A two surface plasticity model for the simulation of uniaxial ratchetting response

In this study, a two surface plasticity model was developed and used to simulate the uniaxial ratchetting response of CS 1026 steel. Most cyclic plasticity models used in ratchetting simulations are Chaboche-type nonlinear kinematic hardening models, which deal with dynamic recovery terms considering the back stress tensor. This paper describes the ratchetting simulation of steel by the two surface model based on yield theory following both isotropic and kinematic hardening rules in order to obtain enhanced ratchetting response. The parameters used in the simulation were obtained from a parametric study and were determined from the initial range and stabilized range of CS 1026 steel. In addition, the two surface model was validated by comparing the results of a ratchetting simulation with experimentally determined maximum axial strain per cycle. The ratchetting responses obtained from the two surface model are an improved simulation results compared with results from bilinear and kinematic hardening models.     

Anti-plane moving crack in a functionally graded piezoelectric layer between two dissimilar piezoelectric strips

The dynamic propagation of a crack in a functionally graded piezoelectric material (FGPM) interface layer between two dissimilar piezoelectric layers under anti-plane shear is analyzed using integral transform approaches. The properties of the FGPM layers vary continuously along the thickness. The FGPM layer and two homogeneous piezoelectric layers are connected weak-discontinuously. A constant velocity Yoffe-type moving crack is considered. The Fourier transform is used to reduce the problem to two sets of dual integral equations, which are then expressed to the Fredholm integral equations of the second kind. Numerical values on the dynamic energy release rate (DERR) are presented for the FGPM to show the effects on electric loading, gradient of the material properties, crack moving velocity, and thickness of the layers. The following are helpful to increase resistance to crack propagation in the FGPM interface layer: (a) certain direction and magnitude of the electric loading, (b) increasing the thickness of the FGPM interface layer, and (c) increasing the thickness of the homogeneous piezoelectric layer to have larger material properties than those of the crack plane in the FGPM interface layer. The DERR always increases with the increase of crack moving velocity and the gradient of the material properties.     

Wetting characteristics of a water droplet on solid surfaces with various pillar surface fractions under different conditions

A numerical study was carried out using a molecular dynamics program to examine the wetting characteristics of nano-sized water droplets on surfaces with various pillar surface fractions under different conditions. Square-shaped pillars had surface fractions that increased from 11.1 % to 69.4 %. The pillars had 4 different heights and 3 different surface energies. When the pillar surface fraction changed, the contact angle of a water droplet also changed due to the attraction between the droplet and the pillar surface or the inner attraction of the water molecules. The pillar height also has different effects on the water droplet depending on the magnitude of surface energy.     

Winglet geometry effects on tip leakage loss over the plane tip in a turbine cascade

The effects of winglet offset distance, winglet coverage, and winglet cross section on the over-tip leakage loss for the plane tip have been investigated experimentally in a turbine blade cascade for a tip gap height-to-span ratio of h/s = 1.36 %. The results show that the over-tip leakage loss for the full coverage winglet increases steeply with increasing the winglet offset distance. This loss generation is attributed to flow disturbances over the forward-facing and backward-facing steps within the tip gap. The winglet flush mounted to the tip surface provides the best result. With the leading edge winglet portion or without it, the both-side winglet always provides better aerodynamic performance than the corresponding pressure-side winglet or suction-side winglet. Longer coverage of the both-side winglet leads to lower loss. Therefore, the full coverage winglet performs best in the loss reduction for the plane tip. In general, thinner winglet leads to better aerodynamic result, and the winglet cross section having a slant bottom surface with the smallest thickness at its outer end is recommended.     

