Manufacturing Technology

BLT Supports Successful 10km-Level Flight and Recovery Test of Longyun Liquid Oxygen-methane Engine

On June 23, 2024, JiuZhou Yunjian (Beijing) Space Technology Co., Ltd. achieved a significant milestone with the successful completion of a 10km-level flight and recovery test of its Longyun liquid oxygen-methane engine at the Jiuquan Dongfeng Launch Site. This maiden flight evaluation showcased stable performance across all parameters, including flawless execution of start-up, shut-down sequences, thrust vectoring, and modulation. This landmark test represents China’s largest-scale vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) flight trial for reusable rockets to date. It marks the inaugural deployment of a domestically developed deep-throttleable liquid oxygen-methane engine in a 10km-level return flight. The test rigorously validated the VTOL configuration of a 3.8-meter diameter rocket body, showcasing advancements in high-load landing cushioning technology, large-thrust, highly throttleable, reusable propulsion technology, and precision navigation and guidance control for return landings, along with advanced health monitoring technology. BLT played a crucial role in this achievement by providing extensive metal additive manufacturing support. This included the development of critical components such as thrust chamber parts and turbopump components, leveraging innovative approaches to enhance production efficiency and component quality. Longyun liquid oxygen methane engine completes 10km-level flight recovery test. Innovative Solutions for Critical Engine Components The thrust chamber cap, integral to the functionality of the liquid oxygen-methane engine by transmitting thrust and housing propellants, has historically posed manufacturing challenges due to its reliance on segmented welding methods. These methods are susceptible to cracking under extreme conditions of temperature and pressure. Addressing these challenges, BLT opted for the high-temperature alloy In718 for its superior properties. Utilising the BLT-S450 printing machine, BLT achieved integrated manufacturing of the thrust chamber cap in just seven days. This approach not only ensures exceptional precision and product quality but also accelerates manufacturing timelines, facilitating rapid technological advancements and enhanced development efficiency for our clients. Pioneering Advances in Turbopump […]

Rolls-Royce and TCS Collaborate on Hydrogen Research Programme

TCS expands its partnership with Rolls-Royce to research hydrogen fuel system technology, continuing to prove hydrogen could be a zero-carbon aviation fuel of the future. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), a global leader in IT services, consulting, and business solutions, has expanded its partnership with Rolls-Royce, a British multinational specialising in civil aerospace, defense aerospace, services and power systems, to advance its sustainable initiatives. This collaboration involves research into hydrogen fuel system technology, continuing to prove hydrogen could be a zero-carbon aviation fuel of the future. TCS, leveraging its expertise as a trusted service provider, will provide engineering skills and support to Rolls-Royce as it addresses three key challenges in the journey to enabling hydrogen for use in aviation: fuel combustion, fuel delivery, and fuel systems integration with an engine. All elements must be confirmed to operate safely. This partnership underscores TCS’s commitment to driving sustainable transformation across industries, aligning with its broader mission to harness technology for positive societal impact. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has set ambitious targets for net zero carbon emissions by 2050, necessitating innovative sustainability solutions. Alan Newby, Director, Research and Technology, Rolls-Royce, said, “We welcome TCS to our hydrogen research programme and their engineering skills will play a valuable role in addressing our technology goals. We’ve already made great progress and having TCS with us gives us additional capability as we move forward on our journey to enable the energy transition for the aviation sector.” This expanded partnership was announced at the Farnborough International Airshow where TCS also showcased its technological prowess in the aviation industry. The partnership builds on a long-standing relationship between Rolls-Royce and the Tata Group, including engines and a strong supply chain commitment. TCS has also been working with Rolls-Royce since 2010 in the areas of design, manufacturing engineering, control […]

