Bøger i CISM International Centre for Mechanical Sciences serien

This book, based on the Fourth International Conference on Advanced Manufacturing Systems and Technology - AMST '96 aims at presenting trend and up-to-date information on the latest developments - research results and industrial experience in the field of machining processes, optimization and process planning, forming, flexible machining systems, non conventional machining, robotics and control, measuring and quality, thus providing an international forum for a beneficial exchange of ideas, and furthering a favourable cooperation between research and industry.

The quest for more reliable, more environment-friendly, more fuel-efficient, and more affordable products in an extremely competitive market appear as the driving forces behind the need for an integrated approach to mechanical design, analysis, and control. In this context, aircraft is being designed currently with novel electromechanical systems for the steering of its control surfaces - ailerons, rudders, and the like - while terrestrial vehicles are nowadays designed with active suspensions, to name but a few of the plethora of mechanical systems whereby an integration of disciplines is unavoidable. This book is intended to fill the gap among kinematics, dynamics, and control, as pertaining to complex mechanical systems, with the aim to ease the task of the design and control engineers as well as to assist the researchers in related disciplines in the analysis and synthesis of novel mechanical systems.

This volume is a special Issue on "e;Dynamical Systems, Wave based computation and neuro inspired robots'^ based on a Course carried out at the CISM in Udine (Italy), the last week of September, 2003. From the topics treated within that Course, several new ideas were f- mulated, which led to a new kind of approach to locomotion and p- ception, grounded both on biologically inspired issues and on nonlinear dynamics. The Course was characterised by a high degree of multi disciplinarity. In fact, in order to conceive, design and build neuro inspired machines, it is necessary to deeply scan into different d- ciplines, including neuroscience. Artificial Intelligence, Biorobotics, Dynamical Systems theory and Electronics. New types of moving machines should be more closely related to the biological rules, not discarding the real implementation issues. The recipe has to include neurobiological paradigms as well as behavioral aspects from the one hand, new circuit paradigms, able of real time control of multi joint robots on the other hand. These new circuit paradigms are based on the theory of complex nonlinear dynamical systems, where aggregates of simple non linear units into ensembles of lattices, have the pr- erty that the solution set is much richer than that one shown by the single units. As a consequence, new solutions ^'emerge'\ which are often characterized by order and harmony.

This book reviews the most common state-of-the art methods for substructuring and model reduction and presents a framework that encompasses most method, highlighting their similarities and differences.

This book gathers contributions on analytical, numerical, and application aspects of time-delay systems, under the paradigm of control theory, and discusses recent advances in these different contexts, also highlighting the interdisciplinary connections. The book will serve as a useful tool for graduate students and researchers in the fields of dynamical systems, automatic control, numerical methods, and functional analysis.

The book introduces advanced theories for deformation, damage, and failure in materials. The overall continuum mechanical framework was marked out and added by creep and damage mechanics of materials at elevated temperatures. The time-dependent and time-independent models of cyclic plasticity for low cycle and thermomechanical fatigue life assessment were specified in a very special manner: instead of three-dimensional statements, only one-dimensional rheological models were discussed. Anisotropic plasticity during non-proportional loading and anisotropy of yield/failure criteria is more and more important in modern applications. It is showing how the limit states of materials can be estimated. In addition, the damage and failure of composite materials demonstrate the possibility to extend continuum mechanics to continuum damage mechanics of composite materials.

The book provides basic and recent research insights concerning the small scale modeling and simulation of turbulent multi-phase flows. By small scale, it has to be understood that the grid size for the simulation is smaller than most of the physical time and space scales of the problem. Small scale modeling of multi-phase flows is a very popular topic since the capabilities of massively parallel computers allows to go deeper into the comprehension and characterization of realistic flow configurations and at the same time, many environmental and industrial applications are concerned such as nuclear industry, material processing, chemical reactors, engine design, ocean dynamics, pollution and erosion in rivers or on beaches. The work proposes a complete and exhaustive presentation of models and numerical methods devoted to small scale simulation of incompressible turbulent multi-phase flows from specialists of the research community. Attention has also been paid to promote illustrations and applications, multi-phase flows and collaborations with industry. The idea is also to bring together developers and users of different numerical approaches and codes to share their experience in the development and validation of the algorithms and discuss the difficulties and limitations of the different methods and their pros and cons. The focus will be mainly on fixed-grid methods, however adaptive grids will be also partly broached, with the aim to compare and validate the different approaches and models.

The volume provides a comprehensive understanding of the macroscopic failure behavior of solids from the description of the microscopic failure processes and their coupling with the microstructure. Several fundamental questions were addressed: the relation between the microstructural features of materials and their fracture properties and crack trajectories; the role of damage mechanisms and non-linear deformations near the crack tip on the failure behavior of solids; and finally the role of dynamic inertial effects during fast fracture was more briefly evoked. The chapters provide a pedagogical overview of recently developed concepts and tools, that permit to perform the transition from small scales to large ones in fracture problems, thus introducing basic rules for the rational design of tough solids.