lightweight+design

m; nur Sg.; ARCHIT., TECH. lightweight construction

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lightweight design

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m pl - bauten

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Leichtbau m; nur sg; ARCH, TECH lightweight construction

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lightweight construction n.

1) Engineering: lightweight design (вагона)

2) Railway term: light weight

3) Mining: simplified construction

4) Oil: light-weight construction, lightened structural member

5) Oilfield: light-weight-type construction

6) Robots: light-weight design

(n.) = eyewear

Ex. Modern bioptic eyewear design of includes many, small lightweight systems that have improved patient acceptance.

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= eyewear.

Ex. Modern bioptic eyewear design of includes many, small lightweight systems that have improved patient acceptance.

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lenses, eyeglasses, glasses, specs.

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► nombre masculino plural

1 glasses, spectacles

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masculino plural (esp AmL) glasses (pl), spectacles (pl)

- lentes bifocales

- lentes de sol

- lentes oscuros

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(n.) = eyewear

Ex. Modern bioptic eyewear design of includes many, small lightweight systems that have improved patient acceptance.

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masculino plural (esp AmL) glasses (pl), spectacles (pl)

- lentes bifocales

- lentes de sol

- lentes oscuros

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( esp AmL); glasses (pl), spectacles (pl) ( frml)

bifocals (pl)

prescription glasses o spectacles (pl)

sunglasses (pl)

bifocals (pl), multifocals (pl)

sunglasses (pl), dark glasses (pl)

prescription glasses o spectacles (pl)

sunglasses (pl), dark glasses (pl)

varifocal lenses pl

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mpl LAm. glasses

SUBJECT AREA: Land transport, Railways and locomotives, Steam and internal combustion engines

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Orphaned as a child, Hamilton went to work for Southern Pacific Railroad in his teens, and then worked for several other companies. In his spare time he learned mathematics and physics from a retired professor. In 1911 he joined the White Motor Company, makers of road motor vehicles in Denver, Colorado, where he had gone to recuperate from malaria. He remained there until 1922, apart from an eighteenth-month break for war service.

Upon his return from war service, Hamilton found White selling petrol-engined railbuses with mechanical transmission, based on road vehicles, to railways. He noted that they were not robust enough and that the success of petrol railcars with electric transmission, built by General Electric since 1906, was limited as they were complex to drive and maintain. In 1922 Hamilton formed, and became President of, the Electro- Motive Engineering Corporation (later Electro-Motive Corporation) to design and produce petrol-electric rail cars. Needing an engine larger than those used in road vehicles, yet lighter and faster than marine engines, he approached the Win ton Engine Company to develop a suitable engine; in addition, General Electric provided electric transmission with a simplified control system. Using these components, Hamilton arranged for his petrol-electric railcars to be built by the St Louis Car Company, with the first being completed in 1924. It was the beginning of a highly successful series. Fuel costs were lower than for steam trains and initial costs were kept down by using standardized vehicles instead of designing for individual railways. Maintenance costs were minimized because Electro-Motive kept stocks of spare parts and supplied replacement units when necessary. As more powerful, 800 hp (600 kW) railcars were produced, railways tended to use them to haul trailer vehicles, although that practice reduced the fuel saving. By the end of the decade Electro-Motive needed engines more powerful still and therefore had to use cheap fuel. Diesel engines of the period, such as those that Winton had made for some years, were too heavy in relation to their power, and too slow and sluggish for rail use. Their fuel-injection system was erratic and insufficiently robust and Hamilton concluded that a separate injector was needed for each cylinder.

