Development of a Five-axis Milling Tool Path Generation Algorithm based on Faceted Models

This paper describes the development of a 5-axis milling tool path generation algorithm based on faceted or tessellated models. In a first step, the developed algorithm optimises the tool inclination angle for maximal material removal rate in each cutter contact point. This is obtained by matching the tool profile of a flat end cutter with a temporary spline representing the curvature of the part surface in the tool contact point. In a second step, the elimination of gouging between the tool and the surface and a smooth behaviour of the tool inclination angle along the tool path is obtained by a combination of tool inclination angle adaptation and tool lifting along the normal vector. Finally, the paper describes some experimental results.     

Spatial aspects affecting acidification factors in European acidification modelling

Plain linear models have recently been used in methodologies to model fate and transport for assessing acidification in life cycle impact assessment (LCIA), or in support of air pollution abatement policies. These models originate from a statistical analysis of the relationship between inputs and outputs of physically-based models that reflect the mechanics of a system in detail. Linear models applied to assess acidification use an acidification factor (AF), which relates changes in the magnitude of emissions to changes in the total area that is protected against acidification in Europe. The changes in emission volume refer to changes of one substance, within one country and one sector or one grid cell.This paper evaluates the dependence of AFs on three spatial characteristics, i.e. the spatial emission and deposition resolution, the spatial emission distribution and the actual spatial location of emissions.The applied spatial resolutions of emission and deposition cause non-systematic variations in AFs of up to 60%, relative to the finest resolution. The manner in which the distribution of emissions is modelled, i.e. grid or sector-specific, is shown to affect AFs considerably, as well. We conclude that spatial characteristics of the physically-based acidification model can affect the assessment of acidification by means of plain linear models.     

A Novel Vibrating Finger Viscometer for High-Temperature Measurements in Liquid Metals and Alloys

A novel vibrating finger viscometer for high-temperature measurement in liquid metals and alloys up to 1823 K was constructed. The dynamic viscosity (\(\eta \)) of the liquid fluid is measured as a product of \((\rho \cdot \eta )^{0.5}\) and the relative change of the field coil input for a constant amplitude recording at the resonant frequency of the oscillator. The viscometer was calibrated at 298 K using reference silicon oils with varying kinematic viscosities (\(\nu \)), \((0.79\hbox { to } 200)\times 10^{-6}\hbox { m}^{2}\cdot \hbox {s}^{-1}\). In the present study, the viscosity of liquid gold (\(99.99\,\%\) Au), silver (\(99.9\, \%\) Ag), and tin (\(99.9\,\%\) Sn) was measured. The viscosities expressed as an Arrhenius function of temperature are:

$$\begin{aligned} \hbox {for Au:}\quad \quad \hbox {ln }\eta= & {} -0.1990+\frac{2669}{T}\\ \hbox {for Ag:} \quad \quad \hbox {ln }\eta= & {} -0.4631+\frac{2089}{T}\\ \hbox {for Sn:} \quad \quad \hbox {ln }\eta= & {} -0.5472+\frac{671}{T} \end{aligned}$$

The viscosity values are consistent within the range of available literature data.

     

Recent Developments in the Pure Streamfunction Formulation of the Navier-Stokes System

In this paper we review fourth-order approximations of the biharmonic operator in one, two and three dimensions. In addition, we describe recent developments on second and fourth order finite difference approximations of the two dimensional Navier-Stokes equations. The schemes are compact both for the biharmonic and the Laplacian operators. For the convective term the fourth order scheme invokes also a sixth order Pade approximation for the first order derivatives, using an approximation suggested by Carpenter-Gottlieb-Abarbanel (J. Comput. Phys. 108:272–295, 1993). We also introduce the derivation of a pure streamfunction formulation for the Navier-Stokes equations in three dimensions.     

Swept Volume Approximation of Polygon Soups

We present a fast algorithm to approximate the swept volume (SV) boundary of arbitrary polygon soup models. Despite the extensive research on calculating the volume swept by an object along a trajectory, the efficient algorithms described have imposed constraints on both the trajectories and geometric models. By proposing a general algorithm that handles flat surfaces as well as volumes and disconnected objects, we allow SV calculation without resorting to preprocessing mesh repair nor deforming offsets. This is of particular interest in the domain of product lifecycle management (PLM), which deals with industrial computer aided design (CAD) models that are malformed more often than not. We incorporate the bounded distance operator used in path planning to efficiently sample the trajectory while controlling the total error. We develop a triangulation scheme that draws on the unique data set created by an advancing front level-set method to tessellate the SV boundary in linear time. We analyze its performance, and demonstrate its effectiveness both theoretically and on real cases taken from PLM.     

