When laparoscopic surgery is performed, polymer clip blood vessel ligators are widely used to prevent bleeding and secure surgical vision. However, long-term use of such ligators can cause many structural problems, especially in the jaw part where the clip is mounted directly to the blood vessel. For example, jaws of the ligation device might be opened above the design value and upper and lower jaws might be twisted against each other. In addition, buckling or bending deformation can easily occur at the tip of the inner shaft. Due to these problems, the ligation machine cannot ligate the clip properly, which might lead to a medical accident. Therefore, in this study, the design was changed to improve these problems by increasing the pin diameter and contact surface, applying a double pin structure, and changing the structure of the shaft tip. As a result, the modified model showed 12.5% and 10.2% improvements in opening and twisting stiffness compared to the initial model with 7.2% and 58% improvements in critical buckling load and bending stiffness, respectively.

Purification of water through oil–water separation is essential for preserving the ecosystem and protecting human health. Although a conventional polypropylene depth filter can effectively purify water, modifying the wettability of a filter for oil–water separation is difficult owing to its low reactivity. In this study, we developed a superhydrophilic polypropylene filter with a hydrogel layer that could enable effective oil–water separation by using plasma treatment and dip coating, which enabled an even distribution of the coating solution across the filter. The fabricated filter was superhydrophilic with a water contact angle of 0o. It showed a high repulsive force with oil in water with an underwater oil contact angle of 142.9o. When such filter was applied to an oil–water separation device, it effectively purified water with low oil content (< 15 ppm) at a flow rate of 300 mL/min. These results demonstrate potential applications of such filters in areas such as wastewater treatment and oil spill cleanup.

For the hydraulic cylinder system of construction equipment to function normally, the hydraulic oil should not leak under high pressure, and the leakage begins with various seals of damage. The frictional heat caused by the reciprocating motion inside the cylinder increases the temperature of the oil, which affects the aging of the seal materials inside the cylinder, thereby accelerating seal damage. The purpose of this study is to confirm the effect of reducing heat generation by applying umbrellatype micro-dimples on the surface of a wear ring, and to find out the performance according to changes in shape and density of the dimples. Dimples were manufactured by injection molding and the core for injection was made by profile grinding processing. The structural safety of the wearing with dimples was examined by structural analysis, and the temperature changes of the dimple were measured during pin-on-disc friction experiments. It was confirmed that the dimple was effective in reducing the amount of heat generated, and the heat generation decreased as the size and density of the dimple increased.

There are various micromachining processes available for manufacturing highly integrated and precise parts, each having its own characteristics and limitations. The degree to which micromachining processes meet the requirements depends on characteristics of parts that are different, making it difficult to determine the most appropriate process. In this context, the present study presents an algorithm for determining the optimal micromachining process by applying the Fuzzy AHP-TOPSIS technique frequently used for multi-criteria decision-making. Fuzzy AHP was employed for calculating weights of requirements for a given part. Fuzzy TOPSIS was employed for determining ranks of candidate processes based on weights of requirements and evaluation of processes. Fuzzy logic was applied to handle ambiguous and inaccurate information encountered in evaluating the relative importance of requirements and performances of processes. The case study in which the optimal process for micro-hole drilling of a fuel injection nozzle was determined showed that the proposed method was effective. It could be extended to micromachining of various shapes.

This study aimed to determine effects of ultrasonic nanocrystal surface modification (UNSM) as a surface pre-process on performance and surface characteristics of bolts manufactured through a screw rolling process. Surface roughness, hardness, and microstructural changes after UNSM treatment were examined. Results showed no significant defects such as cracks in all fabricated samples after screw rolling of bolt pre-processed by UNSM treatment. In addition, material flow was continuously maintained without disconnection. After UNSM treatment, surface roughness was improved for both body and screw parts. The surface roughness of the UNSM treated screw part was improved the most at 43%. Hardness test showed the greatest increase in hardness on the surface hit by the UNSM ball tip, with hardness improved to about 500 μm deep from the surface. The hardness at the screw part was the highest at 471 HV, which was attributed to the fact that grains near the surface were deformed and refined by UNSM treatment followed by screw rolling. Near the surface of the screw, refined grains and high dislocation density were clearly observed by EBSD mapping. These results confirm that UNSM treatment before screw rolling is effective in improving mechanical properties of screw rolled bolts.