FactoryTalk DataMosaix puts data at the centre

Companies often spend a lot of effort and energy to figure out how they performed in the past. Rockwell Automation has released a solution that puts a company in control of how it will perform in the future. According to the World Economic Forum, in 2021 industries created, captured, copied and consumed 74 zettabytes of data – by 2023 that was estimated to rise to 130 zettabytes with one zettabyte equal to a trillion gigabytes. This rapidly growing volume of data is causing serious problems for organisations. While most sectors have seen rapid growth in data analytical solutions, industrial automation has been an exception. This is the case even though production data holds the key to insights into operational performance. Huge volumes of data on their own are not meaningful and engineers can spend up to 60 percent of their time gathering, cleaning, and collating data rather than driving insights. Putting data at the centre Rockwell Automation is taking a unique approach to address this issue. “Data is the centre of our strategy,” said Manish Jain, strategy leader – data, AI, and edge computing, Rockwell Automation. “Data needs to be organised, structured, and analysed to unlock insights that drive value for companies.” The company recently unveiled Factory Talk Data Mosaix which contextualises and merges engineering technology data with OT and IT data into one solution with the goal of full production automation. “AI will drive this process, but it needs valid data and good analytics,” said Jain. For example, data can provide insights into root cause analysis and future predictions, and function as a single source of truth to solve challenging problems. By integrating data from any vendor and all parts of the production system, it will make data available, meaningful, and useful so that standard applications and custom app […]

How leveraging smart factories optimises products and operations for manufacturers

Mei Dent, Chief Product and Technology Officer, TeamViewer Manufacturing processes and supply chains have become more complex over the past few years, making traditional methods insufficient to meet the demand for greater customisation and shorter production cycles. Manufacturers feel pressured by rising labour and material costs to find more efficient ways to produce high-quality goods. Additionally, the increasing need to meet environmental regulations and sustainability goals pushes manufacturers to adopt greener practices. As global competition intensifies, manufacturers must find ways to innovate and stay agile to respond quickly to market changes. Smart factories address these challenges by integrating advanced technologies to create a more responsive, efficient, and sustainable production environment. By leveraging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and the Internet of Things (IoT) to deliver predictive analytics and big data, manufacturers can optimise processes, manage inventory in real time, streamline logistics, and improve factory management. Smart factories collect, process, and use this data to gain valuable insights. Real-time production monitoring and closed-loop optimisations, along with collaboration between advanced robotics and humans, help create these transformations. However, a significant challenge in smart factory implementation is the disconnect between IT professionals and plant managers, particularly regarding data collection, outcome creation, and data protection. IT professionals often advocate for comprehensive data collection to optimise predictive maintenance, while plant managers are more concerned with the practical, immediate concerns such as knowing which machines are currently in production, how production is running, and maintaining seamless operations. IT professionals’ preference for leveraging cloud solutions can also clash with plant managers’ concerns about security and the usability of hyper-scale offerings. For example, IT professionals may push for automated updates and virtualisation, whereas plant managers worry about if production is operating at the level needed and the potential disruptions to long-established production systems. Bridging these […]

mimic joins race to develop first AI-driven collaborative robot

The race to develop the first commercially available humanoid robot has been primarily concentrated in the US – until now. Mimic, a Switzerland-based startup, is challenging US dominance and joining the robotics race to be the first to take a robotic arm and humanoid hand combination to market using generative AI, as it raises a pre-seed round of $2.5M. mimic’s $2.5M round is led by early stage Swiss investor Founderful, together with participation from German-based fund another.vc, UK-based Tiny.vc and an all-star lineup of specialised angel investors. Spinning out from the research university ETH Zurich, mimic was founded by researchers Elvis Nava, Stefan Weirich,Stephan-Daniel Gravert and Benedek Forrai in 2024. The founding team were working at the intersection of robotics and AI under Professor Robert Katzschmann’s Soft Robotic Labs when they became increasingly convinced that the latest developments in large scale generative AI models would upend a multitude of industries, beyond just language and image generation. The team set out to develop a foundation model for robotic manipulation and quickly realized how much value their idea held to revolutionise the way robotics fit into our everyday lives and economy. Today, global labour shortages are rocking businesses across multiple sectors and employers are struggling to find, hire and retain workers. Against the backdrop of a pronounced shift in work preferences, like reduced hours and enhanced flexibility to work from home, lab or shortages are especially severe in the case of menial, repetitive, and demanding manual tasks. mimic plans to ease these shortages with dexterous, human-like robotic hands that fit seamlessly into existing manual labour workflows, driven by state-of-the-art AI models trained directly from human demonstrations. This solution will enable a robot with humanoid hands to understand and imitate any behaviour, simply by watching a human perform it. This marks a departure […]

