In this paper, the compact reducer which can be used as a rigid drive mechanism with a high-speed reduction ratio is systematically studied for kinematics and dynamics. The speed ratio is determined by the number of cam lobes and engaged rollers. The eccentric rotating conjugate lobe cam profile is synthesized by using the rigid body transformation method. To characterize the input torque based on Newton’s second law, the transmission forces of the resisting and driven multi-roller are proportional to the arm length of each actuating roller found by its geometric vector. In consideration of machining undercutting, roller limit load, and contact stresses, favorable designs can be achieved by adjusting the cam size, turret dimension, eccentricity, and roller size. Together with experimental tests, a prototype of the lobe cam reducer is made to verify the feasibility of the proposed design procedure and to investigate its kinematic and dynamic characteristics for speed reduction ratios, torques, and transmission efficiency.

Human Machine Interactions Systems (HMI) are decisive for acceptance and safety of new cockpits in the automotive as well as in the aerospace industries. A new design and simulation platform called INSIDES will be presented where virtual cockpit prototypes are being built based on 3D CAD geometry e.g. from CATIA and integrated with logical interaction data derived from UML specifications. This new development platform enables the continuous validation and check of new interaction concepts by involving usability engineers in the very early stage of the development cycle. Since the simulation work is being done in the context of the entire aircraft cockpit / car interior with all instruments, control commands as well as displays devices a better validation of HMI systems can be achieved.

Against the backdrop of increasing ecological challenges, in connection with excessive use of resources, a rethinking of the current mode of operation of the economy and consumers is required. The circular economy, which describes a system in which products, components, and materials are preserved in recurring cycles, is seen as a counter-design to the currently dominant form of economy. The development of circular products plays a central role in the development of both consumer and capital goods. Design methods from circular design—a part of circular economy—form the basis for the development of circular products. Therefore, this contribution identifies and investigates evaluation criteria for the optimal selection of these design methods for use in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It is shown that design methods shall promote circular development of a product and focus on a systemic consideration of the product context along the entire product life cycle as well as closing technical and biological cycles. The contribution formulates evaluation criteria that address the assessment of the applicability, integrability in SMEs, and circularity of a design method and thus provide a basis for the evaluation of design methods from circular design. Product developers in SMEs are thus provided with a set of criteria to support them in product development for the circular economy.

With the increasing demand for safety and automatically locking nuts, it’s important to guarantee a consistent nut quality. Traditionally, a floating tapping machine has been used for high-speed production, but it has unstable thread quality because of the existing gap between the tap and nuts holder. To overcome this problem, a stable tapping machine must be considered for tapping high precision threaded nuts and the tapping process must be monitored in real-time for the internal threads quality to reduce the inspection time. First, this article used the relative movement between a nut and its tap to establish the dimensionless tapping material removal rate. Furthermore, for creating the tapping torque curve of a specific nut, a few nuts were tapped to obtain the maximum value and variation of the tapping torque at various tapping speeds. Then, based on the differences in the hole sizes, chamfer depths, and material nature, the quality assurance range can be constructed as a real-time monitoring model for high precision thread manufacturing. To demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed procedure, tapping for carbon steel, alloy steel, and titanium alloy nuts was performed and the monitored tapping torques matched the nut quality classification of Japanese Industrial Standards (JIS).