Welding Robots

Welding technology has obtained access virtually to every branch of manufacturing; to name a few bridges, ships, rail road equipments, building constructions, boilers, pressure vessels, pipe lines, automobiles, aircrafts, launch vehicles, and nuclear power plants. Especially in India, welding technology needs constant upgrading, particularly in field of industrial and power generation boilers, high voltage generation equipment and transformers and in nuclear aero-space industry.

Computers have already entered the field of welding and the situation today is that the welding engineer who has little or no computer skills will soon be hard-pressed to meet the welding challenges of our technological times. In order for the computer solution to be implemented, educational institutions cannot escape their share of responsibilities.

Automation and robotics are two closely related technologies. In an industrial context, we can define automation as a technology that is concerned with the use of mechanical, electronics and computer-based systems in the operation and control of production. Examples of this technology include transfer lines, mechanized assembly machines, feed back control systems, numerically controlled machine tools, and robots. Accordingly, robotics is a form of industrial automation.

There are three broad classes of industrial automation: fixed automaton, programmable automation, and flexible automation. Fixed automation is used when the volume of production is very high and it is therefore appropriate to design specialized equipment to process the product very efficiently and at high production rates. A good example of fixed automation can be found in the automobile industry, where highly integrated transfer lines consisting of several dozen work stations are used to perform machining operations on engine and transmission components. The economics of fixed automation are such that the cost of the special equipment can be divided over a large number of units, and resulting unit cost are low relative to alternative methods of production. The risk encountered with fixed automation is this; since the initial investment cost is high, if the volume of production turns out to be lower than anticipated, then the unit costs become greater than anticipated. Another problem in fixed automation is that the equipment is specially designed to produce the one product, and after that products life cycle is finished, the equipment is likely to become obsolete. For products with short life cycle, the use of fixed automation represents a big gamble.

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Total Productive Maintenance

Seiichi Nakajima (1988) has defined TPM as an innovative approach to maintenance that optimizes equipment effectiveness, eliminates breakdowns, and promotes autonomous maintenance by operators through day-to-day activities involving the total work force. Thus, TPM is not a specific maintenance policy, it is a culture, a philosophy and a new attitude towards maintenance. The salient features of TPM is the involvement of operators in carrying out autonomous maintenance by participating in cleaning, lubrication, minor repair, adjustments etc. The benefits of TPM can be very tangible. There are organizations, which through implementation of TPM have been able to increase the production volume by 50%. Reduce down time by 27% and rate of defective products by 80%. In addition to tangible benefits, TPM also various intangible benefits such as fostering of teamwork, increase morale, safety and nurturing the work force increased intellectual capabilities having the potential of meeting today’s level of competition and challenges.

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Thermal Barrier Coatings

Heat engines are based on considering various factors such as durability, performance and efficiency with the objective of minimizing the life cycle cost. For example, the turbine inlet temperature of a gas turbine having advanced air cooling and improved component materials is about 1500oC. Metallic coatings were introduced to sustain these high temperatures. The trend for the most efficient gas turbines is to exploit more recent advances in material and cooling technology by going to engine operating cycles which employ a large fraction of the maximum turbine inlet temperature capability for the entire operating cycle. Thermal Barrier Coatings (TBC) performs the important function of insulating components such as gas turbine and aero engine parts operating at elevated temperatures. Thermal barrier coatings (TBC) are layer systems deposited on thermally highly loaded metallic components, as for instance in gas turbines. TBC’s are characterized by their low thermal conductivity, the coating bearing a large temperature gradient when exposed to heat flow. The most commonly used TBC material is Yttrium Stabilized Zirconia (YSZ), which exhibits resistance to thermal shock and thermal fatigue up to 1150oC. YSZ is generally deposited by plasma spraying and electron beam physical vapour deposition (EBPVD) processes. It can also be deposited by HVOF spraying for applications such as blade tip wear prevention, where the wear resistant properties of this material can also be used. The use of the TBC raises the process temperature and thus increases the efficiency.

The Hy-Wire Car

Cars are immensely complicated machines, but when you get down to it, they do an incredibly simple job. Most of the complex stuff in a car is dedicated to turning wheels, which grip the road to pull the car body and passengers along. The steering system tilts the wheels side to side to turn the car, and brake and acceleration systems control the speed of the wheels.

