Dongji Xuan

Force characteristic of a magnetic actuator for separable electric connector based on conical airgap

This article presents a magnetic actuator for use in a separable electric connector based on conical airgap. The magnetic flux lines in conical airgap are almost vertical to the edge face of the yoke and armature, showing that the actual flux length in conical airgap is smaller than the axial stroke, which reduces magnetic reluctance over large stroke. Parameter improvement is analyzed based on modeling, and optimal results of the magnetic actuator are adopted to improve the rate of force to volume. The experimental results show that there is friction force of 10–12 N existing in the moving armature of the prototype, and the nominal value is in accordance with the simulation one. The results show that the design of conical airgap in the magnetic actuator is available to improve the initial force and reliability of the separating process and has the advantages of compact structure, short transmission, high reliability, large force with 50 N at the initial displacement of 2.5 mm, and fast response with 16.5 ms over the traditional actuator.

Optimal Heater Control with Technology of Fault Tolerance for Compensating Thermoforming Preheating System

The adjustment of heater power is very important because the distribution of thickness strongly depends on the distribution of sheet temperature. In this paper, the steady state optimum distribution of heater power is searched by numerical optimization in order to get uniform sheet temperature. In the following step, optimal heater power distribution with a damaged heater was found out using the technology of fault tolerance, which will be used to reduce the repairing time when some heaters are damaged. The merit of this work is that the design variable was the power of each heater which can be directly used in the preheating process of thermoforming.