9457168 Wilhelm The research addresses the design, manufacture, and metrology of sculptured surfaces. Bezier splines, introduction of the coordinate measuring machine, and advances in design tools and maintaining systems have all spurred the use of surface descriptions in design and manufacturing. Data from many industries suggests that engineering practice for surface design and manufacture is inefficient and far from robust. To address these problems, the research program is focused on specification and control of form variations, high speed computation of surfaces to be machined, and opportunistic metrology procedures that use process and design knowledge for improved speed and accuracy. This research will be incorporated into the principal investigator's teaching activities in mechanics, precision engineering, computer-aided design, and computational metrology.