SYSPRO: Manufacturing CFOs shift focus to operational resilience

SYSPRO, a global provider of ERP software, has released its third annual Global CFO Survey, which reveals that the role of the manufacturing Chief Financial Officer (CFO) has seen a strategic inward focus aimed at bolstering operational resilience and efficiency in the wake of some unprecedented macro-economic shocks. The study, which was conducted from July to September 2023 and commissioned by SYSPRO, assessed the sentiment amongst CFOs within manufacturing sectors across the Americas, Asia Pacific (APAC), including Australia and New Zealand, as well as Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). The participants included financial leaders across both SMEs and larger enterprises, with the results reflecting the insights of a wide selection of decision makers in the manufacturing sector. Key insights: The study revealed that manufacturing CFOs believe that we are not post-crisis but rather between crises and that this is a situation that is likely to persist. As a result, the vast majority have recognised that their role is evolving into one of a ‘Hybrid CFO’. Shift to Operational Focus: In response to a series of external shocks, including post-pandemic supply chain disruptions, rising material costs, inflation and environmental challenges, manufacturing CFOs are increasingly adopting a hybrid role. This approach emphasises operational efficiencies to mitigate future economic shocks. The research demonstrated that CFOs are increasingly expected to operationalise digital transformation (52 per cent), which again points towards a greater involvement in operational areas. The Rise of the Hybrid CFO: The survey highlights the evolving role of CFOs, who now integrate strategic business knowledge with traditional financial expertise. This hybrid capability is essential for ensuring competitive advantage and requires a deep understanding of all business functions. Survey responses from all regions including APAC showed a high degree of consistency in terms of identifying the core skills and competencies required for a […]

CSIRO telescope becomes stellar ‘speed camera’ in world-first measurement

In a world first, researchers have measured the jets of neutron stars to be moving at 114,000km per second – one-third the speed of light. The international team achieved this result using the European Space Agency (ESA)’s orbiting gamma ray telescope, Integral, and the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) on Gomeroi Country which is owned and operated by Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO. Neutron stars, like black holes, have huge gravitational pulls. When pulling matter from a nearby star, their extreme environments cause the occasional thermonuclear explosion and constant jets of matter shooting into space. Not much is known about these jets, including their composition and speed. These latest results, published today in Nature, revealed that thermonuclear explosions – detected by Integral – pushed gas into the jets. The jets were then tracked with ATCA allowing their speed to be recorded. Professor James Miller-Jones from Curtin University node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) in Perth was one of the project researchers. He said it’s typically hard to measure the speed of a jet, but discovering the jets are enhanced after every thermonuclear explosion provides a new way of measuring their speeds. “The explosion tells us when the enhanced jets were launched, and we simply time them as they move downstream – just like we would time a 100m sprinter as they move between the starting blocks and the finish line,” Professor Miller-Jones said. CSIRO’s Dr Jamie Stevens, who leads the ATCA operations team in Narrabri, describes the telescope as a world-class and adaptable instrument. “Radio telescopes are extremely versatile in the research they can do,” Dr Stevens said. “Five of ATCA’s six dishes, for instance, take on different configurations by moving along a track. It can be used to look at everything from nearby objects in […]

Fighting data noise in industrial production – with fully configurable digital twin

