Selective laser melting (SLM), as one of the additive manufacturing technologies, is widely investigated to fabricate metal parts. In SLM, parts are manufactured directly from powders in a layer-by-layer fashion; SLM also provides several advantages, such as production of complex parts with high three-dimensional accuracy, compared with other additive manufacturing technologies. Therefore, SLM can be applied in aeronautics, astronautics, medicine, and die and mould industry. However, this technique differs from traditional methods, such as casting and forging; for instance, the former greatly differs in terms of microstructure and properties of products. This paper summarizes relevant studies on metal material fabrication through SLM. Based on a work completed in Huazhong Univ. Sci Tech., Rapid Manuf. Center (HUST-RMC) and compared with characteristics described in other reported studies, microstructure, properties, dimensional accuracy, and application of SLM are presented.

Additive manufacturing (AM) technologies, such as selective laser sintering (SLS) and fused deposition modeling (FDM), have become the powerful tools for direct manufacturing of complex parts. This breakthrough in manufacturing technology makes the fabrication of new geometrical features and multiple materials possible. Past researches on designs and design methods often focused on how to obtain desired functional performance of the structures or parts, specific manufacturing capabilities as well as manufacturing constraints of AM were neglected. However, the inherent constraints in AM processes should be taken into account in design process. In this paper, the enclosed voids, one type of manufacturing constraints of AM, are investigated. In mathematics, enclosed voids restriction expressed as the solid structure is simply-connected. We propose an equivalent description of simply-connected constraint for avoiding enclosed voids in structures, named as virtual temperature method (VTM). In this method, suppose that the voids in structure are filled with a virtual heating material with high heat conductivity and solid areas are filled with another virtual material with low heat conductivity. Once the enclosed voids exist in structure, the maximum temperature value of structure will be very high. Based upon this method, the simply-connected constraint is equivalent to maximum temperature constraint. And this method can be easily used to formulate the simply-connected constraint in topology optimization. The effectiveness of this description method is illustrated by several examples. Based upon topology optimization, an example of 3D cantilever beam is used to illustrate the trade-off between manufacturability and functionality. Moreover, the three optimized structures are fabricated by FDM technology to indicate further the necessity of considering the simply-connected constraint in design phase for AM.

The reliability-based design optimization, the reliability sensitivity analysis and robust design method are employed to present a practical and effective approach for reliability-based robust design optimization of vehicle components. A procedure for reliability-based robust design optimization of vehicle components is proposed. Application of the method is illustrated by reliability-based robust design optimization of axle and spring. Numerical results have shown that the proposed method can be trusted to perform reliability-based robust design optimization of vehicle components.

The reliability-based optimization, the reliability-based sensitivity analysis and robust design method are employed to propose an effective approach for reliability-based robust design optimization of vehicle components in Part I. Applications of the method are further discussed for reliability-based robust optimization of vehicle components in this paper. Examples of axles,torsion bar, coil and composite springs are illustrated for numerical investigations. Results have shown the proposed method is an efficient method for reliability-based robust design optimization of vehicle components.

The main proposition of the current investigation is to develop a computational intelligence-based framework which can be used for the real-time estimation of optimum battery state-of-charge (SOC) trajectory in plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). The estimated SOC trajectory can be then employed for an intelligent power management to significantly improve the fuel economy of the vehicle. The devised intelligent SOC trajectory builder takes advantage of the upcoming route information preview to achieve the lowest possible total cost of electricity and fossil fuel. To reduce the complexity of real-time optimization, the authors propose an immune system-based clustering approach which allows categorizing the route information into a predefined number of segments. The intelligent real-time optimizer is also inspired on the basis of interactions in biological immune systems, and is called artificial immune algorithm (AIA). The objective function of the optimizer is derived from a computationally efficient artificial neural network (ANN) which is trained by a database obtained from a high-fidelity model of the vehicle built in the Autonomie software. The simulation results demonstrate that the integration of immune inspired clustering tool, AIA and ANN, will result in a powerful framework which can generate a near global optimum SOC trajectory for the baseline vehicle, that is, the Toyota Prius PHEV. The outcomes of the current investigation prove that by taking advantage of intelligent approaches, it is possible to design a computationally efficient and powerful SOC trajectory builder for the intelligent power management of PHEVs.

