D. T. Pham

University of Birmingham · School of Mechanical Engineering

In line with human-centric smart manufacturing, modern factories are striving for an ever-higher degree of flexible and resilient production, as the conventional automation approach has reached its bottleneck considering mass personalization with increasing complicatedness and complexity. To achieve it, human-robot collaboration (HRC) becomes a pre...

Due to environmental pollution and resource shortages, the electric vehicle industry has been developing swiftly, and the market demand for batteries, as an essential part of electric vehicles, has also surged. Proper disassembly of end-of-life vehicle batteries (ELV batteries) is necessary to achieve the integrity and closure of their life cycle,...

Materials with programmable conductivity and stiffness offer new design opportunities for next-generation engineered systems in soft robotics and electronic devices. However, existing approaches fail to harness variable electrical and mechanical properties synergistically and lack the ability to self-respond to environmental changes. We report an e...

Remanufacturing is widely recognised as a key contributor to the circular economy (CE) as it extends the in-use life of products, but its synergy with Industry 4.0 (I4.0) has received little attention when compared to manufacturing. An agglomeration of I4.0 technologies and methodologies is reflected in the emerging digital twin (DT) concept, which...

This paper proposes a platform for robots to learn disassembly tasks based on reinforcement learning (RL) techniques. The platform is demonstrated by a robot learning the skill of removing a bolt along a door-chain groove in a data-driven way, where the clearance between the bolt and the groove is less than 1mm. Furthermore, the relationship betwee...

Product disassembly is a vital element of recycling and remanufacturing processes. The disassembly line balancing problem (DLBP), i.e., how to assign a set of tasks to a disassembly workstation, is crucial for a product disassembly process. Based on the importance of energy efficiency in product disassembly and the trend toward green remanufacturin...

Disassembly is the first step in the remanufacturing of a product. This paper presents the design of a robot end-of-arm tool for removing a peg from a hole, a common operation in the disassembly of mechanical products. The device is a compliant structure that enables the peg to be pulled out of a closely fitting hole without jamming or wedging. The...

Remanufacturing is a key component of a circular economy. It enables the reduction of landfill and the preservation of natural resources, therefore benefiting the environment. Disassembly is the first stage in the remanufacturing process, but, so far, has been mostly a manual operation. Transitioning from manual to robotic disassembly is desirable...

In recent years, remanufacturingRemanufacturing has become critical for environmental protection and natural resource conservation. The purpose of the work reported in this chapter is to find the best plan for product disassemblyDisassembly, the first step in the recovery of end-of-life products, balancing the three goals of sustainabilitySustainab...

RemanufacturingRemanufacturing is an important way to realize environmental protection and resource reutilization by reusing end-of-life products. DisassemblyDisassembly is an important process of remanufacturingRemanufacturing. Manual disassembly is a common method used to disassemble end-of-life products; it is expensive and inefficient. Recently...

RemanufacturingRemanufacturing represents one of the most promising strategies for reaching economic and environmental sustainabilitySustainability goals. The implementation of cloud technologies in the classical remanufacturingRemanufacturing process provides an opportunity to define a novel approach called cloudCloudremanufacturingRemanufacturing...

The Bees Algorithm is a popular optimisation method taking inspiration from the food foraging behaviour of honey bees. The algorithm performs a kind of exploitative neighbourhood search combined with random explorative search. This chapter describes in detail the Bees Algorithm and its variants. The description of the Bees Algorithm is framed in th...

In this study, the bees traplining metaphor was adopted for the Bees Algorithm (BA) and the Combinatorial Bees Algorithm (BAC) and applied to solve the vehicle routing problem. The two-parameter Continuous and Combinatorial Bees Algorithms (BA2 and BAC2), equipped with a traplining metaphor intensifier, Bees Routing Optimiser (BRO), were used to so...

