This book provides a comprehensive review of fundamental issues in the dynamical modeling and vibration control design for several flexible mechanical systems, such as flexible satellites, flexible aerial refueling hoses, and flexible three-dimensional manipulators. Offering an authoritative reference guide to the dynamics and control of flexible mechanical systems, it equips readers to solve a host of problems concerning these systems. It provides not only a complete overview of flexible systems, but also a better understanding of the technical levels involved. The book is divided into ten chapters: Chapters 1 and 2 lay the foundations, while the remaining chapters explore several independent yet related topics in detail. The book's final chapter presents conclusions and recommendations for future research. Given its scope, the book is intended for researchers, graduate students, and engineers whose work involves control systems, flexible mechanical systems, and related areas.

This book gathers contributions from the 15th ICOLD Benchmark Workshop on Numerical Analysis of Dams. The workshop provided an opportunity for engineers, researchers and operators to present and exchange their experiences and the latest advances in numerical modelling in the context of the design, performance and monitoring of dams. Covering various aspects of computer analysis tools and safety assessment criteria, and their development over recent decades, the book is a valuable reference resource for those in the engineering community involved in the safety, planning, design, construction, operation and maintenance of dams.

This book introduces the theory of structural dynamics, with focus on civil engineering structures. It presents modern methods of analysis and techniques adaptable to computer programming clearly and easily. The book is ideal as a text for advanced undergraduates or graduate students taking a first course in structural dynamics. It is arranged in such a way that it can be used for a one- or two-semester course, or span the undergraduate and graduate levels. In addition, this book serves the practicing engineer as a primary reference. This book is organized by the type of structural modeling. The author simplifies the subject by presenting a single degree-of-freedom system in the first chapters and then moves to systems with many degrees-of-freedom in the following chapters. Many worked examples/problems are presented to explain the text, and a few computer programs are presented to help better understand the concepts. The book is useful to the research scholars and professional engineers, besides senior undergraduate and postgraduate students.

This book gathers contributions by researchers from several countries on all major areas of robotic research, development and innovation, as well as new applications and current trends. The topics covered include: novel designs and applications of robotic systems, intelligent cooperating and service robots, advanced robot control, human-robot interfaces, robot vision systems, mobile robots, humanoid and walking robots, bio-inspired and swarm robotic systems, aerial, underwater and spatial robots, robots for ambient assisted living, medical robots and bionic prostheses, cognitive robots, cloud robotics, ethical and social issues in robotics, etc. Given its scope, the book offers a source of information and inspiration for researchers seeking to improve their work and gather new ideas for future developments. The contents reflect the outcomes of the activities of RAAD (International Conference on Robotics in Alpe-Adria-Danube Region) in 2020.

This book reports on an original approach to problems of loci. It shows how the theory of mechanisms can be used to address the locus problem. It describes the study of different loci, with an emphasis on those of triangle and quadrilateral, but not limited to them. Thanks to a number of original drawings, the book helps to visualize different type of loci, which can be treated as curves, and shows how to create new ones, including some aesthetic ones, by changing some parameters of the equivalent mechanisms. Further, the book includes a theoretical discussion on the synthesis of mechanisms, giving some important insights into the correlation between the generation of trajectories by mechanisms and the synthesis of those mechanisms when the trajectory is given, and presenting approximate solutions to this problem. Based on the authors' many years of research and on their extensive knowledge concerning the theory of mechanisms, and bridging between geometry and mechanics, this book offers a unique guide to mechanical engineers and engineering designers, mathematicians, as well as industrial and graphic designers, and students in the above-mentioned fields alike.

This book discusses systems of damage detection and structural health monitoring in mechanical, civil, and aerospace structures. It utilizes principles of fuzzy logic, probability theory, and signal processing to develop systems and approaches that are robust in the presence of both noise in the data and variations in properties of materials which are intrinsic to the process of mass production. This volume will be useful to graduate students, researchers, and engineers working in this area, especially those looking to understand and address model uncertainty in their algorithms.