Genius Core, provides industrial manufacturers and process-focused industries with a fully configurable digital twin of their facilities, giving complete, real-time visibility over maintenance needs, safety, and operational efficiency from anywhere in the world. Process Genius says Genius Core tackles the critical issue of digital noise in industrial processes, where hundreds of systems and sensors combine, making it extremely difficult to keep track of deviations in processes, maintenance, safety alerts, and malfunctions. The platform centralises all data from equipment in a 3D visualisation on both overview and facility levels, and all critical information can be accessed in real-time. Operators can also set up their digital twin without external help from external consultants. Data noise is one of the critical obstacles to industrial efficiency. A single facility produces thousands of data points to multiple systems from equipment every minute, which is often only accessible in one of the systems in use or Excel spreadsheets. As such, facility managers and process engineers waste significant amounts of time looking for the data they need or, in the worst case, overlook critical failures or maintenance needs because they are not made aware of critical information. When operating multiple facilities, this problem increases substantially. Genius Core removes these hurdles that cause decision-making delays. The modern industry operator doesn’t lack data. Industry 4.0 has seen a vast array of sensors and software that has made available any data imaginable from each piece of equipment in the facility. Their issue now is how to put this data to good use. With hundreds of systems and thousands of data points, the challenge is understanding the data and making the right decisions. With Genius Core, they can finally stop doing unnecessary and time-consuming detective work and focus on making those decisions. Industrial production largely depends on consistent facility uptime, and […]

AI set to supercharge robotic automation

Digital transformation is an ongoing process so we can expect to see breakthrough trends continuing to shape society. But how will these trends impact robotics and automation and what can the manufacturing industry expect to see in 2024? AI will set a new pace of development in robotics and automation AI is transforming the world of software development, making it cheaper, faster, and more effective. Software is a key component of automation, and with AI, software developers will be able to create more customised and optimised solutions for various tasks and challenges. If software development has sometimes felt like digging with a shovel, the introduction of AI is like bringing two horses and a plough to the process. However, automation expertise will remain a scarce and valuable resource in the process of AI revolutionsing manufacturing. It has been interesting and perhaps surprising to see AI changing the lives of office workers before it touches working practices in most factories. The benefits of machine learning will reach more manufacturers in 2024. After all, the technology is already there – we have many partners developing applications using AI to allow our robots to perform more complex and diverse functions. For example, AI allows robots to have human-like perception, handle variation, move parts precisely, adapt to changing environments, and learn from their own experience. With time, these capabilities will lead to unprecedented flexibility, quality and reliability in manufacturing. Developments in robotics software will enable more sharing and reuse Robotics software is the glue that binds users to their mechanical counterparts – a digital connectivity that transcends physical interaction. Software developments are enabling a new dimension of collaboration – connecting the people that use robots. 2024 will see software developments leading to new levels of sharing and reusability. Imagine a world […]

3D printed titanium structure shows supernatural strength

A 3D printed ‘metamaterial’ boasting levels of strength for weight not normally seen in nature or manufacturing could change how we make everything from medical implants to aircraft or rocket parts. RMIT University researchers created the new metamaterial – a term used to describe an artificial material with unique properties not observed in nature – from common titanium alloy. But it’s the material’s unique lattice structure design, recently revealed in the journal Advanced Materials, that makes it anything but common: tests show it’s 50% stronger than the next strongest alloy of similar density used in aerospace applications. Improving on nature’s own design Lattice structures made of hollow struts were originally inspired by nature: strong hollow-stemmed plants like the Victoria water lily or the hardy organ pipe coral (Tubipora musica) showed us the way in combining lightness and strength. However, as RMIT’s Distinguished Professor Ma Qian explains, decades of trying to replicate these hollow ‘cellular structures’ in metals has been frustrated by the common issues of manufacturability and load stress concentrating on the inside areas of the hollow struts, leading to premature failures. “Ideally, the stress in all complex cellular materials should be evenly spread,” Qian explained. “However, for most topologies, it is common for less than half of the material to mainly bear the compressive load, while the larger volume of material is structurally insignificant.” Metal 3D printing provides unprecedented innovative solutions to these issues. By pushing 3D printing design to its limits, the RMIT team optimized a new type of lattice structure to distribute the stress more evenly, enhancing its strength or structural efficiency. “We designed a hollow tubular lattice structure that has a thin band running inside it. These two elements together show strength and lightness never before seen together in nature,” said Qian. “By effectively merging two […]

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