The motion of a sphere normal to a wall is investigated. The normal stress at the surface of the sphere is calculated and the viscoelastic effects on the normal stress for different separation distances are analysed. For small separation distances, when the particle is moving away from the wall, a tensile normal stress exists at the trailing edge if the fluid is Newtonian, while for a second-or...

Cases of fractured mobile unicompartmental knee bearings have recently been reported. The purpose of this study was to understand the mechanics behind these fractures and to examine the influence of different design modifications. A parametric finite element model was used to examine the influence of different geometrical factors on the stresses within the bearing. Crack initiation occurred cli...

Considering the fact that rocks fail faster under tensile stress, rock tensile strength is of greatimportance in applications such as blasting, rock fragmentation, slope stability, hydraulic fracturing,caprock integrity, and geothermal energy extraction. There are two direct and indirect methods tomeasure tensile strength. Since direct methods always encompass difficulties in test setup, indire...

Rotating a joint stretches the soft tissues on one side of the joint and relaxes them on the other side. All the soft tissues around joints contain mechanoreceptor neurons that are activated by stretch. Thus stretch responses of mechanoreceptors potentially contain information about joint displacements or movements, and are therefore of interest in studies of motor control. In this presentation...

Cell geometry has long been proposed to play a key role in the orientation of symmetric cell division planes. In particular, the recently proposed Besson-Dumais rule generalizes Errera's rule and predicts that cells divide along one of the local minima of plane area. However, this rule has been tested only on tissues with rather local spherical shape and homogeneous growth. Here, we tested the ...

We describe several segmented lineaments on Europa’s surface. These lineaments are extensive, stretching for 100s–1000s of km, and have ridge complex or bright band morphologies. The geometries of the segmented portions of these features are diagnostic of the remote normal and shear stress environment in which they formed and, therefore, constrain ridge complex and bright band formation mechani...

The uniaxial thermomechanical behavior of a polycrystalline Fe-9%Cr-5%Ni-14%Mn-6%Si (all wt.%) shape memory alloy is investigated for both tensile and compressive stress states. The martensite start stresses measured upon tension and compression loading of austenite depend linearly on temperature, thus forming straight lines in the stress-temperature regime. The lines belonging to tension and c...

In the present study, plate-impact experiments are employed to better understand the stress threshold for inelasticity in Westerly granite. The experiments are designed to obtain the Hugoniot Elastic Limit (HEL) as well as spall strength following shock-induced compression in the Westerly granite samples. The HEL for Westerly granite is estimated to be in the range 3.2 to 3.5 GPa, while the spa...