Piezoelectric-Based Vibration-control Systems: Applications in Micro/Nano Sensors and Actuators covers: Fundamental concepts in smart (active) materials including piezoelectric and piezoceramics, magnetostrictive, shape-memory materials, and electro/magneto-rheological fluids; Physical principles and constitutive models of piezoelectric materials; Piezoelectric sensors and actuators; Fundamental concepts in mechanical vibration analysis and control with emphasis on distributed-parameters and vibration-control systems; and Recent advances in piezoelectric-based microelectromechanical and nanoelectromechanical systems design and implementation.

Recent developments in information processing systems have driven the advancement of numerical simulations in engineering. New models and simulations enable better solutions for problem-solving and overall process improvement. Advanced Numerical Simulations in Mechanical Engineering is a pivotal reference source for the latest research findings on advanced modelling and simulation method adopted in mechanical and mechatronics engineering. Featuring extensive coverage on relevant areas such as fuzzy logic controllers, finite element analysis, and analytical models, this publication is an ideal resource for students, professional engineers, and researchers interested in the application of numerical simulations in mechanical engineering.

This book concentrates on the design and development of integrated optic waveguide sensors using silicon based materials. The implementation of such system as a tool for detecting adulteration in petroleum based products as well as its use for detection of glucose level in diabetes are highlighted. The first chapters are dedicated to the development of the theoretical model while the final chapters are focused on the different applications of such sensors. It gives the readers the full background in the field of sensors, reasons for using silicon oxynitride as a potential waveguide material as well as its fabrication processes and possible uses.

This book presents recent research into developing and applying computational tools to estimate the performance and safety of hydraulic structures from the planning and construction stage to the service period. Based on the results of a close collaboration between the author and his colleagues, friends, students and field engineers, it shows how to achieve a good correlation between numerical computation and the actual in situ behavior of hydraulic structures. The book's heuristic and visualized style disseminates the philosophy and road map as well as the findings of the research. The chapters reflect the various aspects of the three typical and practical methods (the finite element method, the block element method, the composite element method) that the author has been working on and made essential contributions to since the 1980s. This book is an advanced continuation of Hydraulic Structures by the same author, published by Springer in 2015.

These Proceedings contain the papers presented at the 1stAsian Pacific Congress on "Computational Mechanics" held in Sydney, on 20-23 November 2001.
The theme of the first Congress of the Asian-Pacific Association for Computational Mechanics in the new millennium is "New Frontiers for the New Millennium." The papers cover such new frontiers as micromechanics, contact mechanics, environmental geomechanics, chemo-thermo-mechanics, inverse techniques, homogenization, meshless methods, smart materials/smart structures and graphic visualization, besides the general topics related to the application of finite element and boundary element methods in structural mechanics, fluid mechanics, geomechanics and biomechanics.

There is a growing number of applications that require fast-rotating machines; motivation for this thesis comes from a project in which downsized spindles for micro-machining have been researched. The thesis focuses on analysis and design of high-speed PM machines and uses a practical design of a high-speed spindle drive as a test case. Phenomena, both mechanical and electromagnetic, that take precedence in high-speed permanent magnet machines are identified and systematized. The thesis identifies inherent speed limits of permanent magnet machines and correlates those limits with the basic parameters of the machines. The analytical expression of the limiting quantities does not only impose solid constraints on the machine design, but also creates the way for design optimization leading to the maximum mechanical and/or electromagnetic utilization of the machine. The models and electric-drive concepts developed in the thesis are evaluated in a practical setup.

