Method for minimising rolling joint play in the steerable laparoscopic instrument prototype DragonFlex

DragonFlex – Smart Steerable Laparoscopic Instrument

The identification of cable forces plays an important role in the construction, vibration control, and health monitoring of cable structures. In practice, cable vibrations are mainly affected by the coupling of bending stiffness, sag, inclination, and boundary conditions, so it is difficult to establish an explicit functional relationship between frequency and cable force through the vibration method for facilitating application to engineering. To overcome this difficulty, the explicit expression of the frequency of the cable considering bending stiffness, sag, and inclination is derived for the first time and a novel cable force identification method for determining the piecewise-fitted formula (PFF) according to the cable parameters is proposed. The paper first reviews the cable force identification formulas based on cable frequencies. Then, the theoretical analysis model and differential equation of cable vibration considering the aforementioned factors are established. Based on these derivations, the explicit general formula of cable force identification based on fundamental frequency is derived. Next, according to the cable parameters, the value ranges of two nondimensional parameters characterizing the bending stiffness and sag of cables are divided to fit the corresponding coefficients of the PFF. Finally, numerical simulation and experimental data show that the PFF is more accurate and applicable than the existing formulas. This method can be conveniently applied to the field detection and online monitoring of cable forces.

Circular product design is a relatively new approach to design suitable strategies to realize circular products. Additive manufacturing (AM) is seen as a promising enabling production process. It has digital and additive characteristics, which makes AM different from conventional production techniques. However, it is yet unclear how this technique can contribute to circular product design in practice. In this paper, a literature review is placed in context, i.e. the results of a literature review on sustainability opportunities in AM are compared to five typical design cases in a design review.

Cable tension force is one of the most important structural parameters to monitor in cable-stayed bridges. For example, cable tension needs to be monitored during construction and maintenance to ensure the bridge is not overloaded. To economically monitor tension forces, this study proposes the use of an automated wireless tension force estimation system (WFTES) developed solely for cable force estimation. The design of the WFTES system can be divided into two parts: low-cost hardware and automated software. The low-cost hardware consists of an integrated platform containing a wireless sensing unit constructed from commercial off-the-shelf components, a low-cost commercial MEMS accelerometer, and a signal conditioning board for signal amplification and filtering. With respect to the automated software, a vibration-based algorithm using estimated modal parameters and information on the cable sag and bending stiffness is embedded into the wireless sensing unit. Since modal parameters are inputs to the algorithm, additional algorithms are necessary to extract modal features from measured cable accelerations. To validate the proposed WFTES, a scaled-down cable model was constructed in the laboratory using steel rope wire. The wire was exposed to broad-band excitations while the WFTES recorded the cable response and embedded algorithms interrogated the measured acceleration to estimate tension force. The results reveal the embedded algorithms properly identify the lower natural frequencies of the cable and make accurate estimates of cable tension. This paper concludes with a summary of the salient research findings and suggestions for future work.

The mechanical behavior of a sandwich structure made of woven glass/epoxy skins and an additive manufactured (AM) core was studied. The AM core was fabricated using polyetherimide and fused deposition modeling. This combination was chosen to increase the out-of-plane strength of an AM aircraft part. Tensile, flexural, and puncture tests were conducted for both the AM core and sandwich structure. The behavior of the beams was governed by the skins; however, the effect of the AM core for one-sided beams was significant. The tensile strength predicted by the simple mixture rule was in good agreement with the experimental results. For the flexural test specimen, sandwich beams were tested under three-point bending. The addition of composite skins increased the elastic modulus and flexural strength in both directions. The prevalent failure modes were skin wrinkling and core failure, and failure of the compressive skin was more likely. Puncture tests were conducted at three different temperatures. Owing to the increased bending stiffness, the sandwich structure did not exhibit ductile-to-brittle transition behavior.

In the field of medical instruments, additive manufacturing allows for a drastic reduction in the number of components while improving the functionalities of the final design. In addition, modifications for users’ needs or specific procedures become possible by enabling the production of single customized items. In this work, we present the design of a new fully 3D-printed handheld steerable instrument for laparoscopic surgery, which was mechanically actuated using cables. The pistol-grip handle is based on ergonomic principles and allows for single-hand control of both grasping and omnidirectional steering, while compliant joints and snap-fit connectors enable fast assembly and minimal part count. Additive manufacturing allows for personalization of the handle to each surgeon’s needs by adjusting specific dimensions in the CAD model, which increases the user’s comfort during surgery. Testing showed that the forces on the instrument handle required for steering and grasping were below 15 N, while the grasping force efficiency was calculated to be 10–30%. The instrument combines the advantages of additive manufacturing with regard to personalization and simplified assembly, illustrating a new approach to the design of advanced surgical instruments where the customization for a single procedure or user’s need is a central aspect.

Superheater tubes are critical boiler components that operate at relatively higher temperatures and pressure. Amongst the primary concerns for these tubes is the deposition of ash particles on the tube surface, leading to the reduced thickness of the tube due to material corrosion, consequently causing early creep failure of the component. In this research, a novel tube design has been proposed which resembles a teardrop or ogive shape to reduce the drag and concurrently improve the creep life of the superheater tubes. To administer the practicality of novel tubes, metal additive manufacturing (AM), for instance, laser-powder bed fusion (L-PBF), has been proposed. These unconventional designs were assessed and compared with the baseline circular tube design for mechanical design requirements (hoop stress and creep life) and the particle and flue gas flow characteristics around the differently shaped tubes. A thermomechanical finite element (FE) analysis was performed for hoop stress calculations. This study also emphasizes on effect of circumferential thermal variation on hoop stress distribution in tubes. Therefore, a detailed two-dimensional (2D) thermal simulation has been performed to report the circumferential thermal variation on the tube. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis coupled with particle tracing was performed for gas flow visualization and particle tracing around the proposed shapes and baseline circular-shaped tube design. The Schlieren optic setup was built and leveraged for qualitative validation of the proposed design. The complete design methodology established in the paper shows teardrop-shaped tubes better in terms of drag and creep life in contrast to the circular-shaped tube.

