Non-linear stochastic systems are at the center of many engineering disciplines and progress in theoretical research had led to a better understanding of non-linear phenomena. This book provides information on new fundamental results and their applications which are beginning to appear across the entire spectrum of mechanics. The outstanding points of these proceedings are Coherent compendium of the current state of modelling and analysis of non-linear stochastic systems from engineering, applied mathematics and physics point of view. Subject areas include: Multiscale phenomena, stability and bifurcations, control and estimation, computational methods and modelling. For the Engineering and Physics communities, this book will provide first-hand information on recent mathematical developments. The applied mathematics community will benefit from the modelling and information on various possible applications.

A complete solution for problems of vibration control in structures that may be subject to a broadband primary vibration field, this book addresses the following steps: experimental identification of the dynamic model of the structure; optimal placement of sensors and actuators; formulation of control constraints in terms of controller frequency response shape; controller design and simulation; and controller implementation and rapid prototyping. The identification procedure is a gray-box approach tailored to the estimation of modal parameters of large-scale flexible structures. The actuator/sensor placement algorithm maximizes a modal controllability index improving the effectiveness of the control. Considering limitations of sensors and actuators, the controller is chosen as a stable, band-pass MIMO system resulting from the closed-form solution of a robust control problem. Experimental results on an aeronautical stiffened skin panel are presented using rapid-prototyping hardware.

Composite structures are most efficient in performance and production cost when combined with smart materials making them adaptable to changing operational conditions. The specific production processes of composites offer the possibility to integrate more functions thus making the structure more valuable. Active functions can be realized by smart materials, e.g. morphing, active vibration control, active structure acoustic control or structure health monitoring. The foundation is a sound understanding of materials, design methods, design principles, production technologies and adaptronics. Along the complete process chain this disciplines together deliver advanced lightweight solutions for applications ranging from mechanical engineering to vehicles, airframe and finally space structures. This book provides the scientific foundations as well as inspiring new ideas for engineers working in the field of composite lightweight structures.

The International Conference on the Theory of Machines and Mechanisms is organized every four years, under the auspices of the International Federation for the Promotion of Mechanism and Machine Science (IFToMM) and the Czech Society for Mechanics. This eleventh edition of the conference took place at the Technical University of Liberec, Czech Republic, 4-6 September 2012. This volume offers an international selection of the most important new results and developments, in 73 papers, grouped in seven different parts, representing a well-balanced overview, and spanning the general theory of machines and mechanisms, through analysis and synthesis of planar and spatial mechanisms, dynamics of machines and mechanisms, linkages and cams, computational mechanics, rotor dynamics, biomechanics, mechatronics, vibration and noise in machines, optimization of mechanisms and machines, control and monitoring systems of machines, accuracy and reliability of machines and mechanisms, robots and manipulators to the mechanisms of textile machines.

This book explores non-extensive statistical mechanics in non-equilibrium thermodynamics, and presents an overview of the strong nonlinearity of chaos and complexity in natural systems, drawing on relevant mathematics from topology, measure-theory, inverse and ill-posed problems, set-valued analysis, and nonlinear functional analysis. It offers a self-contained theory of complexity and complex systems as the steady state of non-equilibrium systems, denoting a homeostatic dynamic equilibrium between stabilizing order and destabilizing disorder.

Vortex flow is one of the fundamental types of fluid and gas motion. These flows are the most spectacular in the form of concentrated vortices, characterized by the localization of vorticity (curl of velocity) in bounded regions of a space, beyond which the vorticity is either absent or rapidly falls down to zero. Concentrated vortices are often observed in nature, exemplified by atmospheric cyclones, whirlwinds and tornados, oceanic vortices, whirlpools on a water s- face, and ring vortices caused by explosive outburst of volcanoes. In technical - vices concentrated vortices form when flow separates from sharp edges of flying vehicles and ships. Among these are vortices flowing off the ends of airplane wings, and intentionally generated vortices for intensification of burning in c- bustion chambers, vortices in cyclonic devices used for mixing or separation of impurities in fluids and gases. One such remarkable and frequent type of conc- trated vortices is a vortex ring which constitutes a vortex tube closed into a t- oidal ring moving in a surrounding fluid like an isolated body out of contact with solid boundaries of the flow region if such boundaries exist. Formation and motion of vortex rings are important part of the dynamics of a continuum medium and have been studied for more than a century.

