Joshua Vaughan

Residual stresses affect the performance and reliability of most manufactured goods and are prevalent in casting, welding, and additive manufacturing (AM, 3D printing). Residual stresses are associated with plastic strain gradients accrued due to transient thermal stress. Complex thermal conditions in AM produce similarly complex residual stress patterns. However, measuring real-time effects of processing on stress evolution is not possible with conventional techniques. Here we use operando neutron diffraction to characterize transient phase transformations and lattice strain evolution during AM of a low-temperature transformation steel. Combining diffraction, infrared and simulation data reveals that elastic and plastic strain distributions are controlled by motion of the face-centered cubic and body-centered cubic phase boundary. Our results provide a new pathway to design residual stress states and property distributions within additively manufactured components. These findings will enable control of residual stress distributions for advantages such as improved fatigue life or resistance to stress-corrosion cracking.

Conventional construction is a labor intensive, hazardous, expensive, inefficient, and wasteful process. According to the EPA, 534 million tons of construction debris were generated in the United States in 2014, which is more than twice the amount of generated municipal solid waste. In addition, conventional construction materials are often used inefficiently and with poor quality

Input shaping is an Optimal Control feedforward strategy whose ability to define how and when a flexible dynamical system defined by Ordinary Differential Equations (ODEs) and computer controlled would move into its operative space, without command induced unwanted dynamics, has been exhaustively demonstrated. This work examines the issue of Embedded Internet of Things (IoT) Input Shaping with regard to real time control of multibody oscillatory systems whose dynamics are better described by differential algebraic equations (DAEs). An overhead crane hanging a double link multibody payload has been appointed as a benchmark case; it is a multibody, multimode system. This might be worst scenario to implement Input Shaping. The reasons can be found in the wide array of constraints that arise. Firstly, the reliability of the multibody model was tested on a Functional Mock-Up Interface (FMI) with the two link payload suspended from the trolley by comparing the experimental video tapping signals in time domain faced with the signals extracted from the multibody model. The FFTs of the simulated and the experimental signal contain the same frequency harmonics only with somewhat different power due to the real world light damping in the joints. The application of this approach may be extended to other cases i.e., the usefulness of mobile hydraulic cranes is limited because the payload is supported by an overhead cable under tension that allows oscillation to occur during crane motion. If the payload size is not negligible small when compared with the cable length may introduce an additional oscillatory mode that creates a multibody double pendulum. To give the insight into the double pendulum dynamics by Lagrangian methods two slender rods as payloads are analyzed dealing with the overhead crane and a composite revolute-revolute joint is proposed to model the cable of the hydraulic crane, both assumptions facilitates an affordable analysis. This allows developing a general study of this type of multibody payloads dynamics including its normal modes, modes ratios plus ranges of frequencies expected. Input Shapers were calculated for those multimodes of vibration by convolving Specified Insensitivity (SI) shapers for each mode plus a novel Direct SI-SI shaper well suited to reduce the computational requirements, i.e., the number of the shaper taps, to carry out the convolution sum in real time by the IoT device based on a single microcontroller working as the command generator. Several comparisons are presented for the shaped and unshaped responses using both the multibody model, the experimental FMI set-up and finally a real world hydraulic crane under slewing motion commanded by an analog Joystick connected by two RF modules 802.15.4 to the IoT device that carry out the convolution sum in real time. Input Shaping improves the performances for all the cases.

Input shaping is widely used in the control of flexible systems due to its effectiveness and ease of implementation. Due to its open-loop nature, it is often overlooked as a control method in systems where parametric uncertainty or force disturbances are present. However, if the disturbances are known and finite in duration, their effect on the flexible mode can be approximated by formulating an initial condition control problem. With this knowledge, an input shaper can be designed, which cancels the initial oscillation, resulting in minimal residual vibration. By incorporating Specified Insensitivity robustness constraints, such shapers can be designed to ensure good performance in the presence of modeling uncertainty. This input shaping method is demonstrated through computer and experimental methods to eliminate vibration in actuator bandwidth-limited systems.

Cable Suspended Parallel Manipulators (CSPMs) are a class of cable robots that are held in tension by the end-effector weight. Controlling the complex CSPM motion requires advanced knowledge of the equilibrium positions and the system dynamics. Additionally, the changing cable lengths alter the natural frequencies of the manipulator as it moves around the workspace. This paper presents the modeling and control of a large scale CSPM with an extendable end-effector. The dominant dynamics were used to design a control system to limit the end-effector vibration. The simulated results are compared to a full-scale experimental setup to verify the key findings.

In this paper, a cable-driven system is examined for the application of inspection of large, vertical-walled structures such as chemical storage tanks, large ship hulls, and high-rise buildings. Such cable-driven systems are not commonly used for these tasks due to vibration, which decreases inspection accuracy and degrades safety. The flexible nature of the cables make them difficult to control. In this paper, input shaping is implemented on a cable-driven system to reduce vibration. To design the input shapers, a model of the cable-driven system was developed. Analysis of the dominant dynamics and changes in them over the large workspace are also presented. The performance improvements provided by the input shaping controller are quantified through a series of simulations.

The control of flexible systems has been an active area of research for many years because of its importance to a wide range of applications. The majority of previous research on time-optimal control has concentrated on the rest-to-rest problem. However, there are many cases when flexible systems are not at rest or are subjected to disturbances. This paper presents an approach to design optimal vibration-reducing commands for systems with nonzero initial conditions. The problem is first formulated as an optimal control problem, and the optimal solution is shown to be bang-bang. Once the structure of the optimal command is known, a parametric problem formulation is presented for the computation of the switching times. Solutions are experimentally verified using a portable bridge crane by moving the payload through a commanded motion while removing initial payload swing.