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Science Daily — An engineer at Washington University in St. Louis has helped find a way to "cut the chatter" in high-speed machining of aluminum and titanium aircraft parts.
Chatter in milling is an instability that arises because the cutting tool vibrates, making oscillating patterns on the work piece. The tool goes over the patterns, making the tool vibrate even more, yielding deeper patterns in the work piece, worsening until eventually the chatter destroys the tool or work piece.
Now researchers including Philip V. Bayly, Ph.D., Washington University Hughes Professor of Mechanical Engineering, and Washington University alumnus Jerry Halley, of Tech Manufacturing, Wright City, Missouri, have developed software that predicts when chatter is going to occur as well as the accuracy of the cut. The software is based on a technique called time finite element analysis (TFEA).
Avoiding chatter allows much faster machining, makes the tool last longer, and increases the quality of the parts. Lighter, stronger, and more accurate parts lead to faster, more durable, and more affordable aircraft.
"This analytical technique helps get accurate machining processes and can play a major role in businesses creating higher quality parts that are less costly to make," said Bayly. "You can get a big pay off in stability and accuracy just by changing the speed at which the tools cut. That's one of the key things that TFEA finds out."
TFEA simulations are performed before the milling process, using a computer model of the machining system. The analysis predicts good and bad speeds for stability and accuracy of the cuts.
Bayly and several colleagues have applied for a patent on a concept that will take advantage of TFEA to design machining processes. The computations can be done so speedily that the hope is that the software will be used widely in advanced aerospace, automotive, and medical machine shops.
Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Washington University in St Louis.
Software detects difference between shampoo, explosives
August 11, 2006 (IDG News Service) -- You may think your new shampoo is "the bomb," but to an airport security guard looking at it under an X-ray machine, it may very well look like an actual bomb.
However, a Herndon, Va.-based company has technology that can help airport security screeners determine whether a container of liquid is an explosive as it passes through airport X-ray machines.
The U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is in talks with Guardian Technologies International Inc. to use the company's PinPoint image analysis software in conjunction with airport X-ray machines to tell the difference between explosives and organic items such as shampoo, clothes and food in carry-on baggage, according to a company executive.
The technology could be good news for airport passengers who are unhappy that new TSA regulations mean they are no longer allowed to bring liquid items, including shampoo, water and perfume, onto airplanes. The move came yesterday after U.K. law enforcement officials arrested individuals believed to be part of a terrorist plot to bring liquid explosives onto a plane to assemble a bomb.
Guardian Vice President Steven Lancaster said PinPoint, which runs on a PC, can be hooked up to X-ray machines to provide in-depth image analysis of items as they go through. The technology uses algorithms to analyze images beyond the current capability of the X-ray screening systems, he said.
Today, all a security screener can tell through an X-ray machine is the density of the items going through, Lancaster said. "Based upon that density, the hardware manufacturers then colorize that image and place various levels of density into a color spectrum."
Lancaster said plastic items are in the green color spectrum, while the most dense items, such as those made of metal, will be more in the black and blue spectrums. Explosive items are in the orange spectrum, alongside organic items such as clothing, shoes and food, he said.
Guardian's PinPoint software takes X-ray images and uses "classic imaging technologies," such as spatial, domain and spectral analysis, to filter the images further and detect the difference between explosives and other organic items, Lancaster said. It also can detect whether an explosive is being hidden inside or behind an item that falls into one of the other color spectrums.
"When we bombard the image with our algorithms, we begin to differentiate or get a different signal from [an explosive] item," he said. "It's similar to DNA mapping of the genome."
PinPoint is currently being pilot tested in airports in Moscow and Caracas, Venezuela. Testing of PinPoint should begin in TSA laboratories in the U.S. within the next few weeks, Lancaster said.
He said he doesn't know how soon after PinPoint will be tested in U.S. airports, but it could happen in the next few months. "Hopefully, an event like today would provide a great sense of urgency to do this sooner rather than later," Lancaster said.
Related News & Opinion:
* Jeremy Kirk: U.K. bans laptops in airliner cabins after terror arrests
* IT Blogwatch: Come fly the thirsty skies (or do you like to watch?)
* Douglas Schweitzer: The laptop luggage conundrum
* Martin McKeay: Does the TSA make you feel more secure?
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