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The cost of human natural language translation of Service Information, Assembly Instructions, Training Materials, Operator Manuals and other similar documents is a major expense for manufacturers. One translation avoidance method involves replacing most of a document’s text with still and/or animated graphics. While the graphics with minimum text concept has savings potential, clarity of communication must be maintained for widespread application of this technique. The necessary clarity should be achieved if standards are established for the symbols and graphical conventions used. This paper provides an example of a repair procedure documented using the graphics with minimum text paradigm, describes many of the anticipated standards and provides an update on the progress towards achieving a standard development project.

In lightweight structures with dissimilar metal designs, structural adhesive joining is a potential joining method. Adhesives help in reducing galvanic corrosion by minimizing physical contact between two dissimilar metals. Along with adhesives, fasteners are often used as a secondary joining method to hold the assembly together during adhesive curing. Therefore, a hybrid joint which is a combination of adhesives and mechanical fasteners is potential joining method to join dissimilar metals. However, when two dissimilar metals such as aluminum to steel are joined with hybrid joint by adhesive curing at elevated temperature, the distortion of assembly is observed when cooled at room temperature. This is due to the mismatch between coefficients of thermal expansion of aluminum vs steel. The adhesive may also experience residual stress and fracture. In this study, adhesive curing induced distortion is studied using 1.1 meter-long specimens of aluminum to steel hybrid joint assembly.

Light-weight 3-D models offer improved communication and visualization for advertising, marketing, service technicians, suppliers and other business partners. These models also may be a ready source of geometry and a window into a company's intellectual property for miscreants seeking to pirate designs and to produce counterfeit or will-fit parts. What approaches and tools are available to help protect a company's intellectual property while enabling it and its business partners to benefit from widespread distribution of 3-D animations and models? How should they be applied to effectively protect intellectual property? This paper provides a general survey of techniques available for protecting intellectual property in 3-D models when sending these files outside of a company and into broad distribution.

The fatigue properties of gray cast iron are presented. Included in these properties are monotonic tension and compression data and cyclic strain control fatigue data. Estimations of fatigue properties determined from the measured fatigue data are compared to predicted fatigue properties based on static properties. Samples with average hardnesses of 171 and 213 Bhn iron were tested and the results compared. The results of this investigation revealed that the strain amplitude cycles-to-failure plot of gray cast iron was independent of hardness of the iron.

For this latest SAE Fatigue Design and Evaluation project, fatigue tests were run by loading, in bending, both welded and machined T-Joint specimens that have the same geometry. The test rig setup consisted of a horizontally mounted actuator, with pinned joints at both ends, where the load is applied to the top of the vertical leg of the “upside down T” of a T-Joint specimen, while the horizontal legs of the “upside down T” were clamped to the bedplate. Specimens were tested until failure or until the specimen was unable to carry the commanded load. They were cycled under constant amplitude (at several load levels and R ratios), block cycle, and variable amplitude loadings. Welded and machined T-Joint specimens of the same geometry were included in the test plan such that fatigue life predictions could be compared to test lives for each case. Those comparisons would demonstrate the methodology’s relative predictive ability to manage welds, residual stress, etc...

The presence of residual stresses affects the fatigue response of welded components. In the present study of thick welded cantilever specimens, residual stresses were measured in two A36 steel samples, one in the as-welded condition, and one subjected to a short history of bending loads where substantial local plasticity is expected at the fatigue hot-spot weld toe. Extensive X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) measurements describe the residual stress state in a large region above the weld toe both in an untested as-welded sample and in a sample subjected to a short load history that generated an estimated 0.01 strain amplitude at the stress concentration zone at the weld toe. The results show that such a test will significantly alter the welding-induced residual stresses. Fatigue life prediction methods need to be aware that such alterations are possible and incorporate the effects of such cyclic stress relaxation in life computations.

A new total fatigue life methodology was utilized to make fatigue life predictions, where total fatigue life is defined as crack initiation and subsequent crack propagation to a crack of known size or the component’s inability to carry load. Fatigue life predictions of an A36 steel T-joint geometry were calculated using the same total fatigue life methodology for both welded and machined test specimens that have the same geometry. The only significant difference between the two analyses was the inclusion of the measured weld residual stresses in the welded specimen life predictions. Constant amplitude tests at several load levels and R ratios were analyzed along with block cycle and variable amplitude loading tests. The accuracy of the life predictions relative to experimental test lives was excellent, with most within a factor of +/- two.