A Mechanistic Approach to Investigate Drilling of UD-CFRP Laminates with PCD Drills

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRPs) possess desirable material properties that satisfy the aerospace industry's high strength to weight ratio objective. Therefore, CFRPs are commonly used in structural parts, either alone or together with aluminum and titanium alloys. Drilling of CFRPs has been studied extensively in the literature in recent years, with special emphasis on process parameters and delamination. This study identifies mechanical properties of uni-directional CFRPs through drilling tests. Drilling of uni-directional CFRP plates with and without pilot holes has been performed, and cutting and edge force coefficients are identified. A polycrystalline diamond (PCD) drill was used in tests since this type of drill is commonly used in practice. Finally, validation tests on multi directional CFRP laminates have been performed and good results have been obtained. (C) 2014 CIRP

Effects of Insemination Quantity on Honey Bee Queen Physiology

Mating has profound effects on the physiology and behavior of female insects, and in honey bee (Apis mellifera) queens, these changes are permanent. Queens mate with multiple males during a brief period in their early adult lives, and shortly thereafter they initiate egg-laying. Furthermore, the pheromone profiles of mated queens differ from those of virgins, and these pheromones regulate many different aspects of worker behavior and colony organization. While it is clear that mating causes dramatic changes in queens, it is unclear if mating number has more subtle effects on queen physiology or queen-worker interactions; indeed, the effect of multiple matings on female insect physiology has not been broadly addressed. Because it is not possible to control the natural mating behavior of queens, we used instrumental insemination and compared queens inseminated with semen from either a single drone (single-drone inseminated, or SDI) or 10 drones (multi-drone inseminated, or MDI). We used observation hives to monitor attraction of workers to SDI or MDI queens in colonies, and cage studies to monitor the attraction of workers to virgin, SDI, and MDI queen mandibular gland extracts (the main source of queen pheromone). The chemical profiles of the mandibular glands of virgin, SDI, and MDI queens were characterized using GC-MS. Finally, we measured brain expression levels in SDI and MDI queens of a gene associated with phototaxis in worker honey bees (Amfor). Here, we demonstrate for the first time that insemination quantity significantly affects mandibular gland chemical profiles, queen-worker interactions, and brain gene expression. Further research will be necessary to elucidate the mechanistic bases for these effects: insemination volume, sperm and seminal protein quantity, and genetic diversity of the sperm may all be important factors contributing to this profound change in honey bee queen physiology, queen behavior, and social interactions in the colony

Down-Regulation of Honey Bee IRS Gene Biases Behavior toward Food Rich in Protein

Food choice and eating behavior affect health and longevity. Large-scale research efforts aim to understand the molecular and social/behavioral mechanisms of energy homeostasis, body weight, and food intake. Honey bees (Apis mellifera) could provide a model for these studies since individuals vary in food-related behavior and social factors can be controlled. Here, we examine a potential role of peripheral insulin receptor substrate (IRS) expression in honey bee foraging behavior. IRS is central to cellular nutrient sensing through transduction of insulin/insulin-like signals (IIS). By reducing peripheral IRS gene expression and IRS protein amount with the use of RNA interference (RNAi), we demonstrate that IRS influences foraging choice in two standard strains selected for different food-hoarding behavior. Compared with controls, IRS knockdowns bias their foraging effort toward protein (pollen) rather than toward carbohydrate (nectar) sources. Through control experiments, we establish that IRS does not influence the bees' sucrose sensory response, a modality that is generally associated with food-related behavior and specifically correlated with the foraging preference of honey bees. These results reveal a new affector pathway of honey bee social foraging, and suggest that IRS expressed in peripheral tissue can modulate an insect's foraging choice between protein and carbohydrate sources

