, Controlled Release Nanoparticulate Matter Delivery System.

“Our goal was to protect the wound and increase infection control,” says Blanco, who is a lead engineer at Raytheon, after graduating from UTA with a degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering. “Raytheon teamed up with UTA to secure the patent. It’s very exciting.”

Blanco led the team that senior year in 2010 of senior undergraduate mechanical engineering students. Also on the team were: Christopher Alberts, Kyle Godfrey, Andrew Patin, and Chris Grace. Panos Shiakolas, UTA associate professor in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department; and Pranesh Aswath, UTA professor in the Materials Science and Engineering Department and vice provost for academic planning and policy, advised and guided the team.

In addition, the team presented its findings through a refereed conference paper at the 2012 American Society of Mechanical Engineers Winter Annual Meeting conference and at a 2011 Biomedical Engineering Conference. More than half a million people in the United States seek medical treatment for burns every year and 40,000 of those have injuries severe enough to require hospitalization. In addition to the millions who suffer from burns, Blanco said the project appealed to the team because it had the ability to help soldiers in the field.

“Many times, soldiers’ dressings would have to be applied over and over again because health care providers would have to apply medicine,” Blanco says. “Every time they had to do that, they had to undress and redress the wound. That process of changing the dressings was more dangerous than the technology we designed and developed.”

The device the student team designed increases the amount of time between dressing changes in two ways. First, a hydrogel is used to control the wound’s temperature and that enables better, controlled drug delivery. Second, the device consists of many separate modules, which are connected by a flexible plastic allowing the bandage to comfortably conform to any wound. A lateral wiring scheme allows for bandage size customizing. Removable medicine trays allow used hydrogel to be removed and the electrical components sterilized, then recharged and reused.

The team showed in its research that the device could be a profitable product that would reduce infections, ease patient discomfort, shorten hospital stays, lower medical costs and save lives.

Just for the record, this is Patent No. 9,522,241 and was issued on Dec. 20, 2016. The entry also won the only award given out in 2011for the prestigious American Society for Materials International Undergraduate Design Competition. In addition, the students presented the findings at a 2012 ASME conference.

Aswath, one of the senior design project’s advisers, said the project shows the value of undergraduate research.

“This is just one example of outstanding work done by our undergraduate students who can compete at the highest level and win competitions and get patents awarded,” Aswath says. “They are all now successful in their careers and we are still in touch with the lead of the team, Letia Blanco, who is a rising star at Raytheon.”

Aswath says the patent embodies UTA’s theme of health and the human condition within the University’s Strategic Plan Bold Solutions | Global Impact.

Shiakolas said the team-based research experience the students received will serve them well in their professional careers. He said the University is working with Blanco and Raytheon to explore possible funding sources for further research and eventually commercializing the product.

Source: The University of Texas at Arlington

Cleveland, Ohio – January U.S. cutting tool consumption totaled $173.05 million according to the U.S. Cutting Tool Institute (USCTI) and AMT – The Association For Manufacturing Technology. This total, as reported by companies participating in the Cutting Tool Market Report (CTMR) collaboration, was up 8.7% from December’s $159.17 million and up 8.7% when compared with the total of $159.22 million reported for January 2016. With a year-to-date total of $173.05 million, 2017 is up 8.7% when compared with 2016.

These numbers and all data in this report are based on the totals reported by the companies participating in the CTMR program. The totals here represent the majority of the U.S. market for cutting tools.

Brad Lawton, chairman of AMT’s Cutting Tool Product Group states, “The early numbers for the first month of 2017 support the optimistic feelings that are growing in the domestic manufacturing market. For the export of U.S. made cutting tools it is hoped that the strength of the U.S. Dollar and the Trump Administration trade policies will not destroy this potential business. We must all wait and see the numbers at the end of the first quarter.”

“The latest data indicate cutting tool shipments are on a somewhat firmer footing in early 2017. The overall trend in durable goods orders and shipments points to firming activity after a lackluster 2016 performance. Likewise, most leading manufacturing indicators show improving domestic and global confidence levels,” says Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics. “President Trump’s pro-growth fiscal agenda should stimulate activity by year-end and into 2018, though his protectionist and anti-immigration agenda represent notable downside risks.”

