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An industrial process is defined through its quality of parts and their production costs. Labour-intensive operations must be applied to produce high-quality components with inexpensive resources. Recent development in dedicated software allows the industrial sector to rely on more and more autonomous solutions to obtain an optimum ratio between part quality and cost. The stretch forming process is an operation that has a high degree of difficulty, due to the process parameters and the spring-back effect of materials. Our approach to solving several of the shortcomings of this process was to develop a self-adaptive algorithm with computer vision capabilities that adapts to the process in real-time. This experimental study highlights the results obtained using this method, as well as a comparison to a classical method for the stretch-forming process (SFP). The results have noted that the stretch-forming algorithm improves the process, while adapting its decisions with each step.

<p>This article tries to present the basic elements of the main guidelines, international standards and methodologies (methods) used in project management. In this category we include: the PMBOK®Guide (elaborated by the Project Management Institute), the PRINCE method (elaborated by the British Office of Government Commerce), the ISO 21500:2012 standard (elaborated by the International Organization for Standardization) etc. At the basis of these guidelines, standards and methodologies stay a great practice experience. Depending on the particularity and type of project, of management philosophy and culture of the organization that runs the project, we can choose to apply a certain guide, standard or methodologies (methods). The stated goal of these guidelines, standards and methodologies (methods) is to provide an optimum framework, the best practice for manage project to success. Applying these guidelines, standards and methodologies (methods) may be prerequisite project success, being a necessary but not always sufficient.</p>

In this work, the advanced decomposition of organic dyestuffs used in food and textile industry, such as Malachite Green (MG), was investigated in the presence of a cationic catalyst montmorillonite (P1-PILCs) prepared by ion-exchange method. The obtained material was characterized by BET, FTIR and XRD. The effects of different variables such as: catalyst dose, catalyst/ozone dose, ozonation time and the pH on the mineralization of the synthetic dye were studied and optimal experimental conditions were ascertained. Compared with simple ozonation, the introduction of the catalyst greatly reduces the duration of the process to reach over 95% yield from 110 minutes to some seconds.

A facile, ecofriendly, and cost-effective method was developed to prepare a microporous material based on natural chemically modified bentonite with silver ions (BN-Ag0). This material presents a good catalytic activity against Malachite Green (MG) dye and bacteriostatic activity against a newly isolated bacterium from sewage sludge named hereafter “ISO SS” and Escherichia coli (E. coli). BN-Ag0 was characterized by the following methods: energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET), Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, temperature programmed desorption (TPD) and X-ray Diffraction (XRD). The new bacterium ISO SS, was isolated using the technique of isolating a pure culture of anaerobically stabilized sludge. A mandatory characterization of ISO SS isolated strains from anaerobic stabilized sludge was performed in the process of identifying bacterial species. The cationic clay-based nanomaterial showed appreciable antibacterial activity against ISO SS, a Gram-negative bacterium. It also showed good activity against E. coli bacteria. As a catalyst in the catalytic ozonation of MG dye, BN-Ag0 significantly improves the oxidation time of the dye, due to its good adsorption and catalytic properties. The catalytic and antibacterial activities of the natural bentonite (BN) and of BN-Ag0 were examined using performant characterization techniques. The lifetime of the BN-Ag0 catalyst was also evaluated. Results obtained are expected to provide valuable findings for the preparation of a good microporous material with multiple functionalities.

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Even though they initially appeared as a method of using waste from other production processes, tailored welded blanks (TWB) presented several advantages by combining materials with different characteristics. On the one hand, this study focuses on minimizing the adverse effects caused by the springback of TWB parts. The proposed method is based on the Taguchi technique using orthogonal type 23 networks. On the other hand, genetic algorithms were applied to obtain maximum performance parameters within the dynamic loadings of tubular structures made of TWB by advantageous positioning of the weld line. The obtained data were compared and evaluated through software platforms such as MATLAB, Design Expert, and Dynaform, and experimental validation. By generating an objective function, the construction of thin-walled tubular structures can be controlled for a predetermined deformation and maximum energy absorption. The data obtained has an error rate of less than 3%, thus considering that this method can be used successfully in the qualitative and quantitative estimation of dynamically loaded TWB tubular structures.

Water jet cutting is one of the newest techniques in non-conventional machining processes. It is a flexible technology since the same equipment can be used to cut virtually any material, such as steel stainless steel, high-nickel alloys and polymer composites (usually, for these materials, the water jet is mixed with an abrasive material, the process being known as abrasive water jet cutting - AWJC) . Compared with the classical technologies, water jet cutting presents the following advantages: very low side forces during machining, it is rapid, it is silent, no thermal distortion, a good cutting accuracy and minimal burrs. To optimize the process, it is necessary to analyze the influence of process parameters on the quality of cut. The aim of this paper is to analyze the influence of distance between the cutting head and the working sample on the quality of cut, quantified by the following parameters: width of the processed surface at the jet inlet, jet outlet, deviation from perpendicularity, inclination angle and roughness.