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Velcro biography, Velcro discography
For the band, see Mr Velcro Fastener .It consists of two layers: a "hook" side, which is a piece of fabric covered with tiny hooks, and a "loop" side, which is covered with even smaller and "hairier" loops.When the two sides are pressed together, the hooks catch in the loops and hold the pieces together.There are variations on the standard velcro: one of which, for example, includes hooks on both sides.Alternatives to velcro are buttons, zippers, laces and buckles.The term Velcro is a registered trademark in most countries.However the Velcro brand is an example of a genericized trademark as its brand name has become the generic term.The Velcro company headquarters is in Manchester, New Hampshire, USA.History
2 Genericized trademark
3 Strength
4 Advantages and disadvantages
5 Applications
5.He examined them under a microscope, and noted their hundreds of "hooks" that caught on anything with a loop, such as clothing, animal fur, or hair.Originally people refused to take him, and the idea, seriously when he took his idea to Lyon, which was then a center or weaving.He did manage to gain the help of one weaver, who made two cotton strips that worked.He settled on nylon as being the best synthetic, which had several advantages.On the verge of giving up, a new idea came to him.He bought a pair of shears and trimmed the tops off the loops, thus creating hooks that would match up perfectly with the loops.Mechanizing the process of weaving the hooks took eight years, and it took another year to create the loom that trimmed the loops after weaving them.In all, it took ten years to create a mechanized process that worked.In 1957 he branched out to the textile center of Manchester, New Hampshire in the United States.Partly due to its appearance though, velcro's integration into the textile industry took time.It was also viewed as impractical.Velcro got its first break when it was used in the aerospace industry to help astronauts maneuver in and out of bulky space suits.However, this reinforced the view among the populace that velcro was something with a very limited utilitarian uses.The next major use velcro saw was with skiers, who saw the similarities between their costume and the astronauts, and thus saw the advantages of a suit that was easier to get in and out of.As velcro only became widely used after NASA's adoption of it, NASA is popularly credited with the invention of velcro.Later improvements included strengthening the filament by adding polyester.Taiwan, China and South Korea onto the market.De Mestral named his invention "Velcro", which is a portmanteau of the two French words velours, meaning 'velvet', and crochet, or 'hook'.Today, the trademark is the subject of more than 300 trademark registrations in over 159 countries.Shrinking the hooks led to the two other important differences: firstly that instead of a single file line of hooks, velcro has a two dimensional surface.The other difference is that velcro has indeterminate matchup between the hooks and eyes.On a scale as small as that of velcro, matching up each of these hooks with the corresponding eye is impractical, thus leading to the indeterminate matching.Instead the employees must use the generic terms "hook and loop fastener", "hook tape", or "loop tape".The company is very protective, and has said:
"Velcro is the name of our companies and is a registered trademark for our products.It is not the generic name of the product that fastens shoes, pockets, and hundreds of other things.Besides being used as a generic term for hook and loop fasteners, the word 'velcro' has also become a verb, as in 'velcroed', which means to be attached by velcro.It has been used as such since approximately 1972.If velcro is used to bond two rigid surfaces, e.Also, any force pushing the pieces together is disproportionally applied to engaging more hooks and loops.Vibration can cause rigid pieces to improve their bond.When one or both of the pieces is flexible, e.If a flexible piece is pulled in a direction parallel to the plane of the velcro surface, then the force is spread evenly as it is with rigid pieces.Three ways to maximize the strength of a bond between the two flexible pieces are:
increase the area of the bond, e.Shoe closures can resist a large force with only a small amount of velcro.This is because the strap is wrapped through a slot, which reduces the force on the velcro by ensuring that the force is parallel to the velcro strips, thus halving the force on the bond by acting as a pulley system, and getting a mechanical advantage.Advantages and disadvantages
