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Full-Text Articles in Mechanical Engineering

Estimation Of Gait Kinematics And Kinetics From Inertial Sensor Data Using Optimal Control Of Musculoskeletal Models, Eva Dorschky, Marlies Nitschke, Ann-Kristin Seifer, Antonie J. Van Den Bogert, Bjoern M. Eskofier Oct 2019

Estimation Of Gait Kinematics And Kinetics From Inertial Sensor Data Using Optimal Control Of Musculoskeletal Models, Eva Dorschky, Marlies Nitschke, Ann-Kristin Seifer, Antonie J. Van Den Bogert, Bjoern M. Eskofier

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

Inertial sensing enables field studies of human movement and ambulant assessment of patients. However, the challenge is to obtain a comprehensive analysis from low-quality data and sparse measurements. In this paper, we present a method to estimate gait kinematics and kinetics directly from raw inertial sensor data performing a single dynamic optimization. We formulated an optimal control problem to track accelerometer and gyroscope data with a planar musculoskeletal model. In addition, we minimized muscular effort to ensure a unique solution and to prevent the model from tracking noisy measurements too closely. For evaluation, we recorded data of ten subjects walking …


Development Of A Sonically Powered Biodegradable Nanogenerator For Bone Regeneration, Avi S. Patel May 2019

Development Of A Sonically Powered Biodegradable Nanogenerator For Bone Regeneration, Avi S. Patel

University Scholar Projects

Background: Reconstruction of bone fractures and defects remains a big challenge in orthopedic surgery. While regenerative engineering has advanced the field greatly using a combination of biomaterial scaffolds and stem cells, one matter of difficulty is inducing osteogenesis in these cells. Recent works have shown electricity’s ability to promote osteogenesis in stem cell lines when seeded in bone scaffolds; however, typical electrical stimulators are either (a) externally housed and require overcomplex percutaneous wires be connected to the implanted scaffold or (b) implanted non-degradable devices which contain toxic batteries and require invasive removal surgeries.

Objective: Here, we establish a biodegradable, piezoelectric …


Development Of A Sonically Powered Biodegradable Nanogenerator For Bone Regeneration, Avi Patel May 2019

Development Of A Sonically Powered Biodegradable Nanogenerator For Bone Regeneration, Avi Patel

Honors Scholar Theses

Background: Reconstruction of bone fractures and defects remains a big challenge in orthopedic surgery. While regenerative engineering has advanced the field greatly using a combination of biomaterial scaffolds and stem cells, one matter of difficulty is inducing osteogenesis in these cells. Recent works have shown electricity’s ability to promote osteogenesis in stem cell lines when seeded in bone scaffolds; however, typical electrical stimulators are either (a) externally housed and require overcomplex percutaneous wires be connected to the implanted scaffold or (b) implanted non-degradable devices which contain toxic batteries and require invasive removal surgeries.

Objective: Here, we establish a biodegradable, piezoelectric …


The Influence Of Asphalt Ageing On Induction Healing Effect On Porous Asphalt Concrete, Shi Xu, Xueyan Liu, Amir Tabakovic, Erik Schlangen Feb 2019

The Influence Of Asphalt Ageing On Induction Healing Effect On Porous Asphalt Concrete, Shi Xu, Xueyan Liu, Amir Tabakovic, Erik Schlangen

Articles

Induction healing is a proven technology which is able to improve the self‐healing capacity of asphalt concrete. Healing is achieved via electromagnetic current produced by passing induction machine, where steel asphalt constituents heat up which in turn soften the bitumen in the asphalt layer, allowing it to flow and close cracks, repairing the damage. This paper reports on the study which investigated the influence of ageing on the healing capacity of Porous Asphalt (PA) concrete. Porous Asphalt concrete mix was prepared first, then subjected to an accelerated (laboratory) ageing process using a ventilated oven. In order to further evaluate the …


Design And Analysis Of Novel Actuation Mechanism With Controllable Stiffness, Erivelton Gualter Dos Santos, Hanz Richter Feb 2019

Design And Analysis Of Novel Actuation Mechanism With Controllable Stiffness, Erivelton Gualter Dos Santos, Hanz Richter

