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The purpose of this paper is to study the workspace and dexterity of a microhexapod which is a 6-degrees of freedom (DOF) parallel compliant manipulator, and also to investigate its dimensional synthesis to maximize the workspace and the global dexterity index at the same time. Microassembly is so essential in the current industry for manufacturing complicated structures. Most of the micromanipulators suffer from their restricted workspace because of using flexure joints compared to the conventional ones. In addition, the controllability of micromanipulators inside the whole workspace is very vital. Thus, it is very important to select the design parameters in a way that not only maximize the workspace but also its global dexterity index.

Microassembly is so essential in the current industry for manufacturing complicated structures. Most of the micromanipulators suffer from their restricted workspace because of using flexure joints compared to the conventional ones. In addition, the controllability of micromanipulators inside the whole workspace is very vital. Thus, it is very important to select the design parameters in a way that not only maximize the workspace but also its global dexterity index.

It has been shown that the proposed procedure for the workspace calculation can considerably speed the required calculations. The optimization results show that a converged-diverged configuration of pods and an increase in the difference between the moving and the stationary platforms’ radii cause the global dexterity index to increase and the workspace to decrease.

The proposed algorithm for the workspace analysis is very important, especially when it is an objective function of an optimization problem based on the search method. In addition, using screw theory can simply construct the homogeneous Jacobian matrix. The proposed methodology can be used for any other micromanipulator.

Spinning triangle is a critical region in the spinning process of staple yarn, which geometry influences the distribution of fiber tension and determines the qualities of yarn directly. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the fiber tension distribution at the twist point.

First, one theoretical model of fiber tension distributions at the twist point is given according to the motion law of fibers in the spinning triangle. Then, one calculation method of fiber tension at the twist point is given by two steps. First, the initial tension of each fiber at the front nip line caused by the yarn load should be calculated according to the models obtained based on the principle of minimum potential energy. Second, the fiber tensions at the twist point can be calculated using the obtained model in this paper. Finally, as an application of the proposed method, spinning triangles of a modified ring spinning system with a pair of offset device which can change the horizontal offset of the twist point to the symmetric axis of nip line of the spinning triangle continuously are studied. The fiber tension distributions are simulated numerically.

It is shown that the fiber tension distributions at the twist point can be determined by fiber feeding into and out the spinning triangle speed, the initial tension of each fiber at the front nip line, fiber tensile Young’s modulus and cross-sectional area, the number of fibers at spinning triangle and the individual fiber angle with the center fiber. The spinning experiment shows that taking appropriate right or left offset of the spinning triangle can help to improve the spun yarn qualities.

In this paper, the fiber tension distribution at the twist point is investigated. One theoretical model of fiber tension distributions at the twist point is given according to the motion law of fibers in the spinning triangle first. Then, one calculation method of fiber tension at the twist point has been given under the assumption that the initial tension of each fiber at the front nip line is caused by the yarn load.

A NUMBER of attempts have already been made to present a simple and easily understood account of wing flutter 1,2,3,4,5,6, but it appears that the subject is still obscure and difficult to many. Accordingly another elementary presentation of the subject is given in this paper, and the problem is approached in a new way. Emphasis is placed on explaining how flutter can happen; that is, on the physical mechanism by which an aeroplane wing can become a species of air engine and extract energy from the passing air. This explanation is greatly helped by experiments with a mechanism which has been called the “flutter engine”, consisting of a rigid aerofoil so arranged that when placed in an airstream it can oscillate and drive a flywheel.

Presents the study of the relationship between the deformation of the sewing thread and built‐in fibres as a consequence of a thread loading in the sewing process. The influence of the stitching speed and different twist numbers of PES thread on the alteration of the mechanical properties of the fibres twisted in the thread was studied for that purpose. On the basis of the received results it was found that with an increase in the number of the thread twist, the breaking tenacity and initial elasticity modulus of the fibres decrease, while the resulting deformation of the sewing thread between the sewing process was reflected as a decrease in the fineness and breaking extension of the fibres and as an increase in the value of the initial elasticity modulus of the fibres.

Finite elements based on Mindlin plate theory are used to study the distribution of shear forces and twisting moments on the boundaries of plates with various support conditons and thickness‐to‐span ratios. Differences between results obtained using Mindlin and Kirchhoff plate theories are highlighted. Potential difficulties in the interpretation of results obtained from finite element analysis are discussed and appropriate shear force sampling procedures are reviewed. The present work is a pilot study for a larger project with the basic aim of providing engineers with an unambiguous method for obtaining stress resultants in Mindlin plate analysis. Some examples are presented which illustrate the excellent results which may be obtained with judicious mesh division even in regions with steep gradients of the stress resultants near plate corners. These examples also demonstrate some of the difficulties facing engineers who have to try to interpret finite element results for plates.

