Industrial robot arms are an essential part of automated manufacturing, and perform tasks such as component assembly, welding, light machining, spray painting, etc. They are highly repeatable, can be calibrated to be ...

Modern trends in customer demand have resulted in the development of a class of manufacturing system known as Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems (RMS). Reconfigurable systems are designed around the idea that they must ...

Increased standards of living and indoor comfort demands have led to an increase in the demand for air-conditioning in buildings in South Africa. Conventional vapor compression systems use refrigerants that damage the ...

Controlling a system with chaotic nature provides the ability to control and maintain orbits of different periods which extends the functionality of the system to be flexible. A system with diverse dynamical behaviours ...

Mass producing custom products requires an innovative type of manufacturing environment. Manufacturing environments at present do not possess the flexibility to generate mass produced custom products. Manufacturers’ ...

The University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) Phoenix Hybrid Sounding Rocket Programme was established in 2010. The programme’s main objective is to develop a sounding rocket launch capability for the African scientific community, ...

Upon deformation, TRIP steels undergo progressive irreversible transformation from paramagnetic austenite to more thermodynamically stable, ferromagnetic αʹ-martensite. The change in magnetic permeability is readily ...

This work provides a study of the natural frequencies of a cantilevered beam with tip mass and axial load. Displacement feedback control is applied using piezo actuators attached to the top and bottom of the beam. The ...

The mass customisation manufacturing (MCM) paradigm has created a problem in manufacturing control implementation, as each individual customer has the potential to disrupt the operations of production. The aim of this ...

High output electrical energy is obtained from photovoltaic (PV) systems subject to high irradiance. However, at high irradiance, the efficiency of PV systems drops due to increase of the temperature of the systems. In ...