Practical Ship Hydrodynamics, Second Edition, introduces the reader to modern ship hydrodynamics. It describes experimental and numerical methods for ship resistance and propulsion, maneuvering, seakeeping, hydrodynamic aspects of ship vibrations, and hydrodynamic options for fuel efficiency, as well as new developments in computational methods and model testing techniques relating to marine design and development. Organized into six chapters, the book begins with an overview of problems and approaches, including the basics of modeling and full-scale testing, prediction of ship hydrodynamic performance, and viscous flow computations. It proceeds with a discussion of the marine applications of computational fluid dynamics and boundary element methods, factors affecting ship hydrodynamics, and simple design estimates of hydrodynamic quantities such as resistance and wake fraction. Seakeeping of ships is investigated with respect to issues such as maximum speed in a seaway, route optimization (routing), structural design of the ship with respect to loads in seaways, and habitation comfort and safety of people on board. Exercises and solutions, formula derivations, and texts are included to support teaching or self-studies. This book is suitable for marine engineering students in design and hydrodynamics courses, professors teaching a course in general fluid dynamics, practicing marine engineers and naval architects, and consulting marine engineers.

This book introduces and analyzes the models for engineering leadership and competency skills, as well as frameworks for industry-academia collaboration and is appropriate for students, researchers, and professionals interested in continuous professional development. The authors look at the organizational structures of engineering education in knowledge-based economies and examine the role of innovation and how it is encouraged in schools. It also provides a methodological framework and toolkit for investigating the needs of engineering and technology skills in national contexts. A detailed empirical case study is included that examines the leadership competencies that are needed in knowledge-based economies and how one university encourages these in their program. The book concludes with conceptual modeling and proposals of specific organizational structures for implementation in engineering schools, in order to enable the development of necessary skills for future engineering graduates.

This book expounds on progress made over the last 35 years in the theory, synthesis, and application of triboluminescence for creating smart structures. It presents in detail the research into utilization of the triboluminescent properties of certain crystals as new sensor systems for smart engineering structures, as well as triboluminescence-based sensor systems that have the potential to enable wireless, in-situ, real time and distributed (WIRD) structural health monitoring of composite structures. The sensor component of any structural health monitoring (SHM) technology - measures the effects of the external load/event and provides the necessary inputs for appropriate preventive/corrective action to be taken in a smart structure - sits at the heart of such a system. This volume explores advances in materials properties and structural behavior underlying creation of smart composite structures and sensor systems for structural health monitoring of critical engineering structures, such as bridges, aircrafts, and wind blades.

Heat exchangers are important, and used frequently in the processing, heat and power, air-conditioning and refrigeration, heat recovery, transportation and manufacturing industries. Such equipment is also important in electronics cooling and for environmental issues like thermal pollution, waste disposal and sustainable development. The present book concerns plate heat exchangers (PHEs), which are one of the most common types in practice. The overall objectives are to present comprehensive descriptions of such heat exchangers and their advantages and limitations, to provide in-depth thermal and hydraulic design theory for PHEs, and to present state-of-the-art knowledge.The book starts with a general introduction and historical background to PHEs, then discusses construction and operation (PHE types, plate pattern, etc.) and gives examples of PHEs in different application areas. Material issues (plates, gaskets, brazing materials) and manufacturing methods are also treated.The major part of the book concerns the basic design methods for both single-phase and two-phase flow cases, various flow arrangements, thermal-hydraulic performance in single-phase flow and for PHEs operating as condensers and evaporators. Fouling problems are also discussed and in a section on extended design and operation issues, modern Research and Development (R & D) tools like computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods are discussed. Unique features for PHEs are discussed throughout.

Increasingly, robots are being used in environments inhospitable to humans such as the deep ocean, inside nuclear reactors, and in deep space. Such robots are controlled by remote links to human operators who may be close by or thousands of miles away. The techniques used to control these robots is the subject of this book. The author begins with a basic introduction to robot control and then considers the important problems to be overcome: delays or noisy control lines, feedback and response information, and predictive displays. Readers are assumed to have a basic understanding of robotics though this may be their first exposure to the subject of telerobotics. Professional engineers and roboticists will find this an invaluable introduction to this subject.

Some years ago, silicon-based mechanical sensors, like pressure sensors, accelerometers and gyroscopes, started their successful advance. Every year, hundreds of millions of these devices are sold, mainly for medical and automotive applications. The airbag sensor on which research already started several decades ago at Stanford University can be found in every new car and has saved already numerous lives. Pressure sensors are also used in modern electronic blood pressure equipment. Many other mechanical sensors, mostly invisible to the public, perform useful functions in countless industrial and consumer products.

