Published Article / Over the past few years, methods of layered manufacturing (LM) have advanced substantially to the point where they now provide vital strategic benefits to various organisations. One area of application where LM technologies have begun to reach a critical mass is in the development and production of high-performance tooling in different forming processes. With these tooling capabilities now available, the next challenge becomes the development of optimal process chains to minimise lead times and production costs, while still ensuring high quality of castings. The relevant issues that influence where a break-even point will be between different process chains and thereby also the point of selection between such optimal process chains according to different situations include among others: <ul> <li> the size of production runs, </li> <li> part size and complexity, and</li> <li> the cast materials involved.</li> </ul> <br>This paper reflects some of the experiences gained from an investigation towards developing a set of generic rules (guidelines) for the design of optimal process chains for sand casting prototypes of automotive components using LM methods, and more specifically the 3D Printing process.

The effects of alignment and surface figure errors and their compensation with each other in optical systems are analyzed based on computer simulations with exact ray tracing data. These effects are included in the prediction of system performance and the testing of optics. Several simple systems are used as examples. In the prediction of system performance, a Ritchey-Chretian telescope and a Reflaxicon system are studied. A correct alignment can be found to compensate certain surface figure errors in the system. This will allow larger surface figure errors to be tolerated in the system. In the testing of optics, a method to separate the figure errors from the alignment error contributions is discussed and an off-axis test configuration, the Ritchey-Common test, is studied thoroughly. A figure design approach is suggested and compared with other approaches for reduction of the measured wavefront data in the Ritchey-Common test.

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With the globalisation and constant changes in the marketplace, enterprises are adapting themselves to face new challenges. Therefore, strategic corporate alliances to share knowledge, expertise and resources represent an advantage in an increasing competitive world. This has led the integration of companies, customers, suppliers and partners using networked environments. This thesis presents three novel solutions in the tooling area, developed for Seco tools Ltd, UK. These approaches implement a proposed distributed computing architecture using Internet technologies to assist geographically dispersed tooling engineers in process planning tasks. The systems are summarised as follows. TTS is a Web-based system to support engineers and technical staff in the task of providing technical advice to clients. Seco sales engineers access the system from remote machining sites and submit/retrieve/update the required tooling data located in databases at the company headquarters. The communication platform used for this system provides an effective mechanism to share information nationwide. This system implements efficient methods, such as data relaxation techniques, confidence score and importance levels of attributes, to help the user in finding the closest solutions when specific requirements are not fully matched In the database. Cluster-F has been developed to assist engineers and clients in the assessment of cutting parameters for the tooling process. In this approach the Internet acts as a vehicle to transport the data between users and the database. Cluster-F is a KD approach that makes use of clustering and fuzzy set techniques. The novel proposal In this system is the implementation of fuzzy set concepts to obtain the proximity matrix that will lead the classification of the data. Then hierarchical clustering methods are applied on these data to link the closest objects. A general KD methodology applying rough set concepts Is proposed In this research. This covers aspects of data redundancy, Identification of relevant attributes, detection of data inconsistency, and generation of knowledge rules. R-sets, the third proposed solution, has been developed using this KD methodology. This system evaluates the variables of the tooling database to analyse known and unknown relationships in the data generated after the execution of technical trials. The aim is to discover cause-effect patterns from selected attributes contained In the database. A fourth system was also developed. It is called DBManager and was conceived to administrate the systems users accounts, sales engineers’ accounts and tool trial monitoring process of the data. This supports the implementation of the proposed distributed architecture and the maintenance of the users' accounts for the access restrictions to the system running under this architecture.

Thesis (M.Phil.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 83-87). Also available in electronic version.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 118-122). Also available in electronic version. Access restricted to campus users.

Thesis (MScIng)--University of Stellenbosch, 2008. / Bibliography. Also available via the Internet.

Thesis (MTech (Mechanical Engineering))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2010. / The research presented in this report focuses on Investment Casting capabilities for light metal alloys in South Africa and forms part of the Advanced Manufacturing Technology Strategy's (AMTS): Light Weight Metals flagship programme. The research is centred on the suitability of rapid prototyping (RP)/Iayer manufacturing (LM) methods to produce patterns for the investment casting of aluminium (AI), magnesium (Mg) and titanium (Ti) alloys, together known as Rapid Investment Casting. Three core RP technologies are investigated namely: Three Dimensional Printing - Drop-on-Bed from Z-corporation, Three Dimensional Printing - Drop-on- Drop from ThermoJet - 3D Systems and Selective Laser Sintering from EOS. Various RP/LM processes are discussed in detail and highlight the technologies selected in this study. A standard benchmark part, adapted from the European project framework FP6, designed and utilised in similar studies is used as the basis for the research. The Investment Casting process is discussed fully and compared to the Rapid Investment Casting, listing both the advantages and disadvantages of the above mentioned methods. In addition a special study has been conducted on investment casting of large components using layer manufactured patterns. This study not only helped to establish and validate the shrinkage value calculated for the aluminium castings but also showed substantial capability lacks in SA foundries to handle this type of components, which are by definition most often of high added value.

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