This book serves as a textbook for advanced courses as it introduces state-of-the-art information and the latest research results on diverse problems in the structural wind engineering field. The topics include wind climates, design wind speed estimation, bluff body aerodynamics and applications, wind-induced building responses, wind, gust factor approach, wind loads on components and cladding, debris impacts, wind loading codes and standards, computational tools and computational fluid dynamics techniques, habitability to building vibrations, damping in buildings, and suppression of wind-induced vibrations. Graduate students and expert engineers will find the book especially interesting and relevant to their research and work.

This book is a collection of articles covering the six lecture courses given at the CISM School on this topic in 2008. It features contributions by established international experts and offers a coherent and comprehensive overview of the state-of-the art research in the field, thus addressing both postgraduate students and researchers in aerospace, mechanical and civil engineering.

This volume comprises the communications presented at the ETC 11, the EUROMECH European Turbulence conference held in 2007 in Porto.

The scientific committee has chosen the contributions out of the following topics: Acoustics of turbulent flows; Atmospheric turbulence; Control of turbulent flows; Geophysical and astrophysical turbulence; Instability and transition; Intermittency and scaling; Large eddy simulation and related techniques; MHD turbulence; Reacting and compressible turbulence; Transport and mixing; Turbulence in multiphase and non-Newtonian flows; Vortex dynamics and structure formation; Wall bounded flows.

The EUCOMES08, Second European Conference on Mechanism Science is the second event of a series that has been started in 2006 as a conference activity for an European community working in Mechanism Science. The ?rst event was held in Obergurgl, Austria in 2006. This year EUCOMES08 Conference has come to Cassino in Italy taking place from 17 to 20 September 2008. TheaimoftheEUCOMESConference istobringtogetherEuropean researchers, industry professionals and students from the broad ranges of disciplines referring to Mechanism Science, in an intimate, collegial and stimulating environment. In this second event we have received an increased attention to the initiative, as canbeseenbythefactthattheEUCOMES08Proceedingswillcontaincontributions by authors even from all around the world. This means also that there is a really interest to have not only a conference frame but even a need of aggregation for an European Community well identi?ed in Mechanism Science with the aim to strengthen common views and collaboration activities among European researchers and institutions. I believe that a reader will take advantage of the papers in these Proceedings with further satisfaction and motivation for her or his work. These papers cover the wide ?eld of the Mechanism Science. The program of EUCOMES08 Conference has included technical sessions with oral presentations, which, together with informal conversations during the social program, have enabled to offer wide opportunities to share experiences and discuss scienti?c achievements and current trends in the areas encompassed by the EUCOMES08 conference.

Decentralized Control and Filtering provides a rigorous framework for examining the analysis, stability and control of large-scale systems, addressing the difficulties that arise because dimensionality, information structure constraints, parametric uncertainty and time-delays. This monograph serves three purposes: it reviews past methods and results from a contemporary perspective; it examines presents trends and approaches and to provide future possibilities; and it investigates robust, reliable and/or resilient decentralized design methods based on a framework of linear matrix inequalities. As well as providing an overview of large-scale systems theories from the past several decades, the author presents key modern concepts and efficient computational methods. Representative numerical examples, end-of-chapter problems, and typical system applications are included, and theoretical developments and practical applications of large-scale dynamical systems are discussed in depth.

Dynamic Failure of Materials and Structures discusses the topic of dynamic loadings and their effect on material and structural failure. Since dynamic loading problems are very difficult as compared to their static counterpart, very little information is currently available about dynamic behavior of materials and structures. Topics covered include the response of both metallic as well as polymeric composite materials to blast loading and shock loadings, impact loadings and failure of novel materials under more controlled dynamic loads. These include response of soft materials that are important in practical use but have very limited information available on their dynamic response. Dynamic fragmentation, which has re-emerged in recent years has also been included. Both experimental as well as numerical aspects of material and structural response to dynamic loads are discussed. Written by several key experts in the field, Dynamic Failure of Materials and Structures will appeal to graduate students and researchers studying dynamic loadings within mechanical and civil engineering, as well as in physics and materials science.

