Word: fluidic
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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...
Computers & Rockets. Scientists have devised countless ways to make use of the controlled output of fluidic circuits. A fluidic guidance system can control the course of a torpedo by shooting out jets of gas or sucking in water. This distorts the surrounding boundary layer of water, changes its frictional effects and causes the torpedo to turn. In a rocket flying through the atmosphere, the control jets of a fluidic stabilization system are attached to vents in the rocket's nose cone. As the attitude of the rocket be gins to change, the nose vents gulp in air at different...