Cloud Platform Framework of Lifetime Cycle Assessment for Engineering
Materials
Li-jun Zhang, Wei-dong Zhang*, Xin Aixinjueluo, Peng Shi, Yi-bo Ai
National Center for Materials Service Safety, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China
(*Corresponding Author: zwd@ustb.edu.cn)
Abstract – Industrial products quality is more and more
expected. As most products may be the organic combination
of several kinds of materials, materials databases are
essential to the industrial engineering. With the new IT
technologies, cloud computing and Internet of Things, the
materials databases have the new development path. In this
paper, we proposed a new cloud platform framework,
material cloud (MatCloud), of lifetime cycle assessment for
engineering materials. The proposed MatCloud platform is
based on the requirement of materials science / engineering
and cloud computing. By the MatCloud platform, we may
overcome the limitation of the traditional materials
databases. The key technologies and the prospect of the
MatCloud platform were detailed analyzed. And the
MatCloud platform will be gradually improved in the
future.
Keywords – Cloud computing, engineering materials,
lifetime cycle assessment, materials cloud (MatCloud)
I. INTRODUCTION
With the rapid development of advanced
manufacturing industry, higher request of industrial
products quality is expected. And research from different
disciplines is aimed to improve the quality of industrial
products. From the theory of system engineering, the
whole lifetime cycle should be emphatically considered.
From a micro view, most industrial products may be
the organic combination of several kinds of materials.
And metal, the most common materials, has been used for
a long time [1]. So, we should also introduce the whole
lifetime cycle of materials to industrial engineering. Now,
a plenty of materials databases have established to
develop or evaluate new materials and structures.
However, the limitation of current databases, such as the
data scattering, low quality of data, regulates the
development of lifetime cycle assessment for materials [2]
[3].
In recent years, Internet of Things [4], cloud
computing [5] and other new information technologies
have taken the emerging industry reform. In this paper, a
new cloud platform framework of lifetime cycle
assessment for engineering materials will be presented.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section
II summarizes the requirement of lifetime cycle
assessment for engineering materials. In Section III,
typical applications (cloud manufacturing) based on cloud
computing are reviewed. And the concept of materials
cloud (MatCloud) is proposed in Section IV, followed by
prospect of cloud platform framework for engineering
materials in Section V. Finally, conclusion is drawn in
Section VI.
II. REQUIREMENT OF LIFETIME CYCLE
ASSESSMENT FOR ENGINEERING MATERIALS
A. Whole Lifetime Cycle of Engineering Materials
On June 24, 2011, the US President Obama announced
a $500-million-plus initiative, Advanced Manufacturing
Partnership (AMP). As an important component of AMP,
the Materials Genome Initiative (MGI) is proposed [6].
MGI is similar to the Human Genome Project in a way. In
China, the 14th Special Session of Xiangshan Science
Conferences convened from December 21 to 23 in 2011
in Beijing to prepare proposals for MGI program in this
regard. Chinese scholars and experts from different fields
were invited to have in-depth discussions on materials
genomes [7].
MGI framework is the next generation of materials
database. And in order to establish the whole lifetime
cycle of engineering materials, we should integrate the
different stages of materials data. Generally speaking, the
whole lifetime cycle of engineering materials is composed
with discovery, development, property optimization,
system
design
and
integration,
certification,
manufacturing and deployment. In different stages, the
requirement of fundamental data, the designing data, the
experimental data and the application data, is varied.
Table I shows the varied data of the lifetime cycle
assessment for engineering materials. And all data should
be integrated and analyzed by some mathematical
methods [8] [9].
TABLE I
DATA OF LIFETIME CYCLE ASSESSMENT FOR ENGINEERING
MATERIALS
Fundamental
data
M
L
Designing
data
M
M
Discovery
Development
Property
M
M
optimization
System design
L
M
and integration
Certification
L
M
Manufacturing
L
L
Deployment
L
L
M: More data; L: Less data; N: NULL.
Experimental
data
L
L
Application
data
N
L
M
L
M
L
L
L
L
L
L
M
B. Challenges of Lifetime Cycle Assessment for Materials
Database
From the published literatures, the materials database
of lifetime cycle assessment still faces the following
challenges.