The Cutting Tool Market Report is jointly compiled by AMT and USCTI, two trade associations representing the development, production and distribution of cutting tool technology and products. It provides a monthly statement on U.S. manufacturers’ consumption of the primary consumable in the manufacturing process – the cutting tool. Analysis of cutting tool consumption is a leading indicator of both upturns and downturns in U.S. manufacturing activity, as it is a true measure of actual production levels.

Historical data for the Cutting Tool Market Report is available dating back to January 2012. This collaboration of AMT and USCTI is the first step in the two associations working together to promote and support U.S.-based manufacturers of cutting tool technology.

Source: USCTI; AMT

People with a congenital amputation or have lost a hand due to an accident are confronted with new obstacles every day. Mundane and ordinary tasks such as tying shoelaces or opening an envelope are challenging with one hand. To make daily life easier, the British company Steeper developed the Bebionic myoelectric hand prosthesis. Powerful, small Faulhaber motors ensure that the prosthesis can grip without any problems, quickly and firmly and maintain a constant gripping force.

Intuitive movement
The Bebionic myoelectric prosthesis weighs about as much as a natural hand (0.88 lb - 1.32 lb) and is controlled by small electrical signals in the body. These are generated by muscle contractions and can be measured with electrodes on the skin – the same way as an ECG in heart diagnostics. Two electrodes integrated into the prosthesis shaft detect the myoelectric signals and forward them to the control electronics. These signals are amplified and used to activate the five small electric motors (one for each finger) that move the fingers and thumb – the hand opens or closes itself. As a result, the strength of the muscle contraction controls the speed and the gripping force: a weak signal generates a slow movement; a strong signal generates a quick movement.

The muscles which are used to open and close the hand prosthesis are actually responsible for the movement of the wrist in a natural hand. Its wearer must learn that it now has a different function. "The human brain is unbelievably adaptable. After a short amount of time, people perform the movement intuitively like how car drivers step on the brake when they want to stop" says Ted Varley, technical director at Steeper.

Additional motors for more control
The first myoelectric hand came onto the market at the start of the 1980s. They were driven by a single motor and only had a simple gripping mechanism: thumb, index and middle fingers could be closed for a pincer grip. Ring and small fingers were only available for cosmetic reasons and had no gripping force. This concept was fundamentally changed for the Bebionic hand about 10 years ago.

"We determined that people accept lower gripping force per finger if they get more flexibility" Varley explains.

To control the individual fingers, each finger on the Bebionic hand is equipped with its own electric motor. The four motors for the fingers are located in the palm of the hand, the fifth in the thumb itself. Encoders are integrated into the motors which precisely detect the position of the finger at any time.

Thanks to individual control, the fingers can be arranged into a total of 14 different grip patterns. With the key grip, which moves the thumb up and down with the fingers flexed, you can hold flat items such as plates, keys or bank cards. With the hook grip, heavy loads of up to 25kg can be carried. The outstretched index finger pattern enables use of keyboards and remote controls. With the power grip, the thumb is in the opposite position and all fingers close until they encounter resistance. This is used to clasp irregularly shaped objects such as wine glasses. “This position looks much more natural than a pincer grip. The grip is also more stable if all fingers are used,” stresses Varley.

Increased self-esteem
The bionic hand makes many everyday activities easier.

"Actually, it's often the small things which become easier with the prosthesis; it leads to a clearly improved quality of life," Varley says. Furthermore, the artificial hand also has a psychological effect. "Many users report that their feeling of self-worth has increased with the Bebionic as they encounter interest and fascination with their new high-tech prosthesis," Varley notes.

In this context, the attractive design of the prosthesis also plays an important role.

"Our approach was rather unusual in prosthetics with the development of the third generation of Bebionic: We first developed the housing and then searched for solutions such as how the individual components can be housed," Varley emphasizes. "Five years ago, this would not have been possible for the small hand – the technology wasn't advanced enough."

Also, the small DC motors (1024 SR series) that were predestined for this application were still in the development phase when Steeper turned to Faulhaber with this project in 2013. The project teams on both sides then expedited the development of the motor series and hand prosthesis at the same time. Regular meetings of the Steeper and Faulhaber development teams took place in Great Britain and Switzerland. The intermediary of the meetings and the exclusive sales partner of Faulhaber in Great Britain, Electro Mechanical Systems (EMS), also took part. This intensive cooperation resulted in a motor with an exceptional power/volume ratio and tailor-made drive for the thumb which has brought this intense cooperation during development to a successful conclusion.

