Computerized design of advanced straight and skew bevel gears produced by precision forging

The computerized design of advanced straight and skew bevel gears produced by precision forging is proposed. Modifications of the tooth surfaces of one of the members of the gear set are proposed in order to localize the bearing contact and predesign a favorable function of transmission errors. The proposed modifications of the tooth surfaces will be computed by using a modified imaginary crown-gear and applied in manufacturing through the use of the proper die geometry. The geometry of the die is obtained for each member of the gear set from their theoretical geometry obtained considering its generation by the corresponding imaginary crown-gear. Two types of surface modification, whole and partial crowning, are investigated in order to get the more effective way of surface modification of skew and straight bevel gears. A favorable function of transmission errors is predesigned to allow low levels of noise and vibration of the gear drive. Numerical examples of design of both skew and straight bevel gear drives are included to illustrate the advantages of the proposed geometry.     

Maximum Likelihood Sound Source Localization and Beamforming for Directional Microphone Arrays in Distributed Meetings

In distributed meeting applications, microphone arrays have been widely used to capture superior speech sound and perform speaker localization through sound source localization (SSL) and beamforming. This paper presents a unified maximum likelihood framework of these two techniques, and demonstrates how such a framework can be adapted to create efficient SSL and beamforming algorithms for reverberant rooms and unknown directional patterns of microphones. The proposed method is closely related to steered response power-based algorithms, which are known to work extremely well in real-world environments. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method on challenging synthetic and real-world datasets, including over six hours of recorded meetings.     

Log-based mining techniques applied to Web service composition reengineering

Web service compositions are becoming more and more complex, involving numerous interacting ad-hoc services. These services are often implemented as business processes themselves. By analysing such complex web service compositions one is able to better understand, control and eventually re-design them. Our contribution to this problem is a mining algorithm, based on a statistical technique to discover composite web service patterns from execution logs. Our approach is characterised by a “local” pattern’s discovery that covers partial results through a dynamic programming algorithm. Those locally discovered patterns are then composed iteratively until the composite Web service is discovered. The analysis of the disparities between the discovered model and the initial ad-hoc composite model (delta-analysis) enables initial design gaps to be detected and thus to re-engineer the initial Web service composition.     

Transmission of population-coded information

As neural activity is transmitted through the nervous system, neuronal noise degrades the encoded information and limits performance. It is therefore important to know how information loss can be prevented. We study this question in the context of neural population codes. Using Fisher information, we show how information loss in a layered network depends on the connectivity between the layers. We introduce an algorithm, reminiscent of the water filling algorithm for Shannon information that minimizes the loss. The optimal connection profile has a center-surround structure with a spatial extent closely matching the neurons' tuning curves. In addition, we show how the optimal connectivity depends on the correlation structure of the trial-to-trial variability in the neuronal responses. Our results explain how optimal communication of population codes requires the center-surround architectures found in the nervous system and provide explicit predictions on the connectivity parameters.     

Research on 3D medial axis transform via the saddle point programming method

The present paper investigates the 3D medial axis transform of objects bounded by freeform surfaces via the saddle point programming method, a mathematical programming approach used to identify the saddle points of a function. After exploring the local geometry and saddle point property of 3D medial axis transform, the mathematical programming method is employed to construct the saddle point programming models. Based on the optimality conditions that the optimal solutions should satisfy, a generic algorithm for computing various medial axis points is developed. In order to identify the junction points and localize the problem, the boundary and the skeletal curves are divided into skeletal segments, and it is proved to be efficient and accurate by numerical examples.     

The Bonding Properties of Solid Steel to Liquid Aluminum

The bonding of solid steel plate to liquid aluminum was studied using rapid solidification. The relationship models of interfacial shear strength and thickness of interfacial layer of bonding plate vs bonding parameters ( such as preheat temperature of steel plate, temperature of aluminum liquid and bonding time ) were respectively established by artificial neural networks perfectly. The bonding parameters for the largest interfacial shear strength were optimized with genetic algorithm successfully. They are 226℃ for preheating temperature of steel plate, 723℃ for temperature of aluminum liquid and 15.8s for bonding time, and the largest interfacial shear strength of bonding plate is 71.6MPa. Under these conditions, the corresponding reasonable thickness of interfacial layer (10.8μm) is gotten using the relationship model established by artificial neural networks.     

Preparation of QTi4.3-4Graghite Composite by Semi-solid Casting Technology

The electromagnetic-mechanical stirring technology was employed for preparing QTi4.3-4 graghite composite slurry,and QTi4.3-4 graghite composite with uniform distribution of graphite particles was prepared uring the semi-solid casting technology successfully.The structure of this QTi4.3-4graphite composite was studied and the condition for uniform distribution of graphite particles was got.The experimental results show that there exists a linear relationship between the solid fraction and the stirring temperature of QTi4.3-4graphite slurry.With the decreasing of stirring temperature,the solid fraction of QTi4.3-4 graghite slurry increases constantly.In casting,with the increasing of solid fraction of QTi4.3-4 graphite slurry.the agglomeration of graphite particles is removed gradually.When the solid fraction is higher than 40%,graphite particles can distribute evenly in QTi4.3-4 graghite composite.     

Microplane Model M5 with Kinematic and Static Constraints for Concrete Fracture and Anelasticity. I: Theory

Presented is a new microplane model for concrete, labeled M5, which improves the representation of tensile cohesive fracture by eliminating spurious excessive lateral strains and stress locking for far postpeak tensile strains. To achieve improvement, a kinematically constrained microplane system simulating hardening nonlinear behavior (nearly identical to previous Model M4 stripped of tensile softening) is coupled in series with a statically constrained microplane system simulating solely the cohesive tensile fracture. This coupling is made possible by developing a new iterative algorithm and by proving the conditions of its convergence. The special aspect of this algorithm (contrasting with the classical return mapping algorithm for hardening plasticity) is that the cohesive softening stiffness matrix (which is not positive definite) is used as the predictor and the hardening stiffness matrix as the corrector. The softening cohesive stiffness for fracturing is related to the fracture energy of concrete and the effective crack spacing. The postpeak softening slopes on the microplanes can be adjusted according to the element size in the sense of the crack band model. Finally, an incremental thermodynamic potential for the coupling of statically and kinematically constrained microplane systems is formulated. The data fitting and experimental calibration for tensile strain softening are relegated to a subsequent paper in this issue, while all the nonlinear triaxial response in compression remains the same as for Model M4.