Assembly lines are useful for mass production of standard as well as customized products. Line balancing is an important issue, in this regard an optimal or near optimal balance can provide a fruitful savings in the initial cost and also in the running cost of such production systems. A survey of different problems in different types of assembly lines and some of the critical and on going research areas are highlighted here. The provided research information is momentous for the research community in assembly line area to proceed further in the presented issues of assembly lines.
Nickel based super-alloys are widely employed in aircraft engines and gas turbines due to their high temperature strength, corrosion resistance and, excellent thermal fatigue properties. Conversely, these alloys are very difficult to machine and cause rapid wear of the cutting tool, frequent tool changes are thus required resulting in low economy of the machining process. This study provides a detailed review of the tool wear mechanism in the machining of nickel based super-alloys. Typical tool wear mechanisms found by different researchers are analyzed in order to find out the most prevalent wear mechanism affecting the tool life. The review of existing works has revealed interesting findings about the tool wear mechanisms in the machining of these alloys. Adhesion wear is found to be the main phenomenon leading to the cutting tool wear in this study.
In this paper, error modeling and analysis of a typical 3-degree of freedom translational Parallel Kinematic Machine is presented. This mechanism provides translational motion along the Cartesian X-, Y- and Z- axes. It consists of three limbs each having an arm and forearm with prismatic-revolute-revolute-revolute joints. The moving or tool platform maintains same orientation in the entire workspace due to its joint arrangement. From inverse kinematics, the joint angles for a given position of tool platform necessary for the error modeling and analysis are obtained. Error modeling is done based on the differentiation of the inverse kinematic equations. Variation of pose errors along X, Y and Z directions for a set of dimensions of the parallel kinematic machine is presented. A non-dimensional performance index, namely, global error transformation index is used to study the influence of dimensions and its corresponding global maximum pose error is reported. An attempt is made to find the optimal dimensions of the Parallel Kinematic Machine using Genetic Algorithms in MATLAB. The methodology presented and the results obtained are useful for predicting the performance capability of the Parallel Kinematic Machine under study.
Fault diagnosis of rolling element bearings requires efficient signal processing techniques. For this purpose, the performances of envelope detection with fast Fourier transform (FFT) and continuous wavelet transform (CWT) of vibration signals produced from a bearing with defects on inner race and rolling element, have been examined at low signal to noise ratio. Both simulated and experimental signals from identical bearings have been considered for the purpose of analysis. The bearings have been modeled as spring-mass-dashpot systems and the simulated signals have been obtained considering transfer functions for the bearing systems subjected to impulsive loads due to the defects. Frequency B spline wavelets have been applied for CWT and a discussion on wavelet selection has been presented for better effectiveness. Results show that use of CWT with the proposed wavelets overcomes the short coming of FFT while processing a noisy vibration signals for defect detection of bearings.
In recent years, prediction of the behaviors of micro and nanostructures is going to be a matter of increasing concern considering their developments and uses in various engineering fields. Since carbon nanotubes show the specific properties such as strength and special electrical behaviors, they have become the main subject in nanotechnology researches. On the grounds that the classical continuum theory cannot accurately predict the mechanical behavior of nanostructures, nonlocal elasticity theory is used to model the nanoscaled systems. In this paper, a nonlocal model for nanorods is developed, and it is used to model the carbon nanotubes with the aim of the investigating into their longitudinal vibration. Following the derivation of governing equation of nanorods and estimation of nondimensional frequencies, the effect of nonlocal parameter and the length of the nanotube on the obtained frequencies are studied. Furthermore, differential quadrature method, as a numerical solution technique, is used to study the effect of these parameters on estimated frequencies for both classical and nonlocal theories.
The analytical model for two-dimensional elastoplastic rolling/sliding contact proposed by McDowell is an important tool for predicting residual stress in rolling/sliding processes. In application of the model, a problem of low predicting precision near the surface layer of the component is found. According to the volume-constancy of plastic deformation, an improved algorithm for McDowell’s model is proposed in order to improve its predicting accuracy of the surface residual stress. In the algorithm, a relationship between three normal stresses perpendicular to each other at any point within the component is derived, and the relationship is applied to McDowell’s model. Meanwhile, an unnecessary hypothesis proposed by McDowell can be eliminated to make the model more reasonable. The simulation results show that the surface residual stress predicted by modified method is much closer to the FEM results than the results predicted by McDowell’s model under the same simulation conditions.
A fast compound direct iterative algorithm for solving transient line contact elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) problems is presented. First, by introducing a special matrix splitting iteration method into the traditional compound direct iterative method, the full matrices for the linear systems of equations are transformed into sparse banded ones with any half-bandwidth; then, an extended Thomas method which can solve banded linear systems with any half-bandwidth is derived to accelerate the computing speed. Through the above two steps, the computational complexity of each iteration is reduced approximately from
Exact solutions for the flexural vibrations of circular plates having elastic edge conditions along with rigid concentric ring support have been presented in this paper. Values of frequency parameter for the considered circular plate are computed for different sets of values of elastic rotational and translation restraints and the radius of internal rigid ring support. The results for the first three modes of plate vibrations are computed and are presented in tabular form. The effects of rotational and linear restraints and the radius of the rigid ring support on the vibration behavior of circular plates are studied over a wide range of non-dimensional parametric values. The values of the exact frequency parameter presented in this paper for varying values of restraint parameters and the radius of the rigid ring support can better serve in design and as benchmark solutions to validate the numerical methods obtained by using other methods of solution.
In the present paper, three complicated nonlinear differential equations in the field of vibration, which are Vanderpol, Rayleigh and Duffing equations, have been analyzed and solved completely by Algebraic Method (AGM). Investigating this kind of equations is a very hard task to do and the obtained solution is not accurate and reliable. This issue will be emerged after comparing the achieved solutions by numerical method (Runge-Kutte 4th). Based on the comparisons which have been made between the gained solutions by AGM and numerical method, it is possible to indicate that AGM can be successfully applied for various differential equations particularly for difficult ones. The results reveal that this method is not only very effective and simple, but also reliable, and can be applied for other complicated nonlinear problems.
In present study, free vibration of cracked beams resting on two-parameter elastic foundation with elastically restrained ends is considered. Euler-Bernoulli beam hypothesis has been applied and translational and rotational elastic springs in each end considered as support. The crack is modeled as a mass-less rotational spring which divides beam into two segments. After governing the equations of motion, the differential transform method (DTM) has been served to determine dimensionless frequencies and normalized mode shapes. DTM is a semi-analytical approach based on Taylor expansion series that converts differential equations to recursive algebraic equations. The DTM results for the natural frequencies in special cases are in very good agreement with results reported by well-known references. Also, the DTM procedure yields rapid convergence beside high accuracy without any frequency missing. Comprehensive studies to analyze the effects of crack location, crack severity, parameters of elastic foundation and boundary conditions on dimensionless frequencies as well as effects of elastic boundary conditions on cracked beams mode shapes are carried out and some problems handled for first time in this paper. Since this paper deals with general problem, the derived formulation has capability for analyzing free vibration of cracked beam with every boundary condition.