Top marks for performance
The new 1024 SR small DC motor is actually the best of its class and the most powerful for its size on the market. With a diameter of only 10mm and a length of 24 mm, it delivers a stall torque rating of 4.6mNm. It offers a consistently high torque across the entire speed range as a result of the flat speed/torque curve.

The strong performance, among others, is made possible by the development of a new coil design which contains 60% more copper than its predecessor and has been combined with a powerful rare-earth magnet. In order to make the movement as quiet as possible, the artificial hand uses tailor-made 10/1 series planetary gearheads.

“A significant challenge was the development of the linear drive system which had to be integrated into the thumb,” says Tiziano Bordonzotti, sales engineer at Faulhaber Minimotor. Thanks to high-precision 4 point bearings from Faulhaber's subsidiary, Micro Precision Systems (MPS), it was possible to make the drive significantly shorter than the competition. The unique features of the four-point bearing make it possible for it to withstand the high axial forces necessary for the application despite the smaller dimensions compared to alternative bearing systems. The entire thumb drive can withstand an axial force of up to 300N with an overall length of less than 49mm.

Ted Varley is excited by the result of the collaboration: "The Bebionic hand [size Small] is the most realistic myoelectric hand prosthesis on the market. It would not have been possible to realize this project without close cooperation with the committed project team of Faulhaber."

About Micromo
Micromo (Faulhaber Group) specializes in high precision, micro drive systems, servo components and drive electronics. The product range includes small brushless DC motors, brush DC motors, piezo motors, stepper motors, linear servo motors, gearheads, encoders, and motion controllers that are used in the most demanding applications in markets such as medical, aerospace, optics, robotics, and semiconductor equipment.

When benchmark engineering services, high performance technologies, and quick turnaround are critical, Micromo delivers as your custom motion solution partner in North America.

This is originally appeared on Micromo’s website in the Applications section.

Hannover, Germany – At the April 24-28 HANNOVER MESSE 2017 show in Hannover, Germany, steel ring maker Smalley will be displaying its expanded Crest-to-Crest ®  Wave Spring Series, compact rings to support ever-smaller devices and components.

The popular C (imperial) and CM (metric) Series have been expanded with standard sizes available from 5mm OD (0.188”) in diameter.

“Smalley was the originator of the Crest-to-Crest ®  Wave Spring,” states Darryl McBride, Smalley’s Director of Engineering. “I was amazed when I saw our springs coiled up to 4m in diameter, what surprised me even more was how much engineering went into designing smaller. Our expanded spring series will open up possibilities for designers in the medical, computer, and robotics industries, where wave springs couldn’t fit before."

Engineering and manufacturing teams continue to push the coiling limits with custom solutions available as small as 4mm (0.157”) in diameter.

With more than 190,000 visitors expected, Smalley officials expect HANNOVER MESSE 2017 to be a great venue for the product. To uncover why HANNOVER MESSE 2017 is a must attend event for visitors and exhibitors, we sat down with Ken Massett, Smalley’s vice president of sales.

Why attend HANNOVER MESSE 2017?

Smalley has attended the HANNOVER MESSE for more than 25 years. It is one of the few global manufacturing exhibitions. The show presents a great opportunity to meet engineers and buyers from industries and countries around the world.

What can people learn about the future of manufacturing technology?

By visiting Hannover, attendees can learn about the new technologies and materials available from today’s manufactures to be more competitive in the global marketplace. While Smalley Wave Springs have been on the market for decades, new advancements in coiling technologies have enabled us to offer our products in smaller diameters, allowing our customers to reduce the costs of their products.

How can I arrange a meeting with your company at HANNOVER MESSE 2017?

Smalley will have a team of engineers on staff for the duration of the event. Our engineering team has cross-industry design experience and is prepared to answer design questions. This is great opportunity to learn how Smalley can spec an application specific ring or spring solution, whether it means a standard part or a custom solution. We are located in Hall 4, A26.

What does your company hope to accomplish at HANNOVER MESSE 2017?

As the leading manufacturer of Wave Springs and Spirolox-type Retaining Rings, we hope to show how Smalley’s leading edge design team can provide space saving solutions to any industry with best-in-class quality and deliverability.

For free passes to the show, click here. The link takes you to a site with the pass code already entered.

Source: HANNOVER MESSE 2017, Smalley