Due to strong potential applications and more demanding requirements imposed upon long and thick cylindrical structures, there has been increasing research and development activities during recent years in the field of vibration and passive vibration control of these types of structures. An important step in the study of cylindrical structures is the determination of their vibration modal characteristics. This modal information plays a key role in the design and vibration suppression of these structures when subjected to dynamic excitations. Most reported studies on the dynamic response of cylindrical structures have been restricted to the application of the shell theories. These theories are based on a number of simplifying assumptions. The most important of which is, the considered shell must be relatively thin to assume constant stresses within the cylinder. Therefore, due to this limitation, shell theories are inadequate to accurately describe all possible vibration modes in thick cylindrical structures. The primary scope of this book is to address these problems by applying the theory of elasto-dynamics.

Ground Vehicle Dynamics is devoted to the mathematical modelling and dynamical analysis of ground vehicle systems composed of the vehicle body, the guidance and suspension devices and the corresponding guideway. Automobiles on uneven roads and railways on flexible tracks are prominent representatives of ground vehicle systems. All these different kinds of systems are treated in a common way by means of analytical dynamics and control theory. In addition to a detailed modelling of vehicles as multibody systems, the contact theory for rolling wheels and the modelling of guideways by finite element systems as well as stochastic processes are presented. As a particular result of this integrated approach the state equations of the global systems are obtained including the complete interactions between the subsystems considered as independent modules. The fundamentals of vehicle dynamics for longitudinal, lateral and vertical motions and vibrations of automobiles and railways are discussed in detail.

Noise is ubiquitous in nature and in man-made systems. Noise in oscillators perturbs high-technology devices such as time standards or digital communication systems. The understanding of its algebraic structure is thus of vital importance. The book addresses both the measurement methods and the understanding of quantum, 1/f and phase noise in systems such as electronic amplifiers, oscillators and receivers, trapped ions, cosmic ray showers and in commercial applications. A strong link between 1/f noise and number theory is emphasized. The twenty papers in the book are comprehensive versions of talks presented at a school in Chapelle des Bois (Jura, France) held from April 6 to 10, 1999, by engineers, physisicts and mathematicians.

Humans have always been fascinated with the concept of artificial life and the construction of machines that look and behave like people. As the field of robotics evolves, it demands continuous development of successful systems with high-performance characteristics for practical applications. Advanced Mechanics in Robotic Systems illustrates original and ambitious mechanical designs and techniques for developing new robot prototypes with successful mechanical operational skills. Case studies are focused on projects in mechatronics that have high growth expectations: humanoid robots, robotics hands, mobile robots, parallel manipulators, and human-centred robots. A good control strategy requires good mechanical design, so a chapter has also been devoted to the description of suitable methods for control architecture design. Readers of Advanced Mechanics in Robotic Systems will discover novel designs for relevant applications in robotic fields, that will be of particular interest to academic and industry-based researchers.

Structurally Constrained Controllers: Analysis and Synthesis studies the control of interconnected systems with a particular application in network, power systems, flight formations, etc. It introduces four important problems regarding the control of such systems and then proposes proper techniques for solving them.

"Machining dynamics: Frequency response to improved productivity" will train engineers and students in the practical application of machining dynamics, with a particular focus on milling. The book is arranged such that the steps required to improve machining productivity through chatter avoidance and reduced surface location error (forced vibrations resulting in part geometric errors) are clearly evident. The following topics are covered in detail: modal analysis, including experimental methods, to obtain the tool point frequency response function; descriptions of turning and milling, including force modeling, time domain simulation, stability lobe diagram algorithms, and surface location error calculation for milling; and receptance coupling methods for tool point frequency response prediction, including beam theory. Numerical examples are included, as well as the MATLAB code used to develop the figures.

