Investigations of PMN-PT Single Crystal Performance

Application of new materials, such as PMN-PT single crystals, requires a good understanding of basic material performance under both electrical and mechanical loading. Over the past 5 years the authors have used both computational and experimental techniques to examine the relationships between poling direction, crystal orientation, and electric field actuation. Experiments show mixed results indicating that the relationship between material orientation and loading is more complex than originally imagined. In some cases crack initiation and propagation perpendicular to the applied field was observed within a few thousand cycles but in other cases no failure was observed even after a few hundred thousand cycles despite crack growth in the presence of introduced defects. Computational effort quickly identified a gap between development of theoretical constitutive models that addressed domain switching based nonlinear behavior and what was available in workable form as part of commercial finite element codes. This led to the implementation of a macro-mechanical constitutive model which addresses domain switching, into a commercially available finite element code. The rate independent version has been used to investigate issues of electric field actuation and poling direction. Presented here are insights into the fracture and fatigue behavior of piezoelectric single crystals from both experimental and computational studies.

MTConnect-Based Kaizen for Machine Tool Processes

Kaizen is a part of Lean Manufacturing that focuses on the concept of continuous improvement to reduce waste. For implementing Kaizen on the factory floor, comprehensive and efficient tools for data acquisition, process measurement and analysis are required. The MTConnect open specification provides for cost-effective data acquisition on the manufacturing floor for machine tools and related devices. This paper will look at a Kaizen implementation on the shop floor level for continuous improvement using real-time MTConnect data. The Kaizen transformation of machine data into production knowledge was performed in order to understand energy consumption, asset operation and process performance. The paper takes a detailed examination of the machine tool energy management.

Meshless Integral Method for Analysis of Elastoplastic Geotechnical Materials

The meshless integral method based on regularized boundary equation [1][2] is extended to analyze elastoplastic geotechnical materials. In this formulation, the problem domain is clouded with a node set using automatic node generation. The sub-domain and the support domain related to each node are also generated automatically using algorithms developed for this purpose. The governing integral equation is obtained from the weak form of elastoplasticity over a local sub-domain and the moving least-squares approximation is employed for meshless function approximation. The geotechnical materials are described by pressure-sensitive multi-surface Drucker-Prager/Cap plasticity constitutive law with hardening. A generalized collocation method is used to impose the essential boundary conditions and natural boundary conditions are incorporated in the system governing equations. A comparison of the meshless results with the FEM results shows that the meshless integral method is accurate and robust enough to solve geotechnical materials.

An Ontological Approach to Manufacturing Supplier Discovery in Virtual Markets

Manufacturing supply chains are increasingly becoming global, virtual and short-lived in order to improve their agility and dynamic adaptability to rapid changes in today’s volatile market. In this context, online marketplaces for manufacturing services have become attractive venues for rapid development of supply chain relationships. Despite their numerous benefits, the existing online markets have failed in adequately automating the supply chain deployment process. Heavy reliance of the existing online markets on human agents for formulating supplier queries and evaluating the obtained results can be mainly attributed to the informal nature of the information models used in these markets. To enable active involvement of machine agents in supply chain deployment, the underlying information models that support online markets should represent the semantics of information in a formal and machine-interpretable fashion. This paper introduces Manufacturing Service Description Language (MSDL) as a formal ontology for description of suppliers’ capability at different levels of abstraction including process-level, machine-level, and system level. Also, an agent-based framework is proposed in this paper that facilitates automated discovery and evaluation of potential manufacturing partners based on the MSDL description of the services they provide.

Knowledge-Based Task Planning Using Natural Language Processing for Robotic Manufacturing

Robotic alternative to many manual operations falls short in application due to the difficulties in capturing the manual skill of an expert operator. One of the main problems to be solved if robots are to become flexible enough for various manufacturing needs is that of end-user programming. An end-user with little or no technical expertise in robotics area needs to be able to efficiently communicate its manufacturing task to the robot. This paper proposes a new method for robot task planning using some concepts of Artificial Intelligence. Our method is based on a hierarchical knowledge representation and propositional logic, which allows an expert user to incrementally integrate process and geometric parameters with the robot commands. The objective is to provide an intelligent and programmable agent such as a robot with a knowledge base about the attributes of human behaviors in order to facilitate the commanding process. The focus of this work is on robot programming for manufacturing applications. Industrial manipulators work with low level programming languages. This work presents a new method based on Natural Language Processing (NLP) that allows a user to generate robot programs using natural language lexicon and task information. This will enable a manufacturing operator (for example for painting) who may be unfamiliar with robot programming to easily employ the agent for the manufacturing tasks.

