Effects of Adaptive Discretization on Numerical Computation using Meshless Method with Live-object Handling Applications

To my family. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to express my deepest gratitude to a number of people who have helped or involved in this thesis research. First of all, I would like to thank my advisor Dr. Kok-Meng Lee. His advices were always stimulating and helpful when I was facing difficulties in my research. Furthermore, his enthusiastic and tireless work attitude has taught me what the professional work ethic is. Without his constant encouragements and supports, this research could not have been done. Secondly, I would like to acknowledge my other thesis committee Dr. Dr. Chen Zhou for taking time to review my proposal and dissertation, and provide me their valuable suggestions and comments. Holcombe for their help and support on Intelligent Live Object Transfer project. The appreciation also goes to Dr. Wayne Daley for his suggestions and encouragements. I also want to thank my former team member Dr. Live Object Transfer project. I especially have to thank Ziyen Ng for his help on fabricating the flexible grasper and Hungsun Son for his help on fabricating the electromechanical actuator presented in this thesis. Thank you all for your help, discussion and friendship. v Finally, I want to give my special thanks to my wife Jingying Zhang, my parents Jizhou Li and Yanfang Chen, my brother Hua Li and my daughter. Only with their patient and support, I can complete this thesis. Upper case Descriptions B Magnetic field flux density C Material compliant tensor F Force vector H Magnetic field intensity J Current density M Material magnetization P 1 st Piola-Kirchhorff (PK) stress tensor S 2 nd Piola-Kirchhorff (PK) stress tensor T Maxwell stress tensor X Vector of material coordinate E Young's modulus G Shear modulus G p Virtual works by contact force I Moment of inertia J Jacobi coefficient N FEM shape function W i Virtual internal works W e Virtual external works X Material coordinate Lower case Descriptions b Body force n Normal vector t Tangential vector u Displacement vector x Coordinate vector in deformed state d Nodal control value g n Normal gap function g t Tangential gap function i Index j Index k Index k n Normal penalty parameter k t Tangential penalty parameter t i Surface tensor t Time v Velocity x Coordinate in deformed state y Coordinate in deformed state z Coordinate in deformed state xv Greek Descriptions Λ Kernel function Ψ Reproducing kernel basis …