(1) The current databases of engineering materials are
dispersed, especially lack of the databases of lifetime
cycle assessment for engineering materials.
(2) The quality of existing data is hardly ensured. So,
materials data cannot be directly applied to the application.
The data users may be afraid that the data is unreliable
and incomplete. And the data providers would rather
share "bad" data than "good" data with others.
(3) The unified platform framework is required to
integrate the different materials data. The researchers of
whole lifetime cycle for engineering materials can share
their data, models, methods with others via the unified
platform.
C. Cause Analysis of the Challenges
The technical and also non-technical problems are
reasons of the above challenges.
(1) As we known, some technical problems, such as
network security, network bandwidth and encapsulation
of the services, may affect the development the materials
database. The requirement of users far exceeded the
service ability of materials database a few years ago.
(2) And the most important reasons are non-technical
problems, such as the management system and ideological
concept. Commercial benefit of different companies
restricts sharing of materials data. For instance, the data
user will not pay or do not willing to pay, and on the other
hand, the most investors do not use the database really.
III. TYPICAL APPLICATION BASED ON CLOUD
COMPUTING
A. Basic Concept of Cloud Computing
The concept of "cloud computing" was first proposed
in 2007. It is built on existing advanced technologies such
as clustering, grid computing and parallel computing,
including virtualization technology.
Cloud computing is simply a platform where
individuals and companies use the Internet to access
endless hardware, software and data resources for most of
their computing needs [10]. In the cloud computing model,
the user application does not run on the PC or mobile
phones, but running on a large-scale server through
internet. The data is not stored locally, but stored in the
data center. The cloud computing provider responsible for
managing and maintaining the data center to ensure the
computing power and storage space enough for end-users.
So the users can access these services with any terminal
equipment at anytime, anywhere.
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-aService (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) are three
common types of service delivery models [11].
B. Basic Concept of Cloud Manufacturing
Applications based on cloud computing have formed
several typical applications in recent years, such as
government, education, health, and manufacturing. And
the concept of cloud manufacturing is shown as follow.
The concept design anywhere, manufacturing
anywhere", cloud manufacturing, is proposed [12]. Cloud
manufacturing is a computing and service-oriented
manufacturing model. It has been considered as a new
multi-disciplinary domain that contains technologies such
as networked manufacturing, manufacturing grid,
virtualization, Internet of Things, and cloud computing.
In cloud manufacturing, distributed resources are
encapsulated into cloud services and managed in a
centralized way [13][14]. Clients can request services
ranging from product design, manufacturing, testing,
management and all other stages of a product lifecycle. A
cloud manufacturing service platform performs search,
intelligent mapping, recommendation and execution of a
service.
IV. CONCEPT OF MATERIALS CLOUD
A. Development of Materials Database Based on Cloud
Computing
Materials cloud (MatCloud) was first proposed by
National Center for Materials Service Safety (NCMS),
University of Science and Technology Beijing, in 2012.
In the MatCloud platform, there are four layers, the
resource layer, the database layer, the tool layer and the
application layer [15].
The MatCloud platform is based on the requirement of
materials science and cloud computing. And the
MatCloud platform can provide the knowledge for
materials designing, manufacturing, service, and so on.
The logical diagram of the MatCloud platform is shown in
Fig 1.
B. Key Technologies of MatCloud
(1) Data acquisition based on Internet of Things. The
whole lifetime cycle of engineering materials will
generate a lot of fundamental data, designing data,
experiment data and application data. And among these
data, the application data (i.e. the field monitoring data)
are the most essential to safety assessment of engineering
materials.
The Internet of Things technology may provide a more
comprehensive method of status perception. And in the
MatCloud platform, we should arrange more sensors to
monitor the service status of engineering materials. The
MatCloud platform will integrate the monitoring data to
the uniformed system.
Lifetime cycle assessment for engineering materials
Assessment
Data
Monitoring
Simulation
Storage resource
Models
Experimental resource
Infrastructure for MatCloud
Fig.1 Logical diagram of Mat Cloud platform for lifetime cycle
assessment.
(2) Encapsulation for data analysis models. The
MatCloud platform includes the data and models for
lifetime cycle assessment of engineering materials, and
shares with others.