The underlying physics and technology of silicon-based mechanical sensors is rather complex and is treated in numerous publications scattered throughout the literature. Therefore, a clear need existed for a handbook that thoroughly and systematically reviews the present basic knowledge on these devices.

After a short introduction, Professor Bao discusses the main issues relevant to silicon-based mechanical sensors. First a thorough treatment of stress and strain in diaphragms and beams is presented. Next, vibration of mechanical structures is illuminated, followed by a chapter on air damping. These basic chapters are then succeeded by chapters in which capacitive and piezoresistive sensing techniques are amply discussed. The book concludes with chapters on commercially available pressure sensors, accelerometers and resonant sensors in which the above principles are applied.

Everybody, involved in designing silicon-based mechanical sensors, will find a wealth of useful information in the book, assisting the designer in obtaining highly optimized devices.

The objective of Volume III is to lay down the proper mathematical foundations of the two-dimensional theory of shells. To this end, it provides, without any recourse to any "a priori" assumptions of a geometrical or mechanical nature, a mathematical justification of two-dimensional nonlinear and linear shell theories, by means of asymptotic methods, with the thickness as the "small" parameter.

As a new interdisciplinary research area, image-based geometric modeling and mesh generation integrates image processing, geometric modeling and mesh generation with finite element method (FEM) to solve problems in computational biomedicine, materials sciences and engineering. It is well known that FEM is currently well-developed and efficient, but mesh generation for complex geometries (e.g., the human body) still takes about 80% of the total analysis time and is the major obstacle to reduce the total computation time. It is mainly because none of the traditional approaches is sufficient to effectively construct finite element meshes for arbitrarily complicated domains, and generally a great deal of manual interaction is involved in mesh generation.

This contributed volume, the first for such an interdisciplinary topic, collects the latest research by experts in this area. These papers cover a broad range of topics, including medical imaging, image alignment and segmentation, image-to-mesh conversion, quality improvement, mesh warping, heterogeneous materials, biomodelcular modeling and simulation, as well as medical and engineering applications.

This contributed volume, the first for such an interdisciplinary topic, collects the latest research by experts in this area. These papers cover a broad range of topics, including medical imaging, image alignment and segmentation, image-to-mesh conversion, quality improvement, mesh warping, heterogeneous materials, biomodelcular modeling and simulation, as well as medical and engineering applications.

This contributed volume, the first for such an interdisciplinary topic, collects the latest research by experts in this area. These papers cover a broad range of topics, including medical imaging, image alignment and segmentation, image-to-mesh conversion, quality improvement, mesh warping, heterogeneous materials, biomodelcular modeling and simulation, as well as medical and engineering applications.

This contributed volume, the first for such an interdisciplinary topic, collects the latest research by experts in this area. These papers cover a broad range of topics, including medical imaging, image alignment and segmentation, image-to-mesh conversion, quality improvement, mesh warping, heterogeneous materials, biomodelcular modeling and simulation, as well as medical and engineering applications.

This book covers various topics regarding the design of compliant mechanisms using topology optimization that have attracted a great deal of attention in recent decades. After comprehensively describing state-of-the-art methods for designing compliant mechanisms, it provides a new topology optimization method for finding new flexure hinges. It then presents several attempts to obtain distributed compliant mechanisms using the topology optimization method. Further, it discusses a Jacobian-based topology optimization method for compliant parallel mechanisms, and introduces readers to the topology optimization of compliant mechanisms, taking into account geometrical nonlinearity and reliability. Providing a systematic method for topology optimization of flexure hinges, which are essential for designing compliant mechanisms, the book offers a valuable resource for all readers who are interested in designing compliant mechanism-based positioning stages. In addition, the methods for solving the de facto hinges in topology optimized compliant mechanisms will benefit all engineers seeking to design micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) structures.