Given that the overall function of a car is so basic (it just needs to provide rotary motion to wheels), it seems a little strange that almost all cars have the same collection of complex devices crammed under the hood and the same general mass of mechanical and hydraulic linkages running throughout. Why do cars necessarily need a steering column, brake and acceleration pedals, a combustion engine, a catalytic converter and the rest of it?

According to many leading automotive engineers, they don't; and more to the point, in the near future, they won't. Most likely, a lot of us will be driving radically different cars within 20 years. And the difference won't just be under the hood -- owning and driving cars will change significantly, too.

In this article, we'll look at one interesting vision of the future, General Motor's remarkable concept car, the Hy-wire. GM may never actually sell the Hy-wire to the public, but it is certainly a good illustration of various ways cars might evolve in the near future.

Space Shuttles and its Advancements

The successful explortion of space requires a system that will reliably transport payloads into space and return back to earth; without subjecting them an uncomfortable or hazardous environment. In other words, the space crafts and its pay loads have to be recovered safely into the earth. The space shuttle used at older times were not re-usable. So NASA invented re-usable space shuttle that could launch like a rocket but deliver and land like an aeroplane. Now NASA is planning to launch a series of air-breathing planes that would replace the space shuttle.

A Brief History Of The Space Shuttle

Near the end of the Apollo space program, NASA officials were looking at the future of the American space program. At that time, the rockets used to place astronauts and equipment in outer space was one-shot disposable rockets. What they needed was a reliable, but less expensive, rocket, perhaps one that was reusable. The idea of a reusable "space shuttle" that could launch like a rocket but deliver and land like an airplane was appealing and would be a great technical achievement.

NASA began design, cost and engineering studies on a space shuttle. Many aerospace companies also explored the concepts. In 1972 NASA announced that it would develop a reusable space shuttle or space transportation programme (STS).NASA decided that the shuttle would consist of an orbiter attached to solid rocket boosters and an external fuel tank because this design was considered safer and more cost effective.

Space Robotics

Robot is a system with a mechanical body, using computer as its brain. Integrating the sensors and actuators built into the mechanical body, the motions are realised with the computer software to execute the desired task. Robots are more flexible in terms of ability to perform new tasks or to carry out complex sequence of motion than other categories of automated manufacturing equipment. Today there is lot of interest in this field and a separate branch of technology ‘robotics’ has emerged. It is concerned with all problems of robot design, development and applications. The technology to substitute or subsidise the manned activities in space is called space robotics. Various applications of space robots are the inspection of a defective satellite, its repair, or the construction of a space station and supply goods to this station and its retrieval etc. With the over lap of knowledge of kinematics, dynamics and control and progress in fundamental technologies it is about to become possible to design and develop the advanced robotics systems. And this will throw open the doors to explore and experience the universe and bring countless changes for the better in the ways we live.

Skid Steer Loader and Multiterrain Loader

Skid-steer loaders began catching on in the construction field in the 1980s because they offered contractors a way to automate functions that had previously been performed by manual labor.

Those were small, inexpensive machines that improved labor productivity and reduced work-related injuries. Their small size and maneuverability allows them to operate in tight spaces. Their light weight allows them to be towed behind a full-size pickup truck, and the wide array of work-tools makes them very flexible. They were utility machines, used for odd jobs ranging from work site clean up to small scale digging, lifting, and loading. In most cases, they logged far fewer hours of usage each year than backhoe loaders and wheel loaders, but they were cheap, and so easy to operate that anyone on a job site could deploy them with very little training.

Since then, the category has become wildly popular in all avenues of construction. They are the best-selling type of construction equipment in North America, with annual sales exceeding 50,000 units. They still tend to be low-hour machines, but, thanks to a virtually unlimited variety of attachments, skid-steer loaders can handle a huge array of small-scale jobs, from general earthmoving and material handling to post hole digging and landscaping to pavement milling and demolition.

Sensotronic Brake Control

Sensotronic Brake Control (SBC™) works electronically, and thus faster and more precisely, than a conventional hydraulic braking system. As soon as you press the brake pedal and the sensors identify the driving situation in hand, the computer makes an exact calculation of the brake force necessary and distributes it between the wheels as required. This allows SBC™ to critically reduce stopping distances. SBC™ also helps to optimise safety functions such as ESP®, ASR, ABS and BAS.

