Manufacturing Engineering

role of health insurance in childhood cancer:
It is on the Pharmaceutical market more and more new drugs that are expensive and many people can benefit. ets solution being particularly well covered for any illness that affects children and what the parents want to treat their children without incurring unbearable costs.

Magnetorheological dampers are intrinsically nonlinear devices, which make the model- ing and design of a suitable control algorithm an interesting and challenging task. To evaluate the potential of magnetorheological (MR) dampers in control applications and to take full advantages of its unique features, a mathematical model to accurately repro- duce its dynamic behavior has to be developed and then a proper control strategy has to be taken that is implementable and can fully utilize their capabilities as a semi-active control device. The present paper focuses on both the aspects. First, the paper reports the testing of a magnetorheological damper with an universal testing machine, for a set of frequency, amplitude, and current. A modified Bouc–Wen model considering the ampli- tude and input current dependence of the damper parameters has been proposed. It has been shown that the damper response can be satisfactorily predicted with this model. Second, a backstepping based nonlinear current monitoring of magnetorheological dampers for semi-active control of structures under earthquakes has been developed. It provides a stable nonlinear magnetorheological damper current monitoring directly based on system feedback such that current change in magnetorheological damper is gradual. Unlike other MR damper control techniques available in literature, the main advantage of the proposed technique lies in its current input prediction directly based on system feedback and smooth update of input current. Furthermore, while developing the proposed semi-active algorithm, the dynamics of the supplied and commanded current to the damper has been considered. The efficiency of the proposed technique has been shown taking a base isolated three story building under a set of seismic excitation. Comparison with widely used clipped-optimal strategy has also been shown.

There are p heterogeneous objects to be assigned to n
competing agents (n > p) each with unit demand. It is
required to design a Groves mechanism for this assignment
problem satisfying weak budget balance, individual
rationality, and minimizing the budget imbalance. This calls
for designing an appropriate rebate function. Our main
result is an impossibility theorem which rules out linear
rebate functions with non-zero efficiency in heterogeneous
object assignment. Motivated by this theorem, we explore
two approaches to get around this impossibility. In the first
approach, we show that linear rebate functions with nonzero
efficiency are possible when the valuations for the
objects have some relationship. In the second approach,
we show that rebate functions with non-zero efficiency are
possible if linearity is relaxed.

Summary:
ELID Grinding, since its introduction over two decades ago, has helped in material removal of hard and difficult-to-cut engineering materials. A gist of the important research milestones on the process has been organized in this report. The hybrid process of ELID Grinding has a simultaneous electrolytic reaction and grinding action. Electrolysis takes place between the conductive anodic wheel and highly conductive cathode in presence of a special electrolyte. The resulting anodic oxide wears off easily to allow efficient grinding. The different parameters involved in electrolysis complicate the mechanism of grinding and makes it significantly different from conventional grinding. Different variants of the process have also been reported, though the basic philosophy of operation is the same as basic ELID. Several authors have also suggested mathematical explanations, among other fundamental studies, that provide further insight. The basic components of the process, machine tool, power supply, grinding wheel, electrode and electrolytes, have also undergone several modifications and developments to deliver better results and suit specific purposes. The process has been successfully applied in stock removal operations for hard and brittle ceramic materials with low grinding forces compared to conventional grinding. Fine finishing of almost all kinds of hard and brittle materials, ranging from hardened steels, BK7 glass, mono-crystalline silicon, silicon carbide, aluminum nitride, silicon nitride etc, has been successfully carried out, to provide high quality surfaces with low sub-surface damage. Finally, discussions on the different stages of evolution of the process have been put forward as a conclusion to the report.

Most of today’s environmental policies in Brazil rely on controlling the growth of pollution by “command and control” techniques. During the last two decades, these instruments have been designed to control sources of environmental impacts using industrial zoning, environmental licensing, and emission standards. The present structure of environmental law and policy focuses almost entirely on the activities of manufacturing companies and does not recognize strategies related to pollution prevention and/or cleaner production — such as product life cycle assessment, environmental labeling, environmental management systems, interconnectivity of production process, extended producer responsibility strategy, and environmental certification — as important instruments for auto-regulation. Recognizing that environmental policy must become more focused on “command and covenant” than “command and control”, this article attempts to provide an expanded perspective of environmental policy innovation based on a more holistic approach — Industrial Ecology — as a strategic tool for environmental policy-making process in Brazil.

