Shimon Ando

Effects of loading rate on fracture toughness of ice. III. Statistical study on fracture toughness of ice.

A method to express the distribution of the experimental results of fracture toughness of ice was investigated by postulating the Weibull distribution with three parameters. The data were taken from the previous experiments conducted to study the effect of loading rate on the fracture toughness9), 10). Weibull parameters were estimated by several estimation methods11), 12) and the parameters obtained were compared with each other. The effect of loading rate together with that of specimen size on the parameters were discusssd at three loading rate ranges. It was confirmed that the parameters estimated were closely related to the experimental value of fracture toughness.

Current Status and Future of Intelligent Industrial Robots

This paper reviews the current status of industrial robots and discusses their future from the viewpoint of the basic key functions which will be required for future intelligent applications. Ten basic key functions are introduced as examples which satisfy the following four conditions: 1) low price, 2) high performance, 3) high reliability, and 4) simplicity. All of these functions are necessary if robots are to perform tasks more effectively in actual applications. The effectiveness of the functions are explained using ten industrial robots or robotic machines which have been developed by Hitachi.