With Sensotronic Brake Control, electric impulses are used to pass the driver's braking commands onto a microcomputer which processes various sensor signals simultaneously and, depending on the particular driving situation, calculates the optimum brake pressure for each wheel. As a result, SBC offers even greater active safety than conventional brake systems when braking in a corner or on a slippery surface. A high-pressure reservoir and electronically controllable valves ensure that maximum brake pressure is available much sooner. Moreover, the system offers innovative additional functions to reduce the driver's workload. These include Traffic Jam Assist, which brakes the vehicle automatically in stop-and-go traffic once the driver takes his or her foot off the accelerator. The Soft-Stop function - another first - allows particularly soft and smooth stopping in town traffic

Re-entry of Space Vehicle

The successful exploration of space requires a system that will reliably transport payload such as personnel and instrumental etc. into space and return them back to earth without subjecting them an uncomfortable or hazardous environment. In other words, the spacecraft and its payloads have to be recovered safely into the earth. We have seen the re-entry capsules and winged space vehicles approach the earth followed by safe landing. However, this could be accomplished only after considerable research in high speed aerodynamics and after many parametric studies to select the optimum design concept.

Re-entry systems were among the first technologies developed in 1960s for military photo-reconnaissance, life science and manned space flights. By 1970s, it led to the development of new refurbish able space shuttles. Today space technology has developed to space planes which intend to go and come back regularly from earth to space stations. USA’s HERMS and Japan’s HOPE is designed to land at conventional airports. Few significant advances in current proposed re-entry capsules are ballistic designs to reduce development and refurbishable cost, to simplify operations.

For entering into atmospheric and non-atmospheric planet the problem involves is reducing the spacecraft’s speed . For an atmospheric planet the problem involves essentially deceleration, aerodynamic heating, control of time & location of landing. For non-atmospheric planets, the problem involves only deceleration and control of time & location of landing.

Hydro Drive

Hydro Forming uses water pressure to form complex shapes from sheet or tube material. The pressure may go up about 60,000 psi depending on the component.

As the automobile industry strives to make car lighter, stronger and more fuel efficient, it will continue to drive hydro forming applications. Some automobile parts such as structural chassis, instrument panel beam, engine cradles and radiator closures are becoming standard hydro formed parts.

The capability of hydro forming can be more fully used to create complicated parts. Using a single hydro formed item to replace several individual parts eliminate welding or hole punching, simplifies assembly and reduce inventory.

Taking Advantage Of Hydro Forming

When considering hydro forming, companies need to ask whether this technology will make a part cheaper to produce. The real question is whether you can refine the entire manufacturing process to take advantage of hydroforming that is when it really makes.

Instead of looking at a single competent to determine whether it can be hydro formed , companied need to look at a product through whole process, from material to assembly , to determine what savings can be achieved . For e.g. Hydro forming often reduces number of pieces or the amount of floor space used or eliminates the need for welding stations.


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Head And Neck Support (HANS)

Only recently has the racing industry acknowledged that the number one cause of racing-related fatalities is basilar skull fractures from excessive head motions and neck loading. Racing legend Dale Earnhardt’s death proved to the racing world and the general public that what appears to be a low impact crash can be fatal. Under development and extensively tested for over a decade, there is a device that can reduce the risk of serious injury or even death to the driver in such a crash. It is the Head And Neck Support (HANS) device.

The HANS, head and neck support was invented by Dr. Robert Hubbard, a biomechanical engineering Professor at Michigan State University. Many debilitating or fatal head and neck injuries could be prevented using this system. In 2000, compact versions of HANS (Figure 2) were developed for CART, IRL, F1, NASCAR, NHRA, ASA, Sports cars, Power Boating and many other racing series.

Extensive testing has proven that HANS consistently reduces the injury potential from head motions and neck loads.

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Green Engine

Everyday radios, newspapers, televisions and the internet warn us of energy exhaustion, atmospheric pollution and hostile climatic conditions. After few hundred years of industrial development, we are facing these global problems while at the same time we maintain a high standard of living. The most important problem we are faced with is whether we should continue “developing” or “die”.

Coal, petroleum, natural gas, water and nuclear energy are the five main energy sources that have played important roles and have been widely used by human beings.

The United Nations Energy Organization names all of them “elementary energies”, as well as “conventional energies”. Electricity is merely a “second energy” derived from these sources. At present, the energy consumed all over the world almost completely relies on the supply of the five main energy sources. The consumption of petroleum constitutes approximately 60 percent of energy used from all sources, so it is the major consumer of energy.