An Engineering Employers Federation report recently stated that US-owned manufacturers in the UK are gaining a competitive advantage through greater application of lean manufacturing. Brian Swain and Alan Mossman of Rubicon Associates describe an effective lean transformation at Hathaway Roofing in County Durham

Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing Conference (ASMC) 2009

This paper presents work carried out with data from an industrial plasma etch process. Etch tool parameters, available during wafer processing time, are used to predict wafer etch rate. These parameters include variables such as power, pressure, temperature, and RF measurement. A number of variable selection techniques are examined, and a novel piecewise modelling effort is discussed. The achievable  accuracy and complexity trade-offs of plasma etch modelling are discussed in detail.

RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology is proven to be a promising alternative
in relieving the library staff from time-consuming routines. RFID is an innovative automated
library system for automatic identification and tracking of library material. An automated
library with the support of RFID technology would be a “Booksmart Library” and a “self
service station” that insists least intervention by library personnel. RFID technology is helpful
in taking inventory, finding missing items and identifying misfiled items. Tags or
transponders, the vital components of RFID, are the electronic chips consisting of an
integrated circuit and antenna coil that communicate with a reader by means of a radio
frequency signal. Since RFID does not require ‘line-of-sight’ between the transponder and
the reader, it surmounts the limitations of other automatic identification devices, such as bar
coding. Smart labels/tags are designed for lasting to lifetime of the item they identify and
also perform the EAS (Electronic Article Surveillance) function to detect the thefts.

One of the main problems in ERP implementation projects is how to align an off-the-shelf software package with the business
processes of the enterprise implementing it. The paper proposes a requirement-driven approach, which benefits from reusing the business process design without being restricted by predefined solutions and criteria. The approach applies an iterative alignment process, which employs an algorithm that matches a model of the enterprise requirements with a model of the ERP system capabilities. The algorithm identifies possible matches between the two models and evaluates the gaps between them despite differences in their completeness and detail level. It provides the enterprise with a set of feasible combinations of requirements that can be satisfied by the ERP system as a basis for making implementation decisions. We use Object-Process Methodology (OPM) to model both the ERP system and the enterprise requirements, and utilize the pair of resulting OPM models as input for the matching algorithm. The alignment algorithm has been tested in an experimental study, whose encouraging results demonstrate the ability of the approach to provide a satisfactory solution to the problem of aligning an ERP software package with an enterprise business model.

(c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Enterprise Resource Planning; Requirement-driven; Similarity; Business process design

"In this work, the adhesives used in the European particleboard and MDF industry are presented. The structure of the particleboard and MDF market in Europe in relation to the adhesive type and product application is discussed as well. It is notable that new markets for particleboard and MDF - known as non-furniture markets - are developing in Europe at a very fast
rate. Newly developed resin systems and trends affecting the industry are also presented."

The effect of the cooling rate on hardness and thermal conductivity in a metallurgical Jominy bar made of AISI 1018 steel, by means of a water end-quenched heat treatment process without diffusion-controlled case depth, is studied with photothermal radiometry (PTR). It is concluded that our two PTR techniques, common-mode rejection demodulation (CMRD) and conventional 50% duty-cycle square-wave frequency scan, are sensitive to low hardness values and gradients, unlike the high values all previous photothermal studies have dealt with to-date. Both PTR methods have yielded an anti-correlation between thermal conductivity and microhardness in this case as in previous cases with heat-treated and diffusion-controlled case depth profiles. It is shown that the cooling rate strongly affects both hardness and thermal conductivity in the Jominy-bar heat-treating process. © EDP Sciences.

We present a formula for a stabilizing feedback law under the assumption that a piecewise smooth control-Lyapunov function exists. The resulting feedback is continuous at the origin and smooth everywhere except on a hypersurface of codimension 1. We provide an explicit and "universal" formula. Finally, we mention a general result connecting asymptotic controllability and the existence of control-Lyapunov functions in the sense of nonsmooth optimization.

