• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.217-233
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• 2005

Elastic and electromagnetic waves can be used to gather important information about particulate materials. To facilitate smart geophysical characterization of particulate materials, their fundamental properties are discussed and experimental procedures are presented for both elastic and electromagnetic waves. The first application is related to the characterization of particulate materials using shear waves, concentrating on changes in effective stress during consolidation, multi-phase phenomena with relation to capillarity, and microscale characteristics of particles. The second application involves electromagnetic waves, focusing on stratigraphy detection in layered soils, estimation of void ratio and its spatial distribution, and conduction in unsaturated soils. Experimental results suggest that shear waves allow studying particle contact phenomena and the evolution of interparticle forces, while electromagnetic waves give insight into the characteristics of the fluid phase and its spatial distribution.

• Journal of Drive and Control
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.47-52
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• 2022

The C-ITS (Cooperative-intelligent Transport System) is a driver assistance system that prevents car accidents and enhances traffic conditions, via sharing traffic information between vehicles and roadway infrastructures. A CLAS (changing lane assistance system) for unprotected left-turn, is a C-ITS that assists a driver with safely changing lanes. This system addresses a driver's critical gap, that enables the system to express a driver's uncertainty. A driver's critical gap is a time that can be used in a threshold, to change a lane or not. Unfortunately, a driver's critical gap is difficult to use in a CLAS directly. This paper addresses a driver's critical gap, and how it can be applied in a CLAS for an unprotected left-turn.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.184-189
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• 2010

In this paper, tactile response characteristics in medical haptic interface are investigated to characterize the feeling of contact between the finger skin and the organic tissue when a finger is dragged over tissue. In order to represent the tactile feeling, a prototype tactile display incorporating Magneto-Rheological (MR) fluid has been developed. Tactile display devices simulate the finger's skin to feel the sensations of contact such as compliance, curvature and friction. Thus, the tactile display provides the surface information of organic tissue to the surgeon using different actuating mechanisms ranging from the conventional mechanical motor to the smart material actuators. In order to investigate the compliance feeling of human finger's touch, vertical force responses of the tactile display under the various magnetic fields have been assessed. Also, frictional resistive force responses of the tactile display are investigated to simulate the action of finger's dragging. From the results, different tactile feelings are observed as the applied magnetic field is varied and arrayed magnetic poles combinations. This research gives a smart technology of tactile displaying.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.141-147
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• 2019

This research focuses on developing the Smart material with Grease adopted as a base oil to overcome a particle deposition caused by the MR fluid consisting of a silicon, which maximizing the characteristics and advantage of the MR fluid. By adopting the SMG fluid to a shear damper, this paper aimed to evaluate the control performance of it according to the variation of intensity of electric current(0 A, 0.5 A, 1.0 A, 1.5 A, 2.0 A, 2.5 A) and frequency(0.5 Hz, 1 Hz, 2 Hz). Subsequently, the usability of the SMG damper was analyzed by comparing the dynamic model of it to that of the other types of dampers(Power(Involution) Model, Bingham Model). As a result, DR, the performance indicator of semi-active damper, shows approximately 5 in a condition of 2 Hz. Also while confirming the excellent performance like the Power and the Bingham model, it raises the possibility to exploit it as the semi-active damper.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.51-62
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• 2024

Application of biopolymers to improve the mechanical properties of soils has been extensively reported. However, a comprehensive understanding of various engineering applications is necessary to enhance their effectiveness. While numerous experimental studies have investigated the use of biopolymers as injection materials, a detailed understanding of their injection behavior in soil through numerical analyses is lacking. This study aimed to address this gap by employing pore network modeling techniques to analyze the injection characteristics of biopolymer solutions in soil. A pore network was constructed from computed tomography images of Ottawa 20-30 sand. Fluid flow simulations incorporated power-law parameters and governing equations to account for the viscosity characteristics of biopolymers. Agar gum was selected as the biopolymer for analysis, and its injection characteristics were evaluated in terms of concentration and pore-size distribution. Results indicate that the viscosity properties of biopolymer solutions significantly influence the injection characteristics, particularly concerning concentration and injection pressure. Furthermore, notable trends in injection characteristics were observed based on pore size and distribution. Importantly, in contrast to previous studies, meaningful correlations were established between the viscosity of the injected fluid, injection pressure, and injection distance. Thus, this study introduces a novel methodology for integrating pore network construction and fluid flow characteristics into biopolymer injections, with potential applications in optimizing field injections such as permeation grouting.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.8
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• pp.3450-3462
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• 2024

