Development of a Tram-Train wheel profile for dual-operation running

This paper explores the problematic interface between a Tram-Train vehicle and two very different railway infrastructures, detailing the analysis and design process required to develop an optimised wheel profile for dual operation running. One of the key issues in developing a dual-operation wheel profile is managing the contact conditions within the wheel/rail interface. The interface is critical not only to the safe running of the vehicle but also to maximise wheelset life and to minimise wheel-rail damage. A combination of vehicle dynamic simulations and bespoke software were used to allow the development of a new wheel profile for Tram-Train operations

Wet Reagent Profile Sensor Visualization Tool

Indiana University Purdue University IndianapolisThe Wet Reagent Profile Sensor is a system that Roche Diabetes Care Indy uses in its diabetes test strip manufacturing process. The current system they are using involves a laser sensor that projects onto a wet reagent material after it is coated onto a substrate. The machine that applies the reagent uses averages of 800 measurement points taken by the laser sensor to determine whether or not the reagent is within acceptable limits. If the reagent applied to a given section of the material is not within acceptable limits, then that section is marked for rejection and later taken out of the roll. The current system does not store the data that is collected, display it in an easily accessible manner, nor provide direct access to the 800-point profiles. No variable option currently exists for the data collection rate and the sponsor would prefer a variable option, if possible. The objective of this project is to store and display all 800 points of data in a profile, change the frequency at which data is collected, and display a 3-D visual of the profiles. These changes and additions should be accomplished while avoiding interference with the normal production process. During the first phase of this project, the student engineers have begun analyzing the system, making design decisions and choosing between different components, planning hardware and software connections, and designing an interface for the system. In the second phase of this process, students began working with Excel, which is the software that was chosen at the end of the first phase, as well as working with the controller in order to communicate serially to a computer. Due to the change of circumstances that occurred in the middle of the second phase, students could no longer test communication options with the controller. The testing and verifying stages of the project were concluded at this point and students were asked to focus on documentation. Students created a new document that discussed all of the decisions that were made throughout the project, if the decision was used, and why or why not. Test plans were revised and updated as well.Electrical Engineering Technolog

Testing Top Monotonicity

Top monotonicity is a relaxation of various well-known domain restrictions such as single-peaked and single-crossing for which negative impossibility results are circumvented and for which the median-voter theorem still holds. We examine the problem of testing top monotonicity and present a characterization of top monotonicity with respect to non-betweenness constraints. We then extend the definition of top monotonicity to partial orders and show that testing top monotonicity of partial orders is NP-complete