Vibration and noise are two interrelated terms in the field of mechanical engineering. Vibration is caused by unbalanced inertial forces and moments whereas noise is the result of such vibrations. Noisy machines have always been a matter of concern. Lesser vibration ensures manufacturing to closer tolerances, lesser wear and tear, and longer fatigue life. Hence, a quieter machine is more cost-effective in the long run. It is now well understood that a quieter machine is in every way a better machine.This book deals with such industrial and automotive noise and vibration, their measurement and control. This textbook stresses on physical concepts and the application thereof to practical problems. The author's four decades of experience in teaching, research and industrial consultancy is reflected in the choice of the solved examples and unsolved problems.The book targets senior undergraduate students in mechanical engineering as well as designers of industrial machinery and layouts. It can readily be used for self-study by practicing designers and engineers.

This volume collects the edited and reviewed contributions presented in the 8th iTi Conference on Turbulence, held in Bertinoro, Italy, in September 2018. In keeping with the spirit of the conference, the book was produced afterwards, so that the authors had the opportunity to incorporate comments and discussions raised during the event. The respective contributions, which address both fundamental and applied aspects of turbulence, have been structured according to the following main topics: I TheoryII Wall-bounded flowsIII Simulations and modellingIV ExperimentsV Miscellaneous topicsVI Wind energy

This book provides a comprehensive overview of statistical descriptions of turbulent flows. Its main objectives are to point out why ordinary perturbative treatments of the Navier-Stokes equation have been rather futile, and to present recent advances in non-perturbative treatments, e.g., the instanton method and a stochastic interpretation of turbulent energy transfer. After a brief introduction to the basic equations of turbulent fluid motion, the book outlines a probabilistic treatment of the Navier-Stokes equation and chiefly focuses on the emergence of a multi-point hierarchy and the notion of the closure problem of turbulence. Furthermore, empirically observed multiscaling features and their impact on possible closure methods are discussed, and each is put into the context of its original field of use, e.g., the renormalization group method is addressed in relation to the theory of critical phenomena. The intended readership consists of physicists and engineers who want to get acquainted with the prevalent concepts and methods in this research area.

This book presents the proceedings of the 46th National Symposium on Acoustics (NSA 2017). The main goal of this symposium is to discuss key opportunities and challenges in acoustics, especially as applied to engineering problems. The book covers topics ranging from hydro-acoustics, environmental acoustics, bio-acoustics to musical acoustics, electro-acoustics and sound perception. The contents of this volume will prove useful to researchers and practicing engineers working on acoustics problems.

This book presents iterative learning control (ILC) to address practical issues of flexible structures. It is divided into four parts: Part I provides a general introduction to ILC and flexible structures, while Part II proposes various types of ILC for simple flexible structures to address issues such as vibration, input saturation, input dead-zone, input backlash, external disturbances, and trajectory tracking. It also includes simple partial differential equations to deal with the common problems of flexible structures. Part III discusses the design of ILC for flexible micro aerial vehicles and two-link manipulators, and lastly, Part IV offers a summary of the topics covered. Unlike most of the literature on ILC, which focuses on ordinary differential equation systems, this book explores distributed parameter systems, which are comparatively less stabilized through ILC.Including a comprehensive introduction to ILC of flexible structures, it also examines novel approaches used in ILC to address input constraints and disturbance rejection. This book is intended for researchers, graduate students and engineers in various fields, such as flexible structures, external disturbances, nonlinear inputs and tracking control.

This book gathers the latest advances, innovations, and applications in the field of multibody and mechatronic systems. Topics addressed include the analysis and synthesis of mechanisms; dynamics of multibody systems; design algorithms for mechatronic systems; robots and micromachines; experimental validations; theory of mechatronic simulation; mechatronic systems for rehabilitation and assistive technologies; mechatronic systems for energy harvesting; virtual reality integration in multibody and mechatronic systems; multibody design in robotic systems; and control of mechatronic systems. The contents reflect the outcomes of the 7th International Symposium on Multibody Systems and Mechatronics (7th MuSMe) in 2020, within the framework of the FEIbIM Commission for Robotics and Mechanisms and IFToMM Technical Committees for Multibody Dynamics and for Robotics and Mechatronics.

