Word: fluidic
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...explanation to practical application. They are building fluid circuits that supplement and even replace some electronic devices. By controlling and amplifying the flow of fluids (either gases or liquids), just as electron flow is controlled and amplified in electronic circuits, they have conjured up a variety of odd new fluidic devices that offer valuable improvements on their electronic counterparts...
Because they are unaffected by temperature extremes, radiation, vibration or shock-conditions that often damage or knock out electronic circuits-fluidic controls show their greatest promise in aerospace and defense work. The Army has already successfully tested a fluidic roll-rate control on its TIM (test instrumentation) missile; it is evaluating a fluidic navigational device developed by Martin Marietta Corp. for use by foot soldiers. Honeywell Inc. has developed and flown a fluidic autopilot. In less esoteric applications, the new technology is being used on New York Central locomotives, General Electric turbines and the machinery that manufactures Speidel watchbands...
Switches & Amplifiers. In place of the battery or generator that energizes an electronic circuit, fluidic devices use a continuous stream of fluid, usually air. The supply can come from a pump, from the hot gases of a jet engine, from air forced through nose vents in" missiles or airplanes, or even from a tank of compressed air. In a simple fluidic circuit, the power stream is fed into the base leg of a Ylike arrangement of tubes or channels. As the stream flows through the Y toward outlets at the end of two diverging arms, a fluid-flow phenomenon, called...
...other arm of the Y. A puff of the other control jet reverses the process, just as a small voltage change on the grid of a vacuum tube can control a relatively heavy flow of current through the tube's plate circuit. Like a vacuum tube, the fluidic circuit can thus be used as a switch to turn on or shut off a supply of power...
...etching or carving out a cavity at the point where the arms and base leg of a fluidic circuit meet (see diagram), fluidics engineers can prevent the power stream from clinging to either wall. Instead, it flows down the center of the Y and divides equally between the two outlets. In this "anti-Coanda" configuration, the application of a control jet merely deflects the power stream by an amount proportional to the intensity of the jet. As the output of the two legs varies with the strength of the control jet, the fluidic circuit is once more something...