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THE modern aeroplane is constructed largely from sheet metal. As such, the most important production problems are those of sheet metal forming, and assembling. Production is here considered as not only the act of forming and assembling the required number of parts, but also the making of forming tools, and all processing of parts such as heat‐treating. Only that phase of the above concept of production which deals with the tooling for production and the forming and heat‐treating will be considered here. The design of the aircraft parts will also be discussed somewhat, for it is obvious that the design of the part (designed shape and materials used) frequently determines whether the part can or cannot be readily made.

PolyJet technology allows printing complex multi-material composite configurations using Voxel digital designs' capability, thus allowing rapid prototyping of 3D printed structural parts. This paper aims to investigate the processing and mechanical characteristics of composite material configurations formed from soft and hard materials with different distributions and sizes via voxel digital print design.

Voxels are extruded representations of pixels and represent different material information similar to each pixel representing colors in digital images. Each geometric region of a digitally designed part represented by a voxel can be printed with a different material. Multi-material composite part configurations were formed and rapidly prototyped using a PolyJet printer Stratasys J750. A design of experiments composite part configuration of a soft material (Tango Plus) within a hard material matrix (Vero Black) was studied. Composite structures with different hard and soft material distributions, but at the same volume fractions of hard and soft materials, were rapidly prototyped via PolyJet printing through developed Voxel digital printing designs. The tensile behavior of these formed composite material configurations was studied.

Processing and mechanical behavior characteristics depend on materials in different regions and their distributions. Tensile characterization obtained the fracture energy, tensile strength, modulus and failure strength of different hard-soft composite systems. Mechanical properties and behavior of all different composite material systems are compared.

Tensile characteristics correlate to digital voxel designs that play a critical role in additive manufacturing, in addition to the formed material composition and distributions.

Results clearly indicate that multi-material composite systems with various tensile mechanical properties could be created using voxel printing by engineering the design of material distributions, and sizes. The important parameters such as inclusion size and distribution can easily be controlled within all slices via voxel digital designs in PolyJet printing. Therefore, engineers and designers can manipulate entire morphology and material at each voxel level, and different prototype morphologies can be created with the same voxel digital design. In addition, difficulties from AM process with voxel printing for such material designs is addressed, and effective digital solutions were used for successful prototypes. Some of these difficulties are extra support material or printing the part with different dimension than it designed to achieve the final part dimension fidelity. Present work addressed and resolved such issued and provided cyber based software solutions using CAD and voxel discretization. All these increase broad adaptability of PolyJet AM in industry for prototyping and end-use.

Custom-designed metal bellows require alternate ways to produce the die to shorten lead time. The purpose of this study is to explore the possibility of using Additive Manufactured (AM) polymer die as direct rapid tool (RT) for metal bellow hydroforming.

Finite element analysis (FEA) was used to simulate bellow forming and to evaluate the compatibility of AM die. Fused deposition modelling (FDM) technique is used to fabricate die with Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) material. To validate, the width of the metal bellow convolutions obtained from the FEA simulation is compared with convolution formed during the experiment.

FDM-made die can be used for a short production run of bellow hydroforming. FEA simulation shows that stress developed in some regions of die is less and these regions have potential for material reduction. Use of RT for this particular application is limited by the die material, forming pressure, width, convolution span and material of bellow. This supports the importance of FEA validation of RT before fabrication to evaluate and redesign die for the successful outcome of the tool.

The given methodology may be followed to design a RT with minimum material consumption for bellow forming application. Whenever there is a change in bellow design or the die material, simulation has to be done to evaluate the capability of the die. As this study was focused on a short production run for manufacturing one or few bellows, the die life is not a significant factor.

This paper demonstrates about rapid tooling for metal bellow manufacturing using FDM technique for low volume production. Further, FEA is used to identify low stress regions and redesign the die for material reduction before die manufacturing. AM die can be used for developing customized metal bellow for applications such as defense, aerospace, automobiles, etc.

Through many years of study, we have found that cold quantum is the most important force in nature. Under the pressure of coldness on hotness, various materials are formed. Under the pressure of cold quantum, these materials are provided with gravity, and celestial bodies start to move. The pressure of cold quantum exists in space and materials. It is the pressure of cold quantum that huge changes between the four seasons on the earth begin to appear. The whirlpool, produced from the cold quantum pressure, pushes all the celestial bodies making them turn and change. The coldness converts frozen water into ice, which could not be achieved by any other force. The extreme and powerful strength of cold quantum has been well‐known. Therefore, we claim that the cold quantum pressure is the greatest force which ever existed in the universe.