This monograph has arisen out of a number of attempts spanning almost five decades to understand how one might examine the evolution of densities in systems whose dynamics are described by differential delay equations. Though the authors have no definitive solution to the problem, they offer this contribution in an attempt to define the problem as they see it, and to sketch out several obvious attempts that have been suggested to solve the problem and which seem to have failed. They hope that by being available to the general mathematical community, they will inspire others to consider-and hopefully solve-the problem. Serious attempts have been made by all of the authors over the years and they have made reference to these where appropriate.

This book contains selected papers in the area of structural engineering from the proceedings of the conference, Futuristic Approaches in Civil Engineering (FACE) 2019. In the area of construction materials, the book covers high quality research papers on raw materials and manufacture of cement, mixing, rheology and hydration, admixtures, characterization techniques and modeling, fiber-reinforced concrete, repair and retrofitting of concrete structures, novel testing techniques such as digital image correlation (DIC). Research on sustainable building materials like Geopolymer concrete and recycled aggregates are covered. In the area of earthquake engineering, papers related to the seismic response of load-bearing unreinforced masonry walls, reinforced concrete frame and buildings with dampers are covered. Additionally, there are chapters on structures subjected to vehicular impact and fire. The contents of this book will be useful for graduate students, researchers and practitioners working in the areas of concrete, earthquake and structural engineering.

Approximation Methods in Engineering and Science covers fundamental and advanced topics in three areas: Dimensional Analysis, Continued Fractions, and Stability Analysis of the Mathieu Differential Equation. Throughout the book, a strong emphasis is given to concepts and methods used in everyday calculations. Dimensional analysis is a crucial need for every engineer and scientist to be able to do experiments on scaled models and use the results in real world applications. Knowing that most nonlinear equations have no analytic solution, the power series solution is assumed to be the first approach to derive an approximate solution. However, this book will show the advantages of continued fractions and provides a systematic method to develop better approximate solutions in continued fractions. It also shows the importance of determining stability chart of the Mathieu equation and reviews and compares several approximate methods for that. The book provides the energy-rate method to study the stability of parametric differential equations that generates much better approximate solutions.

This book presents a unified introduction to the theory of mechanical vibrations. The general theory of the vibrating particle is the point of departure for the field of multidegree of freedom systems. Emphasis is placed in the text on the issue of continuum vibrations. The presented examples are aimed at helping the readers with understanding the theory.This book is of interest among others to mechanical, civil and aeronautical engineers concerned with the vibratory behavior of the structures. It is useful also for students from undergraduate to postgraduate level. The book is based on the teaching experience of the authors.

Structural vibrations have become the critical factor limiting the performance of many engineering systems, typical amplitudes ranging from meters to a few nanometers. Many acoustic nuisances in transportation systems and residential and office buildings are also related to structural vibrations. The active control of such vibrations involves nine orders of magnitude of vibration amplitude, which exerts a profound influence on the technology. Active vibration control is highly multidisciplinary, involving structural vibration, acoustics, signal processing, materials science, and actuator and sensor technology. Chapters 1-3 of this book provide a state-of-the-art introduction to active vibration control, active sound control, and active vibroacoustic control, respectively. Chapter 4 discusses actuator/sensor placement, Chapter 5 deals with robust control of vibrating structures, Chapter 6 discusses finite element modelling of piezoelectric continua and Chapter 7 addresses the latest trends in piezoelectric multiple-degree-of-freedom actuators/sensors. Chapters 8-12 deal with example applications, including semi-active joints, active isolation and health monitoring. Chapter 13 addresses MEMS technology, while Chapter 14 discusses the design of power amplifiers for piezoelectric actuators.

This book discusses the parametric modeling, performance evaluation, design optimization and comparative study of the high-speed, parallel pick-and-place robots. It collects the modeling methodology, evaluation criteria and design guidelines for parallel PnP robots to provide a systematic analysis method for robotic developers. Furthermore, it gathers the research results previously scattered in many prestigious international journals and conference proceedings and methodically edits them and presents them in a unified form. The book is of interest to researchers, R&D engineers and graduate students in industrial parallel robotics who wish to learn the core principles, methods, algorithms, and applications.

