Related papers: The self-stabilising dynamics of bicycles
We examine the problem of motion of an oscillating mass object provided no external force is applied to it. Calculations directly lead to the conclusion that the body accelerates in each system of reference except for the rest reference…
The effect of rotation on the classical gravity-driven Rayleigh-Taylor instability has been shown to influence the scale of the perturbations that develop at the unstable interface and consequently alter the speed of propagation of the…
Recent experiments have shown that surface stresses in soft materials can have a significant strain-dependence. Here we explore the implications of this surface elasticity to show how, and when, we expect it to arise. We develop the…
Frictional forces are a key ingredient of any physical description of the macroscopic world, as they account for the phenomena causing transformation of mechanical energy into heat. They are ubiquitous in nature, and a wide range of…
Frictional motion is harder to initiate than to sustain, as evident when pushing a heavy object. This disparity between static and kinetic friction drives instabilities and stick-slip dynamics in systems ranging from nanodevices and MEMS to…
Even the most regular stick-slip frictional sliding is always stochastic, with irregularity in both the intervals between slip events and the sizes of the associated stress drops. Applying small-amplitude oscillations to the shear force, we…
In this document, we deal with the stabilization problem of slow-fast systems (or singularly perturbed Ordinary Differential Equations) at a non-hyperbolic point. The class of systems studied here have the following properties: 1) they have…
An experimental study of the vortex-induced-vibration of a flexibly mounted rigid square cylinder in a uniform airflow is presented. For this high mass ratio configuration, transverse oscillations are measured in detail for reduced…
This study investigates the existence and stability of limit cycles resulting from self-excited oscillations in linear multi-degree-of-freedom systems subjected to discontinuous, state-dependent forcing. Using the method of averaging and…
Drifting is an advanced driving technique where the wheeled robot's tire-ground interaction breaks the common non-holonomic pure rolling constraint. This allows high-maneuverability tasks like quick cornering, and steady-state drifting…
It was shown that pedal coordinates provides natural framework in which to study force problems of classical mechanics in the plane. A trajectory of a test particle under the influence of central and Lorentz-like forces can be translated…
We analyze the stability of two charged conducting spheres orbiting each other. Due to charge polarization, the electrostatic force between the two spheres deviates significantly from $1/r^2$ as they come close to each other. As a…
We present a stability theory for kink propagation in chains of coupled oscillators and a new algorithm for the numerical study of kink dynamics. The numerical solutions are computed using an equivalent integral equation instead of a system…
Most aquatic vertebrates swim by lateral flapping of their bodies and caudal fins. While much effort has been devoted to understanding the flapping kinematics and its influence on the swimming efficiency, little is known about the stability…
Non-conservative loads of the follower type are usually believed to be the source of dynamic instabilities such as flutter and divergence. It is shown that these instabilities (including Hopf bifurcation, flutter, divergence, and…
The problem of a suspended rope wrapped around a fixed cylinder is studied. If the suspension force is larger than a certain threshold (which is larger than the weight of the rope), the rope would remain tightly wrapped around the cylinder.…
We review some properties of dynamical systems with slowly varying parameters, when a parameter is moved through a bifurcation point of the static system. Bifurcations with a single zero eigenvalue may create hysteresis cycles, whose area…
We show that the static friction force which must be overcome to render a sticking contact sliding is reduced if an external torque is also exerted. As a test system we study a planar disk lying on horizontal flat surface. We perform…
We obtain the full equations of motion for a wide, pivoted, slider bearing. These are used to review the choice of the optimal position for the pivot point, to discuss its response to time-dependent sliding velocity, and to determine the…
Models of a playground swing have been studied since the 1960s. However, in most of them, the position of the swinger is controlled directly. This simplifies the problem but hides the mechanics of torques applied to keep the swing moving in…