Micromechanisms of Fracture and Fatigue forms the culmination of 20 years of research in the field of fatigue and fracture. It discusses a range of topics and comments on the state of the art for each. The first part is devoted to models of deformation and fracture of perfect crystals. Using various atomistic methods, the theoretical strength of solids under simple and complex loading is calculated for a wide range of elements and compounds, and compared with experimental data. The connection between the onset of local plasticity in nanoindentation tests and the ideal shear strength is analysed using a multi-scale approach. Moreover, the nature of intrinsic brittleness or ductility of perfect crystal lattices is demonstrated by the coupling of atomistic and mesoscopic approaches, and compared with brittle/ductile behaviour of engineering materials. The second part addresses extrinsic sources of fracture toughness of engineering materials, related to their microstructure and microstructurally-induced crack tortuosity. Micromechanisms of ductile fracture are also described, in relation to the fracture strain of materials. Results of multilevel modelling, including statistical aspects of microstructure, are used to explain remarkable phenomena discovered in experiments. In the third part of the book, basic micromechanisms of fatigue cracks propagation under uniaxial and multiaxial loading are discussed on the basis of the unified mesoscopic model of crack tip shielding and closure, taking both microstructure and statistical effects into account. Applications to failure analysis are also outlined, and an attempt is made to distinguish intrinsic and extrinsic sources of materials resistance to fracture. Micromechanisms of Fracture and Fatigue provides scientists, researchers and postgraduate students with not only a deep insight into basic micromechanisms of fracture behaviour of materials, but also a number of engineering applications.

To control mechanical processes one needs to obtain information about the state of the system, to process the information, and then to act on the results. Originally, the simplest controls were purely mechanical feedback systems; more complex systems required human intervention. At present, most controls are provided by purely electromechanical systems, but there are also many situations in which one needs sophisticated measurements for later analysis.

Developments in electronic information processing have over the past few decades far outpaced the developments in the sensors and actuators that provide the input and output of the control systems; as a result, the transducers account for the major part of the expense, mass, and failure points of many modern machines. Improvements in control systems thus depend on a clear and thorough understanding of the principles of transducers. It is the aim of this book to help meet that need. Unlike other treatments of sensors or actuators, this book approaches the devices from the point of view of the fundamental coupling mechanism between the electrical and mechanical behavior. Thus, for example, a solenoid can b used either to detect horizontal motion and position (i.e. as a sensor), or to impose a motion on a piston (i.e. as an actuator); the principles of operation of the solenoid are the same in both cases, and this book thus treats them together.

The book begins with a discussion of systems analysis as a tool for modeling transducers. It then turns to a detailed discussion of transduction mechanisms (electric and magnetic fields, piezo- and pyro-electric effects, electromagnetic induction, and so forth). The book concludes with an input/output analysis of transducers.

This book is written for scientists and engineers wishing to become familiar with biological micro- and nanotribology as a new interdisciplinary field of research combining methods and knowledge of physics, chemistry, mechanics and biology. Biological micro- and nanotribology aims to gather information about friction, adhesion and wear of biological systems and to apply this new knowledge to the design of micro-electro-mechanical systems, the development of new types of monolayer lubrication, the invention of new adhesives or the construction of artificial joints. Biologists, chemists, physicists and tribologists and many other applied scientists will find this book an essential addition to their libraries. Moreover, this book also gives an introduction to the higher levels of micromechanical analysis. It will provide valuable assistance for graduate students intending to become active in interdisciplinary research.

The main objective of the First International Symposium on Lubricated Transport of Viscous Materials was to bring together scientists and engineers from academia and industryto discuss current research work and exchange ideas in this newly emerging field. It is an area offluid dynamics devoted to laying bare the principlesofthe lubricated transport of viscous materials such as crude oil, concentrated oil/water emulsion, slurries and capsules. It encompasses several types of problem. Studies of migration of particulates away from walls, Segre-Silverberg effects, lubrication versus lift and shear-induced migration belong to one category. Some of the technological problems are the fluid dynamics ofcore flows emphasizing studies ofstability, problems of start-up, lift-off and eccentric flow where gravity causes the core flow to stratify. Another category of problems deals with the fouling of pipe walls with oil, with undesirable increases in pressure gradients and even blocking. This study involves subjects like adhesion and dynamic contact angles. The topics ofshear-induced diffusion ofsmall particles and wall slip in slow flow are other appropriate subjects. Computer intensive studiesofflow-induced microstructures and moving interface problems are yet additional research directions. The general consensus was that the Symposium was a tremendous success, although the number of presentations fell below expectations. Scientists from the petroleum industry, and this includes INTEVEP (Venezuela), Schlumberger and Syncrude Canada Ltd., and consultants to oil companies actively participated in the Symposium. The meeting produced new insights which should lead to further interesting research work and established contacts for possiblejoint investigations."

