Related papers: Non-contact linear slider for cryogenic environmen…
Magnetic levitation based on the flux pinning nature of type II superconductors has the merit of self-stability, making it appealing for applications such as high speed bearings, maglev trains, space generators, etc. However, such…
The most direct measurement of adhesion is the pull-off force, i.e. the tensile force necessary to separate two solids in contact. For a given interface, it depends on various experimental parameters, including separation speed, contact age…
It is numerically demonstrated by means of a magnetohydrodynamics code that a short Taylor-Couette setup with a body force can sustain dynamo action. The magnetic threshold is comparable to what is usually obtained in spherical geometries.…
By calculating the linear response of packings of soft frictionless discs to quasistatic external perturbations, we investigate the critical scaling behavior of their elastic properties and non-affine deformations as a function of the…
In this paper I analyze the onset of Rayleigh-Taylor instability between two linear viscoelastic fluids assuming that the perturbations at the interface are small. In the first half, the paper analyzes a stratified viscoelastic fluid in…
We present a study of sliding friction for rigid triangular steel sliders on soft rubber substrates under both lubricated and dry conditions. For rubber surfaces lubricated with a thin film of silicone oil, the measured sliding friction at…
Conventional mobile tensegrity robots constructed with straight links offer mobility at the cost of locomotion speed. While spherical robots provide highly effective rolling behavior, they often lack the stability required for navigating…
Structural superlubricity is an intriguing physical phenomenon, whereby sliding at a structurally incommensurate, atomically flat interface yields vanishingly small friction forces. Despite its recent experimental validation, critical…
We model polydomain liquid-crystal elastomers by extending the neo-classical soft and semi-soft free energies used successfully to describe monodomain samples. We show that there is a significant difference between polydomains cross-linked…
This paper investigates the dynamic properties of planar slider-pusher systems as a motion primitive in manipulation tasks. To that end, we construct a differential kinematic model deriving from the limit surface approach under the…
We use numerical simulations to study the flow of a bidisperse mixture of athermal, frictionless, soft-core two dimensional spherocylinders driven in uniform steady state shear. Energy dissipation is via a viscous drag with respect to a…
Stick-slip -- the sequence of mechanical instabilities through which a slider advances on a solid substrate -- is pervasive throughout sliding friction, from nano to geological scales. Here we suggest that trapped cold ions in an optical…
Low-dissipation rotors with large angular momentum are essential for precision sensing and probing macroscopic quantum phenomena. To date, low dissipation can only be achieved for micro-scale rotors. Here, we report a diamagnetically…
Slithering, crawling, slipping, gliding are various modes of limbless locomotion that have been mimicked for micro-manipulation of soft, slender and sessile objects. A lesser known mode is rolling which involves periodic, asymmetric and…
To reduce tear and wear of machinery lubrication is essential. Lubricants form a layer between two surfaces preventing direct contact and reduce friction between moving parts and hence reduce wear. In this short letter the lubrication of…
Batch digester blowdown operations exhibit highly nonlinear hydraulic transport dynamics due to evolving slurry consistency and rheological uncertainty. This work presents a nonlinear dynamic model and a robust Sliding Mode Control (SMC)…
A theory of reciprocating contacts for linear viscoelastic materials is presented. Results are discussed for the case of a rigid sphere sinusoidally driven in sliding contact with a viscoelastic half-space. Depending on the size of the…
A new solution for general half-plane contact problems subject to a constant normal load together with alternating shear loads and tension in the steady state is presented. The method uses a formulation where a displacement correction is…
This paper proposes a new adaptation methodology to find the control inputs for a class of nonlinear systems with time-varying bounded uncertainties. The proposed method does not require any prior knowledge of the uncertainties including…
The sliding columnar phase is a new liquid-crystalline phase of matter composed of two-dimensional smectic lattices stacked one on top of the other. This phase is characterized by strong orientational but weak positional correlations…