Handling qualities of fixed-pitch, variable-speed multicopters for urban air mobility

Optimisation-based control design techniques are applied to multicopters with variable-RPM rotors. The handling qualities and motor current requirements of a quadcopter, hexacopter and octocopter with equal gross weights (5,360N) and total disk areas (producing a 287N/m $^2$ disk loading) are compared in hover. For axes that rely on the rotor thrust (all except yaw), the increased inertia of the larger rotors on the quadcopter increase the current requirement, relative to vehicles with fewer, smaller rotors. Both the quadcopter and hexacopter have maximum current margin requirements (relative to hover) during a step command in longitudinal velocity. In yaw, rotor inertia is irrelevant, as the reaction torque of the motor is the same whether the rotor is accelerating or overcoming drag. This, combined with the octocopter’s greater inertia as well as the fact that it requires 30% less current to drive its motors in hover, results in the octocopter requiring the greatest current margin, relative to hover conditions. To meet handling qualities requirements, the total weight of the motors of the octocopter and hexacopter is comparable at 13.5% weight fraction, but the quadcopter’s motors are heavier, requiring 16% weight fraction. If the longitudinal and lateral axes were flown in ACAH mode, rather than TRC mode, the total motor weight of all configurations would be nearly identical, requiring about 13.5% weight fraction for motors (compared to 7–9% weight fraction from hover torque requirements).

Study on the effect of front retaining walls on the thermal structure and outflow temperature of reservoirs

The front retaining wall (FRW) is an effective facility of selective withdrawal. Previous research has not estimated the effect of FRWs on the thermal regimes of reservoirs and outflow temperature, which are crucial to reservoir ecology. For this purpose, taking the Dongqing Reservoir as a case study, a two-dimensional hydrodynamic CE-QUAL-W2 model was configured for the typical channel-type reservoir in the southwestern Guizhou Province, to better understand the influence of FRWs on the thermal structure and outflow temperature. The simulated data from January to September 2017 showed that FRWs can change the vertical temperature distribution during the stratification period, accelerate the upper warmer water release and thus decrease the strength of thermal stratification. The stratification structure changed from a single thermocline to double thermoclines in August. An FRW resulted in an average 11.8 m increase in the thickness of the hypolimnion and a 1.2°C decrease in the thickness of the thermocline layer. An FRW increased the outflow temperature by 0.4°C and raised the withdrawal elevation by 16 m on average. The longitudinal velocity increased compared with the non-FRW condition, while the maximum velocity position moved up. In addition, FRWs can continuously obtain surface warmer water without manual operation and have low investment and good construction conditions. This study can provide an available selective withdrawal idea for reservoirs with similar hydraulic conditions.

Comparative Analysis of MacAdam Model and PI Control in a Predictive Driver Model

Autonomous vehicles are the future of automotive engineering and understanding how this systems work is critical. In these vehicles, controller models are usually needed to generate signals that would normally be imposed by the driver e.g., steering angles, acceleration inputs and braking commands. Intuitively, each control method utilized has its peculiarities and presents different behaviours. In such situation, this paper aims to develop an error comparison between a car displacement and its reference path due the use of two different predictive driver controllers: The proportional-integrative and the MacAdam model. For this purpose, a 14 degrees of freedom vehicle model is used with the aid of MATLAB Simulink, whereas simulations were made using the double-lane change manoeuvre, a commonly used manoeuvre to analyse the vehicle dynamics performance. At the end of this paper, lateral acceleration, displacement and steering wheel angle analysis led the conclusion that the vehicle behaviour is smoother with the use of the proportional-integrative control regardless of longitudinal velocity. Nevertheless, the trajectory error is smaller for MacAdam model than PI controller is and therefore it is easier to follow the reference path with this one, although in aggressive maneuverers it can cause more discomfort and increase the risk of rolling when compared to the PI controller in a vehicle with the same body stiffness.

Vortex heat transfer enhancement on energy-efficient surfaces structured by inclined trench dimples

Experimental measurements and numerical predictions of the longitudinal component of the air velocity in a narrow channel with two rows of 26 densely packed oval trenches at angles of ±45° and ±135° in laminar (Re=103) and turbulent (Re=4×103) regimes have been compared. The acceptability of the RANS approach using the modified SST turbulence model within the Rodi–Leschziner–Isaev approach has been substantiated. The flow acceleration in the dimpled channel up to the longitudinal velocity maxima of 1.85 and 1.55 of the average bulk velocity for laminar and turbulent air flows has been experimentally confirmed.

Mathematical modeling of three-layer flows with evaporation based on exact solutions

The stationary flow in the “liquid-liquid-gas” system in a horizontal channel with solid impermeable upper and lower walls is investigated. Mathematical modeling in each of the layers of the system is based on exact solutions of a special type of Navier-Stokes equations in the Boussinesq approximation. The processes of vapor evaporation or condensation at the liquid-gas interface are modeled using the boundary conditions of the problem. In the upper layer the thermal diffusion effect and the effect of diffusional thermal conductivity are taken into account. Examples of three-layer flows for the “silicone oil - water - air” system are given. The influence of the thermal regime at the boundaries of the system and the thickness of the upper layer on the longitudinal velocity and temperature distribution is considered.

