Control of the rotational motion of the rigid body with the help of internal rotors using Rodrigues-Caley parameters

The purpose of this paper is to study the control of the rotational motion of the rigid body with the help of three rotors attached to the principal axes of the body. In such study the asymptotic stability of this motion is proved by using the Lyapunov technique. As a particular case of our problem, the equilibrium position of the rigid body, which occurs when the principal axes of inertia of the body coincide with the inertial axes, is proved to be asymptotically stable. The control moments that impose the stabilization of the rotational motion and equilibrium position are obtained.     

Modelling and analysis of a single gimbal gyroscopic energy harvester

This work investigates the non-linear dynamics of a single gimbal gyroscopic energy harvester, excited by a harmonic moment about 1 and 2 axes simultaneously. The governing equations of motion are derived and a numerical model is developed to analyse the forced system response in all three rotational degrees of freedom. Simulations showing the effect of the harmonic forcing frequency and the gyroscopic damping are presented. The results identify the characteristic motion responses and available power of a single gimbal gyroscopic energy harvester including the development of the non-linear responses.     

Stability analysis of a nonlinear rotating asymmetrical shaft near the resonances

An asymmetrical rotating shaft with unequal mass moments of inertia and flexural rigidities in the direction of principal axes is considered. In this system, there are two excitation sources, including a harmonic excitation due to the dynamic imbalances and a parametric excitation due to shaft asymmetry. Nonlinearities are due to the in-extensionality of the shaft and large amplitude. In this study, harmonic and parametric resonances due to the mentioned effects are considered. The influences of inequality of mass moments of inertia and flexural rigidities in the direction of principal axes, inequality between two eccentricities corresponding to the principal axes and external damping on the stability and bifurcation of steady state response of the rotating asymmetrical shaft are investigated. In addition, the characteristic of stable stationary points and loci of bifurcation points as function of damping coefficient are determined. In order to analyze the resonances of the system the multiple scales method is applied to the complex form of partial differential equations of motion. The achieved results show a good agreement with those of numerical computation.     

Biquaternion solution of the kinematic control problem for the motion of a rigid body and its application to the solution of inverse problems of robot-manipulator kinematics

The problem of reducing the body-attached coordinate system to the reference (programmed) coordinate system moving relative to the fixed coordinate system with a given instantaneous velocity screw along a given trajectory is considered in the kinematic statement. The biquaternion kinematic equations of motion of a rigid body in normalized and unnormalized finite displacement biquaternions are used as the mathematical model of motion, and the dual orthogonal projections of the instantaneous velocity screw of the body motion onto the body coordinate axes are used as the control. Various types of correction (stabilization), which are biquaternion analogs of position and integral corrections, are proposed. It is shown that the linear (obtained without linearization) and stationary biquaternion error equations that are invariant under any chosen programmed motion of the reference coordinate system can be obtained for the proposed types of correction and the use of unnormalized finite displacement biquaternions and four-dimensional dual controls allows one to construct globally regular control laws. The general solution of the error equation is constructed, and conditions for asymptotic stability of the programmed motion are obtained. The constructed theory of kinematic control of motion is used to solve inverse problems of robot-manipulator kinematics. The control problem under study is a generalization of the kinematic problem [1, 2] of reducing the body-attached coordinate system to the reference coordinate system rotating at a given (programmed) absolute angular velocity, and the presentedmethod for solving inverse problems of robotmanipulator kinematics is a development of the method proposed in [3–5].     

A modified incremental harmonic balance method for rotary periodic motions

The determination of periodic solutions is an essential step in the study of dynamic systems. If some of the generalized coordinates describing the configuration of a system are angular positions relative to certain reference axes, the associated periodic motions divide into two types: oscillatory and rotary periodic motions. For an oscillatory periodic motion, all the generalized coordinates are periodic in time. On the other hand, for a rotary periodic motion, some angular coordinates may have unbounded magnitude due to the persistent circulation about their pivots. In this case, although the behaviour of the system is periodic physically, those angular coordinates are not periodic in time. Although various effective methods have been developed for the determination of oscillatory periodic motion, the rotary periodic motion can only be determined by brute force integration. In this paper, the incremental harmonic balance (IHB) method is modified so that rotary periodic motions can be determined as well as oscillatory periodic motions in a unified formulation. This modified IHB method is applied to a practical device, a rotating disk equipped with a ball-type balancer, to show its effectiveness.     

Insights into mechanical properties of certain bio-inspired branched structures

This study is concerned with the motion and displacement of points on branches of a bio-inspired sympodial tree-like structure of a different hierarchy. First, displacements of points of a sympodial-like tree are recorded in pull-and-release experiments to get a qualitative insight into their behaviour. Then, a sympodial-type structure is analyzed, starting from its trunk, along a first-order branch and along an external and internal second-order branch. Given the fact that each point on branches performs in-plane vibration, their corresponding mechanical model consists of two orthogonal springs of unknown directions and unknown stiffness coefficients. Their directions actually correspond to the principal axes, which are obtained for the first time in the analytical form in terms of system’s geometrical and material parameters. The additional novelty lies in demonstrating how the position of their principal axes changes along each branch. Extreme displacements along principal axes are obtained as well, defining the ellipse of displacement for each point on branches of different order and position. The advantages of branched structures with respect to T-shaped structures that are commonly used in engineering are discussed and emphasized.     

