The aim of this study was to evaluate the deflection and stress distribution in endodontically treated molars restored by endocrowns from different materials available for the computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM) technique using three-dimensional finite element analysis. The models represented extensively damaged molars restored by endocrowns from the following materials: translucent zirconia; zirconia-reinforced glass ceramic; lithium disilicate glass ceramic; polymer-infiltrated ceramic network (PICN) and resin nanoceramic. Axial and oblique loadings were applied and the resulting stress distribution and deflection were analyzed. The Mohr–Coulomb (MC) ratio was also calculated in all models. The translucent zirconia endocrown showed the highest stress concentration within it and the least stress in dental structures. The resin nanoceramic model was associated with the greatest stress concentration in dental tissues, followed by the PICN model. Stress was also concentrated in the distal region of the cement layer. The MC ratio in the cement was higher than 1 in the resin nanoceramic model. Oblique loading caused higher stresses in all components and greater displacement than axial loading, whatever the material of the endocrown was. The translucent zirconia model recorded deflections of enamel and dentin (38.4 µm and 35.7 µm, respectively), while resin nanoceramic showed the highest stress concentration and displacement in the tooth–endocrown complex.
The aim of this work was to study the different types of passive articulated and non-articulated ankle–foot orthoses for gait rehabilitation in terms of working principles, control mechanisms, features, and limitations, along with the recent clinical trials on AFOs. An additional aim was to categorize them to help engineers and orthotists to develop novel designs based on this research. Based on selected keywords and their composition, a search was performed on the ISI Web of Knowledge, Google Scholar, Scopus, and PubMed databases from 1990 to 2022. Forty-two studies met the eligibility criteria, which highlighted the commonly used types and recent development of passive articulated and non-articulated ankle–foot orthoses for foot drop. Orthotists and engineers may benefit from the information obtained from this review article by enhancing their understanding of the challenges in developing an AFO that meets all the requirements in terms of ease of use, freedom of movement, and high performance at a relatively low cost.
The current research aimed to investigate the critical buckling load of a simply supported aerospace-grade stiffened panel made of additively manufactured cubic lattice unit cell arrays, namely simple cubic, face-centered cubic (FCC) and body-centered cubic (BCC) structures. Ansys Design Modeler was chosen to design and analyze the critical buckling load of the panel, while a popular material, Ti-6Al-4V, was used as the build material. Numerical validation on both the stiffened panel and a lattice beam structure was established from multiple resources from the literature. Finally, the panels were tested against increments of a strut diameter ranging from 0.5 mm to 2 mm, which corresponds to a relative density of 6% to 78%. It was found that considering the relative density and fixed relative density, the simple cubic lattice cell outperformed the buckling results of the FCC and BCC panels. Moreover, the relationship of the parameters was found to be non-linear. Finally, the data samples collected from numerical outcomes were utilized to train four different machine learning models, namely multi-variable linear regression, polynomial regression, the random forest regressor and the K-nearest neighbor regressor. The evaluation metrics suggest that polynomial regression provides the highest accuracy among all the tested models, with the lowest mean squared error (MSE) value of 0.0001 and a perfect score. The current research opens up the discussion of using cubic lattice cells as potential structures for future stiffened panels.
6 December 2019 in EPJ Nuclear Sciences & Technologies
Many industries, such as nuclear power plants, chemical industry, oil and gas industry have dangerous working environments and hazardous conditions for employees. Maintenance, inspection and decommissioning activities in these safety-critical areas mean a serious risk, downtime is a significant financial loss. The Virtual Reality Training Platform is reflecting on this shortcoming, by providing the possibility for maintenance workers to be trained and prepared for unexpected scenarios, and to learn complex maintenance protocols without being exposed to unnecessary danger, like high temperature, radiation, etc. Employees can have training for equipment maintenance, dismantling of facilities at closed NPP Units. One of the most significant and unique added value of the immersive virtual reality solution is that the operator can experience lifelike emergencies (detonation, shutdown) under psychological pressure, while all of the physiology indicators can be monitored like eye-tracking. Users can work together anywhere in the world. A huge financial outage in industrial production is the preparation and maintenance downtime, which can be significantly reduced by the Virtual Training platform. This method can increase the accuracy, safety, reliability, and accountability of the maintenance and decommissioning procedures, while operational costs can be reduced as well.