Numerical Simulation of TWo Different Flexible Bodies Immersed in Moving Flow

The coupled motion of two flexible bodies with different lengths immersed in moving fluid is studied numerically. The flapping frequency, flapping amplitude and average drag coefficient of each body are calculated and the influences of the arranging manner and separation distance are analyzed. In our simulation, when placed in the flow individually, the flexible body with a longer length will flap in period and the shorter one will maintain still straightly in the flow direction. The numerical results show that, two different flexible structures near placed in moving flow would strongly interact. When they are placed side by side, the existence of the stable shorter flexible body will restrain the flapping of the longer one while the existence of the longer flexible body may also induce the shorter one to flap synchronously. When placed in tandem with the shorter flexible body in upstream, the flapping of the longer one in downstream will be obviously enhanced. In the situation for the longer flexible body placed in upstream of the shorter one, the coupled flapping amplitude and average drag coefficients increase and decrease periodically with increasing the arranging space, and peak values appear as a result of the mediate of the tail wakes.

DYNAMICS OF FLEXIBLE MULTIBODY SYSTEMS WITH TREE TOPOLOGIES

The dynamic equations of flexible multibody systems with tree topological configuration are de- rived by using the Jourdain's principle.The independent joint coordinates are introduced to describe the large displacements of the bodies,and the modal coordinates are used to describe small deformations of flexible bodies based on the consistent mass finite element method and normal vibration mode analysis.The mini- mum differential equations are developed,which are compatible with the equations of multi-rigid body sys- tems or structural dynamics.The stiff problem in the numerical integration is thus alleviated effectively.The method used in this paper can be extended to deal with systems with other topological configurations. Finally,the validity and feasibility of the presented mathematical model are demonstrated by a numerical ex- ample of a manipulator with two elastic links.

Dynamic Bending of Bionic Flexible Body Driven by Pneumatic Artificial Muscles(PAMs) for Spinning Gait of Quadruped Robot

The body of quadruped robot is generally developed with the rigid structure. The mobility of quadruped robot depcnds on the mechanical properties of the body mechanism, It is difficult for quadruped robot with rigid structure to achieve better mobility walking or running in the unstructured environment. A kind of bionic flexible body mechanism for quadruped robot is proposed, which is composed of one bionic spine and four pneumatic artificial muscles（PAMs）. This kind of body imitates the four-legged creatures＇ kinematical structure and physical properties, which has the characteristic of changeable stiff＇hess, lightweight, flexible and better bionics. The kinematics of body bending is derived, and the coordinated movement between the flexible body and legs is analyzed. The relationship between the body bending angle and the PAM length is obtained. The dynamics of the body bending is derived by the floating coordinate method and Lagrangian method, and the driving tbrce of PAM is determined. The experiment of body bending is conductcd, and the dynamic bending characteristic of bionic flexible body is evaluated. Experimental results show that the bending angle of the bionic flexible body can reach 18. An innovation body mechanism for quadruped robot is proposed, which has the characteristic of flexibility and achieve bending by changing gas pressure of PAMs. The coordinated movement of the body and legs can achieve spinning gait in order to improve the mobility of quadruped robot.

MULTI-FLEXIBLE SYSTEM DYNAMIC MODELING THEORY AND APPLICATION

The flexible body modeling theory was demonstrated. An example of modeling a kind of automobile’s front suspension as a multi-flexible system was shown. Finally, it shows that the simulation results of multi-flexible dynamic model more approach the road test data than those of multi-rigid dynamic model do. Thus, it is fully testified that using multi-flexible body theory to model is necessary and effective.

Dynamic Analysis of Flexible Cage of High-speed Angular Contact Ball Bearing

A dynamics formula was established for the flexible cage of high-speed angular contact ball bearing. A modified Craig-Bampton component mode synthetic method was used to establish the formula with regard to the flexibility of cage and based on a dynamic analysis of angular contact ball bearing,and a rigid-flexible multi-body dynamic analysis program was developed using ADAMS,which is verified by a computation example of Gupta. The results show that it's not likely to keep the rotation smoothness of cage when the ratio of pocket clearance to guiding clearance and the ratio of radial load to axial load become too large or too small. By comparison,the flexible cage runs more smoothly than the rigid cage.