Developing a big data analytics platform for manufacturing systems: architecture,method, and implementation

Manufacturing industries have recently promoted smart manufacturing (SM) for achieving intelligence, connectedness, and responsiveness of manufacturing objects consisting of man, machine, and material. Traditional manufacturing platforms, which identify generic frameworks where common functionalities are shareable and diverse applications are workable, mainly focused on remote collaboration, distributed control, and data integration; however, they are limited to incorporating those characteristic achievements. The present work introduces an SM-toward manufacturing platform. The proposed platform incorporates the capabilities of (1) virtualization of manufacturing objects for their autonomy and cooperation, (2) processing of real and various manufacturing data for mediating physical and virtual objects, and (3) data-driven decision-making for predictive planning on those objects. For such capabilities, the proposed platform advances the framework of Holonic Manufacturing Systems with the use of agent technology. It integrates a distributed data warehouse to encompass data specification, storage, processing, and retrieval. It applies a data analytics approach to create empirical decision-making models based on real and historical data. Furthermore, it uses open and standardized data interfaces to embody interoperable data exchange across shop floors and manufacturing applications. We present the architecture and technical methods for implementing the proposed platform. We also present a prototype implementation to demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the platform in energy-efficient machining.     

Blends of a thermotropic liquid crystalline polymer and some flexible chain polymers and the determination of the polymer-polymer interaction parameter of the two polymers

Summary Blends of a thermotropic liquid crystalline polymer (LCP) with poly(ether imide) (PEI), poly(ether ether ketone) (PEEK), polysulfone (PSF) and polyarylsulfone (PAS) prepared by screw extrusion have been investigated by differential scanning calorimeter and dynamic mechanical thermal analysis. From the measured glass transition temperature (T_g) and specific heat increment (ΔC_p) at the T_g, it appears that the LCP dissolves more in the PEI- and PEEK-rich phases than does the PEI and PEEK in the LCP-rich phase. From the DSC study of PSF-LCP and PAS-LCP blends, the T_g(PSF) and T_g(PAS) of each blends are almost constant with blend composition. Therefore, it is concluded that PSF and PAS are immiscible with LCP. The polymer-polymer interaction parameter (χ₁₂) and the degree of disorder (y/x₁) of LCP have been investigated using the Flory lattice theory in which the anisotropy of LCP is considered. The χ₁₂ values have been calculated from the T_g data and found to be 0.181 ± 0.004 at 593 K for the PEI-LCP blends and 0.069 ± 0.006 at 623 K for the PEEK-LCP blends. Using the previously presented method, the χ₁₂ and y/x₁ in partially miscible systems have been determined. Received: 6 April 1998/Revised version: 8 June 1998/Accepted: 17 June 1998     

Preparation and properties of UV-curable polyurethane acrylate ionomers

Ultraviolet (UV)-curable polyurethane acrylate ionomer (PUAI) prepolymers were synthesized from isophorone diisocyanate (IPDI), poly(methylene ether) glycol (PTMG), 2,2-bis(hydroxymethyl) propionic acid (DMPA), triethylamine (TEA), 2-hydroxy ethyl acrylate (HEA), and dibutyl tin dilaurate (DBT) as a catalyst. UV-curable polyurethane acrylate ionomer aqueous dispersion was formulated from the prepolymers, water (30 wt %), and 1-hydroxycyclohexylhenyl ketone (Irgacure 184) as a photoinitiator. The films of UV-cured polyurethane acrylate ionomer were formed by curing the dispersion using a medium-pressure mercury lamp (80 W/cm; λ max = 365 nm). Gel content decreased with increasing water content in the aqueous dispersion. Effects of DMPA content and molecular weight of PTMG and the degree of neutralization on the physical properties were investigated. It was found that the storage modulus increased with increasing DMPA content. Tensile modulus and strength decreased with increasing the molecular weight of PTMG from 650 to 2000. The glass transition temperature shifted to a higher temperature as the content of DMPA increased. As the degree of neutralization increased, the tensile strength and modulus decreased. However, the elongation at break increased. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 67:2153–2162, 1998     

Copolymerization of styrene and ethylene with mononuclear and dinuclear half-titanocenes

