Effect of the Extended Rigid Flapping Trailing Edge Fringe on an S833 Airfoil

A 2D numerical simulation was conducted to investigate the effect of an extended rigid trailing edge fringe with a flapping motion on the S833 airfoil and its wake flow field, as an analogy of an owl’s wing. This study aims to characterize the influence of the extended flapping fringe on the aerodynamic performance and the wake flow characteristics downstream of the airfoil. The length (Le) and flapping frequencies (fe) of the fringe are the key parameters that dominate the impact on the airfoil and the flow field, given that the oscillation angular amplitude is fixed at 5°. The simulation results demonstrated that the airfoil with an extended fringe of 10% of the chord at a flapping frequency of fe = 110 Hz showed a substantial effect on the pressure distribution on the airfoil and the flow characteristics downstream of the airfoil. An irregular vortex street was predicted downstream, thus causing attenuations of the vorticities, and shorter streamwise gaps between each pair of vortices. The extended flapping fringe at a lower frequency than the natural shedding vortex frequency can effectively break the large vortex structure up into smaller scales, thus leading to an accelerated attenuation of vorticities in the wake.

Patients With Chronic Low Back Pain Have an Individual Movement Signature: A Comparison of Angular Amplitude, Angular Velocity and Muscle Activity Across Multiple Functional Tasks

Despite a large body of evidence demonstrating spinal movement alterations in individuals with chronic low back pain (CLBP), there is still a lack of understanding of the role of spinal movement behavior on LBP symptoms development or recovery. One reason for this may be that spinal movement has been studied during various functional tasks without knowing if the tasks are interchangeable, limiting data consolidation steps. The first objective of this cross-sectional study was to analyze the influence of the functional tasks on the information carried by spinal movement measures. To this end, we first analyzed the relationships in spinal movement between various functional tasks in patients with CLBP using Pearson correlations. Second, we compared the performance of spinal movement measures to differentiate patients with CLBP from asymptomatic controls among tasks. The second objective of the study was to develop task-independent measures of spinal movement and determine the construct validity of the approach. Five functional tasks primarily involving sagittal-plane movement were recorded for 52 patients with CLBP and 20 asymptomatic controls. Twelve measures were used to describe the sagittal-plane angular amplitude and velocity at the lower and upper lumbar spine as well as the activity of the erector spinae. Correlations between tasks were statistically significant in 91 out of 99 cases (0.31 ≤ r ≤ 0.96, all p < 0.05). The area under the curve (AUC) to differentiate groups did not differ substantially between tasks in most of the comparisons (82% had a difference in AUC of ≤0.1). The task-independent measures of spinal movement demonstrated equivalent or higher performance to differentiate groups than functional tasks alone. In conclusion, these findings support the existence of an individual spinal movement signature in patients with CLBP, and a limited influence of the tasks on the information carried by the movement measures, at least for the twelve common sagittal-plane measures analysed in this study. Therefore, this work brought critical insight for the interpretation of data in literature reporting differing tasks and for the design of future studies. The results also supported the construct validity of task-independent measures of spinal movement and encouraged its consideration in the future.

Video Image Correlation-Based Method Used for the Study of the Torsional Vibrations of an Adder Gearbox

In this paper, a study of the vibrations that appear in the transmission shafts of an adder gearbox used for a heavy truck is made. The truck has two engines on only one chassis and the power offered by these engines is summated and transmitted to the truck or the working machine. This type of transmission is used for oil production installation for the army. During the transportation of the installation to the workplace, only one engine is running, after mounting installation, both engines are running. This paper studies the vibrations of the adder gearbox, a complex construction, subjected to multiple operating requirements. In this regard, the authors first performed accuracy (accuracy) tests of the VIC 3D system on an original experimental mini-stand. Measurements performed on a mini disc demonstrated the validity and accuracy of the method, even if the cameras used were not high resolution. The authors applied the same principle in the case of the adder box from the truck, obtaining useful results for those in the field. The experimental method uses the facilities of a contactless optical measurement method (VIC-3D), which provides a high-accuracy quantitative linear and angular vibration analysis. The VIC measurement method offers, based on a frontal viewing of the disk during the resonance phenomenon and by simple calculus on the monitored linear displacements, the corresponding angular amplitude.

