Engineering Integrity Issue 37

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C SO

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37 EIS ENGINEERING INTEGRITY I ER

E M: N G I N O E FR S E ch S e ’ W M NE OMEN , I A P E R .

W .S.I A L P W S B HNIC Y N E S C TE USTR N E W D IN DUC T O PR NT S E EV

SEPTEMBER 2014

JOURNAL OF THE ENGINEERING INTEGRITY SOCIETY

paper on: • Numerical in Single

Simulation of Temperature Distribution and Material Removal Spark Electric Discharge Machining (EDM) Process extended to Multiple Sparks

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INSTRUMENTATION, ANALYSIS AND TESTING EXHIBITION Entrance to the exhibition & open forums is free to visitors along with free car parking and complimentary refreshments

THE SILVERSTONE WING, SILVERSTONE RACE TRACK 17 MARCH 2015 10AM - 4PM Over 50 exhibitors will present the latest advances in measurement analysis and testing technology in aerospace, automotive, motor-sport, rail, off-highway, mechanical handling, industrial and power generation industries. Visitors will be able to discuss these developments and their applications in an informal atmosphere with exhibitors.

Open Forums include: • Residual Strain and What is Failure?

• Similar Vehicles Have Similar Loads (Why Collect Data?)

• Durability Testing of Ground Vehicle and Aerospace Electronic Components • Vehicle Dynamics Guest panels comprising experts from industry and academia will expand on the technical developments & take questions from the floor.

Visitors If you are interested in attending please pre-register by emailing info@e-i-s.org.uk or visit www.e-i-s.org.uk.

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VIBRATION TESTING 28 – 29 January 2015

CLIMATIC TESTING 25 – 26 February 2015

PRACTICAL SIGNAL PROCESSING 18 – 19 March 2015

MECHANICAL SHOCK TESTING 23 April 2015 Further information from:

Andy Tomlinson, CPD Dynamics Ltd.

andy@cpd-dynamics.co.uk www.cpd-dynamics.co.uk

4th Durability and Fatigue Challenges in Wind, Wave and Tidal Energy Call for Papers

This one day event follows previous successful events held in 2006, 2008 and 2010 where speakers highlighted recent progress in design and development of power generation from wind, wave and tide.

The forthcoming event is aimed at practising engineers involved with the structural aspects of this technology. It focuses on advances in the durability, reliability and the associated risk factors in the rapid development of renewable energy technologies. In particular, the event aims to bring new developments in offshore wind energy and marine energy technologies.

We are especially encouraging speakers from emerging technologies as well as from established companies. Speakers selected for presentation will be able to attend for the whole day free of charge.

A short abstract of no more than 500 words is invited in all aspects of relevant design, development or research. The society always wishes to encourage young and newly qualified engineers to present and full or short presentations are welcome.

Please email abstracts to Sara Atkin: info@e-i-s.org.uk to arrive by 28 November 2014 or call 01572 811315 for more information,

Engineering Integrity Society 30th Anniversary Celebration Save the Date Next year sees the 30th Anniversary of the formation of the EIS. To celebrate this landmark we plan to hold a dinner on Friday 6 November 2015 in the Midlands area.

This will be a good opportunity to meet friends old and new as well as a chance to reflect on the work the Society has carried out over the last three decades and to look forward to continuing success in the years to come. Further information will follow in 2015.

Contents Index to Advertisements........................................................................................................................................................ 5 Editorial................................................................................................................................................................................. 7 Diary of Events...................................................................................................................................................................... 7 Technical Paper: Numerical Simulation of Temperature Distribution and Material Removal in Single Spark Electric Discharge Machining (EDM) Process extended to Multiple Sparks...................................................................................... 8 Membership......................................................................................................................................................................... 19 Report on the Instrumentation, Analysis & Testing Exhibition, 18 March 2014 .................................................................. 20 The Challenges of Smarter Testing .................................................................................................................................... 23 Industry News ..................................................................................................................................................................... 24 Product News...................................................................................................................................................................... 29 News on Women’s Engineering Society.............................................................................................................................. 32 News from British Standards............................................................................................................................................... 33 News from Institution of Mechanical Engineers.................................................................................................................. 34 Group News (including Report on Sound Quality & Product Perception Workshop and Exhibition 8 July 2014)............... 35 Corporate Members............................................................................................................................................................ 36 New Personal Members...................................................................................................................................................... 36 Committee Members .......................................................................................................................................................... 37 Profile of Company Members.............................................................................................................................................. 39 Poster competition from ‘Sound Quality & Product Perception Workshop’, 10 April 2014............................................. 41/42

INDEX TO ADVERTISEMENTS AB Mechanical Design & Analysis............................43

Kemo..........................................................................3

Advanced Engineering UK.......................................44

M+P International.......................................Back cover

CPD Dynamics...........................................................3

Moog .........................................................................2

Data Physics.................................... Inside front cover

nPrime..............................................Inside back cover

Dewetron..................................................................44

Sensors UK..............................................................43

EIS ...................................................................... 1 & 4

Team Corporation.....................................................43

HBM UK......................................................................3

Techni Measure........................................................43

Front Cover Photo: Courtesy of Institution of Mechanical Engineers

5

HONORARY EDITOR Dr Karen Perkins

‘Engineering Integrity’ is published twice a year ADVERTISING RATES & DATA

MANAGING EDITOR Catherine Pinder Anchor House, Mill Road, Stokesby, Great Yarmouth, NR29 3EY Tel. 07979 270998 E-mail: catherine@cpinder.com

EDITORIAL BOARD Paul Armstrong Brian Griffiths Dr Carol Marsh

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EIS SECRETARIAT: Sara Atkin Engineering Integrity Society 17 Harrier Close, Cottesmore, Rutland, LE15 7BT Tel: +44 (0)1572 811315 E-mail: info@e-i-s.org.uk WWW: http://www.e-i-s.org.uk

EDITORIAL POLICY Engineering Integrity contains various items of information of interest to, or directly generated by, the Engineering Integrity Society. The items of information can be approximately subdivided into three general categories: technical papers, topical discussion pieces and news items. The items labelled in the journal as technical papers are peer reviewed by a minimum of two reviewers in the normal manner of academic journals, following a standard protocol.

The items of information labelled as topical discussions and the news items have been reviewed by the journal editorial staff and found to conform to the legal and professional standards of the Engineering Integrity Society.

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PRINCIPAL ACTIVITY OF THE ENGINEERING INTEGRITY SOCIETY

COPYRIGHT Copyright of the technical papers included in this issue is held by the Engineering Integrity Society unless otherwise stated.

The principal activity of the Engineering Integrity Society, is the arrangement of conferences, seminars, exhibitions and workshops to advance the education of persons working in the field of engineering. This is achieved by providing a forum for the interchange of ideas and information on engineering practice. The Society is particularly committed to promoting projects which support professional development and attract young people into the profession.

Photographic contributions for the front cover are welcomed.

‘Engineering Integrity’, the Journal of the Engineering Integrity Society is published twice a year.

ISSN 1365-4101/2014

The Engineering Integrity Society (EIS) Incorporated under the Companies Act 1985.

Registered No. 1959979 Registered Office: c/o Hollis & Co., 35 Wilkinson Street, Sheffield S10 2GB Charity No: 327121

8

‘Engineering Integrity’ is lodged with the Agency for the Legal Deposit Libraries on behalf of the Bodleian Library Oxford University, the Cambridge University Library, National Library of Scotland, National Library of Wales and Trinity College Dublin.

Editorial Welcome to the September edition of the

continues to grow and academia, highlighted in the Women’s

Engineering Integrity. In addition to our

Engineering Society column as a particular bastion of

usual range of news and review columns

sexism, is being forced to take the gender equality agenda

we have one technical paper which looks

seriously. Research Councils UK is looking to equality

at a numerical simulation of temperature

charters such as the Equality Challenge unit’s Athena SWAN

distributions and material removal in multiple

awards to demonstrate engagement with equality issues

spark electric discharge machining.

before awarding research grants.

The

independence

Let us hope that there is also good news on the horizon for

imminent

Scottish

referendum prompted me to look at the

the hard pressed London commuter: a team of Transport

Scottish Engineering Hall of Fame. Whilst maintaining strict

for London apprentices have won an Institute of Mechanical

neutrality on the issue of the referendum itself, I was struck

Engineers competition to make efficient and reliable

by the range of contributions made by Scottish engineers

locomotives (IMechE column). Let us hope that the skills

over the centuries. Along with the household names there

they have shown on 10 1/4” gauge rolling stock can be

are those whose creations are more familiar than the (almost

transferred to standard gauge!

entirely) men themselves and some, I’m somewhat ashamed to say, I hadn’t realised were Scottish. On the more theoretical

Karen Perkins

side thermodynamics seems to have been particularly

Honorary Editor

popular, Glasgow can lay claim to two temperature scales - Kelvin and Rankine, and my husband won’t forgive me if I don’t mention James Clerk Maxwell whose theory of electromagnetism lit the touchpaper of modern physics. For the more practically minded, amongst the famous names like James Watt and Thomas Telford, there are others who

Diary of Events

we might not be able to name but whose works we instantly recognise like William Weir (Tay, Forth and Tower bridges), those whose works we couldn’t live without like William Weir (national grid) and those who made vital contributions at key historical moments like Robert Watson-Watt (radar).

To veer into more familiar political territory and the lack of recruitment into, and recognition for, the profession: while

25 September 2014 The Future of Hydraulics in Mechanical Testing Moog, Tewkesbury

19 November 2014 - Basic Fatigue Course Nettle Hill, Ansty, Coventry

the Women’s Engineering Society are unlikely to be either pleased or surprised that only one of the fifteen inductees in the Scottish Engineering Hall of Fame is female (Dorothee Pullinger), the hall of fame at least provides a vehicle to

January 2015 - The Fundamentals of Vehicle Data Collection MIRA, Nuneaton

acknowledge the impact of Scottish engineers: there doesn’t appear to be a corresponding organisation for those from other parts of the United Kingdom. On the recruitment side, the problems faced by the NHS due to its shortage of engineers are highlighted in the Industry News column.

However, it is not all bad news.

The report on the

Instrumentation, Testing and Analysis exhibition held at Silverstone in March not only recounts extremely well

17 March 2015 Instrumentation, Analysis & Testing Exhibition Silverstone

Spring 2015 - 4th Durability and Fatigue Challenges in Wind, Wave and Tidal Energy Venue TBC

attended forums but also a 10% increase in exhibitors and a 20% increase in visitors. Also, looking to the future, recruitment

into

university

engineering

programmes

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ENGINEERING INTEGRITY, VOLUME 37, SEPTEMBER 2014 pp.8-19.

ISSN 1365-4101/2014

Techical paper Numerical Simulation of Temperature Distribution and Material Removal in Single Spark Electric Discharge Machining (EDM) Process extended to Multiple Sparks J Wazir Ali, Department of Mechanical Engineering, HITEC University, Taxila, Pakistan Abstract Electric Discharge Machining (EDM) is one of the most popular, efficient and accurate machining processes. Its applications are extensive in the field of manufacturing such as die and mould making, production of intricate and complex structures for automotive and aerospace industry coupled with ease in programming. Thermal modeling of EDM has been undertaken quite a few times in past decades and literature presents various arguments to its formulation. The present paper aims to present a numerical model for predicting temperature distribution and visualize material removal over the workpiece surface due to single and multiple EDM sparks, with realistic characterization of boundary conditions, other factors behind the actual conditions governing the process and based upon literature review. The significance of the newly developed model with the closest characterization of the boundary condition will lead to accurate approximation of the actual material removal rate and the selection of machining process parameters in accordance with the requirement of the machining process.

The Material Removal Rate (MRR) has also been calculated using the results for the above case. These and other aspects of analysis including variation of average crater volume have also been discussed in detail.

EDM is classified into two major types, die sinking and wire cut machining. In the present work, die sinking EDM was used for the purpose of analysis in which the work piece is fully immersed in the dielectric fluid. The work piece is formed by the duplication of a shaped tool electrode. The electrode material used was copper. The final shape of the work piece compliments that of the tool in the type of EDM used, whereas in wire EDM, the spark occurs between a thin wire and the work piece.

The dielectric which is used in EDM is required to restrict the expansion of plasma channel to a small diameter so that maximum energy is concentrated over a smaller area [1] ensuring melting and vaporization can occur. Secondly it is used for flushing the particles in the gap. Various dielectric fluids have been tested to study its effect on MRR and surface quality of the work piece. Most commonly Oils such as Kerosene are used; however recent advances in dry EDM method utilize gas as a dielectric fluid. It is characterized by small tool electrode wear, negligible damage generated on the machined surface, and significantly high material removal rate especially when oxygen gas is used [2]; in addition, an enclosure needs to be provided around the electrodes with an aim to create a back pressure in order to restrict the expansion of the plasma in the dry EDM process.

Keyword: Electric Discharge Machining (EDM), Finite Element Methods (FEM), Finite Differences Methods (FDM), Material Removal Rate (MRR), Heat Affected Zone (HAZ), Plasma Flushing Efficiency (PFE).

1. Introduction Electric discharge machining (EDM) is a well known, nontraditional material removal process. Its advantages are in the manufacture of highly complex parts such as moulds, die, automotive and aerospace equipments etc. It is widely used to machine electrically conductive materials such as metals, alloys and ceramics etc. It utilizes the erosive effect of recurring electric sparks from tool and work piece. The spark generates enough heat to melt and even vaporize some of the work piece material. As the spark collapses, dielectric fluid gushes into the EDMed area and flushes away some of the molten and vaporized work piece material. The amount of material removed depends upon the discharge duration which is controlled by the process parameters used, ranging from a few microseconds to hundreds of microseconds and the number of discharges.

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Significant work has already been done on Electric discharge machining (EDM) process by various researchers. The most prominent work regarding electro thermal modeling are of Snoey’s and Van Dijck, 1971, Van Dijck’s and Dutre model,1974, Beck’s model, 1981, Jilani’s model, 1986, DiBitonto’s model,1989, Joshi and Pande’s model, 2009. In this section, each previous model would be studied briefly to highlight the basic concepts used for its development.

In the Snoey and Van Dijck [3] stipulated model for thermal heat input to the work piece, plasma channel was simulated as a semi infinite cylinder with a circular disc heat source.

The fraction of the energy transferred to the cathode was assumed to be 50% (Fc=0.5) with a second assumption of using constant thermophysical properties of the material over the whole temperature range. The resulting temperature distribution for the Snoeys model has a bowl shape with a nearly flat bottom surface.

