Study on the operational safety of high-speed trains exposed to stochastic winds

The characteristic wind curve （CWC） was com- monly used in the previous work to evaluate the operational safety of the high-speed trains exposed to crosswinds. How- ever, the CWC only provide the dividing line between safety state and failure state of high-speed trains, which can not evaluate the risk of derailment of high-speed trains when ex- posed to natural winds. In the present paper, a more realistic approach taking into account the stochastic characteristics of natural winds is proposed, which can give a reasonable and effective assessment of the operational safety of high-speed trains under stochastic winds. In this approach, the longitudi- nal and lateral components of stochastic winds are simulated based on the Cooper theory and harmonic superposition. An algorithm is set up for calculating the unsteady aerody- namic forces （moments） of the high-speed trains exposed to stochastic winds. A multi-body dynamic model of the rail vehicle is established to compute the vehicle system dynamic response subjected to the unsteady aerodynamic forces （mo- ments） input. Then the statistical method is used to get the mean characteristic wind curve （MCWC） and spread range of the high-speed trains exposed to stochastic winds. It is found that the CWC provided by the previous analyticalmethod produces over-conservative limits. The methodol- ogy proposed in the present paper can provide more signif- icant reference for the safety operation of high-speed trains exposed to stochastic winds.     

High-speed visualization and PIV measurements of cavitating flows around a semi-circular leading-edge flat plate and NACA0015 hydrofoil

Cavitating flows around a flat plate with semi-circular leading edge and a NACA0015 hydrofoil at attack angles ranging from 0° to 9° and with varying cavitation number are investigated using high-speed-imaging visualization (HIV) and particle-imaging velocimetry (PIV). Several known types of cavitation common to both foils, but also some different patterns, were observed. At small angles of incidence (less than 3°), cavitation on the plate begins in the form of a streak array (bubble-band) whereas on the hydrofoil as traveling bubbles. For the regimes with developed cavitation on the NACA0015 hydrofoil, the scattered and discontinuous bubble streaks branch and grow but subsequently merge into bubble clouds forming a remarkably regular lattice pattern. Once the incidence angle increased to 9°, the cavitation on the hydrofoil changed to a streaky pattern like that on the plate at small attack angles, whereas the regime on the plate showed no significant changes. The PIV method proved to be usable for measuring the instantaneous velocity also in the gas–vapor phase, albeit with reduced accuracy that was evaluated and accounted for on the basis of the effective (validation-surviving) number of imaging samples. The time-averaged velocity and turbulence moments show that the incipience of cavitation is governed by the development of the carrier-fluid flow around the foil leading edges, but the subsequent flow pattern depends strongly on the cavitation regime displaying markedly different distributions compared to the non-cavitating case. The main cavitation parameters: the maximum cavity length, the cloud cavity streamwise dimensions and the cloud shedding Strouhal number are analyzed and presented in function of the cavitation number and the attack angle in different scaling. The measurements confirm qualitatively the trends reported in the literature, but show also some quantitative differences, notably between the two foils considered.     

基于2D开源视频分析和建模软件Tracker研究抛体运动实验

以抛体运动实验的视频分析为例,具体介绍如何使用开源视频分析和建模软件Tracker对抛体运动实验进行分析.期望能在国内物理教学中,推广使用这类低成本的开源软件,激发学生探索隐藏在物理实验背后的物理规律的兴趣,扩展分析物理实验的手段.     

Holovideo: Real-time 3D range video encoding and decoding on GPU

We present a 3D video-encoding technique called Holovideo that is capable of encoding high-resolution 3D videos into standard 2D videos, and then decoding the 2D videos back into 3D rapidly without significant loss of quality. Due to the nature of the algorithm, 2D video compression such as JPEG encoding with QuickTime Run Length Encoding (QTRLE) can be applied with little quality loss, resulting in an effective way to store 3D video at very small file sizes. We found that under a compression ratio of 134:1, Holovideo to OBJ file format, the 3D geometry quality drops at a negligible level. Several sets of 3D videos were captured using a structured light scanner, compressed using the Holovideo codec, and then uncompressed and displayed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the codec. With the use of OpenGL Shaders (GLSL), the 3D video codec can encode and decode in realtime. We demonstrated that for a video size of 512×512, the decoding speed is 28 frames per second (FPS) with a laptop computer using an embedded NVIDIA GeForce 9400 m graphics processing unit (GPU). Encoding can be done with this same setup at 18 FPS, making this technology suitable for applications such as interactive 3D video games and 3D video conferencing.     

