1,720,968 research outputs found
A preliminary 6 Dofs robot based setup for fused deposition modeling
This paper is aimed at describing a preliminary setup based on a robotic arm with 6 degrees of freedom that could be exploited to build 3D printed objects that better suit their specification. Standard Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) 3D printers obtain the final object by superimposing a layer on top of another, along a unique direction. A robot arm has been used to experiment with deposition on differently oriented planes in order to build features that can act as reinforcement, customize existing builds, reconstruct damaged parts and remove the necessity for wasteful extrusions to generate supports. The initial steps from the design of the system to the preliminary experimental results will be addressed
Additive manufacturing as an essential element in the teaching of robotics
This paper aims to describe how additive manufacturing can be useful in enhancing a robotic course, allowing students to focus on all aspects of the multidisciplinary components of this subject. A three-year experience of the course of "robotic system design" is presented to support the validity of the use of this technology in teaching. This course is specifically aimed at Master of Science (MSc) Mechanical Engineering students and therefore requires one to view the subject in all its aspects including those which are not conventionally taken into consideration such as mechanical design, prototyping and the final realization
Rapid surface quality assessment of green 3D printed metal-binder parts
Mixtures made of a solid metal powder and a viscous polymeric binder are increasingly used in material Extrusion Additive Manufacturing (EAM) processes. The EAM process adopts the relative movement of an extruder head to a build table, to deposit thin strands of the mixture and build a 3D object layer by layer. In this study, EAM process was applied to produce 3D printed square plate-shaped parts of stainless steel 316 L at the green state, i.e. before debinding and sintering. The 3D printing experiments were designed by considering various independent process parameters: extrusion velocity v e , table velocity v t , layer height h and hatch spacing D a . The surface characteristics of as printed (green) square plate-shaped parts were investigated by a rapid, high-resolution optical imaging technique. The obtained images were analyzed to model the effect of the process parameters on the surface uniformity Ui and space filling Fi. The proposed methodology can be also used as a process monitoring technique. The study has demonstrated that the layer height h has the most relevant effect on the infill quality and should be set at a low value for good quality. However, a combination of the other parameters can be found that yields a compromise between infill surface quality and build up rate
A simplified approach to the calibration of extrusion based am systems
In the development of Additive Manufacturing technology not only the calibration of the process parameters but also the calibration of the devices used in these applications is fundamental. In extrusion based AM systems, the use of the parallel kinematic solution such as the linear delta configuration is commonplace. For these robotic architectures a wide range of calibration solutions are available in scientific literature capable of reaching a high level of precision, which is time consuming and costly in terms of measurement systems and computational complexity. For these reasons many of the former are often not suitable or required in AM applications. This article proposes a custom made calibration method aimed at respecting the technological tolerances of an AM process based on an extrusion system, in particular focusing on the linear delta kinematic solution. Typical tolerances of AM extrusion processes are set out, the calibration method explained, the mathematical model of the linear delta analysed and the results presented
Development of an automatic robotic procedure for machining of skull prosthesis
The project presented in this paper develops within the field of automation in the medical-surgical sector. It aims at automating the process for the realization of prosthetic devices for the skull in cranioplasty, following a craniotomy intervention for brain tumor removal. The paper puts emphasis on the possibility to create the prosthetic device in run-time during the surgery, in order to ease the work that surgeons have to do during the operation. Generally, a skull prosthesis is realized before the day of the intervention, based on the plan of the medical operation, on the results of computed tomography, and through image processing software. However, after the surgery is performed, a non-negligible geometrical uncertainty can be found between the part of the skull actually removed and the cut planned during the preliminary analysis, so that the realized prosthesis (or even the skull, at worse) may need to be retouched. This paper demonstrates the possibility to introduce a fully automated process in a hospital environment, to manufacture in runtime the prosthetic operculum, relying on the actual geometry of the incision of the skull detected during the intervention. By processing a 3D scan of the skull after the craniectomy, a digital model of the prosthesis can be created and then used as an input to generate the code to be run by a robotic system in charge of the workpiece machining. Focusing on this second step, i.e., the manufacturing process, the work describes the way the dimensions of the raw material block are automatically selected, and the way robot trajectories for milling operation are automatically generated. Experimental validation demonstrates the possibility to complete the prosthesis within the surgery time, thus increasing the accuracy of the produced prosthesis and consequently reducing the time needed to complete the operation
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
We provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
We conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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