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To create truly breakthrough technology, engineers must reimagine performance and reliability. What would it take to make my electric vehicle go further? How will we complete our mission if we encounter unexpected conditions? How can diagnostic testing be more accessible? These are real problems that our customers are solving every day.
We are proud to support industry leaders as they advance what’s possible. In this article, we’ll share a few examples of how fluid control technology is playing an important role in enabling innovation – and share practical takeaways to help inspire your next big idea.
Traditional benchtop instruments used for molecular diagnostics are typically bulky and rely on a complex fluid architecture of reagents, cleaning solutions, and waste vessels – making them expensive to operate and maintain. These limitations can make it difficult for patients to receive affordable and timely test results.
Industry leaders are performing testing faster, with higher sensitivity, in a smaller footprint, and at lower costs using consumable microfluidic chips. These small chips can be inserted into instruments that use pressure or vacuum to move fluid through them to perform testing. Because these microchips house the necessary fluidic passages, reagent supplies, sample inputs, detection zones, and waste wells, the instrument can be greatly simplified and made more compact. Also, many different tests can be run on the same instrument architecture – enabling a wider range of use.
Breakthroughs in engineering often come from subtraction, not addition. By moving the fluidic complexity into a microchip, diagnostic instruments can become simpler, easier to maintain, and far less expensive to operate.
Pneumatic control can be used to transport, filter, inject, mix, heat or cool, dilute, and detect fluids on these microchips. Our compact, reliable 2- and 3- port control solenoid valves are ideal for these applications because of their simple operation, low cost, and compact footprint.
Reducing weight in electric vehicles (EVs) is key to increasing vehicle range and efficiency. One opportunity for weight reduction is to minimize the fluid required to cool and lubricate components such as gear meshes or bearings in EVs.
Force lubrication and spray lubrication is being widely adopted in EV designs as it requires less weight and fluid than traditional splash cooling methods.
Engineers are constantly challenged to do more with less, especially in EV design. What seems like a constraint can also be a catalyst for breakthrough innovation. In this case, reducing the amount of fluid needed for system operation reduces the overall weight of the system – ultimately increasing the vehicle’s range.
Our targeting orifices are ideal for use in these applications because they offer reduced fluid flow with increased fluid velocity to penetrate small gaps in gear meshes and bearings. As a result, designers can downsize the vehicle’s oil pumps and further reduce the fluid required in these systems.
A small satellite’s lifespan – typically 5-7 years in low Earth orbit (LEO) – depends heavily on how well the propulsion system stores propellant. Leakage of the components responsible for storing propellants can cause sudden or continuous loss of fuel and shorten spacecraft (or mission) life.
To help protect against unplanned leakage, components that are responsible for controlling the release of propellant can be designed to stay closed even in extreme conditions.
Design for failure, not just success. You can’t always prevent extreme events, but you can design systems to mitigate risks. By engineering your system with potential failure modes in mind, you can increase your chances of a successful mission, even when things go wrong.
Recognizing this market need, our engineers designed our PTC Solenoid Valve so that pressure would cause the valve to remain closed even under unexpected conditions. With a weight as low as 0.14 of a pound, this valve delivers reliable performance in the smallest possible package size – just what spacecraft designers are looking for.
Innovation doesn’t always mean adding complexity. As these examples show, the best engineering solutions often come from simplifying systems, using fewer resources, and planning for the unexpected. By applying these principles, engineers can build smarter, more efficient, and more reliable technologies—today and tomorrow.
We are proud to support the engineers who are pioneering technology across a range of critical industries – from medical to automotive to aerospace, and more. We work with our customers to help realize industry advancements like these every day. If you’re ready to work engineer-to-engineer to build breakthrough technology, contact us today.
Always verify flow calculations by experiment.
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