In a human-robot collaborative disassembly line, multiple people and robots collaboratively perform disassembly operations at each workstation. Due to dynamic factors, such as end-of-life product quality and human capabilities, the line balancing problem for the human-robot collaborative disassembly line is a dynamic optimisation problem. Therefore...

Remanufacturing, as a way to achieve the circular economy paradigm, can help save the environment by reducing the use of raw materials and energy, cutting greenhouse gas emissions and virtually eliminating the need for landfill. Disassembly is a critical first step in the remanufacturing process. This research uses the Bees Algorithm to optimise ro...

Materials with programmable conductivity and stiffness offer new design opportunities for next-generation engineered systems in soft robotics and wearable devices. However, existing approaches fail to harness variable electrical and mechanical properties synergistically, and lack the ability to self-respond to environmental changes. We report an el...

Remanufacturing represents one of the most promising strategies for promoting circular economy (CE) principles and achieving economic and environmental sustainability goals. The implementation of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) enabling technologies such as cloud computing and the Internet of Things in the classical remanufacturing process provides the opportu...

The aim of this paper is to provide a multi-criteria decision-making intelligent approach based on Industry 4.0 and Triple Bottom Line principles for sustainable supply chain development in the renewable energy sector. In particular, the solar photovoltaic energy supply chain is used as a case study, encompassing the entire energy production proces...

A digital twin is a “live” virtual replica of a sensorised component, product, process, human, or system. It accurately copies the entity being modelled by capturing information in real time, or near real time, from the entity, through embedded sensors and the Internet-of-Things. Many applications of digital twins in the manufacturing industry have...

Remanufacturing end-of-life (EoL) products is a critical step to effectively retrieve high-value components or materials from the products. Statistics show that unscrewing is one of major activities in remanufacturing. Human-robot collaboration (HRC) is a sensible strategy to leverage the strengths of human operators and robots to take off screws u...

Disassembly is the first step in the remanufacturing of a product. This paper presents the design of a robot end-of-arm tool for removing a peg from a hole, a common operation in the disassembly of mechanical products. The device is a compliant structure that enables the peg to be pulled out of a closely fitting hole without jamming or wedging. The...

This chapter examines the balancing of robotic disassembly lines. It details the modelling of the line balancing problem and presents various models developed in recent years. The chapter also discusses the use of probability distributions and fuzzy numbers to account for uncertainties in task durations.

This chapter discusses serial paced mixed-model disassembly line balancing with multi-robot workstations (MDLB-MR). The main difference between MDLB-MR and classic simple disassembly lines is the number of robots that can be allocated to each workstation. In MDLB-MR, a set of EOL products can be simultaneously disassembled and each product has its...

The performance of an evolutionary algorithm in solving disassembly sequence planning or disassembly line balancing greatly depends on six parts: the evolutionary operator; encoding scheme; solution selection and update strategy; population initialisation; solution maintenance; and terminal condition. This chapter introduces classical single-object...

This chapter discusses the need for component and subassembly detection for robotic disassembly and introduces a two-pointer detection strategy to find removable components and subassemblies online during disassembly. The strategy is shown to be quick and simple to use for disassembly sequence planning and replanning. Only an interference matrix is...

Most disassembly optimisation problems start with designing a mathematical representation that can describe component relations. This chapter discusses and compares three major groups of component relation models: the matrix-based model, graph-based model and hybrid-based model.

This chapter briefly explains remanufacturing and its motivation and introduces the main classes of optimisation problems in remanufacturing.

Based on the detection strategy introduced in Chapter 4, a ternary Bees Algorithm is presented to provide a re-planning solution, combining the disassembly order and the direction of not only detachable components but also the removable subassemblies. The algorithm possesses the merits of both the original Bees Algorithm and greedy search. Although...

This chapter discusses the prerequisites of robotic disassembly sequence planning as opposed to manual disassembly planning. Optimisation variables, objectives and constraints are summarised and modelled mathematically. Multiple disassembly operations with direction change and tool change, additional adjustment strategies, backup strategies, and hu...

