This book presents a class of novel, self-learning, optimal control schemes based on adaptive dynamic programming techniques, which quantitatively obtain the optimal control schemes of the systems. It analyzes the properties identified by the programming methods, including the convergence of the iterative value functions and the stability of the system under iterative control laws, helping to guarantee the effectiveness of the methods developed. When the system model is known, self-learning optimal control is designed on the basis of the system model; when the system model is not known, adaptive dynamic programming is implemented according to the system data, effectively making the performance of the system converge to the optimum. With various real-world examples to complement and substantiate the mathematical analysis, the book is a valuable guide for engineers, researchers, and students in control science and engineering.

This book presents in detail an alternative approach to solving problems involving both linear and nonlinear oscillations of elastic distributed parameter systems. It includes the so-called variational, projection and iterative gradient methods, which, when applied to nonlinear problems, use the procedure of linearization of the original non-linear equations. These methods are not universal and require a different solution for each problem or class of problems.However, in many cases the combination of the methods shown in this book leads to more efficient algorithms for solving important applied problems.To record these algorithms in a unified form, the first part of the book and its appendix devote considerable attention to compiling the general operator equations, which include (as particular cases) equations for vibrations in rods, plates, shells and three-dimensional bodies. They are mainly considered to be periodic or nearly periodic oscillations, which correspond to stat ionary or nearly stationary regimes of machinery operation. In turn, the second part of the book presents a number of solutions for selected applications.

This book suggests a new common approach to the study of resonance energy transport based on the recently developed concept of Limiting Phase Trajectories (LPTs), presenting applications of the approach to significant nonlinear problems from different fields of physics and mechanics. In order to highlight the novelty and perspectives of the developed approach, it places the LPT concept in the context of dynamical phenomena related to the energy transfer problems and applies the theory to numerous problems of practical importance. This approach leads to the conclusion that strongly nonstationary resonance processes in nonlinear oscillator arrays and nanostructures are characterized either by maximum possible energy exchange between the clusters of oscillators (coherence domains) or by maximum energy transfer from an external source of energy to the chain. The trajectories corresponding to these processes are referred to as LPTs. The development and the use of the LPTs concept a re motivated by the fact that non-stationary processes in a broad variety of finite-dimensional physical models are beyond the well-known paradigm of nonlinear normal modes (NNMs), which is fully justified either for stationary processes or for nonstationary non-resonance processes described exactly or approximately by the combinations of the non-resonant normal modes. Thus, the role of LPTs in understanding and analyzing of intense resonance energy transfer is similar to the role of NNMs for the stationary processes. The book is a valuable resource for engineers needing to deal effectively with the problems arising in the fields of mechanical and physical applications, when the natural physical model is quite complicated. At the same time, the mathematical analysis means that it is of interest to researchers working on the theory and numerical investigation of nonlinear oscillations.

This book reports on the 12th International Workshop on Railway Noise held on 12-16 September 2016 at Terrigal, Australia. It gathers peer-reviewed papers describing the latest developments in rail noise and vibration, as well as state-of-the-art reviews by distinguished experts in the field. The papers cover a broad range of rail noise topics including wheel squeal, policy, regulation and perception, wheel and rail noise, predictions, measurements and monitoring, interior noise, rail roughness, corrugation and grinding, high speed rail and aerodynamic noise, and structure-borne noise, ground-borne vibration and resilient track forms. It offers an essential reference-guide to both scientists and engineers in their daily efforts to identify, understand and solve a number of problems related to railway noise and vibration, and to achieve their ultimate goal of reducing the environmental impact of railway systems.

This book presents the most important findings from the 9th International Conference on Modelling, Identification and Control (ICMIC'17), held in Kunming, China on July 10-12, 2017. It covers most aspects of modelling, identification, instrumentation, signal processing and control, with a particular focus on the applications of research in multi-agent systems, robotic systems, autonomous systems, complex systems, and renewable energy systems. The book gathers thirty comprehensively reviewed and extended contributions, which help to promote evolutionary computation, artificial intelligence, computation intelligence and soft computing techniques to enhance the safety, flexibility and efficiency of engineering systems. Taken together, they offer an ideal reference guide for researchers and engineers in the fields of electrical/electronic engineering, mechanical engineering and communication engineering.

