Proper functioning of electrical connectors used in high oscillation is of great importance. Vibrations in connector pins cause stress and electrical resistance variations in the contact surface. In the present paper, the impacts of vibrational loads on electrical connectors is being modeled using the finite element method, and the electrical resistance oscillations of the connectors will be examined. Ultimately, the parameters affecting the electrical resistance oscillations of contacts will be determined and their relations with oscillations in electrical resistance are specified as well.

In the present work, an elasto-plastic model is proposed for the numerical analysis of dynamic nonlinear behavior of composite thick shells with reinforcements in spirals subjected to impulsive loading. Wilkins algorithm was taken to analysis physical and geometrical non-linearity of stress-strain state of elasto-plastic thick composite shells. This study is carried out on two types of cylindrical composite shells in different reinforcement winding angles and different magnitudes of impulse loads. By a calculation code in finite difference, first the influence of physical non linearity on the stress-strain state of cylindrical monolayer shell was established and then the relationship between residual strains and the winding angle of the symmetric reinforcements was investigated. Finally, the influence of the winding angle of the orthogonal reinforcements on the residual strains of a bilayer composite shell was analyzed numerically.

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are believed the most important components of today’s businesses and they can boost the growth of economy. This paper presents an empirical investigation to identify and rank important factors influencing on entrepreneurial marketing to facilitate exports of SMEs. The study designs a questionnaire in Likert scale and distributes it among 387 randomly selected entrepreneurs who act as managers of some SMEs in city of Tehran, Iran. Cronbach alpha is calculated as 0.873, which is well above the acceptable level. Using principle component analysis, the study has determined four factors including competitive intelligence, competitive advantage, external factors and internal factors to facilitate the export of SMEs.

Heterogeneity is an important factor controlling fracture initiation, accumulation, and propagation within rock destruction. Traditionally, rock reaction instability within rock destruction is associated with rock non-homogeneity or considered self-excited, but no clear relations between rock structure options and reaction force oscillation were proposes. This work hypothesizes the idea rock structure options are one of the factors of drill bit whirling. The authors innovated the Wojtanowicz and Kuru’s force static balance model to numerically simulate 3-cutter movement in a rock space, assuming a crack propagates by rock grains getting around. Instability of deviation between directions of cutting force and crack propagation causes rock reaction instability. Novelty of this work is to consider the mutual influence of rock granulomentric composition options (sizes, shape and distribution of grains) and drill bit design options (cutter diameter, distance between adjacent cutters, etc.) on rock reaction force oscillation. The follow tendencies were observed: rock grain dimension increasing and grain concentration increasing were accompanied with rock reaction force magnitude decreasing; random grain placing and/or grain random dimensions caused increasing of rock reaction force scattering; random grain sizes are more essential for rock reaction forces (and their projections) scattering than random grain distribution.

Productivity is an indicator of efficiency with which resources, both human and material, are transformed into useful services and goods. The vital purpose of the prevailing work was to analyze the factors involved in the improvement of productivity in all its types such as material, capital, labor, machine and total productivity at the plant. This was obtained by decreasing the manufacturing cost per component by reducing its cycle time and increasing the monthly production rate. The experimentation revealed that using proposed processes and improved tooling, monthly production rate has increased by 16.2% due to reduced cycle time, the number of defected components i.e. rejection rate has reduced up to 2%. A reduction of 6.78% in manufacturing cost per component was recorded. Tooling cost has reduced by more than 12%. Saving up to 50% in inspection cost has been recorded due to close dimensional tolerances and high surface finish achieved on components. An increase of 4.84% was recorded in total productivity.

The separation at the source of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) is an initiative that facilitates the subsequent recycling work and contributes to palliate the negative impacts of the traditional unsorted collection system. This paper presents a multi-objective integer linear programming model of the determination of the optimal location of assorted waste bins in an urban area. We consider, jointly, the objectives of minimizing the investment cost and the average distance from the dwellings to the bins. The model was applied in simulated instances of an Argentinian medium-size city, contributing to the transition from the current door-to-door based system to a community bins system. To solve this problem, we apply both the weighting method, which has been used to solve similar problems in the literature, and a novel version of the augmented ε-constraint method (AUGMECON2). The results over simulated scenarios show that, in general, AUGMECON2 has a better performance, yielding a larger number of efficient solutions at lower computation times.

Moment frame connections have high share to withstand deformation caused by earthquakes. Hence, connections of reinforced concrete structures must have sufficient plasticity in addition to resistance. Observations after earthquakes and the results of tests prove that structural damages have been more observed in the connections area. Implementation of reinforcement in limited volume of connection area is difficult and hence improving the behavior of the connection areas has been among the major issues discussed in structural engineering. In addition, corrosion in the bad environmental conditions is one of the main difficulties in implementing steels in concrete arming. Among alternative materials, FRP rebars that have higher durability, were given attention in recent years. In this study, the behavior of the element has been compared in these conditions by modeling the connection area with steel and FRP rebars.

This study investigates the role played by service quality at manufacturer-distributor junction in small-medium manufacturing units, and presents a model that proposes and validates that contribution towards service quality on behalf of both the distributor and manufacturer leading to satisfaction as well as loyalty. The research design for this study includes a combination of literature review, exploratory interviews and a questionnaire survey conducted through interview schedule from 101 respondents working in different small-medium manufacturing units (SMEs) of North India. The study uses Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to develop dual directional scales to measure service quality at manufacturer-distributor junction besides testing a set of propositions related to service quality. A model showing linkages of manufacturing organization’s service quality with distributor service quality leading to mutual satisfaction and loyalty is developed. The model is empirically tested and is found to be fit. This study would be of interest to SME practitioners interested in improving service quality w.r.t. distributors. This study finds support for strengthening relationships with distributors to achieve a win-win situation. Future researchers may validate this scale, and empirically test the proposed model in similar settings. Insights derived from this study may be transferred to other junctions of a manufacturing supply chain such as suppliers, retailers, employees and end customers.

This study deals with the performance modeling and reliability analysis of a redundant machining system composed of several functional machines. To analyze the more realistic scenarios, the concepts of switching failure and geometric reneging are included. The time-to-breakdown and repair time of operating and standby machines are assumed to follow the exponential distribution. For the quantitative assessment of the machine interference problem, various performance measures such as mean-time-to-failure, reliability, reneging rate, etc. have been formulated. To show the practicability of the developed model, a numerical illustration has been presented. For the practical justification and validity of the results established, the sensitivity analysis of reliability indices has been presented by varying different system descriptors.

Reinforcement of structural timber members with fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) rods offers merits over that of the conventional steel type. In recent times, near surface mounted (NSM) FRP reinforcement with timber has emerged as a promising alternative for reinforcing timber structures in both flexural and shear loading configurations. Previous investigations have shown that NSM FRP reinforcement technique has higher bond performance than externally bonded equivalents because it (NSM FRP technique) is able to utilise the full capacity of the FRP materials. In spite of these merits, the investigations and the use of this innovative technique are limited. In this paper, an experiment was conducted to investigate the bond characteristics and performance of NSM basalt FRP reinforcement with solid timber structures. In order to predict the performance of the reinforced beam structures, unreinforced control timber members of the same timber characteristics were tested. The results showed that the average bond capacity of the NSM FRP reinforced members was 16% higher than the corresponding unreinforced beams.