Construction and Control of Surfaces via Deployable Mechanisms With Three Degrees of Freedom

Author(s):  
Shengnan Lu ◽  
Vishal Ramadoss ◽  
Dimiter Zlatanov ◽  
Xilun Ding ◽  
Matteo Zoppi

Applications of deployable mechanisms can be found in aeronautic and civil engineering, often in the creation of unfolding large-scale structures with curved surfaces. This paper proposes novel mechanical networks, which are used to approximate three-dimensional surfaces, such as cuboids, ellipsoids, or hyperboloids. Each such deployable structure is assembled from unit Sarrus and scissor linkages of different sizes, has several decoupled degrees of freedom, and can take any shape within a different family of parameterized surfaces. Each degree of freedom controls a separate parameter in the equation describing the physical boundary of the linkage network. The size and placement of the unit linkages and their elements are analyzed and selected for obtaining the expected families of surfaces. CAD models and kinematic simulations demonstrate the abilities of the mechanisms to perform dynamically the desired approximation.

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (108) ◽  
pp. 20150044 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dervis C. Vural ◽  
Alexander Isakov ◽  
L. Mahadevan

Starting with Darwin, biologists have asked how populations evolve from a low fitness state that is evolutionarily stable to a high fitness state that is not. Specifically of interest is the emergence of cooperation and multicellularity where the fitness of individuals often appears in conflict with that of the population. Theories of social evolution and evolutionary game theory have produced a number of fruitful results employing two-state two-body frameworks. In this study, we depart from this tradition and instead consider a multi-player, multi-state evolutionary game, in which the fitness of an agent is determined by its relationship to an arbitrary number of other agents. We show that populations organize themselves in one of four distinct phases of interdependence depending on one parameter, selection strength. Some of these phases involve the formation of specialized large-scale structures. We then describe how the evolution of independence can be manipulated through various external perturbations.


Author(s):  
Joseph W. Hall ◽  
Daniel Ewing

The development of the large-scale structures in three-dimensional wall jets exiting rectangular nozzles with aspect-ratios of 1 and 4 was investigated using simultaneous measurements of the fluctuating wall pressure across the jet. The pressure fluctuations in the jets were asymmetric and caused the fluctuating wall pressure to be poorly correlated across the jet centerline. A Proper Orthogonal Decomposition analysis indicated that both the first and second modes make similar contributions to the variance of the fluctuating pressure, and were symmetric and antisymmetric, respectively, and the interplay between these modes caused the asymmetry in the instantaneous pressure fluctuations across the jet centreline. A wavelet analysis of the instantaneously reconstructed pressure fields indicated that the fluctuations were predominantly in two frequency bands near the jet centerline, but were only contained in one band on the outer lateral edges of the jet, indicating there were two different large-scale motions present. The development of large-scale structures in the two jets initially differed in the intermediate field with the antisymmetric mode being more prominent in the square jet and the symmetric mode being more prominent in the larger aspect-ratio jet. Further downstream, the symmetric mode was more prominent in both jets.


2011 ◽  
Vol 673 ◽  
pp. 255-285 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. HUTCHINS ◽  
J. P. MONTY ◽  
B. GANAPATHISUBRAMANI ◽  
H. C. H. NG ◽  
I. MARUSIC

An array of surface hot-film shear-stress sensors together with a traversing hot-wire probe is used to identify the conditional structure associated with a large-scale skin-friction event in a high-Reynolds-number turbulent boundary layer. It is found that the large-scale skin-friction events convect at a velocity that is much faster than the local mean in the near-wall region (the convection velocity for large-scale skin-friction fluctuations is found to be close to the local mean at the midpoint of the logarithmic region). Instantaneous shear-stress data indicate the presence of large-scale structures at the wall that are comparable in scale and arrangement to the superstructure events that have been previously observed to populate the logarithmic regions of turbulent boundary layers. Conditional averages of streamwise velocity computed based on a low skin-friction footprint at the wall offer a wider three-dimensional view of the average superstructure event. These events consist of highly elongated forward-leaning low-speed structures, flanked on either side by high-speed events of similar general form. An analysis of small-scale energy associated with these large-scale events reveals that the small-scale velocity fluctuations are attenuated near the wall and upstream of a low skin-friction event, while downstream and above the low skin-friction event, the fluctuations are significantly amplified. In general, it is observed that the attenuation and amplification of the small-scale energy seems to approximately align with large-scale regions of streamwise acceleration and deceleration, respectively. Further conditional averaging based on streamwise skin-friction gradients confirms this observation. A conditioning scheme to detect the presence of meandering large-scale structures is also proposed. The large-scale meandering events are shown to be a possible source of the strong streamwise velocity gradients, and as such play a significant role in modulating the small-scale motions.


2007 ◽  
Vol 129 (7) ◽  
pp. 929-941 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. W. Hall ◽  
D. Ewing

The development of the large-scale structures in three-dimensional wall jets formed using long rectangular channels with aspect ratios of 1 and 4 was investigated using measurements of the fluctuating wall pressure and point measurements of the turbulent velocity throughout the near and intermediate field. The instantaneous pressure fluctuations in both jets were laterally asymmetric causing the fluctuating wall pressure to be poorly correlated across the jet centerline. A frequency-dependent proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) of the fluctuating pressure measurements indicated that the first two mode shapes were opposite and each mode made similar contributions to the mean square fluctuations at all frequencies in order to capture the instantaneous asymmetry of the pressure field. The mode shapes in the intermediate field of both jets were strongly frequency dependent, and a subsequent wavelet analysis indicated that there are both large-scale horseshoe structures that span one-half of the jet and separate, smaller, near-wall structures located near the jet centerline. The initial development of the large-scale structures in the two jets differed, with the most energetic fluctuations being more antisymmetric in the square jet.


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