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Swivel construction is a new bridge construction method, which can minimize the impact on railway and highway traffic. Previous studies were based on single factor and static analysis, which cannot reflect the real state of structures. The purpose of this paper is to establish a dynamic model of the structure and to analyze the situation under multi-variable coupling effects to accurately simulate the real state of the structure.

Finite element software ANSYS was used to establish dynamic model of turntable structure and then to analyze the effects of multiple factors on total stress, friction stress and slipping distance of the turntable structure.

It is concluded that the unbalanced weight and radius of spherical hinges have great influence on the turntable structure, so the design should be strictly considered. Friction stress and angular acceleration have little effect on the turntable structure.

This paper provides simulation of the whole process of swivel construction method. Whereas previous studies focused on static analysis, this paper focuses on the dynamic analysis of swivel construction method. The mechanics of the swivel structure under multiple factors was analyzed. According to the analysis results, the design parameters of the turntable structure are optimized.

In order to reduce the impact of bridge construction on traffic under the bridge, the construction of bridges for some important traffic nodes usually adopts the swivel construction method. The spherical hinge is a rotating mechanism located between the bottom of the pier and the bridge cap, and is subjected to tremendous vertical pressure. According to the mechanical characteristics of the spherical hinges, this paper applies the ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) material to the spherical hinge. The spherical hinge is subjected to a compression test to test its mechanical behavior. This paper aims to discuss this issue.

In order to test the mechanical behavior of the UHPC spherical hinge, multiple sets of 100 mm UHPC spherical hinge specimens were prefabricated. Through the universal testing machine to measure the compressive strength of specimens, draw the force-displacement curve to analyze the failure mechanism and establish the stress calculation formula of the spherical hinge at each point along the radial direction.

Through the test, the compressive strength of UHPC spherical hinge is obtained, and the influencing factors of UHPC spherical hinge strength are found: reducing water–cement ratio, increasing steel fiber content and length and changing steel fiber arrangement direction can effectively improve the compression strength of UHPC spherical hinge.

For the first time, UHPC materials were applied to the spherical hinge structure, the UHPC spherical hinge diameter is 1/3 of the diameter of the reinforced concrete spherical hinge, which is equivalent to the diameter of the steel spherical hinge. By applying the UHPC spherical hinge, the manufacturing cost is reduced, the process is simple, and the construction difficulty is reduced.

This study aims to propose a novel lightweight tendon-driven musculoskeletal arm (LTDM-arm) robot with a flexible series–parallel mixed skeletal joint structure and modularized artificial muscle system (MAMS). The proposed LTDM-arm exhibits human-like flexibility, safety and operational accuracy. In addition, to improve the safety and stability of the LTDM-arm, a control method is proposed to solve local artificial muscle overload accidents.

The proposed LTDM-arm comprises seven degrees of freedom skeletons, 15 MAMSs and various sensor systems (joint sensing, muscle tension sensing, visual sensing, etc.). It retains the morphology of a human skeleton (humerus, ulna and radius) and a simplified muscle configuration. This study proposes an input saturation control with full-state constraints to reduce local artificial muscle overload accidents caused by redundant muscle tension calculations.

3D circular trajectory experiments were conducted to verify the stability of the control method and the flexibility of the LTDM-arm. The results showed that the average error of the muscle length was approximately 0.35 mm (0.38%), which indicates that the proposed control scheme can make the output follow the target trajectory while ensuring constraint satisfaction.

The human arm is capable of performing compliant operations rapidly, flexibly and robustly in unstructured environments. Existing musculoskeletal arm robots lack simulations of the full morphology of the human arm and are insufficient in dexterity. However, the flexibility and safety features of the proposed LTDM-arm were consistent with that of the human arm. Therefore, this study offers a new approach for investigating the advantages of the musculoskeletal system and the concepts of muscle control.

In order not to affect the highway and railway traffic under the bridge during the construction process, bridges adopting swivel construction method are increasingly used at areas where the traffic is heavy. Previous studies are mostly conducted by assuming that the bridge is under its own stability conditions, without considering the impact of construction error, changes of external condition and wind-induced vibration on the stability of the bridge, which poses serious challenges to the bridge construction process. This paper aims to analyze the extent to which static load and fluctuating wind effect influence structural stability and to test the credibility of the structure.