In 1930 Electro-Motive Corporation and Winton were acquired by General Motors in pursuance of their aim to develop a diesel engine suitable for rail traction, with the use of unit fuel injectors; Hamilton retained his position as President. At this time, industrial depression had combined with road and air competition to undermine railway-passenger business, and Ralph Budd, President of the Chicago, Burlington \& Quincy Railroad, thought that traffic could be recovered by way of high-speed, luxury motor trains; hence the Pioneer Zephyr was built for the Burlington. This comprised a 600 hp (450 kW), lightweight, two-stroke, diesel engine developed by General Motors (model 201 A), with electric transmission, that powered a streamlined train of three articulated coaches. This train demonstrated its powers on 26 May 1934 by running non-stop from Denver to Chicago, a distance of 1,015 miles (1,635 km), in 13 hours and 6 minutes, when the fastest steam schedule was 26 hours. Hamilton and Budd were among those on board the train, and it ushered in an era of high-speed diesel trains in the USA. By then Hamilton, with General Motors backing, was planning to use the lightweight engine to power diesel-electric locomotives. Their layout was derived not from steam locomotives, but from the standard American boxcar. The power plant was mounted within the body and powered the bogies, and driver's cabs were at each end. Two 900 hp (670 kW) engines were mounted in a single car to become an 1,800 hp (l,340 kW) locomotive, which could be operated in multiple by a single driver to form a 3,600 hp (2,680 kW) locomotive. To keep costs down, standard locomotives could be mass-produced rather than needing individual designs for each railway, as with steam locomotives. Two units of this type were completed in 1935 and sent on trial throughout much of the USA. They were able to match steam locomotive performance, with considerable economies: fuel costs alone were halved and there was much less wear on the track. In the same year, Electro-Motive began manufacturing diesel-electrie locomotives at La Grange, Illinois, with design modifications: the driver was placed high up above a projecting nose, which improved visibility and provided protection in the event of collision on unguarded level crossings; six-wheeled bogies were introduced, to reduce axle loading and improve stability. The first production passenger locomotives emerged from La Grange in 1937, and by early 1939 seventy units were in service. Meanwhile, improved engines had been developed and were being made at La Grange, and late in 1939 a prototype, four-unit, 5,400 hp (4,000 kW) diesel-electric locomotive for freight trains was produced and sent out on test from coast to coast; production versions appeared late in 1940. After an interval from 1941 to 1943, when Electro-Motive produced diesel engines for military and naval use, locomotive production resumed in quantity in 1944, and within a few years diesel power replaced steam on most railways in the USA.

Hal Hamilton remained President of Electro-Motive Corporation until 1942, when it became a division of General Motors, of which he became Vice-President.

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SUBJECT AREA: Agricultural and food technology, Land transport

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The son of a market gardener, Albone's interest lay in mechanics, and by 1880 he had established his own business as a cycle maker and repairer. His inventive mind led to a number of patents relating to bicycle design, but his commercial success was particularly assisted by his achievements in cycle racing. From this early start he diversified his business, designing and supplying, amongst other things, axle bearings for the Great Northern Railway, and also building motor cycles and several cars. It is possible that he began working on tractors as early as 1896. Certainly by 1902 he had built his first prototype, to the three-wheeled design that was to remain in later production models. Weighing only 30 cwt, yet capable of pulling two binders or a two-furrow plough, Albone's Ivel tractor was ahead of anything in its time, and its power-to-weight ratio was to be unrivalled for almost a decade. Albone's commercial success was not entirely due to the mechanical tractor's superiority, but owed a considerable amount to his ability as a showman and demonstrator. He held two working demonstrations a month in the village of Biggleswade in Bedfordshire, where the tractors were made. The tractor was named after the river Ivel, which flowed through the village. The Ivel tractor gained twenty-six gold and silver medals at agricultural shows between 1902 and 1906, and was a significant contributor to Britain's position as the world's largest exporter of tractors between 1904 and 1914. Albone tried other forms of his tractor to increase its sales. He built a fire engine, and also an armoured vehicle, but failed to impress the War Office with its potential.

Albone died at the age of 46. His tractor continued in production but remained essentially unimproved, and the company finally lost its sales to other designs, particularly those of American origin.

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SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace

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After receiving his education at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, Bacon served with C.A. Parsons at Newcastle upon Tyne from 1925 to 1940. From 1946 to 1956 he carried out research on Hydrox fuel cells at Cambridge University and was a consultant on fuel-cell design to a number of organizations throughout the rest of his life.

Sir William Grove was the first to observe that when oxygen and hydrogen were supplied to platinum electrodes immersed in sulphuric acid a current was produced in an external circuit, but he did not envisage this as a practical source of electrical energy. In the 1930s Bacon started work to develop a hydrogen-oxygen fuel cell that operated at moderate temperatures and pressures using an alkaline electrolyte. In 1940 he was appointed to a post at King's College, London, and there, with the support of the Admiralty, he started full-time experimental work on fuel cells. His brief was to produce a power source for the propulsion of submarines. The following year he was posted as a temporary experimental officer to the Anti-Submarine Experimental Establishment at Fairlie, Ayrshire, and he remained there until the end of the Second World War.

In 1946 he joined the Department of Chemical Engineering at Cambridge, receiving a small amount of money from the Electrical Research Association. Backing came six years later from the National Research and Development Corporation (NRDC), the development of the fuel cell being transferred to Marshalls of Cambridge, where Bacon was appointed Consultant.

By 1959, after almost twenty years of individual effort, he was able to demonstrate a 6 kW (8 hp) power unit capable of driving a small truck. Bacon appreciated that when substantial power was required over long periods the hydrogen-oxygen fuel cell associated with high-pressure gas storage would be more compact than conventional secondary batteries.

