Credit card
A credit card is a payment card issued to users to enable the cardholder to pay a merchant for goods and services based on the cardholder's promise to the card issuer to pay them for the amounts plus the other agreed charges. The card issuer creates a revolving account and grants a line of credit to the cardholder, from which the cardholder can borrow money for payment to a merchant or as a cash advance. A credit card is different from a charge card, which requires the balance to be repaid in full each month. In contrast, credit cards allow the consumers to build a continuing balance of debt, subject to interest being charged. A credit card differs from a cash card, which can be used like currency by the owner of the card. A credit card differs from a charge card in that a credit card involves a third-party entity that pays the seller and is reimbursed by the buyer, whereas a charge card defers payment by the buyer until a date; the size of most credit cards is 85.60 mm × 53.98 mm and rounded corners with a radius of 2.88–3.48 mm, conforming to the ISO/IEC 7810 ID-1 standard, the same size as ATM cards and other payment cards, such as debit cards.
Credit cards have a printed or embossed bank card number complying with the ISO/IEC 7812 numbering standard. The card number's prefix, called the Bank Identification Number, is the sequence of digits at the beginning of the number that determine the bank to which a credit card number belongs; this is the first six digits for Visa cards. The next nine digits are the individual account number, the final digit is a validity check code. Both of these standards are maintained and further developed by ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 17/WG 1. Credit cards have a magnetic stripe conforming to the ISO/IEC 7813. Many modern credit cards have a computer chip embedded in them as a security feature. In addition to the main credit card number, credit cards carry issue and expiration dates, as well as extra codes such as issue numbers and security codes. Not all credit cards do they use the same number of digits. Credit card numbers were embossed to allow easy transfer of the number to charge slips. With the decline of paper slips, some credit cards are no longer embossed and in fact the card number is no longer in the front.
The concept of using a card for purchases was described in 1887 by Edward Bellamy in his utopian novel Looking Backward. Bellamy used the term credit card eleven times in this novel, although this referred to a card for spending a citizen's dividend from the government, rather than borrowing, making it more similar to a Debit card. Charge coins and other similar items were used from the late 19th century to the 1930s, they came in various sizes. Each charge coin had a little hole, enabling it to be put in a key ring, like a key; these charge coins were given to customers who had charge accounts in department stores, so on. A charge coin had the charge account number along with the merchant's name and logo; the charge coin offered a simple and fast way to copy a charge account number to the sales slip, by imprinting the coin onto the sales slip. This sped the process of copying done by handwriting, it reduced the number of errors, by having a standardized form of numbers on the sales slip, instead of various kind of handwriting style.
Because the customer's name was not on the charge coin anyone could use it. This sometimes led to a case of mistaken identity, either accidentally or intentionally, by acting on behalf of the charge account owner or out of malice to defraud both the charge account owner and the merchant. Beginning in the 1930s, merchants started to move from charge coins to the newer Charga-Plate; the Charga-Plate, developed in 1928, was an early predecessor of the credit card and was used in the U. S. from the 1930s to the late 1950s. It was a 2 1/2" × 1 1/4" rectangle of sheet metal related to military dog tag systems, it was embossed with the customer's name and state. It held a small paper card on its back for a signature. In recording a purchase, the plate was laid into a recess in the imprinter, with a paper "charge slip" positioned on top of it; the record of the transaction included an impression of the embossed information, made by the imprinter pressing an inked ribbon against the charge slip. Charga-Plate was a trademark of Farrington Manufacturing Co.
Charga-Plates were issued by large-scale merchants to their regular customers, much like department store credit cards of today. In some cases, the plates were kept in the issuing store rather than held by customers; when an authorized user made a purchase, a clerk retrieved the plate from the store's files and processed the purchase. Charga-Plates speeded back-office bookkeeping and reduced copying errors that were done manually in paper ledgers in each store. In 1934, American Airlines and the Air Transport Association simplified the process more with the advent of the Air Travel Card, they created a numbering scheme that identified the issuer of the card as well as the customer account. This is the reason the modern UATP cards still start with the number 1. With an Air Travel Card, passengers could "buy now, pay later" for a ticket against their credit and receive a fifteen percent discount at any of the accepting airlines. By the 1940s, all of the major U. S. airlines offered Air Travel Cards.