A finite element calculation method is used to analyze a T-shaped rigid frame swivel bridge. A full bridge model was built, and a local model of the turntable structure established; the two are then combined means of node coupling. Subsequently, the three sensitivity indexes – deflection rate, stress change rate and the change rate of spherical hinges – are used to evaluate in what way the bridge stability is influenced under various factors.

It is found that the stability of the swivel bridge is quite sensitive to unilateral overweight, steel beam tension and wind-induced vibration effects but less sensitive to the change of bulk density. Also found is that the change of elastic modulus exerts some effects on deflection but has negligible effects on other stability indexes. Furthermore, the transverse unbalanced torque on the bridge generated by wind-induced vibration is an important factor in determining the size of the turntable, indicating that it is not just controlled by the weight of the bridge.

All factors affecting the stability of swivel construction are analyzed, and solutions to reduce the influence are proposed. The influence of wind-induced vibration effects on swivel construction is analyzed for the first time. It is pointed out that wind-induced vibration effects have great influence on the structure, and its influence could not be neglected.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a two-degrees-of-freedom wire-driven 4SPS/U rigid‒flexible parallel trunk joint mechanism based on spring, in order to improve the robot’s athletic ability, load capacity and rigidity, and to ensure the coordination of multi-modal motion.

First, based on the rotation transformation matrix and closed-loop constraint equation of the parallel trunk joint mechanism, the mathematical model of its inverse position solution is constructed. Then, the Jacobian matrix of velocity and acceleration is derived by time derivative method. On this basis, the stiffness matrix of the parallel trunk joint mechanism is derived on the basis of the principle of virtual work and combined with the deformation effect of the rope driving pair and the spring elastic restraint pair. Then, the eigenvalue distribution of the stiffness matrix and the global stiffness performance index are used as the stiffness evaluation index of the mechanism. In addition, the performance index of athletic dexterity is analyzed. Finally, the distribution map of kinematic dexterity and stiffness is drawn in the workspace by numerical simulation, and the influence of the introduced spring on the stiffness distribution of the parallel trunk joint mechanism is compared and analyzed. It is concluded that the stiffness in the specific direction of the parallel trunk joint mechanism can be improved, and the stiffness distribution can be improved by adjusting the spring elastic structure parameters of the rope-driven branch chain.

Studies have shown that the wire-driven 4SPS/U rigid‒flexible parallel trunk joint mechanism based on spring has a great kinematic dexterity, load-carrying capacity and stiffness performance.

The soft-mixed structure is not mature, and there are few new materials for the soft-mixed mixture; the rope and the rigid structure are driven together with a large amount of friction and hindrance factors, etc.

It ensures that the multi-motion mode hexapod mobile robot can meet the requirement of sufficient different stiffness for different motion postures through the parallel trunk joint mechanism, and it ensures that the multi-motion mode hexapod mobile robot in multi-motion mode can meet the performance requirement of global stiffness change at different pose points of different motion postures through the parallel trunk joint mechanism.

The trunk structure is a very critical mechanism for animals. Animals in the movement to achieve smooth climbing, overturning and other different postures, such as centipede, starfish, giant salamander and other multi-legged animals, not only rely on the unique leg mechanism, but also must have a unique trunk joint mechanism. Based on the cooperation of these two mechanisms, the animal can achieve a stable, flexible and flexible variety of motion characteristics. Therefore, the trunk joint mechanism has an important significance for the coordinated movement of the whole body of the multi-sport mode mobile robot (Huang Hu-lin, 2016).

In this paper, based on the idea of combining rigid parallel mechanism with wire-driven mechanism, a trunk mechanism is designed, which is composed of four spring-based wire-driven 4SPS/U rigid‒flexible parallel trunk joint mechanism in series. Its spring-based wire-driven 4SPS/U rigid‒flexible parallel trunk joint mechanism can make the multi-motion mode mobile robot have better load capacity, mobility and stiffness performance (Qi-zhi et al., 2018; Cong-hao et al., 2018), thus improving the environmental adaptability and reliability of the multi-motion mode mobile robot.

The paper aims to present a new thought for design of a thrown robot based on flexible structures. The aim of the design is to reduce the weight and improve the anti-impact capability for mini thrown robot.

A mass-spring wheeled robot model is proposed and an impact analysis is given in this paper. Some principia were derived for configuration design and material choice to get a light and robust thrown reconnaissance robot. Based on the theoretical analysis, flexible elements like flexure hinges or rubber shell were utilized to build two generation of robots that both showed excellent performances of anti-impact ability.

