Knowledge-Based Design Patterns for Detailed Ship Structural Design

For detailed ship structural design standardization is a means to ensure a consistent build quality and to reduce design costs. With standards expressed electronically and using a knowledge-based approach, a rule-based system for the automatic design of standardized structural details is presented. For selected problems the corresponding rule formulations are developed; more advanced design tasks are solved by a bottom-up approach. As a result, the automatic, standards compliant design and validation is achieved, hence ensuring consistency as well as reducing the probability of design errors

Manutenibilidade da semântica de modelos de dados de produtos compartilhados em rede interoperável

Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro Tecnológico.Os dados manipulados por aplicações de engenharia têm sido tratados usando sistemas de gerência de banco de dados ou mecanismos dedicados embutidos em sistemas CAx. As tendências atuais de competitividade industrial apontam para a necessidade de integrar as aplicações de engenharia. Duas demandas principais se manifestam: o uso de um mecanismo para o acesso interoperável em rede aos dados, e a necessidade de manipular modelos de dados baseados em diferentes paradigmas. Esta tese de doutorado apresenta uma revisão sobre tecnologia de banco de dados com ênfase em aplicações de engenharia, introduz os problemas de intercâmbio de dados de produtos e interoperabilidade de aplicações, e discute o problema de perda semântica na tradução de modelos de dados de produtos compartilhados em rede e baseados em formatos padrão. Uma análise dos problemas que emergem nesta tradução, com o objetivo de avaliar a manutenibilidade da semântica dos dados ao longo de uma rede interoperável, é executada e comentada

Biomimetic design and fabrication of tissue engineered scaffolds using computer aided tissue engineering

The field of tissue engineering brings together the multidisciplinary research of life sciences and engineering to seek man-made substitutes for the regeneration of damaged tissue or organs. A key component in tissue engineering is the use of porous scaffolds to guide cells for attachment, proliferation and differentiation in the tissue regenerative process. Upon satisfactory in-vitro culture, this engineered living scaffold is implanted into the regeneration site of the patient to function as the tissue substitute. Conventional processing techniques for the fabrication of scaffolds often encounter difficulties in the precise control of the internal architecture, interconnectivity and distribution of pores within the scaffold. These challenges, along with the advances in biology, medicine, and information technology for tissue engineering applications, have led to the development of a new field of Computer Aided Tissue Engineering (CATE).CATE enables a systematic application of computer-aided technologies, i.e., computer-aided design (CAD), image processing, computer-aided manufacturing (CAM), and solid freeform fabrication (SFF) for modeling, designing, simulation, and manufacturing of biological tissue and organ substitutes. Through the use of CATE, the design of intricate three dimensional architecture of scaffold can be realized and these scaffolds can be fabricated with reproducible accuracy to assist biologists in studying complex tissue engineering problems. This thesis reports a research addressing some of the challenges in applying the CATE approach for the biomimetic design and freeform fabrication of tissue scaffolds. The major research accomplishments reported in this thesis include: a) The development of a BioCAD modeling technique for the design and representation of patient specific 3D tissue models based on non-invasive medical image data. b) The development of a biomimetic design approach for design of load bearing tissue scaffold subject to multiple biophysical, geometrical and manufacturing requirements. This includes the design of the unit cell micro-architecture based on tissue morphologies, unit cell characterization and evaluation of the mechanical and transport properties, and the use of unit cells as building block to design anatomic tissue scaffold replacements. c) The development of a CAD based path planning procedure through a direct slicing algorithm which can convert a neutral ISO (International Standards Organization) standardized STEP (Standard for the Exchange of Product Data) formatted NURBS (Non-Uniform Rational B-Spline) geometric representation to a tool path instruction set for layered freeform fabrication. d) The development of a novel Internal Architecture Design (IAD) approach for the mapping of characteristic patterns of the unit cell micro-architectures designed within the 3D scaffold. This design approach is implemented into a process algorithm that converts these 2D patterns to tool path datasets for the 3DP™ (threedimensional printing) and extrusion based freeform fabrication.CATE enables many novel approaches in modeling, design, and fabrication of complex tissue substitutes with enhanced functionality for research in patient specific implant analysis and simulation, image guided surgical planning and scaffold guided tissue engineering. The research will also enable cell biologists and engineers to expand their scope of research and study in the field of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering -- Drexel University, 200