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

Actuators intended for human–machine interaction systems are usually designed to be mechanically compliant. Conventional actuators are not suitable for this purpose due to typically high stiffness. Advanced powered prosthetic and orthotic devices can vary their stiffness during a motion cycle and are power-efficient. This paper proposes a novel actuator design that modulates stiffness by means of a flexible beam. A motorized drive system varies the active length of the cantilever beam, thus achieving stiffness modulation. New large deflection formulation for cantilever beams with rolling contact constraints is used to determine the moment produced by the actuator. To validate the proposed …


Analyzing Moment Arm Profiles In A Full-Muscle Rat Hindlimb Model, Fletcher Young, Christian Rode, Alexander Hunt, Roger Quinn Jan 2019

Analyzing Moment Arm Profiles In A Full-Muscle Rat Hindlimb Model, Fletcher Young, Christian Rode, Alexander Hunt, Roger Quinn

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Understanding the kinematics of a hindlimb model is a fundamental aspect of modeling coordinated locomotion. This work describes the development process of a rat hindlimb model that contains a complete muscular system and incorporates physiological walking data to examine realistic muscle movements during a step cycle. Moment arm profiles for selected muscles are analyzed and presented as the first steps to calculating torque generation at hindlimb joints. A technique for calculating muscle moment arms from muscle attachment points in a three-dimensional (3D) space has been established. This model accounts for the configuration of adjacent joints, a critical aspect of biarticular …


Multiphase Cfd Modelling And Piv Validation Of A Uasb Reactor, Camila D' Bastiani, Jéferson Luis Alba, Gabriel Tomazzoni Mazzarotto, Severino Rodrigues De Farias Neto, Lademir Luiz Beal, Anthony Reynolds, David Kennedy Jan 2019

Multiphase Cfd Modelling And Piv Validation Of A Uasb Reactor, Camila D' Bastiani, Jéferson Luis Alba, Gabriel Tomazzoni Mazzarotto, Severino Rodrigues De Farias Neto, Lademir Luiz Beal, Anthony Reynolds, David Kennedy

Conference Papers

Upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactors stand out as a feasible option for treating wastewaters while generating a valuable amount of biogas. It is known that the efficiency of UASB reactors is closely linked to its hydrodynamics. Therefore, understanding the role of each phase (solids, liquid and gas) in the mixing conditions inside the reactor and having validated numerical models for predicting the flow behavior has become fundamental for the design and optimization of UASB reactors. In this context this work aims to develop and validate a three phase Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model of an UASB reactor. Eulerian-Eulerian laminar …


Metabolic Cost Calculations Of Gait Using Musculoskeletal Energy Models, A Comparison Study, Anne D. Koelewijn, Dieter Heinrich, Antonie J. Van Den Bogert Jan 2019

Metabolic Cost Calculations Of Gait Using Musculoskeletal Energy Models, A Comparison Study, Anne D. Koelewijn, Dieter Heinrich, Antonie J. Van Den Bogert

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

This paper compares predictions of metabolic energy expenditure in gait using seven metabolic energy expenditure models to assess their correlation with experimental data. Ground reaction forces, marker data, and pulmonary gas exchange data were recorded for six walking trials at combinations of two speeds, 0.8 m/s and 1.3 m/s, and three inclines, -8% (downhill), level, and 8% (uphill). The metabolic cost, calculated with the metabolic energy models was compared to the metabolic cost from the pulmonary gas exchange rates. A repeated measures correlation showed that all models correlated well with experimental data, with correlations of at least 0.9. The model …


State Estimation For An Agonistic‐Antagonistic Muscle System, Thang Tien Nguyen, Holly Warner, Hung La, Hanieh Mohammadi, Daniel J. Simon, Hanz Richter Jan 2019

State Estimation For An Agonistic‐Antagonistic Muscle System, Thang Tien Nguyen, Holly Warner, Hung La, Hanieh Mohammadi, Daniel J. Simon, Hanz Richter

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Research on assistive technology, rehabilitation, and prosthetics requires the understanding of human machine interaction, in which human muscular properties play a pivotal role. This paper studies a nonlinear agonistic‐antagonistic muscle system based on the Hill muscle model. To investigate the characteristics of the muscle model, the problem of estimating the state variables and activation signals of the dual muscle system is considered. In this work, parameter uncertainty and unknown inputs are taken into account for the estimation problem. Three observers are presented: a high gain observer, a sliding mode observer, and an adaptive sliding mode observer. Theoretical analysis shows the …