This chapter demonstrates the use of the model proposed in Chapter 6 and presents the solution of the robotic disassembly line balancing problem (DLBP) for benchmark cases using different optimisation algorithms. The best algorithms for large-scale multi-objective disassembly line balancing problems are shown to be NSGA-III and IBEA.

This chapter gives an overview of robotic disassembly for remanufacturing. The general concept, characteristics and enablers of robotic disassembly are reviewed. The chapter also outlines a systematic workflow for designing robotic disassembly cells based on techniques for assembly cell design.

Uncertainties in the end-of-life conditions of products make disassembly difficult to robotise. A key problem is that existing industrial automation techniques use pre-determined robotic processes which cannot deal with unforeseen failed disassembly operations. This chapter models the completion rate of a disassembly plan and introduces the concept...

This book illustrates the main characteristics, challenges and optimisation requirements of robotic disassembly. It provides a comprehensive insight on two crucial optimisation problems in the areas of robotic disassembly through a group of unified mathematical models. The online and offline optimisation of the operational sequence to dismantle a p...

Electrified vehicles are increasingly being seen as a means of mitigating the pressing concerns of traffic-related pollution. Due to the nature of engine-assisted vehicle exhaust systems, pedestrians in close proximity to these vehicles may experience events where specific emission concentrations are high enough to cause health effects. To minimize...

This article studies the scheduling problem for a remanufacturing system with parallel disassembly workstations, parallel flow-shop-type reprocessing lines and parallel reassembly workstations. The problem is formulated as a multi-objective optimization problem which contains both energy consumption and makespan to be addressed using an improved mu...

Recurrent neural networks (RNNs) are powerful tools for learning information from temporal sequences. Designing an optimum deep RNN is difficult due to configuration and training issues, such as vanishing and exploding gradients. In this paper, a novel metaheuristic optimisation approach is proposed for training deep RNNs for the sentiment classifi...

Disassembly is the first operation in the remanufacture, repair and recycling of products that have reached the end of their service life. Both productivity and flexibility should be considered when using robots to carry out disassembly due to the complexities associated with the products returned for remanufacturing. Human-robot collaboration is a...

Disassembly is the first step in a remanufacturing process chain with unscrewing being usually the most frequent task. In previously reported research in the authors’ laboratory, a new method has been developed for using robots to unfasten screws. Uncertainties and variability in the physical condition of screws induced by dirt, rust, or mechanical...

Understanding the thermal distortion induced by arc welding, laser, or induction heating is a challenge in academia and industry. This study presents the artificial thermal strain (ATS) method which was modified from strain as boundary (SDB) method, based on inherent strain theory, and its equivalent mechanical model to analyse the distortion mecha...

A digital twin is a “live” virtual replica of a sensorised component, product, process, human, or system. It accurately copies the entity being modelled by capturing information in real time or near real time from the entity through embedded sensors and the Internet-of-Things. Many applications of digital twins in manufacturing industry have been i...

This article gives an overview of the area of smart composites, classifies the composite materials that have been developed for various applications into different types, outlines the pillars supporting smart composites development, summarizes the benefits of smart composites and briefly discusses future development trends.

Remanufacturing is being paid much attention due to environmental protection and resource re-utilization. Disassembly is an inevitable step of remanufacturing and it is always finished by the manual labor. Robotic disassembly helps to improve the automation of disassembly process, while robotic disassembly planning helps to improve the efficiency o...

For the realization of environmental protection and resource conservation, remanufacturing is of great significance. Disassembly is a key step in remanufacturing, the disassembly line system is the main scenario for product disassembly, usually consisting of multiple workstations, and has prolific productivity. The application of the robots in the...

For resource reutilization and environmental protection, remanufacturing gets more and more attention in many countries. Disassembly is a critical part of traditional manufacturing industry, but the traditional disassembly operation is mainly done by workers, which is low-efficiency. Now the use of robots can improve production efficiency a lot, wh...