The next model in consideration is that of Van Dijck and Dutre [4], which again assumes constant thermo physical properties independent of the temperature. Insulated boundary conditions are applied to all the surface areas

ENGINEERING INTEGRITY, VOLUME 37, SEPTEMBER 2014 pp.8-19.

except the heat source. The heat input is taken to be circular disc source with finite dimensions in z direction and fraction of energy to cathode is taken as 50% (0.5). Latent heat of vaporization is also taken into account for this model as also with the previous model.

The Beck’s model [5] utilizes a semi-infinite cylinder with a disk heat source with constant heat flux to model the heat input, the heat flux does not assume any fraction of heat transferred to cathode i.e. Fc, the effect of melting heat has been ignored. The resulting temperature distribution is similar to the Snoey’s model.

The Jilani and Pandey’s have modeled the EDM spark process by assuming a uniformly disc shaped heat flux with constant radius (rc) [6-8]. Conduction is the medium of heat transfer from plasma channel to tool and work piece. The boundary conditions include complete insulation of electrode surfaces except for the area where spark occurs on the cathode surface, constant thermo physical properties over the whole temperature range, fraction of discharge energy to cathode and anode are taken to be equally distributed (Fc=0.50) and the growth of heat flux radius is assumed to be time dependent.

The DiBitonto’s et al [9,10] uses a point heat source approximation for the cathode erosion. The fraction of energy transferred to cathode is taken as 18% (Fc =0.18) and effects of vaporization and melting are ignored since the effects of these factors on the MRR is considered to be negligible. Average values of thermo physical properties of the material over the whole temperature range are taken from solid to molten state [11]. The resulting temperature profile achieved is spherical.

The Izquierdo et al, 2008 [12] numerical model for EDM has been developed for multiple sparks but is extended initially from single spark modeling. A Gaussian shaped heat flux has been applied to area affected by the plasma channel, latent heat of vaporization has been neglected, temperature dependent thermal properties have been used below 600°C after which it has been taken constant and convection has been applied to all elements exposed to dielectric medium except the heat flux area. A time dependent plasma channel radius with exponential function has been considered to simulate its initial rapid expansion and later stabilization.

The resulting temperature distribution over the workpiece surface is again approximately spherical in symmetry.

The Joshi and Pandey’s, 2009 [13] presents a more comprehensive and realistic model of the EDM process.

This model aims to critically overcome all the deficiencies of the previous simulations of the EDM spark phenomenon and presents its own recommended model. The assumptions for this model concisely includes temperature dependent thermo physical properties, heat being transferred from plasma to

electrode by conduction and radiation, while from plasma to dielectric by convection and radiation [14], plasma channel is assumed as a cylindrical column whereas the spark radius is assumed to be a function of discharge current and time [15].The heat flux striking the cathode surface is assumed to be a Gaussian heat input.

The literature also presents various material removal mechanisms described in detail in later sections and also ways for determining crater volume. The MRR calculated for single discharge by Joshi & Pandey’s [13] has assumed the total volume of material removed during single spark as divided into consecutive volumes of cylindrical discs, after the nodes showing temperature more than melting point are identified and removed from the mesh of the model.

The Y.B. Guo et al. [16] presents a multi scale finite element model of a die-sinking-EDM single spark. A Gaussian heat flux has been used again for simulation of a single discharge on a work piece material, ASP2023 tool steel via a user subroutine. The multi scale finite element model investigates the effects of discharge duration and current on temperature profiles and crater growth but limits the finding for single discharge only and does not extend it to multiple spark phenomenon.

In the model by Izquierdo et al.[12], the criterion for material removal is taken to be equivalent temperature Teq [17] ranging from 1550 to 3200°C, this concept is then extended to multi sparks modeling, when the material disappears, the new boundary surface assumes a temperature of previous simulation till that point.

This paper aims to presents a thermo physical model of EDM for a single spark extended to multiple spark with moving heat source. The material removal rate has also been calculated using the derived thermo physical model including the visualization of the crater’s growth for a multiple number of sparks as the EDM process proceeds over the time.

2. Description of the Thermo-physical model The EDM phenomenon is basically a heat transmission problem where the heat input is representing a spark. Solving this thermal problem yields the temperature distribution inside the workpiece, from which the shape of the generated crater can be estimated. The governing equation for the heat conduction [18] within the work piece is taken as Eq. (1).

∂ 

∂T 

+

∂  ∂T  ∂T ρC p  Kt = ∂z  ∂t 

 t 

∂r  ∂r  ∂z Kr

(1)

R and z are the coordinates of cylindrical work domain, T is the temperature, Kt is thermal conductivity, ρ is the density and Cp is the specific capacity of the work piece material.

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ENGINEERING INTEGRITY, VOLUME 37, SEPTEMBER 2014 pp.8-19.

The material properties of the work piece (cathode) and tool are taken to be temperature dependent for solving the Eq.3.

One of the reasons for using temperature dependent sets of material properties for work piece is to predict the sets of point undergoing phase change process. It is also essential to obtain an accurate thermal profile.

The above equation is then subsequently solved taking into account the boundary conditions of the problem and assumptions. Different methods are possible for solving the thermal problem including analytical, however commonly nowadays the extensive amount of research in the fields of finite element methods (FEM) or finite differences methods (FDM) have made it convenient to utilize these methods [19].

Whatever the solving approach is used, a realistic definition of the characteristic of the discharge is necessitated, which is achieved by applying appropriate boundary conditions and accurate selection of the process parameters.

ISSN 1365-4101/2014

EDM sparks [13,15,20]

Rc = 2.04 X 10−3 I 0.43t 0.44

(2)

• In the previous section it was shown that most researchers had taken various values for estimating the fraction of energy transferred to cathode ranging mostly between 0.2 to 0.5 [3,10]. However, a value of 0.30 has been chosen for Fc from the graph for energy distribution, Fig. 1, obtained by M. Kunieda et al. [23]. It is also assumed that the fraction of the energy that is transferred to the cathode (Fc), Voltage applied, and intensity of current are constant in the duration of the pulse.

3.1 Model Simplifications The assumptions involving the development of our thermo physical model for EDM discharges are as follows: • Work piece is taken to be axi-symmetric, thus the equations and BC are applied in a similar way.

• The spark efficiency is assumed to be ideal (100%).

• The electric discharge voltage is maintained constant during the pulse.

• The criterion of material removal is taken to be equivalent temperature as discussed before in Section 2; all elements reaching this temperature are assumed to be effectively removed from the work piece for the purpose of calculation of a theoretical value of material removal rate, however the material is not actually removed in the model because it is assumed that the heat absorbed by the elements are negligible.

• Free convection is assumed to occur at the surfaces of the work piece material to simulate the dry EDM effects.

• Latent heat of melting and vaporization are considered and therefore temperature dependent material properties are defined.

• The pulses are considered ideally normal with no arcing or short circuits and no ignition delays, etc.

• One of the controversies in the heat input model assumption discussed in Section 3.1 is the radius of plasma channel (R). Joshi and Pande’s [13] have modeled the EDM spark using a semi-empirical equation for plasma radius based on Ikai and Hashiguchi [15],which is dependent upon discharge current and ontime, Eq. 2. In the present numerical simulation, plasma channel discharge radius has been calculated using Equation 4, also called the equivalent heat input radius, which is a near to realistic approach for mesh sensitivity analysis and achieving an accurate thermal profile as verified by few previous authors on thermal modeling of

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Fig.1. Relationship between energy distribution ratio and pulse duration 3.2 Heat Input The literature provides us with many useful models to consider for simulation of an electric spark, the two heat input model most commonly used are the point source model and a Gaussian heat input model, however since the later model is the most popular and accurate, it will be used for present work. One of the reasons for its accuracy in approximation of heat flux are the experimental observations made by Descoeudres et al.[21] and Kojima et al.[22] using spectroscopy techniques that have shown that a non-uniform temperature distribution exist within the plasma channel which resembles to Gaussian form Eq. (3) as follows[13]:

Q ( r ) = Q0 e

−4.5(

r 2 ) Rc

(3)

Where the maximum heat flux, Q0 can be calculated using the formula given below:

Q0 =

4.57UIFC π Rc 2

(4)

Rc is the radius of the plasma channel in µm, U is the electric potential, I the current density and Fc the fraction of power to the cathode.

ENGINEERING INTEGRITY, VOLUME 37, SEPTEMBER 2014 pp.8-19.

3.3 Initial and Boundary Conditions: To apply the boundary conditions for simulating the conditions during EDM, the dimensions of the work piece are taken as the radius Rw along the r-axis and the depth Hw along the z-axis. The boundary conditions made for the development of this model are as follows (Fig.2): • An ambient temperature is applied as an initial condition to the whole domain. Thus, Ti = Tambient = 300K at t = 0 • For 0 < r < Rc at z=0 a Gaussian flux equal to the input heat is imposed as in Equation (2) • For Rc < r < Rw at z=0 and 0 < z < -Hw at r=Rw, convective condition is imposed, Q= -h(T - Tambient) where h is the convection coefficient whose value is taken to be equivalent of free convection h = hfree = 5.6 W / m2 K-1.

• An axi-symmetric boundary condition is applied on left surface 0 < r < Hw at r=0.

• An isothermal boundary condition is applied at the bottom surface of the work piece, either at 0 < r < Rw at z=-Hw Ts = 300K.

Fig.2. Boundary conditions for axi-symmetric thermal model 3.4 Solution procedure for numerical models 3.4.1 Single spark model An FEM solver ANSYSTM 12.0 is used to generate the thermal profile for a single spark. The code for the single spark analysis is written in the ANSYSTM parametric language code (APDL). The discharge time is taken the time step to run a transient solution for the differential equation (3) along with the boundary conditions. The temperature dependent material properties of Steel (AISI 1020) are used, so that latent heat of melting and vaporization are incorporated in the nonlinear simulation of the numerical model.

The numerical model for single spark simulates two processes; one process is the heating or the discharge cycle in which a Gaussian heat flux equal to ‘equivalent heat input radius’ is applied on the work piece surface. The temperature increases drastically during this phase until it reaches the

melting point and beyond after which the discharge channel collapses at the end of the on time. During the off time, cooling phase initiates in which dielectric fluid gushes into the crater and removes the debris particles. In the numerical simulation, the cooling process is modeled by an increased convection coefficient value by a factor of tens. The solution are obtained for process parameters td =100µs, off time toff=10µs, discharge current 25A, discharge voltage 25V. The elements in the finite element model must exhibit stability and convergence so that as the numbers of elements are increased in the mesh, the solution should more accurately represent the exact solution. Hence different cases for multiple grid sizes are subsequently run to perform mesh sensitivity analysis until results are independent of mesh density. The results are finally accumulated and presented in Section 3.5.

3.4.2 Multi Spark Modeling: A new multi-spark model for EDM has been developed incorporating material removal and also a moving heat source. The ANSYS parametric language code has been remodified for the new analysis. The aim of the new model is to visualize the material erosion after single and multiple sparks for more precise study and analysis. All the previous assumptions along with boundary conditions are kept the same including the Gaussian heat source simulating the electrical spark incident at a single discharge location and use of nonlinear material properties.

The material removal is performed in the numerical simulation at the end of each discharge cycle using the EKILL command.

The EKILL function deactivates the specified element which however remains in the model but contributes a near zero conductivity value to the overall matrix. After the elements whose temperature has gone beyond the melting point are killed using the EKILL command, the heat source is moved downwards till the lowest point of the crater on the z-axis after every cycle. The process parameters are also kept the same as in previous analysis. The discharge time and off time are set to 100 μs and 10μs in addition, discharge voltage and current are set to 25V and 25A respectively for the present multi spark analysis with material erosion and moving heat source. The previously obtained optimized grid size by performing mesh sensitivity analysis has been used again to ensure accuracy to our numerical results.

One of the most important assumptions made prior to the development of multi-spark model is that the elements in our FE model absorb negligible energy hence simplifying the thermal problem to calculate the material removal rate.

In addition it is also assumed that the discharge location remains the same during multi-spark process which in actual fact depends upon many factors such as distance between electrodes, debris concentration and deionization of previous discharges [22]. The code for multi-sparks also simulates two processes within each cycle, the first is the electrical

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ENGINEERING INTEGRITY, VOLUME 37, SEPTEMBER 2014 pp.8-19.

spark cycle which occurs when the plasma channel strikes the work piece surface which is represented by a Gaussian heat input and the second is the subsequent cooling phase during the off time between discharges during which the heat input is removed and replaced by a convection condition with convection heat transfer coefficient during dielectric flushing increased to 500W m-2 K-1. The increase in value of convection heat transfer coefficient from free convection to an extremely higher value of coefficient at the area of incidence of spark is because at the end of the on time, the discharge channel collapses immediately which ultimately results in the sudden decrease in pressure and violent ejection of the molten metal from the work piece surface [22]. Thus to simulate violent flushing conditions present at that moment the heat transfer coefficient value is increased many folds than its usual free convection value.

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Fig. 3 Top surface peak temperature versus the grid size

3.5 Mesh sensitivity analysis The mesh sensitivity analysis is performed by adjusting the grid size to the point that no considerable change in peak temperature is observed, moreover the size of Heat Affected Zone (HAZ) is another parameter which is analyzed until it is independent of grid size. The significance of achieving an accurate value of Heat Affected Zone lies in the fact that it will be utilized to calculate a theoretical value for material removal rate in the Section 5.0. ANSYSTM software has been used for the purpose of performing the mesh sensitivity analysis. Fig. 3 presents the variation of peak temperature on the surface of the work piece versus the grid size for further analysis.

The Heat Affected Zone is assumed to be prevalent till the point temperature decreases from the maximum to the melting point (1750°C). This region identified with temperature above 1750°C are called fusion zone, the region neighboring this fusion zone is the heat affected region which had undergone similar rise in temperature but less than melting point of the work piece. Fig 4 (a) & (b) are graphs of Heat Affected Zone (HAZ) in r and z directions plotted against grid size to further demonstrate the effects of mesh size sensitivity to the accuracy of the results. In each case, the element size has been reduced and corresponding values have been plotted to study the trends, when a consistent value is achieved irrespective of grid size, the numerical solution is said to be so called mesh insensitive.

To analyze the achieved results, the plotted values in Fig. 4 are taken which are in fact the dimensions of the combined Fusion Zone and the Heat Affected Zone to an observable extent in r and z-directions respectively. Evidently these areas become prominent and more accurately defined as the mesh refinement is achieved to the point of convergence.

