This paper presents an approach to describing the three dimensional shape of a violin plate in mathematical form. The shape description begins with standard contour lines and ends with an equation for a surface in three dimensional space. The traditional specification of cross sectional arching is unnecessary. Advantages of this approach are that it employs simple and universal description of p...

General strategy for developing finite elements of general geometric shape explained on quadrilateral folded plate structure element ensuring invariance properties is presented in this paper. The basic idea of this strategy consists in using the natural coordinate system only for defining the element geometry and performing the element integration in a mapped biunit square. For defining the app...

Non-Euclidean plates are a subset of the class of elastic bodies having no stress-free configuration. Such bodies exhibit residual stress when relaxed from all external constraints, and may assume complicated equilibrium shapes even in the absence of external forces. In this work we present a mathematical framework for such bodies in terms of a covariant theory of linear elasticity, valid for l...

Piezoelectric bimorph actuation has been successfully used in numerous types of microdevices, most notably micropumps. However, even for the simple case of circular geometry, analytical treatments are severely limited. This study utilized the finite-element method to optimize the deflection of a circular bimorph consisting of a single piezoelectric actuator, bonding material and elastic plate o...

Synovial joints are loaded by weight bearing, stretching, and fluid-driven shear. To simulate in vitro fluid-driven shear, we developed an "oscillating Couette flow mechanical shear loader". Oscillating Couette flow mimics relative motion of articular surfaces; hence, characterizing flow-induced shear by the loader enhances understanding of mechanotransduction in the joint tissue. Here, the ana...

This paper describes an algorithm for automated design of index-plate type of multi-shot molds for manufacturing multi-material objects. This new algorithm is a significant improvement over previous mold design algorithms and it accounts for constraints associated with the index-plate molding process. Our algorithm works in the following manner. First, based on the index-plate process constrain...

PURPOSE Curve and surface thinning are widely-used skeletonization techniques for modeling objects in three dimensions. In the case of trabecular bone analysis, however, neither curve nor surface thinning is really efficient since the internal geometry of the object is usually composed of both rod and plate shapes. The purpose of this paper is to propose an original method called hybrid skeleto...