In the disassembly line balancing problem, the disassembly time of task is usually uncertain due to the influence of various factors. Interval number theory is very suitable to solve this problem. In this paper, a new interval mathematical model is proposed and the objectives are to minimize the cycle time and the total energy consumption of robots...

Abstract: Multi-Point Forming (MPF) is a flexible technique in which reconfigurable pins are used to generate a continuous 3D surface. Similar to solid dies, many defects appear in discrete dies, which have negative effects on the quality of produced parts, such as thickness variation and wrinkling on deformed shape. Previous investigations have fo...

Carbon fibre–reinforced composites (CFRCs) are increasingly used in aeroplanes, satellites and offshore wind turbines. Access those systems for repair when the material is damaged may be difficult. Researchers have incorporated vascular systems containing healing agents into CFRCs, enabling them automatically to recover from delamination and debond...

This paper concentrates on a resource-constrained multi-robotic disassembly line balancing (RC-MDLB) problem. In this RC-MDLB problem, different types of end-of-life products are disassembled simultaneously on the same line under the following conditions: allocating multiple robots to a workstation to simultaneously process the disassembly tasks th...

As the disassembly of end-of-life products is affected by several dynamic and uncertain issues, many mathematical models and solution approaches have been established. However, with more extended objectives, constraints and different methods of disassembly, inconsistent models relating to product representations and types of disassembly lines have...

The Bees Algorithm has been successfully applied for over a decade to a large number of optimisation problems. However, a mathematical analysis of its search capabilities, the effects of different parameters used, and various design choices has not been carried out. As a consequence, optimisation of the Bees Algorithm has so far relied on trial-and...

Remanufacturing is the rebuilding of a product to specifications of the original manufactured product using a combination of directly reused, repaired and new parts. Disassembly, the first and arguably most important process in remanufacturing, tends to be labour-intensive due to complexities in the conditions of end-of-life products returned for r...

The Bees Algorithm (BA) is a metaheuristic algorithm to find good solutions to optimisation problems in reasonable computing times. This paper is the first to report on the use of the BA to solve 9 combinatorial optimisation problems (COP) with more than 100 cities from TSPLIB rigorously to test the performance of the algorithm. The work employed a...

Effective disassembly of obsolete products is critical for remanufacturing, recycling and recycling. However, existing disassembly studies have few or no resource constraints, such as limited numbers of disassembly operators and tools. Two-stage disassembly model is used to improve the flexibility to adapt to remanufacturing market demand. Based on...

Traditional manufacturing pays much attention to profit without giving due regard to pollutant emission. Remanufacturing is being paid increasing attention due to resource saving and environment protection. Disassembly is an inevitable key step of remanufacturing and always carried out by manual labor, which incurs high cost and has low efficiency....

Purpose To review the state-of-the-art in smart remanufacturing, highlighting key elements of an Industry 4.0 (I4.0) future that supports circular economy (CE) principles and offer a conceptual framework and research agenda to accelerate digitalisation in this sector. Design/methodology/approach The Scopus, Web of Science and ScienceDirect databas...

Remanufacturing helps to improve the resource utilization rate and reduce the manufacturing cost. Disassembly is a key step of remanufacturing and is always finished by either manual labor or robots. Manual disassembly has low efficiency and high labor cost while robotic disassembly is not flexible enough to handle complex disassembly tasks. Theref...

To enhance flexibility and sustainability, human-robot collaboration is becoming a major feature of next-generation robots. The safety assessment strategy is the first and crucial issue that needs to be considered due to the removal of the safety barrier. This paper determined the set of safety indicators and established an assessment model based o...

The key to fully achieving the benefits of remanufacturing lies in the efficient and cost-effective reuse of components from end-of-life (EoL) products. Unlike recycling and disposal, remanufacturing contributes to a firm’s profits and reduces environmental impacts. Maximising the economic value of recovery options while meeting environmental regul...

