Browse Topic: Cost analysis
This research explores the use of salt gradient solar ponds (SGSPs) as an environmentally friendly and efficient method for thermal energy storage. The study focuses on the design, construction, and performance evaluation of SGSP systems integrated with reflectors, comparing their effectiveness against conventional SGSP setups without reflectors. Both experimental and numerical methods are employed to thoroughly assess the thermal behavior and energy efficiency of these systems. The findings reveal that the SGSP with reflectors (SGSP-R) achieves significantly higher temperatures across all three zones—Upper Convective Zone (UCZ), Non-Convective Zone (NCZ), and Lower Convective Zone (LCZ)—with recorded temperatures of 40.56°C, 54.2°C, and 63.1°C, respectively. These values represent an increase of 6.33%, 11.12%, and 14.26% over the temperatures observed in the conventional SGSP (SGSP-C). Furthermore, the energy efficiency improvements in the UCZ, NCZ, and LCZ for the SGSP-R are
The automotive industry is facing unprecedented pressure to reduce costs without compromising on quality and performance, particularly in the design and manufacturing. This paper provides a technical review of the multifaceted challenges involved in achieving cost efficiency while maintaining financial viability, functional integrity, and market competitiveness. Financial viability stands as a primary obstacle in cost reduction projects. The demand for innovative products needs to be balanced with the need for affordable materials while maintaining structural integrity. Suppliers’ cost structures, raw material fluctuations, and production volumes must be considered on the way to obtain optimal costs. Functional aspects lead to another layer of complexity, once changes in design or materials should not compromise safety, durability, or performance. Rigorous testing and simulation tools are indispensable to validate changes in the manufacturing process. Marketing considerations are also
The future of wireless technology - from charging devices to boosting communication signals - relies on the antennas that transmit electromagnetic waves becoming increasingly versatile, durable and easy to manufacture. Researchers at Drexel University and the University of British Columbia believe kirigami, the ancient Japanese art of cutting and folding paper to create intricate three-dimensional designs, could provide a model for manufacturing the next generation of antennas. Recently published in the journal Nature Communications, research from the Drexel-UBC team showed how kirigami - a variation of origami - can transform a single sheet of acetate coated with conductive MXene ink into a flexible 3D microwave antenna whose transmission frequency can be adjusted simply by pulling or squeezing to slightly shift its shape.
North American automakers and EV battery firms have five years to erase China's dominance in technology and manufacturing or they may face the reality of buying batteries from China for the foreseeable future. That was the message from battery-analysis company Voltaiq CEO Tal Sholklapper at a media briefing in Detroit. “We're in the final innings now,” Sholklapper said. “If the industry around batteries and electric vehicles and all the follow-on applications wants to make it, we're going to have to change the way we play.”
Vehicle quality and affordability will always be the most distinguishing summative characteristics in a fully saturated and highly competitive market. While vehicle quality differentiates between brands in any market segment, affordability remains the key decisive factor for many buyers in each segment. Equally important, affordability is a critical factor in achieving equity in transportation by providing reasonably priced vehicles with quality fitting the needs of different users. Keeping in mind that the cost of quality is usually in conflict with affordability, the main challenge during the different phases of the vehicle design and development process from inception to production becomes the achievement of the multi-objective conflicting goals of maximizing affordability and quality at the same time. In this paper, guided by quality characteristics framework, that accounts for affordability as a context and structured participation of the customers during the vehicle realization
Metal cutting/machining is a widely used manufacturing process for producing high-precision parts at a low cost and with high throughput. In the automotive industry, engine components such as cylinder heads or engine blocks are all manufactured using such processes. Despite its cost benefits, manufacturers often face the problem of machining chips and cutting oil residue remaining on the finished surface or falling into the internal cavities after machining operations, and these wastes can be very difficult to clean. While part cleaning/washing equipment suppliers often claim that their washers have superior performance, determining the washing efficiency is challenging without means to visualize the water flow. In this paper, a virtual engineering methodology using particle-based CFD is developed to address the issue of metal chip cleanliness resulting from engine component machining operations. This methodology comprises two simulation methods. The first is the virtual chip test
