Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons^™

Size Effects In Human Visual Inspection For Micro/Meso Scale Parts, Sri Harsha Kavuri

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Visual inspection has been a major method of quality control in conventional manufacturing processes for the last fifty years. Utilizing trained human inspectors to perform this visual inspection has been the most effective means of maintaining quality control. Extensive research has been performed to understand the factors that influence the human inspection process.

In the recent years, there has been a significant emphasis on manufacturing at the smaller end of the size-spectrum such as Micro and Meso scale manufacturing. Quality control at becomes a challenging task due to the extremely small sizes. Several automated visual inspection techniques have been proposed …

Influence Of Spatial Variations Of Railroad Track Stiffness And Material Inclusions On Fatigue Life, Celestin Nkundineza

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Railroad transportation is very important for economic growth and effective maintenance is one critical factor for its economic sustainability. The high repetitive forces from a moving railcar induce cyclic stresses that lead to rail bending and potential deterioration due to fatigue crack initiation and propagation. Previous research for prediction of fatigue life has been done under the assumptions of a uniform track bed and a homogeneous rail. However the spatial variation of the track stiffness is expected to increase the maximum stresses in the rail and, therefore, accelerate the fatigue process. The research described in this dissertation is focused on …