In this paper the nano-metric simulation of grinding of copper with diamond abrasive grains, using the molecular dynamics (MD) method, is considered. An MD model of nano-scale grinding, where a single diamond abrasive grain performs cutting of a copper workpiece, is presented. The Morse potential function is used to simulate the interactions between the atoms involved in the procedure. In the proposed model, the abrasive grain follows a curved path with decreasing depth of cut within the workpiece to simulate the actual material removal process. Three different initial depths of cut, namely 4 ?, 8 ? and 12 ?, are tested, and the influence of the depth of cut on chip formation, cutting forces and workpiece temperatures are thoroughly investigated. The simulation results indicate that with the increase of the initial depth of cut, average cutting forces also increase and therefore the temperatures on the machined surface and within the workpiece increase as well. Furthermore, the effects of the different values of the simulation variables on the chip formation mechanism are studied and discussed. With the appropriate modifications, the proposed model can be used for the simulation of various nano-machining processes and operations, in which continuum mechanics cannot be applied or experimental techniques are subjected to limitations.

The present paper is to know how the work is carried out in the field of biomechanics of knee. Various model formulations are discussed and further classified into mathematical model, two-dimensional model and three-dimensional model. Knee geometry is a crucial part of human body movement, in which how various views of knee is shown in different planes and how the forces act on tibia and femur are studied. It leads to know the forces acting on the knee joint. Experimental studies of knee geometry and forces acting on knee shown by various researchers have been discussed, and comparisons of results are made. In addition, static and dynamic analysis of knee has been also discussed respectively to some extent.

In this paper, for the first time, the modified strain gradient theory is used as a new size-dependent Kirchhoff micro-plate model to study the effect of interlayer van der Waals (vdW) force for the vibration analysis of multilayered graphene sheets (MLGSs). The model contains three material length scale parameters, which may effectively capture the size effect. The model can also degenerate into the modified couple stress plate model or the classical plate model, if two or all of the material length scale parameters are taken to be zero. After obtaining the governing equations based on modified strain gradient theory via principle of minimum potential energy, as only infinitesimal vibration is considered, the net pressure due to the vdW interaction is assumed to be linearly proportional to the deflection between two layers. To solve the governing equation subjected to the boundary conditions, the Fourier series is assumed for w=w(x, y). To show the accuracy of the formulations, present results in specific cases are compared with available results in literature and a good agreement can be seen. The results indicate that the present model can predict prominent natural frequency with the reduction of structural size, especially when the plate thickness is on the same order of the material length scale parameter.

Pressing demands of productivity and accuracy in today’s robotic applications have highlighted an urge to replace classical control strategies with their modern control counterparts. This recent trend is further justified by the fact that the robotic manipulators have complex nonlinear dynamic structure with uncertain parameters. Highlighting the authors’ research achievements in the domain of manipulator design and control, this paper presents a systematic and comprehensive review of the state-of-the-art control techniques that find enormous potential in controlling manipulators to execute cutting-edge applications. In particular, three kinds of strategies, i.e., intelligent proportional-integral-derivative (PID) scheme, robust control and adaptation based approaches, are reviewed. Future trend in the subject area is commented. Open-source simulators to facilitate controller design are also tabulated. With a comprehensive list of references, it is anticipated that the review will act as a first-hand reference for researchers, engineers and industrial-interns to realize the control laws for multi-degree of freedom (DOF) manipulators.

The present work involves in the construction of a vertical axis wind turbine and the determination of power. Various different types of turbine blades are considered and the optimum blade is selected. Mechanical components of the entire setup are built to obtain maximum rotation per minute. The mechanical energy is converted into the electrical energy by coupling coaxially between the shaft and the generator. This setup produces sufficient power for consumption of household purposes which is economic and easily available.