Frederick Ling - US grants

The tribology laboratory at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has established an ongoing program to characterize various tribological surfaces used in industry, including high precision components such as aircraft rolling contact bearings and computer recording discs. However, the profilometer system used for characterizing surfaces was never designed for such high precision work or for other than flat surfaces. This project provides an optical table, a stylus profilometer, and an optical profilometer to enable surface measurements for high precision tribological elements and also curved elements.

The purpose of this two-year U.S.-China research project between Marshall Peterson and Frederick Ling of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and Shizhuo Li, Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Metal Research is to study lubrication of metals with naturally occurring oxide films. The objectives are: to characterize the composition and properties of naturally occurring oxides at both high and low temperatures; to determine the conditions which are conducive to natural lubrication of a surface; and to advance understanding of the behavior of oxide films in sliding contact. Nickel, cobalt, and iron alloys will be prepared with rhenium, molybdenum, copper, and silver to form lubricating oxides. The Chinese investigators will prepare and characterize these alloys; friction and wear properties will be evaluated at the RPI laboratory; and a qualitative model of solid film lubrication will be developed jointly. The proposed research has significant practical applications. The discovery of a special oxide alloy or surface treatment that forms its own lubricant that reduces friction and wear, would be cost effective and extremely valuable for the aerospace and automotive industries particularly in the development of energy-efficient engines and other advanced power systems. The blending of the metallurgical, corrosion and tribology expertise of the RPI and Shenyang Institute of Metal Research promotes the major purpose of the U.S. - China Cooperative Science Program; which is, to advance scientific knowledge through the combined efforts and abilities of Americans and Chinese scientists and engineers.

Financial assistance is to be provided for travel expenses for approximately 15 experts to allow them to participate in panels, workshops and paper sessions of The Manufacturing International Conference in 1992. International experts in manufacturing, banking, accounting, and management will be invited. The Heads of foreign institutions, banking institutions, management and industrial engineering school, and governmental agencies will also be approached. These experts will provide an opportunity for benchmarking the status of research, technological application, education and human resources, managerial and accounting practices, and procurement of machines and building factories (capital investment).

Partial travel support is provided to allow a group of eleven US researchers in the area of tribology to travel to the CIS. They will attend the Joint Soviet-American Conference on New Materials and Technologies in Tribology, to be held in Mensk in Belarus, and will visit a number of research institutes in Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine. The purpose is to assess the state of tribological research and technology in the former Soviet Union and to open channels of communication and cooperation between tribology researchers in two countries.

9527953 Ling This Small Grant for Exploratory Research will investigate a new view of process equipment maintenance and reliability as part of the life cycle modeling of manufactured products. The path to accomplish this is to move maintenance of equipment and processes from responsive corrective repairs, to intelligent prevention using experience and scheduled service, finally to the goal of a science based and sensor enhanced way of doing predictive maintenance. The focus area is the electronics industry, where these investigators have established the contacts needed to get empirical data to back up their theory and methodology. The exploratory research objectives are: to judiciously assemble operating and maintenance data, to identify promising methods for modeling equipment degradation that use both stochastic and mechanistic methods, and to include degradation modeling of process equipment in the life cycle modeling of manufactured products. The models, backed up by data, will lead to a methodology that can identify equipment components that are critical because either they have precursors that give long range predictions of their degradation or they deteriorate so quickly they need sensor based monitoring. This grant will attempt to establish a science and engineering base for maintenance, that will lead greater availability and productivity, lower costs for energy and maintenance, and improved product quality and safety. ***

This project has two central objectives: (1) Development of a thermodynamic characterization of degradation dynamics employing entropy (thermodynamic disorder) as the fundamental measure of degradation, and (2) Development of methods of measurement of state variables that are functionally related to entropy. The research tasks include: application of thermodynamic principles to characterize component degradation and lifetime, characterization of initial component lifetime, development of a mathematical framework for study of stochastic degradation dynamics, and development of methods for measurement of entropy related state variables. Through a theoretical and experimental investigation of degradation in machinery components, the project hopes to advance a scientific understanding of degradation dynamics, leading to improved engineering maintenance practice. This research could build a strong foundation for maintenance science that can potentially impact many manufacturing industries such as the semiconductor and aerospace industries.

