Actuator in the context of "Damper (flow)"

A machine is a thermodynamic system that uses power to apply forces and control movement to perform an action. The term is commonly applied to artificial devices, such as those employing engines or motors, but also to natural biological macromolecules, such as molecular machines. Machines can be driven by animals and people, by natural forces such as wind and water, and by chemical, thermal, or electrical power, and include a system of mechanisms that shape the actuator input to achieve a specific application of output forces and movement. They can also include computers and sensors that monitor performance and plan movement, often called mechanical systems.

Renaissance natural philosophers identified six simple machines which were the elementary devices that put a load into motion, and calculated the ratio of output force to input force, known today as mechanical advantage.

Soft-bodied organisms are organisms that lack rigid physical skeletons or frame, roughly corresponds to the group Vermes as proposed by Carl von Linné. The term typically refers to non-panarthropod invertebrates from the kingdom Animalia, although many non-vascular plants (mosses and algae), fungi (such as jelly fungus), lichens and slime molds can also be seen as soft-bodied organisms by definition.

All animals have a muscular system of some sort but, since myocytes are tensile actuator units that can only contract and pull but never push, some animals evolved rigid body parts upon which the muscles can attach and act as levers/cantilevers to redirect force and produce locomotive propulsion. These rigid parts also serve as structural elements to resist gravity and ambient pressure, as well as sometimes provide protective surfaces shielding internal structures from trauma and exposure to external thermal, chemical and pathogenic insults. Such physical structures are the commonly referred "skeletons", which may be internal (as in vertebrates, echinoderms and sponges) or external (as in arthropods and non-coleoid molluscs). However, many soft-bodied animals do still have a functional skeleton maintained by body fluid hydrostatics known as a hydroskeleton, such as that of earthworms, jellyfish, tapeworms, squids and an enormous variety of invertebrates from almost every phyla of the animal kingdom; and many have hardened teeth that allow them to chew, bite and burrow despite the rest of body being soft.

Electronic textiles or e-textiles are fabrics that enable electronic components such as batteries, lights, sensors, and microcontrollers to be embedded in them. Many smart clothing items, wearable technology products, and wearable computing projects involve the use of e-textiles.

Electronic textiles are distinct from wearable computing because the emphasis is placed on the seamless integration of textiles with electronic elements like microcontrollers, sensors, and actuators. Furthermore, e-textiles need not be wearable, as they are also found in interior design.

A power tool is a tool that is actuated by an additional power source and mechanism other than the solely manual labor used with hand tools. The most common types of power tools use electric motors. Internal combustion engines and compressed air are also commonly used. Tools directly driven by animal power are not generally considered power tools. Power tools can produce large amounts of particulates, including ultrafine particles. Airborne particulate matter is a Group 1 carcinogen.

A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magnetic material. The platters are paired with magnetic heads, usually arranged on a moving actuator arm, which read and write data to the platter surfaces. Data is accessed in a random-access manner, meaning that individual blocks of data can be stored and retrieved in any order. HDDs are a type of non-volatile storage, retaining stored data when powered off. Modern HDDs are typically in the form of a small rectangular box, possibly in a disk enclosure for portability.

Hard disk drives were introduced by IBM in 1956, and were the dominant secondary storage device for general-purpose computers beginning in the early 1960s. HDDs maintained this position into the modern era of servers and personal computers, though personal computing devices produced in large volume, like mobile phones and tablets, rely on flash memory storage devices. More than 224 companies have produced HDDs historically, though after extensive industry consolidation, most units are manufactured by Seagate, Toshiba, and Western Digital. HDDs dominate the volume of storage produced (exabytes per year) for servers. Though production is growing slowly (by exabytes shipped), sales revenues and unit shipments are declining, because solid-state drives (SSDs) have higher data-transfer rates, higher areal storage density, somewhat better reliability, and much lower latency and access times.

A pneumatic control valve actuator converts energy (typically in the form of compressed air) into mechanical motion. The motion can be rotary or linear, depending on the type of actuator.