Search

Modern industry expectations in terms of milling operations often demand the milling of the flexible details by using slender ball-end tools. This is a difficult task because of possible vibration occurrence. Due to existence of certain conditions (small depths of cutting, regeneration phenomena), cutting process may become unstable and self-excited chatter vibration may appear. Frequency of the chatter vibration is close to dominant natural frequency of the workpiece or the tool. One of the methods of chatter vibration avoidance is matching the spindle speed to the optimum phase shift between subsequent cutting edges passes (i.e. the Liao-Young condition). However, the set of optimum spindle speeds from the point of view of vibration reduction may be not optimum one from other points of view. For example milling efficiency or machine tool capabilities cannot be assured. This article presents the idea of a workpiece holder with adjustable stiffness and discusses a new variant of its realization. In the holder, milling process is performed at constant spindle speed and feed speed. In order to avoid vibration the holder stiffness is modified. Stiffness changes modify natural frequencies of the workpiece and thus it is possible to modify dynamic properties of the workpiece in such a way that arbitrary chosen, constant spindle speed will be optimum, due to the Liao-Young condition performance. Calculation of the optimum stiffness is performed before milling, based on the workpieces modal identification results and the finite element model simulations.

In this work the physicochemical and biological properties of nanocrystalline TiO2 thin films were investigated. Thin films were prepared by magnetron sputtering method. Their properties were examined by X-ray diffraction, photoelectron spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy, optical transmission method and optical profiler. Moreover, surface wettability and scratch resistance were determined. It was found that as-deposited coatings were nanocrystalline and had TiO2-anatase structure, built from crystallites in size of 24 nm. The surface of the films was homogenous, composed of closely packed grains and hydrophilic. Due to nanocrystalline structure thin films exhibited good scratch resistance. The results were correlated to the biological activity (in vitro) of thin films. Morphological changes of mouse fibroblasts (L929 cell line) after contact with the surface of TiO2 films were evaluated with the use of a contrast-phase microscope, while their viability was tested by MTT colorimetric assay. The viability of cell line upon contact with the surface of nanocrystalline TiO2 film was comparable to the control sample. L929 cells had homogenous cytoplasm and were forming a confluent monofilm, while lysis and inhibition of cell growth was not observed. Moreover, the viability in contact with surface of examined films was high. This confirms non-cytotoxic effect of TiO2 film surface on mouse fibroblasts.

A new approach to solving realistic car assembly scheduling problems for mixed model assembly line is presented. It is proposed to decompose the problem into two subproblems: 1) a sequencing problem that generates admissible car sequences fulfilling capacity constraints for all car models in the production plan, 2) a scheduling problem that determines an admissible car sequence with shortest makespan. The details of this approach are illustrated by a simple numerical example.

A Constraint Logic Programming (CLP) tool for solving the problem discussed in Part 1 of the paper has been designed. It is outlined and discussed in the paper. The program has been used for solving a real-world car assembly scheduling problem.

Titanium dioxide thin films doped with the same amount of neodymium were prepared using two different magnetron sputtering methods. Thin films of anatase structure were deposited with the aid of Low Pressure Hot Target Magnetron Sputtering, while rutile coatings were manufactured using High Energy Reactive Magnetron Sputtering process. The thin films composition was determined by energy dispersive spectroscopy and the amount of the dopant was equal to 1 at. %. Structural properties were evaluated using transmission electron microscopy and revealed that anatase films had fibrous structure, while rutile had densely packed columnar structure. Atomic force microscopy investigations showed that the surface of both films was homogenous and consisted of nanocrystalline grains. Photocatalytic activity was assessed based on the phenol decomposition. Results showed that both thin films were photocatalytically active, however coating with anatase phase decomposed higher amount of phenol. The transparency of both thin films was high and equal to ca. 80% in the visible wavelength range. The photoluminescence intensity was much higher in case of the coating with rutile structure.