materials

rubber material tradeoffs

Going through a rubber design guide I snagged from MN Rubber a while back, I saw this nifty chart. A great way of communicating information. Manufacturers looking to create a design guide (in addition to engineers for more obvious reasons) should definitely check out this. The GE injection molding design guide doesn’t suck either.

Tagged as: product design, rubber

Reaction Injection Molding (RIM) design guide

I’ve written before about reaction injection molding as it pertains to memory foam. Recently I’ve had occasion to dive back into it, and have found the following design guide to be pretty helpful. (notify me if the link ever breaks, I’ve got the PDF locally). Much of it is really basic (i.e. outside corner of the [...]

Tagged as: foam, Injection Molding, RIM

when to use nonlinear finite element analysis

Dig even a little bit into the different fea packages out there and you will notice a distinction between linear and nonlinear analysis. You might then wonder under what circumstances to use linear analysis and what circumstances to use nonlinear analysis? First off, let me say that mechanically speaking, there is no such thing as [...]

Tagged as: CAD, Finite Element Analysis (FEA)

black chromium: black hard anodizing for stainless steel

You can’t hard anodize stainless steel, I know this. But today I wished I could. I was looking for a black, low friction, wear resistant, corrosion resistant coating to put on a stainless steel part. So I looked around for a while, and came up with something similar (as far as I can tell): Black Chromium. [...]

Tagged as: black chrome, finishing, guns, plating

metal injection molding (MIM) notes

There was a forum question over at Core77 about metal injection molding, and it just so happened I had an exhaustive set of notes on the process. I’ve since gotten enough follow up questions that I thought it would be worth re-posting here. We had a guy from Precision Made Products present to us [...]

Tagged as: Injection Molding, manufacturing, metal injection molding, product design

video: makerbot print quality keeps getting better

Now thanks to a stepper motor upgrade to the extruder. From Makerbot Using a stepper motor to drive your extruder brings a host of advantages. Fussy DC gear motors are history: stepper motors live substantially longer as they do not have internal brushes to wear out. Stepper motors are also much more precise as the [...]

Tagged as: makerbot

apple dual anodization

ismashphone reports the apple is filing a patent on dual anodization (links mine): A metal surface treated to have two anodized layers or regions may be used in electronic devices. The surface treatment may include performing a first anodization process to create a first anodized layer, removing the first anodized layer at select locations, and [...]

Tagged as: anodizing, apple, hard anodizing, product design

designing with nylon

I recently had occasion to dive pretty deep into Nylon(polyamide). For some applications it’s perfect, but you will consider the following before you start lock it into your design. nylon absorbs alot of water To give you a from of reference, typical engineering polymers like ABS & PC absorb ~0.3% – 0.5% water (by weight). [...]

Tagged as: nylon, plastics, tolerances

green plastics search engine

A while back I shared 6 of my favorite materials websites. Well I just came across another great site, courtesy of IDES, that I wish I’d included. The site is IDES’s new Prospector Tool, and it’s got some nice search features that Matweb doesn’t have (they’ve got some videos after the jump), but one in particular [...]

Tagged as: biodegradaility, materials, plastics, recycling

liquid metal (as awesome as it sounds)

Just came across LiquidMetal today. Wow. At first I thought it was just a twist on Metal Injection Molding (MIM). Digging in a little further I realized that the really cool part isn’t the process, it’s the material. Liquid Metal isn’t actually a material, but a class of alloys, check out their website for more [...]

Tagged as: alloys, apple, liquid metal, metal injection molding, springs

hard anodizing

A while back I had the need to get some sheetmetal (every spell check in the world keeps telling me it’s “sheet metal” and not “sheetmetal”, but I digress) and machined parts hard anodized. I’ve been meaning to post my notes on the process for some time… and now I am. what is hard anodizing? A [...]

Tagged as: aluminum, anodizing, hard anodizing, hard coat, plating

Thumbnail image for pre-consumer vs post-consumer recycled content

pre-consumer vs post-consumer recycled content

This past weekend I was flipping through the March 2010 edition of Metropolis and came across an advertisement for a new line of San Fransisco bus shelter. As eye candy, it was in line with the rest of the magazine, but read some of the copy and you see they are trying to sell it [...]

Tagged as: Koda XT, LEED, materials, polycarbonate, recycle

Thumbnail image for a wake-up story

a wake-up story

If you’re anything like me, you occasionally (read: habitually) flip through trade magazines, checking to see if any badass new materials have cropped off. Graphene you say? Sweet. Aerogel? Awesome. Transparent aluminum? Beam me up. Unfortunately, even as a sustainability nut I don’t think I’m in the minority when I say that my knee-jerk reaction [...]

Tagged as: materials

Thumbnail image for sealing medical cushions: <br/> RF vs ultrasonic welding

sealing medical cushions:
RF vs ultrasonic welding

Once your kickass memory foam design has been molded or fabricated, it’s probably going to need to be covered. That means upholstery. When you think of upholstery, you probably think of stitching and sewing. If you’ve got some practical experience, stapling might even come to mind. But when you start talking about designing medical cushions, [...]

Tagged as: fabrics, medical, RF welding, ultrasonic welding

Thumbnail image for help make your stainless steel…stainless? what?

help make your stainless steel…stainless? what?

If you’re thinking, “Wait. Isn’t stainless steel already stainless?”, you’re aren’t the first. Everyone thinks the very same thing the first time they hear “stainless”. I for one was under the same impression until I asked some embarrassing questions at my first co-op… an aerospace manufacturer that makes a living on stainless steel. But can we really [...]

Tagged as: stainless steel

Thumbnail image for 6 non-sucky materials sites

6 non-sucky materials sites

As product designers we deal with materials every day, but it’s a messy world out there and a surprising (or maybe not so surprising) number of materials websites suck. These ones don’t. I promise. MatWeb MatWeb is the big daddy when it comes to engineering materials. Their enormous selection of generic (i.e. polycarbonate) and proprietary [...]

Tagged as: materials, references