DYNAMIC ANALYSIS OF FLEXIBLE BODY WITH DEFINITE MOVING ATTITUTE

The nonlinear dynamic control equation of a flexible multi-body system with definite moving attitude is discussed. The motion of the aircraft in space is regarded as known and the influence of the flexible structural members in the aircraft on the motion and attitude of the aircraft is analyzed. By means of a hypothetical mode, the defor mation of flexible members is regarded as composed of the line element vibration in the axial direction of rectangular coordinates in space. According to Kane＇ s method in dynamics, a dynamic equation is established, which contains the structural stiffness matrix that represents the elastic deformation and the geometric stiffness matrix that represents the nonlinear deformation of the deformed body. Through simplification the dynamic equation of the influence of the planar flexible body with a windsurfboard structure on the spacecraft motion is obtained. The numerical solution for this kind of equation can be realized by a computer.

Development of a Flexible Multibody Model to Simulate Nonlinear Effects in Printing Process

Modern high speed printing machines are able to print up to 700 m/min. At this rate, little excita-tions lead to vibrations, which may lead to loss of contact between the rollers (bouncing). This bouncing results in white stripes, being visible on the printed image. To enable the simulation of the whole printing process, including effects like bouncing, a discrete multibody model is developed. The rollers are modeled by several rigid bodies. These bodies are connected to each other by rotational springs, which allow simulation of the first bending eigenmodes of each roller. The contact area between the rollers is modeled by several nonlinear translational springs and damping elements. These elements change their stiffness and damping values depending on the distance between the rollers. If a defined distance is exceeded, the values become zero, which represents the loss of contact (bouncing). The unknown spring and damping elements of this model are parametrized with help of an experimental modal analysis. This paper presents the development of a flexible multibody model to simulate nonlinear effects in printing process.

Modeling of large scale solar cell handling robot with belt-driven flexible arms

To increase the competition of the solar energy collection system, the size of the solar panel module during the manufacturing process is being increased continuously. As the size of the solar panel increases, the size of the robot to handle the panel increased also. The change in scale of the robot inevitably results ill the amplification of the adverse effect of tile flexure. The main source of the flexure in the large scale solar cell panel handling system is the long and thin fork fingers of the [land and the solar cell panel. In addition, tile belt-driven actuator system used by most of the large scale panel handling robot is another significant source of the vibration. In this paper, the flexible multi body dynamic model of a large scale solar cell panel handling robot, which is being designed and constructed with the help of Kyung Hee University, is developed. The belt-driven system in the robot is also modeled as flexible system and included ill the robot to represent the actual vibration characteristics of the actuator system. C 2013 The Chinese Society of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics. [doi： 10.1063/2.1301310]

Improved Body Flexibility Following Removal of a Miniscrew Implant

A 65-year-old woman, who had been suffering from inflexibility, neck and eye pain as well as general discomfort and stiffness, experienced an improvement in her symptoms upon the removal of a dental miniscrew implant. However, her symptoms returned when the implant was placed near her foot. Her symptoms continued to improve for 6 months. We hypothesize that the cause of her symptoms is linked to electromagnetic waves attracted by the implant. However, the exact underlying mechanism remains unclear, and further research is required in cooperation with the dental, medical, and related fields.

Improved lateral-dynamics-intended railway vehicle model involving nonlinear wheel/rail interaction and car body flexibility

To study the vehicle hunting behavior and its coupling with car body vibrations,a simplified lateral-dynamics-intended railway vehicle model is developed.A two-truck vehicle is modeled as a 17 degrees-of-freedom rigid system,into which the car body flexural vibrations of torsion and bending modes are further integrated.The wheel/rail interaction employs a real-time calculation for the Hertzian normal contact,in which the nonlinear curvatures of wheel and rail profiles are presented as functions of wheelset lateral movement and/or yaw rotation.Then the tangential/creep forces are analytically expressed as the Hertzian contact patch geometry,and lead to a continuous and fast calculation compared to a look-up table interpolation.It is shown that the hunting frequencies of the vehicle model and a truck model differ significantly,which verifies the necessity of the whole vehicle model.In the case of low wheel/rail conicity,the hunting frequency increases linearly with vehicle speed,whereas it rises slowly at high speed for a large conicity.Comparison of hunting frequency and damping ratio between various conicities shows that first hunting(car body hunting)may occur when the vehicle is operated at a low speed in a small conicity case,while a second hunting(truck hunting)appears when the vehicle is operated at a high speed in a large conicity case.Stability analysis of linear and nonlinear vehicle models was carried out through coast down method and constant speed simulations.Results tell that the linear one overestimates the lateral vibrating.Whereas the structural vibrations of car body can be ignored in the stability analysis.Compared to existing simplified models for hunting stability study,the proposed simplified vehicle model released limitations in the nonlinear geometries of wheel/rail profiles,and it is suitable for a frequency-domain analysis by deriving the analytical expressions of the normal and tangential wheel/rail contact forces.