Output-Based Tracking Control for a Class of Car-like Mobile Robot Subject to Slipping and Skidding Using Event-Triggered Mechanism

This paper presents an output-based tracking controller for a class of car-like mobile robot (CLMR) subject to slipping and skidding. The slipping and skidding are regarded as external disturbances, and an event-triggered extended state observer (ET-ESO) is utilized to recover the velocities as well as to estimate the uncertainties and disturbances. The constrained longitudinal velocity is established, conforming to the traffic flow theory on the kinematic level. The velocity control law and heading angle control law are developed on the dynamic level, respectively. The input to state stability (ISS) of the closed-loop system is analyzed via cascade theory. Simulation results are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed tracking controller for CLMR subject to slipping and skidding.

Transport equations for the normalized nth-order moments of velocity derivatives in grid turbulence

Transport equations for the normalized moments of the longitudinal velocity derivative ${F_{n + 1}}$ (here, $n$ is $1, 2, 3\ldots$ ) are derived from the Navier–Stokes (N–S) equations for shearless grid turbulence. The effect of the (large-scale) streamwise advection of ${F_{n + 1}}$ by the mean velocity on the normalized moments of the velocity derivatives can be expressed as $C_1 {F_{n + 1}}/Re_\lambda$ , where $C_1$ is a constant and $Re_\lambda$ is the Taylor microscale Reynolds number. Transport equations for the normalized odd moments of the transverse velocity derivatives ${F_{y,n + 1}}$ (here, $n$ is 2, 4, 6), which should be zero if local isotropy is satisfied, are also derived and discussed in sheared and shearless grid turbulence. The effect of the (large-scale) streamwise advection term on the normalized moments of the velocity derivatives can also be expressed in the form $C_2 {F_{y,n + 1}}/Re_\lambda$ , where $C_2$ is a constant. Finally, the contribution of the mean shear in the transport equation for ${F_{n + 1}}$ can be modelled as $15 B/Re_\lambda$ , where $B$ ( $=S^*{S_{s,n + 1}}$ ) is the product of the non-dimensional shear parameter $S^*$ and the normalized mixed longitudinal-transverse velocity derivatives ${{S_{s,n + 1}}}$ ; if local isotropy is satisfied, $S_{s,n + 1}$ should be zero. These results indicate that if ${F_{n + 1}}$ , ${F_{y,n + 1}}$ and $B$ do not increase as rapidly as $Re_\lambda$ , then the effect of the large-scale structures on small-scale turbulence will disappear when $Re_\lambda$ becomes sufficiently large.

Estimation of Vehicle Longitudinal Speed Based on Improved Kalman Filter

Estimation of vehicle longitudinal acceleration is very important in vehicle active safety control system. In this paper, two driving conditions of a 4WD off-road vehicle are divided by vehicle signals such as steering angle. Under different working conditions, different estimation algorithms are adopted. In the straight driving condition, the longitudinal speed was estimated by adjusting the variance weight of acceleration Kalman observation noise based on kinematics method. For steering conditions, in order to obtain the longitudinal velocity at the center of mass, by dynamic method, a lateral state estimator was designed and tire sideslip dynamics was modeled. The CarSim-Simulink co-simulation results show that the proposed algorithm has high accuracy and strong practicability.

Acoustic nondestructive testing and measurement of tension for steel reinforcing members

Many concrete structures contain internal post-tensioned steel structural members that are subject to fracturing and corrosion. The major problem with conventional tension measurement techniques is that they use indirect and non-quantitative methods to determine whether there has been a loss of tension. This work developed an acoustics-based technology and method for making quantitative tension measurements of an embedded, tensioned steel member. The theory and model were verified in the laboratory using a variety of steel rods as test specimens. Field tests of the method were conducted at three Corps of Engineers dams. Measurements of the longitudinal and shear velocity were done on rods up to 50 ft long. Not all rods of this length were able to be measured and the quality and consistency of the signal varied. There were fewer problems measuring the longitudinal velocity than shear velocity. While the tension predictions worked in the laboratory tests, the tension could not be accurately calculated for any of the field sites because researchers could not obtain the longitudinal or shear velocities in an unstressed state, or precise measurements of the longitudinal and shear velocities due to the unknown precise length of the rods in the tensioned state.

Incipience of the intensive heat transfer regime at cooling high-temperature bodies in subcooled liquid

Cooling in film boiling is usually an unwanted process in many technologies due to low intensity of heat transfer. Thus, predicting the solid wall superheat at vapor film destabilization is useful to avoid this phenomenon. In the present paper, two new semi-empirical models for evaluation of the wall superheat at destabilization of vapor film around the metallic body cooled in saturated or in subcooled liquid are proposed. Both models with fitted empirical multipliers are in good agreement with an experimental dataset. To evaluate the contribution of the natural convection in the model for temperature head at cooling in subcooled liquid, a problem about the natural convection near the vapor film, occurring during film boiling along the vertical plane, is numerically solved by means of ANES20XE CFD-code. The computational results of longitudinal velocity are in good agreement with the theoretical velocity of natural convection used in the model.