PURPOSE Walking is a recommended form of exercise for the treatment of obesity, but walking may be a critical source of biomechanical loads that link obesity and musculoskeletal pathology, particularly knee osteoarthritis. We hypothesized that compared with normal-weight adults 1) obese adults would have greater absolute ground-reaction forces (GRF) during walking, but their GRF would be reduce...

In the present study, small scale effect on critical buckling loads of triangular nano- composite plates under uniform in-plane compression is studied. Since at nano-scale the structure of the plate is discrete, the size dependent nonlocal elasticity theory is employed to develop an equivalent continuum plate model for this nanostructure incorporating the changes in its mechanical behavior. The...

The unique lattice structure and properties of graphene have drawn tremendous interests recently. By combining continuum and atomistic approaches, this paper investigates the mechanical properties of single-atomic-layer graphene sheets. A theoretical framework of nonlinear continuum mechanics is developed for graphene under both in-plane and bending deformation. Atomistic simulations are carrie...

This study presents a new end-closure design, using a numerical approach, to eliminate the buckling that occurs at the bottom end of DOT-4BA propane cylinders. When the bottom heads are subjected to test pressure they often buckle, which causes instability of the propane cylinders. That instability is the cylinder’s loss of upright standing. The buckling was predicted using both experimental an...

In this paper, the stability characteristics of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) under the action of axial load are investigated. To this end, a nonlocal Flügge shell model is developed to accommodate the small length scale effects. The analytical Rayleigh-Ritz method with beam functions is applied to the variational statement derived from the Flügge-type buckling equations. Molecular dy...

An analytical investigation is conducted to predict the post-buckling strength of laminated composite stiffened panels under compressive loads. When a stiffened composite panel buckles, the skin would deform into a sinusoidal mode shape, and hence induces additional moments and forces near the skin-stiffener interface region. These induced loads would cause the existing small edge delamination ...

The mechanical properties of composite membranes obtained by self-assembly of actin filaments with giant fluid vesicles are studied by micromanipulation with optical tweezers. These complexes exhibit typical mechanical features of a solid shell, including a finite in-plane shear elastic modulus ( approximately 10(-6) N/m). A buckling instability is observed when a localized force of the order o...

This paper presents an analytical method to calculate the buckling stress of a rectangular thin plate under nonuniform applied axial stresses. Two cases are considered, buckling of a plate simply supported on all four sides and buckling of a plate simply supported on three sides with one unloaded edge free and the opposite unloaded edge rotationally restrained. These two cases illustrate the in...