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Fiber composite materials are widely used in many industrial applications - specially in automotive, aviation and consumer goods. Introducing light-weighting material solutions to reduce vehicle mass is driving innovative materials research activities as polymer composites offer high specific stiffness and strength compared to contemporary engineering materials. However, there are issues related to high production volume, automation strategies and handling methods. The state of the art for the production of these light-weight flexible textile or composite fiber products is setting up multi-stage manual operations for hand layups. Material handling of flexible textile/fiber components is a process bottleneck. Consequently, the long term research goal is to develop semi-automated pick and place processes for flexible materials utilizing collaborative robots within the process. Collaborative robots allow for interactive human-machine tasks to be conducted.

The ‘boundary of space’ model representing all possible positions which may be occupied by a mechanism during its normal range of motion (for all positions and orientations) is called the work envelope. In the robotic domain, it is also known as the robot operating envelope or workspace. Several researchers have investigated workspace boundaries for different degrees of freedom (DOF), joint types and kinematic structures utilizing many approaches. The work envelope provides essential boundary information, which is critical for safety and layout concerns, but the work envelope information does not by itself determine the reach feasibility of a desired configuration. The effect of orientation is not captured as well as the coupling related to operational parameters. Included in this are spatial occupancy concerns due to linking multiple kinematic chains, which is an issue with multi-tasking machine tools, and manufacturing cells.

When performing trajectory planning for robotic applications, there are many aspects to consider, such as the reach conditions, joint and end-effector velocities, accelerations and jerk conditions, etc. The reach conditions are dependent on the end-effector orientations and the robot kinematic structure. The reach condition feasibility is the first consideration to be addressed prior to optimizing a solution. The ‘functional’ work space or work window represents a region of feasible reach conditions, and is a sub-set of the work envelope. It is not intuitive to define. Consequently, 2D solution approaches are proposed. The 3D travel paths are decomposed to a 2D representation via radial projections. Forward kinematic representations are employed to define a 2D boundary curve for each desired end effector orientation.

Gantry robots are mainly employed for applications requiring large workspace, with limited higher manipulability in one direction than the others. The Gantries offer very good mechanical stiffness and constant positioning accuracy, but low dexterity. Common gantries are CNC machines with three translational joints XYZ (3DOF) and usually with an attached wrist (+3DOF). The translational joints are used to move the tool in any position in the 3D workspace. The wrist is used to orient the tool by rotation about X, Y and Z axis. This standard kinematic structure (3T3R) produces a rectangular workspace. In this paper a full kinematic model for a 6DOF general CNC (gantry) machine is presented, along with the Jacobian matrix and singularity analysis. Using Denavit-Hartenberg convention, firstly, the general kinematic structure is presented, in order to assign frames at each link. The forward kinematic problem is solved using Maple 17 software.

Though the purpose of a vehicle's suspension is multi-faceted and complex, the fundamentals may be simply stated: the suspension exists to provide the occupants with a tolerable ride, while simultaneously ensuring that the tires maintain good contact with the ground. At the root of the familiar ride/handling compromise, is the problem that tuning efforts which improve either grip or handling are generally to the detriment of the other. This study seeks to set forth a clear means for examining the familiar ride/handing compromise, by first exploring the key ideas of these terms, and then by describing the development of content-rich metrics to permit a direct optimization strategy. For simplicity, the optimization problem was examined in a unilateral manner, where heave (vertical; z-axis) behaviour is examined in isolation, though the methods described herein may be extended to pitch and roll behaviour as well.

This research focuses on the further development of a child finite element model whereby implementation of pediatric cadaver testing observations considering the biomechanical response of the neck of children under tensile and bending loading has occurred. Prior to this investigation, the biomechanical neck response was based upon scaled adult cadaver behaviour. Alterations to the material properties associated with ligaments, intervertebral discs and facet joints of the pediatric cervical spine were considered. No alteration to the geometry of the child neck finite element model was considered. An energy based approach was utilized to provide indication on the appropriate changes to local neck biomechanical characteristics. Prior to this study, the biomechanical response of the neck of the child finite element model deviated significantly from the tensile and bending cadaver tests completed by Ouyang et al.

The paper describes a ‘virtual motorsports’ event developed by the University of Windsor Vehicle Dynamics and Control Research Group. The event was a competitive project-based component of a Vehicle Dynamics course offered by the University's Department of Mechanical, Automotive, & Materials Engineering. The simulated race was developed to provide fourth year automotive engineering students with design and race experience, similar to that found in Formula SAE®or SAE Baja®, but within the confines of a single academic semester. The project, named ‘Formula463’, was conducted entirely within a virtual environment, and encompassed design, testing, and racing of hi-fidelity virtual vehicle models. The efficacy of the Formula463 program to provide students with a design experience using model based simulation tools and methods has been shown over the past two years. All of the software has been released under a General Public License and is freely available on the authors website.

This research focuses on comparing the biomechanical response of the head and neck of the Hybrid III 3-year-old anthropometric test device finite element model and pediatric cadaver data, under flexion-extension bending and axial tensile loading conditions. Previous experimental research characterized the quasi-static biomechanical response of the pediatric cervical spine under flexion-extension bending and tolerance in tensile distraction loading conditions. Significant differences in rotational and linear stiffness were found between the Hybrid III model and the pediatric cadaver data. In this research the biomechanical child cadaver neck response has been implemented into the 3-year-old Hybrid III child dummy FE model. An explicit finite element code (LS-DYNA) and the modified Hybrid III model were used to numerically simulate the previous cadaver tests and validate the altered Hybrid III neck.

Neural networks are flexible modeling tools that can be used in conjunction with multi-body dynamics models to better predict nonlinear behaviour of components. This paper focuses on a process that incorporates a neural network model of a nonlinear damping force into a single degree of freedom mass-spring-damper model. Software tools and their interaction are specified. The verification of this process is the focal point of this paper and is a necessary step before further correlation studies can be performed on more complex component representations.