Motorcycle brake squeal: experimental and numerical investigation on a case study

Since, nowadays, the NVH performance of a vehicle is one of the most important priorities for the market, the noise radiating from disc brakes is considered a source of considerable discomfort and customer dissatisfaction. Squeal is an example of noise, caused by vibrations induced by friction forces, in which the vibration modes of the brake disc are coupled to those of the friction pads or of the caliper. In this work a case study, in which the squeal phenomenon was detected after changing the supplier of the disc pads, is presented. A test bench was purposely developed to investigate the squeal phenomenon; tests at different rotating speeds and pressures in the brake circuit were carried out employing different friction pads. The experimental apparatus appeared capable of reproducing the phenomenon observed in real practice and to investigate the effect of operating parameters and different components on the onset of instability. Friction tests and geometric analysis of the friction pads were also carried out to complete the investigation. At the same time, a finite element (FE) complex eigenvalue parametric analysis was performed on the brake assembly. The different propensity of the pads to squeal was attributed to differences in their geometry and in their friction coefficients. The FE analysis, confirmed the experimental observations and indicated possible design improvements to increase the stability of the system.     

Diastereoselective synthesis of enantiomeric tertiary alcohols via nucleophilic additions to protected D- and L-erythrulose derivatives

The diastereoselectivity of the addition of several organometallic reagents to the carbonyl group of protected - and -erythrulose derivatives has been investigated. Tertiary alcohols are stereoselectively formed, the diastereomeric ratio being markedly dependent on the reagent type, solvent and temperature.     

Improvements in Silo Design for Moist and Cohesive Bulk Solids by Using a Silo Centrifuge

The Jenike‐method is state of the art in silo design for trouble‐free flow, even for cohesive bulk solids. However, for some bulk solids, especially very cohesive and moist bulk solids, even the correct application of the Jenike‐method can lead to an over‐design of the silo outlet. If a reliable estimation of the critical outlet dimension is possible the dimension as well as the machinery costs can be reduced. Model testing can help to reduce the over‐design but reasonable test equipment and flexibility are only possible with silo centrifuge testing. Results, regarding the state of stress and the critical outlet dimensions, from experiments using a silo centrifuge with cohesive and moist bulk solids are presented. The influence of creeping effects on silo design is investigated using the silo centrifuge with moist gypsum.     

On the Conclusive Tests of Local Realism and Pseudoscalar Mesons

Many beautiful experiments have been addressed to test standard quantum mechanics against local realistic models. Even if a strong evidence favouring standard quantum mechanics is emerged, a conclusive experiment is still lacking, because of low detection efficiencies. Recently, experiments based on pseudoscalar mesons have been proposed as a way for obtaining a conclusive experiment. In this paper, we investigate if this result can effectively be obtained. Our conclusions, based on a careful analysis of the proposed set ups, are that this will not be possible due to intrinsic limitations of these kind of experiments.