This work presents simplified models for strain and temperature measurement during orthogonal cutting process applying Ernst-Merchant theory and considering a 2-D steady state heat conduction problem. In order to validate the thermal model experiments with high speed imaging and with Infrared imaging were performed. The results of the infrared thermal measurements were compared with the outputs of the temperature model, considering the average temperature on the shear plane and temperature distribution. Also video analysis technique was developed to obtain shear strain in a precise way compared with Ernst-Merchant classical analysis. Experiments were conducted in a specially adapted milling machine for different low cutting velocities and feedrates.

Nowadays, there is an increased demand for micro-products and micro-components in many industry sectors therefore development of advanced manufacturing technologies and metrological instrumentation in this range, have thus become a critical issue and an engineering challenge. If a product cannot be measured, although it might be manufactured, it would not be possible to analyse its design in order to improve its functionality. Electroforming could be defined as the highly specialized use of electrodeposition for the manufacturing of metal parts. Due to progress in materials, processes and equipment, electroforming has shown considerable development. Consequently, electroforming is increasingly combined with other micro-manufacturing technologies, giving rise to other processes such as LIGA and UV-LIGA. Thanks to the accumulated experience of Fabricación Integrada y Avanzada research group, of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in the electroforming process focused on macro-scale, as well as specific equipment available, this paper aims to analyse the potential of electroforming process for micro-injection mould manufacturing

The vehicular market is undergoing a profound transformation that includes a trend toward fully automated driving. When travelling in automated systems, the main task is no longer driving. Therefore, the interior design of automated vehicles requires a renovation to adapt to new use cases. With this motivation, the use case of sleeping while travelling was chosen for this user study, in which different seat configuration conditions were evaluated. The three preselected seat positions for this research included the upright, reclined and flat seat positions. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to examine the comfort of different seat angles in meeting the need to sleep in a moving vehicle. Since the physical experience of the occupants with a high-fidelity seat prototype is essential to evaluate the new interior concept of the vehicle of the future, in this study, the experimental participants were asked about their perception of comfort and overall user experience while travelling by car under close-to-real test conditions. Therefore, the primary objective of this evaluation was to explore different seat configurations and find the most suitable seat position for the use case of sleeping in a car while moving. Our findings suggest that users prefer reclining and flat seats in short-/medium- and long-term use cases, respectively.

There are many applications where electrically conductive plastic patterns are needed. The most usual way to make electrically conductive patterns is coating a plastic part by a thin layer of metal. It's well known the different procedures for metalizing plastic parts but most of them aim to obtain either aesthetic or functional metallic coating with high level of adherence, finishing and electrical conductivity if necessary. This aim requires complex process and time expense, however in the present research work only electrical conductivity is needed. This particular requirement allows to develop a simplified process of coating adapted to a specific target: electroforming starting from rapid prototyping (RP) metalized parts. Additive technologies based on extrusion such as Fused Deposition Modeling(FDM) provide patterns or prototypes suitable to be metalized by electroless plating and to be used as patterns for making electroforming. A different behavior of ABS FDM parts has been found in terms of metalizing procedure. This paper is focused on the proposed simplified method of electroless plating for obtaining patterns with high level of electrical conductivity and reproducibility of original RP plastic part.