International Journal of Advanced Design and Manufacturing Technology
Volume:10 Issue: 3, Sep 2017

Superalloys generally are among the materials with poor machinability. The removal of metal contaminations, stains, and oxides can positively affect their performance. Magnetic Abrasive Finishing (MAF) is a method which uses a magnetic field to control the material removal. As another advantage, this method can be used to polish materials such assuperalloys which have high strength and special conditions. In this paper, we investigated the magnetic abrasive finishing of nickel-base superalloy Inconel 718. Since the process is highly influenced by several effective parameters, in this study we evaluated the effects of some of these parameters such as percentage of abrasive particles, gap, rotational speed, feed rate, and the relationship between size of abrasive particles and the reduction of average surface roughness. Using Minitab software package the experiments were designed based on a statistical method. Response surface method was used as the design of the experiment. The regression equation governing the process was extracted through the assessment of effective parameters and analysis of variance. In addition, the optimum conditions of MAF were also extracted. Analysis of the outputs of MAF process experiments on IN718 revealed that gap, weight percent of abrasive particles, feed rate, rotational speed, and size of abrasive particles were the factors that affected the level of changes in surface roughness. The distance between the magnet and the work piece surface, i.e. the gap, is the most important parameter which affects the changes in surface roughness. The surface roughness can decrease up to 62% through setting up the process at its optimum state i.e. in a rotational speed of 1453 rpm, feed rate of 10 mm/min, percentage of abrasive particles equal to 17.87%, size of particles equal to #1200, and gap size of 1 mm. There is a discrepancy of 13% between this prediction and the predicted value by the regression model. With mounting a magnet with a different pole beneath the work piece, magnetic flux density increases up to 35%.

Micro ultrasonic machining (Micro-USM) is a process with a great capability to generate micro features in hard and brittle materials. Despite some developments in micro-USM process, issues such as precision measurement and control of the machining force, which is crucial for stable machining conditions, need further investigations. In this paper, the precision measurement and control of the machining force is studied using a newly-developed force measurement configuration. The results of the force measurement for different levels of static force, abrasive particle size and amplitude of vibration demonstrated that the variation of measured machining force increases at higher static forces. Furthermore, a better control over the static load was acquired when feeding the abrasive slurry with particle size of 0.37 mm as compared to 1 mm and 3 mm particles leading to more stable machining conditions in micro-USM process. Finally, applying lower levels of vibration amplitude to the workpiece resulted in more stable machining conditions and lower static load errors.

In this paper, Taguchi method is applied to find optimum process parameters for turning UD-GFRP rods using polycrystalline diamond cutting tool. The process parameters considered include cutting speed, depth of cut, cutting environment (dry and wet) and feed rate. The experiments were conducted by L16 orthogonal array as suggested by Taguchi. Signal to Noise ratio and ANOVA are employed to analyses the effect of turning process parameter on the tangential cutting force. The results from confirmation runs indicated that the determined optimal combination of machining parameters improved the performance of the machining process. The percent contributions of cutting speed (2.46%), depth of cut (73.82%), dry and wet (3.89%) and feed rate (8.02%) in affecting the variation of tangential force are significantly larger (95 % confidence level). It has been found that the wet cutting environment reduces the tangential force. Depth of cut is the factor, which has great influence on tangential force, followed by feed rate.

In this study EDM milling process parameters of AISI H13, have been investigated by using Response Surface Methodology (RSM). Current (16-32A), pulse-on time (100-700 µs) and depth of cut (1-3mm) were considered as independent variables, while surface roughness, tool wear ratio (TWR), and material removal rate (MRR) as process output responses. Results reveal that increases in the current and decreases in pulse-on time cause more MRR and more TWR and depth of cutting has no significant effect on them. Minimum surface roughness, minimum TWR and maximum MRR were considered as optimization criteria. Verification experiments were carried out in order to analyze the results via software. Optimized settings were used for EDM Milling and die sink EDM experiments to compare the results. The results indicate that using EDM milling has considerable economic savings than die sink EDM, better surface roughness, and higher MRR.

In this study, a spray approach is applied to produce POM/graphene nanocomposite using a hot press mold and an automatic spray. The layer-by-layer spray method is used to fabricate these composites with different Wt. % of graphene particles, spray pressure, nozzle-to-mold distance at different temperatures. Taguchi approach as a popular method for Designing of Experiments (DOE) was used for statistical control of the parameters influenced by the synthesis process. The main idea in the present study was to determine the optimal characteristics by investigation of interaction effects in the manufacturing of POM/graphene nanocomposite. Thus, the optimal values obtained were 180oC for the mold temperature, 0.55m for the nozzle-to-mold distance and 3*105 Pa for the spray pressure. Finally, the experimental procedure done, showed that in samples fabricated by 1.8 Wt% of graphene, the fracture strain decreased about 30% and the UTS and elastic modulus improved 40 and 60%, respectively.