The development of the fuel-cell system pioneered by Bacon was stimulated by a particular need for a compact, lightweight source of power in the United States space programme. Electro-chemical generators using hydrogen-oxygen cells were chosen to provide the main supplies on the Apollo spacecraft for landing on the surface of the moon in 1969. An added advantage of the cells was that they simultaneously provided water. NRDC was largely responsible for the forma-tion of Energy Conversion Ltd, a company that was set up to exploit Bacon's patents and to manufacture fuel cells, and which was supported by British Ropes Ltd, British Petroleum and Guest, Keen \& Nettlefold Ltd at Basingstoke. Bacon was their full-time consultant. In 1971 Energy Conversion's operation was moved to the UK Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell, as Fuel Cells Ltd. Bacon remained with them until he retired in 1973.

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SUBJECT AREA: Civil engineering

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During his long life Eiffel, together with a number of architects, was responsible for the design and construction of a wide variety of bridges, viaducts, harbour installations, exhibition halls, galleries and department stores; he set up his own firm in 1867 to handle such construction. Of particular note were his great arched bridges, such as the 530 ft (162 m) span arch over the River Douro at Oporto in Portugal (1877–9) and the 550 ft (168 m) span of the Pont de Garabit over the Truyère in France (1880–4). He was responsible in 1884 for the protective iron-work for the Statue of Liberty in New York and, a year later, for the great dome over the Nice Observatory. In 1876 he had collaborated with Boileau to build the Bon Marché department store in Paris. The predominant material for all these structures was iron, and, in some cases glass was important. The famous Eiffel Tower in Paris is entirely of wrought iron, and the legs are supported on masonry piers that are each set into concrete beneath the ground. The idea of the tower was first conceived in 1884 by Maurice Koechlin and Emile Nougier, and Eiffel won a competition for the commission to built the structure. His imaginative and practical scheme was for a strong lightweight construction 984 ft (300 m) high, with its 12,000 sections to be prefabricated and riveted together largely before erection; the open, perforated design reduced the problems of wind resistance. The tower was constructed on schedule by 1889 to commemorate the centenary of the outbreak of the French Revolution and was the tallest structure in the world until the erection of the Empire State Building in New York in 1930–2.

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Leichtbauweise f TECH light-metal design, light-weight build, lightweight construction

¹ = bioptic.

Nota: Que se compone de dos lentes.

Ex. Modern bioptic eyewear design of includes many, small lightweight systems that have improved patient acceptance.

bióptico¹

¹ = bioptic.

Nota: Que se compone de dos lentes.

bióptico²

² = biopsy.

Nota: Nombre y adjetivo.

SUBJECT AREA: Architecture and building

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After naval service during the First World War, Fuller worked for some time in the building industry with his father, who was an architect. In 1927 he became interested in trying to solve social problems by providing good, low-cost housing for an expanding population. Utilizing modern techniques applicable in other industries, such as the design of aircraft and ships, he produced his "Dymaxion House", which was transportable and cheap. This was followed in 1946 by his aluminium, stressed-skin, prefabricated house. The geodesic dome is the structural concept for which Fuller is particularly known. It was patented in 1954 and 300,000 were built over a thirty-year period. He had envisaged the dome being utilized on smaller or larger, simple or complex patterns for a wide variety of needs such as enclosing a covered area for a house, a botanical garden, an exhibition pavilion, a factory, a weather station or, indeed, an entire city. A famous example that he designed was that for the US pavilion at Expo '67 in Montreal. A geodesic dome is generally spherical in form, the chief structural elements of which are interconnected in a geodesic pattern, i.e. one in which the lines connecting two points are the shortest possible. The structure is composed of slender, lightweight struts (usually of aluminium) arranged in geometrical patterns, with the metal skeleton covered by a light, plastic material. Inside the dome, all the space is usable and the climate is controllable. Fuller wrote and lectured widely on his patented invention, explaining the importance of structural research particularly in relation to world needs.

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SUBJECT AREA: Automotive engineering, Steam and internal combustion engines

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Orphaned at the age of 10, Maybach was destined to become one of the world's most renowned engine designers. From 1868 he was apprenticed as a draughtsman at the Briiderhaus Engineering Works in Reurlingen, where his talents were recognized by Gottlieb Daimler, who was Manager and Technical Director. Nikolaus Otto had by then developed his atmospheric engine and reorganized his company, Otto \& Langen, into Gasmotorenfabrik Deutz, of which he appointed Daimler Manager. After employment at a machine builders in Karlsruhe, in 1872 Maybach followed Daimler to Deutz where he worked as a partner on the design of high-speed engines: his engines ran at up to 900 rpm, some three times as fast as conventional engines of the time. Maybach made improvements to the timing, carburation and other features. In 1881 Daimler left the Deutz Company and set up on his own as a freelance inventor, moving with his family to Bad Cannstatt; in April 1882 Maybach joined him as Engineer and Designer to set up a partnership to develop lightweight high-speed engines suitable for vehicles. A motor cycle appeared in 1885 and a modified horse-drawn carriage was fitted with a Maybach engine in 1886. Other applications to small boats, fire-engine pumps and small locomotives quickly followed, and the Vee engine of 1890 that was fitted into the French Peugeot automobiles had a profound effect upon the new sport of motor racing. In 1895 Daimler won the first international motor race and the same year Maybach became Technical Director of the Daimler firm. In 1899 Emil Jellinek, Daimler agent in France and also Austro-Hungarian consul, required a car to compete with Panhard and Levassor, who had been victorious in the Paris-Bordeaux race; he wanted more power and a lower centre of gravity, and turned to Maybach with his requirements, the 35 hp Daimler- Simplex of 1901 being the outcome. Its performance and road holding superseded those of all others at the time; it was so successful that Jellinek immediately placed an order for thirty-six cars. His daughter's name was Mercedes, after whom, when the merger of Daimler and Benz came about, the name Mercedes-Benz was adopted.

