This paper investigates the vibration isolation performance of isolated box structures. Isolated box inside building is a one of the building isolation designs. Some experimental methods are developed to analyze the effects of bending mode of the box structure on vibration isolation efficiency. The vibration reduction performance of an isolated box inside building is found to be degraded by ben...

In order to identify physical model parameters of a high-rise building, a new story stiffness identification method is presented based on a shear-bending model and the identification function. Although a shear building model may be the simplest conventional model for representing tall buildings, the system identification (SI) method using that model is not necessarily appropriate. This is becau...

We report a novel rotary piezoelectric motor using bending transducers in this work. Three transducers are used to drive a disk-shaped rotor together by the elliptical movements of their driving tips; these motions are produced by the hybrid of two first bending vibration modes. The proposed piezoelectric transducer has a simple structure as it only contains an aluminum alloy beam and four piec...

We propose a new type of input for mobile devices by sensing forces such as twisting and bending applied by users. Deformation of the devices is not necessary for such “force gestures” to be detectable. Our prototype implementation augments an ultra-mobile PC (UMPC) to detect twisting and bending forces. We detail example interactions using these forces, employing twisting to perform applicatio...

In this paper the choice between bending magnets and insertion devices as sample illuminators for a hard X-ray full-field microscope is investigated. An optimized bending-magnet beamline design is presented. Its imaging speed is very competitive with the performance of similar microscopes installed currently at insertion-device beamlines. The fact that imaging X-ray microscopes can accept a lar...

This article presents a soft pneumatic bending actuator using a magnetically assisted bilayer composite composed of silicone polymer and ferromagnetic particles. Bilayer composites were fabricated by mixing ferromagnetic particles to a prepolymer state of silicone in a mold and asymmetrically distributed them by applying a strong non-uniform magnetic field to one side of the mold during the cur...

The caudal fins of adult zebrafish are supported by multiple bony rays that are laterally interconnected by soft interray tissue. Little is known about the fin's mechanical properties that influence bending in response to hydrodynamic forces during swimming. Here, we developed an experimental setup to measure the elastic properties of caudal fins in vivo by applying micro-Newton forces to obtai...

Low-temperature cracking is one of the most common road pavement distress types in Poland. While bitumen performance can be evaluated in detail using bending beam rheometer (BBR) or dynamic shear rheometer (DSR) tests, none of the normalized test methods gives a comprehensive representation of low-temperature performance of the asphalt mixtures. This article presents the Bending Beam Creep test...