Taekyung Lee

Study for the Indirect Measuring Method of Operational Force in Surgical Robot Instrument

This paper proposes the method indirectly measuring the operating force of the end-effect tip of surgical robot instrument which conducts the surgical operation in the body on behalf of the surgeon`s hand. Due to the size and safety obligation to the surgical robot instrument, it is difficult to measure the operation force of its tip like grasping force. However the instrument is driven by cable-pulley torque transmission mechanism and when some force is occurred at the tip, then the reaction force appears on the cable as additional tension. Based on this phenomenon, this paper proposes a method to estimate the operating force from measuring reaction force against the driving motor by using a loadcell. And it induces mathematical equation to calculate the force from loadcell by approaching the modulus of elasticity to high order polynomial. And this paper proves the validity of proposed mechanism by experimental test.

Prediction of hole expansion ratio for various steel sheets based on uniaxial tensile properties

Stretch-flangeability is one of important formability parameters of thin steel sheets used in the automotive industry. There have been many attempts to predict hole expansion ratio (HER), a typical term to evaluate stretch-flangeability, using uniaxial tensile properties for convenience. This paper suggests a new approach that uses total elongation and average normal anisotropy to predict HER of thin steel sheets. The method provides a good linear relationship between HER of the machined hole and the predictive variables in a variety of materials with different microstructures obtained using different processing methods. The HER of the punched hole was also well predicted using the similar approach, which reflected only the portion of post uniform elongation. The physical meaning drawn by our approach successfully explained the poor HER of austenitic steels despite their considerable elongation. The proposed method to predict HER is simple and cost-effective, so it will be useful in industry. In addition, the model provides a physical explanation of HER, so it will be useful in academia.

Influences of Polyurethane Nozzle Shape on Mixing Efficiency

For reaction injection molding (RIM) polyurethane was mixed in the mixing head by impingement mixing, injected into the mold, and cured quickly, as soon as the mold is filled. The shape of the nozzle in the mixing head is critical to improve the quality of polyurethane. To achieve homogeneous mixing, an intensive turbulence energy in the mixing nozzle is essential. In this study, a mixing nozzle for RIM was designed, and mixing efficiency was investigated based on experiment. Experiments were conducted with different combinations of nozzle tips and exit diameter to measure the mixing efficiency by measuring jet force and investigating mixing image with high speed camera. Jet force increased gradually and reaches steady state conditions. The jet force depended on shape of nozzle tip and outlet sizes. These results suggest that optimized nozzle configurations are necessary for high efficiency mixing with RIM.