By 1941, about half of the airlines' revenues came through the Air Travel Card agreement. The airlines had started offering i
Sandwich-structured composite
A sandwich-structured composite is a special class of composite materials, fabricated by attaching two thin but stiff skins to a lightweight but thick core. The core material is low strength material, but its higher thickness provides the sandwich composite with high bending stiffness with overall low density. Open- and closed-cell-structured foams like polyethersulfone polyvinylchloride, polyethylene or polystyrene foams, balsa wood, syntactic foams, honeycombs are used core materials. Sometimes, the honeycomb structure is filled with other foams for added strength. Open- and closed-cell metal foam can be used as core materials. Laminates of glass or carbon fiber-reinforced thermoplastics or thermoset polymers are used as skin materials. Sheet metal is used as skin material in some cases; the core is bonded with metal components by brazing together. A summary of the important developments in sandwich structures is given below. 230 BC Archimedes describes the laws of a way to calculate density.
25 BC Vitruvius reports about the efficient use of materials in Roman truss roof structures. 1493 Leonardo da Vinci discovers the neutral axis and load deflection relation in three-point bending. 1570 Palladio presents. 1638 Galileo Galilei describes the efficiency of tubes versus solid rods. 1652 Wendelin Schildknecht reports about sandwich beam structures with curved wooden beam reinforcements. 1726 Jacob Leupold documents tubular bridges with compression loaded roofs. 1786 Victor Louis uses. 1802 Jean-Baptiste Rondelet analyses and documents the sandwich effect in a beam with spacers. 1820 Alphonse Duleau publishes the moment of inertia for sandwich constructions. 1830 Robert Stephenson builds the Planet locomotive using a sandwich beam frame made of wood plated with iron 1940 The de Havilland Mosquito was built with sandwich composites. Metal composite material is a type of sandwich formed from two thin skins of metal bonded to a plastic core in a continuous process under controlled pressure and tension.
Recycled paper is now being used over a closed-cell recycled kraft honeycomb core, creating a lightweight and repulpable composite board. This material is being used for applications including point-of-purchase displays, recyclable office furniture, exhibition stands, wall dividers. To fix different panels, among other solutions, a transition zone is used, a gradual reduction of the core height, until the two fiber skins are in touch. In this place, the fixation can be made by means of rivets, or adhesive. With respect to the core type and the way the core supports the skins, sandwich structures can be divided into the following groups: homogeneously supported, locally supported, regionally supported, unidirectionally supported, bidirectionally supported; the latter group is represented by honeycomb structure which, due to an optimal performance-to-weight ratio, is used in most demanding applications including aerospace. The strength of the composite material is dependent on two factors: The outer skins: If the sandwich is supported on both sides, stressed by means of a downward force in the middle of the beam the bending moment will introduce shear forces in the material.
The shear forces result in the top skin in compression. The core material spaces these two skins apart; the thicker the core material the stronger the composite. This principle works in much the same way; the interface between the core and the skin: Because the shear stresses in the composite material change between the core and the skin, the adhesive layer sees some degree of shear force. If the adhesive bond between the two layers is too weak, the most probable result will be delamination. Sandwich structures can be used in sandwich panels, this kinds of panels can be in different types such as FRP sandwich panel, aluminium composite panel etc. FRP polyester reinforced composite honeycomb panel is made of polyester reinforced plastic, multi-axial high-strength glass fiber and PP honeycomb panel in special antiskid tread pattern mold through the process of constant temperature vacuum adsorption & agglutination and solidification. Sandwich theory describes the behaviour of a beam, plate, or shell which consists of three layers - two face sheets and one core.
The most used sandwich theory is linear and is an extension of first order beam theory. Linear local buckling sandwich theory is of importance for the design and analysis of Sandwich plates or sandwich panels, which are of use in building construction, vehicle construction, airplane construction and refrigeration engineering. Honeycomb Structures Sandwich theory Flitch beam Bending Beam theory Composite material Hill yield criteria Sandwich plate system Composite honeycomb Timoshenko beam theory Plate theory Sandwich Panel SandwichPanels.org – Composite sandwich structure information Diab Sandwich Handbook Honeycomb Sandwich Design Technology Engineered timber sandwich core materials – Composite sandwich structure information -Application of aluminium honeycomb sandwich panel as an energy absorber of high-speed train nose
Photograph
A photograph is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface photographic film or an electronic image sensor, such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are created using a camera, which uses a lens to focus the scene's visible wavelengths of light into a reproduction of what the human eye would see; the process and practice of creating such images is called photography. The word photograph was coined in 1839 by Sir John Herschel and is based on the Greek φῶς, meaning "light," and γραφή, meaning "drawing, writing," together meaning "drawing with light." The first permanent photograph, a contact-exposed copy of an engraving, was made in 1822 using the bitumen-based "heliography" process developed by Nicéphore Niépce. The first photographs of a real-world scene, made using a camera obscura, followed a few years but Niépce's process was not sensitive enough to be practical for that application: a camera exposure lasting for hours or days was required. In 1829 Niépce entered into a partnership with Louis Daguerre and the two collaborated to work out a similar but more sensitive and otherwise improved process.