In favor of velcro, it easy to use, safe, and maintenance free.There is only a minimal decline in effectiveness even after many fastening and unfastenings.Velcro has several deficiencies: it tends to accumulate hair, dust, and fur in its hooks after a few months of regular use.The loops can become elongated or broken, however this only happens after a long time.Velcro often becomes attached to articles of clothing, especially loosely woven items like sweaters.Additionally, the clothing may be damaged when one attempts to remove the Velcro, even if they are separated slowly.The tearing noise made by unfastening Velcro makes it inappropriate for some applications.For example, a soldier hiding from the enemy wouldn't want to alert the enemy to his position by opening a velcro pocket.It also absorbs moisture and persperation when worn next to the skin, which means it can become smelly if not washed.NASA's LDEF with velcro attach pads.Tomatoes stems held up with velcro tape.It is especially popular in clothing where it replaces buttons or zippers, and as a shoe fastener for children who have not yet learned to tie shoelaces and for those who choose velcro over laces.Velcro is used in adaptive clothing, which is clothing designed for people with physical disabilities, the elderly, and the infirm who may experience difficulty dressing themselves due to an inability to manipulate closures, such as buttons and zippers.As velcro is easier to manipulate, it makes a good replacement.It is used in the home when pleating draperies, holding carpets in place and attaching upholstery, among many other things.It is a integral part of the game tag rugby, is used in surfboard leashes and orthopaedic braces.NASA is a big user of velcro.Each space shuttle has ten thousand inches of a special velcro made of Teflon loops, polyester hooks, and glass backing.Velcro is used everywhere from the astronauts' suits, to anchoring equipment.In the near weightless conditions in orbit, velcro is used to temporarily hold objects and keep them from floating away.During mealtimes astronauts use trays that attach to their thighs using spring and velcro fasteners.The US Army is another big user.It uses hook and loop fasteners on combat uniforms to attach name tapes, rank insignia, shoulder pockets for unit patches, skill tabs, and recognition devices, such as the infrared (IR) feedback American flag.They also had the Velcro company create a silent version of Velcro for use with Army soldier uniforms, as the ripping sound could betray the soldier's position.The manufacturing process to create this noiseless velcro is, however, a military secret.There have been some failed uses for velcro as well.One such failure was a worm collar that consisted of a cylindrical strip that fishers were supposed to slip over their live bait.The velcro was supposed to snag in the teeth of striking bass.The most insidious use of Velcro is the barroom pastime of tossing midgets onto hook and loop walls.Velcro jumping
Velcro jumping is a sport where people wearing velcro covered suits take a running jump and hurl themselves as high as possible at a velcro covered wall.David Letterman immortalized this during the Feb 28, 1984 episode of Late Night with David Letterman on NBC.This put velcro in the national spotlight.Velcro jumping goes beyond David Letterman though.The event also featured a dunk tank and wrestling in foam rubber sumo suits.Variations on Velcro
Leonard Duffy, noting the disadvantages of velcro, and taking velcro as his model, created a new product called the "sliding engaging fastener".Instead of loops and hooks, it has interlocking islands with undercut edges that slide together.Duffy then created a wraparound cast made from a single plastic sheet sealed with his fasteners to replace similar removable casts with velcro straps.With the Unity Wrap, Duffy won the grand prize in NASA's "Create the Future" invention contest.The advantages of this new velcro are that it is more durable (they don't wear down over time), eight times stronger, and doesn't make noise when fastened or unfastened.It also isn't as flexible as velcro.Trivia
The Green Day song Longview mentions Velcro in the second verse: "...Velcro seat and get me moving..."In the film Garden State, one of the characters earns a vast fortune from inventing silent velcro.In the Star Trek Enterprise episode, Carbon Creek, the Vulcan T'Mir sells Velcro (an invention that would change the world) to help a Human enter college.The movie Men in Black velcro is hinted to be alien technology confiscated by the MIB and adapted for use on Earth, which is a play on the fact that NASA is popularly credited with the invention of velcro.Moreau, Moreau's assistant jokingly claims that the doctor won his Nobel Prize for inventing velcro.David Letterman, host of Late Night with David Letterman, refers to Velcro as "the miracle fabric of the '80s".His show also popularized the Velcro suit, where one dons a suit covered with Velcro strips and jumps from a trampoline onto a wall covered with mating strips of Velcro.But not every Velcro application has worked...Continuum International Publishing Group, p.Why Didn't I Think of That: Bizarre Origins of Ingenious Inventions We Couldn't Live Without.The Complete Idiot's Guide to NASA.Weber, Robert John (February 1993).Forks, Phonographs, and Hot Air Balloons: A Field Guide to Inventive Thinking.Stunts for Principals to Inspire Student Achievement.INVENTION AWARDS The New Velcro.External links
Velcro Official US company website
closeup of Velcro hooks and loops
VELCRO USA INC.This page was last modified on 10 May 2008, at 17:16.All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.The man neglected his matted dog, and
with a burning curiosity ran to his microscope and inspected one of the
many burrs stuck to his pants.It will rival the
zipper
in its ability to fasten."Mestral's idea met with resistance
and even laughter, but the inventor 'stuck' by his invention.By trial and error, he realized that nylon when sewn