The principal object of this volume is the creation of a mathematical theory of deformations for elastic anisotropic thermodynamic piezoelastic plates, beams and shells with variable thickness. The book is divided into two parts. The first part deals with problems related to the construction of refined theories (such as those of Richhof-Love, von Karman-A. Fioppl, and Reissner) and their equivalent new models (depending on arbitrary control functions). These are investigated by means of a new variational principle. Methods of reduction, containing regular processes of study of spatial problems, are also studied. Topics treated include problems of solvability, error estimations, convergence of processes in Sobolev spaces and construction of effective schemes of solutions of two-dimensional boundary value problems for systems of partial differential equations. The second part considers stable projective methods, using classical orthogonal polynomials and a new class of spline-functions as coordinate systems, and their numerical realizations for a design of one- and two- dimensional boundary value problems from the first part. These efficient methods increase the possibilities of classical finite-difference, exponential- fitted, variational-discrete and alternating-direction methods. Audience: This book will be of interest to researchers and graduate students whose work involves mechanics, analysis, numerics and computation, mathematical modelling and industrial mathematics, calculus of variations, and design engineering.

"Recent Trends in the Condition Monitoring of Transformers" reflects the current interest in replacing traditional techniques used in power transformer condition monitoring with non-invasive measures such as polarization/depolarization current measurement, recovery voltage measurement, frequency domain spectroscopy and frequency response analysis. The book stresses the importance of scrutinizing the condition of transformer insulation which may fail under present day conditions of intensive use with the resulting degradation of dielectric properties causing functional failure of the transformer.

The text shows the reader how to overcome the key challenges facing today s maintenance policies, namely:

The selection of appropriate techniques for dealing with each type of failure process accounting for the needs of plant owners, plant users and wider society; and

Cost-efficiency and durability of effect.

Many of the failure-management methods presented rely on the fact that most failures give warning when they are imminent. These potential failures give rise to identifiable physical conditions and the novel approaches described detect them so that action can be taken to avoid degeneration into full-blown functional failure. This on-condition maintenance means that equipment can be left in service as long as a specified set of performance standards continue to be met, avoiding the costly downtime imposed by routine and perhaps unnecessary maintenance but without risking equally expensive failure.

"Recent Trends in the Condition Monitoring of Transformers" will be of considerable interest to both academic researchers in power systems and to engineers working in the power generation and distribution industry showing how new and more efficient methods of fault diagnosis and condition management can increase transformer efficiency and cut costs."

The use of refrigeration, either directly or as part of an air-conditioning system, is essential to almost every branch of industry.

There is a need for practitioners to familiarise themselves with the general principles and methods of refrigeration and air conditioning, and the types of plant and operation currently in use.
This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the principles and practice of refrigeration and air-conditioning for the uninitiated student and a general overview of the industry for the practitioner. The fundamentals of the subject are introduced without involving the reader too deeply in theory and the content is presented in a logical order.
This fully revised and updated third edition has a new chapter on Refrigerants that deals with the many changes in this area over the last 10 years, including the phase out of CFC and HCFC refrigerants in line with Ozone depletion and Global Warming. New, replacement refrigerants are described, together with Codes of Practice introduced for maintenance and servicing of refrigeration plants. The increased use of Ammonia and Propane are included, with the relevant Health and Safety aspects, and the move towards Absorption refrigeration equipment as more environmentally friendly.
This new edition of Refrigeration and Air Conditioning is a valuable reference source for practising engineers and essential reading for students.