As apparent from Fig.3, a convergent pattern is revealed, the peak temperature at the top surface of the work piece

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Fig. 4 (a) Heat Affected Zone (HAZ) in Radial (r) direction versus the grid size

Fig. 4 (b) Heat Affected Zone (HAZ) in Axial (z) direction versus the grid size with a Gaussian heat flux shows a converging trend until a minimum value is attained. Similarly Fig.4 (a) & (b) illustrates a converging trend for the HAZ in radial (r) direction until it achieves a constant value and similarly does the HAZ in axial (z) direction converges to a minimum constant value with small variations as the grid size is reduced from 25 to 5 µm.

However it is observed that the computational time increases drastically as the mesh size is reduced, Thus for the purpose of generating an accurate thermal profile and further results with an optimized grid size, a value of 10 µm is used in the mesh generation with little compromise on computational time and memory as it is

ENGINEERING INTEGRITY, VOLUME 37, SEPTEMBER 2014 pp.8-19.

clearly evident from the graph that onset of a converged and stable solution is achieved at this optimum value.

3. Results and Discussion A numerical thermo physical model has been developed to accurately predict the thermal profile and material removal mechanism over the work piece surface after single and multiple sparks. A theoretical formula to calculate Material Removal Rate (MRR) is used [24] based on our numerically predicted thermal profile so that its value can be determined conveniently. An optimum value of grid size, 10Âľm is selected based on conclusion derived from the fact that an acceptable convergence criteria has been met till then and no compromise is done to ignore the computational time which increases drastically as the grid size is reduced.

4.1 Thermal Profiles Figure 5 (a) shows the final temperature contour plot at the end of on time, obtained for an incident single spark on the work piece surface after the application of desired boundary conditions; Gaussian heat input and mesh refinement. Fig 5(b) shows the resulting temperature distribution on the work piece surface after the cooling cycle at the end of the off time during which the temperature of the work piece steadily lowers as evident from the comparison of both the figures.

Fig. 5 (b) Temperature distribution of the workpiece at end of the cooling cycle (off time). of the effects of melting and vaporization, which ultimately results in a temperature distribution with a gradual slope declining to a minimum and axi-symmetric on both sides.

Our crater cavity also confirms to a more recent EDM thermal model by Joshi & Pande [13] who have also obtained a similar shallow bowl shaped crater profile.

The multi spark analysis is then run for a finite number of discharges which transformed to a slightly more spherical thermal profile from the bowl shaped profile due to adequate time for heat transfer. The automated APDL code for EDM simulation is run for the single spark first either Ns=1 and the temperature distribution obtained is shown in Fig. 6. As explained earlier, the command EKILL has been employed in the code to perform material removal after the end of each discharge and cooling cycle, Figure 7 (a) & (b) shows the 2D domain used for EDM model after elements are removed at the end of first discharge cycle or single spark (Ns=1) and the resulting temperature distribution respectively.

Fig.5 (a) Thermal profile of a single spark of EDM at the end of discharge time (Id=25A, U=25V).

Comparing with the DiBitontoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s model [9] for single spark which yields a hemispherical thermal profile and assumes an average thermo physical property taken over the entire temperature range, point heat source approximation to model heat flux and the effects of melting and vaporization are ignored, our model for single spark is different due to disparity in Boundary conditions which have been applied on the work piece, including temperature dependent thermo physical properties, Gaussian heat flux and incorporation

Fig. 6 Temperature distribution over workpiece surface for Ns=1

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Fig. 7 (a) Elements removed from the workpiece surface after Ns=1

Fig. 7 (a) Elements removed from the workpiece surface after Ns=1

Fig. 8 (a) Elements removed from the workpiece surface after Ns=10

Fig. 7 (b) Temperature distribution after the elements removal from the workpiece surface for Ns=1

Fig. 8 (b) Elements removed from the workpiece surface after Ns=20

To further visualize the pattern of material removal as the machining advances, the numerical simulation is run for a finite number of multiple discharges and it is observed that the crater penetrates into the work piece with a constant radius because the molten elements are removed from the domain with the heat source simultaneously moved downwards after every subsequent single discharge cycle.

The heat transfer through the sides of crater is neglected because of the instantaneous and violent nature of dielectric flushing which is a matter of few microseconds and also because an axi-symmetric element PLANE55 has been used which acts as insulation in the absence of applied thermal boundary conditions. Figure 8 (a), (b) & (c) illustrates how the material removal progresses as the heat source moves simultaneously after 10, 20 & 100 number of sparks.

Figure 9 (a), (b) & (c) shows the resulting temperature distribution and material removed for multiple sparks incident on the work piece surface after the application

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Fig. 8 (c) Elements removed from the workpiece surface after Ns=100

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of desired boundary conditions; Gaussian heats input, mesh refinement, material removal and moving heat source for 10, 20 and 100 numbers of sparks respectively.

4.2 Temperature plots In Fig 10 (a), the graph of temperature plot at centerline obtained numerically is shown for single discharge, along z-axis of the work piece at optimum grid size.

Similarly in Fig 10 (b) temperature plot across the surface in r-direction is shown. It illustrates that the temperature gradient follows a more typical path and the onset of phase change from solid to molten is clearly distinguished at approximately 1750 째C, which is marked by a dip after which a region of smooth curve is visible.

Fig. 9 (a) Temperature distribution and material removal from the workpiece after Ns=10

Fig. 10 (a) Temperature plots across the central axis (z-axis) obtained through finite element analysis.

Fig. 9 (b) Temperature distribution and material removal from the workpiece after Ns=20

Fig. 10 (b) Temperature plot across the surface in r-direction

Fig. 9 (c) Temperature distribution and material removal from the workpiece after Ns=100

Analyzing the graphs in Fig 10, the temperature distribution obtained numerically, incorporates the effects of melting and vaporization because of inbuilt capability of the FEA software utilized for analysis, secondly the distance from the origin in radial and axial directions where the phase change initiates are quite visible because of the highly refined mesh obtained by performing mesh sensitivity analysis.

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Fig. 11 Transient Temperature plot at origin of the work piece (centre point of incident Gaussian heat flux) Fig. 11 shows the transient temperature plot at origin of the work piece either at the centre point of incident Gaussian heat flux. The onset of phase change is evident from the graph after 31 μs at the origin of the work piece. As evident from the graph, the temperature increases steadily during the single spark after which it starts to decrease during the cooling cycle.

5.0 Material Removal Rate The material removal rate for EDM discharges has been calculated by several formulas on the basis of some assumptions. However, all assumptions certainly have their shortcomings including inaccuracies and errors. Our numerical model for a single spark yields a bowl shaped thermal profile whose slope gradually declines to the minimum as shown in Fig. 5. The thermal profile is for mesh size 10µm and resembles the geometrical shape of a half ellipsoid if extended in three dimensions from the bi-dimensional model.

The method used to calculate average crater volume (ACV) after each interval of discharges is taken from Govindan and Joshi [24] approximate method for estimation of crater volume after its triangular characterization in terms of crater radius RS and crater depth zS defined on the basis of HAZ dimensions in r and z direction.

The average volume of an EDM crater (ACV) is thus approximated by Eq. (5)

d

Where y = c and y = d are lines about the x-axis and R(y) is the function of the curve depicting the crater area. This reduces to Eq. 6

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The value of PFE for the case of Id =25A, pulse time Td=100 μs and off time toff= 10μs reported by Shuvra Das et al.[25] and obtained by DiBotonto et al. is taken to be 75% from Table 1. The formula for average material removal rate in m3/min after a total of Ns number of discharges is equal to Equation 3.12; it is calculated to study the variation of MRR as the machining time increases. The value of MRR predicted for machining parameters of single discharge (Ns=1) is calculated to be 4.64 x 10-5m3/min

MRR = PFE ×

60 × Vt N s (Td + Tofftime )

(7)

where, Vt is the total volume of the material removed after Ns sparks.

The corresponding discharge energy for the operating parameters can also be calculated by the Eq. (8) Discharge energy (mJ) = U × I d × Td

(8)

The discharge energy is one of the important factors governing material removal rate and thus is useful for model validation.

(5)

c

1 Vs = π Rs2 zs 3

The prime mechanism for material removal from the cathode is melting, vaporization and simultaneous flushing of the debris particles from the crater area. Hence the material from tool and work piece is removed if the temperature attained at surface is equal to melting point and above. As the plasma channel collapses at the end of discharge duration, the violent splatter accompanied by the sudden decrease in pressure of the arc causes the dielectric to fill the crater and carry the molten metal splatters as it gushes through it, leaving a crater on the surface. The amount of the material removed during each spark is measured using the factor of plasma flushing efficiency (PFE), derived by DiBotonto [9] which is the ratio of actual volume of material removed to the total volume of the predicted molten material. The amount of actual material removed and thus the PFE increase with current and pulse time as verified through experimental analysis performed by DiBotonto et al. [9] on AGIE machines.

6.0 Model Validation using Published Results

2

Vs = π ∫ [ R ( y ) ] dy

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(6)

To validate our numerical model for the single spark thermal analysis, the values of Material removal rate (MRR) obtained through our derived Equation 7 were compared with the published experimental results of DiBotonto’s and numerical results of various previous authors on EDM discharge simulations at the same parameters.

The values of experimental results performed by DiBitonto’s model and other authors have been reported by Yeo et al. [11] in his paper who have

ENGINEERING INTEGRITY, VOLUME 37, SEPTEMBER 2014 pp.8-19.

critically compared the prediction accuracies of five well-referred thermal models reported by Snoyes and Van Dijck, Van Dijck and Dutre, Beck, Jilani and Pandey and DiBitonto et al. with the experimental data of DiBitonto et al. in terms of the predicted geometry of the crater due to single spark and material removal at the cathode. He finally reported that the DiBitonto’s model predicted results closer to the experimental data when compared with all the other models which over-predict significantly. Hence, in order to compare the accuracy of prediction of our model it was, therefore, decided to compare the results predicted by our model with the values obtained by DiBitonto’s theoretical and experimental results (AGIE SIT data) and particularly those of Joshi & Pande [13] FEA model for EDM single spark. The machining conditions adopted for carrying out our analysis were exactly the same reported by Yeo et al. and Joshi & Pande in their respective analysis. The workpiece material and its properties are taken to be that of steel for our model, as described in Section 3.4, also nonlinear properties have been defined with temperature dependent thermal conductivity and specific heat. The melting point temperature is taken to be 1750 ºC and the discharge voltage has been kept constant throughout the validation analysis with its value set to 25V. The first three values of PFE for respective cases of numerical simulations have been taken from Table. 1 given below to determine the amount of molten material to be expelled at the end of the spark cycle, which is a partial reproduction from DiBitonto et al.[9]. For the last three simulations lying in the medium energy zones (MEZ) PFE values are estimated to be 75% and 100% respectively because equivalent spark radius used in our model for the heat input becomes invalid at higher discharge energy levels and under predicts the MRR [13]. The data clearly indicates the variation of PFE with pulse time and pulse current.

Table 1 Variation of PFE with pulse current and pulse on-time Table 2 shows the comparison of the reported experimental results (AGIE SIT), reported theoretical model results, Joshi & Pande’s FEA model results and the results for MRR predicted by our numerical model (considering the latent heat of melting).

Table 2 Comparison between our numerical results with various previous EDM models for validation

Fig. 12 Comparison of our numerical results and experimental results [39], numerical results: of various previous EDM models: cathode erosion Fig. 12 shows the comparison of the MRR predicted by our model, Yeo’s recommended model [11] and the AGIE SIT experimental data [10]. It is seen that the values of the MRR predicted by our model are every much further closer and accurate to the experimental results when compared with those by DiBitonto et al. [9] and Joshi & Pande’s model [13] for a wide range of discharge energy levels up to 650 mJ. Our model has gone a step further than DiBitonto’s model & Joshi & Pande’s model to the experimental results possibly due to the incorporation of real life conditions in the analysis such as Gaussian distribution of heat flux, discharge current, discharge on-time dependent spark radius equation, use of temperature dependent thermal properties, consideration of latent heat of melting and appropriate boundary conditions.

Our model considers the transient analysis of single spark with the expanding radius, which also may have added more accuracy to the predicted results. DiBitonto’s model, in comparison, has approximated the spark as a point heat source on cathode which created hemispherical crater cavity.

This is quite simplified when compared with the reality. Fig. 12 shows that, for higher values of discharge energy (close to 650 mJ), Joshi & Pande’s numerical model for single spark under-predicts the MRR when compared with the experimental results whereas our model is much closer to the actual experimental values even in the medium and high energy zone. However, in the present work, comparison between the results predicted by our model in the high energy zone (above 650 mJ) and the experimental results

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has not been attempted because the equivalent spark radius equation given by Ikai and Hashiguchi [15] which we have used in the present work is not valid for the discharge energy levels greater than 670 mJ. 7.0 Conclusions A major conclusion would be that incorporating into the numerical model for EDM single and multi sparks, appropriate boundary conditions, transient analysis, non linear properties such as temperature dependent material properties and utilizing inbuilt capability of modeling phase deformation by FEM software (ANSYSTM 12.0), significantly improves the accuracy of the predicted temperature distribution over the work piece surface, when compared with previous results of thermo physical models. A virtually mesh insensitive plots are achieved by performing mesh sensitivity analysis to achieve accurate numerical solutions. In context of the actual EDM machining process which occurs due to recurring sparks, it is obvious that the temperature rise for a single discharge is not high however the single spark FEA model has also been extended to simulate the effects of multiple discharges which yields a more probable and realistic thermal EDM model.

References [1] Shuvra Das, Mathias Klotz, F. Klocke, EDM simulation: finite element-based calculation of deformation, microstructure and residual stresses: Journal of Material Processing Technology 142 (2003), pp.434-451.

[2] Masanori Kunieda, Tsutomu Takayaa and Shintaro Nakano, Improvement of Dry EDM Characteristics Using Piezoelectric Actuator:CIRP Annals - Manufacturing Technology, Volume 53, Issue 1, (2004), pp.183-186.

[3] Snoeys, R., Van Dijck, F.S., Investigation of electro discharge machining operations by means of thermomathematical model. CIRP Ann. 20 (1), (1971), pp.35–37.

[4] Van Dijck, F.S., Dutre, W.L., Heat conduction model for the calculation of the volume of molten metal in electric discharges [discharge machining]. J. Phys. D (Appl.

Phys.) 7 (6), (1974), pp.899–910.

[5] Beck, J.V., 1981a. Transient temperatures in a semiinfinite cylinder heated by a disk heat source. Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer 24 (10), pp.1631–1640.

