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The purpose of this paper is to review available technologies, analyse their features, propose a new approach of 3D sand mould printing based on line forming, introduce the manufacturing principle and show advantages of this approach, especially for larger parts with large Z steps in the build, such as 2 mm stepwise.

This paper introduces 3D sand mould printing, compares and analyses technological process and existing fabrication approaches among available technologies first. Then, a new approach of 3D sand mould printing is proposed to improve build speed. In addition, the proposed system will be analysed or benchmarked against existing systems.

A new approach based on line forming of sand mould printing is put forward by reviewing and analysing available technologies, to improve build speed from the aspect of basic moulding movement instead of optimization of moulding methods and process parameters. The theoretical calculation and analysis shows that build speed can be improved greatly, and it is more suitable for the manufacture of large-scale casting’s sand mould when considering dimensional accuracy and printing error, as well as uniformity of each layer.

The specific implement scheme of line forming and nozzle’s specific structure of this new approach need further study.

Much higher build speed of 3D sand mould printing with new approach brings evident implication for moulds companies and manufacturing industry, having a far-reaching influence on the development of national economy.

This paper reviews available technologies and presents a new approach of 3D sand mould printing for the first time. Analysis of the new approach shows that this new method of sand mould printing can boost build speed greatly. So, its application prospect is great.

For ball screw feed system, a sudden start or stop has a great influence on the transmission stiffness, so the axial stiffness mutation of feed system will occur. The purpose of this paper is to study the influence of acceleration on the transmission stiffness and dynamic characteristics of the ball screw feed system.

Taking the ball screw feed system as a research object, on the basis of the Hertz contact theory and the mixed element method, axial stiffness model and dynamic model are established. And the system stability was analyzed by the time history diagram and Phase-plane portrait diagram. The feed system was analyzed theoretically and experimentally, the experimental results are in good agreement with the model results.

Lead screw lead angle, preload, load and start acceleration affected ball-screw pair, bearing and transmission stiffness. And the load, nut contact stiffness, bearing contact stiffness, preload have a large effect on the transmission stiffness. The results show that a certain acceleration value will make the axial stiffness abrupt change.

This research provides a useful theoretical support for ensuring a good dynamic for the ball screw feed system.

Long life and high hydrogen sensitivity are the crucial performance parameters for an optical fiber hydrogen sensing membrane, and these are the fundamental areas of study for an optical fiber hydrogen sensor. Considering that a traditional optical fiber hydrogen sensor based on pure palladium cannot meet the expectations for long life and rapid sensitivity simultaneously, the experiment in this paper designed a kind of reflective optical fiber bundle hydrogen gas sensor based on a Pd_0.75–Ag_0.25 alloy to achieve a hydrogen sensing system. This paper aims to discuss the issues with this system.

A reflective optical fiber bundle hydrogen sensor was made up of an optical fiber bundle and a Pd_0.75–Ag_0.25 alloy hydrogen membrane. A combination of optical fiber light intensity measurements and the reference calculation method were used to extract the hydrogen concentration information from within the optical fiber, and the relationship between the hydrogen concentration changes and the reflective light intensity in the optical fiber was established.

The reflective optical fiber bundle hydrogen gas sensor based on a Pd–Ag alloy membrane was shown to provide an effective way to detect hydrogen concentrations. The experimental results showed that a 20-30-nm-thick Pd_0.75–Ag_0.25 alloy membrane could reach high hydrogen absorption and sensitivity. Key preparation parameters which included sputtering time and substrate temperature were used to prepare the hydrogen membrane during the DC sputtering process, and the reflectivity of the Pd–Ag alloy membrane was enough to meet the requirements of long life and high hydrogen sensitivity for the optical fiber hydrogen sensor.

This paper seeks to establish a foundation for optimizing and testing the performance of the Pd–Ag alloy hydrogen sensing membrane for an optical fiber bundle hydrogen sensor. To this end, the optimal thickness and key preparation parameters for the Pd–Ag alloy hydrogen sensing membrane were discussed. The results of this research have proved that the reflective optical fiber hydrogen sensor based on a Pd_0.75–Ag_0.25 alloy is an effective approach and precisely enough for hydrogen gas monitoring in practical engineering measurements.

The nonlinear friction disturbance of the moving joint surface of the feed system can lead to the residual vibration of the system, prolong the stability time of the system and reduce the motion precision and machining precision of the machine tool. This paper aims to concern the vibration between joint surfaces caused by nonlinear friction.

The model is established from the micro and macro scale based on the LuGre model. The friction characteristics of the moving joint surface are explored. The friction experiment of GCr15 pin and 45 steel disk is designed and the influence of lubrication condition, speed, acceleration and normal load on friction characteristics are studied.

Among the drive speed, damping and stiffness, the negative gradient effect of friction, which is characterized by the difference of static and dynamic friction coefficient Δµ, is the main cause of friction vibration between moving joint surfaces. Sufficient lubrication, a proper increase of speed and acceleration, a reasonable reduction of normal load can reduce the negative gradient effect, which can weaken the vibration caused by the nonlinear friction and improve the friction characteristics of the moving joint surface.

In the past studies, more attention has been paid to revealing the relationship between the relative speed and friction, while the acceleration is often ignored. The negative gradient effect of friction is improved in this paper by changing the contact conditions. Research findings of this paper effectively improve the friction characteristics of the moving interface and provide the basis for restraining the nonlinear vibration between the moving interfaces.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-11-2019-0476/

The purpose of this paper is to research on optimization of spindle bearing preload based on efficiency coefficient method and provide theoretical guidance for variable preload of intelligent spindle.