Statistics show that, the daily consumption of petroleum all over the world today is 40 million barrels, of which about 50 percent is for automobile use. That is to say, auto petroleum constitutes about 35 percent of the whole petroleum consumption. In accordance with this calculation, daily consumption of petroleum by automobiles all over the world is over two million tonnes. At the same time as these fuels are burnt, poisonous materials such as 500 million tonnes of carbon monoxides (CO), 100 million tonnes of hydrocarbons (HC), 550 million tonnes of carbon (C), 50 million tonnes of nitrogen oxides (NOx) are emitted into the atmosphere every year, severely polluting the atmosphere. At the same time large quantities of carbon dioxide (CO2) gases, resulting from burning, have also taken the major responsibility for the “green house effect”. Atmospheric scientists now believe that carbon dioxide is responsible for about half the total “green house effect”. Therefore, automobiles have to be deemed as the major energy consumer and atmosphere’s contaminator. Also, this situation is fast growing with more than 50 million vehicles to be produced annually all over the world and place into the market. However, at is estimate that petroleum reserve in the globe will last for only 38 years . The situation is really very grim.

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Design, Analysis, Fabrication And Testing Of A Composite Leaf Spring

In order to conserve natural resources and economize energy, weight reduction has been the main focus of automobile manufacturers in the present scenario. Weight reduction can be achieved primarily by the introduction of better material, design optimization and better manufacturing processes. The suspension leaf spring is one of the potential items for weight reduction in automobiles as it accounts for 10% - 20% of the unsprung weight. This achieves the vehicle with more fuel efficiency and improved riding qualities. The introduction of composite materials was made it possible to reduce the weight of leaf spring without any reduction on load carrying capacity and stiffness. Since, the composite materials have more elastic strain energy storage capacity and high strength to weight ratio as compared with those of steel, multi-leaf steel springs are being replaced by mono-leaf composite springs. The composite material offer opportunities for substantial weight saving but not always be cost-effective over their steel counterparts.

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Continuously variable transmission (CVT)

After more than a century of research and development, the internal combustion (IC) engine is nearing both perfection and obsolescence: engineers continue to explore the outer limits of IC efficiency and performance, but advancements in fuel economy and emissions have effectively stalled. While many IC vehicles meet Low Emissions Vehicle standards, these will give way to new, stricter government regulations in the very near future. With limited room for improvement, automobile manufacturers have begun full-scale development of alternative power vehicles. Still, manufacturers are loath to scrap a century of development and billions or possibly even trillions of dollars in IC infrastructure, especially for technologies with no history of commercial success. Thus, the ideal interim solution is to further optimize the overall efficiency of IC vehicles.

One potential solution to this fuel economy dilemma is the continuously variable transmission (CVT), an old idea that has only recently become a bastion of hope to automakers. CVTs could potentially allow IC vehicles to meet the first wave of new fuel regulations while development of hybrid electric and fuel cell vehicles continues. Rather than selecting one of four or five gears, a CVT constantly changes its gear ratio to optimize engine efficiency with a perfectly smooth torque-speed curve. This improves both gas mileage and acceleration compared to traditional transmissions.

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Cryogenic grinding

The term “Cryogenics” originates from Greek word which means creation or production by means of cold. As prices for energy and raw materials rise and concern for the environment makes safe waste disposal difficult and Costly, resource recovery becomes a vital matter for today’s business. Cryogenic grinding technology can efficiently grind most tough materials and can also facilitate Cryogenic recycling of tough composite materials and multi component scrap. The heart of this technology is the CRYO-GRIND SYSTEM. It employs a cryogenic process to embrittle and grind materials to achieve consistent particle size for a wide range of products. The cryogenic process also has a unique capability for recycling difficult to separate composite materials.

Cryogenic grinding is a method of powdering herbs at sub-zero temperatures ranging from 0 to minus 70°F. The herbs are frozen with liquid nitrogen as they are being ground. This process does not damage or alter the chemical composition of the plant in any way. Normal grinding processes which do not use a cooling system can reach up to 200°F. These high temperatures can reduce volatile components and heat-sensitive constituents in herbs. The cryogenic grinding process starts with air-dried herbs, rather than freeze-dried herbs.