A second-generation thrown robot (2,050 g) was developed, which could survive dropping from the height of 6 m more than 10 times without apparent damage.

The method based on the flexible structure provides the thrown robot with high survivability from impact, as well as light weight. It can be used in the design of the mini thrown reconnaissance robot at low cost.

Spherical robot plays an essential role in the field of mobile robot because of its unique shape and omni-directional mobility, especially in the application of planet detection. Although spherical robot has many advantages over leg robot, its obstacle climbing performance is still not satisfactory, that is exactly the motivation of this paper. The purpose of this paper is to propose a high-performance hopping mechanism for spherical robot, which can adapt to different terrain and effectively cross obstacles.

The hopping system uses torque spring as part of the energy storage mechanism, and converts the kinetic energy of rotation into elastic potential energy with a particularly designed turntable. Moreover, the track of the turntable, based on the Archimedes spiral principle, has the attributes of equidistance and equivelocity that enable better stability of energy storage process.

Experiments show that the proposed hopping mechanism can make a 250 g spherical robot jump up to 58 cm with the take-off angle of 60°. Finally, the influence of friction and take-off angle on the hopping height and distance of the robot is also analyzed, which provides a prior guidance for optimizing its jumping process.

This paper shows how to easily design a lightweight, compact and embedded spring hopping structure so that a spherical hopping robot with detection ability can be developed.

Giant orthogonal grid barrel vault is generated by deleting members in the inessential force transfer path of the two-layer lattice barrel vault. Consisting of members in the essential transfer path only, giant orthogonal grid barrel vault is a new type of structure with clear mechanical behavior and efficient material utilization. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

The geometrical configuration of this structure is analyzed, and the geometrical modeling method is proposed. When necessary parameters are determined, such as the structural span, length, vault rise, longitudinal and lateral giant grid number and section height to top chord length ratio of the lattice member, the structure geometrical model can be generated.

Numerical models of giant orthogonal grid barrel vaults with different rise–span ratios are built using the member model that can simulate the pre-buckling and post-buckling behavior. So the possible member buckle-straighten process and the plastic hinge form–disappear process of the structure under strong earthquake can be simulated.

Seismic analysis results indicate that when the structure damages under strong earthquake there are a large number of buckling members and few endpoint plastic hinges in the structure. Dynamic damage of giant orthogonal grid barrel vault under strong earthquake is caused by buckling members that weaken the structural bearing capacity.

This paper presents a concept for a micro‐assembly station and shows different possibilities for increasing the positioning accuracy. The main part of the station consists of a spatial parallel structure with three translational degrees of freedom. An additional rotational axis is integrated into the working platform. This structure is constructed with low friction joints, which are nearly free of backlash. The construction of these high precision joints is presented and the characteristics of the robot such as workspace and resolution are discussed. After this an approach for increasing the accuracy of parallel robots by integrating flexure hinges into the structure is described.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the nonlinear flexural behaviour of laminated curved panel under uniformly distributed load. The study has been extended to analyse different types of shell panels by employing the newly developed nonlinear mathematical model.

The authors have developed a novel nonlinear mathematical model based on the higher order shear deformation theory for laminated curved panel by taking the geometric nonlinearity in Green-Lagrange sense. In addition to that all the nonlinear higher order terms are considered in the present formulation for more accurate prediction of the flexural behaviour of laminated panels. The sets of nonlinear governing equations are obtained using variational principle and discretised using nonlinear finite element steps. Finally, the nonlinear responses are computed through the direct iterative method for shell panels of various geometries (spherical/cylindrical/hyperboloid/elliptical).

The importance of the present numerical model for small strain large deformation problems has been demonstrated through the convergence and the comparison studies. The results give insight into the laminated composite panel behaviour under mechanical loading and their deformation behaviour. The effects of different design parameters and the shell geometries on the flexural responses of the laminated curved structures are analysed in detailed. It is also observed that the present numerical model are realistic in nature as compared to other available mathematical model for the nonlinear analysis of the laminated structure.

A novel nonlinear mathematical model is developed first time to address the severe geometrical nonlinearity for curved laminated structures. The outcome from this paper can be utilized for the design of the laminated structures under real life circumstances.