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In our technology-intensive world, manufacturing is transforming rapidly and is now driven by personalized demand. To deal with the modern manufacturing challenges, one requires an inclusive approach and therefore, a new paradigm has evolved shifting the manufacturing closer to the customer. This paper highlights the need for inclusive manufacturing along with its important aspects of automation, workforce diversity, and environment-friendly manufacturing operations. Variables pertaining to an inclusive manufacturing system were identified from the literature and were shortlisted based on the opinion of domain specialists. The causal relations among the variables are modeled using Bayesian network. The overall focus of the study lies in evaluating the impact of identified variables affecting product quality through the lens of an inclusive manufacturing system. Cascading effect of variables and the sensitivity analysis further build this study to conclude important observations and managerial insights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microcellular injection molding (MIM) of thermoplastics is a challenging molding process compared to conventional injection molding (IM) process because of its narrow processing window. As far as microcellular molding of open-celled foam is concerned, it is much more difficult because of extremely narrow processing window for open-cell foam and transient nature of melt temperature and pressure inside cavity during the molding process. However, it is expected that molding of open-celled microcellular foam may open many new areas such as tissue engineering, drug delivery, reverse osmosis, dialysis membranes, and fuel cell. The production cost may also be reduced manifolds. In present work a novel expandable cavity mold (EC mold) was designed and fabricated. EC mold has some nonconventional features like pneumatically actuated gate seal, mechanism for cavity expansion, and arrangement for cyclic heating-cooling of core and cavity blocks. In present study polylactic acid (PLA), a biodegradable polymer, was used and expandable cavity molding (EC molding) variables, namely, cavity expansion rare (mm/s), cavity expansion distance (mm), and cavity expansion-compression-expansion (ECE) profile mode, were studied. The results confirm molding of PLA foams with very high cell density and impinged structure. The micrographs and open-cell ratio confirm the formation of PLA foam with ~40% open-cell content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review focuses on contemporary metal foams, their fabrication techniques and commercial applications. Different type of foam synthesis techniques like open cell and closed cell foams using solid, liquid, ions or vapor metals are discussed along with their characteristic process parameters. A vast body of research has been established for producing metallic foams for many decades. Space holder methods, sponge replication method, vapor deposition method, hot isostatic pressing as well as powder metallurgy process have been extensively reported in available literature. Techniques like sponge replication have the capability to produce up to 98% porosity with considerable amount of strength. However, metallic foam fabrication of certain metals still poses many challenges, which need to be explored. Metallic foams have enormous industrial applications, like closed cell foams have structural applications, open cell foams can be used for structural as well as biomedical applications. Often open cell metal foams have encountered low fatigue strength that might need alloying as well heat treatment operations for strengthening. Moreover, it is important to understand the physics and techniques of foaming for fabricating a good quality foam, which is also discussed in this article. The focus of the review finally shifts to open cell metallic foams for biomedical applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The standard commercially available marketed prostheses sometimes may not be the best fit to Indian patients because of the large anatomic variation. Orthopedic surgeons always stress the need for a proper implant-patient match in hip joint replacements, in particular, for a cementless femoral stem. The complications of mismatch are aseptic loosening, improper load distribution, and discomfort. The present study was undertaken to compare the differences in dimensions between femurs of elderly Indians and those of populations from other regions in order to solve the problem of a possible geometric mismatch between a selected implant and the hip joint as far as Indian patients are concerned. Materials and Methods: Measurements were made using computer aided design techniques on computed tomography (CT) scanned images of 98 femurs (56 left and 42 right). The software used to convert the CT images into solid models was MIMICS® (Materialize, Inc., Leuven, Belgium). The geometrical parameters, viz., the femoral head offset, femoral head center (HC), femoral head diameter, femoral head relative position, position of shaft isthmus, neck-shaft angle, bow angle, femoral neck length, canal flare index, femoral length, and canal width at various locations, were chosen to design best-fit standard femoral stems for cementless insertion. These data were compared with the published data of other countries. Results: A difference of 16.8% was found in the femoral head offset between Indian and Swiss populations, which can affect soft tissue tension and range of motion. At a distance of 20 mm above the lesser trochanter (LT), the anteroposterior (AP) canal width was found to differ by 45.4%, when compared with a French population which can affect the mechanical stability of femoral stem. Femoral dimensions of Indian male and female subjects have also been compared and differences evaluated. At the LT, the aspect ratio (ratio of mediolateral canal width and AP canal width) in case of males (1.198) is approximately13% higher than that of females (1.059). Conclusions: This study indicates a need for redesign of femoral stems. The obtained anthropometric femoral dimensions can be used to design and develop indigenous hip joint prosthesis in India. The results of this study can also be used in forensic anthropometric studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]