Planning Fail-Safe Trajectories for Space Robotic Arms

A frequent concern for robot manipulators deployed in dangerous and hazardous environments for humans is the reliability of task executions in the event of a joint failure. A redundant robotic manipulator can be used to mitigate the risk and guarantee a post-failure task completion, which is critical for instance for space applications. This paper describes methods to analyze potential risks due to a joint failure, and introduces tools for fault-tolerant task design and path planning for robotic manipulators. The presented methods are based on off-line precomputed workspace models. The methods are general enough to cope with robots with any type of joint (revolute or prismatic) and any number of degrees of freedom, and might include arbitrarily shaped obstacles in the process, without resorting to simplified models. Application examples illustrate the potential of the approach.

Fatigue Variability of Alloy 625 Thin-Tube Brazed Specimens

As an advanced heat exchanger for aero-turbine applications, a tubular-type heat exchanger was developed. To ensure the optimum performance of the heat exchanger, it is necessary to assess the structural integrity of the tubes, considering the assembly processes such as brazing. In this study, fatigue tests at room temperature and 1000 K were performed for 0.135 mm-thick alloy 625 tubes (outer diameter of 1.5 mm), which were brazed to the grip of the fatigue specimen. The variability in fatigue life was investigated by analyzing the locations of the fatigue failure, fracture surfaces, and microstructures of the brazed joint and tube. At room temperature, the specimens failed near the brazed joint for high σmax values, while both brazed joint failure and tube side failure were observed for low σmax values. The largest variability in fatigue life under the same test conditions was found when one specimen failed in the brazed joint, while the other specimen failed in the middle of the tube. The specimen with brazed joint failure showed multiple crack initiations circumferentially near the surface of the filler metal layer and growth of cracks in the tube, resulting in a short fatigue life. At 1000 K, all the specimens exhibited failure in the middle of the tube. In this case, the short-life specimen showed crack initiation and growth along the grains with large through thickness in addition to multiple crack initiations at the carbides inside the tube. The results suggest that the variability in the fatigue life of the alloy 625 thin-tube brazed specimen is affected by the presence of the brazed joint, as well as the spatial distribution of the grain size and carbides.

The T Cell Repertoires from Nickel Sensitized Joint Implant Failure Patients

Nickel (Ni2+) is one of the most common allergens, affecting around 10–15% of the general population. As the demand for orthopedic implant surgery rises, the number of surgical revisions due to joint implant failure also increases. There is evidence that some patients develop joint failure due to an immune response to a component of the implant, and we have found that Ni2+ is an especially important cause. Hence, understanding the mechanisms by which Ni2+ allergy induces joint implant failure becomes a critical research question. The structural basis of Ni2+ activation of pathogenic T cells is still not clear. The purpose of this study was to characterize Ni2+-reactive T cell repertoires derived from the peripheral blood of joint failure patients due to Ni2+ sensitization using single-cell sequencing techniques. We stimulated the proliferation of Ni2+ -reactive T cells from two implant failure patients in vitro, and sorted them for single-cell VDJ sequencing (10× genomics). We identified 2650 productive V-J spanning pairs. Both TCR α chains and β chains were enriched. TRBV18 usage is the highest in the P7 CD4+ population (18.1%), and TRBV5-1 usage is the highest in the P7 CD8+ population (12.1%). TRBV19 and TRBV20-1 segments are present in a high percentage of both P7 and P9 sequenced T cells. Remarkably, the alpha and beta chain combination of TRAV41-TRBV18 accounts for 13.5% of the CD4+ population of P7 patient. Compared to current Ni specific T cell repertoire studies of contact dermatitis, the Vα and Vβ usages of these joint implant failure patients were different. This could be due to the different availability of self-peptides in these two different tissues. However, TRBV19 (Vβ17) was among frequently used TCR β chains, which are common in previous reports. This implies that some pathogenic T cells could be similar in Ni2+ hypersensitivities in skin and joints. The alignment of the TCR CDR3β sequences showed a conserved glutamic acid (Glu) that could potentially interact with Ni2+. The study of these Ni2+ specific TCRs may shed light on the molecular mechanism of T cell activation by low molecular weight chemical haptens.

Effect of Lap Length and Stiffness of Peel-Stop Fasteners in Single Lap Joints

Strength tests on single lap joints with one adhesive (AV138/HV998) and one adhesive layer thickness (0.5 mm), three peel stoppers (brass bolt, nylon bolt and steel pin), and four lap lengths (12.5 mm, 25 mm, 40 mm and 100 mm) were conducted to investigate the effects of varying the lap length and stiffness of the peel-stop fasteners. Joint failure stress decreased, but failure force increased with lap length. Furthermore, joint failure stress was higher with the peel stopper. The effect of the brass-bolt peel stoppers was significant, whereas the effects of the nylon bolts and steel pins were smaller than that of the brass bolts. This indicates that the axial clamp strength and stiffness of the peel stopper are important factors in the shear strength of the lap. In addition, the effect of the stopper was negligible for the 12.5 mm lap. The reason is that the shear strength in the case of the 12.5 mm lap was large and thus the effect of the peel stopper was comparatively small. Moreover, the strength of the 100 mm lap reached the adherent material’s strength.