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News Release from: Institute of Measurement and Control | Subject: IMC Weighing Panel Award
Edited by the Processingtalk Editorial
Team on 04 February 2005
IMC weighing panel wins National
Measurement Award
At the 2004 National Measurement Awards ceremony, the IMC Weighing Panel won the Pioneers of Measurement Award for its work over fourteen years to raise the profile of industrial weighing
At the recently held 2004 National Measurement Awards ceremony, where five major awards were presented, the Institute of Measurement and Control Weighing Panel won the Pioneers of Measurement Award for its work over the past fourteen years to raise the profile of industrial weighing and guide those working in that area These awards - managed by the National Physical Laboratory on behalf of DTI - recognise outstanding achievements in the field of measurement and testing
This article was originally published on Processingtalk on 23 Mar 2006 at 8.00am (UK)
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This year the Pioneer of Measurement Award was presented to Peter Zecchin (Fellow), Chairman of the InstMC Weighing Panel and Process Weighing Manager of Vishay Nobel.
The Weighing Panel is one of the Institute's most active panels, founded on a mature technology that nevertheless faces many challenges when applied to industrial applications.
It was recognised by the judges that load cells offer the opportunity to make simple, accurate, cost-effective and reliable measurements of the mass contents of process vessels.
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With their associated instrumentation, load cells provide the only practical industrial solution for this measurement.
The results for businesses are clear - lower material and production costs, lower maintenance cost and improved product quality and consistency.
Successful implementation of this technique requires considerable application expertise and it has been the primary task of the Weighing Panel to communicate its members' combined experience and knowledge to inform best practice within process manufacturing industries.
Its role is to promote and further the science and application of weighing, to monitor field activities, form specialist groups and organise courses, conferences and workshops.
The most ambitious of its several publications is 'A Guide to the Specification and Procurement of Industrial Process Weighing Systems', which was published in hard copy and on-line in 2000.
Three years in the making, it contains nearly 90 pages of authoritative and quantitative information on the factors that influence the specification and application of industrial weighing systems.
The judges praised the wide industrial relevance of the Weighing Panel's entry, the quality of its on-line and printed documents, and the technical scope and quality of its members.
Winners of the Innovative Measurement Award were a team of scientists from Oxford University's Materials Dept.
They were the first to build a three-dimensional atom probe, a device enabling researchers to see and characterise individual atoms.
To commercialise their invention they set up a spin-out company, Oxford nanoScience , now part of Polaron plc.
The instrument is a combination of a field ion microscope, a single-atom sensitivity time-of-flight mass spectrometer, and a position-sensitive detection system.
Iain Fielden, a young materials scientist at the Materials and Engineering Research Institute, Sheffield Hallam University, won the NPL Materials Award.
He developed a new electron microscopy technique which enables real-time in-situ imaging of the structure of red hot steel and other metals.
This vital ability had previously been believed to be impossible due to infra-red radiation interfering with conventional back-scattered electron detection.
Fielden overcame this problem by re-introducing an obsolete technique from thirty years ago.
This converts the high-energy electrons carrying image information into low-energy electrons that can be detected without interference.
His innovation allows the investigation of the fundamental microstructural evolution processes of recrystallisation, grain growth and phase transformation, and the kinetics of these processes, in a broad variety of important industrial metals.
The ability to interact with or control the properties of light propagating in optical fibres is of fundamental importance in both optical fibre sensor and optical telecommunication technologies.
By interacting with the light it is possible to make sensors for a range of measurements.
This provided the setting for this year's Frontier Science and Measurement Award which was won by Dr Stephen James, Prof Geoff Ashwell and Prof Ralph Tatam from the Centre for Photonics and Optical Engineering, School of Engineering, Cranfield University.
Their winning entry was an interdisciplinary, collaborative submission that described the deposition of nano-structured films onto the side and end of single-mode optical fibre.
By building up layers of nanocoatings on the fibre, new types of sensors capable of measuring temperature, strain and chemical properties can be realised.
This work enables molecules to be designed and synthesised with the optimum properties for a particular application.
The technology could lead to new types of optical fibre sensor, which could lead to fibre-optic-based measuring instruments for niche markets.
The Measurement Solutions for Industry Award was presented to Gary Tucker of the Food Manufacturing Technologies Dept, Campden and Chorleywood Food Research Association (CCFRA) for an innovative new way to underpin the safety of food processing.
It stemmed from a DEFRA LINK-funded project that developed and tested small silicone capsules - known as Time Temperature Integrators (TTIs) - that accompany food exposed to high temperatures for sterilising and pasteurising.
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