LC

developments in technology

DEVELOPMENTS OF MICROELECTRONICS

in 1799 Alessandro Volta inveted the early battery, developed by Faraday in 1821, Edison in 1879 and Bell in 1957 with the first transistor. this is called a thermionic generating a lot of heat, was very large and had a glass bulb

this transistors are made of silicone semiconductor and are necessary for electronics overtime they had decreased of time in size, so now billlions can be on a silicone wafer. a transistor can amplifiy signals and be used as an electronic switch

this has allowed microelectronics to boom with product conergence in phones, with smaller, more effieicient phones. furthermore, moore’s law states that the number of transistors on silicone doubles every two years

NEW MATERIALS

new materials are often developed to be manufactured more easily, with PLA being procuted to be easily coloured and 3d printed. modern materials are recently discovered or developed and smart materials react to external stimuli and change their properties in response

new materials area used allowing new design possilities with SMAs such as Nitinol and textiles such as Kevlar and the fire resitant verion Nomex allowing better fire production

alongside this nanomaterials have been improved to have products from 1 - 100 nanometers in size, this products work at a molecular level. one example is graphene a one atom thick, strong, transparent, conducting material

NEW METHODS OF MANUFACTURE

specialist methods are developed for manufacture over time, this is combined with new mangemenet techniques to allow more unqiue processes. JIT and FMS have meant that most of manufacture can be automated. robots can do repeitive tasks easilt and cobots can work more effieiciently with humans

advanced 3d printing has also allowed complex shapes of polymers, contrete, food and metals to produced accuractly and quick, this allowed new forms to be made

CAD/CAM ADVANCEMENTS

CAD/CAM ha sdeveloped over time with FEA and CFD allowing better testing before production to test new ideas quicker. CAD/CAM has also become moreavailable allowing deisgners to utilise throguhout deisgn with VR and AR testing for visualisation and ddevelopment

moreover, generative deisgn allows minimisation of watse and maximisation of strucural integrity allowing algorithims to deisgn shapes for you

DESIGN AND MANUFACTURE PROCESS DEVELOPMENT

research and investigation

  • online databases

  • digital recordings

  • manufactureres infromation sheets

  • manuals

  • social media feedback

  • EPOS

  • sharing ideas

design generation

  • CFD

  • FEA

  • 2D and 3D CAD

  • 3D printing

  • VR

  • AR

  • collaborative documents

manufacture

  • JIT

  • CAM

  • FMS

  • MPS

  • AGVs

  • robots

  • cobots

  • RFIDs

quality control

  • non-destructive testing

  • laser scanning

  • automated sampling

  • feedback analysis

logistics and distribution

  • GPS

  • delivery robotos

  • stock control

  • CAM packaging

  • digital printing