An approach to functional synthesis of solutions in mechanical conceptual design. Part III: Spatial configuration

These three papers describe an approach to the synthesis of solutions to a class of mechanical design problems; these involve transmission and transformation of mechanical forces and motion, and can be described by a set of inputs and outputs. The approach involves (1) identifying a set of primary functional elements and rules of combining them, and (2) developing appropriate representations and reasoning procedures for synthesising solution concepts using these elements and their combination rules; these synthesis procedures can produce an exhaustive set of solution concepts, in terms of their topological as well as spatial configurations, to a given design problem. This paper (Part III) describes a constraint propagation procedure which, using a knowledge base of spatial information about a set of primary functional elements, can produce possible spatial configurations of solution concepts generated in Part II.

Phase noise analysis of a mechanical autonomous impact oscillator with a MEMS resonator

In this paper, phase noise analysis of a mechanical autonomous impact oscillator with a MEMS resonator is performed. Since the circuit considered belongs to the class of hybrid systems, methods based on the variational model for the evaluation of either phase noise or steady state solutions cannot be directly applied. As a matter of fact, the monodromy matrix is not defined at impact events in these systems. By introducing saltation matrices, this limit is overcome and the aforementioned methods are extended. In particular, the unified theory developed by Demir is used to analyze the phase noise after evaluating the asymptotically stable periodic solution of the system by resorting to the shooting method. Numerical results are presented to show how noise sources affect the phase noise performances. © 2011 IEEE.

Finite element solution of Navier Stokes equations adapted to a priori error estimates

The paper is based on qualitative properties of the solution of the Navier-Stokes equations for incompressible fluid, and on properties of their finite element solution. In problems with corner-like singularities (e.g. on the well-known L-shaped domain) usually some adaptive strategy is used. In this paper we present an alternative approach. For flow problems on domains with corner singularities we use the a priori error estimates and asymptotic expansion of the solution to derive an algorithm for refining the mesh near the corner. It gives very precise solution in a cheap way. We present some numerical results.

High order schemes on three-dimensional general polyhedral meshes - Application to the level set method

In this article, we detail the methodology developed to construct arbitrarily high order schemes - linear and WENO - on 3D mixed-element unstructured meshes made up of general convex polyhedral elements. The approach is tailored specifically for the solution of scalar level set equations for application to incompressible two-phase flow problems. The construction of WENO schemes on 3D unstructured meshes is notoriously difficult, as it involves a much higher level of complexity than 2D approaches. This due to the multiplicity of geometrical considerations introduced by the extra dimension, especially on mixed-element meshes. Therefore, we have specifically developed a number of algorithms to handle mixed-element meshes composed of convex polyhedra with convex polygonal faces. The contribution of this work concerns several areas of interest: the formulation of an improved methodology in 3D, the minimisation of computational runtime in the implementation through the maximum use of pre-processing operations, the generation of novel methods to handle complex 3D mixed-element meshes and finally the application of the method to the transport of a scalar level set. © 2012 Global-Science Press.

Blue-phase templated fabrication of three-dimensional nanostructures for photonic applications.

A promising approach to the fabrication of materials with nanoscale features is the transfer of liquid-crystalline structure to polymers. However, this has not been achieved in systems with full three-dimensional periodicity. Here we demonstrate the fabrication of self-assembled three-dimensional nanostructures by polymer templating blue phase I, a chiral liquid crystal with cubic symmetry. Blue phase I was photopolymerized and the remaining liquid crystal removed to create a porous free-standing cast, which retains the chiral three-dimensional structure of the blue phase, yet contains no chiral additive molecules. The cast may in turn be used as a hard template for the fabrication of new materials. By refilling the cast with an achiral nematic liquid crystal, we created templated blue phases that have unprecedented thermal stability in the range -125 to 125 °C, and that act as both mirrorless lasers and switchable electro-optic devices. Blue-phase templated materials will facilitate advances in device architectures for photonics applications in particular.