[6] Pandey, P.C., Jilani, S.T., Plasma channel growth and the resolidified layer in EDM. Precision Eng. 8 (2), (1986), pp.104–110.

[7] Jilani, S.T., Pandey, P.C., Analysis and modelling of EDM parameters. Precision Eng. 4 (4), (1982), pp.215– 221.

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[8] Jilani, S.T., Pandey, P.C., Analysis of surface erosion in electrical discharge machining. Wear 84 (3), (1983), pp.275–284.

[9] DiBitonto, D.D., Eubank, P.T., Patel, M.R., Barrufet, M.A., Theoretical models of the electrical discharge machining process. I. A simple cathode erosion model.

J. Appl. Phys. 66 (9), (1989), pp.4095–4103.

[10] Patel, M.R., Barrufet M.A., Eubank P.T., DiBitonto, D.D., Theoretical models of the electric discharge machining process. II. The anode erosion model, J.Appl. Phys.66 (9), (1989), pp.4101-4111.

[11] Yeo, S.H., Kurnia, W., Tan, P.C., Critical assessment and numerical comparison of electro-thermal models in EDM: Journal of Materials Processing Technology 203 (2008), pp.241–251.

[12] Izquierdo, B., Sanchez, J.A., Plaza, S., Pombo, I., Ortega, N., A numerical model of the EDM process considering the effect of multiple discharges. Int. Journal of Mach. Tools & Manufacture 49 (2009), pp.220-229.

[13] Joshi, S.N., Pande, S.S., Thermo-physical modeling of die-sinking EDM process. J. Manufacturing Processes 12 (2010), pp.45-56.

[14] Eubank, P.T., Patel, M.R., Barrufet, M.A., Bozkurt, B., Theoretical models of the electric discharge machining process. Part III: The variable mass cylindrical plasma model. J Appl Phys 73(11) (1993), pp.7900-7909.

[15] Ikai, T, Hashigushi, K., Heat input for crater formation in EDM. In: Proceedings of international symposium for electro-machining—ISEM XI, EPFL. (1995), pp.163– 170.

[16] Guo, Y.B., Klink, A., Klocke, F., Multiscale modeling of sinking-EDM with gaussian heat flux via user Subroutine: The Seventeenth CIRP Conference on Electro Physical and Chemical Machining (ISEM) - Procedia CIRP 6 (2013), pp.438 – 443.

[17] Shankar, P., Jain, V.K., Sundaaragan, T., Analysis of spark profiles during EDM process, Machining Sciences and Technology 1 (2) (1997), pp.195-217.

[18] Vinod Yadav, Vijay K. Jain, Prakash M. Dixit., Thermal stresses due to electric discharge machining: Int. Journal of Mach. Tools & Manufacture 42 (2002), pp.877-888.

[19] N Ben Salah, F. Ghanem, K Ben Atig., Numerical study of thermal aspects of electric discharge machining process: International Journal of Machine Tools and Manufacture 46 (2006), pp.908-911.

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[20] Marafona, J., Chousal, J.A.G., A finite element model of EDM based on the Joule effect: International Journal of Machine Tools and Manufacture 46 (2006), pp.595-602.

[21] Descoeudres, A., Hollenstein, Ch., Walder, G., Perez, R., Time resolved imaging and spatially-resolved spectrosocopy of electrical discharge machining plasma, Journal of Applied Physics 38 (2005), pp.40664073.

[22] Kojima, A., Natsu, W., Kuneida, M., Observation of arc plasma expansion and delayed growth of discharge crater in EDM, in: Proceedings of the 15th International Symposium on Electro machining. ISEM XV. (2007), pp.

69-73.

[23] Kunieda, M., Lauwers, B., Rajurkar, K.P., Schumacher, B.M., Advancing EDM through Fundamental Insight into the Process: CIRP Annals - Manufacturing Technology, Volume 54, Issue 2, (2005), pp.64-87.

[24] Govindan, P., Joshi, S. S., Experimental characterization of material removal in dry electrical discharge drilling: International Journal of Machine Tools and Manufacture 50 (2010), pp.431-443.

[25] Shuvra Das, Mathias Klotz, F. Klocke, EDM simulation: finite element-based calculation of deformation, microstructure and residual stresses: Journal of Material Processing Technology 142 (2003), pp.434-451.

Nomenclature Fc

Fraction of power to the cathode

R w

workpiece width (m)

Hw

workpiece depth (m)

r,z

coordinates

h

convection coefficient (W m-2 K-1) S0

section of the initial plasma channel

I

current density (A)

temperature (K)

k

thermal conductivity (W m K ) Td

time of single discharge (μs)

Q

heat flux (W m-2)

U

electric potential (V)

Rc

radius of spark (m)

toff

time between recurring discharges (s)

Vs

Crater volume of single spark (m3) Ns

T -1

-1

Number of discharges

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19

Report on Instrumentation Testing and Analysis Exhibition, 18 March 2014

The annual Instrumentation, Analysis andTesting Exhibition was held at the Silverstone Race Track in the International Conference Centre at the Silverstone Wing on 18 March this year, and is a major event in the Society’s calendar.

With the number of exhibitors increasing by 10% to 58, the exhibition was the largest and most successful one that the Society has held to date, with a significant range of transducers, test hardware and analysis software being on display.

The number of visitors attending the exhibition increased by 20% compared with last year; they came from a wide range of industries including aerospace, material handling, automotive (including motorcycle, bus and coach, suspension manufacturers and F1 teams), power generation, medical, and design and test consultancies.

The exhibition remains a ‘special’ event where engineers from the areas of product design, test and development have the opportunity to review and discuss their specific requirements with the exhibitors, or other visitors, in an informal atmosphere, and there is also the chance to attend some of the open forums that support the exhibition.

This year the EIS was pleased to support a team from Bath University taking part in the Roof of the World Rally. This incredibly ambitious journey involves driving

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a refurbished second hand ambulance from London to Duschanbe, Ta j i k i s t a n .

With two of the three strong team being mechanical engineers, the ambulance was purchased from Spain with the trip being entirely financed by the team themselves. The team plans to set off in July this year and raise money for two charities, Go Help and the Trauma Recovery Centre.

Go Help is a UK adventure charity that is committed to working with local communities in Central Asia and Central America to improve their access to education and healthcare services. The Trauma Recovery Centre (TRC) is a Bathbased charity providing counselling and therapy for children affected by trauma. The ambulance (also known as Judith incidentally) is to be donated to the local people in Duschanbe and will provide muchneeded medical support.

Four forums were held at the exhibition supported by a panel of experts.

The forum formats are ‘open’ where brief opening presentations are made by one or two of the experts with the panel then taking a range of questions from the audience. At the exhibition the ‘open style’ forum format has been found to be very successful, with the audience having the opportunity to ask questions that time would not normally allow if the format was one of a longer presentation with a short question and answer session at the end.

The forums were entitled • The Effect on Component Life and Performance of Manufacturing Induced Residual Strain • 3D Printed Components - use in Stress Analysis and as Structural Components • Gearbox Noise and Life Monitoring • Successes and Future Challenges in Vehicle Dynamics.

The forums were informal and were all extremely well attended with interesting and stimulating d i s c u s s i o n s developing, the forum subjects providing the basis for future oneday events planned to be held by the Society.

Entry to the exhibition and forums remains free to visitors, with complementary refreshments provided throughout the day to assist in promoting the informal atmosphere.

The 2015 exhibition will be held on Tuesday 17 March, again at the Silverstone Wing facility - a date to enter in your diaries.

Summary of Forum Discussions The Effect on Component Life and Performance of Manufacturing Induced Residual Strain The forum was chaired by Norman Thornton (Engineering Consultant), the panel members being Rob Wood (Gom), Andrew Blows (JLR), Angelo Fanourakis (GKN), David Panni (JCB), John McCarthy (GE MAPS).

It was agreed amongst the forum panel that a project will be created, shared between panel members, to measure residual strains in delivered material and through each stage of the manufacturing process. A component produced by one of the panel member companies will be selected for this project. A suitable component has not yet been identified since it needs to be thick enough to be meaningful to JCB and thin enough to be of value to JLR. It may be that a one-day event could be held at GKN to set up and discuss the project, but audience size will be limited to 35, and probably by invitation only.

presentation, namely: 1. Rapid prototyping of metal components by Bernard Steeples (for Richard Wooldridge) of Ford Motor Company.

2. Manufacturing of components by 3D printing by Tom Riley of Bentley Motors.

3. Development, manufacture and supply of 3D printing equipment by David Price (Rapid Manufacturing Sales Manager) of Laser Lines.

4. High volume additive manufacturing by Neil Hopkinson of Sheffield University.

The forum was well attended and a lively discussion developed on most areas of the presentation.

Questions were asked from the floor as to why we were discussing something that we had known existed for 25/30 years. It was strongly pointed out that even though this was true no progress had been accepted and adopted that measured this strain in any part of the manufacturing process. Even though predictive models allowed inputs for this strain they were estimates or computed values, not real data.

This was accepted and the discussion continued on the whole process. It became evident the manufacturing process was not evaluated for influence on fatigue life, or the extent to which the manufacturing methods produced damaging or detrimental induced residual strains.

For example the lack of control of heating and cooling was not considered.

It was evident from the audience that further forums or events on this subject are required. This view was supported by the comments in the response forms obtained at the forum.

A general one-day event will then be held to take advantage of the information gathered, and to present progress on the project.

It was a successful forum on a subject that will run for a considerable time. Several audience members commented that the forum was too short and more time was required.

3D Printed Components - use in Stress Analysis and as Structural Components The forum was chaired by Bernard Steeples (Engineering Consultant), and four speakers covered various aspects of the technology at the

3D Printing developed around 30 years ago and has been used commercially now by companies such as Ford Motor Company for more than 20 years. The technology was initially used by engineering companies to produce prototype components and for modelling but the process then quickly developed. One of the speakers reported that the rapid manufacturing process can now provide very good correlation to the production high pressure die cast process compared to traditional sand castings. Rapid castings UTS is equal to die cast UTS within 5000n. The average UTS of rapid parts are within 3.6% of production parts, 84% of castings are within

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... continued the die cast USL and average UTS is slightly less than production high pressure die casts creating a safety margin. With the developments that have taken place 3D printing then became used for production by small volume manufacturers and is now used more and more for ever increasing production volumes.

Investment in increasingly sophisticated rapid prototyping machines is now growing rapidly.

Ford Motor Company for example has now purchased 2 Prometal rapid printing machines costing £2.7M and has further £2.1M of machines on lease.

Today the technology is known by several other names including:

Gearbox Noise and Life Monitoring

Stereo Lithography Rapid Prototyping and Rapid Manufacturing Additive Manufacturing Additive Layer Manufacturing Rapid Die Casting.

The Ford Motor Company experience is typical in that 3D printing started in the wood and plastics prototype workshop in order to produce prototype components for evaluation. The technology has the capability to produce complex and very accurate shapes and basically anything that can be produced as a 3D model drawing can be manufactured faithfully in most materials. Similarly components can be produced by reverse engineering by scanning a component and modifying the 3D model in any way desired to provide a new component. Either process can produce new designs very quickly in hours or days rather than in weeks by conventional processes.

Similarly both polymer and metallic models can be for example for evaluation of designs for numerical model evaluation in wind tunnels.

This process is used extensively by Airbus Operations and BAE. As the process can produce metallic as well as polymer components it is now used extensively for small and increasingly for medium size companies as was demonstrated

by Tom Riley of Bentley Motors.

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The forum was chaired by Geoff Rowlands (MIRA), the panel members being Jarek Rosinski (Transmission Dynamics) and Barry James (Romax).

The “Gearbox Noise and Life Monitoring” forum was a new topic for this year and attracted 45 attendees. Jarek Rosinski gave an interesting and detailed presentation about the challenges in measuring gear contact alignment in large gearboxes, primarily used in wind turbines.

Special techniques have been developed and deployed to gather strain date from meshing gears, and then to transmit the data from the gearbox to the outside. Barry James also contributed a short paper on Gearbox Life Monitoring and this was interesting too, giving good insights into the work being done by Romax. There were some questions from the floor at the end of the presentations, which stimulated thought and discussion. It was clear that there is scope for much further development in the field of gearbox performance, particularly for large installations.

Successes and Future Challenges in Vehicle Dynamics The forum was chaired by John Wilkinson (Engineering Consultant), the panel members being Gerry Baker (Millbrook) and Richard Hurdwell (Richard Hurdwell Engineering).

The EIS decided last year to add a forum on vehicle dynamics at the 2014 Exhibition, to see what level of interest there was in the subject matter from the exhibition attendees and to maybe gauge enthusiasm to start a new sub-group at a future time. We were very fortunate that Richard Hurdwell of RHE Ltd offered to lead the forum and he gave a fascinating overview of his experiences of passive and active vehicle chassis development and tuning with Lotus, Prodrive and Ricardo over 30 years, including exotic road vehicles and racing cars. Richard also gave many easyto-understand explanations of the theory and real life cases.

We then took many technical questions from the well-filled floor and Gerry Baker, Manager of Vehicle Dynamics at Millbrook Proving Ground Ltd, sat on the podium with Richard to respond, giving his own perspective on chassis development and tuning for major OEMs – this very effective interaction period with the audience went on for about 30 minutes which certainly exceeded expectations!

It certainly seemed that there could well be enough interest in this area of vehicle engineering to think about the initiation of a new EIS group, so we plan to hold another forum at the 2015 Exhibition and from that aim to get a group of enthusiastic industrial and academic representatives together to plan further events in a similar fashion that the NVH group (now SVPP) was created many years ago.

Royal Aeronautical Society The Structures and Materials Group is organising the 4th Aircraft Structural Design Conference 7th - 9th October 2014 Belfast www.aerosociety.com/4ASD

The Challenges of Smarter Testing The testing process includes the test, its definition and the provision of data to improve predictive models. The failure to communicate, and/or use the actual test and material data, limits improvements to this process. The use of proven technology, rather than a revolutionary technique can provide significant improvement. Consider these two quotations:

Challenge 1 Representative material data for the test part is essential; not information from some historic data base. Tests have shown that material confirmed as “to spec” from different data bases and suppliers can have a difference in fatigue life of 5. The classic metallurgical test on material receipt does not provide enough information regarding the material’s state.

“Never mind all the clever stuff. If engineers correctly applied the tried and tested methods, there would be a major improvement in Durability.”

Attributed to Dr. Peter Watson.

