Worcester Polytechnic Institute

About: Worcester Polytechnic Institute is a education organization based out in Worcester, Massachusetts, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Computer science & Population. The organization has 6270 authors who have published 12704 publications receiving 332081 citations. The organization is also known as: WPI.

Greening versus resilience: A supply chain design perspective

Abstract: This paper investigates the extent to which supply chain greening and buttressing (building robustness) strategies are supportive or conflicting. A supply chain design model is introduced which uses an environmental performance scoring approach and a robustness measure to explore the relationship between greening and buttressing. Potential tradeoffs to develop robustly green and greenly robust supply chains are evaluated. Data from a multinational apparel company is used. Results show both greening and buttressing can be costly, green supply chains are most sensitive to disruption, robust supply chains have strong long term benefits, and buttressing a green supply chain is a good investment.

Robot Web Tools: Efficient messaging for cloud robotics

Abstract: Since its official introduction in 2012, the Robot Web Tools project has grown tremendously as an open-source community, enabling new levels of interoperability and portability across heterogeneous robot systems, devices, and front-end user interfaces. At the heart of Robot Web Tools is the rosbridge protocol as a general means for messaging ROS topics in a client-server paradigm suitable for wide area networks, and human-robot interaction at a global scale through modern web browsers. Building from rosbridge, this paper describes our efforts with Robot Web Tools to advance: 1) human-robot interaction through usable client and visualization libraries for more efficient development of front-end human-robot interfaces, and 2) cloud robotics through more efficient methods of transporting high-bandwidth topics (e.g., kinematic transforms, image streams, and point clouds). We further discuss the significant impact of Robot Web Tools through a diverse set of use cases that showcase the importance of a generic messaging protocol and front-end development systems for human-robot interaction.

Strength and reliability of carbon-fiber-reinforced cement composites

Abstract: The effect of carbon fibers on the mechanical properties of cement paste composites is studied. The addition of polyacrylonitrite-based carbon fiber to a cementitious paste matrix results in a significant improvement in the tensile and flexural properties of the composites. The uniaxial tensile strength results are obtained using the novel cementitious composites axial tensile technique. The addition of 1,2 and 3 %vol. of carbon fiber to a cement matrix results in an increase in the uniaxial tensile strength of 32, 48 and 56%, respectively. The enhancement of the composite flexural strength was more significant, as compared to the uniaxial tensile strength. The flexural strength of cement matrix increased by 72, 95 and 138% with the addition of 1,2 and 3 %vol. of carbon fiber, respectively. Weibull statistics indicate that reliability in flexure was not enhanced by fiber addition and there was no correlation between the percent fiber loading and the reliability of the composites. However, the reliability of the carbon-fiber-reinforced composite in tension was greatly improved and there is a positive correlation between fiber loading and the Weibull modulus, m.