Modeling and Stabilization for Mechanical Systems by Sameer Madhav Jalnapurkar Doctor of Philosophy in Mathematics University of California, Berkeley Professor Jerrold E. Marsden, Chair The main themes of this thesis are modeling and stabilization for mechanical systems. We begin by reviewing how models for mechanical systems can be derived from rst principles, such as Newton's second Law, or b...

Cemented backfill is one of geomaterials which is used at a high volume to serve a variety of geo-infrastructure systems, e.g., embankments, retaining walls and approach abutments, and involves the solidification of soil or similar fine aggregate through the addition of a controlled amount of cementitious materials, such as Portland cement, fly ash or lime. A certain volume of expanded polystyr...

This work deals with modeling and tracking of mechanical systems which are given as kinematic chains with restricted degrees of freedom. Such systems may involve many joints, but due to additional restrictions or mechanical properties the joints depend on each other. So-called closed-chain or parallel manipulators are examples for kinematic chains with additional constraints. Though the degrees...

Quantization in the inversion layer and phase coherent transport are anticipated to have significant impact on device performance in ‘‘ballistic’’ nanoscale transistors. While the role of some quantum effects have been analyzed qualitatively using simple one-dimensional ballistic models, two-dimensional ~2D! quantum mechanical simulation is important for quantitative results. In this paper, we ...

In this paper, a methodology is proposed for expediting the coupled electro-mechanical finite element modeling of electrostatically actuated MEMS. The proposed methodology eliminates the need for repeated finite element meshing and subsequent electrostatic modeling of the device during mechanical deformation. We achieve this by using an approximation of the charge density on the movable electro...

The goal of this chapter is to provide tools for analyzing and controlling nonholonomic mechanical systems. This classical subject has received renewed attention because nonholonomic constraints arise in many advanced robotic structures, such as mobile robots, space manipulators, and multifingered robot hands. Nonholonomic behavior in robotic systems is particularly interesting, because it impl...

These lecture notes address materials and structures issues associated with the MIT Microfabricated gas turbine engine. An overview of the project and the performance goals is provided. These are translated into requirements for the materials and structural design. Particular emphasis is provided on the approaches taken to designing with brittle materials at low temperatures and designing with ...

The objective of this lecture is to review the basic building blocks of lumped parameter rotational mechanical systems and to build the foundations that will enable you to model more complex dynamic systems consisting of translation and rotational elements. Corresponding to the translational elements mass, spring and damper, are the rotational inertia, rotational spring and rotational damper, r...

Statistical-mechanical modeling of digital halftoning is proposed. The digital halftoning dealt with here is achieved by making use of the threshold mask, and for each pixel, the halftoned pixel is determined as black (set to one) if the original grayscale pixel is greater than or equal to the mask value and is determined as white (set to zero) vice versa. Basically, our method is a kind of the...