Material flow

About: Material flow is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 3050 publications have been published within this topic receiving 36844 citations. The topic is also known as: material stream.

Feasibility of High Speed Furnace Drawing of Optical Fibers

Abstract: The domain of operating conditions, in which the optical fiber-drawing process is successful, is an important consideration. Such a domain is mainly determined by the stresses acting on the fiber and by the stability of the process. This paper considers an electrical resistance furnace for fiber drawing and examines conditions for process feasibility. In actual practice, it is known that only certain ranges of furnace temperature and draw speed lead to successful fiber drawing. The results obtained here show that the length of the heated zone and the furnace temperature distribution are other important parameters that can be varied to obtain a feasible process. Physical behavior close to the boundary of the feasible domain is also studied. It is found that the iterative scheme for neck-down profile determination diverges rapidly when the draw temperature is lower than that at the acceptable domain boundary due to the lack of material flow. However, the divergence rate becomes much smaller as the temperature is brought close to the domain boundary. Additional information on the profile determination as one approaches the acceptable region is obtained. It is found that it is computationally expensive and time-consuming to locate the exact boundary of the feasible drawing domain. From the results obtained, along with practical considerations of material rupture, defect concentration, and flow instability, an optimum design of a fiber-drawing system can be obtained for the best fiber quality.

Computer-aided determination process comprises feeding input variables to a material flow model which describes a metal strip before and after the passing through a roll stand

Abstract: Computer-aided determination process comprises feeding input variables (theta, s) to a material flow model (18) which describes a metal strip before and after the passing through a roll stand. The material flow model determines a rolling force progression (fR(z)) in the strip width direction (z) and feeds the progression to a roller deformation model (7). The roller deformation model determines roller deformations from the progression and feeds then to a desired calculator (11). The calculator calculates the desired values for the controlling elements of profile and surface evenness using the calculated roller deformations and a contour progression on the runout side. An Independent claim is also included for a computer program product for carrying out the above process. Preferred Features: The material flow model determines a two-dimensional distribution of the rolling force, in which direction extends in the rolling direction and one direction extends in the strip width direction.

Agent-based simulation of a specialty chemicals supply chain

Abstract: The study of supply chains is important because manufacturing industries face an increasingly complex, global, and competitive environment As present-day supply chains involve numerous heterogeneous entities with different roles and dynamics, managing them is not straightforward Hence, a simulation model can serve as a valuable quantitative tool that aids in decision-making In this paper, we present an agent-based model of a global specialty chemicals supply chain The model explicitly considers the various supply chain entities: upstream raw material suppliers, downstream customers as well as the internal entities of the specialty chemicals company These internal entities include a centralized sales department and a number of production sites located at different regions in the world Each production site has its own procurement, scheduling, storage, operations, and packaging departments Each of these entities is represented by an agent, each with its own goals and tasks, following the belief-desire-intention formalism The model has been implemented in Jadex and simulates various supply chain activities such as raw material procurement, order assignment, job scheduling, storage, and production It allows the user to simulate and analyze different supply chain policies, configurations, and uncertainties This paper describes the model and illustrates its capabilities for decision support

Modelling and Simulation of a Material Flow System

Abstract: Modern production control systems, e.g. a factory for cars or any other complex industrial good face two major problems. First, the systems need to become more decentralised to increase their availability. Second, the markets force the demand of smaller lot sizes and more flexibility to produce different goods in parallel. Nowadays, re-configuration of production control systems consists of two parallel tasks, i.e. the hardware reconstruction and the software development. However, the software is tested on the real hardware and this raises long down times of the whole system. These down times are the main problem of a re-configuration, because they produce the highest costs. To reduce the testing phase costs, we present an approach to simulate the control software of a production control system beforehand. We illustrate our approach on a model of an existing material flow system, which is a major part of a production control system. Our emphasis in this paper relies on the simulation facilities of the modelled system, whereas our modelling approach is discussed in previous work. We introduce a generic layer architecture and a process oriented simulation kernel for certain hardware properties to get a realistic simulation.

A study on the spatial distribution of nitrogen and phosphorus balance, and regional nitrogen flow through crop production.

Abstract: The spatial distribution patterns of the nitrogen and phosphorus input/intake amounts in crop production within two small basins are examined, based upon a cropping unit distribution map that is obtained from remote sensing data analysis. Firstly, we examine the availability and suitability of approaches to the spatial distribution analysis of cultivation patterns classified from material flow characteristics of crop production using seasonal remote-sensing data. Secondly, material flow units in crop production are grouped according to the cultivation patterns obtained from the remote-sensing data analysis. Consequently, the spatial patterns of the amounts of both nitrogen and phosphorus inputs/intakes through crop production on farmland are examined and their spatial distribution maps are prepared according to the material flow units. In addition, we developed a nitrogen flow and runoff model and the model is simulated based on the examination of the results of spatial distribution patterns of the material flow units. The annual nitrogen runoff from small catchments, where various crops are cultivated, varies from 2.7 kg ha−1 year−1 to 108 kg ha−1 year−1 and the annual balanced losses of nitrogen in small catchments varied from −30 kg ha−1 year−1 to 101 kg ha−1 year−1. Also, the monthly changes in soil nitrogen of each material flow unit is estimated at −55 kg ha−1 as a maximum decrease and 114 kg ha−1 as a maximum increase. These results indicate that the spatial distribution patterns of nutrient input and intake through agricultural activities should be considered when analyzing the material flows and nutritient movement in soil–water systems in rural areas for watershed environmental control and regional agricultural management.