After Niépce's death in 1833 Daguerre concentrated on silver halide-based alternatives. He exposed a silver-plated copper sheet to iodine vapor, creating a layer of light-sensitive silver iodide, he named this first practical process for making photographs with a camera the daguerreotype, after himself. Its existence was announced to the world on 7 January 1839 but working details were not made public until 19 August. Other inventors soon made improvements which reduced the required exposure time from a few minutes to a few seconds, making portrait photography practical and popular; the daguerreotype had shortcomings, notably the fragility of the mirror-like image surface and the particular viewing conditions required to see the image properly. Each was a unique opaque positive. Inventors set about working out improved processes. By the end of the 1850s the daguerreotype had been replaced by the less expensive and more viewed ambrotype and tintype, which made use of the introduced collodion process.
Glass plate collodion negatives used to make prints on albumen paper soon became the preferred photographic method and held that position for many years after the introduction of the more convenient gelatin process in 1871. Refinements of the gelatin process have remained the primary black-and-white photographic process to this day, differing in the sensitivity of the emulsion and the support material used, glass a variety of flexible plastic films, along with various types of paper for the final prints. Color photography is as old as black-and-white, with early experiments including John Herschel's Anthotype prints in 1842, the pioneering work of Louis Ducos du Hauron in the 1860s, the Lippmann process unveiled in 1891, but for many years color photography remained little more than a laboratory curiosity, it first became a widespread commercial reality with the introduction of Autochrome plates in 1907, but the plates were expensive and not suitable for casual snapshot-taking with hand-held cameras.
The mid-1930s saw the introduction of Kodachrome and Agfacolor Neu, the first easy-to-use color films of the modern multi-layer chromogenic type. These early processes produced transparencies for use in slide projectors and viewing devices, but color prints became popular after the introduction of chromogenic color print paper in the 1940s; the needs of the motion picture industry generated a number of special processes and systems the best-known being the now-obsolete three-strip Technicolor process. Non-digital photographs are produced with a two-step chemical process. In the two-step process the light-sensitive film captures a negative image. To produce a positive image, the negative is most transferred onto photographic paper. Printing the negative onto transparent film stock is used to manufacture motion picture films. Alternatively, the film is processed to invert the negative image; such positive images are mounted in frames, called slides. Before recent advances in digital photography, transparencies were used by professionals because of their sharpness and accuracy of color rendition.
Most photographs published in magazines were taken on color transparency film. All photographs were monochromatic or hand-painted in color. Although methods for developing color photos were available as early as 1861, they did not become available until the 1940s or 1950s, so, until the 1960s most photographs were taken in black and white. Since color photography has dominated popular photography, although black and white is still used, being easier to develop than color. Panoramic format images can be taken with cameras like the Hasselblad Xpan on standard film. Since the 1990s, panoramic photos have been available on the Advanced Photo System film. APS was developed by several of the major film manufacturers to provide a film with different formats and computerized options available, though APS panoramas were created using a mask in panorama-capable cameras, far less desirable than a true panoramic camera, which achieves its effect through a wider film format. APS has been discontinued; the advent of the microcomputer and d
Pouch laminator
A pouch laminator uses a lamination pouch, sealed on one side. The inside of the lamination pouch is coated with a heat-activated film that adheres to the product being laminated as it runs through the laminator; the substrate side of the board contains a heat-activated adhesive that bonds the print to the substrate. This can be any of another sheet of laminate; the pouch containing the print and substrate is passed through a set of heated rollers under pressure, ensuring that all adhesive layers bond to one another. Pouch laminators are designed for moderate use in the home. For continuous, large-volume lamination projects, a roll laminator performs more efficiently. Pouches can be bought with different thicknesses in micrometres. Standard home or office machines use 80–250 micrometre pouches, depending on the quality of the machine; the thicker the pouch, the higher the cost. Pouches can measured in mil, which equals one thousandth of an inch; the most common pouch thicknesses are 5, 7 and 10 mil.