This volume, which brings together research presented at the IUTAM Symposium Intelligent Multibody Systems - Dynamics, Control, Simulation, held at Sozopol, Bulgaria, September 11-15, 2017, focuses on preliminary virtual simulation of the dynamics of motion, and analysis of loading of the devices and of their behaviour caused by the working conditions and natural phenomena. This requires up-to-date methods for dynamics analysis and simulation, novel methods for numerical solution of ODE and DAE, real-time simulation, passive, semi-passive and active control algorithms. Applied examples are mechatronic (intelligent) multibody systems, autonomous vehicles, space structures, structures exposed to external and seismic excitations, large flexible structures and wind generators, robots and bio-robots. The book covers the following subjects: -Novel methods in multibody system dynamics; -Real-time dynamics; -Dynamic models of passive and active mechatronic devices; -Vehicle dynamics and control; -Structural dynamics; -Deflection and vibration suppression; -Numerical integration of ODE and DAE for large scale and stiff multibody systems; -Model reduction of large-scale flexible systems. The book will be of interest for scientists and academicians, PhD students and engineers at universities and scientific institutes.

This book systematically introduces engineering fluid mechanics in a simple and understandable way, focusing on the basic concepts, principles and methods. Engineering fluid mechanics is necessary for professionals and students in fields such as civil, environmental, mechanical, and petroleum engineering. Unlike most of the current textbooks and monographs, which are too complicated and include huge numbers of math formulas and equations, this book introduces essential concepts and flow rules in a clear and elementary way that can be used in further research. In addition, it provides numerous useful tables and diagrams that can be quickly and directly checked for industry applications. Furthermore, it highlights the connection between free flow and porous flow, which can aid advanced interdisciplinary research such as nanotech and environmental science. Last but not least, each chapter presents a variety of problems to offer readers a better understanding about the principles and applications of fluid mechanics.

This book addresses anti-fatigue manufacturing, analysis and test verification technologies for typical aircraft structures, including fastening holes, shot peening plates, different types of joints and wing boxes. Offering concrete solutions to practical problems in aircraft engineering, it will benefit researchers and engineers in the fields of Aerospace Technology and Astronautics.

This book discusses the thermal-elastic mechanics problems of concrete rectangular thin plate. Using theoretical derivation combined with numerical examples, it explains in detail the analytical solution of the deflection, bending moment, thermal vibration and thermal buckling of concrete rectangular thin plate. To facilitate application, the book also includes deflection and bending moment calculation tables of concrete rectangular thin plate with four edges supported and with free boundary conditions.

This book presents a comprehensive and unifying approach to analytical identification of material properties of biological materials. Focusing on depth-sensing indentation testing, pipette aspiration testing, and torsion of soft tissues, it discusses the following important aspects in detail: damping, adhesion, thickness effect, substrate effect, elastic inhomogeneity effect, and biphasic effect. This book is intended for advanced undergraduate and graduate students, researchers in the area of biomechanics as well as for biomedical engineers interested in contact problems and involved in inverse materials parameters prediction analysis.

Premature cracking in asphalt pavements and overlays continues to shorten pavement lifecycles and creates significant economic and environmental burden. In response, RILEM Technical Committee TC 241-MCD on Mechanisms of Cracking and Debonding in Asphalt and Composite Pavements has conducted a State-of-the-Art Review (STAR), as detailed in this comprehensive book. Cutting-edge research performed by RILEM members and their international partners is presented, along with summaries of open research questions and recommendations for future research. This book is organized according to the theme areas of TC 241-MCD - i.e., fracture in the asphalt bulk material, interface debonding behaviour, and advanced measurement systems. This STAR is expected to serve as a long term reference for researchers and practitioners, as it contributes to a deeper fundamental understanding of the mechanisms behind cracking and debonding in asphalt concrete and composite pavement systems.