Inspired by the potential of architected materials for achieving biomimicking functionalities and the advancement of multi-material additive manufacturing to fabricate parts with complex structures and heterogeneous material distributions, this study investigates the feasibility of using a multi-material, flexible chain mail sheet for the design of an additively manufactured artificial spinal disc for reproducing patient-specific anisotropic and nonlinear rotational behaviors. The application of a chain mail-based structure is motivated by its similarities in behaviors compared with a natural disc's fiber network that likewise has negligible bending stiffness and shape-changing ability. The proposed approach for the chain mail sheet design includes an initial characterization of the uniaxial tensile responses of the chain mail unit cell defined as the basic building block of the chain mail sheet, modeling and response calculation, and material optimization. Results show that the additively manufactured chain mail sheet is not only able to exhibit a natural strain-stiffening rotational response but also is able to reproduce natural anisotropy of three natural disc specimens in the six most common rotational scenarios in daily life. This study shows the potential of additively manufactured mechanical-metamaterials-inspired structures for implant design to restore natural mechanics.

Metal-ceramic bond strength of a cobalt chromium alloy for dental prosthetic restorations with a porous structure using metal 3D printing

Biological membranes exhibit the ability to self-repair and dynamically change their shape while remaining impermeable. Yet, these defining features are difficult to reconcile with mechanical robustness. Here, we report on the spontaneous formation of a carbon nanoskin at the oil–water interface that uniquely combines self-healing attributes with high stiffness. Upon the diffusion-controlled self-assembly of a reactive molecular surfactant at the interface, a solid elastic membrane forms within seconds and evolves into a continuous carbon monolayer with a thickness of a few nanometers. This nanoskin has a stiffness typical for a 2D carbon material with an elastic modulus in bending of more than 40–100 GPa; while brittle, it shows the ability to self-heal upon rupture, can be reversibly reshaped, and sustains complex shapes. We anticipate such an unusual 2D carbon nanomaterial to inspire novel approaches towards the formation of synthetic cells with rigid shells, additive manufacturing of composites, and compartmentalization in industrial catalysis.

To design and manufacture free-form biodegradable polycaprolactone (PCL) bone plates and to compare mechanical properties of femoral constructs with a distal physeal fracture repaired by use of 5 stabilization methods. 40 canine femoral replicas created by use of additive manufacturing and rapid tooling. Surgery duration, mediolateral and craniocaudal bending stiffness, and torsional stiffness of femoral physeal fracture repair constructs made by use of 5 stabilization methods were assessed. The implants included 2 Kirschner wires inserted medially and 2 inserted laterally (4KW), a commercial stainless steel plate (CSP), a custom free-form titanium plate (CTP), thin (2-mm-thick) biodegradable PCL plates (TNP) placed medially and laterally, and thick (4-mm-thick) PCL plates (TKP) placed medially and laterally. Surgical placement of 4KW was more rapid than placement of other implants The mean caudal cantilever bending stiffness of CTP and CSP constructs was greater than that for TNP TKP and 4KW constructs, and the mean caudal cantilever bending stiffness of TNP and TKP constructs was greater than that for 4KW constructs. The mean lateral cantilever bending stiffness of TKP constructs was greater than that for 4KW constructs. Differences among construct types were not significant in yield strength, ultimate strength, yield torque, and ultimate torque. The mechanical properties of fracture repair constructs made from free-form PCL biodegradable plates compared favorably with those of constructs made from Kirschner wires. The impact of PCL plates on musculoskeletal soft tissues, bone healing, and bone growth should be evaluated before clinical use.

An identification method of bridge cable force under the double peak phenomenon of fundamental frequency in vibration is studied in this paper. Accurate cable force identification is crucial for ensuring the safety and reliability of bridge structures in service. However, the phenomenon of double peak is often generated at the fundamental frequency in practical engineering, and traditional cable force identification methods based on cable single fundamental frequency component may not be effective in such cases. Based on the mechanism that the cable vibration in different directions is affected by different factors, this paper reveals the cause of the bimodal phenomenon for the first time, and proposes a new method for bridge cable force identification. The proposed method overcomes the difficulty of dense mode identification and considers the coupling effects of bending stiffness, sag and inclination on cable vibration, and is validated by using laboratory data and bridge monitoring data.

The suspension cable structure with a small rise-span ratio (less than 1/30) is adopted in the flexible photovoltaic support, and it has strong geometric nonlinearity. Based on the principle of energy, the increment of cable force and the change of cable displacement under concentrated force are derived for the suspension cable in an equilibrium state under uniform distributed load, and the equivalent bending stiffness of simply supported beam under bending is given. Considering the strain energy generated by cable force variation, the method presented in the paper has higher calculation accuracy for suspension cable structures with a small rise-span ratio, and includes the special case of a large rise-span ratio. An engineering example of flexible photovoltaic support with a span of 15m is calculated and analyzed, and then compared with the finite element calculation results. The results show that the calculation error is less than 1% when the rise is 0.4 m, and the calculation error is less than 3% when the rise is 1.5m. The calculation formula in the paper is simple and accurate, which can provide a reference for static analysis and structural design of flexible photovoltaic support.

Stiffness optimisation of sandwich structures with elastically isotropic lattice core

Topology optimization of microlattice dome with enhanced stiffness and energy absorption for additive manufacturing