Ana Maia

Development of a Mechanical Maintenance Training Simulator in OpenSimulator for F-16 Aircraft Engines

Abstract Mechanical maintenance of F-16 engines is carried out as a team effort involving 3 to 4 skilled engine technicians. This paper presents the development of a mechanical maintenance simulator for their training. This simulator aims to enable technician training to be enhanced with cooperation and context prior to the training phase with actual physical engines. We describe the requirements that were identified with the Portuguese Air Force, the overall software architecture of the system, the current stage of the prototype, and the outcomes of the first field tests with users.

Development of a mechanical maintenance training simulator in OpenSimulator for F-16 aircraft engines

Abstract Mechanical maintenance of F-16 engines is carried out as a team effort involving 3–4 skilled engine technicians, but the details of its procedures and requisites change constantly, to improve safety, optimize resources, and respond to knowledge learned from field outcomes. This provides a challenge for development of training simulators, since simulated actions risk becoming obsolete rapidly and require costly reimplementation. This paper presents the development of a 3D mechanical maintenance training simulator for this context, using a low-cost simulation platform and a software architecture that separates simulation control from simulation visualization, in view of enabling more agile adaptation of simulators. This specific simulator aims to enable technician training to be enhanced with cooperation and context prior to the training phase with actual physical engines. We provide data in support of the feasibility of this approach, describing the requirements that were identified with the Portuguese Air Force, the overall software architecture of the system, the current stage of the prototype, and the outcomes of the first field tests with users.

Social networks, microblogging, virtual worlds, and Web 2.0 in the teaching of programming techniques for software engineering: A trial combining collaboration and social interaction beyond college

With the goal of lessening barriers to the learning of advanced programming techniques, we put into place a trial which required students to get involved with online communities of programmers. Using a course assignment on software architecture styles, students had study a problem, find basis for a tentative approach, and discuss it online with programmers. The expectation was that students would find motivation for their studies from both the contact with communities of programmers, and from having to study and reflect upon their problem well enough to be able to draw the interest of members of those communities. We present the strategy we used, the developments and outcomes, and ideas for further application of this approach.

Designing User Learning Experience in Virtual Worlds: The Young Europeans for Democracy Serious Application

In this paper, we present the user experience design of Young Europeans for Democracy (YED) serious application. Facing the actually need to support young citizens understanding and participation in Europe, schools have a key role on European studies integration. Accordingly to the growing opportunities of applying technology for training and education, we propose a serious application in a open-source 3D Virtual World environment solution, adopting a problem-based learning approach, role-playing dynamics and group work tasks. The main goal was to design a meaningfully user experience, increasing the students motivation and engagement for learning different knowledge on the topics of European Studies. Some preliminary results are presented, based on participatory observation within the use of the serious application.

Numerical optimization strategies for springback compensation in sheet metal forming

The industrial sheet metal forming process is known for being influenced by undesired effects such as springback, fracture, or wrinkling, leading to a lack of quality of the final part. Springback is a critical problem, particularly in the automotive industry where mass production is frequently used and geometric inaccuracies result in heavy economic losses. Therefore, when designing a forming process, it is mandatory to take into consideration the springback behavior of the part in order to compensate or reduce it, through the adjustment of the process parameters such as external forces or tools geometry. The aim of this work is to discuss efficient strategies to compensate springback. To this end, two different approaches are compared: the Finite Element Method Updating and the Metamodeling Optimization. These approaches can use distinct solution evaluation strategies, namely Experimental and Finite Element Analyses, using both implicit and explicit time integration schemes. These solution evaluations are used to quantify the efficacy of the solution for the springback compensation problem, which is then used as input in the optimization algorithms to obtain new designs for the forming process. Considerations are also given regarding the use of different forming tools’ parameterizations in the springback compensation problem: NURBS versus classical geometrical parameterization. All different approaches are applied to the springback compensation problem of the U-shaped rail, a benchmark that shows large elastic recovery after the tool removing. The results are also compared with the ones obtained by other authors, highlighting that, even for this simple example, metamodeling optimization requires a large number of evaluations.

Integration of Technologies in Higher Education: Teachers’ Needs and Expectations at UTAD

Experiences with online learning in higher education are increasing in number. This is due to advancements in technology, technological savviness of teachers and students, evolution of teaching practices, and changes in student expectations. That is why understanding learners’ and teachers’ needs, expectations, and perceptions of their proficiency and use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) is critical to the success of the integration of technologies in higher education. The purpose of this paper is to reflect on teachers’ needs and expectations about ICT adoption in higher education, based on the results of a questionnaire, applied in a Portuguese university. The questionnaire explores what motivates teachers to use ICT tools in the context of teaching in higher education. It also intended to reveal which tools are most used from the ones available, as well as the needs and requirements that are not covered by the existing tools and services provided. The results allowed to analyze the usefulness of the measures implemented for teachers and consider new ones, more appropriate to the reality in permanent change by the constant evolution of the technologies used in the pedagogical practices.

Reconceptualizing planning: Conceiving new ways of planning educational processes with authoring tools

Planning in education is a process that can determine the success of learning. This has major impact in engineering education, where students have to develop complex competences in order to make decisions that can influence the world and humankind. Teachers are reluctant regarding the effective practice of planning educational processes, identifying the lack of time and appropriate pedagogical training as main causes for the problem. Our aim is contribute to solve this problem. This paper presents the exploration of the capabilities of conceptualization of planning by the IMS-LD educational modelling language, through CADMOS authoring tool. To do so we used a learning object of a discipline of a Computer Engineering higher education course. Several specifications were made in CADMOS, based on different learning strategies common used in engineering education. The results show that IMS-LD and CADMOS can help and simplify the planning process for teachers, allowing them to implement changes, reuse and share planning products. Limitations were identified, but they do not preclude the use of the tool for planning.

Sensitivity Analysis for Numerical Sheet Metal Forming Processes

Sheet Metal Forming is a widely used process in industry. However, it is also an expensive onedue to the diversity and complexity of methodologies used to obtain the adequate tools combination.In fact, even though there is already finite element based software to compute the final shape of aformed sheet from a given tool, there is no efficient procedure to predict the inverse problem: the toolgeometry from the formed component final shape.The final aim of this work is to improve the current trial-and-error process for the inverse problem.To achieve this objective, an integrated approach for tools geometry manipulation is presented, basedon the parametric NURBS description of the tools surface. This is applied to perform a sensitivityanalysis in order to evaluate the effect of numerical noise and small disturbances on the tools designvariables in the final formed sheet. Furthermore, the robustness of the proposed approach is evaluatedusing two parts with distinct complexity.