Optimal control of a rotational motion of a gyrostat on circular orbit

A control scheme is proposed to guarantee an optimal stabilization of a given rotational motion of a symmetric gyrostat on circular orbit. The gyrostat controlled by the control action generated by rotating internal rotors. In such study the asymptotic stability of this motion is proved using Barbachen and Krasovskii theorem's and the optimal control law is deduced from the conditions that ensure the optimal asymptotic stability of the desired motion. As a particular case, the equilibrium position of the gyrostat, which occurs when the principal axes of inertia coincide with the orbital axes, is proved to be asymptotically stable. The present method is shown to more general than previous ones.     

On the stability of relative programmed motion of satellite- gyrostat

This paper is devoted to study the asymptotic stability of the relative programmed motion of a satellite-gyrostat with the help of the three rotors attached to the principal axes of inertia of the satellite. The programmed control moments are obtained. The control moments on the rotors using the condition which impose the asymptotic stabilization of the programmed motion are obtained.     

A general and systematic framework for the kinematic analysis of complex gear systems

It is presented an integral approach for the velocity analysis of complex gear systems. Due to the intrinsic nature of the method, it can be systematically applied for gear trains with arbitrary architecture, including bevel gears with non-parallel motion axes. As a result, not only velocity ratios can be computed, but also angular velocities of any body composing the gear system. Several application examples are presented to prove the feasibility and the validity of the proposed method.     

Resonances of an in-extensional asymmetrical spinning shaft with speed fluctuations

In this study, main and parametric resonances of an asymmetrical spinning shaft with in-extensional nonlinearity and large amplitude are simultaneously investigated. The main resonance is due to inhomogeneous part of the equations of motion, which is due to dynamic imbalances of shaft whereas the parametric resonances are due to parametric excitations due to speed fluctuations and a shaft asymmetry. The shaft is simply supported with unequal mass moments of inertia and flexural rigidities in the direction of principal axes. The equations of motion are derived by the extended Hamilton principle. The stability and bifurcations are obtained by multiple scales method, which is applied to both partial and ordinary differential equations of motion. The influences of asymmetry of shaft, speed fluctuations, inequality between two eccentricities corresponding to the principal axes and external damping on the stability and bifurcation are studied. To investigate the effect of speed fluctuations on the bifurcations and stability the loci of bifurcation points are plotted as function of damping coefficient. The numerical solutions are used to verify the results of multiple scales method. The results of multiple scales method show a good agreement with those of numerical solutions.     

Dynamic behavior of liquids and gases in conical shells in a vibrational force field

An experimental study is made of specific features of the motion of the free surface of liquid in different conical shells, the formation, motion, and local accumulation of gas bubbles in the shells, and the character of random motion of the gas-liquid medium in a vibrational force field. It is established that the liquid moves along the horizontal as well as the vertical axes under certain conditions when axisymmetric modes of vibration of the free surface are excited. The main characteristics of the dynamic behavior of a gas-liquid medium in a compound conical shell having the form of a de Laval nozzle are examined for the case when the medium forms a nonlinear oscillatory “liquid-gas” system that is dynamically stable. S. P. Timoshenko Institute of Mechanics, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kiev, Ukraine. Translated from Prikladnaya Mekhanika, Vol. 35, No. 2, pp. 23–29, February, 1999.     

Kinematic analysis of a novel pin-wheel joint

In this paper an innovative joint for the transmission of motion between parallel and incident axes is presented. It is made up of two frontal pin-wheels with cylindrical pins. The kinematics in case of parallel axes is discussed in detail. It is shown that, quite surprisingly, it may behave in many different ways, depending on the value of the center distance between the two axes. A systematic way to analyze the joint kinematics is provided.     

Exact solutions of the equations of motion for an incompressible viscoelastic Maxwell medium

The unsteady plane-parallel motion of a incompressible viscoelastic Maxwell medium with constant relaxation time is considered. The equations of motion of the medium and the rheological relation admit an extended Galilean group. The class of solutions of this system which are partially invariant with respect to the subgroup of the indicated group generated by translation and Galilean translation along one of the coordinate axes is studied. The system does not have invariant solutions, and the set of partially invariant solutions is very narrow. A method for extending the set of exact solutions is proposed which allows finding solutions with a nontrivial dependence of the stress tensor elements on spatial coordinates. Among the solutions obtained by this method, the solutions describing the deformation of a viscoelastic strip with free boundaries is of special interest from a point of view of physics. __________ Translated from Prikladnaya Mekhanika i Tekhnicheskaya Fizika, Vol. 50, No. 2, pp. 16–23, March–April, 2009.     