This book presents an analysis procedure for structures that are exposed to the lateral loads such as earthquake and wind. It includes the process for calculating and distributing the effective load into structural elements, as well as for calculating the displacements for different types of structures, e.g. reinforced concrete and steel framed structures. The book provides civil engineers with clear guidelines on how to perform seismic analysis for various building systems, and how to distribute the lateral load to the structural components. This book consists of 4 chapters: The first chapter offers an introduction, while Chapter 2 discusses moment resistance frame. The final two chapters explore shear wall frames and brace frames respectively. Each chapter follows the same structure, explaining step by step all the necessary algorithms, equations and procedures for calculating 1) loads, 2) the centre of mass, 3) stiffness of structures, 4) centre of stiffness, 5) lateral loading, 6) the distribution of lateral loads, and 7) the lateral displacement. Demonstrating the implementation of real building analysis, the book provides architectural drawings and structural plans at the beginning of each chapter.

This book presents selected peer-reviewed contributions from the 2017 International Conference on "Physics and Mechanics of New Materials and Their Applications", PHENMA 2017 (Jabalpur, India, 14-16 October, 2017), which is devoted to processing techniques, physics, mechanics, and applications of advanced materials. The book focuses on a wide spectrum of nanostructures, ferroelectric crystals, materials and composites as well as promising materials with special properties. It presents nanotechnology approaches, modern environmentally friendly piezoelectric and ferromagnetic techniques and physical and mechanical studies of the structural and physical-mechanical properties of materials. Various original mathematical and numerical methods are applied to the solution of different technological, mechanical and physical problems that are interesting from theoretical, modeling and experimental points of view. Further, the book highlights novel devices with high accuracy, longevity and extended capabilities to operate under wide temperature and pressure ranges and aggressive media, which show improved characteristics, thanks to the developed materials and composites, opening new possibilities for different physico-mechanical processes and phenomena.

This book presents extensive information on structural health monitoring for suspension bridges. During the past two decades, there have been significant advances in the sensing technologies employed in long-span bridge health monitoring. However, interpretation of the massive monitoring data is still lagging behind. This book establishes a series of measurement interpretation frameworks that focus on bridge site environmental conditions, and global and local responses of suspension bridges. Using the proposed frameworks, it subsequently offers new insights into the structural behaviors of long-span suspension bridges. As a valuable resource for researchers, scientists and engineers in the field of bridge structural health monitoring, it provides essential information, methods, and practical algorithms that can facilitate in-service bridge performance assessments.

As the sequel to the proceedings of the International Conference of Continuum Mechanics Focusing on Singularities (CoMFoS15), the proceedings of CoMFoS16 present further advances and new topics in mathematical theory and numerical simulations related to various aspects of continuum mechanics. These include fracture mechanics, shape optimization, modeling of earthquakes, material structure, interface dynamics and complex systems.. The authors are leading researchers with a profound knowledge of mathematical analysis from the fields of applied mathematics, physics, seismology, engineering, and industry. The book helps readers to understand how mathematical theory can be applied to various industrial problems, and conversely, how industrial problems lead to new mathematical challenges.

This book thoroughly describes a theory concerning the yield and failure of materials under multi-axial stresses - the Unified Strength Theory, which was first proposed by the author and has been frequently quoted since. It provides a system of yield and failure criteria adopted for most materials, from metals to rocks, concretes, soils, and polymers. This new edition includes six additional chapters: General behavior of Strength theory function; Visualization of the Unified Strength Theory; Equivalent Stress of the UST and Comparisons with other criteria; Economic Signification of the UST; General form of failure criterion; Beauty of Strength Theories. It is intended for researchers and graduate students in various fields, including engineering mechanics, material mechanics, plasticity, soil mechanics, rock mechanics, mechanics of metallic materials and civil engineering, hydraulic engineering, geotechnical engineering, mechanical engineering and military engineering.