Computer Aided Process Planning (CAPP)

Technological advances are reshaping the face of manufacturing, creating paperless manufacturing environments in which computer automated process planning (CAPP) will play a preeminent role. The two reasons for this effect are: Costs are declining, which encourages partnerships between CAD and CAPP developers and access to manufacturing data is becoming easier to accomplish in multivendor environments. This is primarily due to increasing use of LANs; IGES and the like are facilitating transfer of data from one point to another on the network; and relational databases (RDBs) and associated structured query language (SQL) allow distributed data processing and data access.
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With the introduction of computers in design and manufacturing, the process planning part needed to be automated. The shop trained people who were familiar with the details of machining and other processes were gradually retiring and these people would be unavailable in the future to do process planning. An alternative way of accomplishing this function was needed and Computer Aided Process Planning (CAPP) was the alternative. Computer aided process planning was usually considered to be a part of computer aided manufacturing. However computer aided manufacturing was a stand alone system. Infact a synergy results when CAM is combined with CAD to create a CAD/CAM. In such a system CAPP becomes the direct connection between design and manufacturing.

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F1 Track Design and Safety

The last two decades have seen a steady build up of the R&D effort going into vehicle dynamics modeling, particularly by those teams that design and develop cars as well as race them. The pace of development has been set by the availability of powerful PC's, the generation of vehicle and component data, and the supply of suitably qualified graduates to carry out the work. Their task is to be able to model and predict the effects of every nuance of aerodynamic, tire, engine, damper etc., characteristic on the speed of their car at every point on a given circuit. The detail in the model will only be limited by available dynamic characteristics and track data, and will require a driver model to complete the picture. However, they are only interested in the performance of the car while the tires are in contact with the tarmac, and the driver is operating them at or below their peaks.

Predicting the trajectory and velocity of a racing car when it is driven at the limit within the confines of a racing track, is now the subject of a great deal of analytical work by almost all teams involved in racing at all levels. However, predicting the trajectory and velocity of a car once the driver has lost control of it has not been something the teams have devoted a great deal of time to. This can now also be analyzed though in the same sort of detail, to assess the safety features of the circuits on which it is raced. The two tasks are very different, and the FIA had to start almost from scratch when it set out to develop software for its Circuit and Safety Analysis System (CSAS).

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Biomechatronic Hand

According to analysis of the state of art, the main problems to be solved in order to improve the performance of prosthetic hands are

1) lack of sensory information gives to the amputee;
2) lack of “natural” command interface;
3) limited grasping capabilities;
4) Unnatural movements of fingers during grasping.

In order to solve these problems, we are developing a biomechatronic hand, designed according to mechatronic concepts and intended to replicate as much as possible the architecture and the functional principles of the natural hand.

The first and second problems can be addressed by developing a “natural” interface between the peripheral nervous system (PNS) and the artificial device (i.e., a “natural” neural interface (NI) to record and stimulate the PNS in a selective way. The neural interface is the enabling technology for achieving ENG-based control of the prostheses, i.e., for providing the sensory connection between the artificial hand and the amputee. Sensory feedback can be restored by stimulating in an appropriate way user’s afferent nerves after characterization of afferent PNS signals in response to mechanical and proprioceptive stimuli. The “biomechatronic” design process described above is illustrated in the scheme.

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Air powered cars

Air powered cars runs on compressed air instead of gasoline. This car is powered by a two cylinder compressed engine. This engine can run either on compressed air alone or act as an IC engine. Compressed air is stored in glass or fiber tanks at a pressure of 4351 psi.

Within the next two years, you could see the first air-powered vehicle motoring through your town. Most likely, it will be the e.Volution car that is being built by Zero Pollution Motors.

The cars have generated a lot of interest in recent years, and the Mexican government has already signed a deal to buy 40,000 e.Volutions to replace gasoline- and diesel-powered taxis in the heavily polluted Mexico City.

Numerous innovations have been integrated in the engine design. As an example, there is a patented system of articulated conrods that allow the piston to pause at top dead center. The following graph indicates this movement of the piston in relation to the driving shaft rotation.

The car engine runs on compressed air and incorporates the three laws of thermodynamics.
1. The first law states that energy can neither be destroyed nor be wasted.
2. The second law describes the disorder within substances.
The third law defines that only in crystals at 0o k, there is absolute disorder

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