In this research urban legends are viewed as diffusing through the consumer environment as part of a resource exchange process. Using the 3M model to develop categories of analysis, a content analysis of 100 urban legends was conducted. Three categories of variables were coded: the resource types depicted as exchanged in the stories; whether the resources were gained or lost; and whether the resources were gained or lost before or after the ironic twist. Results of this descriptive study supported the research question of a three‐way interaction among the variables. Results are discussed from the perspective of identifying the motivational factors that influence consumers to communicate urban legends, rumors, and product information.

This paper aims to present an analytical approach for the determination of helical gear tooth geometry and introduces the necessary parameters. Tooth geometry including tooth chamfer, involute curve, root fillet, helix as well as tooth microgeometry can be obtained using the presented approach.

The presented analytical approach involves deriving the equivalent equations at the transverse plane rather than the normal plane. Moreover, numerical evaluation of microgeometry modifications is presented for tooth profile, tooth lead and flank twist.

An analytical approach is presented and equations are derived and explained in detail for helical gear tooth geometry calculation, including tooth microgeometry. Method 1, which was presented by Lopez and Wheway (1986) for obtaining the root fillet, is examined and it is proven that it does not work accurately for helical gears, but rather it works perfectly in the case of spur gears. Changing the normal plane parameters in Method 1 to the transverse plane ones does not give correct results. Two alternative methods, namely, Methods 2 and 3, are developed in the current research for the calculation of the tooth root fillet of helical gears. The presented methods and also the numerical evaluation presented for microgeometry modification are examined against the geometry obtained from Windows LDP software. The results show very good agreement, and it is feasible to apply the approach using the presented equations.

In the gear design process, it is important to model the correct gear tooth geometry and deliver all related dimensions and calculations accurately. However, the determination of helical gear tooth geometry has not been presented adequately by equations to facilitate gear modelling. The detailed helical gear tooth root has been enveloped using software tools that can simulate the cutter motion. Deriving those equations, presented in this article, provides gear design engineers and researchers with the possibility to model helical gears and perform design calculations in a structured, applicable and accurate method.

FAILURE of panels under static compression, or for that matter under any loads, involves a vast array of problems ranging from properties of material to initial instability and post‐buckling phenomena as occurring in various types of panels. It is not intended here to do justice to all these aspects of the subject but to select a single—but at the same time very important—topic, develop its analysis as fully as possible, and present the results in a readily applicable form. The structure investigated is the single skin stiffened panel under compression and the mode of failure considered, denoted by flexural cum torsional failure, involves predominantly flexure and torsion of the stringer with a wavelength of greater order of magnitude than stringer height and pitch. By torsional deformation of the stringer we understand a rotation of its undistorted cross‐section about a longitudinal axis R in the plane of the plate, the position of which will be selected later on (see FIG. 1b). The panel may, of course, also fail in a local mode of stringer and plate with a short wave‐length of the order of magnitude of stringer height and pitch, but the analysis of this case is not included here (see, however, Argyris and Dunne). Note that a local mode of deformation of a stringer formed by straight walls is commonly defined as a distortion of the cross‐section in which the longitudinal edges where two adjacent walls meet remain straight (see FIG. 1c).

The mechanical and vibration responses of 225‐pin, 324‐pin and 396‐pin PBGA (plastic ball grid array) solder joints have been determined in this study. The effects of overload environmental stress factors on the mechanical responses of the solder joints have been determined by bending and twisting experiments. The effects of shipping and functional environmental stress factors on the vibration responses of the solder joints have been determined by out‐of‐plane vibration experiments and a mathematical analysis.

The purpose of this work is to apply and compare surrogate-assisted and multi-fidelity, multi-objective optimization (MOO) algorithms to simulation-based aerodynamic design exploration.

The three algorithms for multi-objective aerodynamic optimization compared in this work are the combination of evolutionary algorithms, design space reduction and surrogate models, the multi-fidelity point-by-point Pareto set identification and the multi-fidelity sequential domain patching (SDP) Pareto set identification. The algorithms are applied to three cases, namely, an analytical test case, the design of transonic airfoil shapes and the design of subsonic wing shapes, and are evaluated based on the resulting best possible trade-offs and the computational overhead.

The results show that all three algorithms yield comparable best possible trade-offs for all the test cases. For the aerodynamic test cases, the multi-fidelity Pareto set identification algorithms outperform the surrogate-assisted evolutionary algorithm by up to 50 per cent in terms of cost. Furthermore, the point-by-point algorithm is around 27 per cent more efficient than the SDP algorithm.

The novelty of this work includes the first applications of the SDP algorithm to multi-fidelity aerodynamic design exploration, the first comparison of these multi-fidelity MOO algorithms and new results of a complex simulation-based multi-objective aerodynamic design of subsonic wing shapes involving two conflicting criteria, several nonlinear constraints and over ten design variables.