Thesis (M. S.)--Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008. / Committee Chair: Fathianathan, Mervyn; Committee Member: Melkote, Shreyes; Committee Member: Paredis, Chris

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All production machinery is designed with an inherent capability to handle slight variations in product. This is initially achieved by simply providing adjustments to allow, for example, changes that occur in pack sizes to be accommodated, through user settings or complete sets of change parts. By the appropriate use of these abilities most variations in product can be handled. However when extreme conditions of setups, major changes in product size and configuration, are considered there is no guarantee that the existing machines are able to cope. The problem is even more difficult to deal with when completely new product families are proposed to be made on an existing product line. Such changes in product range are becoming more common as producers respond to demands for ever increasing customization and product differentiation. An issue exists due to the lack of knowledge on the capabilities of the machines being employed. This often forces the producer to undertake a series of practical product trials. These however can only be undertaken once the product form has been decided and produced in sufficient numbers. There is then little opportunity to make changes that could greatly improve the potential output of the line and reduce waste. There is thus a need for a supportive modelling approach that allows the effect of variation in products to be analyzed together with an understanding of the manufacturing machine capability. Only through their analysis and interaction can the capabilities be fully understood and refined to make production possible. This thesis presents a constraint-based approach that offers a solution to the problems above. While employing this approach it has been shown that, a generic process can be formed to identify the limiting factors (constraints) of variant products to be processed. These identified constraints can be mapped to form the potential limits of performance for the machine. The limits of performance of a system (performance envelopes) can be employed to assess the design capability to cope with product variation. The approach is successfully demonstrated on three industrial case studies.

In bread-making, the baking process is one of the key steps to produce the final product quality attributes including texture, color and flavor, as a result of several thermal reactions such as non-enzymatic browning reaction, starch gelatinisation and protein denaturation. These thermal reactions are dominated by heat and mass transfer mechanisms inside an oven chamber as well as inside the dough pieces. In this study, an industrial baking process was divided into 4 zones. Experiments were conducted, and mathematical models were developed to account for the heat and mass contribution as well as their consequent impacts on the product qualities. Monitoring systems were developed and installed inside an industrial oven to evaluate oven performance, including temperature profile and airflow pattern. Many other tests and experiments were conducted and results given in some detail. To deal with the complexity of a continuous baking process, a three dimensional transient-state CFD model with moving grids was established to account for the effect of oven load on heat transfer in the oven chamber. The dynamic response of the travelling tin temperature profiles could be predicted in accordance with a change in the oven load. The modelled tin temperature profiles showed a good agreement with the measured tin temperature profiles from the actual industrial baking process. Finally, the three-dimensional CFD model could provide guidance in manipulating the oven condition to achieve the optimum temperature profile in the industrial travelling-tray baking oven. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 151-156).

Thesis (M.S.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 109-110).

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This creative project has investigated the engineering principles relative to the design and construction of a blown tubular film take-off system. The study has also made a careful analysis of the equipment necessary to construct a blown tubular film extrusion line.In addition, the creative project has discussed alternate methods of producing polyolefin filets, it has suggested possible solutions for troubleshooting which can provide valuable assistance in the successful production of quality blown tubular film.

Thesis (M.S.)--Ohio University, August, 1998. / Title from PDF t.p.

No description available.