PDK1 and HR46 Gene Homologs Tie Social Behavior to Ovary Signals

The genetic basis of division of labor in social insects is a central question in evolutionary and behavioral biology. The honey bee is a model for studying evolutionary behavioral genetics because of its well characterized age-correlated division of labor. After an initial period of within-nest tasks, 2–3 week-old worker bees begin foraging outside the nest. Individuals often specialize by biasing their foraging efforts toward collecting pollen or nectar. Efforts to explain the origins of foraging specialization suggest that division of labor between nectar and pollen foraging specialists is influenced by genes with effects on reproductive physiology. Quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping of foraging behavior also reveals candidate genes for reproductive traits. Here, we address the linkage of reproductive anatomy to behavior, using backcross QTL analysis, behavioral and anatomical phenotyping, candidate gene expression studies, and backcross confirmation of gene-to-anatomical trait associations. Our data show for the first time that the activity of two positional candidate genes for behavior, PDK1 and HR46, have direct genetic relationships to ovary size, a central reproductive trait that correlates with the nectar and pollen foraging bias of workers. These findings implicate two genes that were not known previously to influence complex social behavior. Also, they outline how selection may have acted on gene networks that affect reproductive resource allocation and behavior to facilitate the evolution of social foraging in honey bees

RNA-sequencing elucidates the regulation of behavioural transitions associated with mating in honey bee queens

This study was funded by a BBSRC ISIS grant BB/J019453/1, a Royal Holloway Research Strategy Fund Grant, and a Leverhulme Grant F/07537/AK to MJFB. BPO was supported by Australian Research Council Discovery grants DP150100151 and DP120101915. FM was supported by a Marie Curie International Incoming Fellowship FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IIF-625487 to MJFB. We would like to thank Dave Galbraight (Penn State) and Alberto Paccanaro (RHUL) for support with analysis of RNAseq data and four anonymous reviewers for providing thoughtful insights that helped to improve the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Deformation Analysis of Deep-Drawing by a Finite Element Method

A finite element method is developed to study the elastic-plastic deformation of sheet materials in the presence of large strains and large displacements. It is based on updated Lagrangian type formulation and membrane shell theory. The sheet is assumed to be isotropic and rate insensitive which obeys J2 flow theory. The work-hardening characterstics of material and Coulomb friction between the sheet metal and forming tools are incorporated. The method is used for modelling partial deep-drawing with the appropriate boundary, conditions. Numerical solutions are compared with the experimental results. © 1991 CIRP

Moving part recognition and automatic pick and place using an industrial robot

Robotics research continuously seeks to improve productivity in manufacturing automation. With the recent advances in the areas of vision and sensing, robots have become a major element of today's industrial world. They have been beneficial in replacing humans not only in tasks at which robots are more efficient but also in those that humans find undesirable because they are strenuous, boring, difficult, or hazardous. IF. the last several yeats, more and more efforts have been put in the integration of multiple sensors into robot systems. The goal is to make robots more adaptive and flexible in unstructured or frequently changing environments, and to enable robots to execute intelligent tasks. Thus the robot productivity as well as applicability can be improved

Multisensor controlled robot system for recognizing and tracking moving multiple objects

This paper presents a cost-efficient, real-time vision-sensor system for identifying, locating and tracking objects that are unknown and randomly placed on a moving conveyor belt. The visual information obtained from a conventional frame-store unit and an end-effector based proximity sensor outputs are incorporated in a fuzzy-logic control algorithm to make the robotic manipulator grasp moving objects. The robot movements are going to be the result of the comparative measurements made by the sensors after the motion of the moving target is predicted and the gripper is brought into a zone close to the object to be grasped by the application of a vision system. The mobile object is traced by controlling the motion of the end-effector with an end-effector based infrared proximity sensors and conveyor position encoder by keeping the gripper's axis to pass through a median plane of the moving object. With this procedure and using the fuzzy-logic control, the system is adapted to pursue of a mobile object. Laboratory experiments are presented to demonstrate the performance Of this system, (C) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc

Finite element analysis of non-isothermal warm deep drawing of dual phase steel

Improving the formability of the material is an important issue in the deep drawing process. Heating the material above its recrystallization temperature drastically increases formability but in the case of dual phase (DP) steels it results in the loss of their mechanical properties. To improve the drawing ratio, only the heating of the flange region in the warm temperature range up to 300°C was studied on DP600 sheet steel by numerical simulation. Thermo-elastic-plastic FEM analysis of deep drawing at several drawing ratios was performed and compared with experimental results

Robot end-effector based sensor integration for tracking moving parts

This paper presents a cost-efficient end-effector based infrared proximity sensor integration system and the implementation of fuzzy-logic control algorithm