Today, improving the quality of the images acquired by the atomic force microscope (AFM) and obtaining the close properties of various samples are among the most important and challenging issues tackled by researchers. One of the key mechanisms of achieving these objectives is the excitation of higher modes, which raises the sensitivity of the AFM and consequently improves the resolution. To attain this goal, it is imperative to design or select a type of cantilever which is able to excite the second mode and produce maximum sensitivity in higher modes, especially the second mode. In this paper, an AFM cantilever with rectangular cross section has been investigated in air medium. The cantilever has been modeled by the Timoshenko beam model and the normal and tangential forces between cantilever tip and sample have been considered in the simulations. By changing the geometrical parameters of the AFM’s cantilever and tip including length, width, thickness of cantilever, the angle between cantilever and sample surface, mass of tip, length of tip and Radius of tip, the frequency ratio of the second mode to first mode varies. The geometrical parameters that produce the minimum frequency ratio can increase the self-excitation probability of the second mode due to the excitation of the first mode simultaneously. The optimum geometrical parameters are derived that can increase the chance of higher mode excitation. The results indicate that the sensitivity of the second mode to sample stiffness also increases optimal geometrical parameters that yield the minimum frequency ratio; and, as a result, a higher contrast is achieved and it leads users to utilize the cantilevers with optimum geometry for achieving best contrast in imaging and properties estimation of unknown samples.

The present paper numerically discusses the design procedure of marine ducts used for multi-component ducted propulsion systems at the stern of an axisymmetric submerged body. The results are presented in the form of tables showing the effects of dihedral angel as well as camber ratio of the duct as the two most important geometrical parameters on hydrodynamic performance of the propulsion system. Furthermore, a correlation has been extracted between the results of two and three dimensional analysis of ducted propellers. The results show that the design procedure of the duct used for a ducted propulsion system could be performed using some two dimensional analyses. The simulations are performed using a Reynolds averaged Navier Stokes Equations (RANS) based Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tool.

In this article, thermo-elastic and creep evolution behaviour of ferritic steel rotating disks with variable thickness are investigated. Four thickness profiles of uniform, convex, concave and linear are considered for the disk geometry. The material creep constitutive model is defined by the Θ projection concept, based on the experimental results existing in the literature. Loading applied is due to the inertial body force caused by the rotation and a constant temperature field throughout the disk. To achieve history of stresses and displacements, a numerical procedure using finite difference and Prandtl-Reuss relations is used. Stress and deformation histories are calculated using successive elastic solution method. In order to verify the solution approach, both composite and aluminum rotating disks were taken into account and the thermo-elastic and time-dependent creep behaviours for composite as well as the former for aluminum were obtained. Results from the current study were found to be in very good agreement with those available from literature in the area. It was shown that convex thickness profile disks display the least creep displacement, creep effective and circumferential stresses. Additionally, constant and concave thickness profiles were positively correlated with time while for linear and convex ones, it was found to have an inverse trend.

A mechanism is reactionless or dynamically balanced when there is no shaking force and shaking moment applied to the base during mechanism movement. The theory for designing reactionless 2 degree-of-freedom (DOF) planar parallel manipulator is discussed in this paper. The legs of the manipulator are four-bar 2-DOF mechanisms with revolute joints. The dynamic balancing conditions of the manipulator are derived, considering that the time rate of the total linear and angular momentum have to be vanished. The dynamic balancing equations first are obtained and illustrated through a numerical example and finally verified by computer simulation using ADAMS software.

In this paper, a method based on the indirect solution of optimal control problem is presented to specify the optimal trajectory of spatially suspended cable robot in point to point motion with considering the counterweights. In fact, an optimal trajectory planning problem is outlined in which states, controls and the values of counterweights must be calculated simultaneously in order to minimize the given performance index. The value of the pulley torques is considered for the performance index (objective function). Using the fundamental theorem of a calculus of variations, the necessary conditions for optimality of cable robot are achieved. For the three cable spatial robot, a two-point boundary value problem is achieved which can be solved with bvp4c command in MATLAB. The obtained results show that optimal balancing in comparison with the unbalancing method can reduce the performance index significantly.

Performance of a two-stage multi-inter-cooling trans-critical CO2 refrigeration cycle containing internal heat exchanger, two intercoolers, ejector, and separator, has been analyzed after modification. In the present study, an internal heat exchanger has been included within this cycle for possible improvement in its cooling performance. The impacts of operational parameters such as gas cooler and evaporator temperatures and gas-cooler pressure, on cycle performance have been investigated. Results are validated against those available in the literature. Comparisons of the results show that there is excellent agreement between them. Obtained results showed that modified cycle improved the maximum coefficient of performance (COP max), by 20.58% compared to the internal heat exchanger two-stage TRCC cycle and 23.2% compared to multi-inter-cooling two-stage TRCC cycle with ejector expansion device. Also, the total exergy destruction rate of the improved cycle is between its rates of two original cycles.