Chaos and nonlinear dynamics initially developed as a new emergent field with its foundation in physics and applied mathematics. The highly generic, interdisciplinary quality of the insights gained in the last few decades has spawned myriad applications in almost all branches of science and technology-and even well beyond. Wherever the quantitative modeling and analysis of complex, nonlinear phenomena are required, chaos theory and its methods can play a key role. This second volume concentrates on reviewing further relevant, contemporary applications of chaotic nonlinear systems as they apply to the various cutting-edge branches of engineering. This encompasses, but is not limited to, topics such as the spread of epidemics; electronic circuits; chaos control in mechanical devices; secure communication; and digital watermarking. Featuring contributions from active and leading research groups, this collection is ideal both as a reference work and as a 'recipe book' full of tried and tested, successful engineering applications.

Since the 1970's, an increasing amount of specialized research has focused on the problems created by instability of internal flow in hydroelectric power plants. However, progress in this field is hampered by the inter disciplinary nature of the subject, between fluid mechanics, structural mechanics and hydraulic transients. Flow-induced Pulsation and Vibration in Hydroelectric Machinery provides a compact guidebook explaining the many different underlying physical mechanisms and their possible effects. Typical phenomena are described to assist in the proper diagnosis of problems and various key strategies for solution are compared and considered with support from practical experience and real-life examples. The link between state-of the-art CFD computation and notorious practical problems is discussed and quantitative data is provided on normal levels of vibration and pulsation so realistic limits can be set for future projects. Current projects are also addressed as the possibilities and limitations of reduced-scale model tests for prediction of prototype performance are explained. Engineers and project planners struggling with the practical problems will find Flow-induced Pulsation and Vibration in Hydroelectric Machinery to be a comprehensive and convenient reference covering key topics and ideas across a range of relevant disciplines.

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Topics in Modal Analysis II, Volume 6: Proceedings of the 30th IMAC, A Conference and Exposition on Structural Dynamics, 2012, is the sixth volume of six from the Conference and brings together 65 contributions to this important area of research and engineering. The collection presents early findings and case studies on fundamental and applied aspects of Structural Dynamics, including papers on: Aerospace, Acoustics, Energy Harvesting, Shock and Vibration, Finite Element, Structural Health Monitoring, Biodynamics Experimental Techniques, Damage Detection, Rotating Machinery, Sports Equipment Dynamics, Aircraft/Aerospace.

This book is of interest to researchers inquiring about modern topics and methods in the kinematics, control and design of robotic manipulators. It considers the full range of robotic systems, including serial, parallel and cable driven manipulators, both planar and spatial. The systems range from being less than fully mobile to kinematically redundant to overconstrained. In addition to recognized areas, this book also presents recent advances in emerging areas such as the design and control of humanoids and humanoid subsystems, and the analysis, modeling and simulation of human body motions, as well as the mobility analysis of protein molecules and the development of machines which incorporate man.

This fourth issue on "progress in turbulence" is based on the fourth ITI conference (ITI interdisciplinary turbulence initiative), which took place in Bertinoro, North Italy. Leading researchers from the engineering and physical sciences presented latest results in turbulence research. Basic as well as applied research is driven by the rather notorious difficult and essentially unsolved problem of turbulence. In this collection of contributions clear progress can be seen in different aspects, ranging from new quality of numerical simulations to new concepts of experimental investigations and new theoretical developments. The importance of turbulence is shown for a wide range of applications including: combustion, energy, flow control, urban flows, are few examples found in this volume. A motivation was to bring fundamentals of turbulence in connection with renewable energy. This lead us to add a special topic relevant to the impact of turbulence on the wind energy conversion. The structure of the present book is as such that contributions have been bundled according to covering topics i.e. I Basic Turbulence Aspects, II Particle Laden Flows, III Modeling and Simulations, IV, Experimental Methods, V Special Flows, VI Atmospheric Boundary Layer, VII Boundary Layer, VIII Wind Energy and IX Convection. This book is dedicated to the memory of Prof. Tim Nickels. Shortly after giving an invited lecture at the 4th ITI conference, the turbulence community lost a world-class scientist, a friend and devoted family man.

The papers in this volume present an overview of the general aspects and practical applications of dynamic inverse methods, through the interaction of several topics, ranging from classical and advanced inverse problems in vibration, isospectral systems, dynamic methods for structural identification, active vibration control and damage detection, imaging shear stiffness in biological tissues, wave propagation, to computational and experimental aspects relevant for engineering problems.