A GENERAL time-independent constitutive framework is constructed for crystals capable of crystallographic shearing. No restrictions are placed on their elasticity or on the amounts of slip. In deriving properly-objective relations due account is taken of the separate motions of the material and lattice. A precise specification of the structure of the flow rule leads to conditions for the existence of plastic potentials, as well as to an exact statement of the slip criterion required for normality of the plastic strain-increment in conjugate variables. Objective hardening laws are also examined and sufficiency conditions obtained for uniqueness of the slip magnitudes.

Defense computing applications are often highly demanding in terms of performance, reliability and security. While hardware has been improving at a rapid rate such that these demands may eventually be met, system software is still an impediment. To address this problem, we make the case for a new system software architecture, based on mobile agents and network (and distributed) computing. In this architecture, soldiers, aircraft, ships, and tanks, are not isolated objects that attach themselves to a network to communicate or obtain computing support only when necessary. Rather, they are an integral part of the network from the start, and rely on the sharing of network resources to meet their communication and computational demands. For robustness, this architecture must take into account that networks and their resources do break down, and that there are inherent security risks when one relies on network communication. We argue that a mobile-agent computing architecture provides the necessary framework for addressing these problems while maintaining a "network as an integrated system" view.

Automated recognition of features from CAD models has been attempted for a wide range of application domains in mechanical engineering. However, the absence of a clear mathematical formalism for the problem has made it di cult to develop a general approach|and thus most of these methods are limited in scope.

In integrating CAD and CAM applications, one major problem is how to interpret CAD information in a manner that makes sense for CAM. Our goal is to develop a general approach that can be used with a variety of CAD and CAM applications for the manufacture of machined parts.

The increasing focus on design for manufacturability (DFM) in research in concurrent engineering and engineering design is expanding the scope of traditional design activities in order to identify and eliminate manufacturing problems during the design stage. Manufacturing a product generally involves many different kinds of manufacturing activities, each having different characteristics. A design that is good for one kind of activity may not be good for another; for example, a design that is easy to assemble may not be easy to machine. One obstacle to DFM is the difficulty involved in building a single system that can handle the various manufacturing domains relevant to a design.

While automated recognition of features has been attempted for a wide range of applications, no single existing approach possesses the functionality required to perform manufacturability analysis. In this paper, we present a methodology for taking a CAD model of a part and extracting a set of machinable features that contains the complete set of alternative interpretations of the part as collections of MRSEVs (Material Removal Shape Element Volumes, a STEP-based library of machining features). The approach handles a variety of features including those describing holes, pockets, slots, and chamfering and lleting operations. In addition, the approach considers accessibility constraints for these features, has an worst-case algorithmic time complexity quadratic in the number of solid modeling operations, and modi es features recognized to account for available tooling and produce more realistic volumes for manufacturability analysis.

Manufacturing features and feature-based representations have become an integral part of research on manufacturing systems, largely due to their ability to model correspondences between design information and manufacturing operations. However, several research challenges still must be addressed in order to place feature technologies into a solid scienti c and mathematical framework. One challenge is the issue of alternatives in feature-based planning.

The availability of low-cost computational power is a driving force behind the growing sophistication of CAD software. Tools designed to reduce time-consuming build-test-redesign iterations are essential for increasing engineering quality and productivity. However, automation of the design process poses many di cult computational problems. As more downstream engineering activities are being considered during the design phase, guaranteeing reasonable response times within design systems becomes problematic. Design is an interactive process and speed is a critical factor in systems that enable designers to explore and experiment with alternative ideas during the design phase. Achieving interactivity requires an increasingly sophisticated allocation of computational resources in order to perform realistic design analyses and generate feedback in real time.

Automated recognition of features from CAD models has been attempted for a wide range of application domains. In this paper we address the problem of representing and recognizing a complete class of features in alternative i n terpretations for a given design.

Automating redesign of electro-mechanical artifacts presents many difficult problems to the developers of intelligent CAD systems. To address this need requires we identify new AI technologies for representation and planning and effectively apply them to the manufacturing problem. In this paper, we present the redesign problem and outline some of the critical points; presenting how to bring existing AI research to bear in creating more effective CAD tools.