Stability of gas-bubble equilibrium shape in uniform flow of an ideal fluid

Steady-state motion of a bubble in the shape of an ellipsoid of revolution has been studied [1, 2]. Steady-state motion and small oscillations of an ellipsoid of revolution around the equilibrium state were studied with the help of Lagrangian equations [3]. In this paper, possible equilibrium shapes of a bubble in the form of a triaxial ellipsoid are studied. The dependence of the pressure difference at the stagnation point and within the gas bubble on deformation is determined for steady-state motion. The stability of the equilibrium shape with respect to small perturbations of the axes of the ellipsoid is investigated through analysis of potential energy in the neighborhood of the extremum.     

Stability analysis of steady rotations of a rigid body bearing two-degree-of-freedom control moment gyros with dissipation in gimbal suspension axes

To study the stability of steady rotations of a control moment gyro system with internal dissipation, we use the Barbashin-Krasovskii theorem and the relation, established in [1], between the Lyapunov function and steady motions. Taking into account the special properties of the original problem, we reduce it to a lower-dimensional problem.We give a detailed presentation of an algorithm for analyzing the stability of steady motions of a gyrostat and use this algorithm to perform a complete study for two systems consisting, respectively, of one and two gyros whose gimbal axes are parallel to the principal axis of inertia of the system. Each steady motion is identified as either asymptotically stable or unstable. We find periodic motions that exist only in the presence of dynamic symmetry and which are regular precessions. For the system with two gyros, we prove the asymptotic stability of quiescent states and prove that in the angular momentum range where these states are defined the system does not have any other stable motions.     

Mathematical model of the sensor unit for processing on-board algorithms of navigation systems

Recently, strapdown gyro navigation systems have become widely used. In such systems, sensors, gyros, and accelerometers are placed directly aboard the object and an imaginary analytic trihedral is used instead of a stabilized gyroplatform. The object orientation with respect to the analytic trihedral is calculated by numerically solving the Poisson equations taking into account the readings of gyro sensors measuring the object angular velocities. The mutual orientation parameters permit recalculating the apparent acceleration measured by the accelerometers on the object axes for the axes of the analytic trihedral. In the analytic trihedral, the navigation problem is solved in the same way as it is solved in platform systems but, in the whole, the functions of the onboard algorithms of strapdown systems are significantly more complicated than those of platform systems. The possibility of detailed processing of on-board algorithms is of great importance for ensuring the accuracy of the entire navigation system.In the present paper, we state algorithms for reproducing the exact readings of ideal gyro sensors and the exact readings of ideal accelerometers under bench operating conditions of the system under an angular motion imitating the object orientation evolution and the possible angular vibration. Simultaneously, we calculate the exact position and orientation parameters, which can be compared with the results produced by the on-board algorithm.     

Generators of the product of two Schoenflies motion groups

Schoenflies motion is often termed X-motion for conciseness. A set of X-motions with a given direction of its axes of rotations has the algebraic properties of a Lie group for the composition product of rigid-body motions or displacements. The product of two X-subgroups, which is the mathematical model of a serial concatenation of two kinematic chains generating two distinct X-motions, characterizes a noteworthy type of 5-dimensional (5D) displacement set called double Schoenflies motion or X–X motion for brevity. This X–X motion set is a 5D submanifold of the displacement 6D Lie group. Such a motion type includes any spatial translation (3T) and any two sequential rotations (2R) provided that the axes of rotation are parallel to two fixed independent vectors. This motion set also contains the rotations that are products of the foregoing two rotations. In the paper, some preliminary fundamentals on the 4D X-motion are recalled; the 5D set of X–X motions is emphasized. Then implementing serial arrays of one-dof Reuleaux pairs and hinged parallelograms, we enumerate all serial mechanical generators of X–X motion, which have no redundant internal mobility. Based on the group-theoretic concepts, one can differentiate two families of irreducible representations of an X–X motion. One family is realized by twenty-one open chains including the doubly planar motion generators as special cases. The other is generally classified into eight major categories in which one hundred and six distinct open chains generating X–X motion are revealed and nineteen more ones having at least one parallelogram are derived from them. Meanwhile, these kinematic chains are graphically displayed for a possible use in the structural synthesis of parallel manipulators.     

Coupled bending and torsional vibration of nonsymmetrical axially loaded thin-walled Bernoulli–Euler beams

The dynamic transfer matrix is formulated for a straight uniform and axially loaded thin-walled Bernoulli–Euler beam element whose elastic and inertia axes are not coincident by directly solving the governing differential equations of motion of the beam element. Bernoulli–Euler beam theory is used, and the cross section of the beam does not have any symmetrical axes. The bending vibrations in two perpendicular directions are coupled with torsional vibration and the effect of warping stiffness is included. The dynamic transfer matrix method is used for calculation of exact natural frequencies and mode shapes of the nonsymmetrical thin-walled beams. Numerical results are given for a specific example of thin-walled beam under a variety of end conditions, and exact numerical solutions are tabulated for natural frequencies and solutions calculated by the other method are also tabulated for comparison. The effects of axial force and warping stiffness are also discussed.