$30 Billion Fluid Power Industry Validates LatchTool Group's Contention
The National Fluid Power Association petitions Government to fund development of compact and efficient hydraulics.
Colorado Springs, CO (PRWEB via PR Web
Direct) April 27, 2005 -- The National Fluid Power Association announced
last month that it had received a favorable response from the National Science
Foundation for its proposed consortium of University Research Centers to develop
compact and efficient fluid power.
The group comprised of prominent
universities in close cooperation with the $30 billion fluid power industry
seeks $18 million to fund research to integrate components into unified systems
that will minimize the weight and volume of fluid power systems. They expect to
expand fluid power from its current use for heavy equipment to portable and
self-powered applications such as wearable tools and rescue robots.
Over
the past nine years, the LatchTool Group has quietly pursued this quest for
smaller, lighter, more affordable hydraulic systems that could be integrated
into tools, prosthetics and a plethora of industrial and consumer products.
The Company introduced its technology at an American Society of
Mechanical Engineers event last November where it showed its PowerCylinder™, a
mechanical force amplifier that uses encapsulated hydraulic circuitry. The
device weighs ounces, yet leverages pounds into tons. Last month, the
PowerCylinder was picked a best product of 2004 by Design News, a Reed Business
Information publication for mechanical and design engineers.
Monday, the
LatchTool Group announced that it has integrated a simpler version of its
encapsulated hydraulic circuitry directly into a locking type of pliers. For the
first time, women, the elderly and infirmed can have the hand strength equal to
a man's. The prospects for miniaturized compact hydraulics are huge, just as the
LatchTool Group contends, and now the NFPA and its more than 400 members assert.
LatchTool has multiple patents both issued and pending that covers its
developments in valves, hydraulic circuitry and systems integration. The Company
has offered to make its PowerCylinders available to the proposed consortium
should the NSF decide to go ahead with the funding proposal.
Contact:
Sean Fry
LatchTool Group
719-360-0977
e-mail
protected from spam bots
www.latchtool.com
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/4/prweb234176.htm