Tunable and Transferrable Bar Feeder Damping Design for Advanced Manufacturing

The economical production of high-value, low-volume, machined components is an important subtopic of advanced manufacturing. Bar feeders, a well-established technology for adding a high degree of automation to CNC turning centers by feeding 12′ lengths of stock through the machine spindle, have limitations in this realm. They rely on supporting the entire length of the stock in a continuous fluid bearing in order to suppress potential vibrations. Although this results in excellent vibration suppression, long tooling changeovers make them impractical for small batch sizes. Additionally, the expense of the tooling can render them cost-prohibitive. Thus a bar feeder technology is desired that provides comparable vibration suppression for a wide variety of stock sizes without the need for size-specific tooling changes. In this, a movable point support having tunable viscoelastic properties is studied for controlling the vibration of varying lengths of bar stock in a given speed range. The transverse vibration of mounted bar stock is modeled as a Bernoulli-Euler beam. The effects of the support position, viscoelastic model, and their associated parameters on the resonant frequencies, damping ratios, and vibration response of the bar stock are studied. Such a study will be instrumental in developing passive/active vibration control strategies for future bar feeders.

Complex Sparse-Filled Mechanical Property Prediction Methods for Direct Digital Manufacturing

This paper describes how direct digital manufacturing mechanical properties can be analytically estimated for structural use and the associated analytical and test methods used in the design and fabrication of airframes manufactured using additive manufacturing. Complex shape structures, which are now possible using additive manufacturing, and their associated mechanical properties can be predicted in order to allow operationally safe and highly predictive structures to be fabricated. Direct digital manufacturing allows for much greater flexibility and control over the design of airframes, leading to more structurally efficient and capable airframes. These advantages are revealed by application of direct digital manufacturing methods on a series of fixed wing subsonic transport concept wind tunnel scale models that are carried out as a part of the NASA N+3 program, which is paving the way for next generation aircraft that are highly fuel efficient, low-noise, and low-emission. Verification of these methods through test shows excellent correlation that provides reliability in complex sparse filled additive manufacturing design. The outcome of this is a knowledge base, which can then be applied to a system in operation. The combined potential of a flexible manufacturing system and proven predictive analysis tools shorten development time and expand the opportunities for mass customization. These combined benefits enable industry to fabricate affordable highly optimized custom products while concurrently reducing the cycle times required to field new products.

Investigation of New Generation of Ceramic and Single Crystalline Piezo Materials for Helicopter Blade and UAV Actuation

A great amount of research is being conducted to incorporate smart material actuators in aerospace applications such as (1) turbo fan engines (2) servo flap actuators for helicopter rotor control. For example, a piezoelectric stack actuator, coupled with mechanical or hydraulic amplification could provide the actuation required for the variable pitch fan system with a potentially higher level of reliability. In addition, piezoelectric actuation system could do so at a lower overall weight. However, there are limitations with existing piezoelectric stack actuators relative to power requirements. Therefore, a new approach has been investigated to improve these characteristics in order for piezoelectric stacks to be a feasible solution for these types of large scale applications. A new configuration involving dielectric, conductor, piezoelectric material in a particular sequence of stack actuation is examined and experimented. A nonlinear lumped parameter model of a piezoelectric stack has been developed to describe the behavior for the purpose of control actuation analysis.

Processing and Analysis of Ceramic Mesoscale Combustors Fabricated by Co-Extrusion

In this work, millimeter-scale tubular combustion channels were fabricated from ceramic precursor materials. Co-extrusion of structured feedrods holds promise for the development of multi-layered, functionally graded and/or textured combustor walls, but requires a polymer binder that is difficult to remove before structures can be sintered to full density. In conventional thermal debinding, cracking is a major issue, where crack formation is attributed to a lack of pore space for outgassing of pyrolysis products. The main focus of this study is to validate a manufacturing process that uses a combination of solvent de-binding and thermal debinding, which is applied to a simple combustor geometry. Alumina powder was batched with a mixture of polyethylene butyl-acrylate (PEBA) and polyethylene glycol (PEG) in a torque rheometer. A 19mm feedrod, consisting of a carbon-black/binder mixture as core, and a surrounding ceramic/binder mixture forming the wall, was extruded through a 5.84 mm die. The binder removal involves two processing steps, where the PEG content was removed by solvent extraction (SE) to initiate pore formation, after which thermal de-binding by pyrolysis removes the remaining binder and carbon-black. Solvent extraction was performed in water at three different temperatures for various times. The 1:1 mixture of PEG:PEBA showed the highest PEG removal of 80wt% for 6 hrs extraction. The thermal de-binding cycle was designed based on thermo-gravimetric analysis (TGA) and successfully performed with a ramping rate of 1.25°C/min to 1000°C without any crack formation. After de-binding, samples were sintered at 1600°C for 1 hr. SEM analysis showed some void spaces in the solvent extracted samples but confirmed that solvent extraction followed by thermal de-binding yielded the best results. The viability of sintered ceramic tubes was tested for conditions typical for thermal cycling in a combustion environment.