With mononuclear half-titanocenes such as CpTiCl₃, IndTiCl₃, and Me₅CpTiCl₃, as well as the constrained geometry catalyst (CGC) and a new dinuclear hexamethyltrisiloxanediylbis(cyclopentadienyltitanium trichloride) (TSDT), the copolymerization of styrene and ethylene was examined. The thermal properties and structure of copolymerization products were investigated with differential scanning calorimetry and ¹³C-nuclear magnetic resonance. In addition, the raw polymer was separated into homopolymer and copolymer with an extraction method and cross fractionation chromatography. With the above analysis, it was concluded that the raw polymer obtained with CpTiCl₃ and IndTiCl₃ was a mixture of syndiotactic polystyrene and polyethylene homopolymers with 10–30 wt % copolymer, whereas that produced by Me₅CpTiCl₃ and TSDT was a homopolymer mixture with a negligible amount of copolymer. Only CGC produced the copolymer of styrene and ethylene perfectly. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 67:2187–2198, 1998     

Updating 3D triangular mesh models based on locally added point clouds

In a manufacturing area, design changes for an original surface model are frequently required: for example, when the physical parts are modified or when the parts are partially manufactured from analogous shapes. In this case, an efficient surface updating method by locally adding scan data for the modified area is highly desirable. For this purpose, this paper presents a new procedure to update an initial model that is composed of combinatorial triangular facets based on a set of locally added point data. Nowadays, many people are using surface models that are represented by triangular facets in reverse engineering, since it is fast and easy to create the triangular meshes directly from large amounts of point data. The initial surface model is first created from the initial point set by tight cocone, which is a water-tight surface reconstructor; and then the point cloud data for the updates is locally added onto the initial model maintaining the same coordinate system. In order to update the initial model, the special region on the initial surface that needs to be updated is recognized through the detection of the overlapping area between the initial model and the boundary of the newly added point cloud. After that, the initial surface model is eventually updated to the final output by replacing the recognized region with the newly added point cloud. The proposed method has been implemented and tested with several examples. This algorithm will be practically useful to modify the surface model with physical part changes and free-form surface design.     

Insights into the chemical behavior of zinc dialkyldithiophosphate anti-wear additives in their isomeric and decomposed forms through molecular simulation

Ab initio molecular dynamics simulations and static quantum chemical calculations at the density functional level of theory have been applied to study zinc dialkyldithiophosphate (ZDDP) engine oil anti-wear additives in their parent, isomeric and decomposed forms to identify differences in the basic finite temperature chemical behavior of these species that may be related to the formation of ZDDP anti-wear films. It was found that the isomers, which contain Zn–O bonds, exhibited finite temperature behavior leading to the dissociation of these bonds, while the parent ZDDP molecule, which contains only Zn–S bonds, did not. The dissociation of the Zn–O bonds improves the abilities of these molecules to participate in film formation reactions as electron donors and hence the transformation of the ZDDP molecule into species with Zn–O bonds, such as the isomers and decomposed species, may aid in anti-wear film formation. It was observed that the dissociation of the Zn–O bonds allowed the molecules to attain rearranged structures where the coordination at the zinc atom had significantly changed and it was found that these rearranged structures could decompose through the elimination of metathiophosphates (MTPs). The results of static density functional theory calculations on all species indicated that the elimination of MTPs was energetically favorable at high temperatures, however, the ability of the parent molecule to participate in rearrangement determines whether decomposition will occur. The fact that these species readily participate in reactions that lead to MTP formation is relevant within the context of ZDDP anti-wear film formation since the MTP molecules possess properties that make them ideal precursors to the thiophosphate networks that are thought to comprise these films. Overall, the results of this study indicate that differences between the ZDDP molecule, its isomers and decomposition products exist that may affect the abilities of these species to participate in the formation of anti-wear films. This information will be useful within the development of an overall mechanism for the formation of ZDDP anti-wear films.