Facility layout problem is associated with the arrangement of facilities in a plant. It is a critical issue in the early stages of designing a manufacturing system because it affects the total manufacturing cost significantly. Dynamic and robust layouts are flexible enough to cope with fluctuations and uncertainties in product demands in volatile environment of flexible manufacturing systems. Since the facility layout is a hard combinatorial optimization problem, intelligent approaches are the most appropriate methods for solving the large size of this problem in reasonable computational time. In this paper, first of all, dynamic and robust layouts are surveyed. After a quick look of different mathematical models, including quadratic assignment, quadratic set covering, mixed integer programming, and graph theoretic models, the various solution methods especially intelligent approaches along with their advantages and disadvantages are surveyed. Finally, after review of hybrid algorithms, the conclusion of this paper is reported.

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In this work, adhesive wear and frictional characteristics of thermoplastic treated kenaf fibre-reinforced polyurethane (T-KFRP) is investigated. The T-KFRP composite was tested against stainless-steel counterface using a block-on-disc apparatus. The effects of applied loads and sliding distance on the wear and frictional performance of the composite were studied. In addition to that, the fibre orientation, parallel orientation (P-O), anti-parallel orientation (AP-O), and normal orientation (N-O) with respect to the sliding direction on the composite performance were considered. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to observe the damage features on the worn surface of the composite. Adhesive wear results revealed that T-KFRP (in AP-O) has a high degree of wear resistance compared to neat polyurethane (N-PU). SEM observations showed different wear mechanisms such as fibre detachment, pitting, delaminating, and micro-cracks.

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Analytical solutions of temperature distributions and the Nusselt numbers in forced convection are reported for flow through infinitely long parallel plates, where the upper plate moves in the flow direction with constant velocity and the lower plate is kept stationary. The flow is assumed to be laminar, both hydro-dynamically and thermally fully developed, taking into account the effect of viscous dissipation of the flowing fluid. Both the plates being kept at specified and at different constant heat fluxes are considered as thermal boundary conditions. The solutions obtained from energy equation are in terms of Brinkman number, dimensionless velocity and heat flux ratio. These parameters greatly influence and give complete understanding on heat transfer rates that has potentials for designing and analyzing energy equipment and processes. 113 Figure 4. Nusselt number versus q 2 /q 1 , at U * = −1.0, −0.5, 0.0, 0.5, and 1.0, at various Br q1 . Vertical lines are asymptotes. (a) Br q1 = −0.01; (b) Br q1 = −0.10; (c) Br q1 = 0.00; (d) Br q1 = 0.01; (e) Br q1 = 0.10; (f) Br q1 = 0.50.

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