Even if the raw material properties are known, the material’s condition in the finished component may be very different and neither fully-understood nor controlled. Changes in manufacture are often made independently of the sign-off process, and are not integrated into the life prediction or assessment. In a typical case a part of the manufacturing process was changed which reduced the life by 50%, whilst another process change increased life by 50%. Neither of these production changes were evaluated prior to introduction.

“Despite 150 years of research in fatigue we still get failures. We do not need more research, but we do need more education.” Professor Darrell Socie Smarter Testing does not need complex new ideas, but, rather, the intelligent application of existing, mature techniques. The challenge to engineers is to think more about what they are doing with associated technologies and talk to each other: communication is essential to confirm data, identify assumptions and iterate to improve. Three basic challenges are presented: Challenge #1 How much do you know about the material in the object that you are designing or testing?

Challenge #2 How well does the test setup represent real life conditions?

Challenge #3 How well does the loading data used for design and testing represent real life?

These are basic questions, but the answers will take the test engineer outside his comfort zone because he will need to talk to data collection, materials, manufacturing and design engineers.

Residual stresses/strains introduced during manufacturing are rarely measured, and can be significant.

Delivered material can have high residual stresses present which are modified by bending, forming and welding to create an unknown and potentially important life factor. The thermal gradients introduced across components during manufacture can have an effect on durability; and should be monitored and controlled if repeatable component life is to be maintained. Investigations showed that controlled thermal gradients significantly improved durability.

Challenge #2 Complex tests may be unavoidable; especially in multi axis loading conditions, but care must be taken to ensure the influence of all parameters are understood to aid interpretation of the results and realworld correlation. Shorter duration single or dual channel tests containing only the most damaging events can provide quick evaluation of design or component changes. These save time and focus the larger long running tests.

Test load profiles should also provide associated deflections. This deflection information essential for establishing the available rig performance, potential error and reliability. Test rig give good results when they are operating within their reliable performance envelope.

Neurotic rigs that struggle to achieve the required profile do not give a repeatable test. Techniques to allow the engineer to model the attainable performance of a test rig enable an assessment of the likely behaviour of test rig in terms of reliability.

Loads and deflections measured during the test should be used to confirm and update the predictive model. Load and deflections at the reactions must be included.

Challenge 3 The origin of the loading data, how it was measured and edited can allow the significance of test rig variation or inabilities to be evaluated.

Frequently, inertia-induced loads cannot be replicated on the test rig and need consideration.

The velocity of the actuators required to achieve the desired rate of load change needs careful consideration.

High transient velocities often demand flow and power that are difficult to achieve or are not available. These high velocities often demand the use of rig settings that are not the best for repeatability.

Significant reductions in test time and repeatability can be achieved by changing the slope of the loading curve, to suit available power and improve repeatability. On multi-axis load inputs this slope is implemented simultaneously changing the time base across all channels to maintain phase.

The loading profile typically has a relatively small percentage of these high velocities and a high majority of smaller amplitudes with much lower velocity. Low velocity amplitudes are speeded up and high velocities slowed down to give a loading rate consistent with repeatable and achievable rig /cont. on page 31

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Industry News Welcome to the Industry News section of the journal. Thank you to everyone for their submissions. The nominal limit for entry is 200 words, which should be sent to eis@amberinstruments.com or posted to EIS, c/o Amber Instruments Ltd, Dunston House, Dunston Road, Chesterfield, S41 9QD. We would appreciate you not sending entries by fax.

Oil contamination identified as a major cause of machinery failure Between 70 and 80 per cent of all hydraulic failures, which can lead to machinery failure, can be traced back to contaminated oil, according to leading drives and controls manufacturer, Bosch Rexroth.

The warning has been issued due to increasing concerns that engineers continue to rely on component monitoring as a means of early detection of machinery problems.

Experts at Bosch Rexroth believe that only 20 per cent of all unplanned downtime can be identified through component monitoring with oil analysis a more reliable option.

Rexroth has identified three types of oil contamination that are causing machinery problems, namely solid particles such as dirt and dust; liquid contamination, such as water and other fluid mixture, and gaseous contamination, such as air. “70 to 80 per cent of hydraulic drive failures are caused by contaminated oil,” says Chris. “Lubricant analysis is therefore a vital part of modern maintenance and servicing.”

However, there remain concerns that oil analysis is not forming part of the regular machinery servicing schedule.

“For many maintenance and production engineers there simply isn’t the time and manpower to conduct the regular checks needed to identify problems before it becomes too late,” says Mr Gray. “This can lead to a whole host of problems, such as valve and pump failure, which can result in unplanned

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machinery downtime and potentially costly repairs or the need to replace components entirely.” £1 billion Advanced Propulsion Centre announces Hub location at Warwick • University of Warwick to host central Hub with regional Spokes to be announced.

• The APC is committing up to £200 million in UK propulsion technology projects this year.

25 July 2014: The Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC) has selected the University of Warwick as the site for its Hub location, supporting the ten year, £1 billion industry and government commitment to the development of low carbon propulsion systems.

The central Hub together with a national Spoke structure will provide the UK automotive industry with resources and facilities to develop advanced propulsion systems and supply chains. In doing so the aim of the APC, in partnership with industry, is to secure and grow over 30,000 UK jobs currently engaged in the research, development and production of vehicle powertrains as the industry transitions to a low carbon future for all modes of transportation.

The APC helps forge partnerships between those who have good ideas and those who can bring them to market. The services provided by the APC will enable projects which provide profitable growth and sustainable opportunities for the partners involved and contribute to the UK’s economic prosperity.

The Advanced Propulsion Centre was created from the collaboration between industry and government through the Automotive Council. The APC is a central pillar of the Industrial Strategy published by the Council in 2013. The Automotive Council is cochaired by the motor industry and government.

Launch of multi-million pound engineering institute in Derby In June Derby’s leading engineers and advanced manufacturers launched their vision to make the city the world leader in making high-value and top quality products.

Key players from the city’s manufacturing industry were among the 70-plus guests at the unveiling of the multi-million pound Institute for Innovation in Sustainable Engineering (IISE) at Lonsdale House.

A high-quality research and development centre, the IISE is the University of Derby’s latest investment to support advanced manufacturing in the city.

It is supported by Rolls-Royce, car manufacturer Toyota and train maker Bombardier and is specifically designed to support small and medium-sized businesses in the area.

Partnerships with machinery suppliers including DMG Mori Seiki, Renishaw, Eley Metrology, World Viz and Creat3d mean that the Institute has the very latest technological resources available to provide cutting edge solutions to business challenges.

The IISE is headed by Professor Hall, who has an international reputation in aerospace, automotive and high-value manufacturing industries.

The University will invest £10m in the Institute and £3m has been added by industry, as well as a further £30m-worth of successful bids, including one from the Regional Growth Fund.

New report: lack of NHS engineers is putting lives at risk The low priority given to NHS engineers is leading to problems caused by faulty medical equipment, cancelled operations and poor value for money for taxpayers.

In 2013 over 13,000 incidents were reported to the UK regulator relating to faulty medical equipment, which led to over 300 deaths and almost 5,000 serious injuries.

With the increasing importance and complexity of technology used in hospitals, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers’ new report Biomedical engineering: advancing UK healthcare is calling for urgent action to prioritise the role of engineers in the NHS, and introduce a Chief Biomedical Engineer in every NHS acute trust.

Boosting the number, as well as the influence, of engineers in the NHS would help cut the number of incidents caused by faulty medical equipment. In 2013 13,642 incidents related to faulty medical equipment were reported to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA); leading to 309 deaths and 4,955 people sustaining serious injury. These incidents can vary from faulty pace-makers to faulty equipment like CT or MRI scanners used to diagnose patients. This faulty equipment, or the unavailability of it, is also one of the major causes of cancelled operations.

As the technology used in hospitals becomes increasingly complex, the danger of improperly calibrated and validated equipment is also increasing.

Indeed, there are huge implications to the mis-calibration of even basic equipment such as weighing scales - in 2008 a medical devices alert was issued warning of incorrectly calibrated weighing scales which led to a number of patients being given the incorrect dosage of medication. Furthermore ‘equipment failure/unavailability’ is cited as a major reason for cancellation of operations in NHS hospitals.

The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) has re-launched the National Corrosion Service (NCS) The service provides a Gateway to Expertise on many aspects of materials degradation. Due to its major impact

on the economy, corrosion continues to figure prominently in the remit of this service.

The name may have reverted, but the expert advice and assistance can still be accessed by numerous methods: 1. By visiting the NCS website, you can find NPL’s popular Corrosion Guides, as well as publications on: - Adhesives - Hard metals and ceramics - Metal and alloys - Joined systems - Polymer matrix composites - Polymers, including PEM fuel cells 2. You can email your requests to ncs@npl.co.uk and a dedicated specialist, in conjunction with NPL’s experts, will evaluate and answer your corrosion question.

3. You can phone 020 8943 6142 and speak to a consultant directly.

With three decades of experience, the specialist is likely to be able to answer your question very quickly.

For more challenging issues the NCS pundit can draw from the wealth of knowledge of the experts at NPL, and other sources, on problems resulting from a wide range of deterioration mechanisms, including the effects of wear, fatigue and high temperature exposure, and other processes specific to polymers, composites and ceramics.

This personal service is free to UK residents and companies, but charges may be incurred if the question requires an intensive investment of time by the specialists.

Find out more about the National Corrosion Service. For further details, please contact Peter Morgan or Alan Turnbull on 020 8943 6142.

University of Brighton and Ricardo collaborate on engineering centre of excellence The UK Government has announced multi-million pound investments

in University of Brighton research and building projects – including a significant project that will see an enhanced level of collaboration with Ricardo.

Ricardo has collaborated extensively with the University of Brighton since the 1990s on aspects of internal combustion engine research, including the use of laser-based measurement techniques, fundamental modelling and computational simulation. In 2006 the company and the University jointly opened the Sir Harry Ricardo Laboratories where much of this collaborative research has to date been carried out on a wide range of projects including many involving Ricardo customers.

As a result of the new funding announcement, Ricardo will collaborate in the creation at the University of a new engineering Centre of Excellence.

This will deliver leading automotive and environmental engineering research and will receive £7 million, with £4.5 million allotted for 2015-16.

Ricardo Chief Technology and Innovation Officer Professor Neville Jackson said: “Ricardo is pleased to be collaborating with the University of Brighton on the new engineering research Centre of Excellence that has been announced today.

This new initiative builds upon the highly successful collaboration, of over twenty years standing, between the Ricardo and the University on next generation clean combustion technology and high fuel efficiency engine research.”

Poor school careers advice deterring future engineers New poll also finds 57% of people think STEM teachers should spend time in industry to improve their understanding.

UK pupils are receiving poor careers advice from teachers who lack understanding of business and industry, according to a new poll by the

25

Industry News Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

The survey reveals 42% of the 2,030 people polled think careers advice/ guidance in UK secondary schools is poor, with 26% saying it’s adequate.

Only 10% believe the advice is good.

The results come as the Institution launches a new Teacher Industrial Partners’ Scheme (TIPS), which will see Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) teachers being offered two-week work placements within industry to help them better explain the highly diverse career opportunities to their students.

The scheme, launched in conjunction with Project ENTHUSE, the National Science Learning Centre and the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), was unveiled in July at Formula Student, the world’s biggest student motorsport event which took place at Silverstone.

The survey also shows 42% of people think secondary school teachers have a poor understanding of business and industry in general, with 30 % saying they have an adequate understanding and just 9% believing it to be good.

Additionally, 57% of people believe teachers should undertake two-week work placements to improve their understanding of different career options.

The poll asked 2,030 members of the public on their views on secondary school careers advice and was carried out by ICM on behalf of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

Funded Places available on Masters of Sensor and Imaging Systems The Scottish Funding Council has supported the creation of a new MSc in Sensor and Imaging Systems for entry in September 2014. This much anticipated Masters has been developed in recognition of the high demand for qualified students to fill

26

industry skills gaps within Scotland.

The programme is jointly taught and awarded by the University of Glasgow and the University of Edinburgh, drawing on knowledge and complementary expertise of renowned academics from four Schools in these two top-ranking Russell Group universities.

This programme focuses on the technologies and techniques that underpin a vast range of societal, research and industrial needs. Sensing and sensor systems are essential for advances across all fields of physics, engineering and chemistry and are enhanced when multiple sensing functions are combined into arrays to enable imaging. The programme is designed to prepare our graduates for careers across a vast range of technologies including renewable energy, subsea and marine technologies, defence, smart grid, automotive engineering, healthcare, aerospace, consumer electronics or environmental monitoring.

The MSc in Sensor and Imaging Systems has been chosen for funding allocated by the Scottish Funding Council. This funding is available for Scottish and EU domiciled students.

In addition to the tuition-fee waiver, bursaries of £2400 pa are also available on a competitive basis to Home/EU candidates. Please visit our website for further information regarding SFC Funded Places.

For more information, contact: media@ glasgow.ac.uk or 0141 330 3535.

STFC spin-out wins UK’s major engineering prize for airport scanner technology Cobalt Light Systems, a company born from technology developed by scientists at the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), received the prestigious 2014 MacRobert Award for engineering innovation, for its unique liquids scanner.

The scanner may soon enable airports to relax the existing hand-luggage liquid ban, and use of the same technique is now being used for other applications including real-time diagnostic tools for cancer and bone disease.

The Cobalt team has used the technology to develop an airport security scanner that can identify potential liquid explosives. Cobalt’s Insight100, now installed in 65 airports across Europe, could help lift the blanket ban for passengers carrying liquids in hand luggage.

Synonymous with spotting the ‘next big thing’ in the technology sector, the MacRobert Award is the UK’s longest running national prize for engineering.

It identifies outstanding innovation with proven commercial promise and tangible societal benefit.

The unique scanning technology developed by Cobalt is now being applied to research in other disciplines through research at the STFC Central Laser Facility within the Research Complex at Harwell. For example, in collaboration with University College London it is being used to develop a way to diagnose bone disease much earlier, promising to enable patients to seek treatment at an earlier stage. It is also being tested in research, in partnership with the University of Exeter, to analyse the chemical composition of breast tissue following mammograms which have identified ‘shadows’ that need further investigation. The noninvasive, painless technique has a potential to replace the needle biopsy and deliver an accurate, on-the-spot diagnosis.

Expert fluid engineering consultancy BHR Group targets expansion with £2.6m BGF investment BHR Group, the independent research and technology organisation specialising in the application of fluid engineering to industrial processes, is preparing for expansion thanks to a £2.6m investment of growth capital

from BGF (Business Growth Fund).