In his later years, Maybach designed the engine for the Zeppelin airships. He retired from the Daimler Company in 1907.

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SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace

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At the age of 19, Phillips developed an interest in flight and constructed models with lightweight engines. He spent a large amount of time and money over many years, carrying out practical research into the science of aerodynamics. In the early 1880s he built a wind tunnel with a working section of 15 in. by 10 in. (38 cm by 25 cm). Air was sucked through the working section by an adaptation of the steam injector used in boilers and invented by Henry Giffard, the airship pioneer. Phillips tested aerofoils based on the cross-section of bird's wings, with a greater curvature on the upper surface than the lower. He measured the lift and drag and showed that the major component of lift came from suction on the upper surface, rather than pressure on the lower. He took out patents for his aerofoil sections in 1884 and 1891. In addition to his wind-tunnel test, Phillips tested his wing sections on a whirling arm, as used earlier by Cayley, Wenham and Lilienthal. After a series of tests using an arm of 15 ft (4.57 m) radius, Phillips built a massive whirling arm driven by a steam engine. His test pieces were mounted on the end of the arm, which had a radius of 50 ft (15.24 m), giving them a linear speed of 70 mph (113 km/h). By 1893 Phillips was ready to put his theories to a more practical test, so he built a large model aircraft driven by a steam engine and tethered to run round a circular track. It had a wing span of 19 ft (5.79 m), but it had fifty wings, one above the other. These wings were only 10 in. (25 cm) wide and mounted in a frame, so it looked rather like a Venetian blind. At 40 mph (64 km/h) it lifted off the track. In 1904 Phillips built a full-size multi-wing aeroplane with twenty wings which just lifted off the ground but did not fly. He built another multi-wing machine in 1907, this time with four Venetian blind' frames in tandem, giving it two hundred wings! Phillips made a short flight of almost 500 ft (152 m) which could be claimed to be the first powered aeroplane flight in England by an Englishman. He retired from flying at the age of 62.

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SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace

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Charles Renard was a French army officer with an interest in aviation. In 1873 he constructed an unusual unmanned glider with ten wings and an automatic stabilizing device to control rolling. This operated by means of a pendulum device linked to moving control surfaces. The model was launched from a tower near Arras, but unfortunately it spiralled into the ground. The control surfaces could not cope with the basic instability of the design, but as an idea for automatic flight control it was ahead of its time.

Following a Commission report on the military use of balloons, carrier pigeons and an optical telegraph, an aeronautical establishment was set up in 1877 at Chalais-Meudon, near Paris, under the direction of Charles Renard, who was assisted by his brother Paul. The following year Renard and a colleague, Arthur Krebs, began to plan an airship. They received financial help from Léon Gambetta, a prominent politician who had escaped from Paris by balloon in 1870 during the siege by the Prussians. Renard and Krebs studied earlier airship designs: they used the outside shape of Paul Haenlein's gas-engined airship of 1872 and included Meusnier's internal air-filled ballonnets. The gas-engine had not been a success so they decided on an electric motor. Renard developed lightweight pile batteries while Krebs designed a motor, although this was later replaced by a more powerful Gramme motor of 6.5 kW (9 hp). La France was constructed at Chalais-Meudon and, after a two-month wait for calm conditions, the airship finally ascended on 9 August 1884. The motor was switched on and the flight began. Renard and Krebs found their airship handled well and after twenty-three minutes they landed back at their base. La, France made several successful flights, but its speed of only 24 km/h (15 mph) meant that flights could be made only in calm weather. Parts of La, France, including the electric motor, are preserved in the Musée de l'Air in Paris.

Renard remained in charge of the establishment at Chalais-Meudon until his death. Among other things, he developed the "Train Renard", a train of articulated road vehicles for military and civil use, of which a number were built between 1903 and 1911. Towards the end of his life Renard became interested in helicopters, and in 1904 he built a large twin-rotor model which, however, failed to take off.

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