[Grammar] DF-fabricated

[Jack8rkin]

Hello!
If fuel is fabricated in a demonstration facility (DF), will it be grammatical to say of it "DF-fabricated fuel"?

Thanks in advance.

 

[BobK]

I have no problem with 'DF-fabricated', but I do have a problem with collocating the verb 'facbricate' with 'fuel'. Fuel can be made or produced or refined, but I don't think it can be fabricated... :-?

b

 

[Jack8rkin]

Thanks for help.
How about the nuclear fuel? It's not just a liquid, it's a structure, a material object, let's say.
We use this verb with the nuclear fuel. Seems to be no problem with Americans either.
I've always wondered what is the difference between the verbs "produce, fabricate and manufacture". Many times did I hear that "parts are fabricated" (e.g. a tail of a plane). And what I think of it, is that parts are made for the first time in that case or it is not mass production. So, I would like to understand what is the difference in the meanings of the above verbs. Could you help me with this as well?

 

[BobK]

Nuclear fuel is generated. Native speakers of Romance languages like to use 'fabricated' because it looks like their own fabriquer, fabricar, fabricare..., but it is a faux ami; there are few - if any ...:-? (in Br Eng, at least - cases where 'fabricate' can be used to refer to a material process. (You 'fabricate a story' when you concoct* a lie. ;-)) (In the IT industry, I heard production plants referred to as FABs (an acronym). I suspect the F may have stood for fabrication. If so, I blame the American love of polysyllabic abstract nouns - like transportation where Br Eng has 'transport', or hospitalization where Br Eng has 'putting in/sending to hospital or ....Am Eng dominates the IT world - I'm ducking and covering here ;-)).

As to 'produce' and 'manufacture', 'produce' is more general. Any sort of manufacturing is a type of production, but there are many forms of production that do not involve manufacture. You can produce some work for your teacher; but manufacture typically happens in a factory.

b
* Look it up! I don't just mean tell a lie. ;-)

 

[Jack8rkin]

Thanx again.
If you speak about the materials for fuel pellets, then I think yes, they can be generated. What if I speak about a fuel assembly (or bundle as it's called), which is sometimes called "nuclear fuel".

Anyway, it would be fine to hear the American side here.
Another thing is the phrase I heard in the series called "Great Planes". I understand it was produced in Australia, but most, if not all, of the planes described are American.
"The first step in the fabrication saw the three fuselage models mocked-up in full scale." It's about F-104 Starfighter.
Again the notoriuos "fabrication" and it's not concoction or something. It's when two prototype planes were being constructed under the first contract. I'm still puzzled...

 

[BobK]

Possibly in the aircraft industry they distinguish between 'fabrication' and 'assembly' using those words. For example, when several countries worked together on the Eurofighter, they were made in different countries and put together at the end.

But I'll butt out now, and leave it to an American contributor! ;-)

b

 

[Jack8rkin]

These are the examles from the Longman Dictionary of Contemporaty English where "fabrication" means "manufacture":
For example, the degree in Microelectronics requires emphasis on integrated circuit design, integrated circuit fabrication and systems applications.

The process engineering people collected statistical data on 17 parameters involved in the fabrication of thin film circuits.

These mills have since provided a source for material, inspiration, fabrication and construction.

Here is the example from the same dictionary with the verb "fabricate" meaning "manufacture":
At their small workshop, they fabricate parts for jet engines.