The aim of this paper is to provide a multi-criteria decision making framework based on the Triple Bottom Line principles and Analytic Hierarchy Process methodology for sustainable supply chain development in the renewable energy sector. The proposed framework encompasses the whole energy production supply chain, from raw materials’ suppliers to di...

Disassembly is a core procedure in remanufacturing. Disassembly is currently carried out mainly by human operators. It is important to reduce the labor content of disassembly through automation, to make remanufacturing more economically attractive. Threaded fastener removal is one of the most difficult disassembly tasks to be fully automated. This...

The digital twin-based manufacturing system is a typical representative of smart manufacturing and has a number of advantages beyond the state of the art. However, when a manufacturing system needs to be reconfigured to meet new requirements of production, manual reconfiguration is time-consuming and high labor cost because of the complexity of the...

In this paper we propose an innovative machine learning approach to the hydraulic motor load balancing problem involving intelligent optimisation and neural networks. Two different nonlinear artificial neural network approaches are investigated, and their accuracy is compared to that of a linearised analytical model. The first neural network approa...

In remanufacturing, disassembly is the first step to dismantle the end-of-life products into components, which is labour-intensive due to the variability of returned products. Compared to manual disassembly, robotic disassembly is a promising technique to automate remanufacturing processes, which liberates the human labours from the repetitive disa...

Human–robot collaborative disassembly is an approach designed to mitigate the effects of uncertainties associated with the condition of end-of-life products returned for remanufacturing. This flexible semi-autonomous approach can also handle unpredictability in the frequency and numbers of such returns as well as variance in the remanufacturing pro...

Multi-point forming uses forces applied to a tool, comprising of multiple pins set at different heights, to form sheet metal for panelling in white goods, automotive bodywork, aircraft frames and so on. The use of multiple pins allows for rapid change over and flexibility in the tool making it suitable for small-batch and prototype component manufa...

When considered in two-dimensional space, a cylindrical peg being withdrawn from a clearance-fit hole can exhibit one of four contact states: no contact, one-point contact, two-point contact and line contact. Jamming and wedging can occur during the two-point contact. Effective control of the two-point contact region can significantly reduce resist...

There is a growing demand for flexible manufacturing techniques that meet the rapid changes in production technology, processes and innovations. Multipoint forming (MPF) is a flexible sheet metal forming technique where a reconfigurable die can be readily changed to produce various shapes. Parts produced using MPF suffer from geometrical defects su...

The Bees Algorithm is a population-based optimisation algorithm inspired by the food foraging behaviour of honey bees. Over the years, this algorithm has been successfully applied to many optimisation problems. In order to enhance its accuracy and convergence rate, it is proposed to employ the Nelder and Mead (NM) method to implement the local sear...

The automated diagnosis of control charts to detect faults is a problem studied by many researchers. In recent years, they have turned their attention to processes that do not fulfil the condition of having normally, identically and independently distributed (NIID) variables. With those processes, it is common to have one or more manipulatable vari...

This paper reviews the literature on the emerging digital technologies of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) focussed on the applicability of the Internet of Things (IoT), Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) in remanufacturing. Inspired by the frameworks developed to support exploration and realisation of I4.0 technologies for disassembly, the paper d...

Robot helps to increase automation and economic benefits of disassembly line systems, and reduce risk to the human worker. For the robotic disassembly line, its energy consumption can be further optimized to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. In this paper, energy consumption of disassembly line systems is considered to be one of optimization objecti...

Remanufacturing is able to reduce the environmental pollution and the manufacturing cost by recycling the end-of-life products. Disassembly is a critical step for the production process of remanufacturing. Traditional disassembly process is finished by either manual disassembly that has low efficiency or robotic disassembly that has low flexibility...

Industrial robots can be mechanical intelligent agents by integrating programs, intelligent algorithms and facilitating intelligent manufacturing models from cyber world into physical entities. After introducing the concept of cloud, their storage, computing, knowledge sharing and evolution capabilities are further strengthened. Digital twin is an...