Smooth integration of computer-aided design (CAD) and manufacturing (CAM) is vital for companies' survival in the present competitive marketplace. One key component in this effort is the representation of product designs in terms of features, elements that are semantically higher-level than the pure geometric elements typically used in CAD and CAM systems.

This paper describes EDAPS, an integrated system for designing and planning the manufacture of microwave modules. Microwave modules are complex devices having both electrical and mechanical properties, and EDAPS integrates electrical design, mechanical design, and process planning for both the mechanical and electrical domains.

This paper reports on the development of the process-planning module for EDAPS, an integrated system for designing and planning the manufacture of microwave modules. Microwave modules are complex devices having both electrical and mechanical properties, and EDAPS integrates electrical design, mechanical design, and process planning for both the mechanical and electrical domains.

This paper describes our ongoing work on a hybrid approach to process planning, that attempts to combine the best characteristics of both variant and generative process planning while avoiding the worst limitations of each. Our approach uses a database of designs and process plans that are classified using design signatures, graphical structures based on detailed product design attributes that are more meaningful and accurate than GT codes and can be computed automatically from the designs stored in the database. We are developing ways to use design signatures to classify and retrieve "slices" of designs and plans, so that when a process plan is needed for a new design, we will be able to retrieve the plan slices that are most relevant, and combine them and modify them to produce a plan for the new design.

This paper presents our initial efforts to develop a systematic approach for assessing the similarity of solid models based on how they will be manufactured. The goal of this work is to develop methods that, given a solid model representing the design of a new product, query a product information database (of solid models, associated manufacturing plans, and related attributes) and identify existing designs with manufacturing plans similar to some reasonable plan for the new design-or useful as a starting point for creation of a new plan for the new design.

This article illustrates the complexities of real-world planning and how w e can create AI planning systems to address them. We describe the IMACS Project (Interactive M a n ufacturability Analysis and Critiquing System) from the University of Maryland, College Park. IMACS is an automated designer's aid to evaluate the manufacturability of machined parts and suggest design modications to improve manufacturability.

This paper describes the development of a process planning module for an integrated product and process design (IPPD) tool which automates the design and manufacture of microwave modules. Specifically, this paper presents a process template that is used to interface with multiobjective optimization techniques to create a planner that can consider alternative designs based on process yields, cost, and manufacturing and purchasing lead times. The integration of the planner and the tradeoff optimization modules provides the designer immediate feedback on cost and productivity through generation and evaluation of alternative designs early in the design stage.

This paper describes the process planning techniques we developed for use in an Integrated Product and Process Design (IPPD) tool for the design and manufacture of microwave transmit/receive modules. Given a collection of data about the design of a microwave module, the IPPD tool uses a combination of AI planning and OR tradeoff analysis to produce a collection of alternative designs and alternative process plans that have Pareto optimal values for manufacturing and purchasing lead time, process yield, cost, and number of suppliers. The IPPD tool provides facilities to enable the user to generate and examine these Pareto optimal alternatives in real time, in order to provide immediate feedback on how to modify the design to improve its cost and productivity.

A This paper describes the process planning techniques we developed for use in an Integrated Product and Process Design (IPPD) tool for the design and manufacture of microwave transmit/receive modules. Given a collection of data about the design of a microwave module, the IPPD tool uses a combination of AI planning and optimization-based tradeoff analysis to produce a collection of alternative designs and alternative process plans that have Pareto optimal values for manufacturing and purchasing lead time, process yield, cost, and number of suppliers. The IPPD tool provides facilities to enable the user to generate and examine these Pareto optimal alternatives in real time, in order to provide immediate feedback on how to modify the design to improve its cost and productivity.

This paper describes a new geometric algorithm to determine the largest feasible cutter size for 2-D milling operations to be performed using a single cutter. First is given a general definition of the problem as the task of covering a target region without interfering with an obstruction region. This definition encompasses the task of milling a general 2-D profile that includes both open and closed edges. Discussed next are three alternative definitions of what it means for a cutter to be feasible, with explanations of which of these definitions is most appropriate for the above problem. Then, a geometric algorithm is presented for finding the maximal cutter for 2-D milling operations, and the algorithm is shown to be correct.