This book reports on findings at the intersection between two related fields, namely coastal hydrography and marine robotics. On one side, it shows how the exploration of the ocean can be performed by autonomous underwater vehicles; on the other side, it shows how some methods from hydrography can be implemented in the localization and navigation of such vehicles, e.g. for target identification or path finding. Partially based on contributions presented at the conference Quantitative Monitoring of Underwater Environment, MOQESM, held on October 11-12, 2016, Brest, France, this book includes carefully revised and extended chapters presented at the conference, together with original papers not related to the event. All in all, it provides readers with a snapshot of current methods for sonar track registration, multi-vehicles control, collective exploration of underwater environments, optimization of propulsion systems, among others. More than that, the book is aimed as source of inspiration and tool to promote further discussions and collaboration between hydrographers, robotic specialists and other related communities.

This book presents the proceedings of Fatigue Durability India 2016, which was held on September 28-30 at J N Tata Auditorium, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. This 2nd International Conference & Exhibition brought international industrial experts and academics together on a single platform to facilitate the exchange of ideas and advances in the field of fatigue, durability and fracture mechanics and its applications. This book comprises articles on a broad spectrum of topics from design, engineering, testing and computational evaluation of components and systems for fatigue, durability, and fracture mechanics. The topics covered include interdisciplinary discussions on working aspects related to materials testing, evaluation of damage, nondestructive testing (NDT), failure analysis, finite element modeling (FEM) analysis, fatigue and fracture, processing, performance, and reliability. The contents of this book will appeal not only to academic researchers, but also to design engineers, failure analysts, maintenance engineers, certification personnel, and R&D professionals involved in a wide variety of industries.

This second edition of the textbook presents a systematic introduction to the structural mechanics of composite components. The book focusses on modeling and calculation of sandwiches and laminated composites i.e. anisotropic material. The new edition includes an additional chapter covering the latest advances in both research and applications, which are highly relevant for readers. The textbook is written for use not only in engineering curricula of aerospace, civil and mechanical engineering, but also for materials science and applied mechanics. Furthermore, it addresses practicing engineers and researchers. No prior knowledge of composite materials and structures is required for the understanding of its content. The book is close to classical courses of "Strength of Materials" and "Theory of Beams, Plates and Shells" but it extends the classic content on two topics: the linear elastic material behavior of isotropic and non-isotropic structural elements, and inhomogeneous material properties in the thickness direction. The Finite Element Analysis of laminate and sandwich structures is briefly presented. Many solved examples illustrate the application of the techniques learned.

This book comprises selected proceedings of the Fourth International Conference in Ocean Engineering (ICOE2018), focusing on emerging opportunities and challenges in the field of ocean engineering and offshore structures. It includes state-of-the-art content from leading international experts, making it a valuable resource for researchers and practicing engineers alike.

This open access book focuses on investigating predicting precursor information and key points of rockburst in mining engineering through laboratory experiment, theoretical analysis, numerical simulation and case studies. Understanding the evolution patterns for the microstructure instability of rock is a prerequisite for rockburst prediction. The book provides a guide for readers seeking to understand the evolution patterns for the microstrucure of rock failure, the predicting key point of rock failure and the rockburst predicting model. It will be an essential reference to understand mechanism of rockburst and sheds new light on dynamic disasters prediction. Chapters are carefully developed to cover (1) The evolution patterns for the microstructure instability of rock; (2) Rockburst hazard monitoring and predicting criterion and predicting models. The book addresses the issue with a holistic and systematic approach that investigates the occurrence mechanism of rockburst based on the evolution patterns for the microstructure of rock failure and establishes the predicting model of rockburst. This book will be of interest to researchers of mining engineering, rock mechanics engineering and safety engineering.