This exploratory research grant provides the support for studies, with respect to fundamental facets as well as practical facets, of manufacturing processes of three-dimensional components in the micro-scale. Moreover, the study will include factors required to have components, so fabricated, to work together as three-dimensional micro-actuators. Letting a length-measure to represent the size of component, it is known that the volume of the component is proportional to the cube of the length-measure, and the surface of the component is proportional to the square of the length-measure. Given this fact, as one move from the much better understood macro world of manufacturing to the relatively unknown world of manufacturing in the micro world, surface dictated behavior as a part of the component would be much more important than the volume dictated behavior of the component. As such this research will place special emphasis on surfaces along with the material whose surfaces are be studied. As these components are expected to work together reliably when assembled to form actuators, materials as a factor also looms large in the studies. Other factor to be studied are method of measurement, handling, storage, among others, of micro-scale components.

If successful, the results of this exploratory research will improve the fundamental understanding of processes of manufacturing three-dimensional components in the micro-scale as well as factors which need to be taken into account when these components are assembled to form micro-actuators. A dominant factors in the fundamental understanding, which will be the bases for successful application, is reliability. The hope is that the aforementioned knowledge will lead to requisite methodologies for manufacturing in the micro-scale, especially in the truly three-dimensional world.

This grant provides funding for the development of micro-actuators, e.g., micro-motor, dynamic micro-gas bearing micro-continuously-variable speed-reducers. Inasmuch as magnetic fields, difficult to contain, have limited micro-scale use, two electrostatic motor drive concepts will be developed: (1) Variable Capacitance Motor - Variable capacitance motor minimizes energy of electric field in an air gap field that can change geometry. Rotor electrodes seek positions relative to stator electrodes of least potential energy stored in the electric field of an air gap between the rotor and stator. (2) Induced Charge Motor - Induced charge motor is based on a concept of induced polarization of charges of material in the motor creating a secondary electric field which aligns in a primary field. This variant of drive is the electric field analogy to an induction motor. To avoid stiction, contact between surfaces in relative motion must be avoided as in bearings. Among other concepts, micro-gas-bearings will be developed. Micro-grooves built into the shaft part of the motor will pump air or gas and build-up films that keep the shaft from touching the bearing and housing. In order to avoid stiction for start-stop, the bearing housing will be suitable coated with a thin film lubricant. For the above, and other actuators, advanced science-based modeling methods will be developed for underpinning design.

If successful, the results of this research will lead to new methods in the relatively new arena of manufacturing in the micro-scale of three-dimensional mechanical components needed for various actuators. In developing the methods, emphasis will be given to reliability in the use of components in actuators. Envisioned are applications of actuators in bio-medical, aerospace, as well as other consumer products for which micro-size is paramount. Of course the use of micro-size actuators has the additional advantage of being environmentally friendly.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The sense of taste in insects is closely involved in their feeding and mating behavior, both of which have a huge impact on public health. Unlike most other organisms, insects have multiple taste organs. The mouthparts have been the primary focus of previous studies in insect taste. However, the interplay between different taste organs is relatively unknown. Among the different taste organs, the legs are especially interesting, as they often serve as the first gauge of food quality before the insects extend their mouthparts. In addition, the legs have also been suggested to detect pheromones and to play key roles in mating behavior. Here, we propose two experiments designed specifically to examine the cellular and molecular basis of taste in the legs, and to examine the functional significance of the legs as a taste organ in contrast to the mouthparts. The results will be important for the understanding of insect feeding behavior, which in turn could be invaluable in designing better insect control strategies. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Every year hundreds of millions of people are infected with insect-borne diseases. Insects rely heavily on chemosensory cues for their feeding and host-seeking behaviors. We propose a comprehensive, multi-disciplinary analysis of the Drosophila legs as a model taste organ, with the goal of increasing our understanding of the insect chemosensory system, which may lead to the development of improved insect control strategies.