For the manufacture of milled parts, it is well known that the size of the cutter significantly affects the machining time. However, for small-batch manufacturing, the time spent on loading tools into the tool magazine and establishing z-length compensation values is just as important. If we can select a set of milling tools that will produce good machining time on more than one type of parts, then several unnecessary machine-tool reconfiguration operations can be eliminated. This paper describes a geometric algorithm for finding an optimal set of cutters for machining a set of 2½D parts. In selecting milling cutters we consider both the tool loading time and the machining time and generate solutions that allow us to minimize the total machining time. Our problem formulation addresses the general problem of how to cover a target region to be milled with a cylindrical cutter without intersecting with the obstruction region; this definition allows us to handle both open and closed edges in the target region. Our algorithm improves upon previous work in the tool selection area in following ways: (1) in selecting cutters, it accounts for the tool loading time, and (2) it can simultaneously consider multiple different parts and select the optimal set of cutters to minimize the total manufacturing time.

The design and evaluation of a new controller for a multi-finger tactual (kinesthetic and cutaneous) display, the TACTUATOR, is discussed. A crucial performance requirement is that the relative amplitude of spectral components be preserved in terms of perceived intensity as judged by human users. In this article, we present a two degree-of-freedom controller consisting of a feedback controller and a pre-filter, and its digital implementation. The overall system was evaluated with frequency-response function measurements and with human psychophysical experiments. The measurement results confirm that the steady-state frequency response closely follows the design specifications. The psychophysical results indicate a deviation in the model of the human detection threshold curve at frequencies below 30 Hz. Future work will compensate for this deviation by reshaping the pre-filter. Our work demonstrates the validity of designing controllers that take into account not only the electromechanical properties of the hardware, but the sensory characteristics of the human user.

The force-constancy hypothesis states that the user of a force-feedback device maintains a constant penetration force when stroking virtual surfaces in order to perceive their topography. The hypothesis was developed to address a real-world data perceptualization problem where the perception of surface topography was distorted when the surface stiffness was nonuniform. Two experiments were conducted. In Experiment I, we recorded the penetration depths of the probe tip while the user stroked two surfaces with equal height but different stiffness values. We found that the data could be quantitatively modeled by the force-constancy hypothesis when the virtual surfaces were neither too soft nor too hard. In Experiment II, we demonstrated that given two adjacent surfaces, their perceived height difference depended on both the surface stiffness values as well as the relative heights of the surfaces. Specifically, we showed that the higher but softer surface could be perceived to be lower, at the same height, or higher than the other surface, depending on how much higher it was than the other surface. The results were consistent with the predictions of the force-constancy hypothesis. Our findings underscore the importance of understanding the interplay of haptic rendering parameters.

The dynamics of slender filaments or fibers suspended in Stokesian fluids are fundamental to understanding many flows arising in physics, biology and engineering. Such filaments can have aspect ratios of length to radius ranging from a few tens to several thousands. Full discretizations of such 3D flows are very costly. Instead, we employ a non-local slender body theory that yields an integral equation, along the filament centerline, relating the force exerted on the body to the filament velocity. This hydrodynamical description takes into account the effect of the filament on the fluid, and is extended to capture the interaction of multiple filaments as mediated by the intervening fluid. We consider filaments that are inextensible and elastic. Replacing the force in the slender body integral equation by an explicit expression that uses Euler-Bernoulli theory to model bending and tensile forces yields an integral expression for the velocity of the filament centerlines, coupled to auxiliary integro-differential equations for the filament tensions. Based on a regularized version of these slender body equations that is asymptotically equivalent to the original formulation, we construct a numerical method which uses a combination of finite differences, implicit time-stepping to avoid severe stability constraints, and special quadrature methods for nearly singular integrals. We present simulations of single flexible filaments, as well as multiple interacting filaments, evolving in a background shear flow. These simulations show shear induced buckling and relaxation of the filaments, leading to the storage and release of elastic energy. These dynamics are responsible for the development of positive first normal stress differences, commonly associated with visco-elastic fluids that are suspensions of microscopic elastic fibers.