The brachistochronic motion of a wheeled vehicle

The paper considers the brachistochronic motion of a wheeled vehicle on a horizontal plane surface. The objective is to transfer the vehicle from the specified initial position with given initial kinetic energy to the specified terminal position in minimum time with conserved total mechanical energy of the vehicle. The problem is solved by applying Pontryagin’s maximum principle and singular optimal control theory. The projection of the reaction force of the horizontal plane applied on the front vehicle wheels onto the axis of the front vehicle axle is taken for a control variable. The cases of unbounded and bounded value of this projection are considered. The shooting method is used to solve the two-point boundary value problem arising from Pontryagin’s maximum principle and singular optimal control theory.     

Stability in critical cases of a holonomic mechanical system with two degrees of freedom subject to impacts

Stability conditions for a holonomic impulsive mechanical system with two degrees of freedom in the critical case of one pair of complex-conjugate multipliers are established. An analog of the first Lyapunov exponent is calculated __________ Translated from Prikladnaya Mekhanika, Vol. 44, No. 6, pp. 105–117, June 2008.     

On Szebehely's problem extended to holonomic systems With a given integral of motion

Summary We consider a family of curves in the n-dimensional configuration space S_n of a holonomic system with n degrees of freedom. We obtain first-order partial differential equations for the potential function U of forces under which any trajectory belonging to the given family of curves can be described by the representative point of the system. We write the potential function U supposing that, in addition to the energy integral, a first integral of motion linear in the lagrangian velocities is assigned. Next we obtain the compatibility conditions between the energy constant E, the parameter which appears in the first integral, and the n–1 geometric constants c₁, c₂,, c_n–1 which characterize the family of trajectories. Finally we discuss two simple examples.

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Sommario Assegnata una famiglia di curve nello spazio S_n delle configurazioni di un sistema olonomo conservativo ad n gradi di libertà, si determinano le equazioni differenziali alle quali deve soddisfare il potenziale delle forze applicate affinchè il punto rappresentativo del sistema possa descrivere una qualunque delle traiettorie appartenenti alla data famiglia. Si scrive poil' espressione del potenziale supponendo che sia assegnato, oltre l'integrale dell'energia, un integrale primo del moto, lineare nelle velocità lagrangiane. Infine si ricavano le condizioni di compatibilità fra la costante dell'energia E, il parametro che interviene nell'integrale primo e le n-1 costanti geometriche c₁, c₂, c₂,, c_n–1 che caratterizzano la famiglia di curve. Si conclude con due semplici esempi che illustrano quanto esposto.

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Work performed under the auspices of G.N.F.M.-C.N.R., Italy.     

Stabilization of the motion of an unstable linear mechanical system

Kiev. Translated from Prikladnaya Mekhanika, Vol. 26, No. 4, pp. 79–85, April, 1990.     

Application of Radau IIA algorithms to flexible multibody system with holonomic constraints

The paper designs new 2- and 3-stage Radau IIA algorithms to integrate the dynamic responses of flexible multibody system with holonomic constraints. The total translation, the incremental rotation and associated velocities are selected as unknowns to avoid the linearization of angular acceleration which makes it possible to parameterize the finite rotation by using the Wiener–Milenkovi? parameters. The new algorithms release the heavy computational burden through the simplified Newton iterations and are stabilized by the preferable h-scaling technique. Contributions of the paper include: (1) For 2-stage algorithm, the resulting block triangular equations are solved efficiently by an inner iteration scheme. (2) For 3-stage algorithm, the full-size linear system is decoupled into a real and a complex subsystems which reduces the size of the system dramatically. (3) A new scheme is designed to predict the truncation error from the associated deferred correction equations without overestimation. Finally, numerical simulations show the 2- and 3-stage Radau IIA algorithms have excellent stability and convergence properties and behavior in a computationally efficient manner.     

The dynamic equations of motion for a two-component system

The motion of solid particles in a fluid flow is represented as a random process with independent increments. The resulting kinetic equation for the particle distribution has the form previously proposed [1]. The solution to this equation provides a system of equations for the hydrodynamics of the assembly of solid particles. These equations differ from ones previously proposed [2, 3] in having additional terms related to relative motion of the components, whose presence is due to anisotropy in the distribution of the normal stresses in the pseudogas.I am indebted to V. G. Levich for valuable discussions and for constant interest in the work.     

Long time behavior for one-dimensional motion of a general barotropic viscous fluid

Communicated byJ. Serrin     

Equations of motion for mechanical systems: A unified approach

This paper presents a unified framework from which emerge the Lagrange equations, the Gibbs-Appell Equations and the Generalized Inverse Equations for describing the motion of constrained mechanical systems. The unified approach extends the applicability of the first two approaches to systems where the constraints are non-linear functions of the generalized velocities and are not necessarily independent. Furthermore, the approach leads to the Explicit Gibbs-Appell Equations.