Compiling strategies from more than 30 years of experience, this book provides numerous case studies that illustrate the implementation of noise control applications, as well as solutions to common dilemmas encountered in noise reduction processes. It offers methods for predicting the noise generation level of common systems such as fans, motors, compressors, and cooling towers, selecting the appropriate equipment to monitor sound properties, assessing the severity of environmental noise, modifying the sources, transmission paths, and receivers of sound, estimating sound pressure levels, designing mufflers, silencers, barriers, and enclosures, and isolating machine vibration.

This book offers the first comprehensive introduction to the inerter, its successful application in Formula One racing, and other state-of-the-art applications in vibration control. It presents fundamental analysis results and design methods for inerter-based vibration control systems. Providing comprehensive information on the inerter, a pioneering mechanical element invented by Prof. Malcolm C. Smith at Cambridge University in 2002, it will be of considerable interest to readers with a background in control theory, mechanical vibration or related subjects.

This book on flexible formwork for fluid architecture is a multi-faceted research that covers a broad field: from design to material and technology, and from history to future developments. It offers a pragmatic approach that can be extended with more cases, materials, techniques and methods for fluid architecture, and provides a better understanding of the main aspects of fluid architecture and to help them find the most suitable combinations of all aspects.The book is a challenging experience with many new discoveries, including two patents: one on moulding of fluid surfaces and one on 3D printing of fibre-reinforced ice. It also features two world records: the larges span (30 meters) and the highest thin shell structure (30,5 meters) in ice as well as a method for the construction of a fully laminated shell structure in insulated glass.

This book discusses the realization and control problems of finite-dimensional dynamical systems which contain linear and nonlinear systems. The author focuses on algebraic methods for the discussion of control problems of linear and non-linear dynamical systems. The book contains detailed examples to showcase the effectiveness of the presented method. The target audience comprises primarily research experts in the field of control theory, but the book may also be beneficial for graduate students alike.

This book explores recent developments in theoretical research and data analysis of real-world complex systems, organized in three parts, namely Entropy, information, and complexity functions Multistability, oscillations, and rhythmic synchronization Diffusions, rotation, and convection in fluids The collection of works devoted to the memory of Professor Valentin Afraimovich provides a deep insight into the recent developments in complexity science by introducing new concepts, methods, and applications in nonlinear dynamical systems covering physical problems and mathematical modelling relevant to economics, genetics, engineering vibrations, as well as classic problems in physics, fluid and climate dynamics, and urban dynamics. The book facilitates a better understanding of the mechanisms and phenomena in nonlinear dynamics and develops the corresponding mathematical theory to apply nonlinear design to practical engineering. It can be read by mathematicians, physicists, complex systems scientists, IT specialists, civil engineers, data scientists, and urban planners.

This book presents the proceedings of the International Conference on Aerospace System Science and Engineering (ICASSE 2019), held in Toronto, Canada, on July 30-August 1, 2019, and jointly organized by the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS) and the Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Aeronautics and Astronautics. ICASSE 2019 provided a forum that brought together experts on aeronautics and astronautics to share new ideas and findings. These proceedings present high-quality contributions in the areas of aerospace system science and engineering, including topics such as trans-space vehicle system design and integration, air vehicle systems, space vehicle systems, near-space vehicle systems, aerospace robotics and unmanned systems, communication, navigation and surveillance, aerodynamics and aircraft design, dynamics and control, aerospace propulsion, avionics systems, optoelectronic systems, and air traffic management.

The volume includes 30 contributions from the 3rd International Workshop on Advanced Dynamics and Model Based Control of Structures and Machines representing the frontiers in the mechanics of controlled machines and structures. The Workshop, held in Perm, Russia in September 2017 continued a series of international workshops, starting in with the Japan - Austria Joint Workshop on Mechanics and Model Based Control of Smart Materials and Structures, the Russia - Austria Joint Workshop on Advanced Dynamics and Model Based Control of Structures and Machines and the first two editions of the International Workshop on Advanced Dynamics and Model Based Control of Structures and Machines. The previous workshops took place in Linz, Austria in September 2008 and April 2010, in St. Petersburg, Russia in July 2012 and in Vienna, Austria in September 2015. The up-to-date contributions are authored by internationally re-known leading experts in dynamics and control representing a broad spectrum of topics in the field of Advanced Structures and Machines; both, with respect to theoretical aspects as well as applications to contemporary engineering problems.