Due to their light weight and high performance, fiberreinforced composites are being increasingly used in various commercial products in aerospace and automotive industries. Emerging new methods such as liquid composite molding (LCM) and resin transfer molding (RTM) offer an economic, versatile, and efficient means for manufacturing geometrically complex, large composites. RTM process consists ...

In this paper, we present an embedded knowledge-base system and apply it to estimate the manufacturing cost of molded parts. This system is designed on a tiny single board computer, called the “GumstixTM”, which is an inexpensive and high-performance miniaturized platform. It consists of a knowledge-base, knowledge processing units and server service unit for user interactions, all of which are...

In this study, the relationship between skin structure and shear strength distribution of thin-wall injection molded polypropylene (PP) molded at different molecular weight and molecular distribution was investigated. Skin-core structure, cross-sectional morphology, crystallinity, crystal orientation, crystal morphology and molecular orientation were evaluated by using polarized optical microsc...

Through a twin-screw extrusion process the native structure of sunflower oil cake was completely transformed (globular protein denaturation/texturization and husk fiber defibration) into a simpler matrix-fiber structure, as could be seen on SEM micrographs. Further chemical reduction of protein disulfide bridges greatly reduced the melt viscosity of the moistened composite that it could be inje...

We describe molecular-scale soft nanoimprint lithographic replication of rubbed polyimide substrates to form alignment layers for liquid crystal devices. Systematic studies of the surface relief morphology of the polyimide and molded structures in three different polymers illustrate good lithographic fidelity down to relief heights of several nanometers, and with some capabilities at the level ...

In this article, we report on a flexible sensor based on a sandpaper molded elastomer that simultaneously detects planar displacement, rotation angle, and vertical contact pressure. When displacement, rotation, and contact pressure are applied, the contact area between the translating top elastomer electrode and the stationary three bottom electrodes change characteristically depending on the m...

One prominent characteristic of product design for injection molded parts is that design and analysis (e.g. flow simulation) go hand-in-hand to ensure that the design is manufacturable by the injection molding process. Despite the wide use of CAD and CAE systems, it is known that communication between the two processes is poor. In this paper we propose a feature-based CAD-CAE integration model ...