News

Alex Winterburn and Bahattin Kilic, Kulite’s newest engineer to join the Germany office, exhibited at The Sensor+Test Measurement Fair, held annually at the Nürnberg Exhibition Centre. This is a leading international trade fair for sensor, measuring and testing technology. The consistent location helps maintain a robust presence in the industry with approximately 5,000 trade visitors from Europe, Asia, and the Americas and over 350 exhibitors.

Most Kulite booth visitors were engineers from the aerospace and automotive industries, as well as researchers from various universities. While many were already aware of Kulite products as existing customers, Alex and Bahattin were pleased to welcome newcomers eager to learn about Kulite’s pressure sensing technologies. These interactions provided valuable insights and potential opportunities for collaboration.

Inquiries about applications for Kulite transducers ranged across many uses. One aerospace customer uses the HKM-375 series in 100psi, 500si and 5,000 psi ranges for flight-test, landing gear, hydraulic oil measurements and wind tunnel testing. Another aviation and aerospace component manufacturer are developing micro-launch rockets for small satellites and are interested in measurement of cryogeric for liquid oxygen, gaseous fuel similar to Jet A1 and Nitrogen. They are also interested in flight test, ground test and in-service sensors. Another company that has been developing electric propulsion systems for spacecraft need sensors for Xenon/Krypton thrusters for satellites.

A leading engineering manufacturer of injection systems for ship diesel engines is Interested in the XCL-100 for fuel pressure measurement and an automotive company discussed their brake system’s and dynamic fuel system’s pressure measurement needs. As you can see, across the country, around the world, many major industries rely on Kulite for cutting-edge pressure transducers. Employing solid-state silicon on silicon technology, Kulite creates and customizes the most reliable transducers, designed to perform in even the harshest environmental applications. To inquire about any pressure measurement application, please visit the Get Info page of this website.

Kulite is a proud sponsor of many collegiate racing teams including Kingston Racing of Kingston University in the UK. As a sponsor, Kulite supplies free parts to racing teams that compete in Formula Student, which is a global, student engineering competition run by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. It’s held annually, and gives undergraduates an invaluable experience of working as a team to design, build, test and compete against other teams with their own race car. The season culminates in dynamic and static events that showcases who has produced the best cars.

Kingston Racing will be competing in Formula Student UK which is being held in July of 2024 at the prestigious Silverstone Circuit, home to the British Grand Prix. For the 2024 season, Kingston had a total restructure of their team approach and is building one of their last internal combustion engine cars before they go electric. They are using a Yamaha MT07 paired with a tubular steel chassis and implementing a flat floor with a diffuser. Additionally, there are smaller and lighter dampers and a pushrod rear suspension to improve the handling characteristics of the car.

While working within competition regulations and a budget, Kingston reached out to Kulite for assistance for their pressure measurement needs. Kulite was able to supply miniature ETL/ETM-4-312M Series pressure transducers which will be used in their cooling and brake systems. To Kulite, it’s important to support these teams and talent, where they have incredible opportunities to gain tremendous, hands-on experience. These students are the future of automotive engineering and we wish them good luck on the track this summer.

In 2023, Crane Aerospace & Electronics selected Kulite as a key supplier for pressure transducers for a full brake control system redesign program for the United States Air Force fleet of F-16 aircraft. Crane had been selected by Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) to supply the redesign to address safety, performance, reliability and maintainability enhancements.

Crane has over 75 years of experience in providing brake control systems, with more than 30,000 systems in operation today. The brake control system for the F-16 will leverage Crane Aerospace & Electronics’ Mark V Brake-By-Wire system technology to deliver safe, reliable and highly efficient braking performance. The brake control system will also incorporate design improvements to simplify system maintenance as well as address existing single point failures for improved safety.

Kulite, who revolutionized the aerospace pressure transducer in 1987, when it introduced piezoresistive silicon sensor technology that solved contaminating and corrosive environmental problems, will be producing this custom, hermetically sealed design for a fleet of 953 F-16s. The ingenious application of modern solid state technology to transducer sensing makes the APTE-735-1000-3000SG the most advanced pressure transducer available.

Designed to measure liquid or gas pressure, the transducer is of all-welded stainless steel construction, with integral pressure port and diaphragm. There will be 4 parts per shipset with Kulite deliveries starting in the summer of 2024 and the DLA will see the USAF F-16 fleet retrofitted over three years from 2026-2028.

Kulite exhibited at the 39th Space Symposium at the Broadmoor Resort in Colorado Springs in early April. Over 10,000 people attended this premier event where commercial, government and military leaders of the global space community assembled to collaborate and discuss innovation and the future of the industry. Our highly knowledgeable engineers Steve Carter, Scott Goodman, and JP Hilton were on hand at the Kulite booth and shared information about Kulite transducers and their extensive capabilities.

Kulite visitor’s pressure measurement needs covered a wide gamut of applications including: an interest in Kulite SOI technology and its use in testing and analyzing radiation susceptibility of hardware used in space applications; the use of sensors for coolant loops in space applications; a seabed application where a transducer would have 4-20mA output and be build into a subsystem; the use of pressure scanners for a small parachute experiment; composite tank pressure measurement; Kulite transducers being ideal technology for accurately characterizing high-speed for valve manufacturers; and the use of Kulite transducers for satellite propulsion systems.

After such a successful show, Kulite is already planning on attending next year’s symposium. In the meantime, check out the event’s page of this website (www.kulite.com/events/) for a list of upcoming shows where you can visit our expert engineers.

Steve Carter and Scott Goodman attended the January AIAA SciTech Forum in Orlando. The AIAA Science and Technology Forum and Exposition program covers the science, technologies, and policies that are shaping the future of aerospace. This is the seventh year Kulite has attended this symposium which continues to draw the largest concentration of ground test and flight test researchers of any US – based event. There were over 6,000 attendees with over 3,000 technical presentations covering over sixty research areas.
After 3 busy days of speaking with customers and students, a key takeaway was learning about the increasing research and testing needed in the future. Different Kulite transducer and scanner specification sheets were provided for countless applications for measurement and testing. Researchers were impressed with Kulite’s small-format, pressure transducers when they learned of their minimum resolution, signal-to-noise, and noise floor supported even when measuring higher frequencies. They were also impressed with the flexibility of the KMPS pressure scanners which support multiple pressure ranges and pressure modes within the same scanner body.
Discussions with clients and engineers about flight test programs were very productive and Kulite is excited about the opportunity to be a part of these future projects.