NASA Tech Briefs, September 2010

Topics covered include: Instrument for Measuring Thermal Conductivity of Materials at Low Temperatures; Multi-Axis Accelerometer Calibration System; Pupil Alignment Measuring Technique and Alignment Reference for Instruments or Optical Systems; Autonomous System for Monitoring the Integrity of Composite Fan Housings; A Safe, Self-Calibrating, Wireless System for Measuring Volume of Any Fuel at Non-Horizontal Orientation; Adaptation of the Camera Link Interface for Flight-Instrument Applications; High-Performance CCSDS Encapsulation Service Implementation in FPGA; High-Performance CCSDS AOS Protocol Implementation in FPGA; Advanced Flip Chips in Extreme Temperature Environments; Diffuse-Illumination Systems for Growing Plants; Microwave Plasma Hydrogen Recovery System; Producing Hydrogen by Plasma Pyrolysis of Methane; Self-Deployable Membrane Structures; Reactivation of a Tin-Oxide-Containing Catalys; Functionalization of Single-Wall Carbon Nanotubes by Photo-Oxidation; Miniature Piezoelectric Macro-Mass Balance; Acoustic Liner for Turbomachinery Applications; Metering Gas Strut for Separating Rocket Stages; Large-Flow-Area Flow-Selective Liquid/Gas Separator; Counterflowing Jet Subsystem Design; Water Tank with Capillary Air/Liquid Separation; True Shear Parallel Plate Viscometer; Focusing Diffraction Grating Element with Aberration Control; Universal Millimeter-Wave Radar Front End; Mode Selection for a Single-Frequency Fiber Laser; Qualification and Selection of Flight Diode Lasers for Space Applications; Plenoptic Imager for Automated Surface Navigation; Maglev Facility for Simulating Variable Gravity; Hybrid AlGaN-SiC Avalanche Photodiode for Deep-UV Photon Detection; High-Speed Operation of Interband Cascade Lasers; 3D GeoWall Analysis System for Shuttle External Tank Foreign Object Debris Events; Charge-Spot Model for Electrostatic Forces in Simulation of Fine Particulates; Hidden Statistics Approach to Quantum Simulations; Reconstituted Three-Dimensional Interactive Imaging; Determining Atmospheric-Density Profile of Titan; Digital Microfluidics Sample Analyzer; Radiation Protection Using Carbon Nanotube Derivatives; Process to Selectively Distinguish Viable from Non-Viable Bacterial Cells; and TEAMS Model Analyzer

Framework for the Integration of Mobile Device Features in PLM

Currently, companies have covered their business processes with stationary workstations while mobile business applications have limited relevance. Companies can cover their overall business processes more time-efficiently and cost-effectively when they integrate mobile users in workflows using mobile device features. The objective is a framework that can be used to model and control business applications for PLM processes using mobile device features to allow a totally new user experience

Ontology-Driven Semantic Annotations for Multiple Engineering Viewpoints in Computer Aided Design

Engineering design involves a series of activities to handle data, including capturing and storing data, retrieval and manipulation of data. This also applies throughout the entire product lifecycle (PLC). Unfortunately, a closed loop of knowledge and information management system has not been implemented for the PLC. As part of product lifecycle management (PLM) approaches, computer-aided design (CAD) systems are extensively used from embodiment and detail design stages in mechanical engineering. However, current CAD systems lack the ability to handle semantically-rich information, thus to represent, manage and use knowledge among multidisciplinary engineers, and to integrate various tools/services with distributed data and knowledge. To address these challenges, a general-purpose semantic annotation approach based on CAD systems in the mechanical engineering domain is proposed, which contributes to knowledge management and reuse, data interoperability and tool integration. In present-day PLM systems, annotation approaches are currently embedded in software applications and use diverse data and anchor representations, making them static, inflexible and difficult to incorporate with external systems. This research will argue that it is possible to take a generalised approach to annotation with formal annotation content structures and anchoring mechanisms described using general-purpose ontologies. In this way viewpoint-oriented annotation may readily be captured, represented and incorporated into PLM systems together with existing annotations in a common framework, and the knowledge collected or generated from multiple engineering viewpoints may be reasoned with to derive additional knowledge to enable downstream processes. Therefore, knowledge can be propagated and evolved through the PLC. Within this framework, a knowledge modelling methodology has also been proposed for developing knowledge models in various situations. In addition, a prototype system has been designed and developed in order to evaluate the core contributions of this proposed concept. According to an evaluation plan, cost estimation and finite element analysis as case studies have been used to validate the usefulness, feasibility and generality of the proposed framework. Discussion has been carried out based on this evaluation. As a conclusion, the presented research work has met the original aim and objectives, and can be improved further. At the end, some research directions have been suggested.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo