A Resolution Model of Consumer Irritation Consequences and Company Strategies: Social Networking and Strategy Implications

This paper utilizes the cognitive-neoassociationistic model, primacy and recency effects to propose superior memory for previously encountered irritating encounters. Since consumers do not forget irritating stimuli encountered in the past, this paper addresses the under-researched issue - how do consumers handle previously encountered irritations? The paper models its propositions on previous research on negative emotions (Nyer 1997) and suggests that consumers choose one of these paths to handle their irritation: taking no action, engaging in negative word of mouth (NWOM) behavior or complain to the company. Along this vein, the paper identifies three segments based on consumer responses to irritation: No Action , Negative Word of Mouth and Complain . It is recommended that companies should attempt to convert the No Action and NWOM segments into consumers who complain so that companies can utilize the feedback to formulate appropriate action strategies. The proposed irritation resolution model recommends integrating social networking tools in devising effective strategies

Effect of the foam embellishments on the pedestrian safety of the vehicle front protection systems

Pedestrian safety related compliance requirements are very important in case of design and development of the vehicle front protection systems. Computer aided engineering impact simulations were carried out to evaluate Head Injury Criterion (HIC) of a typical bullbar impacting it with an adult headform and correlated with experimental results. Impact simulations were carried out on the same bullbar covered with semi‐rigid polyurethane foam to study the effect of foam embellishments on the pedestrian safety. Results obtained from the impact simulations were presented in this paper

PATTERN EVALUATION FOR IN-PLANE DISPLACEMENT MEASUREMENT OF THIN FILMS

The term Gossamer is used to describe ultra-lightweight spacecraft structures that solve the aerospace challenge of obtaining maximum performance while reducing the launch costs of the spacecraft. Gossamer structures are extremely compliant, which complicates control design and ground testing in full scale. One approach is to design and construct smaller test articles and verify their computational models experimentally, so that similar computational models can be used to predict the dynamic performance of full-scale structures. Though measurement of both in-plane and out-of-plane displacements is required to characterize the dynamic response of the surface of these structures, this thesis lays the groundwork for dynamic measurement of the in-plane component. The measurement of thin films must be performed using non-contacting sensors because any contacting sensor would change the dynamics of the structure. Moreover, the thin films dealt with in this work are coated with either gold or aluminum for special applications making the film optically smooth and therefore requiring a surface pattern. A Krypton Fluoride excimer laser system was selected to fabricate patterns on thin-film mirror test articles. Parameters required for pattern fabrication were investigated. Effects of the pattern on the thin-film dynamics were studied using finite element analysis. Photogrammetry was used to study the static in-plane displacement of the thin-film mirror. This was performed to determine the feasibility of the photogrammetric approach for future dynamic tests. It was concluded that photogrammetry could be used efficiently to quantify dynamic in-plane displacement with high-resolution cameras and sub-pixel target marking

A Study of the Effect of Heat Treatment on 3D Printed PLA Impact Strength

Environmental conditions have a significant effect on the mechanical properties of various materials. Environmental parameters such as temperature and humidity have a major impact on mechanical properties of materials such as compressive strength, tensile strength, bending strength and impact strength. The purpose of this research is to study how temperature and humidity affect the impact strength of 3D printed PLA plastic. Impact strength is the ability of a material to absorb energy subjected to an impact load by a pendulum. In this research, 3D printing was employed to produce PLA specimens which were later used for different experimental testings. For 100% humidity, six pairs of PLA specimens were heated in a water bath to reach a desired temperature, within the range 25⁰ C (±5⁰C) to 95⁰ C. For each different test, the temperature in the water bath was incremented by 10⁰ C to reach a maximum of 95⁰C. Thus, eight different temperature experiments were performed. Two PLA specimens were impact tested in time increments of two hours. Temperature effects were studied by heating six PLA specimens in a nonvacuum oven, at eight different temperatures as mentioned above. The specimens were later impact tested following ASTM D256 standards test methods for Determining Izod Pendulum Impact Toughness of Plastic Materials. The test results show impact strength of the PLA increased with an increase in temperature treatment. The PLA samples had the highest impact strength at higher temperature treatment but only for short heat treatment times. At low temperature treatment, the impact strength of PLA samples increased with an increase in treatment time. The samples impact tested after aging at room temperature post heat treatment have considerably shown low impact strength. This concludes, the impact strength of PLA is not sustaining with aging of samples. So, heat treatment can change the strength of 3D printed PLA but it was verified upon testing that the initial strength tested right after the heat treatment was not sustained over time as the impact strength of the samples decreased although not to the initial strength prior to heat treatment

Development and validation of a mechanical thorax surrogate for the evaluation of the blunt trauma due to ballistic impacts

Although fruits of few decades worth of research carried out worldwide by scientists, engineers and researchers, have been available to everybody with a mouse click, engineering problems have not always been easy to accomplish. The complexities of the real life problems are due to lack of resources, lack of applicability of the available data and also due to the increasingly innovative and competitive marketplace. Therefore, engineers always face challenges and strive to accomplish the tasks to obtain desired outcome with continuous research and innovative approach. Two of such challenges, one related to the validation of a closed cell foam material for fabrication of non-lethal munitions and the other related to the development of compliant vehicle front protection systems (VFPS) for modern passenger cars, necessitated extensive research study and led to the development of the finite element (FE) model of thorax surrogate (Mechanical THOrax for Trauma Assessment – MTHOTA) and development a computer aided engineering (CAE) based method for the development of airbag compatible and ADR 69/00 (Australian Design Rule for vehicle occupant safety) compliant multi-variant vehicle front protection systems for a vehicle with multi-variants, with a minimum number of crash tests. These two challenging problems, pertinent research, development, and the outcome, have been presented in this thesis. Initially, four anthropomorphic test devices (ATDs) were reviewed for their suitability for the evaluation of the blunt trauma. As they were found unsuitable for the intended application, novel concepts for the thorax surrogate were developed and studied for their feasibility. One of the novel ideas was pursued further and developed into a fully correlated (validated) FE model of a thorax surrogate (MTHOTA). Robustness and efficacy of the MTHOTA surrogate was verified for many cases studies from the published literature. Biomechanical responses obtained for the MTHOTA surrogate have shown a correlation with the respective cases. Due to its simplicity, accuracy,easy setup, fast solving and non-ambiguity, the MTHOTA surrogate was successfully used for the evaluation of: 1. the blunt thoracic trauma due to ballistic impacts and the risk of commotiocordis due to solid sports ball impacts 2. the effect of material, spin and impact speed of the solid sports ball on the thoracic trauma 3. projectile – thorax energy interactions and their relation with the viscous criterion 4. the performance of new non-lethal weapons and foam materials 5. the effect of the energy-absorbing mechanisms on the blunt thoracic trauma caused by Kinetic Energy Non-Lethal Weapons (KENLW) Concerning the second challenge mentioned above, a systematic procedure based on the non-linear finite element analysis simulations was devised for the development of compliant front protection systems for vehicles with and without airbags. The devised method has successfully been implemented and made commercially non-viable and extremely cumbersome FPS development projects into reality. By exploiting the non-linear FE simulations expertise and foam material data, effect of foam embellishments on the pedestrian safety characteristics of the FPS was examined highlighting the benefits of garnishing FPS with such semi-rigid foam parts and presented in the thesis. Effect of FPS on the crash compatibility between vehicles was also studied and made recommendations for reaping the benefits of the VFPS