One of the problems with using the number of watts consumed to produce a particular output of another form of energy (light, motion, heat, etc) is that there are always losses when one form of energy is converted to another. Although the law of conservation of energy always applies, energy lost in conversion to other forms of …
Over the years, there have been several anecdotal references to otherwise unexplained changes in the properties of surfaces exposed to ultrasonic energy in a liquid. In some cases, it would make sense that the change was due to increased cleanliness. In others, however, the benefit of cleanliness alone would seem questionable. One incident in particular …
Watts per gallon as a measure of ultrasonic cleaning tank capability is under growing scrutiny. In a series of blogs over the next several weeks, I hope to explore the origin of watts per gallon and the changes and ambiguities which have brought its continued use as a measure of ultrasonic capability into question. Also, if …
In the process of parts cleaning, capillary flow can be our friend or our enemy – sometimes both at the same time. So let’s take a minute or two to understand this interesting phenomenon. Capillary flow is a property that is exhibited when liquids spontaneously penetrate narrow passageways. The classic example of a capillary (narrow passageway) …
We have all heard of servos (short for servomechanism) but exactly what characterizes a “servo” is often a cloudy topic. Most sources are in agreement that the centrifugal ball governor invented by James Watt and used to control the speed of steam engines was the first application of a powered servo mechanism. This eloquently simple …
Viscosity and surface tension are properties that are often intuitively linked to one another. Because these properties are of primary importance in cleaning it will be worth the while to understand them a bit better. Surface tension is the property of a liquid that exists at the interface of the liquid with another media (usually …
Wrong! I don’t think most of us would consider using motor oil to moisten our dry skin. By the same token, we wouldn’t use body oil in our car’s engine. The notion seems to persist in the cleaning industry, however, that oil is oil. We often neglect to differentiate between oils when it comes to developing or recommending a …
As a prolog to the following let me just say, as I may have said before in this blog, that being an engineer is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because you intuitively understand how things work (or at least think you do) that other people see as magic, and a curse because …
Since DI water quality is critical to many cleaning processes, it is important to understand its behavior. In too many cases, the quest for numbers results in high costs in the use of DI water. In short, delivering super-high resistivity water does not always have a significant impact on the resistivity of de-ionized water in the ultimate application. …
De-ionized water is commonly used in both industrial and precision cleaning systems, primarily for rinsing. De-ionized water is a little like the speed of light or absolute zero in that you can never quite TOTALLY remove all the ions from the water (although we can get close) and, once a certain level of de-ionization is achieved, it …
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