Data analysis models should be encapsulated to Web
Service. Considering the security, models of private cloud
services and public cloud service should be different, as
shown in Fig. 2.
Data
analysis
models
Private cloud
services
Model 1
Model
encapsulation
V. PROSPECT OF CLOUD PLATFORM
FRAMEWORK FOR ENGINEERING MATERIALS
A. Application Mode Architecture of MatCloud Platform
Experiment
HPC
of the data, one pays for the rights, and one charges for
the responsibility.
The application mode architecture should be
considered for the MatCloud platform. The C2C
(consumer to consumer) model, such as eBay or Taobao,
will be used in the MatCloud platform. More and more
users would like to get their requirement for lifetime cycle
assessment of engineering materials. As mentioned in
Section IV, the traceability mechanism for materials data
will be strengthened.
In order to benefit from the materials data, the thirdparty payment (PayPal, Alipay, etc.) will be used. Of
course, for basic materials data, it is recommended that
the material cloud platform provides free services for the
users.
B. Application Case of Remote Safety Assessment for
Engineering Materials via MatCloud Platform
In the MatCloud platform, the Web Services for
lifetime cycle assessment of engineering materials will be
provided. Fig. 3 shows the remote safety assessment
flowchart based on MatCloud platform.
Public cloud
services
Requirement
Model 1
Model 2
MatCloud platform
Model 2
Model 3
……
Resource pool
(Web Service)
……
Experiment
cloud
Simulation
cloud
Data cloud
Monitoring
cloud
Model N
……
……
Assessment cloud
Fig.2 Schematic diagram of model encapsulation.
Standard
(3) Traceability mechanism of materials data. In the
traditional way to a scientific research, after the research,
a large number of experimental data have been set aside.
And these data will be difficult to reuse. Via the
MatCloud platform, all the data about the materials
research can be integrated. And the original researcher
and the others will obtain the data in the future, with the
permission.
In the MatCloud platform, the traceability mechanism
will be established. The whole information about any data
can be prepared with the principle, “if the one provided
the data, he will validate the data and retain the ownership
of the data”. Of course, if required, the data can be
validated by the third-party experts. After the validation
Probability
Reliability
Prediction
Risk
Collaborative
assessment
Remote experts
Assessment report
Remote exerts
Report cloud
Fig.3 Remote safety assessment flowchart based on MatCloud platform.
The MatCloud platform responds for the requirements
of the user. The user can obtain information from the
experiment cloud, the simulation cloud, the data cloud
and the monitoring data. And in order to improve the
accuracy of safety assessment, the standard with the
probability analysis tool, prediction analysis tool, the
reliability analysis tool and the risk analysis tool, will be
analyzed for safety assessment.
If the requirement is more complicated, the MatCloud
would provide the remote safety assessment with the
remote experts. And last, the user will get a
comprehensive report for the requirement.
B. Future Work for MatCloud Platform
(1) Centering on the different fields of advanced
manufacturing engineering, gradually improve the
MatCloud platform. For example, the gearbox is the
important component of the high-speed train. We are
going to develop a integrated database for reliability
analysis and risk assessment of the gearbox based on the
MatCloud platform.
(2) For long-time assessment of engineering materials,
we will establish a monitoring system based on the
Internet of Things for pipelines or roads. And the
monitoring data can be automatically integrated to the
MatCloud platform.
(3) Strengthen the cooperation with the research
institutes and the manufactories of materials science and
engineering. In this paper, we only propose the MatCloud
platform framework of lifetime cycle assessment for
engineering materials. And in the future, we and all
possible users will focus on this work.
VI. CONCLUSION
In this paper, we proposed a new cloud platform
framework of lifetime cycle assessment for engineering
materials.
(1) The concept of materials cloud (MatCloud) is
presented. The MatCloud platform is based on the
requirement of materials science and cloud computing. By
the MatCloud, we may overcome the limitation of the
traditional materials databases.
(2) The key technologies and the prospect of the
MatCloud platform have been analysed detailed in this
paper. And the platform will be gradually improved in the
future.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was sponsored by the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (No. 51005015) and the
Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities
of China (No. FRF-SD-12-028A and No. FRF-TP-12161A).
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