During evolution, plants evolved various reactions to wounding. Fast wound sealing and subsequent healing represent a selective advantage of particular importance for plants growing in arid habitats. An effective self-sealing function by internal deformation has been found in the succulent leaves of Delosperma cooperi. After a transversal incision, the entire leaf bends until the wound is close...

The archwire bending is one of processes the most frequently used in the orthodontic treatment. Furthermore, the springback of sheet metal, which is defined as elastic recovery of the part during unloading, should be taken into consideration so as to produce formed archwire within acceptable tolerance limits. In this paper, the springback angle of different alloy archwires (including NiTi alloy...

Dielectric elastomer actuator (DEA) micro- and nano-structures are referred to artificial muscles because of their specific continuous power and adequate time response. The bending measurement of an asymmetric, planar DEA is described. The asymmetric cantilevers consist of 1 or 5 μm-thin DEAs deposited on polyethylene naphthalate (PEN) substrates 16, 25, 38, or 50 μm thick. The application of a...

Nomenclature L y spanwise coordinate q net beam loading S shear M bending moment θ deflection angle (= dw/dx) w deflection κ local beam curvature ′ lift/span distribution ′ S η normalized spanwise coordinate (= 2y/b) c local wing chord wing wing area b wing span λ taper ratio E Young's modulus δ tip deflection N load factor m wing mass/span distribution I bending inertia i spanwise station inde...

The ‘statistically optimal’ approach to smoothing bending angles derived from radio occultation (RO) measurements is outlined. This combines a measured bending angle profile with an a priori or background estimate derived from climatology, in order to obtain the most probable bending angle profile. However, the method is only optimal if the error statistics of both the measured and background p...

UV resonance Raman studies of peptide and protein secondary structure demonstrate an extraordinary sensitivity of the amide III (Am III) vibration and the C(alpha)H bending vibration to the amide backbone conformation. We demonstrate that this sensitivity results from a Ramachandran dihedral psi angle dependent coupling of the amide N-H motion to (C)C(alpha)H motion, which results in a psi depe...

Strand length, free-fall distance (FFD), and plate spacing was varied to control the strand alignment distribution of strandboard. To determine the strand angle distribution, photographs of strands were recorded as digital image data, and strand angle analysis was conducted using a modified von Mises distribution function. A part of this measurement was used as a reference for the alignment in ...

Because offshore wind turbines are high-rise structures, they transfer large horizontal loads and moments to their foundations. One of the keys to designing a foundation is determining the sensitivities and laws affecting its load-bearing capacity. In this study, this procedure was carried out for a new high-rise cap pile group foundation adapted to the loading characteristics of offshore wind ...

In the segmented axial musculature of fishes and amphibians, the patterns of muscle fiber shortening depend on both the orientation of muscle fibers relative to the long axis of the body as well as the distance of fibers from the neutral axis of bending (vertebral column). In this study we use the relatively simple architecture of salamander hypaxial muscles to explore the separate and combined...

A system identification problem is investigated for high-rise buildings to identify the story stiffnesses of a shear-bending model (SB model). In the previously proposed stiffness identification method due to the present authors, the shear and bending stiffnesses of the SB model were identified by means of the subspace and inverse-mode methods. The lowest mode of horizontal displacements and fl...