Metal stamping is widely used in the mass-production process of the automobile. During the stamping process, air may be trapped between the draw die and the panel and/or between the punch and the panel. Air pocket rapidly not only increases forming load in the final stage, but also deforms the product just formed by compressive air inside the air pocket in knockout process. To prevent these problems air bent holes are drilled in the die to exhaust the trapped air but all processes associated with air bent holes are performed by empirical know-how of workers in the field due to lack of researches. Therefore this study developed an automated design system for predicting the shape and position, and volume of air pocket on the draw die by using the AutoLISP language under AutoCAD circumstance. The system is able to display the shape of air pocket occurred in the draw die and to calculate automatically its volume by strokes. So it makes a stepping stone to calculate theoretical size of an air bent hole and numbers according to it by predicting and analyzing the position and volume of air pocket. Results obtained from the system enable the designers or manufacturers of the stamping die to be more efficient in this field.

For the precision measurement of industrial products, the location of holes inside the products, if they exist, are often selected as feature points. The measurement of hole location would be performed by vision and laser-vision sensor. However, the usage of those sensors is limited in case of big change of light intensity and reflective shiny surface of the products. In order to overcome the difficulties, we have developed a hole displacement measuring device using contact-type displacement sensors (LVDTs). The developed measurement device attached to a robot measures small displacement of a hole by allowing its X-Y movement due to the contact forces between the hole and its own circular cone. The developed device consists of three plates which are connected in series for its own function. The first plate is used for the attachment to an industrial robot with ball-bush joints and springs. The second and third plates allow X-Y direction as LM guides. The bottom of the third plate is designed that various circular cones can be easily attached according to the shape of the hole. The developed system was implemented for its effectiveness that its measurement accuracy is less than 0.05mm.

White light scanning interferometry has gotten a firm position in 3D surface profile measuring field. Recently, the LCD industry gave a chance for this technology to enter into real industry fields. It is known that white-light phase-shifting algorithm give a best resolution compare to other algorithms, but there are some problems to be resolved. One of them is 300nm jump in height profile, called bat-wing effect. The main reason of this problem is an ambiguity of phase-peak detection algorithm, and some solution has been proposed, but it didn't work perfectly. In this paper, I will show the cases when these effects are occurred, and these height discrepancies will be almost disappeared when broad-band illuminators are used.

The flame image observation and analysis has been investigated for combustion monitoring and management of the pulverized coal firing for thermal power plant, especially for lower nitrogen oxide generation and safer operation. We aimed at obtaining the relationship between burner flame image information and emissions of nitrogen oxide and unburned carbon in furnace utilizing the flame image processing methods, by which we quantitatively determine the conditions of combustion on the individual homers. Its feasibility test was undertaken with Samchonpo thermal power plant #4 unit which has 24 burners, through which the system was observed to be effective for evaluating the combustion conditions and continuous monitoring to prevent future loss of ignition.

There are being a lot of studies for achievement of high speed Dehydration, high-strength and Lightweight of washing machine in the latest washing machine business. It is essential that strength of mechanical press-Joining (MPJ) for spin drum is improved to attain that target. MPJ of spin drum is composed of seaming and caulking process. Because Seaming process of MPJ has various design factors such as thickness, bending radius, seaming width, caulking press width and the dynamic factor such as multistage plastic working, elastic recovery, residual stress, the optimum conditions can't be easily determined. Using a design of experiment (DOE) based on the FEM (Finite Element Method), which has several advantages such as less computing, high accuracy performance and usefulness, this study was performed investigating the interaction effect between the various design factor as well as the main effect of the each design factor during drum MPJ and proposed optimum condition using center composition method among response surface derived from regression equation of simulation-based DOE.

Recently, there have been several instances that the nuclear power plants were shut down due to the mechanical faults in the main transformer of the plants. These mechanical faults are primarily originated from the electromagnetically induced mechanical vibrations. Magnetostriction is identified to be the main cause of the mechanical vibration after analyzing the vibration data of the main transformers in nuclear power plants. In this study, we derived a mathematical model of the magnetostriction based on the Jiles-Atherton hysteresis model. The validity of the model is checked by matching the simulations with the experimental observations. The magnetostriction model used in this study will be the first step toward developing a design tool far the transformers that have minimal mechanical vibrations and are robust to mechanical faults.

In this paper, a three-dimensional computational fluid dynamic model of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell(PEMFC) with serpentine flow channel is presented. A steady state, single phase and isothermal numerical model has been established to investigate the influence of the GDL (Gas Diffusion Layer) parameters. The GDL is made of a porous material such as carbon cloth, carbon paper or metal wire mesh. For the simplicity, the GDL is modeled as a block of material having numerous pathways through which gaseous reactants and liquid water can pass. The porosity, permeability and thickness of the GDL, which are employed in the model parameters significantly affect the PEMFC performance at the high current region.