BHR grew out of the British Hydromechanics Research Association, one of the founding research associations established by the UK government in the 1940’s alongside the likes of MIRA and PERA. Current Managing Director Raghbir Chand took control of Cranfield University-based BHR in August 2011 and revenues have grown year on year since. BHR currently employs 84 staff; a mixture of scientists, engineers and commercial staff.

BHR has a well-established heritage, and is recognised globally for its engineering excellence and contribution to fluid dynamics, with a diverse cross-section of clients across multiple industries including Shell, DOW Chemical, Mott McDonald and Sellafield.

Projects range across the fluid mechanics sector, from processes involving the effective mixture of nanofluids, to new product development and validation of advanced and high value engineering systems. BHR also offers integrated design, consultancy and project management solutions, such as city-wide integrated intelligent smart water systems design. BHR has clients operating in the renewables, oil and gas, chemicals, nuclear, water, power, and manufacturing sectors where fluid behaviour is critical to design performance and operational costs.

Andy Green’s 1,000mph Office Revealed - BLOODHOUND SSC Cockpit Completed The cockpit of BLOODHOUND SSC, the 1,000mph (1,609km/h) Land Speed Racing car, has been unveiled in Bristol, UK. The state-of-the-art carbon fibre monocoque has been tailored to the needs of driver Andy Green and will be his supersonic office during record attempts in the South African desert in 2015 and 2016.

Hand crafted by URT Group using five different types of carbon fibre weave and two different resins, the monocoque has taken more than 10,000 hours to design and manufacture. Sandwiched between the layers of carbon fibre are three different thicknesses of aluminium honeycomb core (8, 12 and 20mm), which provide additional strength.

At its thickest point the monocoque comprises of 13 individual layers but is just 25mm in cross section.

The structure weighs 200kg and bolts directly to the metallic rear chassis carrying the jet, rocket and racing car engine. The carbon front section will have to endure peak aerodynamic loads of up to three tonnes per square metre at 1,000mph (1,609kph) as well the considerable forces generated by the front wheels and suspension. It will also carry ballistic armour to protect the driver should a stone be thrown up by the front wheels at very high speeds.

Andy has drawn on his experience of flying fast jets and driving World Land Speed Record winners Thrust SSC and JCB Dieselmax to design the dashboard and cockpit layout.

Good ergonomics are vital given that BLOODHOUND SSC will cover a mile in 3.6 seconds, or 150m in the (300 millisecond) blink of an eye.

Improving safety, quality and performance – The Lloyd’s Register Foundation joins TWI in leading the UK’s first postgraduate education and research centre in structural integrity The Lloyd’s Register Foundation has signed a heads of agreement with TWI to provide £15m research funding to establish the new National Structural Integrity Research Centre (NSIRC) nearing completion at TWI in Cambridge. The Foundation will become a Founder Sponsor and Board member of the newly-established Structural Integrity Research Foundation (SIRF), responsible for industrial support of NSIRC. The Lloyd’s Register Foundation and TWI

are now finalising the full contractual terms.

As a Founder Sponsor of the SIRF initiative, the Lloyd’s Register Foundation’s funding will create up to 83 PhD and EngD studentships.

The research will support the Lloyd’s Register Foundation’s charitable aims by focusing on improving the safety of the critical infrastructure that modern society relies on, particularly in the energy, marine and transportation sectors.

Research undertaken by the Lloyd’s Register Foundation students into different areas of structural integrity and new areas of technology will progress as recognised postgraduate degree qualifications through NSIRC’s established relationships with leading universities in the UK and overseas.

The Lloyd’s Register Foundation’s strategy for 2014-2020 focuses funding on four strategic themes: Promoting safety and public understanding of risk; advancing skills and education; supporting excellent scientific research; and accelerating the application of research. Four research themes have been prioritised: structural integrity and systems performance; resilience engineering; human and social factors; and emergent technologies.

Construction charity and HS2 Ltd inspire future generation of female engineers As part of National Women in Engineering Day on Monday 23rd June, charity Construction Youth Trust and HS2 Ltd ran a special female only Budding Brunels course to inspire young students interested in STEM subjects about careers in engineering.

Construction Youth Trust works with young people aged 14 - 30 across England and Wales to help them overcome barriers and find work and further training in construction.

The aim of the day was to inspire young

27

Industry News women about STEM based careers with an emphasis on engineering and celebrating women in the industry.

City University London’s Widening Participation Department hosted the 26 young women who spent the day with volunteers from HS2 Ltd, and City University.

Each student had the chance to speak with HS2 Ltd’s female engineers about their careers in engineering and what inspired them to take their particular career path. Alison Munro, Chief Executive of HS2 Ltd also gave a presentation to the students about HS2 Ltd and a City University student ambassador gave a talk on her experiences of studying Engineering at City University.

With the figure of women working in the construction industry at just 11% it is essential that organisations such as HS2 Ltd and Construction Youth Trust continue to reach out to women who may not have the opportunity or confidence to consider a career in the built environment. It is also equally important to recognise the achievements of women in the industry and that encouragingly more opportunities are available to women now.

The Engineering Testing Show to be held in Derby on Tuesday 28th October.

The exhibition, held in the iconic Derby Roundhouse, will bring together over 50 of the world’s most vibrant businesses at the forefront of engineering testing technology.

Attendees and exhibiting businesses have the opportunity to showcase the latest technology in action, learn about new products/services, consolidate existing relationships and make new connections.

The show will offer a unique opportunity for exhibitors to promote the technological developments across the engineering testing, industry, including:

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Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) Condition Monitoring (CM) Metrology Instrumentation Controls Technology Metallurgy Test Rigs …and all other materials and testing disciplines Held at the award winning Derby Roundhouse located at the centre of the UK’s engineering industry, the event will attract visitors from across many of the UK’s most significant engineering supply chains from small consultancies through to engineering OEMs that have a significant involvement in the engineering testing field.

Should you be interested to exhibit or have any questions about the event, please contact Ken Davies, Director Tel: 01332 8319, Email: ken.davies@ theengineeringtestingshow.co.uk www.theengineeringtestingshow.co.uk MIRA to Unveil Mojacar Brake Testing Capability at EuroBrake MIRA revealed a new facilities dedicated to brake system development at EuroBrake held in Lille, France in May bringing a full suite of services to its global OEM customers.

The consultancy is expanding its brake engineering services with a new bespoke facility near Mojacar, Spain, to broaden its environmental testing capabilities. The service will add to MIRA’s existing expertise in advanced development testing for braking systems, including the use of its bespoke proving ground in the UK and cold climate testing in Scandinavia.

With many years’ experience running brake development programmes in the region, the new facility near Mojacar gives MIRA a long term presence in Spain. It is combined with MIRA’s solid track record in delivering and implementing engineering solutions for a range of brake-related issues across

all types of vehicle platforms for a host of global operators such as Jaguar Land Rover, NP Aerospace and the MOD. Ahead of Eurobrake, MIRA’s Chief Commercial and Technical Officer, Geoff Davis, said: “Having a new facility in Spain is the missing piece of the puzzle for the MIRA braking team, allowing us to offer OEMs a full suite of world class services. The Mojacar region’s unique climate and varied terrain gives us multiple conditions to test systems and complements our proven track record in environmental testing and development of braking systems.

“In addition, this gives us further expansion into Europe and beyond, allowing us to continue to offer our global customers a comprehensive and high quality service. The facility will allow us to expand our customer focused durability testing programmes into Europe, outside of the brake attribute area.”

MIRA has a world class independent brake development, test and certification team to support the global automotive market. MIRA’s braking team has ISO17025 accreditation and is an appointed technical service for EEC/ECE braking legislation for all vehicle categories.

MIRA’s capabilities in vehicle braking include design, validation and supply of improved actuation systems, brake booster units, development support for low dust friction materials, brake test services to major vehicle manufacturers and research consultancy.

MIRA has earned an enviable reputation since it was originally formed in 1946 and is known for being a comprehensive transport engineering solutions provider to the automotive and defence industries, as well as engineering smart solutions for future transport technologies.

Product News Siemens has expanded its portfolio of LMS solutions for durability testing The expansion is critical to several industries, including automotive, transportation and heavy equipment.

These innovative solutions work together to acquire data more quickly, gain measurement flexibility and confidently execute test campaigns, to help durability testing engineers around the world to develop durable, high-quality products, faster.

A critical factor in successful durability engineering is gaining a precise understanding of the loads that products will undergo during their anticipated lifetimes. Siemens’ durability testing product line is enhanced with new road load data acquisition (RLDA) and load data processing solutions to maximize testing productivity. The primary addition to the durability testing portfolio is the LMS Test.Lab Durability Acquisition, a finely tuned durability data acquisition application for the LMS Test.Lab software suite.

This solution covers every step of the test campaign process in a coherent workflow: from channel setup through pre-instrumentation checks, real-time measurements, quick data validation, and seamless report sharing.

The backbone of the solution is the LMS SCADAS Recorder, which offers maximum measurement power in a single, rugged box. It enables durability engineers to perform virtually any load data measurement. The two new LMS SCADAS hardware modules being introduced enable synchronized video signal capture, which supports lengthy testing on public roads, and expanded temperature measurements, which supports testing under extreme conditions, particularly well-suited for engine compartment applications.

The second hardware component which is part of this solution is the LMS Smart Control 7” Android tablet and application, which provides on-thespot data recording validation during

and after each run to help prevent errors and costly test re-runs.

The final piece is the latest version of LMS Tecware software, a modular suite of advanced solutions for durability load data processing. LMS Tecware enables the efficient consolidation and analysis of gigabytes of raw load data.

LMS Tecware offers more accurate insights into the durability performance of new product designs throughout the development process.

Instron Offers Additional VisualRHEO Packages For Rheological Testing High Wycombe, July 2014 – VisualRHEO is a versatile software package dedicated to managing rheological tests and analysing data and is a fundamental part of Instron® CEAST SmartRheo single- and twinbore capillary rheometer systems.

When combined these products are designed to investigate the flow behavior of plastics over a wide range of shear conditions. Recent extensions are the VisualRHEO Advanced Analysis and the VisualRHEO Advanced Test Management packages, both designed to supply users with additional features in terms of testing procedures and data analysis.

The VisualRHEO software, which manages and analyzes data from rheological tests with steps at constant piston speed or shear rate, enables the technician to have full control over gathering data including viscosity, Bagley and Rabinowitsch corrections, and non-Newtonian index calculations. These results are displayed from both a numerical and a graphical point of view.

VisualRHEO is compatible with Windows® 2000/XP/Vista/7/8.1 and features: Real-time graphic display of the measured quantity Post-process graphs of rheological

quantities (apparent and corrected values) Password-protected operator access levels Export to spreadsheets, text files, and LIMS systems Test comparison and reference viscosity curves Advanced database search Instron’s new VisualRHEO Advanced Analysis Package adds many more features.

The Instron Centres of Excellence around the world ensure that behind every Instron system is an unprecedented commitment and dedication to quality and customer satisfaction.

Instron remains involved with various ASTM and ISO committees, gaining first-hand knowledge of recent and upcoming changes to standards that affect our customers.

Contact: Instron European Headquarters, Attn.

Sam Heudebourck, Coronation Road, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England, HP12 3SY Phone: +44 (0)1494 464646 www.instron.com Component manufacturer, REO UK, is building its first water-cooled resistors for ABB to test converters in shipping, railway engineering and water power plants environments REO is building its first water-cooled resistors for ABB to test converters used in shipping, railway engineering and water power plants. ABB already uses water-cooled systems but this project represented an opportunity for REO to apply knowledge gained in research areas from inductor and resistor construction to entire control boxes.

The load unit is comprised of 15 individual resistor groups each dissipating 30,000 kW of power using a coolant distribution system based on the REOhm BWD 330 resistor.

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UK’s first Centre for vibration measurement doors University of Leicester Advanced Structural Evaluation Centre

3D laser open its and MIRA Dynamics

The University of Leicester and MIRA launched the £2.5million Advanced Structural Dynamics Evaluation Centre (ASDEC) on Tuesday 8 July – the UK’s first commercial robotised 3D scanning laser vibration measurement and modal analysis centre.

The launch was held at the new ASDEC facility located at MIRA Technology Park near Hinckley.

The Centre has been developed by the University of Leicester and funded by grants from the Government’s Regional Growth Fund and the European Regional Development Fund.

Offering a full structural dynamics service covering vibration testing, modal analysis processing and CAE correlation, ASDEC is ideally placed to support the advanced testing and analysis requirements of customers across all industries.

The fully robotised 3D Scanning Laser Doppler Vibrometer allows for high speed and high density vibration measurements without any loss of accuracy or precision. The non-contact measurement technique removes all observer effects increasing the accuracy of the measurement.

The precise robot control and laser triangulation gives highly repeatable measurements ensuring the greatest precision.

Using industry leading technologies from companies such as Polytec and LMS, plus staff with more than 40 combined years of direct structural dynamics testing and development experience, and all backed up by the academic experts at the University of Leicester, ASDEC has the capability to deliver the next level of structural dynamics expertise to its customers.

Since 2010, MIRA Technology Park has created over 300 technology-related jobs as a result of the development.

The aim is to create a total of 2,000 jobs in the Technology Park by 2020 and house businesses from across the global automotive, aerospace, rail, defence and associated digital technology sectors.

The Centre is supported by the University of Leicester, the European Regional Development Fund and the Government’s Regional Growth Fund.

Blower engineered to operate at up to 180oC from ACI Engineered for working in high temperature environments of up to 180oC, the Air Control Industries ‘EP10AH’ industrial blower is suitable for many applications too trying for many alternative units.

ACI’s ‘EP10AH’ is designed to handle inlet temperatures of up to 180oC without any significant temperature increase of the bearings so unit longevity and low maintenance requirement is similar to those of the standard EP10.

Low temperature rise is achieved by integrating a heat dissipation ‘spinner’ disk in a vented housing between the blower unit and impeller. This avoids the need for cooling water and all related supply and drainage problems.

Other features enabling the EP10AH to function effectively in such high temperatures include the use of derated AC motors (standard motors effective up to 40oC) and a ‘finger-proof’ pierced metal belt guard (replacing the vacuum formed standard cover) that allows air to enter and circulate freely.

The EP10 family of blowers has a low maintenance requirement because the blower head is cast and machined as a single piece with equally spaced bearings configured specifically to provide even loading from the belt drive. This design is fundamentally different from other belt driven units and allows the belt to be run at a tension much lower than other belt driven units, therefore resulting in much lower loads on all parts of the assembly.