Precision and Energy Usage for Additive Manufacturing

Market pressures on manufacturing enterprises incentivize minimum resource consumption while maintaining part quality. Facilities with advanced manufacturing tools often utilize rapid prototyping for production of complicated or specialty parts. Additive manufacturing offers an alternative to traditional production methods which are often time and resource expensive. This study aims to explore part quality and energy usage for additive manufacturing through a focused study of Fused Deposition Modeling and Photopolymer Jetting technologies. A control part is developed for maintaining test consistency across different machines. The control part design consists of various positive and negative features including width varied slots and walls, ramps, and curved features so that the manufacturing of different surfaces may be investigated. Several different machine models are tested to evaluate precision for a variety of applications. Part quality is quantified by measuring the surface roughness in two directions for the control test part printed on each machine. Qualitatively, part quality is assessed by positive and negative feature resolution. High quality machines resolve features closely to design specifications. Lower quality machines do not resolve some features. In addition to exploring the effects of advertised print precision, layup density is varied on two machines. Advertised print resolution does not well represent the achievable feature sizes found in this study. Energy usage is quantified by measuring electricity demands while printing the control part on each of the five different machines. Power consumption in additive manufacturing is found to follow a distinct pattern comprised of standby, warm up, printing and idle phases. Measurement and analysis suggest a relationship between the precision of these machines and their respective energy demand. Part quality is found to generally improve with increased initial and process resource investment. The energy and quality assessment methods developed in this study are applicable to a greater variety of additive manufacturing technologies and will assist designers as additive manufacturing becomes more production friendly. The presented data also provides designers and production planners insight for improvements in the process decision making.

Measurement and Process Control in Precision Hot Embossing

Microfluidic technologies hold a great deal of promise in advancing the medical field, but transitioning them from research to commercial production has proven problematic. We propose precision hot embossing as a process to produce high volumes of devices with low capital cost and a high degree of flexibility. Hot embossing has not been widely applied to precision forming of hard polymers at viable production rates. To this end we have developed experimental equipment capable of maintaining the necessary precision in forming parameters while minimizing cycle time. In addition, since equipment precision alone does not guarantee consistent product quality, our work also focuses on real-time sensing and diagnosis of the process. This paper covers both the basic details for a novel embossing machine, and the utilization of the force and displacement data acquired during the embossing cycle to diagnose the state of the material and process. The precision necessary in both the forming machine and the instrumentation will be covered in detail. It will be shown that variation in the material properties (e.g. thickness, glass transition temperature) as well as the degree of bulk deformation of the substrate can be detected from these measurements. If these data are correlated with subsequent downstream functional tests, a total measure of quality may be determined and used to apply closed-loop cycle-to-cycle control to the entire process. By incorporating automation and specialized precision equipment into a tabletop “microfactory” setting, we aim to demonstrate a high degree of process control and disturbance rejection for the process of hot embossing as applied at the micron scale.

Investigations on the Effect of Coating Material and Method on Die Wear in Stamping of Advanced High Strength Steels

Despite the advantages of advanced high strength steels (AHSS), their stamping into functional lightweight parts demands prolonged die life, which necessitates the use of alternative substrates, coating materials, and/or surface conditioning to minimize and delay the die wear. In order to avoid frequent die replacement and surface quality problems on the stamped parts, the metalworking industry has been investigating various approaches such as reducing/refining the carbide particles, adding alloying elements, and elevating the hardness and toughness values for both substrate materials and coatings. The objective of this work was to investigate the effects of different coatings on the wear behavior of a some selected tool steel materials (die sample of interest) against two different AHSS sheet blanks through a cylinder-on-flat type reciprocating test method. After wear tests, both die sample and sheet blank surface were microscopically examined. Wear resistance of the slider was quantified from wear scar width measurements. Results showed that TD and CVD coated die samples performed better than the two other PVD coated samples.

