This paper addresses the problem of obtaining models of nonlinear mechanisms for use in virtual prototyping systems. The objective of the described modeling procedure is to more accurately represent the feel of complex mechanisms in force feedback applications. The model structure selected for this study is a 2-order impedance model, with mass, damping, stiffness, and coulomb friction that vary...

The author presents an interesting method to forecast nonlinear kinematic flood waves (Serrano, 2006). As a first remark, the discussers would like to stress the fact that the proposed method is an approximate solution and not an analytical solution, as suggested by the title of the paper. Indeed, an analytical expression is given by the backwards characteristics methods, as in Eq. (6) of the p...

This paper presents a nonlinear kinematic tolerance analysis algorithm for planar mechanical systems comprised of higher kinematic pairs. The pan profiles consist of line and circle segments. Each part translates along a planar axis or rotates around an orthogonal axis. The part shapes and motion axes are parameterized by a vector of tolerance parameters with range limits. A system is analyzed ...

The self-excitation of magnetic field by a spiral Couette flow between two coaxial cylinders is considered. We solve numerically the fully nonlinear, three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) equations for magnetic Prandtl numbers P(m) (ratio of kinematic viscosity to magnetic diffusivity) between 0.14 and 10 and kinematic and magnetic Reynolds numbers up to about 2000. In the initial stage o...

The rigorous derivation of lower dimensional models for thin structures is a question of great interest in mechanics and its applications. In the early 90’s a rigorous approach to dimension reduction has emerged in the stationary framework and in the context of nonlinear elasticity. This approach is based on Γ-convergence and, starting from the seminal paper [3, 4], has led to establish a hiera...

This paper presents an on-line nonlinear trajectory tracking control algorithm for differential wheeled mobile robot using optimal back-stepping technique based particle swarm optimization while following a pre-defined continuous path. The aim of the proposed feedback nonlinear kinematic controller is to find the optimal velocity control action for the real mobile robot. The particle swarm opti...