Air Control Industries Ltd, Millwey Industrial Estate, Axminster, Devon, EX13 5HU, UK. Tel. +44 (0)1297 529242

Smarter Testing ...... continued from page 23 performance. Using this technique, which is common in Europe, a small percentage of the test is slowed down but the majority is speeded up. Typical reduction in test time is in the range 50% to 75%.

Conclusion Use real material data as delivered and as in the finished component. Include the manufacturing

process as part of the conditioning and control it.

material

Evaluate the test that can be achieved with facilities available and provide feedback on what the test did including deflections and loads at the reactions.

Repeatability should be an essential of rig evaluation and all details of its configuration and settings recorded for

future repeat tests.

Exchange of information between Design, Manufacturing and Test is key to improving the whole process. Each of these engineering sections affects the others so independent actions must be avoided.

31

News from Women’s Engineering Society In this article I’ll concentrate on the issues facing women in engineering and what activities you can become involved in at WES. However, I cannot write an article without mentioning National Women in Engineering Day (NWED). On the 23rd of June the Women’s Engineering Society celebrated its 95th birthday by launching NWED which was the brain child of Dawn Bonfield, Vice President of WES and WES Office Manager. The aim of the day was to celebrate the work that women do in engineering, and to showcase the great engineering careers that are available for girls. WES held the “Women in Engineering: The Challenge” conference at the IMechE in London and over 80 organisations including universities, companies and institutions and over 200 schools held events covering everything from editing Wikipedia to launching new engineering polices; fun activates for girls to female network events. The interest in this day was amazing with tweets topping the World Cup and Wimbledon. This will now become an annual event. To find out more see http://www.nwed.org.uk/ WES is an old but small membership organisation run mainly by enthusiastic volunteers, many of whom are working mothers. All members have a passion for engineering and for promoting engineering to women. I’m often asked why bother, surely women’s brains are wired differently and they are not cut out to be engineers? Strangely this was the same argument that was put forward in the medical profession; however, there are now more females than males entering the medical profession due in part to more flexible working conditions: part time working, term time working, job sharing.

Maybe engineering should now be encouraging some of these females to study biomedical engineering and

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really make an impact in the medical profession?

The problem starts at school and it is often thought that girls are not as good as boys at maths and physics but in actual fact girls outperform the boys but are discouraged from continuing with these ‘difficult’ subjects, thus cutting off their route to engineering very early in their lives.

The next problem is showing the link between these subjects and engineering and emphasizing the fact that engineering is a creative and rewarding profession requiring an analytical mind and is not about fixing engines.

Once a female decides to enter engineering the problems continue and I am still saddened to hear about the difficulties women face, with academia appearing to be the worst culprits. These include derogative remarks, sexist attitudes and blatant discrimination. I can honestly say in industry I have not encountered any problems and more importantly my company embraces diversity and are actively encouraging more women to join. However, many women have fought hard against the system and given up. The impact of this is that women give up a profession they love due to antiquated attitudes but more importantly it discourages other women from entering the profession.

So where does WES fit in and why join WES? You can like most organisations join and take a back seat while enjoying the e-newsletter, journal (http:// w w w. w e s . o r g . uk/content/ enewsletter-andjournal) and maybe the occasional conference or you can become an active member and follow your passion.

WES first and foremost provides a network for likeminded people to get together and note I said people; WES does welcome and in fact encourages men to join as associate members. It is so important in a male dominated industry that men also see the benefit of having more women in the industry and actively encourage more women to take up engineering. We want more men to attend our conferences and to present; you will be surprised at how interesting the conferences are and the range of technical subjects covered.

Through the network we can provide support to women who often feel isolated and assume the problems they are facing are their fault. However, there are so many activities to get involved with and many women use WES to gain experience in an area of interest or to increase their profile.

Activities include but are not limited to: presenting, organising events, visiting organisations, mentoring, administrating awards, applying for grants, managing staff, editing webpages, representing WES at events and discussing polices with government.

In general women do think differently to men but this difference should be embraced. Engineering needs diversity, its leads to a better working environment, better products and has been shown to increase a company’s profits by as much as 50%.

Dr Carol Marsh, Electronics Technical Manager and President of WES http://www.wes.org.uk/

News from British Standards Revision of BS 7000-2 August 2014 BSI’s TDW/4/7 committee on design for manufacture, assembly, disassembly and end-of-life processing (MADE) – chaired by Prof Brian Griffiths – has recently started new work on a revision of the design management standard, BS 7000-2.

This is a new venture for TDW/4/7 as the committee has previously focussed on its BS 8887 series on design for MADE: • BS 8887-1:2006, Design for MADE – Part 1: General concepts, process and requirements; • BS 8887-2:2009, Design for MADE – Part 2: Terms and definitions; • BS 8887-220, Design for MADE – Part 220: The process of remanufacture; • BS 8887-240, Design for MADE – Part 240: Reconditioning; • BS 8887-211, Design for MADE – Part 211, Specification for reworking and remarketing of computing hardware.

BS 7000-2, Guide to managing the design of manufactured products, was first published in 1997 with a second edition produced in 2008. The standard gives guidance on managing the design of all types of manufactured products.

It deals with every stage of the process from product concept through to delivery, use and ultimate disposal. It addresses all levels of management, in all types of organizations involved in design.

TDW/4/7 is revising the 2008 edition to update it to include the thinking and principles enshrined in the BS 8887 series. As BS 7000-2 is a wellused and popular standard within the design community, the intention is

to cross-refer to the BS 8887 series in the revised version and introduce a new audience of designers to TDW/4/7’s design for MADE series.

The newly updated version of the standard will, in particular, highlight the end-of-life processing issues that have been addressed in BS 8887, i.e. remanufacture, reconditioning, remarketing.

Drafting work on BS 7000-2 is currently ongoing with a small drafting panel of TDW/4/7 experts meeting to review the current standard and put forward changes for improvement. A draft for public comment version is expected to be released in early 2015 for its two month public comment phase. All standards released for public comment in the UK can be viewed on BSI’s “draft review system” on the BSI website at http://drafts.bsigroup.com/. You can search for standards by keywords or browse by subject and submit comments on any of the documents on the site. The forecast publication date for the updated BS 7000-2 is currently set for mid 2015.

In addition to the BS 7000-2 project, TDW/4/7 committee members have also been busy within the international standards arena, ISO, on work to convert TDW/4/7’s BS 8887-1 into an international standard. Brian Griffiths is UK Convenor of the international working group, ISO/TC 10 WG20, set up to develop the new international standard ISO 8887-1. Brian is leading a group of international experts – with participation from China, Japan, the USA, Germany, Sweden and Finland – to create TDW/4/7’s first international standard. At the recent 2014 annual meeting series of international standards committee ISO/TC 10 – hosted by BSI in May 2014 at its west London offices in Chiswick – WG20 held a meeting to resolve working group comments on the draft. Another working group meeting has been set for early October, again hosted by BSI in Chiswick, at which point the draft will be released for another internal voting stage. The working group is

then aiming to release a draft for public comment version in 2015.

Finally, one last item of news from the Design for MADE committee.

TDW/4/7 committee member Dr Richard Bateman of Brunel University’s Innovative Manufacturing Collaborative Research Network (IMCRN) hosted an awareness raising event for the BS 8887 series of standards at the University’s campus in Uxbridge on Wednesday 7th May. The event, entitled “Are you ready for the future of manufacturing?”, focussed on the remanufacturing and remarketing parts of the BS 8887 series and was deemed to be a great success. Speakers from BSI, the TDW/4/7 committee area, the KTNs and Brunel University all contributed to a successful and interesting day.

TDW/4/7 is now looking into options for re-running the event at different venues throughout the country.

With all of this work and activity, TDW/4/7 – and the broader TDW/4 committee area – is always looking for new committee members and experts to join its drafting groups, national committees or international working groups.

Further general information on taking part in standards work can be found at : h t t p : / / w w w. b s i g r o u p . c o m / e n / Standards-and-Publications/Aboutstandards/What-are-the-benefits-ofstandards/ If you would like more information on any of TDW/4/7’s specific projects or work programme or if you would like to get involved in the Design for MADE committee, please contact Sarah Kelly, Lead Programme Manager – Committee Secretary to TDW/4, at BSI on sarah.kelly@bsigroup.com.

Sarah Kelly

33

Institution of Mechanical Engineers skills and to get a taste of a real business experience.

Transport for London apprentices and graduates triumph at national competition to make best locomotive

“The Challenge presents a unique opportunity for these young engineers to convert their designs into practical applications. The competition is gruelling and runs along the lines of a real-life tendering process. The

A team of budding engineers from Transport for London (TfL) have won a national competition to design and manufacture the most efficient, reliable and quietest smallscale locomotive at a competition held at Stapleford Miniature Railway near Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire.

The team went head-to-head with teams from Derby’s Interfleet Technology Ltd (2nd), Birmingham University (3rd) and Huddersfield University (4th).

The locomotives are designed to work on 10¼” gauge railway line and compete whilst hauling a 600kg load – which includes one of the Railway Challenge judges.

Group Captain Mark Hunt, President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, who presented TfL with their award, said: “TfL did fantastically well, particularly being competition newcomers, to produce the most innovative and reliable locomotive.

“It is fantastic to see the ingenuity, ambition and team-work of these young engineers. The Railway Challenge gives students, graduates and apprentices a fantastic opportunity to test their engineering

34

teams have to prepare a business case, safety case, financial plans and design, and have to build a locomotive from scratch.

“I would like to congratulate not only TfL, but all the teams for taking part.”

Luke Foy, Team Leader for the TfL team said: “We are delighted with this win given how hard the team has worked over the past months.

“Taking part in this competition has helped us gain first-hand experience of the whole process of developing a locomotive, which will be hugely valuable to our future careers maintaining and developing London’s rail and underground network.”

The Institution’s Railway Challenge, which is now in its third year, saw a

new competition element in 2014 focusing on noise. The other practical challenges were the energy storage challenge, where teams need to ensure that the locomotive is able to store energy during braking and then use it to drive the locomotive forward again, the traction challenge and the ride comfort challenge. The teams were also assessed on a business presentation and the design of the locomotive.

In the end, competition newcomers, TfL came first storming to victory on the energy storage challenge – which holds the most marks for the competition.

The TfL team managed to propel the locomotive forward almost 10 metres, compared to the next best locomotive, Interfleet, which moved it two metres.

Interfleet did however win the traction challenge, Birmingham University won the noise challenge and Huddersfield University had the best score for their business presentation.

Group News Sound Quality & Product Perception Group Report on Workshop and Exhibition held at Brunel University London - 8 July 2014 The Sound Quality & Product Perception Workshop was held jointly with the University of Brunel’s Human Centred Design Institute (HCDI) on 8th July 2014.

The event was a great success and workshops were well attended by delegates from a wide range of disciplines from both the UK and abroad. For the morning session delegates split into small groups to rotate between 3 different workshops, the first time we have tried this format. The small group sizes afforded delegates the opportunity for hands-on as well as classroom learning.

provided delegates with an introduction to sound quality metrics and their use in industry via a number of practical examples with accompanying background theory.

During the lunch period research students from several Universities across the UK took part in a poster competition sponsored by Brunel University.

The subject had to involve sound/ vibration quality, psychoacoustics or NVH related humancentred cognative interaction. Their posters focused on the impact of the

(JoTech) and Mark Burnett (MIRA) as well as Brunel University for enabling us to run the competition.

After lunch delegates attended a seminar presentation given by Professor Joseph Giacomin (Director of the Human Centred Design Institute, Brunel University) on the subject of ‘Perception Enhancement for Automotive Steering Systems’. This covered recent research on use of a vehicle steering system simulator to evaluate how various human subjects within a controlled ‘jury panel’ perceived a range of different road surface inputs.

The event was also supported by an exhibition of suppliers of sound and vibration measurement, analysis and evaluation equipment.

This was well-received by delegates who were able to visit the different stands at various points throughout the day.

The SVPP committee is very pleased with the feedback from attendees 56% of delegates rated their overall experience as excellent and a further 38% as good, indicating that people felt positive about the event and found attending worthwhile.

Seminar session presented by Professor Joseph Giacomin (standing on right hand side)

Roger Traynor from Polytec delivered a session on Laser Vibrometry entitled ‘ See What’s Happening to your Structure’, which included a live demonstrate of the use of a scanning vibrometer on a lightweight structure.

Roger Williams from Bruel & Kjaer focused on an ‘Interactive Assessment of Vehicle Sound Quality: Target Setting and Jury Evaluation’. A B&K NVH simulator was used for a live demonstration of vehicle auralisation and assessment and how target sounds can be refined and realistically experienced without driving the actual vehicle.

The final workshop, ‘Sound Metrics Unleased’, led by Andrew McQueen from Siemens, allowed delegates the opportunity to try out software and

reach and significance of the research they had undertaken, highlighting how their work would accelerate further research development within the automotive sector. Students were given the opportunity to present their posters John Wilkinson to a panel of judges and the winning Chairman prize was awarded to Arthur Marker from the University of Southampton.

Second place was awarded to Sneha Singh from the University of Warwick.

Congratulations to both winners who won prizes of £300 and £200 r e s p e c t i v e l y.

Thank you to our judges, John Wilkinson (EIS Director), Exhibition of equipment suppliers Dave Fish

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Group News Simulation, Test & Measurement Group In the last issue, we were looking forward to the Silverstone Instrumentation Exhibition in March. This seems a long time ago now; but I do remember that it was bigger and better than ever! Planning is already underway for the same event in 2015, and I can assure you that we will be building on the success of this year by incorporating the feedback that was given by attendees. The forums were

interesting, and it is always good to hear from experts and audience alike, sharing ideas and experience. This brings me on to the series of events that the STMG group has been organising.

Last September’s Hydraulics event at Star Hydraulics was so successful that we are having another one this year on 25th September at MOOG. This is entitled “The Future of Hydraulics in Mechanical Testing”. In addition, we are having an event at MIRA which is covering “The Fundamentals of Vehicle Data Collection”. This has already proven so popular that we have a waiting list for places! Not wishing to disappoint anyone, we are trying to organise a repeat event early

in 2015. Our series of informal day events is therefore well underway, and we have been pleasantly surprised by the interest shown. Maybe we should not be so surprised, since it is a great opportunity for engineers to discuss some of the basic practical aspects of testing that are often not covered anywhere else. Our other groups are also planning similar events, so keep watching for something on Fatigue pretty soon. If you have any ideas for topics that could be covered, please let me know and we will try to see what can be done.

Geoff Rowlands Chairman

Corporate Members The following companies are corporate members of the Engineering Integrity Society. We thank them for their continued support which helps the Society to run its wide-ranging events throughout the year.

