Heat Transfer Laboratory

The Electronics Materials Laboratory is dedicated to the thermal analysis of electronic materials processing. It is equipped with state-of-the-art video and video microscopy systems, heating and cooling units, data acquisition and analysis systems, and multichannel thermocouple thermometry, thermal anemometry, and pyrometry instruments, all of which are fully interfaced with microcomputers. The laboratory houses a digital image processing station and a data post-processing system, through which data is animated and superimposed on real images on videotape for comparison, time-dependent measurements, and presentations.

Manufacturing Automation Laboratory

The Manufacturing Automation Laboratory invents and develops new manufacturing processes and redesigns old processes in order to take advantage of modern automation and controls technology. The laboratory has created an improved welding method called scan welding as well as several innovative thermal rapid prototyping processes.

The laboratory's thermal processing facilities include a 300W Nd:YAG welding laser with fiber-optics delivery, a plasma-arc welding and cutting setup, and a gas-tungsten arc welding supply. Equipment include a high-precision X-Y positioner table, an articulated 6 d.o.f. process robot, and a SCARA 4 d.o.f. assembly robot. Sensing facilities consist of an infrared pyrometry camera, a 3-D optical laser scanner system, and complete computer support for off-line video image analysis and real-time feedback thermal control.

Robotics and Controls Laboratory

The Robotics and Controls Laboratory for modern automation and robotics technology is currently sponsoring projects involving intelligent lighting control for robotic vision, simulation of chemical plant dynamics, design of electrocardiograph monitors, and analysis of meteorological equipment. Undergraduate and graduate students use the laboratory to construct architectural models by paper rapid prototyping and to research projects on flexible robotic repair of electronic equipment, as well as to prototype home robots.

Laboratory resources include a tabletop SCARA 4 d.o.f. robot with a vision system, an articulated 6 d.o.f. manipulator with tactile sensing, several small desktop 5 d.o.f. arms and student-designed mobile robots, an paper-based rapid prototyper, and a complete computerized video editing system.

Tufts University Fluids Turbulence Laboratory

The Fluids Turbulence Laboratory investigates advanced diagnostics in manufacturing flows in an effort to better understand the controlling fluid dynamics in manufacturing processes. Equipped with state-of-the-art imaging and laser-based diagnostic equipment, the laboratory houses a two-component, fiber-based, laser Doppler anemometer capable of highly accurate single point velocity measurements and a digital particle image velocimetry system capable of instantaneous air velocities. Two new anemometry techniques were developed in the lab; the first allows for instantaneous, two-dimensional measurements of temperature in an aqueous flow, and the second measures instantaneous mixing in a two-dimensional flow.

Computational Capabilities

One of TAMPL's greatest assets is the faculties' experience with computational modeling and simulation with thermal-fluid and materials related processes. Both commercial software and scientific programming have been applied to modeling of thermal processes such as zone-melting recrystallization, chemical-mechanical polishing, rapid thermal processing, and scan welding. New computational techniques have been developed to model microscale heat transfer effects, material transformations, and viscoelastic phenomena. Several different computational platforms are available for numerical investigations including desktop computers which can be integrated into experimental setups for analysis and control, workstations (Silicon Graphics, Sun, DEC alpha) for commercial packages that utilize advanced graphics, and mainframes for intensive computational calculations.