Certain pouches such as butterfly pouches can be used with a pouch laminator to form ID cards. Butterfly pouches are available with magnetic stripes embedded. Many pouch laminators require the use of a carrier. A carrier holds the pouch; this helps prevent the hot glue, some of which leaks from the sides of the pouches during the process, from gumming up the rollers. The carrier prevents the rollers from getting sticky, which helps to prevent the lamination pouch from wrapping around the rollers inside the laminator. Many newer laminators claim; however the use of carriers will extend the laminator's life. Cold roll laminator Heated roll laminator
Millwork (building material)
Millwork building materials are any woodmill-produced products for building construction. Stock profiled and patterned millwork building components fabricated by milling at a planing mill can be installed with minimal alteration. Today, millwork encompasses items that are made using alternatives to wood, including synthetics and wood-adhesive composites. Specified by Architects and Designers, millwork products are considered a design element within a room or on a building to create a mood or design theme. Millwork products are used on both interior and exterior applications and can serve as either decorative or functional features of a building. Millwork building materials include the ready-made carpentry elements installed in any building. Many of the specific features in a space are created using different types of architectural millwork: doors, transoms, moulding, stair parts, cabinetry to name just a few; the primary material used in millwork items today are most produced from softwood or hardwood lumber.
Other materials used in millwork products include MDF, finger-jointed wood, composite materials, particle board and fiberglass. Some millwork products like doors and stair parts incorporate the use of steel, stainless and various glass options. All wood products in millwork require decorative finish coatings; these finishes include stain and a semi-transparent finishes or paint. The finishes protect the wood from decay, warping and fade. Most millwork building materials can be installed with little or no modification as part of the construction process; the term millwork applied to building elements made from wood. During the "Golden Age" of millworking everything in the house was made from wood. During this time, the millwork produced in the United States became standardized nationwide. Today, the increase in the use of synthetic materials has led many professionals to consider any item, composed of a combination of wood and synthetic elements to be properly defined as millwork; this includes products that make use of pressed-wood chips in the design, such as melamine coated shelving.
There are two types of manufacturers of millwork goods. In one, referred to as "stock millwork", commodity fabricators mass-produce trims and building components—with the end product being low cost, interchangeable items for commercial or home builders. In another, the product is custom produced for individuals or individual building projects—usually a costlier option, referred to as "architectural millwork." Millwork building materials are used for both function in buildings. Exterior doors and windows are tested by independent agencies and rated for energy efficiency, they can be impact rated, fire rated and can be specified to reduce sound transference. Interior millwork products are not rated for energy efficiency; these products are used as a decorative feature but can serve functions for privacy and sound deadening
Photo identification
Photo identification or photo ID is an identity document that includes a photograph of the holder only his or her face. The most accepted forms of photo ID are those issued by government authorities, such as driver's licenses, identity cards and passports, but special-purpose photo IDs may be produced, such as internal security or access control cards. Photo identification may be used for face-to-face authentication of identity of a party who either is unknown to the person in authority or because that person does not have access to a file, a directory, a registry or an information service that contains or that can render a photograph of somebody on account of that person's name and other personal information; some countries – including all developed nations – use a single, government-issued type of card as a proof of age or citizenship. The United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Ireland do not have such a single type of card. Types of photo ID used in the US include: Passports, or Passport cards Driver's licenses, or state ID cards for non-drivers, issued by a state's Department of Motor Vehicles Company-issued ID cards Native tribal cardsAustralian photo ID includes: Australian Passport Australian state and territory issued identity photo cards Driving licence in Australia Australia Post Keypass identity card Photo identification cards appear to have been first used at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The Scottish-born Canadian photographer William Notman, through his affiliated business, Centennial Photographic Co. which had exclusive photographic concession at the exhibition, introduced a photo identification system, required for all exhibitors and employees of the exhibition. The innovation was known as a "photographic ticket". Access badge Access control Common Access Card Credential
Plastic film
Plastic film is a thin continuous polymeric material. Thicker plastic material is called a "sheet"; these thin plastic membranes are used to separate areas or volumes, to hold items, to act as barriers, or as printable surfaces. Plastic films are used in a wide variety of applications; these include: packaging, plastic bags, building construction, electrical fabrication, photographic film, film stock for movies, video tape, etc. All plastics can be formed into a thin film; some of the primary ones are: Polyethylene – The most common plastic film is made of one of the varieties of polyethylene. Polypropylene – Polypropylene can be made a cast film, biaxially oriented film, or as a uniaxially oriented film. Polyester – BoPET is a biaxially oriented polyester film Nylon Polyvinyl chloride – film can be with or without a Plasticizer Cellulose acetate - an early bioplastic Cellophane - made of regenerated cellulose A variety of bioplastics and biodegradable plastics are available. Semiembossed film – Semiembossed film can be used as a liner to the calendered rubber to retain the properties of rubber and to prevent dust and other foreign matters from sticking to the rubber while calendering and during storage Plastic films are thermoplastics and are formed by melting for forming the film.
