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September 2001 Welcome to The CTMA Connector, a monthly newsletter designed to provide news and ideas about the Commercial Technologies for Maintenance Activities (CTMA) program. The CTMA program is a joint Department of Defense/National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (DoD/NCMS) effort promoting collaborative technology development between industry and the DoD maintenance and repair facilities. This newsletter highlights ongoing projects, serves as a forum for promoting new project ideas, and provides other news of interest to the program. Our goal is to stimulate your participation and solicit your input. Feel free to submit items for the newsletter as well as any suggestions to make it more useful.
Ongoing Project News We are always pleased when other publications report on CTMA project activities. Semiconductor International, a Cahners publication, published an article titled "Embedded Distributed Capacitance — an Enabling Technology" in its September 2001 issue. The article cited the CTMA program as "a significant technology advance... focused on the early evaluation of embedded distributed capacitance (EDC), which is the use of very thin, high dielectric constant layers between the copper power and ground layers in an otherwise conventional laminate." Also cited as a key to success was bringing together materials suppliers, PC fab vendors, end users and service organizations to evaluate materials, reliability, manufacturing and performance. This project was completed in late 2000. Participants included StorageTek (technical leader), Tobyhanna Army Depot (DoD leader), 3M, DuPont, Polyclad Laminates, HADCO, Merix, Delphi Automotive Systems, Raytheon Systems Company, Litton Interconnect Technologies, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The project final report is available for purchase from NCMS. To order your copies on-line, click on the Reports link on the NCMS home page, or contact NCMS Customer Care, customercare@ncms.org For information on the project, contact Lee Patch at 734-995-4972. Projects Seek Participants Digital laser capture technology offers many advantages over other measurement methodologies. A unique feature of this technology is that it simultaneously provides digital video images and three-dimensional (3D) data of shipboard compartments and components such as piping, heating/ventilating/air conditioning (HVAC) ducts, and structural steel. In fact, each pixel of the scan generates four attributes: 3D geometry (x, y, z) and intensity data that the operator can use to confirm that the object is completely scanned. The digital data can be used in variety of ways: to perform field dimensional checks, create 3D models, or generate 2D/3D computer-aided design (CAD) drawings. The Norfolk Naval Shipyard proposes the following project objectives:
CTMA is extending an invitation to potential industry and military maintenance activity partners who might benefit from this project. Please contact Gary Burkart at 612 839-4567 if you are interested in participating. OptiCAM: Optical Generation of 3D Models for Computer-Aided ManufacturingThe Norfolk Naval Shipyard proposes the following project: OptiCAM is an automated 3D surface modeling of parts system for reverse engineering and manufacturing. The system design includes a noncontact digital imaging system capable of measuring the 3D coordinates (x, y, z) of surfaces within its workspace. OptiCAM is capable of transforming the data into the formats required by commercial CAD/CAM and modeling software (STEP, IGES, ParaSolids, etc.) so that models of the measured objects can be manipulated for reverse engineering and CAM. The system is intended to increase the accuracy and efficiency of reverse engineering and manufacturing of equipment and its components. Unlike other digital data capture systems, no post-processing of the data is necessary to obtain 3D measurements. Users have a complete, spatially accurate model that the system constructs without human intervention as soon as the data capture process is completed. Since the data was generated from digital images, the texture color is available automatically. The result of this methodology is that a 3D surface model can be generated in 10 minutes rather than the normally experienced laser scanning operation of 40 hours.Please contact Gary Burkart at 612 839-4567 if you are interested in participating. Calendar Items The 5th Annual DoD Maintenance Symposium & Exhibition "Meeting the Readiness Challenge Through Innovative Maintenance" is being held October 29–November 1 in Kansas City, Missouri. On-line registration is available, or you may call 703-522-1820 for more information. New Project Ideas (click on topics to see descriptions)
We appreciate your feedback. Please contact Chuck Ryan with suggestions or input on other topics that would be of interest to you in this newsletter. The CTMA Program is sponsored by the Department of Defense; the content of this newsletter does not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the government; no official endorsement should be inferred. |
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NCMS
and its employees were shocked and saddened by horrifying acts committed
against innocent people in our nation last week. We offer our heartfelt
condolences to the families and friends of the victims and offer our support
for the soldiers, sailors, airmen and all those that will be called upon to
defend our freedom and our nation.