Study of the Rolling Friction Coefficient between Dissimilar Materials through the Motion of a Conical Pendulum

The rolling friction phenomenon is encountered in a wide range of applications and when two different materials are involved, quantitative characterization is necessary. The parameter to be determined is the coefficient of rolling friction, for whose estimation a methodology is proposed, based on the damped oscillation of a conical pendulum. The pure rolling contact between a sphere and a plane is obtained when a steel ball is the bob of the pendulum, which rolls on an inclined plate made from a second material from the contacting pair. The mathematical model of the motion of a conical pendulum constructed from a revolution body supported on an inclined plane in the presence of the rolling friction is developed. The dynamic equations of the rigid body with fixed point are applied and the differential equation of motion of the pendulum is obtained together with the expressions of the reaction forces in the contact point. For different pairs of materials, tests are performed on a laboratory device. The damped oscillatory motion of the conical pendulum is video-captured for the estimation of the angular amplitude variation. A program for image processing is developed for measuring the values of angular elongations from the analysis of each frame of the video and, finally, the coefficient of rolling friction is obtained. For all the materials tested, a linear decrease in angular amplitude is detected and the slope of angular amplitude can be considered as a characteristic parameter related to the coefficient of rolling friction between the two materials.

Free Oscillations of a Damped Simple Pendulum: An Analog Simulation Experiment

The frequency of free oscillation of a damped simple pendulum with large amplitude depends on its amplitude unlike the amplitude-independent frequency of oscillation of a damped simple harmonic oscillator. This aspect is not adequately emphasized in the undergraduate courses due to experimental and theoretical difficulties. We propose an analog simulation experiment to study the free oscillations of a simple pendulum that could be performed in an undergraduate laboratory. The needed sinusoidal potential is obtained approximately by using the available AD534 IC by suitably augmenting the electronic circuitry. To keep the circuit simple enough we restrict the initial angular amplitude of the simple pendulum to a maximum of [Formula: see text]. The results compare well qualitatively with the theoretical results. The small quantitative discrepancy is attributed to the inexact nature of the used “sinusoidal potential”.

Multifunctional Medical Recovery and Monitoring System for the Human Lower Limbs

In order to develop multifunctional medical recovery and monitoring equipment for the human lower limb, a new original mechanical structure with three degrees mobility has been created for the leg sagittal model. This mechanism is integrated in the equipment and includes elements that have similar functions to the different anatomic parts (femur, median part), leg, and foot. The independent relative rotation motion between the previously mentioned anatomic parts is ensured. The femur may have an oscillation rotation of about 100° relative to the trunk. The median part (leg) alternatively rotates 150° relative to the superior segment. The lower part (foot) is initially placed at 90° relative to the median part and may have an alternative rotation of 25°. Depending on a patient’s medical needs and their recovery progress, device sensors provide varying angular amplitude of different segments of the human limb. Moreover, the mechanism may actuate either anatomic leg segment, two parts, or all of them.

Oscillatory and steady streaming flow in the anterior chamber of the moving eye

We study the flow induced by eye rotations in the anterior chamber (AC) of the eye, the region between the cornea and the iris. We model the geometry of the AC as a thin domain sitting on the surface of a sphere, and study both the simpler case of a constant-height domain as well as a more realistic AC shape. We model eye rotations as harmonic in time with prescribed frequency $\unicode[STIX]{x1D714}_{f}$ and amplitude $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}$, and use lubrication theory to simplify the governing equations. We write the equations in a reference frame moving with the domain and show that fluid motion is governed by three dimensionless parameters: the aspect ratio $\unicode[STIX]{x1D716}$ of the AC, the angular amplitude $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}$ and the Womersley number $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}$. We simplify the equations under the physiologically realistic assumptions that $\unicode[STIX]{x1D716}$ is small and $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}$ large, leading to a linear system that can be decomposed into three harmonics: a dominant frequency component, with frequency $\unicode[STIX]{x1D714}_{f}$, and a steady streaming component and a third component with frequency $2\unicode[STIX]{x1D714}_{f}$. We solve the problem analytically for the constant-height domain and numerically as the solution of ordinary differential equations in the more realistic geometry. Both the primary flow and the steady streaming are shown to have a highly three-dimensional structure, which has not been highlighted in previous numerical works. We show that the steady streaming is particularly relevant from the clinical point of view, as it induces fluid mixing in the AC. Furthermore, the steady flow component is the dominant mixing mechanism during the night, when the thermal flow induced by temperature variations across the AC is suppressed.

Experimental and numerical studies of bolted joints subjected to torsional excitation

The dynamic response of bolted joints subjected to torsional excitation is investigated experimentally and numerically. First, the effects of the initial preload and the angular amplitude on axial force loss of the bolt were studied. Second, the change of hysteresis loops with the increasing number of loading cycles was found under a larger torsional angle. At last, a fine-meshed three-dimensional finite element model was built to simulate the bolted joint under torsional excitation, from which the hysteresis loops were obtained under varying angular amplitudes. The results of numerical analysis are in good agreement with those of experiments.