The role of intermetallics in soldered joints is ambivalent. They are an essential part of joints to common basis materials and at low levels they have a strengthening effect on solder alloys. At higher levels, however, it is well known that they can cause joint embrittlement. In this paper three aspects of their role have been studied: the microstructure of intermetallic containing solder alloys, the effects of soldering parameters on the quantity of intermetallic formed and, finally, the rates of growth of intermetallic compounds in the solid state. The results suggest that alloys which are pre‐doped with copper tend to form slightly more interfacial intermetallic during soldering than those which are not. In the solid state the rates of growth appear to be a function of the melting point of the alloy, with the higher melting point lead‐free alloys exhibiting lower rates than lower melting point alloys such as 63Sn37Pb (183∞C) or 42Sn58Bi (138∞C).

Anodizing is used widely in the surface treatment of aluminium alloys for aerospace applications. Considers recent advances in understanding of the influences of alloying elements in anodizing of aluminium alloys and, in particular, their applicability to second phase particles during anodizing of commercial alloys. Through more precise knowledge of the response of second phase materials to anodic polarization, improved anodizing and related surface treatment processes may be developed in order to enhance the performance of aluminium alloys.

The purpose of this paper is to provide industrial, education and academic users of computer programs a basic overview of finite elements in metal forming that will enable them to recognize the pitfalls of the existing formulations, identify the possible sources of errors and understand the routes for validating their numerical results.

The methodology draws from the fundamentals of the finite elements, plasticity and material science to aspects of computer implementation, modelling, accuracy, reliability and validation. The approach is illustrated and enriched with selected examples obtained from research and industrial metal forming applications.

The presentation is a step towards diminishing the gap being formed between developers of the finite element computer programs and the users having the know‐how on the metal forming technology. It is shown that there are easy and efficient ways of refreshing and upgrading the knowledge and skills of the users without resorting to complicated theoretical and numerical topics that go beyond their knowledge and most often are lectured out of metal forming context.

The overall content of the paper is enhancement of previous work in the field of sheet and bulk metal forming, and from experience in lecturing these topics to students in graduate and post‐graduate courses and to specialists of metal forming from industry.

Nano‐imprint forming (NIF) is a manufacturing technology capable of achieving high resolution, low‐cost and high‐throughput fabrication of fine nano‐scale structures and patterns. The purpose of this paper is to use modelling technologies to simulate key process steps associated with the formation of patterns with sub‐micrometer dimensions and use the results to define design rules for optimal imprint forming process.

The effect of a number of process and pattern‐related parameters on the quality of the fabricated nano‐structures is studied using non‐linear finite element analysis. The deformation process of the formable material during the mould pressing step is modelled using contact analysis with large deformations and temperature dependent hyperelastic material behaviour. Finite element analysis with contact interfaces between the mould and the formable material is utilised to study the formation of mechanical, thermal and friction stresses in the pattern.

The imprint pressure, temperature and the aspect ratio of grooves which define the pattern have significant effect on the quality of the formed structures. The optimal imprint pressure for the studied PMMA is identified. It is found that the degree of the mould pattern fulfilment as function of the imprint pressure is non‐linear. Critical values for thermal mismatch difference in the CTE between the mould and the substrate causing thermally induced stresses during cooling stage are evaluated. Regions of high stresses in the pattern are also identified.

Design rules for minimising the risk of defects such as cracks and shape imperfections commonly observed in NIF‐fabricated nano‐structures are presented. The modelling approach can be used to provide insights into the optimal imprint process control. This can help to establish further the technology as a viable route for fabrication of nano‐scale structures and patterns.

This paper gives a review of the finite element techniques (FE) applied in the area of material processing. The latest trends in metal forming, non‐metal forming, powder metallurgy and composite material processing are briefly discussed. The range of applications of finite elements on these subjects is extremely wide and cannot be presented in a single paper; therefore the aim of the paper is to give FE researchers/users only an encyclopaedic view of the different possibilities that exist today in the various fields mentioned above. An appendix included at the end of the paper presents a bibliography on finite element applications in material processing for 1994‐1996, where 1,370 references are listed. This bibliography is an updating of the paper written by Brannberg and Mackerle which has been published in Engineering Computations, Vol. 11 No. 5, 1994, pp. 413‐55.

This paper introduces a new subject called bio‐manufacturing. Bio‐manufacturing combines life science with manufacturing science, and uses manufacturing method to form materials with bio‐activity and bio‐degradability into scaffolds. In this paper, we discuss the hierarchy of bio‐manufacturing: the lower grade uses undegradable bio‐material to form permanent organ replacement such as auricular cartilage and the higher grade uses biodegradable bio‐materials to repair organ damage or organ replacement which degrades after embedded in the human body. They all adopt jetting/extrusion deposition process (fused deposition modelling or 3D printer), the distinct different point being the temperature of the forming chamber. The samples of bones and auricular cartilage produced by those processes had been practiced on dogs and rabbits, repaired their damage.