In Search of Global Engineering Excellence is a line of research in progress. The objective is to evaluate global engineering and the teaching of engineering in order to identify critical factors to train the engineering workforce of the future, capable of acting in the global market. Professors of eight different universities in six countries were the creators of this project: Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich (Switzerland), Escola Politécnica da Universidade de São Paulo (Brazil), Georgia Institute of Technology (USA), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA), Shanghai Jiao Tong University (China), Technische Universität Darmstadt (Germany), Tsinghua University (China) and University of Tokyo (Japan) (www.gee-geip.org).

 

Design Automation and Technology is a research line that has been developed in the last twenty years. The goal is to develop and apply new and better design methods as a global and integrated process. It focuses mainly on the inclusion of automated methods and processes through the use of computers (CAD/CAE systems and PDM systems, among others). The strategy is to integrate new concepts of quality, competitiveness, customer satisfaction and environmental preservation in the context of Engineering.

This research aims to conduct a survey of the design methodologies employed in companies of the metal/mechanical sector in the Greater São Paulo and Sorocaba regions. The goal is to verify their degree of adequacy, to suggest alterations or adaptations that may direct their efforts in the development of new products, to provide capacity and chances of constant renovation to these companies, and to make it possible for them to continue and grow in a highly competitive market. This research has the participation of researchers of the Mechanical Technology Department of Faculdade de Tecnologia de Sorocaba (CEETPS).

This research had its origins in the request of a plastic product manufacturer. Reinforced pipes are obtained by rolling a ribbed blade. The product is a low-weight pipe, with rigidity and resistance adequate for its main use as embedded conduit for liquids flowing in an open canal system. During the process of rolling the pipe, instability of the reinforcement ribbings of the profile may occur. The instability of these ribbings makes the pipe unusable as it will not have the expected rigidity or resistance. The study of this phenomenon is the main goal of this work, as well as the development of a tool for the design of these pipes.

The central point of the research is the study and the proposal of a diagnosis system to detect structural damage in machines and/or components. This diagnosis system uses a global experimental technique, in which the measured physical parameter is the natural frequencies of the structure. The diagnosis system is based on the technology of artificial neural networks. The function of the artificial neural network is to recognize patterns in the variations in the natural frequencies of structures with and without defects.