Mar 2012, Volume 7 Issue 1
    

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  • RESEARCH ARTICLE
    Hui Ching FAN, Hong Sen YAN

    Without modifying the cam contour, a cam mechanism with a variable input speed trajectory offers an alternative solution to flexibly achieve kinematic and dynamic characteristics, and then decrease the follower’s residual vibration. Firstly, the speed trajectory of cam is derived by employing Bezier curve, and motion continuity conditions are investigated. Then the motion characteristics between the plate cam and its roller follower are derived. To analyze the residual vibration, a single degree of freedom dynamic model of the elastic cam-follower system is introduced. Based on the motion equation derived from the dynamic model, the residual vibration of the follower is yielded. The design procedure to improve the kinematic and dynamic motion characteristics is presented and two design examples with discussions are provided. Finally, the simulations of the kinematic and dynamic models by ADAMS are carried out and verified that the design models as well as the performances of the mechanism are feasible.

  • RESEARCH ARTICLE
    Guisheng ZHAI, Masayuki NAKA, Tomoaki KOBAYASHI, Joe IMAE

    This paper proposes an approach to achieving both neutral steer and sideslip reduction for four-wheeled electric vehicles. The control problem is reduced to constructing a servo system tracking appropriate reference input, where the tracking is realized in the framework of ? control. To deal with time-varying vehicle velocity for practical purpose, a gain scheduling strategy is developed to obtain the controller, where the lower and upper bounds of the velocity are used to obtain a polytopic range for the parameters in the system coefficient matrices. A numerical example is given to show validity of the proposed approach.

  • RESEARCH ARTICLE
    M. NAZEMIZADEH, H. N. RAHIMI, K. AMINI KHOIY

    This paper presents an optimal control strategy for optimal trajectory planning of mobile robots by considering nonlinear dynamic model and nonholonomic constraints of the system. The nonholonomic constraints of the system are introduced by a nonintegrable set of differential equations which represent kinematic restriction on the motion. The Lagrange’s principle is employed to derive the nonlinear equations of the system. Then, the optimal path planning of the mobile robot is formulated as an optimal control problem. To set up the problem, the nonlinear equations of the system are assumed as constraints, and a minimum energy objective function is defined. To solve the problem, an indirect solution of the optimal control method is employed, and conditions of the optimality derived as a set of coupled nonlinear differential equations. The optimality equations are solved numerically, and various simulations are performed for a nonholonomic mobile robot to illustrate effectiveness of the proposed method.

  • RESEARCH ARTICLE
    Junchao LIU, Tielin SHI, Qi XIA, Guanglan LIAO

    Flip chips are widely used in microelectronics packaging owing to the high demand of integration in IC fabrication. Solder bump defects on flip chips are difficult to detect, because the solder bumps are obscured by the chip and substrate. In this paper a nondestructive detection method combining ultrasonic excitation with vibration analysis is presented for detecting missing solder bumps, which is a typical defect in flip chip packaging. The flip chip analytical model is revised by considering the influence of spring mass on mechanical energy of the system. This revised model is then applied to estimate the flip chip resonance frequencies. We use an integrated signal generator and power amplifier together with an air-coupled ultrasonic transducer to excite the flip chips. The vibrations are measured by a laser scanning vibrometer to detect the resonance frequencies. A sensitivity coefficient is proposed to select the sensitive resonance frequency order for defect detection. Finite element simulation is also implemented for further investigation. The results of analytical computation, experiment, and simulation prove the efficacy of the revised flip chip analytical model and verify the effectiveness of this detection method. Therefore, it may provide a guide for the improvement and innovation of the flip chip on-line inspection systems.

  • RESEARCH ARTICLE
    Chao JIN, Bo WU, Youmin HU, Yao CHENG

    Research of thermal characteristics has been a key issue in the development of high-speed feed system. The thermal positioning error of a ball-screw is one of the most important objects to consider for high-accuracy and high-speed machine tools. The research work undertaken herein ultimately aims at the development of a comprehensive thermal error identification model with high accuracy and robust. Using multi-class least squares support vector machines (LS-SVM), the thermal positioning error of the feed system is identified with the variance and mean square value of the temperatures of supporting bearings and screw-nut as feature vector. A series of experiments were carried out on a self-made quasi high-speed feed system experimental bench HUST-FS-001 to verify the identification capacity of the presented method. The results show that the recommended model can be used to predict the thermal error of a feed system with good accuracy, which is better than the ordinary BP and RBF neural network. The work described in this paper lays a solid foundation of thermal error prediction and compensation in a feed system.

  • RESEARCH ARTICLE
    Xiang LI, Yun LUO, Chengtao WANG, Wenguang ZHANG, Yuanchao LI

    Electron beam melting process was used to fabricate porous Ti6Al4V implants. The porous structure and surface topography of the implants were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and digital microscopy (DM). The results showed that the pore size was around 600 and the porosity approximated to 57%. There was about±50 μm of undulation on implants surfaces. Standard implants and a custom implant coupled with porous sections were designed and fabricated to validate the versatility of the electron beam melting (EBM) technique. After coated with bone-like apatite, samples with fully porous structures were implanted into cranial defects in rabbits to investigate the in vivo performance. The animals were sacrificed at 8 and 12 weeks after implantation. Bone ingrowth into porous structure was examined by histological analysis. The histological sections indicated that a large amount of new bone formation was observed in porous structure. The newly formed bone grew from the calvarial margins toward the center of the bone defect and was in close contact with implant surfaces. The results of the study showed that the EBM produced Ti6Al4V implants with well-controlled porous structure, rough surface topography and bone-like apatite layer are beneficial for bone ingrowth and apposition.

  • RESEARCH ARTICLE
    Tie ZHANG, Fan OUYANG

    This paper focuses on the two-robot welding coordination of complex curve seam which means one robot grasp the workpiece, the other hold the torch, the two robots work on the same workpiece simultaneously. This paper builds the dual-robot coordinate system at the beginning, and three point calibration method of two robots’ relative base coordinate system is presented. After that, the non master/slave scheme is chosen for the motion planning, the non master/slave scheme sets the poses versus time function of the point u on the workpiece, and calculates the two robot end effecter trajectories through the constrained relationship matrix automatically. Moreover, downhand welding is employed which can guarantee the torch and the seam keep in good contact condition all the time during the welding. Finally, a Solidworks-SimMechanics simulation platform is established, and a simulation of curved steel pipe welding is conducted. The results of the simulation illustrate the welding process can meet the requirements of downhand welding, the joint displacement curves are smooth and continuous and no joint velocities are out of working scope.

  • RESEARCH ARTICLE
    Chengqing YUAN, Li YU, Jian LI, Xinping YAN

    Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is a kind of ideal green propellant. It is crucial to study the wear behavior and failure modes of the metal materials under the strong oxidizing environment of H2O2. This study aims to investigate the wear of rubbing pairs of 2Cr13 stainless steel against 1045 metal in H2O2 solutions, which has a great effect on wear, the decomposition and damage mechanism of materials. The comparison analysis of the friction coefficients, wear mass loss, worn surface topographies and current densities was conducted under different concentrations of H2O2 solutions. There were significant differences in the tribological and electrochemistry properties of the rubbing pairs in different H2O2 solutions.