Shot
Shot turns up in 5 fields: tribology, welding, nuclear, photonics, nonwovens. Here is what it means to the people in each one.
Shot in tribology
One full stroke of a manual grease gun, the everyday unit for how much grease goes in.
Shop unit of grease volume: one complete pull of the gun lever. Output varies widely between guns, commonly around 1 to 1.5 grams but sometimes double that, so serious programs calibrate each gun by weighing ten strokes and label it in grams per shot. Bearing relubrication amounts calculated in grams are then converted into shots on the route sheet.
"Calc says 6 grams, with this gun that's four shots, not a dozen."
Shot in welding
Shop word for a radiograph of a weld, or the act of X-raying it, as in the weld got shot.
Floor term for radiographic testing and its result. A joint gets shot after welding, the shot comes back clean or with indications, and a welder's repair rate is counted in shots. Pipeline and plant crews schedule around the shooters, the radiography crew, because everyone has to clear the area during exposures.
"Six joints got shot last night, five clean, one with wagon tracks, and that repair's yours."
Shot in nuclear
A single industrial radiography exposure, used to x-ray a weld with a gamma source or X-ray tube.
Radiographers' and RP word for one exposure of a weld or component, made by cranking a gamma source such as iridium-192 out of its shielded camera or by energising an X-ray tube. Each shot requires a cleared and roped boundary, typically at the dose rate allowed for unmonitored people, plus surveys before and after to confirm the source has returned. Plants schedule shots for nights and weekends to clear as few people as possible.
"Radiography has three shots on the feedwater welds at 0200, so the turbine deck is closed till they're done."
Shot in photonics
A single laser pulse, especially from a high-energy or low-repetition-rate system.
Lab usage for one pulse or one firing of a pulsed laser. Big amplifier facilities count shots per day, and single-shot diagnostics capture one pulse at a time. Shot-to-shot stability, the variation in energy or pointing between pulses, is a key spec for amplified lasers, and the word also shows up in shot count lifetimes for flashlamps and Pockels cells.
"Shot-to-shot energy is wandering 5 percent, check the flashlamp count before we blame the seed."
Shot in nonwovens
Small beads or lumps of polymer that failed to form fibers and sit embedded in a meltblown web.
Shot forms when polymer leaves the die faster than the air can draw it out, or when the melt is too hot and thin, so droplets freeze as beads instead of fibers. It shows as hard specks, and in barrier and filter fabrics each bead is a weak point that lowers hydrohead or opens a pinhole. Cutting throughput per hole and retuning air flow, melt temperature and die settings bring it down.
"Lots of shot on the MB layer since the throughput increase, and hydrohead is down ten centimeters."