Center pivot irrigation systems usually apply a relatively uniform amount of water to fields that are often inherently variable, which could lead to significant waste of water and energy. To address this issue, our te...Center pivot irrigation systems usually apply a relatively uniform amount of water to fields that are often inherently variable, which could lead to significant waste of water and energy. To address this issue, our team is now developing an Intelligent Center Pivot (ICP) by integrating sensor-based irrigation scheduling with variable rate irrigation technology. However, before this technology can be applied in commercial production, it is necessary to educate growers about its practicality and potential benefits. The objective of this study was to develop a portable tabletop intelligent center pivot model (ICPDemo) to demonstrate and promote adoption of the ICP technology. This paper describes an ICPDemo constructed in 2014, including the design specifications, electro-mechanical design, control strategy, and performance. The ICPDemo has performed according to design specifications and is successfully being used to demonstrate the benefits and effectiveness of ICP technology for irrigation scheduling.展开更多
Compliant bistable mechanisms, devices with two distinct stable equilibrium positions, are used in a variety of applications, such as switches, clasps, and valves. Many kinds of compliant bistable mechanisms were prop...Compliant bistable mechanisms, devices with two distinct stable equilibrium positions, are used in a variety of applications, such as switches, clasps, and valves. Many kinds of compliant bistable mechanisms were proposed and studied during the past decade. Among them, tension-based compliant bistable mechanisms, that incorporate tension pivots as their flexible members, feature in short travel distance and low power consuming. So far, the design of this kind of bistable mechanisms is done using finite element method through trial and error, thus is time-consuming. By treating the tension pivots as fixed-guided segments and their elongation as a spring, we developed a novel three degree-of-freedom （3-DOF） pseudo-rigid-body model （PRBM） for this kind of bistable mechanisms. The principle of virtual work is used to derive the force-deflection relationship of the PRBM model. The comparison between the PRBM results and the experimental results of the force-deflection characteristics shows that the PRBM can predict not only the bistable behavior of the tension-based bistable mechanisms, but also their soft spring-like post-bistable behavior and the spring-like force-deflection characteristics when pulling in the reverse direction from the as-fabricated position, which is called reverse behavior. The 3-DOF PRBM can be used to design and identify tension-based bistable mechanisms. Using the PRBM instead of the trial-and-error method can greatly reduce the development time of this kind of bistable mechanisms.展开更多
Large-deflection flexure pivot is widely used in high precision rotation application, but there are less flexure configurations and simple and convenient design methods, This paper presents a novel large-deflection cu...Large-deflection flexure pivot is widely used in high precision rotation application, but there are less flexure configurations and simple and convenient design methods, This paper presents a novel large-deflection curved-compliant annulus-shaped flexure pivot composed of six curved beam flexure elements. It can offer more than lO^angular stroke theoretically. Firstly, main-motion pseudo-rigid-body method is introduced to establish the flexure pivot model. Although pseudo-rigid-body method can be used to analyze the large-deformation flexure pivot performance, the method is definitely a laborious and difficult task for designing this novel flexure pivot. In order to simply the designing process, dimension-design graphs based on the parametric models and finite element analysis is presented. Using the dimension-design method as a tool, the designers can determine the optimal geometry rapidly, based on the stiffness and rotation demands of an annulus-shaped flexure pivot. Finally, dimension-design graph examples are given whose primary design aims to achieve a rotation stroke of annulus-shaped flexure pivot. The finite element analysis results show that the relative designing error between anticipative rotation stroke and graph design result is less than 4%. The dimensionless method used in designing annulus-shaped flexure pivot can reduce design process in both time and complexity. The novel annulus-shaped flexure pivot and dimension-design method are helpful supplement to configuration and design method of large-deflection flexure pivot.展开更多
文摘Center pivot irrigation systems usually apply a relatively uniform amount of water to fields that are often inherently variable, which could lead to significant waste of water and energy. To address this issue, our team is now developing an Intelligent Center Pivot (ICP) by integrating sensor-based irrigation scheduling with variable rate irrigation technology. However, before this technology can be applied in commercial production, it is necessary to educate growers about its practicality and potential benefits. The objective of this study was to develop a portable tabletop intelligent center pivot model (ICPDemo) to demonstrate and promote adoption of the ICP technology. This paper describes an ICPDemo constructed in 2014, including the design specifications, electro-mechanical design, control strategy, and performance. The ICPDemo has performed according to design specifications and is successfully being used to demonstrate the benefits and effectiveness of ICP technology for irrigation scheduling.
基金supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant No.50805110)Foundation for Key Program of Ministry of Education of China (Grant No.109145)Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China (Grant No.JY10000904010)
文摘Compliant bistable mechanisms, devices with two distinct stable equilibrium positions, are used in a variety of applications, such as switches, clasps, and valves. Many kinds of compliant bistable mechanisms were proposed and studied during the past decade. Among them, tension-based compliant bistable mechanisms, that incorporate tension pivots as their flexible members, feature in short travel distance and low power consuming. So far, the design of this kind of bistable mechanisms is done using finite element method through trial and error, thus is time-consuming. By treating the tension pivots as fixed-guided segments and their elongation as a spring, we developed a novel three degree-of-freedom （3-DOF） pseudo-rigid-body model （PRBM） for this kind of bistable mechanisms. The principle of virtual work is used to derive the force-deflection relationship of the PRBM model. The comparison between the PRBM results and the experimental results of the force-deflection characteristics shows that the PRBM can predict not only the bistable behavior of the tension-based bistable mechanisms, but also their soft spring-like post-bistable behavior and the spring-like force-deflection characteristics when pulling in the reverse direction from the as-fabricated position, which is called reverse behavior. The 3-DOF PRBM can be used to design and identify tension-based bistable mechanisms. Using the PRBM instead of the trial-and-error method can greatly reduce the development time of this kind of bistable mechanisms.
基金supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant No. 50675007)Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University of China (Grant No. NCET-06-0165)
文摘Large-deflection flexure pivot is widely used in high precision rotation application, but there are less flexure configurations and simple and convenient design methods, This paper presents a novel large-deflection curved-compliant annulus-shaped flexure pivot composed of six curved beam flexure elements. It can offer more than lO^angular stroke theoretically. Firstly, main-motion pseudo-rigid-body method is introduced to establish the flexure pivot model. Although pseudo-rigid-body method can be used to analyze the large-deformation flexure pivot performance, the method is definitely a laborious and difficult task for designing this novel flexure pivot. In order to simply the designing process, dimension-design graphs based on the parametric models and finite element analysis is presented. Using the dimension-design method as a tool, the designers can determine the optimal geometry rapidly, based on the stiffness and rotation demands of an annulus-shaped flexure pivot. Finally, dimension-design graph examples are given whose primary design aims to achieve a rotation stroke of annulus-shaped flexure pivot. The finite element analysis results show that the relative designing error between anticipative rotation stroke and graph design result is less than 4%. The dimensionless method used in designing annulus-shaped flexure pivot can reduce design process in both time and complexity. The novel annulus-shaped flexure pivot and dimension-design method are helpful supplement to configuration and design method of large-deflection flexure pivot.