This book highlights key methods for the mathematical modeling and solution of nonstationary dynamic problems in the theory of magnetoelasticity. It also reveals the richness of physical effects caused by the interaction of electromagnetic and mechanical phenomena in both conducting non-ferromagnetic and dielectric magnetically active deformable bodies. The studies are limited to elastic bodies considering small deformations. The book consists of two parts, the first of which derives the system of equations for describing magnetoelasticity, the surface conditions, and equations describing the perturbations behavior of non-ferromagnetic conducting media interacting with external magnetic fields. These equations are based on the main nonlinear equations and relations of mechanics and quasistatic electrodynamics of continuous media. On this basis, the book puts forward a number of qualitative and quantitative results, solving selected problems of magnetoelastic wave propagation. In turn, the second part considers surface waves in magnetostrictive and piezomagnetic media. It obtains the system of equations, surface conditions and state equations describing the perturbations behavior in magnetoactive ferromagnetic dielectric media interacting with external magnetic fields. Lastly, the book studies the excitations and propagation of new types of surface waves and oscillations in these media, conditioned by the magnetostrictive properties of the respective medium and its interaction with an external magnetic field.

After a short introduction to the fundamentals, this book provides a detailed account of major advances in applying fractional calculus to dynamical systems. Fractional order dynamical systems currently continue to gain further importance in many areas of science and engineering. As with many other approaches to mathematical modeling, the first issue to be addressed is the need to couple a definition of the fractional differentiation or integration operator with the types of dynamical systems that are analyzed. As such, for the fundamentals the focus is on basic aspects of fractional calculus, in particular stability analysis, which is required to tackle synchronization in coupled fractional order systems, to understand the essence of estimators for related integer order systems, and to keep track of the interplay between synchronization and parameter observation. This serves as the common basis for the more advanced topics and applications presented in the subsequent chapters, which include an introduction to the 'Immersion and Invariance' (I&I) methodology, the masterslave synchronization scheme for partially known nonlinear fractional order systems, Fractional Algebraic Observability (FAO) and Fractional Generalized quasi-Synchronization (FGqS) to name but a few. This book is intended not only for applied mathematicians and theoretical physicists, but also for anyone in applied science dealing with complex nonlinear systems.

This textbook is a product of William Bennett's work in developing and teaching a course on the physics of music at Yale University to a diverse audience of musicians and science students in the same class. The book is a culmination of over a decade of teaching the course and weaves together historical descriptions of the physical phenomena with the author's clear interpretations of the most important aspects of the science of music and musical instruments. Many of the historical examples are not found in any other textbook available on the market. As the co-inventor of the Helium-Neon laser, Prof. Bennett's knowledge of physics was world-class. As a professor at one of the most prestigious liberal-arts universities in the world, his appreciation for culture and humanities shines through. The book covers the basics of oscillations, waves and the analysis techniques necessary for understanding how musical instruments work. All types of stringed instruments, pipe organs, and the human voice are covered in this volume. A second volume covers the remaining families of musical instruments as well as selected other topics. Readers without a background in acoustics will enjoy learning the physics of the Science of Musical Sound from a preeminent scientist of the 20th century. Those well versed in acoustics will discover wonderful illustrations and photographs depicting familiar concepts in new and enlightening ways.

This book focuses on the damage, fracture and fatigue of ceramic-matrix composites. It investigates tensile damage and fracture, fatigue hysteresis, and the properties of interfaces subjected to cyclic fatigue loading. Further, it predicts fatigue life at room and elevated temperatures using newly developed damage models and methods, and it analyzes and compares damage, fracture and fatigue behavior of different fiber performs: unidirectional, cross-ply, 2D and 2.5D woven. The developed models and methods can be used to predict the damage and lifetime of ceramic-matrix composites during applications on hot section components.Ceramic-matrix composites (CMCs) are high-temperature structural materials with the significant advantages of high specific strength, high specific modulus, high temperature resistance and good thermal stability, which play a crucial role in the development of high thrust weight ratio aero engines. The critical nature of the application of these advanced materials makes comprehensive characterization a necessity, and as such this book provides designers with essential information pertaining not only to the strength of the materials, but also to their fatigue and damage characteristics.