• Design & Manufacturing
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.20-26
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• 2023

Lab-on-a-disc is a circular disc shape of cartridge that can be used for blood-based liquid biopsy to diagnose an early stage of cancer. Currently, liquid biopsies are regarded as a time-consuming process, and require sophisticated skills to precisely separate cell-free DNA (cfDNA) and circulating tumor cells (CTCs) floating in the bloodstream for accurate diagnosis. However, by applying the lab-on-a-disc to liquid biopsy, the entire process can be operated automatically. To do so, the lab-on-a-disc should be designed to prevent blood leakage during the centrifugation, transport, and dilution of blood inside the lab-on-a-disc in the process of liquid biopsy. In this study, the main components of lab-on-a-disc for liquid biopsy are fabricated by injection molding for mass production, and ultrasonic welding is employed to ensure the bonding strength between the components. To guarantee accurate ultrasonic welding, the flatness of the components is optimized numerically by using the response surface methodology with four main injection molding processing parameters, including the mold & resin temperatures, the injection speed, and the packing pressure. The 27 times finite element analyses using Moldflow® reveal that the injection time and the packing pressure are the critical factors affecting the flatness of the components with an optimal set of values for all four processing parameters. To further improve the flatness of the lab-on-a-disc components for stable mass production, a quarter-disc shape of lab-on-a-disc with a radius of 75 mm is used instead of a full circular shape of the disc, and this significantly decreases the standard deviation of flatness to 30% due to the reduced overall length of the injection molded components by one-half. Moreover, it is also beneficial to use a quarter disc shape to manage the deviation of flatness under 3 sigma limits.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.12-19
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• 2023

The armature core is a part responsible for the skeleton of the steering wheel. Currently, in the case of commercial trucks, the main parts of the parts are manufactured separately and then the product is produced through welding. In the case of this production method, quality and cost problems of the welded parts occur, and an integrated armature core made of magnesium alloy is used in passenger vehicles. However, in the case of commercial trucks, there is no application case and research is insufficient. Therefore, this study aims to develop an all-in-one armature core that simultaneously applies a magnesium alloy material and a die casting method to reduce the weight and improve the quality of the existing steel armature core. The product was modeled based on the shape of a commercial product, and finite element analysis (FEA) was performed through Ls-dyna, a general-purpose analysis program. Through digital image correlation (DIC) and uniaxial tensile test, the accurate physical properties of the material were obtained and applied to the analysis. A total of four types of compression were applied by changing the angle and ground contact area of the product according to the actual reliability test conditions. analysis was carried out. As a result of FEA, it was confirmed that damage occurred in the spoke area, and spoke thickness (t_spoke), base thickness (t_base), and rim and spoke connection (R) were designated as design variables, and the total weight and maximum equivalent stress occurring in the armature core We specify an objective function that simultaneously minimizes . A prediction function was derived using the sequential response surface method to identify design variables that minimized the objective function, and it was confirmed that it was improved by 22%.