Easier Maintainability Research Articles

Spiking suppression of high power QCW pulse 1319 nm Nd:YAG laser with different intracavity doublers

We describe the results of our efforts in suppressing spiking of a high power, high beam quality 1319 nm Nd:YAG microsecond-pulse laser with three different intracavity frequency doublers. The 1319 nm laser is generated by a quasi-continuous-wave diode-pumped Nd:YAG ring laser system. One potassium titanyl phosphate (KTP), two KTPs and one lithium triborate (LBO) as frequency doublers are installed in the ring resonator and tested, respectively. At 800 Hz repetition rate, with a pulse width of 100 µs, performances of spiking suppression for each case are observed. The average output power are 23.6 W, 22.7 W and 23.4 W with beam quality factors of M2 = 2.21, 1.28 and 1.25 for one KTP, two KTPs and one LBO, respectively. The corresponding brightness are 270 MW/(cm2·sr), 780 MW/(cm2·sr) and 860 MW/(cm2·sr). With better beam quality, higher brightness, and easier maintainability, the LBO is the best option of the three. A laser rate equation model including the insertion loss of the doubler is applied for theoretical analysis of the output temporal pulse shape and power, and the simulated results agree well with the experimental data.

Object-Oriented Programming Hardware/Software HSupports and Comparison

Object-oriented programming has advantages of reusability, more extensibility, and easier maintainability. While it needs hardware/software environment to support the OO behaviors. In the paper, three OO supporting mechanisms are discussed, the advantages and disadvantages are compared.

Achieving Flexible Reconfiguration via Mechatronic Modules

With shortening product life cycle, modern production facilities require rapid adaptation to new requirements. In addition, easier maintainability is called for in order to achieve a higher availability. This can be accomplished by means of modular and reconfigurable machines and facilities. For this purpose, machine modules with new system boundaries have to be designed as mechatronic and self-sustaining units to achieve reconfigurable machining systems. Thus new generations of machine configurations must be created. In this article, the analysis of interfaces for new mechatronic autonomous modules is developed, which will result in new modular machine concepts which are firstly applied on a transfer line where the machines represent the modules and secondly on machining centre where machine components are defined as modules. Thereby it is proven that by integration of functions and by setting new system boundaries, mechatronic autonomous modules are developable.

Object-oriented Fortran 90 P-adaptive finite element method

Over the last decade, there has been an increased awareness of the benefits of employing Object-Oriented (OO) design and methodologies for development of software. Among the various languages available for OO development, Fortran 95 has some clear advantages for scientific and engineering programming. It offers features similar to other OO languages like C++ and Smalltalk as well as extensive and efficient numerical abilities. This paper will describe the OO design and implementation of P-adaptive finite element analysis (FEA) using Fortran. We will demonstrate how various OO principles were successfully employed to achieve greater flexibility, easier maintainability and extensibility. This is helpful for a complex program like an adaptive finite element implementation.

X-cell — intelligent cell control using object-oriented programming (Part I)

The control of batch manufacturing systems is complex, and one viable solution is to break control into a series of levels within an overall hierarchy of control. Cell control forms a major element of such a hierarchy in that cell controllers manage and co-ordinate the manufacturing equipment within each cell. This equipment includes robots, machine tools and material handling systems. This paper reviews object oriented programming, and describes its use in a cell control system termed X-cell. Object-oriented programming has advantages in terms of a modular programming style, an increased flexibility and easier maintainability. An overview of X-Cell is given. Three main modules are used: the scheduler, the operation dispatcher, and the monitor. Each uses a number of objects. The use of object-oriented programming results in flexibility in handling a wide range of factors.

Technological change and future growth: Issues and opportunities

Over the next three decades we may anticipate major technological advances and changes in American society in the area of electronics, automation, information handling, food, and biological manipulations, as well as in the more commonplace areas of industry, commerce, and domestic devices. Dominant elements driving these changes are fundamental shifts in the availability of energy and materials, which will stimulate major innovation in substitutions, extended service life, and easier maintainability; and the increasing role of science as a well-spring of new technologies. Furthermore, the movement of U.S. society into a post-industrial society with its emphasis on knowledge based industries will stimulate major shifts in the nature and location of work, land use, and information-associated technologies. This will be accompanied by a flourishing of social, institutional, and psychological technologies. Market forces will play a dominant role in the realization of these new technological developments. In addition to these forces, technological needs and opportunities will arise which lie outside the market system, such as developments with regard to geophysical manipulation, earthquake control, and weather modification. The principal role of government in assuring continuing benefits from technology is guiding the socially effective interplay of the basic variables: land, labor, capital, resource availability and knowledge. To be socially useful, the interplay must be future-oriented, flexible, and information driven. One specific role for government is setting reliable boundary conditions on private and public endeavors with some clarity and incisiveness to permit market and non-market forces to operate. Put differently, a principal role for government is the more effective management of uncertainties with regard to future potential opportunities and risks in order to encourage new and needed developments and innovations. A principal limitation on technological and scientific decision-making is the inadequacy of knowledge gathered and organized for the purpose of illuminating public policy. Meeting these information needs is a second specific role for government. Since most information is collected for other purposes, modifications which explicity generate and collect policy-related information would effect a major improvement in public and private decisionmaking. The wider practice of the concept of technology assessment as a means to better understand options, alternatives, and consequences for technology should be encouraged in and out of government. Many major regulatory agencies of government reflect needs and problems decades old which are no longer of primary importance. A third specific role for government in guiding technology, the reform of the regulatory agencies through their restructing, offers major opportunities for more effective management of technology. Primary candidates for this specific role of government include agencies regulating communications, drugs, banking, securities, energy, health care, transportation, and marine and oceanographic affairs. The fourth major role for government, research and development, should be driven by several convergent factors. There are opportunities for new and expanded technological developments with regard to: (a)The wiring of metropolitan and rural areas for fuller telecommunications; (b)the introduction of major new energy sources such as solar, geothermal, and ocean technologies; (c)the reformulation of education technologies, welfare, and health delivery systems; and (d) the reconstruction of cities and other habitats. Furthermore, the economically mature society implies not less but different technology emphasizing: social and biological as well as physical technology; personal improvement and fulfillment, and accomplishing more with less. There also are numerous problems of a high-growth society such as the propensity to maximize bureaucratic efficiency at the expense of social effectiveness; alienation of workers; adverse effects of excessive size and integration; societal needs not accommodated by market forces, and the negative side effects of technology. Each of these clusters of problems and opportunities could be profoundly influenced by research and experimentation.