Towards Risk as a Tradeable Parameter in Complex System Design Trades

Complex system conceptual design trade studies traditionally consider risk after a conceptual design has been created. Further, one person is often tasked with collecting risk information and managing it from each subsystem. This paper proposes a method to explicitly consider and trade risk on the same level as other important system-level variables during the creation of conceptual designs in trade studies. The proposed risk trading method advocates putting each subsystem engineer in control of risk for each subsystem. A risk vector is proposed that organizes many different risk metrics for communication between subsystems. A method of coupling risk models to dynamic subsystem models is presented. Several risk visualization techniques are discussed. An example is presented based upon a simplified spacecraft model. The risk trading method discussed offers an approach to more thoroughly consider risk during the creation of conceptual designs in trade studies.

Tool-Based Approach for the Develepment of Self-Optimizing Systems With Solution Patterns

Machines are omnipresent. They produce, they transport. Machines facilitate work and assist. The increasing penetration of mechanical engineering by information technology enables considerable benefits. This circumstance is expressed by the term mechatronics, which means the close interaction of mechanics, electronics, control engineering and software engineering to improve the behavior of a technical system. The progressive integration of information technology will enable mechatronic systems with partial intelligence. We refer to such systems as self-optimizing systems. Self-optimizing systems have the ability to react autonomously and flexibly on changing operation conditions. The design of such systems is an even more interdisciplinary task than the design of conventional mechatronic systems. Additionally to mechanical, electrical, control and software engineers also experts from mathematical optimization and artificial intelligence are involved. As a consequence a domain-spanning methodology is necessary in order to guarantee an effective work flow between the participating developers from various domains and their domain-specific methods, terminologies and solutions. This contribution presents such a methodology. The main focus, however, lies on harnessing of experimental knowledge for the development of self-optimizing systems. This includes the generation and storage of once proven design solutions as well as a tool for the effective and domain-spanning reuse.

Best for Whom? Changing Design for Creative Customers

Our traditional design has been producer-centric. But to respond to the frequent and extensive changes and increasing diversification, we have to change our design to user-centric. But it is not a straightforward extension and just listening to the voice of the customer is not enough. Value is defined as value = performance/cost, but performance has been interpreted in the current design solely as functions of a final product and all other factors such as manufacturing are considered as cost. This framework has been effective until recently because there has been asymmetry of information between the producer and the customer. As the producer had a greater amount of information, they only had to produce a product which they think best and it really satisfied the customer who needed a product. The 20th century was the age of products. But as we approached the 21st century, we entered information society and sometimes the customer knows more than the producer. Thus, such a one way flow of development to fill the information (water level) gap doe not work any more, because the gap is quickly disappearing. The difference was evaluated as value in the traditional design and it meant profit for the producer. Therefore, a new approach to create value is called for. One solution is to raise the water level together by the producer and the customer so that the level increase serves for profit for the producer and for the true value for the customer. In order to achieve this goal, we have to identify what is the true value for the customer. We have to step outside of our traditional notion of value being functions of a final product. What is the true value for the customer? It is customers’ satisfaction. Then, how can we satisfy our customers. This paper points out if we note that our customers are very active and creative, we can provide satisfaction to them by getting them involved in the whole process of product development. Then our customers can enjoy not only product experience but also process experience, which will satisfy their needs for self actualization and challenge, i.e., their highest human needs.

Multi-Objective Optimization Formulation to Make Creative Teams in Teamology

Teamology is established by Prof. Wilde to make creative teams in project teams. As a first step, it needs questionnaires to characterize personality for each member who joins the projects. Assume in academic project based learning teams, a number of students join and we are going to make several teams. Each team should have the same potential if and only if we can make every team as that. In order to create these teams, we need to quantify students’ characters, and we need to formalize them to meet the guideline of Teamology. In this study, we are going to make multi-objective optimization formulation of Teamology, and show an example of team making by using a genetic optimization algorithms with data that was taken PBL course in Kagawa University.

A Translator for Converting CAD Models to Second Life

Product Life-cycle Management (PLM) has been one of the single most important techniques to have been developed in the manufacturing industry. The increasing capabilities of internet and the ever increasing dependence of business entities on internet have led to the development of metaverses — internet-based 3D virtual worlds — which act as business platforms where companies display and showcase their latest products and services. This is in turn has led to a demand for development of methods for the easy transfer of data from stand alone PLM systems to the internet based virtual worlds. This paper presents the development of a translator which will transfer product data of 3D models created in CAD systems to an internet based virtual world. This translator uses a faceted-surface approach to transfer the product information. In this work CAD models were converted to a CAD-neutral data format, JT file format, and finally recreated in the metaverse Second Life (SL). Examples of models translated from JT to SL have been presented. A technique known as prim optimization, which increases the efficiency of the translation was also incorporated in the algorithm for the translator. Examples of prim optimization have been provided in the paper.