Slurry Erosive Wear Behavior of Forged Al6061-CeO2-TiO2 Hybrid Composites

Aluminium alloys are being widely used in naval applications owing to their excellent corrosion resistance and high formability characteristics. One of the most popular naval components is the tarpedo blade which makes use of forged aluminium alloy followed by anodizing surface treatment for corrosion protection. In recent years, there have been few attempts to replace the conventional aluminium alloys by their composites for the tarpedo blade applications. Literature review clearly says that CeO2 (Ceria) coating on aluminium and aluminium composites enhances their corrosion protection in aggressive marine environment. Further, there are reports suggesting that combination of CeO2 and TiO2 do yield better corrosion protection. However, there is no information on the work related to development of hybrid ceramic reinforced aluminium alloy matrices with CeO2 and TiO2 as particulate reinforcements for potential naval applications. In the light of above, the present work focuses on the development of novel Al6061-CeO2-TiO2 hybrid metal matrix composite by stir casting route followed by hot extrusion with an extrusion ratio of 8:1 at a temperature 550 °C and hot forging at 475 °C. The developed forged hybrid composites and the matrix alloy have been evaluated for microstructure, micro hardness and slurry erosion wear tests as per the ASTM Standards.

A Study on 3D Micro-Topographical Measurement of FRCMC Grinding Surface

Fiber-reinforced ceramic matrix composites (FRCMCs) have potential applications in aerospace and other high-tech fields. Meanwhile, it is significant to evaluate the grinding surface quality of FRCMCs. But according to FRCMCs’ anisotropic and non-homogeneous structure, it is difficult to evaluatethe surface quality with the traditionalmeasuring method used in metal material. The present paper studied the 3D micro-topographical measurement and evaluationfrom a new perspective. The research is based on some new discovery that the material enhanced fiber orientation played key role in micro-topographical of FRCMC grinding surface. Using a non-contact optical measurement instrument, the method was developed on 2.5D SiO2/SiO2 composite. Through a series of measuring experiments, we found that both starting position of measurement and sampling conditions affected on the measurement results. This paper recommendedoptimization measurement parameter valuesof sampling conditions, and also analyzedcharacteristics of the RCMC grinding surface topography on amplitude, wave distribution and surface supportcharacteristics in details. The results show that the optimal range of sampling interval is 40 μm to 70 μm, the range of sampling area is better more than 64mm2 and the range of sampling speed is 8 to 14mm/s. The measurement of surface topography is the bridge framed between the manufacture and parts performance, so theresearchobtained will be an important technical support on improvingthe processing quality of FRCMC.

A Numerical Study of a Molten Aluminum for Investment Casting of 3D Cellular Metals

Investment casting processes are influenced by a variety of parameters. Many researches considering viscosity as a constant have been conducted up to this point. In particular, however, viscosity with temperature change has not been much accounted for solidification and heat transfer simulation of molten metal in the investment casting process. In addition, analysis of behavior of metal flow as well as air gap problems for complex network structures have not been investigated much. The aim of this study is to build transient metal flow and velocity profile models considering temperature dependent viscosity in investment casting processes of cellular structures. In this study, a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling tool was used for metal flow and velocity profile in investment casting processing using User Defined Function (UDF) for temperature dependent viscosity. The results of the metal flow and velocity profile inside of the simple cylindrical geometry are represented. It is shown that for the validation of the numerical simulation, the velocity profile between analytical and numerical approaches showed very good agreement. Analytical approaches showed that velocity was reduced with the increase in viscosity, which is applied as a function of temperature. In particular, rapid decreasing in velocity was shown from under the melting temperature of the molten metal. There was no movement on metal flow at the room temperature. Numerical approaches showed that the liquid metal began to be solidified from the wall surface inside of the mold. For the same simulation time, it was shown that the metal flow in a cylinder that has 1mm diameter showed better fluidity rather than that of the cylinder that has 2mm diameter due to the increase in adhesion between liquid metal and the surface of the mold and surface tension between molten metal and air. The effective diameter by solidification is decreased with the time change.