4:00 pm, Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Science 106

Science Speakers {An Application of Mathematics in Manufacturing}

Bruce Sellars, Rotational Molding Technologies Inc. Manufacturing companies have used, and are increasingly using, NC/CNC machines to remove material from their ?parts? or from their ?tooling parts? that they use to make their ?parts?. The motion of NC/CNC machines is based on geometry which is typically prepared ?upstream? by geometric software applications on a separate computer. One fundamental geometric task, sometimes implemented in such software, is the task of pocketing a design/shape and removing all material within that shape to a given depth in the original material. This presentation will examine a software implementation of this task. The presentation will be a step by step set of problems followed by a solution for each problem. For some steps the solution given to that step will be very simple. On the other hand, sometimes a surprising simple sounding problem step requires a fairly strong mathematical result. A familiarity with the calculus will make the presentation more interesting but will not impede overall understanding of the presentation. There will be a number of pictures as illustration. The presenter has developed, implemented, and subsequently used, on a regular basis, software generating automatic geometric ?fills?. This presentation will be an attempt to see a ?real life? mathematical application.

Contact: David Housman, phone 7061, email dhousman@goshen.edu