MSC Laminates is an off shoot from Material Sciences Corporation that makes laminated steel products. Their QuietSteel product is damping material that has been sandwiched between two layers of sheet steel. I have heard that this product is used in every oil pan on US cars. Recent news articles have appeared describing how Ford are using it in the firewall of their larger vehicles to reduce noise transmitted into the cabin.
Read more on the MSC Laminates web site.
The European Commission’s SILENCE program, Significantly Lower aircraft Environmental Noise Community ExposuRe, aims to reduce the noise from commercial aircraft. The research program involves 51 companies. Rolls Royce and Boeing developed a modified engine that was flight tested on a Boeing 777 that resulted in jet noise reduction of 4 dB and fan noise reduction by 13 dB.
Read more on the SAE Aerospace magazine online web site.
The FEMtools website has recently added a selection of acoustic and vibration papers that are available for download.
The Sound and Vibration magazine has a new web address: http://www.sandv.com/. Their feature articles are available for download in PDF format. This month they have an interesting article on “Airplane Ground Vibration Testing”, that discusses the modal anlysis of a 767 supported by the undercarriage on air-springs. In addition, they also have many older articles available for download – well worth checking out.
Researchers have developed a technique that uses an ultrasonic probe to examine tissue samples. The advantage of this technique is that tissue can be examined in-situ, without removing samples and that the tissue does not need staining. The resolution of the technique is useful to examine cells, down to about 0.1 micron.
Read more on the Physics Today web site.
National Instruments have released a new addon for LabVIEW, called the Sound and Vibration Toolset. The toolset includes baseband and zoom FFT, and octave analysis and many more features.
Read more on the NI web site.
SKF, an bearing manufacturing company, has developed an add on module for a Handspring Visor PDA that converts it into a portable vibration analyzer. The ‘MicroVibe’ can display time and FFT plots of vibration.
Read more on the SKF condition monitoring web site.
Cadillac, a division of GM, has designed cars with electro-rheological dampers – shock absorbers that contain iron particles that align themselves in the presence of a magnetic field. Their system is called ‘magnetic ride control’, and they claimed is the world’s fastest reacting suspension system.
Read more on the Cadillac web site.
Bruel and Kjaer USA are selling used and demo equipment at discounted prices. Check out their products listed on their web site.
Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) are selling a CD that contains more than 1,200 papers, many of which are in full color, this comprehensive collection includes documents from SAE Noise and Vibration conferences from 1985 through 2001; and selected papers from 1998 through 2002 SAE World Congresses.
Read more on the SAE web site.