Abstract: A method is provided for making a hermaphrodite hook and loop fastener including the steps of molding a hook ribbon having mounting projections and shoulders on opposite sides of the hook ribbon, providing a separate flexible substrate, feeding a plurality of hook ribbons to a bonding station, orienting the hook ribbons with their hooks upstanding from the substrate and their mounting projections facing the substrate at the bonding station, pushing the shoulders of the hook ribbon toward the substrate thereby thrusting the mounting projections onto the substrate, and ultrasonically bonding the mounting projections to the substrate.

Abstract: U.S. Pat. No. 4,615,084 disclosed and claimed a method for making multiple-hook fasteners and the resulting multiple-hooks. A strand of stiffly flexible bendable settable polymeric plastic material is zig-zagged back and forth cross a centerline, with sharply doubled-back bends at each zig and zag. The present method enables the doubled-back bends in such a plastic monofilament to be shaped sharply by initially causing the strand to be nicked or scooped at predetermined intervals to predetermined depth and length by at least one laser beam. The pre-nicked strand is used by feeding it endwise at a predetermined feed rate into a zigzag station wherein it is confined and guided by side walls diverging in the downstream direction and appropriately configured to shape the pre-nicked strand into the desired zigzag configuration. In the zigzag station, its leading, i.e. downstream, portions are slowed down relative to the predetermined feed rate of its incoming, i.e.

Abstract: Apparatus for making multiple hook-fastener media in which many protruding hooks are formed at relatively high speed from suitable bendable and settable plastic material which may be different from the substrate to which these pre-formed hooks are subsequently bonded. Many rows of hooks are formed simultaneously, each row from a strand, for example, a monofilament of longitudinally oriented polymeric material. The formed strands are "set" into their multiple hook row configuration, and then these pre-formed rows of hooks are simultaneously bonded to the substrate. Thus, an attractive substrate of any reasonable width, for example, of three inches, six inches, a foot or a yard, may be used. The production apparatus enables the number of hooks per square inch, either longitudinally or laterally or both, to be adjusted while running.

Abstract: Multiple hook-fastener media in which many protruding hooks are formed at relatively high speed from suitable bendable and settable plastic material which may be different from the substrate to which these pre-formed hooks are subsequently bonded. Many rows of hooks are formed simultaneously, each row from a strand, for example, a monofilament of longitudinally oriented polymeric material. The formed strands are "set" into their multiple hook row configuration, and then these pre-formed rows of hooks are simultaneously bonded to the substrate. Thus, an attractive substrate of any reasonable width, for example, of three inches, six inches, a foot or a yard, may be used. The production method and system enable the number of hooks per square inch, either longitudinally or laterally or both, to be adjusted while running.

Abstract: Method and apparatus are described for converting relatively low temperature heat energy, for example, up to approximately 212.degree. F., into useful work. A heated zone having a temperature range including a first predetermined temperature and a cooled zone having a second temperature range including a second predetermined temperature are provided. A meltable wax material whose melting and resolidification occur within a preselected temperature range positioned along the thermal gradient between said first and second temperatures is alternately placed in heat exchange relationship with said heated and cooled zones for producing cyclic melting and resolidification of said wax material. The wax material may be separated into multiple discrete units for increasing its surface-to-volume ratio for augmenting the rate of heat flow into and out of the material during its melting and resolidification.

Abstract: A method and apparatus are described for recovering useful amounts of low-temperature industrial and solar waste heat energy previously dissipated to ambient. The low-temperature heat energy is used cyclically for heating and expanding thermally expandable wall means shown as a cylindrical walled structure located between two pumping chambers for simultaneously changing the volumes of the chambers in opposite senses, then a cold sink is used cyclically for cooling and contracting said cylindrical walled structure for again simultaneously changing the volumes of both chambers in the opposite senses, i.e. in push-pull relationships. The cyclic change in volumes of the chambers displaces an incompressible fluid which is used for pumping a liquid from a reservoir for performing useful work, and, in one form of the invention, the liquid is directed into an accumulator under pressure, and the pressurized liquid in the accumulator may thereafter be utilized to perform useful work.