One of the main components of pavement management system (PMS) is pavement evaluation. Several indices have been defined for the evaluation of existing pavement. The Pavement Condition Index (PCI) is a common index used for pavement evaluation. In order to calculate PCI, a significant volume of condition data -based on distress surveying- is required. The objective of this research is to reduce...

in the last decade, decrease of the wear rate, increase in the axel load, and the velocity of the trains have changed the main damage mechanism of railway wheels from wear to rolling contact fatigue (rcf). rcf may lead to surface and subsurface cracks. the interaction between wear and rcf, removes the surface cracks, but the subsurface crack propagate gradually, and may lead to deeper and more ...

Wheel-running and other non-photic stimuli influence the rest-activity pattern of diurnal and nocturnal mammals. A day to night inversion of phase preference of activity was described among Octodon degus, when exposed to ad-libitum wheel running. We have studied the rest-activity pattern response in presence of ad libitum wheel-running in wild-captured male individuals from two species of genus...

This paper discusses the development of an optimal wheel torque controller for a compliant modular robot. The wheel actuators are the only actively controllable elements in this robot. For this type of robots, wheel-slip could offer a lot of hindrance while traversing on uneven terrains. Therefore, an effective wheel-torque controller is desired that will also improve the wheel-odometry and min...

Strength training has become an accepted method of conditioning in children. However, there is concern among some observers that maximal strength testing may be inappropriate or potentially injurious to children. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the safety and efficacy of 1 repetition maximum (1RM) strength testing in healthy children. Thirty-two girls and 64 boys between 6.2 and 12.3 ...

In this paper, a novel omnidirectional vehicle with anisotropic friction wheels is presented. The proposed wheel has a series of bendable “nodes” on its circumference, each of which is made of two materials with differing friction properties: one material exhibits high friction, and the other exhibits low friction. The high friction section of the node generates a high traction force, while the...

Direct Yaw moment Control systems (DYC) can maintain the vehicle in the driver’s desired path by distributing the asymmetric longitudinal forces and the generation of the Control Yaw Moment (CYM). In order to achieve the superior control performance, intelligent usage of lateral forces is also required. The lateral wheel forces have an indirect effect on the CYM and based upon their directio...