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Full-Text Articles in Mechanical Engineering

The Effects Of Surface Pace In Baseball, Jason Farlow May 2018

The Effects Of Surface Pace In Baseball, Jason Farlow

Senior Theses

A baseball travels across different surfaces at different paces. The goal of this experiment is to find a percentage difference in speeds the ball will reflect off a given surface. The energy lost on the turf surface was far more significant than on dirt surface as the turf lost an average of 26% of its energy as compared to just 16% of the energy on dirt. In the Northwest conference, teams play on four turf-based infields and five dirt-based infields. The results of this study suggest that kinetic friction forces are more significant in reducing ball rebound speed than in …


Static Friction And Surface Roughness Studies Of Surface Micromachined Electrostatic Micromotors Using An Atomic Force/Friction Force Microscope, Sriram Sundararajan, Bharat Bhushan Jan 2001

Static Friction And Surface Roughness Studies Of Surface Micromachined Electrostatic Micromotors Using An Atomic Force/Friction Force Microscope, Sriram Sundararajan, Bharat Bhushan

Sriram Sundararajan

A technique to measure the static friction forces (stiction) encountered in surface micromachined micromotors using a commercial atomic force microscope (AFM)/friction force microscope has been developed and is described. An AFM tip is pushed against a rotor arm of the micromotor so as to generate lateral deflection (torsion) of the tip, which is measured by the AFM. The maximum value of the lateral deflection obtained prior to rotor movement (rotation) is a measure of the static friction force of the micromotors. This technique was employed to study the effect of humidity and rest time on the static friction force of …


Topography-Induced Contributions To Friction Forces Measured Using An Atomic Force/Friction Force Microscope, Sriram Sundararajan, Bharat Bhushan Jan 2000

Topography-Induced Contributions To Friction Forces Measured Using An Atomic Force/Friction Force Microscope, Sriram Sundararajan, Bharat Bhushan

Sriram Sundararajan

Most friction studies using an atomic force/friction force microscope, while concentrating on material-induced effects, often present users with conflicting and confusing interpretations of the topography-induced friction forces. It has been generally reported that topography-induced contributions are independent of scanning direction and can be removed by subtracting friction data from forward and backward scans. In this article, we present friction studies on samples with well-defined topography variations and find that the above-given statement is not generally true. At surface locations involving significant changes in topography, the topography-induced contributions to friction forces are found to be different between forward and backward scanning …