Nitto Chemical Industry (Japan)

A hybrid laser welding system was developed to enable high-speed, spatter-suppressed joining of pure copper conductors, aimed at applications such as electric motor manufacturing. The system combines a 2 kW infrared (IR) single-mode fiber laser with a 3 kW blue diode laser, along with a high-speed galvanometer scanner for precise beam control. The blue laser, exhibiting high absorption in solid copper, initiates rapid surface melting, while the IR laser efficiently forms a keyhole by leveraging enhanced absorption in the liquid phase. Experiments on 2 × 4 mm copper wires revealed that increasing the scan speed reduced weld size, primarily due to decreased energy absorption associated with shallower keyhole formation. Spatter evaluation using high-speed imaging showed a significant reduction in spatter at higher scan speeds. A scan speed of 1500 mm/s was identified as optimal, achieving a weld length of 2 mm within 0.15 s while minimizing spatter. These results demonstrate the effectiveness of the hybrid laser configuration in achieving efficient, high-quality copper welding suitable for high-throughput industrial applications.

In recent years, factory automation and automated guided vehicles (AGVs), which play a role in factory automation, have been attracting attention from the perspectives of securing labor, reducing labor costs, and increasing work efficiency. AGVs are mainly used for transporting and towing cargo, and can perform complex tasks by mounting a robot arm on the AGV. AGVs operate on storage batteries, which must be recharged or replaced, or the AGV itself must be replaced. In addition, work is interrupted when replacing storage batteries, which reduces work efficiency and indirectly affects costs such as labor costs. Therefore, the use of contactless power supply during transportation and during work can improve efficiency without worrying about the remaining storage battery level. In this paper, we discuss the configuration of a system for contactless power supply to mobility vehicles while they are moving.

This paper describes NIO system for audio-visual diarization and recognition in the Multimodal Information Based Speech Processing (MISP) Challenge 2022. In our system, we proposed combining end-to-end audio-visual neural speaker diarization model and Channel-wise Av-fusion encoder with speaker signature for multi-channel audio-visual speech diarization and recognition. Our system reduces the concatenated minimum permutation character error rate(cpCER) by 34.36% absolute compared to the baseline in track 2.

According to the nearest Department of Meteorology (DoM) rain gauge (10 km southeast of the disaster site, on top of Mt. Pidurutalagala) (Figure For September 26 at 08 : 30, the daily precipitation was 19.5 mm and the weekly precipitation was 91.5 mm. Additional information from the rain gauge of the tea estate, located in the same region, indicated that there had been 135 mm of precipitation on September 25.

In push-back blanking, burr-free products are produced by compressing a half-blanked sheet between platens, where success conditions are affected by the ductility of materials. In this study, the mechanism of success and the cut edge quality in the push-back blanking process using a ductile and a brittle steel sheet were discussed. Experiments were carried out, varying the punch penetration and clearance in the half-blanking step. Brittle steel showed a wider successful range and less shear droop on the cut edge than ductile steel. Corresponding simulations were conducted and the damage value based on a ductile fracture criterion was calculated around the shear zone. Negative clearance was effective in keeping the damage value low and allowed deep punch penetration without fracturing in the half-blanking step. In the following push-back step, a rapid increase in the damage was observed when the high mean stress zone prevailed over the half-blanked portion. The timing of increase in damage was earlier for brittle steel owing to the localization of deformation, resulting in a wider successful range than that of ductile steel.

The surface treatment of spherical silica particles using a silane coupling agent with a glycidoxy group was conducted and the effect of the alkoxy group number on the molecular mobility of the silane chain was investigated by 1H pulse nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). Silanes with di-alkoxy and tri-alkoxy structures were used, and the silica particles were treated with 2-propanol solution and heated at 120 °C for 24 h after solvent evaporation. The surface coverage of the silica surface was in the range from two to three layers. For multilayer coverage, linear chain and network structures were expected to form on the surface by polycondensation reaction using the di- and tri-alkoxy structures, respectively. However, the relaxation times for silane chains with both di- and tri-alkoxy structures measured by pulse NMR were short, which indicates that both silane chains formed rigid network structures. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopic analysis revealed that ring opening of the epoxy group occurred, followed by reaction to form the network structure, even with the di-alkoxy structure. Ring opening of the epoxy group could be reduced by setting the heating temperature at 80 °C. There was a significant difference in flexibility between the silane-layers with di- and tri-alkoxy structures after heating at 80 °C, as reflected by the relaxation time.

The surface treatment of a glass fiber using mercapto-functional silane coupling agent having a di- or trialkoxy group has been studied. The surface of silane-treated fiber is observed by scanning electron microscopy. The treated layer looks hard like glass for the trialkoxy silane-treated, whereas it looks soft for the dialkoxy silane-treated. Molecular mobility of the treated layer is analyzed by 1H pulse nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. The amount of silane loading increases with increased silane concentration in the treatment solution. The relaxation time for the surface layer is longer for the dialkoxy structure than for the trialkoxy structure. The silane chain is flexible in the dialkoxy structure, but is rigid for the trialkoxy structure, independent of the loading amount of silane. The relaxation behavior for the mixture of the di- and trialkoxy structures is between those of the pure dialkoxy and trialkoxy structures and depends on the mixing ratio. The network density of silane chains on the glass fiber can be controlled by varying the mixing ratio of the di- and trialkoxy compounds.

We performed mass spectrometric imaging (MSI) to localize ginsenosides (Rb(1), Rb(2) or Rc, and Rf) in cross-sections of the Panax ginseng root at a resolution of 100 microm using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI-MS). Tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) of alkali metal-adducted ginsenoside ions revealed structural information of the corresponding saccharides and aglycone. MALDI-MSI confirmed that ginsenosides were located more in the cortex and the periderm than that in the medulla of a lateral root. In addition, it revealed that localization of ginsenosides in a root tip (diameter, 2.7 mm) is higher than that in the center of the root (diameter, 7.3 mm). A quantitative difference was detected between localizations of protopanaxadiol-type ginsenoside (Rb(1), Rb(2), or Rc) and protopanaxatriol-type ginsenoside (Rf) in the root. This imaging approach is a promising technique for rapid evaluation and identification of medicinal saponins in plant tissues.