CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering

Casting, Welding, Heat Treatment and NDT – MECH 423 – Fall 2013
TEAM WORK PROJECT

General instructions: Hopefully, by now you may have established with whom you will be taming
up for your project presentation. The project is a collaborative work and the objective is to get the
students to develop strong presentation skills, in addition to learning (if you have not done so
already) to work in teams. The final output of this project is a 20 minute presentation by the group
followed by a brief question session. The soft and hardcopy of the project needs to be submitted for
marking purposes, together with appropriate expectation of originality form before 29th Nov 2013.
The topic: (Proposed at the end) Objective of the project is to familiarize with any aspects within
the purview of this course. If you have any particular projects that you are interested in, or you have
any design problems within the course purview, you are welcome to propose and work on that,
subsequent to my acceptance.
The team: The composition of the team is to your discretion restricted to 4 students per team. I
would advise that each member should be responsible of a specific part of the project. It is advisable
to have selected a team leader that will communicate with me on issues that the group is facing.
The presentation: What follows is some general information about giving seminars/presentations.
It is not aimed just at the presentations in this course. Take what is relevant to the situation. As a
guideline, presentations/seminars usually work best if they have the following features:
Title - this can be as catchy or boring as you like, but it helps if it is interesting and not too long eg.,
“The ups and downs of hydraulic actuators" is probably more appropriate for a seminar title than "
The study of vertical displacement by the application of sustained fluid pressure through a small
orifice with the aid of a reservoir and connecting hydraulic hose."
Introduction: this should let the audience know who you are and what you are doing and why you
are doing it without giving away what you are about to tell them in the rest of the talk. You may feel
it useful to refresh the audience on some of the key points of the area you are going to discuss
(especially if most of them will not be completely familiar with the topic).
Discussion: at this stage you can describe the main topics of your presentation. This will depend
on what the aim of the presentation is: explaining a research project, proposing a new design,
suggesting production process improvements, explaining a new technique etc.
Summary: Depending on the aim of the presentation, this will either summarise your findings, your
aims/intentions, the key points of the topic etc.
In terms of giving seminars remember the 5p's "Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance".
 Overheads (or slides) are very useful visual aides and in most cases are essential.
 Care must be taken in their preparation;
 They should be typed/printed - handwritten overheads are definitely not as good. Adding
information to an existing OHP during the talk is fine.
 “Busy" overheads/slides i.e. those with too much detail/writing on them are to be avoided if at
all possible: i.e. big chunks of text, vast tables and long strings of equations.
 Good graphs (well labelled and scaled) are more useful in general than the same data in tables.
 You do not have to include all the material you have ever produced or found in your research in
the presentation; try to develop a flowing, comprehensible story.
 Try not to read your seminar out word for word. If you need prompts, use cards with keywords or
subtitles or plan your overheads to give you the necessary prompts.
 If you practise your presentation out loud a few times (in a quiet room where you won't be
interrupted) it gives you an idea of how the talk will flow and also how long it takes.
 The most common problem encountered in seminars is speed. Don't forget that you already know
the stuff whereas the audience don’t. So talking at the speed of a hockey commentator is not good.
How to proceed: You will commence by reading materials relevant to the selected title. You will
have 4 weeks to search through the literature and familiarize with the subject and prepare the
presentation. Discuss with your team mates. Brainstorm on what you should do and you can also get
inputs from the tutor. Put a plan on paper that would include scope, objectives, responsibilities and
deadlines. The group leader will e-mail me the final version of your plan at with the subject line
containing the title of the project and the course code, (example: Joining plastic parts, MECH423),
together with the list of teammates and their IDs on or before 23rd of October 2013.
Deadlines to Watch out for:
By 2nd October Finalize Group Members, and a project title.
By 23rd October You can work with tutor to decide you project title and get help regarding the
material for study and email me the title and team members list.
By 27th and 29th Deadline for submission of Hard and soft copy of the presentation, before
November your groups presentation is due.
Also this is the day of presentation. If all groups stick to time of 20 minutes
we can wrap up all the 6 group presentations within the class hours.
Note: Attendance at all presentations will be noted.

Title 1
Design an EPS casting process for the product in figure 1. Assume the
dimensions and describe the process with the following topics
a. Justification of the Casting Process
b. Overview of the proposed Casting process
c. Design of the Mould and/or pattern
d. Key points to consider
e. Finishing operations if any
Title 2 Figure 1
Give an overview of joining Plastic parts
a. Different types of processes available (restrict yourself to welding and adhesive joining)
b. Advantages and disadvantages of each of them
c. Key points to consider in each of them
Title 3
Give a detailed explanation of Ion nitriding, heat treatment process
a. What type of heat treatment that this process belongs to
b. Process overview as to what happens during the heat treatment
c. Which materials are more suitable and why
d. Key points to consider while performing this heat treatment
Title 4
Give an overview of a relatively new nondestructive testing method called Resonant Inspection (RI)
a. Nature of type of the inspection process
b. Modalities and type of identifiable defects
c. Advantages and disadvantages
d. Key points to consider in each of them
Title 5
Give a detailed explanation of Laser Welding process
a. Process overview
b. Which materials are more suitable and why
c. Key points to consider while performing this heat treatment