AcSoft Ltd Bruel and Kjaer Data Physics Datron Technology GOM HBM HGL Dynamics Instron Interface Force Measurements Kemo Kistler M&P International

Micro-Epsilon Millbrook MIRA MOOG MTS Systems Muller BBM Nprime PDS Projects Ltd Polytec Rutherford Appleton Lab Safe Technology Sensors UK

New Personal Members Andrea Casarin Steve Sewell Russell Cross Eddie Edwards Glen Pascoe Mark Blocksidge

36

- Trelleborg - Trelleborg - First Light Engineering - Controlled Power Technologies - GKN - Pico Technology Ltd

Servotest Siemens PLM Software Smart Fibres Stack Star Hydraulics Techni Measure THP Systems Tiab TRaC Transmission Dynamics Yokogawa Zwick

Committee Members President: Peter Watson O.B.E. Directors Robert Cawte, HBM United Kingdom................................................................................................................ 0121 7331837 Graham Hemmings........................................................................................................................................... 0121 5203838 Richard Hobson, Serco Rail Technical Services............................................................................................... 01332 263534 Trevor Margereson, Engineering Consultant .................................................................................................... 07881 802410 Geoff Rowlands, MIRA ..................................................................................................................................... 02476 355517 Norman Thornton, Engineering Consultant....................................................................................................... 07866 815200 John Wilkinson, Engineering Consultant .......................................................................................................... 07747 006475 Chairman Trevor Margereson, Engineering Consultant .................................................................................................... 07881 802410 Vice Chairman Richard Hobson, Serco Technical & Assurance Services................................................................................. 01332 263534 Treasurer Graham Hemmings, Engineering Consultant.................................................................................................... 0121 5203838 Company Secretary Geoff Rowlands, MIRA ..................................................................................................................................... 02476 355517 EIS Secretariat Sara Atkin...........................................................................................................................................................01572 811315 Communications Sub Committee – ‘Engineering Integrity’ Journal of the EIS Honorary Editor Karen Perkins, Swansea University ................................................................................................................. 01792 513029 Managing Editor Catherine Pinder .............................................................................................................................................. 07979 270998

Durability & Fatigue Group Chairman Robert Cawte, HBM United Kingdom................................................................................................................ 0121 7331837 Members John Atkinson, Sheffield Hallam University .......................................................................................................01142 252014 Martin Bache, Swansea University ................................................................................................................... 01792 295287 Peter Blackmore, Jaguar Land Rover............................................................................................................... 01926 923715 Feargal Brennan, Cranfield University ............................................................................................................. 01234 758249 Amirebrahim Chahardehi, Cranfield University................................................................................................. 01234 754631 John Draper, Safe Technology..........................................................................................................................0114 268 6444 Lee Gilbert, TRaC Global.................................................................................................................................. 01926 478478 Karl Johnson, Zwick Roell Group...................................................................................................................... 0777957 8913 Karen Perkins, University of Swansea ............................................................................................................. 01792 513029 Davood Sarchamy, British Aerospace Airbus.......................................................................................................0117 936861 Giora Shatil, Gamesa Wind UK.................................................................................................................................................

Andy Stiles, Aero Engine Controls.................................................................................................................... 0121 6276600 James Trainor, Jaguar Land Rover................................................................................................................... 01926 646424 John Yates, University of Manchester............................................................................................................... 0161 2754331

37

Committee Members Simulation, Test & Measurement Group Chairman Geoff Rowlands, MIRA ..................................................................................................................................... 02476 355517 Members Paul Armstrong, Amber Instruments.................................................................................................................. 01246 260250 Ian Bell, National Instruments .......................................................................................................................... 01635 572409 Steve Coe, Data Physics (UK).......................................................................................................................... 01323 846464 Colin Dodds, Dodds & Associates..................................................................................................................... 07880 554590 Dave Ensor, MIRA............................................................................................................................................. 02476 355295 Graham Hemmings, Engineering Consultant.................................................................................................... 0121 5203838 Richard Hobson, Serco Rail Technical Services............................................................................................... 01332 263534 Trevor Margereson, Engineering Consultant..................................................................................................... 07881 802410 Andrew McQueen, Siemens PLM Software...................................................................................................... 02476 408120 Ray Pountney, Engineering Consultant............................................................................................................. 01245 320751 Tim Powell, Bruel & Kjaer VTS.......................................................................................................................... 01763 255780 Nick Richardson, Servotest............................................................................................................................... 01784 274428 Paul Roberts, HBM United Kingdom ................................................................................................................ 0785 2945988 Jarek Rosinski, Transmission Dynamics........................................................................................................... 0191 5800058 Bernard Steeples, Engineering Consultant....................................................................................................... 01621 828312 Norman Thornton, Engineering Consultant....................................................................................................... 07866 815200 Jeremy Yarnall, Consultant Engineer................................................................................................................ 01332 875450 Conway Young, Tiab ......................................................................................................................................... 01295 714046

Sound & Vibration Product Perception Group Chairman John Wilkinson, Engineering Consultant .......................................................................................................... 07747 006475 Members Marco Ajovalasit, Brunel University................................................................................................................... 01895 267134 Joe Armstrong, Polytec .....................................................................................................................................01582 711670 Alan Bennetts, Bay Systems............................................................................................................................. 01458 860393 Dave Boast, D B Engineering Solutions ........................................................................................................... 01225 743592 Mark Burnett, MIRA .......................................................................................................................................... 02476 355329 Gary Dunne, Jaguar Land Rover ..................................................................................................................... 02476 206573 Andrew Hillis, University of Bath....................................................................................................................... 01225 384977 David Fish, JoTech ........................................................................................................................................... 01827 830606 Henrietta Howarth, Southampton University.......................................................................................... 023 8059 4963/2277 Peter Jackson, European Acoustical Products.................................................................................................. 01986 897082 Paul Jennings, Warwick University ................................................................................................................... 02476 523646 Richard Johnson, Sound & Vibration Technology ............................................................................................ 01525 408502 Chris Knowles, JCB .......................................................................................................................................... 01889 593900 Jon Richards, Honda UK .................................................................................................................................. 01793 417238 Ian Strath, Siemens PLM Software .................................................................................................................. 02476 408120 Keith Vickers, Bruel & Kjaer UK ....................................................................................................................... 01223 389800

38

Profile of Company Members GOM UK

HBM United Kingdom Ltd

14 The Cobalt Centre Siskin Parkway East Coventry CV3 4PE

Innovation Technology Centre – AMP Brunel Way Catcliffe Rotherham S60 5WG

Tel: +44 (0)2476 639920 Email: Info-uk@gom.com Website: www.gom.com Contact: Rob Wood GOM – Professional 3D optical measurement.

For material and component testing GOM Deformation products include Digital Image Correlation (DIC), point tracking and forming analysis. All systems are 3D and noncontact, DIC using a speckle pattern to give full field strain results, ideal for FEA comparison.

The GOM ATOS 3D scanner is developed for reverse engineering and dimensional control of components. Fast, accurate scans are now an established way of reducing product development times and ensuring highest quality components.

Tel: +44 (0)114 254 1246 Fax: +44 (0)114 254 14245 Email: ncode@hbm.com Website: www.hbm.com & www.hbm.com/ncode Contact: Kim Hurt HBM is a global market leader in test and measurement, and weighing technology offering complete measurement solutions from sensor to software for industrial and laboratory applications. Together with advanced DAQ systems, HBM provides transducers for torque, force, pressure, strain, displacement and load. nCode products are provided by HBM and for over 25 years has been the leading brand for durability and data analysis solutions. nCode software and services help customers understand product performance, accelerate product development and improve design.

HGL Dynamics Limited

Millbrook Proving Ground Ltd

Hamilton Barr House Bridge Mews Godalming Surrey GU7 1HZ

Station Lane Millbrook Bedfordshire MK45 2JQ

Tel: +44(0)1483 415177 Email: info@hgl-dynamics.com Website: www.hgl-dynamics.com Contact: Dr Jim Hone or Dr Andrew Law HGL Dynamics offers a range of wide bandwidth data acquisition, analysis and archiving systems utilising PC platforms and commercial off-the-shelf technology. With a solid history and wealth of experience in gas turbine testing working with major European and North America gas turbine manufacturers you can be sure that HGL understands the strategic value and importance of critical test data. HGL offers systems from ultra portable 12 channel solutions to corporate wide systems with full integration and remote interrogation capability.

Tel: +44 (0)1525 404242 Fax: +44 (0)1525 403420 Email: neil.fulton@millbrook.co.uk Website: www.millbrook.co.uk Contact: Neil Fulton Millbrook is one of Europe’s leading locations for the development and demonstration of every type of land vehicle, from motorcycles and passenger cars to heavy commercial, military and off-road vehicles. Our custombuilt facility provides virtually every test, validation and Homologation service necessary for today’s demanding programmes, complemented by a worldwide reputation for confidentiality, service and competitiveness.

We also engineer, develop and build low-volume service vehicles, trial and evaluate vehicle capability, investigate inservice failures and provide specialist Driver Training.

39

Profile of Company Members MIRA Ltd

Servotest Testing Systems Ltd

Watling Street Nuneaton Warwickshire CV10 0TU

Unit 1, Beta Way Thorpe Industrial Estate Egham TW20 8RE

Tel: +44 (0)247 635 5000 Fax: +44 (0)247 635 8000 Email: enquiries@mira.co.uk Website: www.mira.co.uk Contact: Kristy Thompson, Marketing Manager

Tel: +44 (0)1784 274410 Fax: +44 (0)1784 274438 Email: info@servotestsystems.com Website: www.servotestsystems.com Contact: Nick Richardson

MIRA is a highly customer-focused, world-class, independent vehicle engineering consultancy, shaping everything we do around the partnerships we create. We harness the skills, experience and knowledge of our talented experts to provide our customers with intelligent solutions to their challenging problems. MIRA offers full system design, test and integration expertise to the global automotive, defence, rail and transport industries. MIRAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s technical facilities provide a truly global centre of excellence from which to innovate, engineer, test and implement market changing solutions.

Servotest design, manufacture and supply servohydraulic systems for motion simulation, characterisation and endurance testing. Bespoke solutions can be provided for special testing requirements. The systems provided cover a wide spectrum of applications including for example: Damper testing, 4 & 7 post vehicle test rigs, MAST systems for automotive & earthquake simulation, high temperature high rate deformation of materials and many more. The equipment includes hydrostatic bearing actuators, test frames, hydraulic supply & distribution, Pulsar digital controllers for single and multi channel requirements.

RAL Space, S.T.F.C. Rutherford Laboratory

Smart Fibres Ltd

Harwell Didcot Oxford OX11 0QX

Brants Bridge Bracknell RG12 9BG

Tel: +44 (0)1235 445040 Fax: +44 (0)1235 445318 Email: giles.case@stfc.ac.uk Website: www.stfc.ac.uk/ralspace/Facilities/11324.aspx Contact: Giles Case

Tel: +44 (0)1344 484111 Fax: +44 (0)1344 486759 Email: info@smartfibres.com Website: www.smartfibres.com Contact: Ben Hunter

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Winning Poster from the Sound Quality & Product Perception Workshop held 10 April 2014 at the Human Centred Design Institute, Brunel University

Runner-up Poster from the Sound Quality & Product Perception Workshop held 10 April 2014 at the Human Centred Design Institute, Brunel University

A methodology for evaluating electric vehicle exterior sounds Sneha Singh, Sarah R Payne, James B Mackrill, and Paul A Jennings WMG, The University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, United Kingdom

Introduction People interacting with vehicle sounds

Electric Vehicles (EVs) are quieter at low speeds than combustion engine vehicles. EVs are thus, harder to detect and may risk pedestrians’ safety.

Legislators

Safety Pedestrians, Cyclists

New laws will mandate that EVs emit exterior sounds to alert pedestrians of the vehicle’s approach.

EV Sounds: Evaluation Issues

Vehicle exterior sounds affect urban soundscapes and a listener’s perception of the vehicle brand.

candidate EV sounds on these issues.

Vehicle Manufacturers Automotive suppliers

The Public Local Authorities / Noise Management Specialists

Sound scape

 No standard methodologies exist to evaluate

Research Aim

Brand

• To develop an appropriate methodology for evaluating electric vehicle exterior sounds

Research method

Methodological guidelines for evaluating EV sounds

Literature

Current vehicle sound evaluation methods Experimental design

Research Research project project

Legal specifications for EV sounds

 Propose initial methodology Manufacturers NVH Targets

 Test and Validate methodology using evaluation experiments with human participants

Sample EV sounds

 Improve methodology based

Recommendations

Knowledge Base

on results and learning

Policy makers Policy makers

Results and Learning

for EV sound evaluation

 Propose guidelines

Testing the methodology

for for EV EV sound sound evaluation evaluation

Validating the methodology in real-world

Touch screen evaluation interface

Proposed methodology:  evaluate EV sounds using virtual environments to simulate realistic scenarios of pedestrian-vehicle interaction to: •

•

assess detectability (ability to be detected) of EV sounds for pedestrian’s safety

Visual stimuli Experiment in the WMG lab

assess emotional attributes of EV sounds to understand impression of the vehicle brand

Brüel and Kjær Exterior Sound Simulator simulated a town Tjunction in the lab. 31 participants evaluated an EV emitting 15 sounds.

Measures: • Detection time • 7-point scales to rate EV as sounding powerful, pleasant

 Result & feedback: add subjective scales to evaluate sounds as being detectable and recognisable as vehicle

Experiment in the real-world 14 participants evaluated EV sounds at a real-world residential crossing.

Experiment was repeated using the revised methodology in WMG lab.

Measures: • Detection distance • 7-point scales to rate EV sounds as being “recognisable as vehicle”, “detectable” and; EV as sounding “powerful”, “pleasant”

 No significant difference between lab and real-world ratings of detectable, powerful & pleasant (p<.05)

Significance and Reach Vision: “EV sounds that enhance safety, brand and urban soundscapes”

More information Publications

Knowledge contribution •

New evaluation methodology for automotive sound quality literature that improves upon current on-road and lab evaluation methods by introducing virtual environment in the lab for greater experimental control, context, and external validity

Deliverables to automotive industry

• •

Set of guidelines for exterior sound evaluation during vehicle design Theoretical model to understand the process of vehicle sound evaluation by potential customers

Acknowledgments

•

Thank you to Brüel and Kjær, WMG centre High Value Manufacturing Catapult, and Nissan, UK for their support.

sneha.singh@warwick.ac.uk

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