Based on heavy aircraft main landing gear tires touchdown skidding process, patents have been registered since the 1940s to improve tire safety, decrease the substantial wear and smoke that results from every landing by spinning the rear wheels before touchdown. A single wheel has been modeled as a mass-spring-damper system using ANSYS mechanical transient simulation to analyze static and pre-r...

This paper is a continuation of [9], where we analyzed steady-states of the nonlinear parabolic problem ut = ∆u− λf(x) (1+u)2 on a bounded domain Ω of R with Dirichlet boundary conditions. This equation models a simple electrostatic Micro-Electromechanical System (MEMS) device consisting of a thin dielectric elastic membrane with boundary supported at 0 above a rigid ground plate located at −1....

In this paper, we explore the challenging and important problem of automated aircraft landing. We created a simulator to be able to perform online experiments in various conditions including stormy weather and starting from off-trajectory starting points. We experiment with a wide range of techniques to learn the optimal flight policy including reinforcement learning, Monte Carlo based dynamic ...

In this paper we examine the stability of a class of simple three-dimensional point-mass hoppers, which have minimal feedback. These hoppers, with varying leg numbers, are representative of both animal and robotic runners: singlestance-leg runners such as humans, birds, and some monopod robots; double-stance-leg hoppers such as kangaroos; and triplestance-leg runners like the cockroach or the r...

BACKGROUND The GP5+/GP6+ PCR assay is a well-established HPV detection technique. This study has examined the effects of incorporating 'hot start' and 'touchdown' steps into the protocol. In addition, dTTP was substituted with dUTP to permit contamination control measures against carry-over PCR product. METHODS Firstly, HPV-16 was amplified from SiHa cell DNA (0.1 ng-100 ng) diluted in a back...

This study determined the effects of simulated technique manipulations on early acceleration performance. A planar seven-segment angle-driven model was developed and quantitatively evaluated based on the agreement of its output to empirical data from an international-level male sprinter (100 m personal best = 10.28 s). The model was then applied to independently assess the effects of manipulati...

Most mammals use lateral sequence gaits during quadrupedal locomotion, a pattern characterized by the touchdown of a forelimb directly following the ipsilateral hind limb in a given stride cycle. Primates, however, tend to use diagonal sequence (DS) gaits, whereby it is the touchdown of a contralateral forelimb that follows that of a given hind limb most closely in time. A number of scenarios h...

Mutations in the gene encoding TRPM7 (trpm7), a member of the Transient Receptor Potential (TRP) superfamily of cation channels that possesses an enzymatically active kinase at its C terminus, cause the touch-unresponsive zebrafish mutant touchdown. We identified and characterized a new allele of touchdown, as well as two previously reported alleles, and found that all three alleles harbor muta...

BACKGROUND Exposure to microgravity adversely affects performance of astronaut pilots; a review of the first 100 Shuttle missions found that touchdown speed was above specified limits in 20% of landings, in contrast to near ideal performance in preflight high-fidelity Shuttle simulations. Ground-based simulators emphasize spacecraft handling abilities, but do not recreate the effects of extende...

Many patents have suggested that spinning the aircraft wheel before touchdown would lessen tyre wear as indicated by landing smoke and rubber deposites on the runway caused by skidding wheel at the point of impact. In this paper, the required torque to spin the aircraft wheel at approach speed has been calculated using ANSYS Workbench CFX, which is used to determine the wheel aerodynamic forces...