Book reviews

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current challenges in material choice for high performance engine crankshaft

Abstract The segment of high-performance cars will progressively deal with the trade-off among cost saving, high performances and quality due to customers' higher expectations and the regulations requests for higher-power, safer, more intelligent and environmentally-friend cars. Dealing with these complicated systems requires additional designing phases and optimization of all components in terms of performances, reliability and costs. Among such mechanical parts assembled in an Internal Combustion Engine (ICE), the crankshaft is one that still requires extra attention regarding materials choice, thermal treatments, producing processes and costs. The aim of this work is to analyze the actual and future scenarios about the material choice for the crankshaft of high-performance engines. In particular, what is considered here is the actual development and improved quality reached by base materials and manufacturing technologies for this critical component of the engine. In this context, different materials are analyzed, together with surface hardening techniques, thermal treatments and their technical and cost saving potentials

MERMAID: dedicated web server to prepare and run coarse-grained membrane protein dynamics

Atomistic molecular dynamics simulations of membrane proteins have been shown to be extremely useful for characterizing the molecular features underlying their function, but require high computational power, limiting the understanding of complex events in membrane proteins, e.g. ion channels gating, GPCRs activation. To overcome this issue, it has been shown that coarse-grained approaches, although requiring less computational power, are still capable of correctly describing molecular events underlying big conformational changes in biological systems. Here, we present the Martini coarse-grained membrane protein dynamics (MERMAID), a publicly available web interface that allows the user to prepare and run coarse-grained molecular dynamics (CGMD) simulations and to analyse the trajectories

ADRIPLAN Data Policy

This document sets the policy for accessing data and information gathered by ADRIPLAN and will ensure that data are handled in a consistent and transparent manner. The policy aims to strike a balance between the rights of investigators and the need for widespread access through the free and unrestricted sharing and exchange of ADRIPLAN data, meta-data and data products. In agreeing to share, data providers need to have assurance that their data are properly handled, disseminated and acknowledged following similar principles and rules across countries and stakeholders. This policy covers data, metadata and products on maritime uses, environmental conditions and planning documents which are acquired, processed and disseminated in the framework of ADRIPLAN. ADRIPLAN doesn't collect any new data so the information it uses depends on the contribution from partners, according to their role in the project and the provisions of the Grant Agreement and the Partnership Agreement, and on data acquired from external sources. Part of the source data are provided directly by ADRIPLAN partners and a large part of data are made available by other organizations. Independent data policies associated to datasets and databases merged in the framework of ADRIPLAN will be included and correct citations will be assured. From source data, added value data products are created as part of ADRIPLAN’s duties. The main goals of this data policy are: to allow ADRIPLAN's partners to discover, access, process and use as many data as possible to develop valuable MSP plans proposals, through the ADRIPLAN Data Portal to provide partners with pertinent, sound, updated, and accurate information to capitalize knowledge, efforts and investments from existing projects and national and international experiences to ensure acknowledgement to owners and producers of the data and information they will provide to ADRIPLAN to ensure that the conditions that are applied to the provided data will be documented and respected in the ADRIPLAN Data Portal to promote the widest possible dissemination and reuse of ADRIPLAN's products and outputs, not only to partners in the project but also to stakeholders, public administrations and citizens to adopt and promote the best and the most open international rules and licenses for sharing and reuse of dat

a support structure design strategy for laser powder bed fused parts

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mechanical characterization of a new low carbon bainitic steel for high performance crankshaft

Abstract In the actual automotive environment, the need to increase the performances of materials is requiring extra engineering efforts. The possibility to develop new materials is very important. Indeed alternative solutions in terms of material choice allow designers to optimize their projects and keep low costs of production. Dealing with potential alternatives to traditional quenched and tempered steels for high stressed components, as just seen in previous work, bainitic grades could be a valid solution. This is particularly true if the mechanical performances are kept without compromise the economic savings of bainitic grades. So a detailed evaluation of the mechanical properties of these steels needs a further deepen also for applications requiring case hardening treatment. The scope of this article is to introduce and show the characterization phase of a new bainitic low carbon content for a high-performance crankshaft application. In details, a long-life fatigue resistance staircase test is performed after a gas nitriding treatment and the results are compared to the untreated material. The increment of the fatigue resistance is quantified and can be utilized by structural engineers to develop and optimized their projects. Moreover, the case hardened depth and microhardness profiles are collected and evaluated in terms of nitriding effectiveness (nitrogen diffusion)

Improvement of the Compilation Process of the Italian Income Certifications: An Application on the Tax Model of the Year 2016 (Part 2)

AbstractIn this second part, the essay focuses on a real case about the functional decomposition of the application, already dealt in Part 1. The real case described here is about the system design process for the 2016 tax return certification compilation. The input elements of this functional decomposition process are the compilation instructions, the project constraints and the clusters of non-conformity. The proposed method enables to select, on each analysis level, the robust decomposition among the possible substantial decompositions, such as the configuration with the minimum data content. The measure of the system's data content was determined using the technique of function point. The aim is to provide software designers with a robust logical design of the system, in order to respect the fiscal deadlines, satisfying the user's requirements and guarantee a solution of the problems in the operating environment. The proposed application has a strong pro-active value, as it leads to the development of ad hoc solutions, avoiding the implementation of unnecessary data entry that does not provide any benefit neither for the taxpayer, nor to the withholding agent. This approach also allows having the necessary technical documentation at hand, to plan and monitor the implementation of the time of action, thus facilitating the system adaptation in the years to come

THE LEAN SIX SIGMAAPPROACH FOR PROCESS IMPROVEMENT: A CASE STUDY IN A HIGH QUALITY TUSCANY WINERY

This paper describes the application of a Lean Six Sigma (LSS) project to a winemaking process in a high-quality, Italian winery. LSS is used to focus on the problem through a quantitative analysis of waste and quality performances. The LSS basic algorithm (called “DMAIC”) helps to detect and quantify critical aspects of the process for transferring liquid used in the cellar. The improvement solution is developed and applied through the modification of the cellar system and the process procedure. The results obtained with this solution are shown and discussed in this paper, so too the long term reliability of the improved process analyzed. The results obtained by this case study can help to understand the importance of the LSS method to drive the improvement of agricultural and agrofood productions also in terms of environmental impact which is strongly connected to waste reduction

preliminary studies on hoof characteristics in amiata donkey

In this work the biometrical, physical and chemical characteristics of Amiata donkey hoof were studied. The Amiata donkey is a local endangered breed and derives from the homonym mountain in Tuscany. This donkey, which was once used as pack animal in farms and in mines, is now involved in trekking, onotherapy and milk production. The mean hoof biometrics and its standard deviation were calculated. The physical and chemical characteristics were also estimated, through ANOVA, considering the hoof region as fixed effect: wall, white line and sole for hardness, wall and sole for chemical characteristics. The small size and healthy hoof, was basically cylindrical (crown cir./Foot plantar circ. ratio=0.9) and it showed higher hardness in wall (H=126.5± 3.3), followed by sole (H=105.2±3.3), and white line (H=74.0±3.3). The wall has shown the lower moisture content (%=11.7±3.2) and the higher content in Al, Mn, Li, Ni, Pb, Se. The positive correlation between Al, Li, Pb and Hardness has shown the hoof high resistence to toxic elements. Very interesting has seemed the negative correlation between K vs Li and Pb, to indicate the tendency of K to remove potentially harmful elements