The demand for electric vehicles (EVs) has been steadily increasing in recent years, led by the factors like environmental concerns, government incentives, and improvements in EV technology. The EV’s growth is expected to increase in the coming years as EVs become more affordable and more models become available on the market. Predicting the price of electric vehicles provides valuable insights on the EV market and inform a range of business, consumer, financial, and policy decisions. Predicting the price of electric vehicles using simple linear regression involves building a linear regression model with a single independent variable usually the vehicle’s characteristics or features to predict the dependent variable the price.This work has predicted the price of Electric Vehicle using a data set prepared for the Indian context. It has been predicted that there is significant correlation between battery capacity in Ah and the vehicle price. The measured RMSE value is 26274.942642891292
Medical and surgical instruments are utilized daily to save and improve lives. Because of this, they demand an exact level of accuracy and infallibility in their manufacture. Traditionally, aluminum and other metals have been the standard material of choice for medical and surgical instruments due to their weight, strength, durability, and cost benefits. However, new advances in technology are challenging the status quo and offering exciting new manufacturing possibilities that allow for greater material choices. One such advancement already making waves in the aerospace, leisure, and automotive industries — and poised to benefit medical and surgical manufacturing — is Additive Fusion Technology (AFT)™.
ABSTRACT The U.S. Army must adapt and upgrade ground platforms at the speed of technology advancement to maintain competitive advantages over adversaries. The Program Executive Office (PEO) Ground Combat Systems (GCS) Common Infrastructure Architecture (GCIA) is a new ground systems approach to enable persistent modernization of future platforms. For legacy platforms, Project Lead Capability Transition and Product Integration (PL CTPI) is developing plans to incrementally incorporate standards and portions of GCIA where feasible and affordable on legacy platforms. The GCIA will enable rapid integration of ground system capabilities, increasing the Army’s ability to counter emergent threats on the battlefield. Citation: PEO GCS / PL CTPI, “Architecting for Persistent Modernization,” In Proceedings of the Ground Vehicle Systems Engineering and Technology Symposium (GVSETS), NDIA, Novi, MI, Aug. 16-18, 2022.
In this paper, a novel mixed-integer programming model is developed to optimally assign the die sets to candidate plants to minimize the total costs. The total costs include freight shipping stamped parts to assembly plants, die set movement, outsourcing, and utilization. Therefore, the objective function is weighted multi-criteria and it takes into consideration some of the key constraints in the real-world condition including “must-move die sets”. An optimization tool has been developed that takes several inputs and feeds them as the input to the mathematical model and generates the optimal assignments with the directional costs as the output. The tool has been tested for several plants at Ford and has proved its robustness by saving millions of dollars. The developed tool can easily be applied to other manufacturing systems and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).
Composite materials have time and again proven to be highly useful, especially in the aerospace industry with the increasing need for light-weight materials albeit with high stiffness to strength ratios. The Ceramic Particle Reinforced Composites can be effectively utilized in tuning the natural frequencies of components by varying the volume fractions up to 40% with the help of Representative Volume Element (RVE) / Unit Cell Models as explained in Reference [1]. The aim of this paper is to tune the natural frequencies of a typical blade used in a gas turbine engine by modifying the material properties without changing the design profile significantly. The design profiles of blades are arrived at after a lot of engineering iterations from aerodynamics stability point of view and are also finalized based on meeting key performance parameters. However, the structural analysis studies are carried out after the profile generation, which may sometime predict that the natural frequencies are
Remote Function Actuator (RFA) systems are widely used as the standard solution for conveniently accessing vehicles by remote control. To accelerate product development cycles and reduce engineering costs of physical test, a computer aided engineering (CAE) method has been developed to predict transmission range of the RFA system. Firstly, the detailed computational electromagnetic (CEM) models of the transmitting and receiving antennas were developed. Secondly, the articulated human model and the full vehicle meshed model were introduced to the CEM models to reflect the physical test environment. Lastly, the RFA system range model was built by including both the key fob held by an articulated human body and RFA module installed in the fully meshed vehicle. The transmission range could be extracted when the simulated received power reached the receiving sensitivity of the RFA module.