Local synthesis and alignment of zinc oxide nanowires in aqueous solution using microheaters

A bottom-up technique for synthesizing transversely suspended zinc oxide nanowires (ZnO NWs) under a zinc nitrate (Zn(NO 3) 2· 6H 2O) and hexamethylenetetramine (HMTA, (CH 2) 6·N 4) solution within a microfabricated device is reported in this paper. The device consists of a microheater which is used to initially create an oxidized ZnO seed layer. ZnO NWs are then locally synthesized by the microheater and electrodes embedded within the devices are used to drive electric field directed horizontal alignment of the nanowires within the device. The entire process is carried out at low temperature. This approach has the potential to considerably simplify the fabrication and assembly of ZnO nanowires on CMOS compatible substrates, allowing for the chemical synthesis to be carried out under near-ambient conditions by locally defining the conditions for nanowire growth on a silicon reactor chip. © 2012 IEEE.

Blue-phase templated fabrication of three-dimensional nanostructures for photonic applications

A promising approach to the fabrication of materials with nanoscale features is the transfer of liquid-crystalline structure to polymers. However, this has not been achieved in systems with full three-dimensional periodicity. Here we demonstrate the fabrication of self-assembled three-dimensional nanostructures by polymer templating blue phase I, a chiral liquid crystal with cubic symmetry. Blue phase I was photopolymerized and the remaining liquid crystal removed to create a porous free-standing cast, which retains the chiral three-dimensional structure of the blue phase, yet contains no chiral additive molecules. The cast may in turn be used as a hard template for the fabrication of new materials. By refilling the cast with an achiral nematic liquid crystal, we created templated blue phases that have unprecedented thermal stability in the range-125 to 125°C, and that act as both mirrorless lasers and switchable electro-optic devices. Blue-phase templated materials will facilitate advances in device architectures for photonics applications in particular. © 2012 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.

Implementation of a PI phase angle controller for finite element analysis of the BDFM

Time-stepping finite element analysis of the BDFM for a specific load condition is shown to be a challenging problem because the excitation required cannot be predetermined and the BDFM is not open loops stable for all operating conditions. A simulation approach using feedback control to set the torque and stabilise the BDFM is presented together with implementation details. The performance of the simulation approach is demonstrated with an example and computed results are compared with measurements.

Decomposing signals into a sum of amplitude and frequency modulated sinusoids using probabilistic inference

There are many methods for decomposing signals into a sum of amplitude and frequency modulated sinusoids. In this paper we take a new estimation based approach. Identifying the problem as ill-posed, we show how to regularize the solution by imposing soft constraints on the amplitude and phase variables of the sinusoids. Estimation proceeds using a version of Kalman smoothing. We evaluate the method on synthetic and natural, clean and noisy signals, showing that it outperforms previous decompositions, but at a higher computational cost. © 2012 IEEE.

Wide Area Passive UHF RFID System using Antenna Diversity Combined with Phase and Frequency Hopping

This paper presents a long range and effectively error-free ultra high frequency (UHF) radio frequency identification (RFID) interrogation system. The system is based on a novel technique whereby two or more spatially separated transmit and receive antennas are used to enable greatly enhanced tag detection performance over longer distances using antenna diversity combined with frequency and phase hopping. The novel technique is first theoretically modelled using a Rician fading channel. It is shown that conventional RFID systems suffer from multi-path fading resulting in nulls in radio environments. We, for the first time, demonstrate that the nulls can be moved around by varying the phase and frequency of the interrogation signals in a multi-antenna system. As a result, much enhanced coverage can be achieved. A proof of principle prototype RFID system is built based on an Impinj R2000 transceiver. The demonstrator system shows that the new approach improves the tag detection accuracy from <50% to 100% and the tag backscatter signal strength by 10dB over a 20 m x 9 m area, compared with a conventional switched multi-antenna RFID system.

Reconstruction of arbitrary biochemical reaction networks: A compressive sensing approach

Reconstruction of biochemical reaction networks (BRN) and genetic regulatory networks (GRN) in particular is a central topic in systems biology which raises crucial theoretical challenges in system identification. Nonlinear Ordinary Differential Equations (ODEs) that involve polynomial and rational functions are typically used to model biochemical reaction networks. Such nonlinear models make the problem of determining the connectivity of biochemical networks from time-series experimental data quite difficult. In this paper, we present a network reconstruction algorithm that can deal with ODE model descriptions containing polynomial and rational functions. Rather than identifying the parameters of linear or nonlinear ODEs characterised by pre-defined equation structures, our methodology allows us to determine the nonlinear ODEs structure together with their associated parameters. To solve the network reconstruction problem, we cast it as a compressive sensing (CS) problem and use sparse Bayesian learning (SBL) algorithms as a computationally efficient and robust way to obtain its solution. © 2012 IEEE.

