The phonology, phonetics, and diachrony of Sturtevant’s Law

This paper presents a systematic reassessment of Sturtevant’s Law (Sturtevant 1932), which governs the differing outcomes of Proto-Indo-European voiced and voiceless obstruents in Hittite (Anatolian). I argue that Sturtevant’s Law was a conditioned pre-Hittite sound change whereby (i) contrastively voiceless word-medial obstruents regularly underwent gemination (cf. Melchert 1994), but gemination was blocked for stops in pre-stop position; and (ii) the inherited [±voice] contrast was then lost, replaced by the [±long] opposition observed in Hittite (cf. Blevins 2004). I provide empirical and typological support for this novel restriction, which is shown not only to account straightforwardly for data that is problematic under previous analyses, but also to be phonetically motivated, a natural consequence of the poorly cued durational contrast between voiceless and voiced stops in pre-stop environments. I develop an optimality-theoretic analysis of this gemination pattern in pre-Hittite, and discuss how this grammar gave rise to synchronic Hittite via “transphonologization” (Hyman 1976, 2013). Finally, it is argued that this analysis supports deriving the Hittite stop system from the Proto-Indo-European system as traditionally reconstructed with an opposition between voiceless, voiced, and breathy voiced stops (contra Kloekhorst 2016, Jäntti 2017).

Aerodynamic Performance and Wind-Induced Responses of Large Wind Turbine Systems with Meso-Scale Typhoon Effects

The theoretical system of existing civil engineering typhoon models is too simplified and the simulation accuracy is very low. Therefore, in this work a meso-scale weather forecast model (WRF) based on the non-static Euler equation model was introduced to simulate typhoon “Nuri” with high spatial and temporal resolution, focusing on the comparison of wind direction and wind intensity characteristics before, during and after the landing of the typhoon. Moreover, the effectiveness of the meso-scale typhoon “Nuri” simulation was verified by a comparison between the track of the typhoon center based on minimum sea level pressure and the measured track. In this paper, the aerodynamic performance of large wind turbines under typhoon loads is studied using WRF and CFD nesting technology. A 5 MW wind turbine located in a wind power plant on the southeast coast of China has been chosen as the research object. The average and fluctuating wind pressure distributions as well as airflow around the tower body and eddy distribution on blade and tower surface were compared. A dynamic and time-historical analysis of wind-induced responses under different stop positions was implemented by considering the finite element complete transient method. The influence of the stop position on the wind-induced responses and wind fluttering factor of the system were analyzed. Finally, under a typhoon process, the most unfavorable stop position of the large wind turbine was concluded. The results demonstrated that the internal force and wind fluttering factor of the tower body increased significantly under the typhoon effect. The wind-induced response of the blade closest to the tower body was affected mostly. The wind fluttering factor of this blade was increased by 35%. It was concluded from the analysis that the large wind turbine was stopped during the typhoon. The most unfavorable stop position was at the complete overlapping of the lower blade and the tower body (Condition 1). The safety redundancy reached the maximum when the upper blade overlapped with the tower body completely (Condition 5). Therefore, it is suggested that during typhoons the blade of the wind turbine be rotated to Condition 5.

Electric motor-based crankshaft stop position control to suppress range extender start vibration in electric vehicle

Range-extended electric vehicles have the most complex noise and vibration problems since certain control strategies often make range extenders (REs) shut down or restart for the sake of better fuel consumption. This paper deals with this uncomfortable riding experience, especially during the range extender start phase. A control-oriented nonlinear model for the start–stop vibration analysis, including range extender mount system, engine–clutch–motor shaft system, engine inertia torque and force, engine friction torque, engine gas torque, engine manifold pressure, electric motor torque, and range extender controller, is thus built. In the developed model, a new estimation method for gas torque is proposed, where the initial crank angle is considered and the relevant equations are simplified. The method has proven to predict gas torque accurately without using a complex calculation process. According to the developed model, the active control method, crankshaft stop position control (CSPC) has been proposed. The crankshaft stop position is analyzed as well as the crankshaft movement with different speeds at top dead center is discussed, which lead to the design of the target curves for crankshaft movement during the stop phase. Based on the set-up model, CSPC is finally applied through the cascade control of the motor to evaluate the control effectiveness. The simulation outcomes demonstrate that CSPC can help the crankshaft to finally stop at the optimal initial crank angle, which effectively lessens the vibration in the next start phase.

Parameter sensitivity of an in-plane gap closing electrostatic energy harvester with end-stop impacts

Conventionally modeled as spring–damper system, the end-stops in vibration energy harvesters set a limit to the displacement of the proof mass at sufficiently high excitation levels. In some studies, it is seen that the end-stop parameters needed adjustment to fit the simulations to the measurements at particular operating condition. In this article, the discrepancy between the simulation and measurement results on varying the operating condition is investigated in detail. A check on sensitivity of an electrostatic in-plane gap closing energy harvester to the parameters end-stop stiffness, end-stop damping, and end-stop position at various biases and excitation levels is performed. The simulations at 3-V bias and root mean square (RMS) acceleration amplitude 0.6 g show a remarkable variation of 30 Hz in up-sweep jump-down frequency on varying end-stop position by 0.12 µm. The simulation results also show a significant increase in sensitivity of up-sweep jump-down frequency to end-stop damping on increasing excitation level at fixed bias. The article also discusses the sensitivity in jump frequencies to perturbations in the excitation signal due to the presence of noise, where the jump-down frequency becomes smaller as the noise level increases. The trajectories studied at 8-V bias and RMS acceleration amplitude 0.6 g with different end-stop parameters show a strong influence of the end-stop model parameters on the motion of the proof mass. A lumped model of the device is fitted to the measurements for a whole range of operating conditions with one fixed set of model parameter, where asymmetric end-stop positions and their effect on the device behavior are shown to be crucial. The results presented in this article show that in order to reproduce and analyze the measured behavior of the harvester over a range of operating conditions, very fine details in the model are significant.