Dynamic Deformation Behavior of a Golf Ball during Normal Impact

The normal impact between a golf ball and a rigid steel target was studied to examine ball deformation and the contact force during the impact. Using high-speed video images, the normal and tangential compression ratios of the ball were measured to analyze the ball deformation quantitatively. In addition, the inbound and rebound ball velocities, contact time, and coefficient of restitution were determined as basic parameters of the impact. As the inbound ball velocity increased, the maximum normal compression ratio increased while the maximum tangential compression ratio, contact time and coefficient of restitution decreased. The ball center displacements during the impact were measured to determine the ball center velocity and acceleration, and the contact force was calculated by the product of the mass and acceleration. The contact force increased almost linearly with the inbound ball velocity, and its relationship agreed well quantitatively with the results from a load-cell, and also agreed well qualitatively with Hertz contact theory.     

Microbubble formations in MEMS-fabricated rectangular channels: A high-speed observation

A microfluidic device that consists of MEMS-fabricated rectangular channels is developed for stable and sequential production of monodispersed microbubbles. The central inlet for gas phase is located between two inlets for liquid phases, where the device works as a two-fluid atomizer. The interfacial flow mechanism of microbubble formation at the junction of the inlets in the device is investigated using a high-speed visualization technique and digital image processing. The periodic formation process is successfully realized by the consideration of the wettability between the microbubble and the channel wall. The produced microbubbles are relatively uniform in size, and the size is controlled from 113 to 153 μm by changing the flow rates of the liquid and gas phases. Furthermore, a simple theoretical model to predict the equivalent diameter of microbubbles is developed by considering the mass balance of the gas phase in the formation process, where the experimental and theoretical results are in reasonable agreement.     

High-speed frictional slip at metal-on-metal interfaces

In this study plate-impact pressure-shear friction experiments are employed to investigate dynamic slip resistance and time-resolved growth of molten metal films during dry metal-on-metal slip under extreme interfacial conditions. By employing a tribo-pair comprising of a hard tool-steel against a relatively low melt-point metal (7075-T6 Al alloy), interfacial normal stress of up to 5 GPa and slip speeds of approximately 250 m/s have been achieved. These extreme interfacial conditions are conducive to the development of molten metal film at the tribo-pair interface. A Lagrangian finite element code is developed to understand the evolution of the thermo-mechanical fields and their relationship to the observed slip response. The code accounts for dynamic effects, heat conduction, contact with friction, and full thermo-mechanical coupling. At temperatures below the melting point of the tribo-pair materials are described as isotropic, thermally softening, elastic–viscoplastic solids. For material elements with temperatures in excess of the melt temperature a purely Newtonian fluid constitutive model is employed.     

Deviant Vocal Fold Vibration as Observed During Videokymography: The Effect on Voice Quality

Videokymographic images of deviant or irregular vocal fold vibration, including diplophonia, the transition from falsetto to modal voice, irregular vibration onset and offset, and phonation following partial laryngectomy were compared with the synchronously recorded acoustic speech signals. A clear relation was shown between videokymographic image sequences and acoustic speech signals, and the effect of irregular or incomplete vocal fold vibration patterns was recognized in the amount of perceived breathiness and roughness and by the harmonics-to-noise ratio in the speech signal. Mechanisms causing roughness are the presence of mucus, phase differences between the left and right vocal fold, and short-term frequency and amplitude modulation. It can be concluded that the use of simultaneously recorded videokymographic image sequences and speech signals contributes to the understanding of the effect of irregular vocal fold vibration on voice quality.     

Tensile Testing of Single Regenerated Cellulose Fibres

Summary: A tensile testing set-up was developed for the determination of the elastic modulus, tensile strength, and failure strain of single regenerated cellulose fibres. Since the accuracy of strain measurement is crucial for the measured elastic modulus and failure strain, strain measurements were performed mechanically and with a non-contacting optical method in parallel. The optical validation of mechanical strain measurement showed an agreement of measured strain >99%, confirming the accuracy and usefulness of the set-up and sample geometry developed for the test series.     

Impact failure of granular materials – Non-equilibrium multiscale simulations and high-speed experiments

We present results of high-speed impact experiments on aluminum oxide (Al₂O₃) and silicon carbide (SiC) ceramics and propose a mesoscopic way to model the fracture behavior of these brittle materials based on discrete particles. The two-dimensional model used here has only three adjustable parameters, but is able of reproducing many salient features of the investigated ceramics under compressive, tensile and shock impact load. We discuss our particle model in detail and then consider strain and shear load simulations. In particular, we model explicitly the macroscopic experimental set-up of the edge-on impact experiment and show that the experimentally observed crack patterns can in principle be explained by the random distribution of particle overlaps and the thereby generated differences in the local strength of the material.