under infrared light, formed tough hooks for the burr side of the fastener.The inventor formed Velcro
Industries to manufacture his invention.Mestral was selling over sixty
million yards of Velcro per year.Velcro and Trademarks
Today you cannot buy velcro because
VELCRO is the registered trademark for the Velcro Industries' product.You can purchase all of the VELCRO brand hook and loop fasteners you need.This illustrates a problem inventors often face.Many words used frequently in everyday language were once trademarks,
for example: escalator, thermos, cellophane and nylon.All were once trademarked
names and only the trademark owners could use the name with a product.When names become generic terms, the U.From Mary Bellis,Your Guide to Inventors.The New York Times Company.California's Velcro Crop under Challenge (1993)
by Ken Umbach
California's important Velcro crop, vital to the clothing, footwear, and
sporting goods industries, has been severely stressed by drought, disease,
and pests.Gentle pressure allows the hook strip to be pulled from the loop strip.California's climate and soil conditions make the state an ideal venue for
and successful producer of both strains of Velcro.This is often accommodated by widely spacing separate fields of
the two strains among large expanses of cotton, alfalfa, or other crops.For competitive and industrial confidentiality reasons, of course, the crop
is not widely highlighted in crop reports.Velcro goes a long way,
as both strains are densely packed on their respective mature plants, and the
entire crop is dwarfed by other field crops, most notably cotton.Nonetheless, the crop is of high value and can be a substantial profit
builder for the successful grower.Dry and windy conditions have caused hook and loop spores to commingle even
across widely spaced fields, resulting in tangled Velcro bolls combining both
strains and unprocessable by any known means.Velcro
fields, frequently becoming so ensnared in the developing loops as to make
the crop unharvestable.The Teflon crop is another
issue, to be tackled in a future report in this series.Absent such protection,
field workers are in danger of becoming enmeshed in the Velcro bolls while
working the fields.The Teflon
jumpsuits in turn require personal cooling equipment and expensive
maintenance.When available, it is preferable to hire a crew composed
entirely of professional body builders, who are both strong and hairless
from head to toe.All in all, cultivation is a demanding and costly process,
making profit margins unusually vulnerable to price swings and crop
productivity losses.Status
As the chart and table below so starkly show, the combined assaults on the
Velcro crop have had marked effects.The respective agricultural commissioners and extension personnel should
emphasize proper spacing requirements for fields of the hook and loop
strains.Research, training, and inspection are all necessary.Water officials should accommodate the special needs of this high value crop
in determining allocations, especially in years of water shortage.By these means, it should be possible to restore the vigor, productivity, and
profitability of this specialized but significant crop.The return of relatively normal rainfall patterns, together with sunspot conditions that have decimated flaccidity virus and millipedus minisculus, have contributed to a strengthened Velcro crop, but no one knows what the future might bring.Consider investing in zippers and buttons.Black Peel and Stick
2.United States and is not otherwise associated or affiliated with VELCRO INDUSTRIES B.To bind two together, you line up the islands on one with the gaps on the other and snap them tight.How do you keep a cast from itching?You blow all your money, then beg for more.Because inventing is about solving problems, and not stopping until your solution becomes real.Leonard Duffy has reinvented Velcro.But Duffy's "slidingly engaging fasteners" link up easily and silently, don't wear down over time, and support eight times the weight that the stuff on your jacket can with plastic straps that bind together through matching, interlocking grids of little hexagonal or triangular islands.There's got to be a better way to do this.He skips work every Thursday to ski, yet when he's at his desk, he gets so immersed that his wife has to remind him to eat.After the zipper incident, he spent the next few years penciling out designs and building models, experimenting with foam, cardboard and wood.Eventually he arrived at the design that exists today and began fastening everything he could with it.She wore a removable cast held in place by Velcro straps and complained constantly.The Velcro pulled at her clothes and hair and smelled bad as it absorbed moisture and perspiration.Inspired, Duffy created a wraparound cast made from a single plastic sheet sealed with his fasteners."It's a nice solution to a simple but perplexing problem."Now a prosthetics company envisions using the plastic straps to attach artificial limbs, and nearly 150 product designers have contacted Duffy after a clearinghouse called Material ConneXion added the item to its library last year.Ready to bet on the future?Can the Sun Keep You Cool?Subscribe for 2 free issues!Popular Science
A Bonnier Corporation Company."INVENTION AWARDS The New Velcro "
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