In emerging markets like India, manual transmission vehicles are still most preferred & contributes to 85% of passenger vehicle sales due to its cost benefit. However, customer expects good NVH behavior for comfortable driving experience in the vehicle to maneuver effortlessly in the highly congested traffic conditions in India. Clutch & its hydraulic release system in manual transmission of IC engines are the significant components which affects the NVH behavior & maneuverability of the vehicle and the driver comfort significantly. This paper focuses on the clutch pedal vibration & groan noise concern observed during clutch pedal actuation in high power density SUV vehicle developed for Indian market. The vehicle had highly efficient & light weight engine which has high engine axial vibrations. Axial vibrations are caused due to engine firing impulses & crankshaft bending causes flywheel axial movement. This movement in turn leads to vibrations in clutch cover diaphragm fingers which
SAE J4001 provides instruction for evaluating levels of compliance to SAE J4000. Component text (Sections 4 to 9) from SAE J4000 is included for convenience during the evaluation process. Applicable definitions and references are contained in SAE J4000. SAE J4000 tests lean implementation within a manufacturing organization and includes those areas of direct overlap with the organization’s suppliers and customers. If applied to each consecutive organizational link, an enterprise level evaluation can be made. SAE J4001 relates the following approximate topic percentages to the implementation process as a whole: SAE J4001 is to be applied on a specific component basis. Each of the 52 components tests part of, one, or multiples of the specific requirements of lean implementation. Implementation throughout an organization may be measured by evaluating all of the components. The level of compliance for each component relative to best practice may be used as a reference by an organization to
This SAE Aerospace Recommended Practice (ARP) describes the concept of life cycle costing with emphasis on LCC techniques and applications as applied to the phases of the program cycle. These phases are: a Conceptual studies, research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E) b Investment, or procurement c Operating and support (O&S) or in-service d Disposal of systems, equipment, and services Cost elements, estimating techniques and other factors which have a bearing on LCCs are described; including use of cost estimating relationships (CER), simulation techniques, and "top-down"/"bottom-up" approaches. Consideration is also given to: a Risk and uncertainty assessments b Impact of economic variations including inflation, interest rates, and exchange rate variation c Adoption of discounting techniques when undertaking investment appraisals The use of tailored LCC models is preferred since there is an advantage in adopting a range of approaches particularly for the prediction of the
This SAE Aerospace Recommended Practice (ARP)4294 is directed at life cycle cost (LCC) analysis of aerospace propulsion systems and supplements AIR1939. Specific topics addressed by ARP4294 are listed below: a Propulsion system LCC element structure. b Information exchange and relationships with: (1) Aircraft manufacturer (2) Equipment suppliers (3) Customer c The relationship of the LCC element structure to work breakdown structures. d The relationship between LCC analysis and other related disciplines (e.g., technical (performance analysis, weight control, component lives), reliability, availability and maintainability (RAM), integrated logistic support (ILS), production and finance). e Classification of the accuracy and applicability of LCC assessments.
Roof is one of the major subsystems of the Body-In-White Structure, which significantly affects the vehicle strength and durability performance criteria. The roof structure should meet the functional targets under the standard operating conditions. Roof design considering various parameters in the initial phase is beneficial in reducing the product timeline for the OEM. The first-time right approach provides an opportunity for Optimization and Cost benefits in the longer term. This paper provides the use of Design for Six Sigma techniques to arrive at a robust and optimum design for the standard roof structure. The roof structure is designed to meet the operating conditions for durability. Roof finite element models are developed with control factors that affect the structure design. Virtual Analysis is performed on the Standard roof structure models. Roof Performance is the contribution of multiple factors such as roof material, thickness, number of roof bows, positioning of the bows
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