With recent development of 3D printing technology, its applications to the bio-industry are increasing. Many research studies are being done for manufacturing personalized tablets through this technology in the pharmaceutical process. In this study, to control the dissolution rate of tablets, a lattice structure was inserted into the tablet and the dissolution rate was compared. The tablet proposed in this study can be manufactured by the FDM method, adopting a lattice structure with a large surface area-to-volume ratio. Tablets containing various lattice structures were fabricated using water-soluble PVA filaments and dissolution experiments were conducted in water at 37oC. As a result, it was confirmed that the specific surface area and the mass loss rate were proportional to both the 3D lattice structure and the monolith structure. Among different structures, the diamond structure had the most active dissolution.

Recently, with the expansion of application of polymer composite materials, high levels of deformation compensation actions have been developed. However, there is a problem of high-temperature viscoelasticity that occurs over time after completing the injection molding process. In this study, changes of mechanical properties of the Moldflow program for injection molding were analyzed to verify the viscoelasticity phenomenon through deformation analysis. In addition, deformation analysis of plastic injection molded products according to arrangement of three ribs was conducted and two products with different geometric shapes of the same function were compared. As a result, it was possible to reflect the viscoelastic effect by reducing the elastic modulus and shear modulus of the material. It was confirmed that the geometric shape with thick ribs formed in multiple longitudinal directions was mainly responsible. On the surface of the product where the rib arrangement was parallel and perpendicular to the flow direction, the orientation was orthogonal to the linear direction and the maximum residual stress was 81.17 MPa, which showed the largest value. It was judged that viscoelastic phenomena could be predicted and that an arrangement of parallel and perpendicular ribs that might intersect should be avoided.

A Continuous Ship Unloader (CSU) is a facility in which multiple buckets rotate to excavate cargo from a ship to land. It is typically designed to have a lifespan of 20 years. However, fatigue damage is likely to occur before the end of its designated lifespan. This study aims to examine the possibility of extending the component"s lifespan by evaluating the remaining useful life of L-holder, a part of CSU, that has been in use for 20 years. Fatigue load history was predicted by measuring the strain with or without strain at the L-holder part requiring periodic replacement. Through tensile and fatigue tests, the remaining life was evaluated when cracks were not present. In addition, the remaining life in the presence of cracks was evaluated through destructive toughness test and fatigue crack propagation test. Life prediction results based on test cycles were obtained. The proposed guidelines are expected to be helpful for preventing CSU accidents.

Recently, the estimation of joint kinetics such as joint force and moment using wearable inertial sensors has received great attention in biomechanics. Generally, the joint force and moment are calculated though inverse dynamics using segment kinematic data, ground reaction force, and moment. However, this approach has problems such as estimation error of kinematic data and soft tissue artifacts, which can lead to inaccuracy of joint forces and moments in inverse dynamics. This study aimed to apply a recurrent neural network (RNN) instead of inverse dynamics to joint force and moment estimation. The proposed RNN could receive signals from inertial sensors and force plate as input vector and output lower extremity joints forces and moments. As the proposed method does not depend on inverse dynamics, it is independent of the inaccuracy problem of the conventional method. Experimental results showed that the estimation performance of hip joint moment of the proposed RNN was improved by 66.4% compared to that of the inverse dynamics-based method.

The objective of this study was to present a rotary manipulating system driven by a rotary actuator based on twisted shape memory alloy (SMA) wires. The rotary actuator was composed of two oppositely twisted SMA wires connecting a rotor and a stator through a shaft. Two oppositely twisted SMA wires could generate bidirectional rotary motions upon actuation of each twisted SMA wire corresponding to the direction against the twist direction of each SMA wire. A manipulator was designed and fabricated by integrating manipulating arms, the rotary actuator, and a Hall effect magnetic rotary encoder which could measure the angular position of the rotary motion. We modeled and characterized the manipulator upon application of a ramp current input to each twisted SMA wire. A proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller was designed and implemented to control the proposed rotary manipulator. Reference angular position tracking performances of the manipulator were evaluated with a series of experiments.