This paper presents a computational framework for drop time assessment of a control element assembly (CEA) under fuel assembly (FA) deformations. The proposed framework consists of three key components: 1) finite element modeling of CEA, 2) fluid-structure interaction to compute drag force, and 3) modeling of frictional contact between CEA and FA. Specially, to accommodate the large motion of CEA, beam elements based on absolute nodal coordinate formulation (ANCF) are adopted. The continuity equation is utilized to calculate the drag force, considering flow changes in the cross-sectional area during the CEA drop. Lastly, beam-inside-beam frictional contact model is employed to capture practical contact conditions between CEA and FA. The proposed framework is validated through experiments under two scenarios: free falls of CEA within FA, encompassing undeformed and deformed scenarios. The experimental validation of the framework demonstrated that the drop time of CEA can be accurately predicted under the complex coupling effects of fluid and frictional contact. The drop times of the S-shaped deformation case is longer than those of the C-shaped deformation case, affirming the time delay due to frictional force. The validation confirms the potential applicability to access the safety and reliability of nuclear power plants under extreme conditions.

• Journal of Drive and Control
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.9-14
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• 2020

A special purpose machine with two manipulators and quadruped crawler system is being developed to work at disaster sites where it is intended to quickly respond in the initial stages after the event. In this study, a terrain recognition module is developed so that the above special purpose machine can quickly obtain ground information to help choose its path while recognizing objects in its way, this is intended to enhance the remote driver's limited situational awareness. Terrain recognition modules were developed for two tasks (real-time path guidance, precision terrain measurements). The real-time path guidance analyzes terrain and obstacles while moving, while the precision terrain measurement feature provides more accurate terrain information by precisely measuring the ground in front of the vehicle while stationary. In this study, an air-cooled sensor protection module was developed so that the terrain recognition module can continue its vital tasks in the event of exposure to foreign substances, including scattered dust, mist and rainfall, as well as high temperatures.

• Journal of Drive and Control
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.1-8
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• 2020

Recently, a special purpose machine with two manipulators and quadruped crawler system has been developed for rapid life-saving and initial restoration work at disaster sites. This special purpose machine provides the driver with various environmental recognition functions for accurate and rapid task determination. In particular, the human detection technology assists the driver in poor working conditions such as low-light, dust, water vapor, fog, rain, etc. to prevent secondary human accidents when moving and working. In this study, a human detection module is developed to be mounted on a special purpose machine. A thermal sensor and CCD camera were used to detect victims and nearby workers in response to the difficult environmental conditions present at disaster sites. The performance of various AI-based life detection algorithm were verified and then applied to the task of detecting various objects with different postures and exposure conditions. In addition, image visibility improvement technology was applied to further improve the accuracy of human detection.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.1 no.3
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• pp.235-256
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• 2005

The non-linear behaviour of electrorheological (ER) and magnetorheological (MR) dampers makes it difficult to design effective control strategies, and as a consequence a wide range of control systems have been proposed in the literature. These previous studies have not always compared the performance to equivalent passive systems, alternative control designs, or idealised active systems. As a result it is often impossible to compare the performance of different smart damper control strategies. This article provides some insight into the relative performance of two MR damper control strategies: on/off control and feedback linearisation. The performance of both strategies is benchmarked against ideal passive, semi-active and fully active damping. The study relies upon a previously developed model of an MR damper, which in this work is validated experimentally under closed-loop conditions with a broadband mechanical excitation. Two vibration isolation case studies are investigated: a single-degree-of-freedom mass-isolator, and a two-degree-of-freedom system that represents a vehicle suspension system. In both cases, a variety of broadband mechanical excitations are used and the results analysed in the frequency domain. It is shown that although on/off control is more straightforward to implement, its performance is worse than the feedback linearisation strategy, and can be extremely sensitive to the excitation conditions.

• Journal of Drive and Control
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.43-48
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• 2016

This paper presents a preliminary study on the pressure sensing characteristics of smart nano composites made of MWCNT (multi-walled carbon nanotube) to develop a novel pressure sensor. We fabricated the composite pressure sensor by using a solution casting process. Made of carbon smart nano composites, the sensor works by means of piezoresistivity under pressure. We built a signal processing system similar to a conventional strain gage system. The sensor voltage outputs during the experiment for the pressure sensor and the resistance changes of the MWCNT as well as the epoxy based on the smart nano composite under static pressure were fairly stable and showed quite consistent responses under lab level tests. We confirmed that the response time characteristics of MWCNT nano composites with epoxy were faster than the MWCNT/EPDM sensor under static loads.