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The production of large components currently requires cost-intensive special machine tools with large workspaces. The corresponding process chains are usually sequential and hard to scale. Furthermore, large components are usually manufactured in small batches; consequently, the planning effort has a significant share in the manufacturing costs. This paper presents a novel approach for manufacturing large components by industrial robots and machine tools through segmented manufacturing. This leads to a decoupling of component size and necessary workspace and enables a new type of flexible and scalable manufacturing system. The presented solution is based on the automatic segmentation of the CAD model of the component into segments, which are provided with predefined connection elements. The proposed segmentation strategy divides the part into segments whose structural design is adapted to the capabilities (workspace, axis configuration, etc.) of the field components available on the shopfloor. The capabilities are provided by specific information models containing a self-description. The process planning step of each segment is automated by utilizing the similarity of the segments and the self-description of the corresponding field component. The result is a transformation of a batch size one production into an automated quasi-serial production of the segments. To generate the final component geometry, the individual segments are mounted and joined by robot-guided Direct Energy Deposition. The final surface finish is achieved by post-processing using a mobile machine tool coupled to the component. The entire approach is demonstrated along the process chain for manufacturing a forming tool.

Just recently the problem of pharmaceutical residues in the environment has been emphasized by OECD. Especially antibiotics are of concern due to their widespread use and diverse modes of actions including ones that can affect the photosynthetic activity of primary producers and subsequently primary biomass production and carbon dioxide fixation. The EU regulatory authority, the European Medicines Agency (EMA), has therefore proposed to implement a new tailored environmental risk assessment scheme, published in a new draft guideline 2018. Threshold effect levels to three fixed representative species of green algae and cyanobacteria will be required. This article reviews and compares the contamination of waters with antibiotics in Switzerland and Germany and also presents an overview of published effect data on eukaryotic algae and prokaryotic cyanobacteria in order to discuss the representativeness of the selected species. Since no full datasets as demanded by the EMA were publically available yet, the gaps for four antibiotics have been experimentally completed. In summary the results support the species selection of the EMA published in the revised draft guideline, however it remains unclear whether diatoms should also be considered.

The dynamic monitoring of oil consumption in IC engines is approached with various techniques ranging from radioactive counting to detection of halogenated tracer compounds or polyaromatic hydrocarbon tracers, to monitoring unburned hydrocarbons as residues from engine oil. This article discusses the method of gaseous SO2 measurement in raw exhaust its benefits and limitations of todays status. Modern engines consume about 2 to 5 g/h of engine oil under low and medium load but consumption may go up to 130 g/h in negative load conditions. Particulate filters must be desulfated every 5000 km even when sulfur free fuel is in use. For the oil measurement in the raw exhaust all possible Sulfur compounds are converted to SO2 in a hot oxidizing atmosphere. Additional pure oxygen in the form of ozone is added to the oxidizer for very low lambda engine conditions and the conversion of sulfur on particulates into SO2. A sensitive mass spectrometer operating in an ion molecule ionization mode measures gaseous SO2 from concentrations of 0.02 ppm to 50 ppm in measurement cycles from 2 Hz to 0.2 Hz depending on if long term measurement or dynamic operation is chosen. Technical description of pressure reduction, gas transfer, oxidation efficiencies and lower detection levels of the instrumentation are given as well as data on a complete engine map and data on reproducibility of the SO2 method are presented.