A new energy harvest system with a hula-hoop transformer, micro-generator and interface energy-harvesting circuit

This study presents a synthesis of a new energy harvest system that consists of a hula-hoop transformer, a micro-generator and an interface energy harvest circuit. The hula-hoop transformer mainly comprises a main mass sprung in one translational direction and a free-moving mass attached at one end of a rod, the other end of which is hinged onto the main mass. The transformer is capable of transforming linear reciprocating motions to rotary ones based on the concepts similar to the hula hoop motions. The transformer is subsequently integrated with a miniaturized rotary generator in size of 10?×?10?×?2?mm³ and its compact energy harvest circuit chip. The designed generator consists of patterned planar copper coils and a multi-polar hard magnet ring made of NdFeB. The genetic algorithm (GA) is next applied to optimize the critical dimensions of the miniaturized generator. The optimized generator offers 4.5 volt and 7.23?mW in rms at 10,000?rpm. With micro-generator successfully fabricated, a novel energy harvest circuit employing a new dual phase charge pump, power management circuit, a low dropout regulator and battery charger is designed and fabricated via the 0.35???m process. This charge pump circuit owns the merit of automatic conversion of low-power AC signals by the micro-generator to DC ones. Experiments were conducted to show the favorable performance of the proposed energy harvest system. This is the first work that invents a motion transformer from ubiquitous reciprocating to rotational motions. In this way, higher-efficient energy conversion via compact-sized rotational electromagnetic generators can be realized as opposed to popular piezoelectric structures.     

Efficient aerodynamic shape optimization of transonic wings using a parallel infilling strategy and surrogate models

Surrogate models are used to dramatically improve the design efficiency of numerical aerodynamic shape optimization, where high-fidelity, expensive computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is often employed. Traditionally, in adaptation, only one single sample point is chosen to update the surrogate model during each updating cycle, after the initial surrogate model is built. To enable the selection of multiple new samples at each updating cycle, a few parallel infilling strategies have been developed in recent years, in order to reduce the optimization wall clock time. In this article, an alternative parallel infilling strategy for surrogate-based constrained optimization is presented and demonstrated by the aerodynamic shape optimization of transonic wings. Different from existing methods in which multiple sample points are chosen by a single infill criterion, this article uses a combination of multiple infill criteria, with each criterion choosing a different sample point. Constrained drag minimizations of the ONERA-M6 and DLR-F4 wings are exercised to demonstrate the proposed method, including low-dimensional (6 design variables) and higher-dimensional problems (up to 48 design variables). The results show that, for surrogate-based optimization of transonic wings, the proposed method is more effective than the existing parallel infilling strategies, when the number of initial sample points are in the range from N _v to 8N _v (N _v here denotes the number of design variables). Each case is repeated 50 times to eliminate the effect of randomness in our results.     

The complex representation of algebraic curves and its simpleexploitation for pose estimation and invariant recognition

Representations are introduced for handling 2D algebraic curves (implicit polynomial curves) of arbitrary degree in the scope of computer vision applications. These representations permit fast, accurate pose-independent shape recognition under Euclidean transformations with a complete set of invariants, and fast accurate pose-estimation based on all the polynomial coefficients. The latter is accomplished by a centering of a polynomial based on its coefficients, followed by rotation estimation by decomposing polynomial coefficient space into a union of orthogonal subspaces for which rotations within two-dimensional subspaces or identity transformations within one-dimensional subspaces result from rotations in x, y measured-data space. Angles of these rotations in the two-dimensional coefficient subspaces are proportional to each other and are integer multiples of the rotation angle in the x, y data space. By recasting this approach in terms of a complex variable, i.e., x+iy=z, and complex polynomial-coefficients, further conceptual and computational simplification results. Application to shape-based indexing into databases is presented to illustrate the usefulness and the robustness of the complex representation of algebraic curves