DESIGN OF RECONFIGURABLE MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS WITH STRONGLY COUPLED NATURE

Today＇s manufacturing cnvironmem forces manufacturing companies to make as many product variations as possible at affordable costs within a short time. Mass customisation is one of most important technologies for companies to achieve their objectives. Efforts to mass customisation should be made on two aspects： （1） To modularize products and make them as less differences as possible; （2） To design manufacturing resources and make them provide as many processes variations as possible. This paper reports our recent work on aspect （2）, i.e. how to design a reconfignrable manufacturing system （RMS） so that it can be competent to accomplish various processes optimally; Reconfignrable robot system （RRS） is taken as an example. RMS design involves architecture design and configuration design, and configuration design is further divided in design analysis and design synthesis. Axiomatic design theory （ADT） is applied to architecture design, the features and issues of RRS configuration design are discussed, automatic modelling method is developed for design analysis, and concurrent design methodology is presented for design synthesis.

Stifness modeling and analysis of a novel 4-DOF PKM for manufacturing large components

Faster response to orientation varying is one of the outstanding abilities of a parallel kinematic machine（PKM）.It enables such a system to act as a reconfgurable module employed to machine large components effciently.The stiffness formulation and analysis are the beforehand key tasks for its parameters design.A novel PKM with four degrees of freedom（DOFs）is proposed in this paper.The topology behind it is 2PUS-2PRS parallel mechanism.Its semianalytical stiffness model is frstly obtained,where the generalized Jacobian matrix of 2PUS-2PRS is formulated with the help of the screw theory and the stiffness coeffcients of complicated components are estimated by integrating fnite element analysis and numerical ftting.Under the help of the model,it is predicted that the property of system stiffness distributes within the given workspace,which features symmetry about a certain plane and is also verifed by performing fnite element analysis of the virtual prototype.Furthermore,key parameters affecting the system stiffness are identifed through sensitivity analysis.These provide insights for further optimization design of this PKM.

Microstructure and Fracture Behavior of 316L Austenitic Stainless Steel Produced by Selective Laser Melting

Selective laser melting is an additive manufacturing method based on local melting of a metal powder bed by a high power laser beam. Fast laser scans are responsible for severe thermal gradients and high cooling rates which produce complex hydrodynamic fluid flow. These phenomena affect crystal growth and orientation and are believed to be the cause of material spattering and microstructural defects, e.g. pores and incompletely melted particles. In this work, the microstructure and texture of 316L bars built along two different orientations and the effect of different distribution of defects on their mechanical response and failure mechanisms were investigated. Partially molten powder particles are believed to be responsible for the scattering in elongation to failure, reduced strength, and premature failure of vertical samples.

Research on uncertainty in measurement assisted alignment in aircraft assembly

Operations in assembling and joining large size aircraft components are changed to novel digital and flexible ways by digital measurement assisted alignment.Positions and orientations（P＆O）of aligned components are critical characters which assure geometrical positions and relationships of those components.Therefore,evaluating the P＆O of a component is considered necessary and critical for ensuring accuracy in aircraft assembly.Uncertainty of position and orientation（U-P＆O）,as a part of the evaluating result of P＆O,needs to be given for ensuring the integrity and credibility of the result;furthermore,U-P＆O is necessary for error tracing and quality evaluating of measurement assisted aircraft assembly.However,current research mainly focuses on the process integration of measurement with assembly,and usually ignores the uncertainty of measured result and its influence on quality evaluation.This paper focuses on the expression,analysis,and application of U-P＆O in measurement assisted alignment.The geometrical and algebraical connotations of U-P＆O are presented.Then,an analytical algorithm for evaluating the multi-dimensional U-P＆O is given,and the effect factors and characteristics of U-P＆O are discussed.Finally,U-P＆O is used to evaluate alignment in aircraft assembly for quality evaluating and improving.Cases are introduced with the methodology.