Multi-physics simulation of friction stir welding process

Purpose: The Friction Stir Welding (FSW) process comprises of several highly coupled (and non-linear) physical phenomena: large plastic deformation, material flow transportation, mechanical stirring of the tool, tool-workpiece surface interaction, dynamic structural evolution, heat generation from friction and plastic deformation, etc. In this paper, an advanced Finite Element (FE) model encapsulating this complex behavior is presented and various aspects associated with the FE model such as contact modeling, material model and meshing techniques are discussed in detail. Methodology: The numerical model is continuum solid mechanics-based, fully thermomechanically coupled and has successfully simulated the friction stir welding process including plunging, dwelling and welding stages. Findings: The development of several field variables are quantified by the model: temperature, stress, strain, etc. Material movement is visualized by defining tracer particles at the locations of interest. The numerically computed material flow patterns are in very good agreement with the general findings from experiments. Value: The model is, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the most advanced simulation of FSW published in the literature

Gaussian random field-based log odds occupancy mapping

This paper focuses on mapping problem with known robot pose in static environments and proposes a Gaussian random field-based log odds occupancy mapping (GRF-LOOM). In this method, occupancy probability is regarded as an unknown parameter and the dependence between parameters are considered. Given measurements and the dependence, the parameters of not only observed space but also unobserved space can be predicted. The occupancy probabilities in log odds form are regarded as a GRF. This mapping task can be solved by the well-known prediction equation in Gaussian processes, which involves an inverse problem. Instead of the prediction equation, a new recursive algorithm is also proposed to avoid the inverse problem. Finally, the proposed method is evaluated in simulations

Multiphysics models for friction stir welding simulation

Purpose: The Friction Stir Welding (FSW) process comprises of several highly coupled (and non-linear) physical phenomena: large plastic deformation, material flow transportation, mechanical stirring of the tool, tool-workpiece surface interaction, dynamic structural evolution, heat generation from friction and plastic deformation, etc. In this paper, an advanced Finite Element (FE) model encapsulating this complex behavior is presented and various aspects associated with the FE model such as contact modeling, material model and meshing techniques are discussed in detail. Methodology: The numerical model is continuum solid mechanics-based, fully thermomechanically coupled and has successfully simulated the friction stir welding process including plunging, dwelling and welding stages. Findings: The development of several field variables are quantified by the model: temperature, stress, strain, etc. Material movement is visualized by defining tracer particles at the locations of interest. The numerically computed material flow patterns are in very good agreement with the general findings from experiments. Value: The model is, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the most advanced simulation of FSW published in the literature

Characterising plastic collapse of pipe bend structures

Two recently proposed design by analysis criteria of plastic collapse based on plastic work concepts, the plastic work (PW) criterion and the plastic work curvature (PWC) criterion, are applied to a strain hardening pipe bend arrangement subject to combined pressure and in-plane moment loading. Calculated plastic pressure-moment interaction surfaces are compared with limit surfaces, large deformation analysis instability surfaces and plastic load surfaces given by the ASME Twice Elastic Slope criterion and the tangent intersection criterion. The results show that both large deformation theory and material strain hardening have a significant effect on the elastic-plastic response and calculated static strength of the component. The PW criterion is relatively simple to apply in practice and gives plastic load values similar to the tangent intersection criterion. The PWC criterion is more subjective to apply in practice but it allows the designer to follow the development of the gross plastic deformation mechanism in more detail. The PWC criterion indicates a more significant strain hardening strength enhancement effect than the other criteria considered, leading to a higher calculated plastic load

A plastic load criterion for inelastic design by analysis

The allowable plastic load in pressure vessel design by analysis is determined by applying a graphical construction to a characteristic load-deformation plot of the collapse behavior of the vessel. This paper presents an alternative approach to the problem. The plastic response is characterized by considering the curvature of a plot of plastic work dissipated in the vessel against the applied load. It is proposed that salient points of curvature correspond to critical stages in the evolution of the gross plastic deformation mechanism. In the proposed plastic work curvature (PWC) criterion of plastic collapse, the plastic load is defined as the load corresponding to zero or minimal plastic work curvature after yielding and the formation of plastic mechanisms have occurred. Application of the proposed criterion is illustrated by considering the elastic-plastic response of a simple cantilever beam in bending and a complex three-dimensional finite element analysis of a nozzle intersection. The results show that the proposed approach gives higher values of plastic load than alternative criteria when the material exhibits strain hardening. It is proposed that this is because the PWC criterion more fully represents the constraining effect of material strain hardening on the spread of plastic deformation

Characterising gross plastic deformation in design by analysis

An investigation of three simple structures is conducted to identify and characterise the condition of gross plastic deformation in pressure vessel design by analysis. Limit analysis and bilinear hardening plastic analysis is performed for three simple example problems. It is found that previously proposed plastic criteria do not fully represent the effect of the hardening material model on the development of the plastic failure mechanism. A new criterion of plastic collapse based on the curvature of the load–plastic work history is therefore proposed. This is referred to as the Plastic Work Curvature or PWC criterion. It is shown that salient points of curvature correspond to critical stages in the physical evolution of the gross plastic deformation mechanism. The PWC criterion accounts for the effect of the bilinear hardening model on the development of the plastic mechanism and gives an enhanced plastic load when compared to the limit load

Adaptive Network Coding for Scheduling Real-time Traffic with Hard Deadlines

We study adaptive network coding (NC) for scheduling real-time traffic over a single-hop wireless network. To meet the hard deadlines of real-time traffic, it is critical to strike a balance between maximizing the throughput and minimizing the risk that the entire block of coded packets may not be decodable by the deadline. Thus motivated, we explore adaptive NC, where the block size is adapted based on the remaining time to the deadline, by casting this sequential block size adaptation problem as a finite-horizon Markov decision process. One interesting finding is that the optimal block size and its corresponding action space monotonically decrease as the deadline approaches, and the optimal block size is bounded by the "greedy" block size. These unique structures make it possible to narrow down the search space of dynamic programming, building on which we develop a monotonicity-based backward induction algorithm (MBIA) that can solve for the optimal block size in polynomial time. Since channel erasure probabilities would be time-varying in a mobile network, we further develop a joint real-time scheduling and channel learning scheme with adaptive NC that can adapt to channel dynamics. We also generalize the analysis to multiple flows with hard deadlines and long-term delivery ratio constraints, devise a low-complexity online scheduling algorithm integrated with the MBIA, and then establish its asymptotical throughput-optimality. In addition to analysis and simulation results, we perform high fidelity wireless emulation tests with real radio transmissions to demonstrate the feasibility of the MBIA in finding the optimal block size in real time.Comment: 11 pages, 13 figure