Two-photon stereolithography is recognized as a promising process for the fabrication of three-dimensional (3D) microstructures with 100 nm resolution. Generally, beam-scanning system has been used in the conventional process of two-photon stereolithography, which is limited to the fabrication of micro-prototypes in small area of several tens micrometers. For the applications to 3D high-functional micro-devices, the fabrication area of the process is required to be enlarged. In this paper, large-area two-photon stereolithography (L-TPS) employing stage scanning system has been developed. Continuous scanning method is suggested to improve the fabrication speed and parameter study is conducted. An objective lens of high numerical aperture (N.A.) and high strength material were employed in this system. Through this work, 3D microstructures of $600*600*100\;{\mu}m$ were fabricated.

Two-photon stereolithography (TPS) is recognized as a useful process for the fabrication of three-dimensional microstructures. Recently, the need for a two-photon curable resin with high strength increases as 3-D moicrostructures of high aspect ratio or large scale of several hundreds micrometers are required for applications of nano/micro devices in IT/BT. In this work, process parameters of TPS employing the SU-8 which is a representative two-photon curable resin with high strength have been studied for the precise fabrication of 3-D microstructures with high strength. The pre-baking and post-baking processes are studied and the parameter study of the SU-8 in TPS is conducted. Through this work, very small roughness of 12 nm and the minimum aspect ratio of ${\sim}1$ which provides a precise accumulation of layers could be obtained. Using the conditions studied in this work, some 3-D examples are fabricated.

Micro-machining of a brittle material such as glass, silicon, etc., is important in micro fabrication. Particularly, micro-abrasive jet machining (${\mu}-AJM$) has become a useful technique for micro-machining of such materials. The ${\mu}-AJM$ process is mainly based on the erosion of a mask which protects brittle substrate against high velocity of micro-particle. Therefore, fabrication of an adequate mask is very important. Generally, for the fabrication of a mask in the ${\mu}-AJM$ process, a photomask based on the semi-conductor fabrication process was used. In this research a rapid mask fabrication technology has been developed for the ${\mu}-AJM$. By scanning the focused UV laser beam, a micro-mask pattern was fabricated directly without photolithography process and photomask. Two kinds of mask patterns were fabricated using SU-8 and photopolymer (Watershed 11110). Using fabricated mask patterns, abrasive-jet machining of Si wafer were conducted successfully.

One of the unresolved questions in articular cartilage biomechanics is the magnitude of the dynamic modulus and tissue compressive strains under physiological loading conditions. The objective of this study was to characterize the dynamic modulus and compressive strain magnitudes of bovine articular cartilage at physiological compressive stress level and loading frequency. Four bovine calf shoulder joints (ages 2-4 months) were loaded in Instron testing system under load control, with a load amplitude up to 800 N and loading frequency of 1 Hz, resulting in peak engineering stress amplitude of ${\sim}5.8\;MPa$. The corresponding peak deformation of the articular layer reached ${\sim}27%$ of its thickness. The effective dynamic modulus determined from the slope of stress versus strain curve was ${\sim}23\;MPa$, and the phase angle difference between the applied stress and measured strain which is equivalent to the area of the hystresis loop in the stress-strain response was ${\sim}8.3^{\circ}$. These results are representative of the functional properties of articular cartilage in a physiological loading environment. This study provides novel experimental findings on the physiological strain magnitudes and dynamic modulus achieved in intact articular layers under cyclical loading conditions.

The parameter-based cardiovascular impedance simulator that is able to overcome the limits of conventional mock circulatory systems is critical for the development and test of biomedical devices including artificial heart. The concept of impedance simulator was validated mathematically in a previous study using high-gain feedback linearization control which, however, may cause serious difficulties and limits for practical implementation. In this study, therefore, practical applicability of the impedance simulator is investigated considering the physical limits such as motor speed and torque. Simple PID controller which do not require complex model of the simulator is used considering the practical implementation. Design guidelines of the impedance simulator are also provided based on the results.

Shape morphing is the process of transforming a source shape, through intermediate shapes, into a target shape. Two main problems to be considered in three dimensional shape morphing are vertex correspondence and path interpolation. In this paper, an approach which uses the linear interpolation of the Laplacian coordinates of the source and target meshes is introduced for the determination of more plausible path when two topologically identical shapes are morphed. When two shapes to be morphed are different in shape and topology, a new method which combines shape deformation theory based on Laplacian coordinate and mean value coordinate with distance field theory is proposed for the efficient treatment of vertex correspondence and path interpolation problems. The validity and effectiveness of the suggested method was demonstrated by using it to morph large and complex polygon models including male and female whole body models.

The characteristics of sheet metal process are little loss of material during process, the short processing time and the excellent price and strength. It has been widely used in autobody, electronic components, aircraftbody, etc. Lancing is a press operation in which a single-line cut or slit is made on part way across the strip stock, without removing any metal. In this paper, we examined the validity of finite element method analysis on the automobile CTR-PLR -L/R stamping process by using the lancing engineering method. As a result, it has shown that the proper lancing engineering method could prevent fracturing by improving sheet metal flow.