Development of accurate, robust liquid equations of state for multi-phase CFD simulations with a modified AUSM+-up scheme

Eight equations of state (EOS) have been evaluated for the simulation of compressible liquid water properties, based on empirical correlations, the principle of corresponding states and thermodynamic relations. The IAPWS-IF97 EOS for water was employed as the reference case. These EOSs were coupled to a modified AUSM+-up convective flux solver to determine flow profiles for three test cases of differing flow conditions. The impact of the non-viscous interaction term discretisation scheme, interfacial pressure method and selection of low-Mach number diffusion were also compared. It was shown that a consistent discretisation scheme using the AUSM+-up solver for both the convective flux and the non-viscous interfacial term demonstrated both robustness and accuracy whilst facilitating a computationally cheaper solution than discretisation of the interfacial term independently by a central scheme. The simple empirical correlations gave excellent results in comparison to the reference IAPWS-IF97 EOS and were recommended for developmental work involving water as a cheaper and more accurate EOS than the more commonly used stiffened-gas model. The correlations based on the principles of corresponding-states and the modified Peng-Robinson cubic EOS also demonstrated a high degree of accuracy, which is promising for future work with generic fluids. Further work will encompass extension of the solver to multiple dimensions and to account for other source terms such as surface tension, along with the incorporation of phase changes. © 2013.

Plastic limit solution for the response of plate anchors under combined translational and torsional undrained loading

Plate anchors are increasingly being used to moor large floating offshore structures in deep and ultradeep water. These facilities impart substantial vertical uplift loading to plate anchors. However, extreme operating conditions such as hurricane loading often result in partial system failures, with significant change in the orientation of the remaining intact mooring lines. The purpose of this study is to investigate the undrained pure translational (parallel to plate) and torsional bearing capacity of anchor plates idealized as square and rectangular shaped plates. Moreover, the interaction response of plate anchors under combined translational and torsional loading is studied using a modified plastic limit analysis (PLA) approach. The previous PLA formulation which did not account for shear-normal force interaction on the vertical end faces of the plate provides an exact solution to the idealized problem of an infinitely thin plate but only an approximate solution to the problem of a plate of finite thickness. This is also confirmed by the three-dimensional finite element (FE) results, since the PLA values exceed FE results as the thickness of the plate increases. By incorporating the shear-normal interaction relationship in the modified solution, the torsional bearing capacity factors, as well as the plate interaction responses are enhanced as they show satisfactory agreement with the FE results. The interaction relationship is then obtained for square and rectangular plates of different aspect ratios and thicknesses. The new interaction relationships could also be used as an associated plastic failure locus for combined shear and torsional loading to predict plastic displacements and rotations in translational and torsional loading modes as well. Copyright © 2011 by the International Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers (ISOPE).

Initial phase modelling in numerical explosion applied to process safety

The utilisation of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) in process safety has increased significantly in recent years. The modelling of accidental explosion via CFD has in many cases replaced the classical Multi Energy and Brake Strehlow methods. The benefits obtained with CFD modelling can be diminished if proper modelling of the initial phase of explosion is neglected. In the early stages of an explosion, the flame propagates in a quasi-laminar regime. Proper modelling of the initial laminar phase is a key aspect in order to predict the peak pressure and the time to peak pressure. The present work suggests a modelling approach for the initial laminar phase in explosion scenarios. Findings are compared with experimental data for two classical explosion test cases which resemble the common features in chemical process areas (confinement and congestion). A detailed analysis of the threshold for the transition from laminar to turbulent regime is also carried out. The modelling is implemented in a fully 3D Navier-Stokes compressible formulation. Combustion is treated using a laminar flamelet approach based on the Bray, Moss and Libby (BML) formulation. A novel modified porosity approach developed for the unstructured solver is also considered. Results agree satisfactorily with experiments and the modelling is found to be robust. © 2013 The Institution of Chemical Engineers.

Matching an oscillator model to a phase response curve

The Phase Response Curve (PRC) has proven a useful tool for the reduction of complex oscillator models. It is also an information often experimentally available to the biologist. This paper introduces a numerical tool based on the sensitivity analysis of the PRC to adapt initial model parameters in order to match a particular PRC shape. We illustrate the approach on a simple biochemical model of circadian oscillator. © 2011 IEEE.