Cast – Plastics extrusion can cast film, cooled or quenched wound up on a roll. Extruded film can be thinned, or oriented in one or two directions. Blown or tubular process forces air into an extruded ring to expand the film. Flat tenter frames stretch the extruded film before annealing. Calender rolls can be used to form film from hot polymers Solution deposition is another film forming process. Skiving is used to scrape off a film from a solid core Coextrusion involves extruding two or more layers of dissimilar polymers into a single film Lamination combines two or more films into a sandwich. Extrusion coating is used to form a film onto another film or substrate Plastic films are formed into rolls by roll slitting. Additional coating or printing operations are used. Films can be modified by physical vapor deposition to make metallised films. Films can be subjected to Plasma processing. Converters Die cutting Film base Overwrap Shrink wrap Heat sealer Plastic welding Plastic wrap Stretch wrap Journal of Plastic Film and Sheeting D882 – Standard Test Method for Tensile Properties of Thin Plastic Sheeting D1004 – Standard Test Method for Tear Resistance of Plastic Film and Sheeting D1204 – Standard Test Method for Linear Dimensional Changes of Nonrigid Thermoplastic Sheeting or Film at Elevated Temperature D1593 – Standard Specification for Nonrigid Vinyl Chloride Plastic Film and Sheeting D1709 – Standard Test Methods for Impact Resistance of Plastic Film by the Free Falling Dart Method D1894 – Standard Test Method for Static and Kinetic Coefficients of Friction of Plastic Film and Sheeting D1922 – Standard Test Method for Propagation Tear Resistance of Plastic Film and Thin Sheeting by Pendulum Method D1938 – Standard Test Method for Tear Propagation Resistance of Plastic Film and Thin Sheeting by a Single Tear Method D2103 – Standard Specification for Polyethylene Film and Sheeting D2582 – Standard Test Method for Puncture Propagation Tear Resistance of Plastic Film and Thin Sheeting D2673 – Standard Specification for Oriented Polypropylene Film D2732 – Standard Test Method for Unrestrained Linear Thermal Shrinkage of Plastic Film and Sheeting D2838 -Standard Test Method for Shrink Tension and Orientation Release Stress of Plastic Film and Thin Sheeting D2923 – Standard Test Method for Rigidity of Polyolefin Film and Sheeting D3420 – Standard Test Method for Pendulum Impact Resistance of Plastic Film D3595 – Standard Specification for Polychlorotrifluoroethylene Extruded Plastic Sheet and Film D3664 – Standard Specification for Biaxially Oriented Polymeric Resin Film for Capacitors in Electrical Equipment D3985 – Standard Test Method for Oxygen Gas Transmission Rate Through Plastic Film and Sheeting Using a Coulometric Sensor D4321 – Standard Test Method for Package Yield of Plastic Film D5047 – Standard Specification for Polyethylene Terephthalate Film and Sheeting D6287 – Standard Practice for Cutting Film and Sheeting Test Specimens D6988 – Standard Guide for Determination of Thickness of Plastic Film Test Specimens D8136 - Standard Test Method for Determining Plastic Film Thickness and Thickness Variability Using a Non-Contact Capacitance Thickness Gauge E1870 – Standard Test Method for Odor and Taste Transfer from Polymeric Packaging Film F2029- Standard Practices for Making Heatseals for Determination of Heatsealability of Flexible Webs as Measured by Seal Strength F2622 – Standard Test Method for Oxygen Gas Transmission Rate Through Plastic Film and Sheeting Using Various Sensors Hawkins, William E, The Plastic Film and Foil Web Handling Guide CRC Press 2003 Jenkins, W. A. and Osborn, K. R.
Plastic Films: Technology and Packaging Applications, CRC Press 1992 Yam, K. L. "Encyclopedia of Packaging Technology", John Wiley & Sons, 2009, ISBN 978-0-470-08704-6
