Media
Contact:
Philip
Bulman, (301) 975-5661
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Manufacturing
Maryland Center
Keeps Tube Maker from Spiraling Out of Control
In
1888, Marvin Stone patented the world’s first spiral-wound product,
the drinking straw. Stone Industrial of College Park, Md. (a division
of Precision Products Group Inc.), a company of about 150 employees,
now manufactures state-of-the-art, small-diameter, spiral-wound tubing
from a variety of materials and according to precise specifications.
Increased sales for Stone’s thin-wall, spiral-wound paper tubes
put significant pressure on the company’s manufacturing operations.
Seeking ways to meet the demand, Stone officials requested assistance
from the Maryland Technology Extension Service, an affiliate of the
NIST Manufacturing Extension Partnership
national network of assistance centers for smaller manufacturers.
The solution? MTES engineers recommended designing a manufacturing
cell for thin-wall, spiral-wound paper tubes. Together with Stone
personnel, MTES evaluated the best combination of machines, the layout
of the machinery, and the automated material handling between machines
to determine which configuration would achieve maximum throughput
and balance.
When the work cell is completed this year, Stone projects that it
will increase annual production of its spiral-wound tubes from 20
million to 80 million without the need to hire additional staff.
For more information on MTES’s services, contact Richard Brooks,
(410) 706-3233, rb51@umail.umd.edu.
Small manufacturers elsewhere can reach their local NIST MEP office
by calling (800) MEP-4MFG (637-4634).
Media
Contact:
Jan
Kosko, (301) 975-2767
Materials
Practice Guide
on Particle Size Characterization Now Available
The
first in a new publication series, the NIST Recommended Practice
Guide: Particle Size Characterization, will help industrial and
academic laboratories measure particle size and size distribution
of ceramic powders in a more reliable and reproducible way. Improper
powder size measurements during processing can affect the mechanical,
electrical or thermal properties of the final product, resulting in
poor quality and high rejection rates. Designed for a general user,
the guide includes aspects of particle characterization research conducted
by NIST for well over a decade. This research also has resulted in
the development of standard reference materials and improvements in
measurement procedures.
The guide covers
techniques commonly used in the ceramics manufacturing industry such
as microscopy, sieving, gravitational sedimentation and laser light
diffraction. For each technique, the book provides directions for
sample preparation, instrument
calibration and set-up; details relevant national and international
standards; and discusses capabilities, limitations and general principles.
NIST researchers
are looking at the challenges presented in the characterization of
smaller-size (submicron or nanosize) particles. These powders typically
are used in the manufacture of components, such as substrates for
computer chips and high-temperature structural materials. NIST plans
to hold a workshop on issues related to reliable particle size measurement
at the submicron and finer levels in October 2001.
To obtain a copy
of NIST Special Publication 960-1, NIST Recommended Practice Guide:
Particle Size Characterization, contact Carolyn
Sladic, (301) 975-6119. For more information on NIST particle
research, contact Ajit
Jillavenkatesa, (301) 975-5089.
Media
Contact:
Pamela
Houghtaling, (301) 975-5745
Chemistry
Paper Traces
History of NIST Refrigerants Program
A
new paper traces the history of NIST’s research on the thermophysical
properties of refrigerants. In 1909, when the agency was only eight
years old, the American Society of Refrigeration Engineers (now the
American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air- Conditioning Engineers)
asked the then-National Bureau of Standards to determine the properties
of calcium chloride brines. Four years later, it asked NBS to do research
on ammonia; the tables resulting from this work, published in 1923,
remained the accepted properties for this important fluid until superseded
by another NBS formulation in 1978.
Other early work
of interest to the refrigeration industry included determination of
the specific and latent heats of ice and properties of steam. Some
of these early data for ammonia and steam, most notably the heat capacity
and heat of vaporization data, still are considered to be among the
very best available.
In the 1950s,
some of this work transferred to NIST’s new laboratory in Boulder,
Colo. Starting out as the Cryogenics Division, its early work addressed
the needs of the space program for thermophysical properties of hydrogen,
oxygen, and other fuels and oxidizers. Later, the program focused
on simple hydrocarbons and their mixtures, and other fluids of industrial
interest.
The current program
began in 1981 as a collaboration between Boulder and Gaithersburg
groups to provide properties for refrigerant mixtures being investigated
for use in heat pumps. The program increased dramatically in scope
six years later when chlorofluorocarbon refrigerants were implicated
in destruction of stratospheric ozone. Because of its long-standing
research in fluid properties, NIST was in a unique position to respond
to the urgent international need for data on new refrigerants. NIST
transfers this data to industry in a variety of ways, including a
computer database known as REFPROP.
For a free copy
of paper no. 10-01 describing this history, contact Sarabeth
Harris, NIST, MC104, Boulder, Colo. 80305-3328; (303) 497-3237.
Media
Contact:
Fred
McGehan (Boulder), (303) 497-3246
Optoelectronics
New Excimer Laser
Measurement Service Available
NIST
recently has developed a new excimer laser measurement service for
small-area detectors like those used in high-resolution semiconductor
photolithography systems, and other excimer laser applications.
NIST now has
the capability to accurately measure pulse-energy density of deep
ultraviolet radiation produced by excimer lasers; this new capability
is being used to provide dose (i.e., energy density) measurement services.
Richard Jones of NIST’s
Optoelectronics Division and Holger Labs, a guest researcher,
offer absolute responsivity calibrations of laser dose meters at the
laser wavelength of 193 nanometers. Additional excimer laser wavelengths
will be added to this service in the near future.
The dose measurements
are performed using a beamsplitter-based calibration system in which
a spatially uniform beam from an argon-fluoride excimer laser is generated
using a special beam homogenizer. The beam propagation properties,
including uniformity or homogeneity, are fully characterized with
a state-of-the-art beam profile measurement system based on a pyroelectric
camera array. This uniform beam then is used to irradiate a NIST-calibrated
aperture placed immediately in front of the test detector. Measurement
traceability for these calibrations comes from an electrically calibrated,
primary standard calorimeter developed by Chris Cromer and Marla Dowell,
also of the Optoelectronics Division.
Additional information
on this new calibration service can be obtained from Richard
D. Jones, MC 815, NIST, Boulder, Colo. 80305-3328; (303) 497-3439.