Based on an established thermo-mechanical coupling model of angular contact ball bearing with fix-position preload, temperature rise and axial stiffness of the bearing at different speeds and preload are analyzed, and life of the bearing is estimated by the improved L-P theory. The bearing temperature rise, axial stiffness and life data are standardized, and the preload is optimized by the efficiency coefficient method according to the requirements of operating conditions.

The optimized preload meets comprehensive requirements of the bearing temperature rise, axial stiffness and life under different operating conditions.

In the past studies, it is rarely reported that temperature rise, stiffness and life of the bearing under thermo-mechanical coupling effect are used as objective functions to optimize preload at different speeds.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-06-2020-0205/

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of employees' self-efficacy on employees' organizational identification. Based on a self-verification perspective, this paper focuses on the mediating role of leader–member exchange social comparison (LMXSC) and the moderating role of perceived organizational justice.

The authors conducted a field survey (Study 1) of 207 employees recruited from multiple financial organizations and tested a moderated mediation model using Hayes's (2018) PROCESS macro. The authors conducted another scenario-based experiment (Study 2) using a sample of 151 employees recruited online to further establish causality in our model.

Results suggest that employees' self-efficacy is positively associated with their LMXSC, which, in turn, positively impacts employees' organizational identification. The positive relationship between LMXSC and organizational identification is stronger when employees' perceived organizational justice is higher. The indirect effect of self-efficacy on organizational identification through LMXSC is also strengthened by perceived organizational justice.

Managers are encouraged to develop employees' self-efficacy and to create a fair environment to promote employees' identification with the organization.

This research extends organizational identification literature by examining how and when employees' self-efficacy, a dispositional predictor, leads to employees' identification with the organization from a self-verification perspective.

The purpose of this study is to analyse the problem of high binder content in sand mould and to solve it. Meanwhile, to increase build speed, especially for heavy casting’s sand mould with a high value in layer height, such as 2 mm in construction instead of the industry standard of 0.3 mm, line forming for three-dimensional (3D) sand mould printing is researched.

Brief introduction of 3D sand mould printing and key issues are given first. Then, this paper quantitatively analyses binder content in sand mould. Finally, to acquire sand mould with appropriate binder content and high build speed, line forming combining traditional furan no-bake sand manufacture technique is researched, as well as relevant feasible schemes and current progress.

The study shows that compared with traditional technique, binder content in sand mould produced by available 3D printing technique is too high, bad for sand mould’s properties and quality of castings, while line forming brings guaranteed binder content and improved build speed.

More experiments are needed to demonstrate quantitative analysis of binder content and to obtain flowability of moist sand, detailed structure design of nozzle and practical build speed, as well as methods of circulation of materials considering solidification time.

Line forming with higher build speed and suitable binder content means excellent properties of sand mould and castings as well, bringing obvious implication for moulds industries and manufacturing industry.

This new method could increase build speed and meanwhile guarantee binder content. Thus, its application prospect is promising.

The serious friction caused by the fluctuation of friction occurs when start-up and will reduce the positioning accuracy of the servo axes of high precision machine tools, the purpose of this paper is to study the friction fluctuation characteristics of friction coefficients between interfaces under different working conditions.

HT200 and 45# materials were experimentally studied by friction and wear testing machine UMT-3, the variation of friction coefficient under different working conditions (different start-up conditions, the variation of lubrication state area and different roughness) were measured.

The results show that the larger start-up acceleration shortens the pre-sliding time of the interface friction, makes the friction coefficient decrease faster, reduces the mixed lubrication area of the contact surface and makes the contact surface reach the stable lubrication state quickly. It can be concluded that the larger roughness surface will lead to the larger mixed lubrication area, the larger static friction coefficient and the larger drop between static and dynamic friction coefficient and easy to cause friction vibration.

The results reveal the friction fluctuation rule of the metal interface during the different start-up process, which is of guiding significance to reveal the lubrication principle and mechanism of the mechanical interface.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-11-2019-0482/

Path planning is a fundamental and significant issue in robotics research, especially for the legged robots, since it is the core technology for robots to complete complex tasks such as autonomous navigation and exploration. The purpose of this paper is to propose a path planning and tracking framework for the autonomous navigation of hexapod robots.

First, a hexapod robot called Hexapod-Mini is briefly introduced. Then a path planning algorithm based on improved A* is proposed, which introduces the artificial potential field (APF) factor into the evaluation function to generate a safe and collision-free initial path. Then we apply a turning point optimization based on the greedy algorithm, which optimizes the number of turns of the path. And a fast-turning trajectory for hexapod robot is proposed, which is applied to path smoothing. Besides, a model predictive control-based motion tracking controller is used for path tracking.

The simulation and experiment results show that the framework can generate a safe, fast, collision-free and smooth path, and the author’s Hexapod robot can effectively track the path that demonstrates the performance of the framework.

The work presented a framework for autonomous path planning and tracking of hexapod robots. This new approach overcomes the disadvantages of the traditional path planning approach, such as lack of security, insufficient smoothness and an excessive number of turns. And the proposed method has been successfully applied to an actual hexapod robot.

Laser metal deposition (LMD) is an important additive manufacturing (AM) technology, but the metallurgical defects, such as cracks and porosities, produced in LMD process will seriously affect the mechanical properties of the parts. The purpose of this paper is to propose a novel in-process defects detection method based on infrared scanning for LMD.

The defects detection principle is that, after every three to five layers have been deposited, the optical head of a high-precision infrared two-color pyrometer is driven to scan the defects by measuring the abnormal temperature peaks on the deposited surface. The experiments for verifying the defects detection principle were carried out.

The relationship between the temperature peak value and the dimensions of the defect was analyzed based on the heat conduction theory and curves of temperature peak value versus crack width or diameter of porosity.

This method can effectively improve the detection accuracy and the defects can be precisely located, which can meet the requirement of laser targeting re-melting and elimination of the defects.