ACCELERATION AMBIGUITY FUNCTION OF RADAR SIGNALS AND ITS APPLICATION

High acceleration of radar targets is analyzed using Acceleration Ambiguity Function(AAF). The acceleration resolution based on AAF is defined. The AAF and acceleration resolution of rectangle pulse signal are derivated and the conclusion that its acceleration resolution is in inverse proportion with the square of its duration is drawn. In the end, these conclusions are applied to the parameter designing and performance evaluation for a certain type of pulse Doppler radar.     

The Acceleration Severity Index in the impact of a vehicle against permanent road equipment support structures

The acceleration Severity Index (ASI), described in European Standard EN12767 (The passive safety of support structures for road equipment. Requirements, classification and the test method) is regarded as the most important indicator of impact on the occupants. The requirements for experiments are described, having in mind that the results depend on many factors. One of them is the selection of a vehicle to be used in the crash test. To perform numerical vehicle crash simulation, the finite-element models of permanent road equipment support structures were developed using the LS Dyna software available. To examine the response of the vehicle upon the impact, the acceleration severity index curves were calculated and visualised in Matlab.     

Contradictory effect of gold nanoparticle-decorated molybdenum sulfide nanocomposites on amyloid-β-40 aggregation

The effect of gold nanoparticle-decorated molybdenum sulfide (AuNP-MoS₂) nanocomposites on amyloid-β-40 (Aβ₄₀) aggregation was investigated. The interesting discovery was that the effect of AuNP-MoS₂ nanocomposites on Aβ₄₀ aggregation was contradictory. Low concentration of AuNP-MoS₂ nanocomposites could enhance the nucleus formation of Aβ₄₀ peptides and accelerate Aβ₄₀ fibrils aggregation. However, although high concentration of AuNP-MoS₂ nanocomposites could enhance the nucleus formation of Aβ₄₀ peptides, it eventually inhibited Aβ₄₀ aggregation process. It might be attributed to the interaction between AuNP-MoS₂ nanocomposites and Aβ₄₀ peptides. For low concentration of AuNP-MoS₂ nanocomposites, it was acted as nuclei, resulting in the acceleration of the nucleation process. However, the structural flexibility of Aβ₄₀ peptides was limited as the concentration of AuNP-MoS₂ nanocomposites was increased, resulting in the inhibition of Aβ₄₀ aggregation. These findings suggested that AuNP-MoS₂ nanocomposites might have a great potential to design new multifunctional material for future treatment of amyloid-related diseases.     

Jordan–Cattaneo waves: Analogues of compressible flow

We review work of Jordan on a hyperbolic variant of the Fisher–KPP equation, where a shock solution is found and the amplitude is calculated exactly. The Jordan procedure is extended to a hyperbolic variant of the Chafee–Infante equation. Extension of Jordan’s ideas to a model for traffic flow are also mentioned. We also examine a diffusive susceptible–infected (SI) model, and generalizations of diffusive Lotka–Volterra equations, including a Lotka–Volterra–Bass competition model with diffusion. For all cases we show how a Jordan–Cattaneo wave may be analysed and we indicate how to find the wavespeeds and the amplitudes. Finally we present details of a fully nonlinear analysis of acceleration waves in a Cattaneo–Christov poroacoustic model.     

Evaluation of the dynamic performance variation of a serial manipulator after eliminating the self-weight influence

Manipulators used in the industrial field usually have a very stiff structure but without an equivalent payload on their end-effectors. This is because the stiff structure is used to prevent excessive deformation which will negatively impact the positioning accuracy of the manipulator, especially when the manipulator is fully extended. However, the stiff structure increases the weight of the manipulator and consumes much of the output of the constituent joint actuators in order to overcome the gravitational force resulting from the heavy structure. To cope with this problem, the concept of gravity balance was proposed decades ago, and there have been several approaches suggested to eliminate the influence of the self-weight of the structure. With the help of gravity balance, the output of the constituent joint actuators can fully be used to drive the manipulator and save considerable energy when the manipulator is in static or low-speed applications.For decades, many papers have discussed how to make a manipulator in gravity balance or how to design and apply a gravity balance mechanism to satisfy a certain application. However, none of them discuss what the influence on the dynamic performance of a manipulator is after it is equipped with a gravity balance mechanism or how to evaluate that influence. To rectify this insufficiency, this article utilizes acceleration radius to be the index of measuring the dynamic performance before and after a manipulator is equipped with a gravity balance mechanism and proposes a new index, the maneuverability ratio, to provide quantitative information to measure whether the dynamic performance of the manipulator increases or not after the gravity balance mechanism is applied.     

Modeling of non-stationary ground motion using the mean reverting stochastic process

This paper presents a new method for modeling amplitude and frequency non-stationary earthquake ground motions using a scalar first order dynamic mean reverting stochastic differential equation driven by Brownian motion with parametric time varying coefficients. It determines the proper relationship between these time varying parametric coefficients and presents the statistical and probability distribution characteristics of the response solution. It demonstrates the applicability of the method by presenting some simulations of amplitude and frequency non-stationary earthquake ground motions. The verification of the amplitude and frequency non-stationary contents of the mean reverting stochastic ground motions is demonstrated using the Hilbert–Huang transform method. Also a corresponding interpretation between the coefficients of the proposed model and the coefficients of the usual oscillatory second order differential equation driven by white Gaussian noise is presented along with some comments how it can be applied to simulate ground motions consistent with acceleration target records such as boxcar, trapezoidal, other exponential functions, or compound and target records at source, near field, and far field distances.     

Minimum-Time Travel for a Vehicle with Acceleration Limits: Theoretical Analysis and Receding-Horizon Implementation

A methodology is proposed to generate minimum-time optimal velocity profiles for a vehicle with prescribed acceleration limits along a specified path. The necessary optimality conditions are explicitly derived, allowing the construction of the optimal solution semianalytically. A receding horizon implementation is also proposed for the on-line implementation of the velocity optimizer. Robustness of the receding horizon algorithm is guaranteed by the use of an adaptive scheme that determines the planning and execution horizons. Application to a real-life scenario with a comparison between the infinite and finite receding horizon schemes provides a validation of the proposed methodology. This work has been supported in part by the US Army Research Office, Awards DAAD19-00-1-0473 and W911NF-05-1-0331. The authors thank an anonymous reviewer for his insightful comments regarding the results in Sect. 5.     

Significant Acceleration of Photocatalytic CO2 Reduction at the Gas-Liquid Interface of Microdroplets**

Solar-driven CO₂ reduction reaction (CO₂RR) is largely constrained by the sluggish mass transfer and fast combination of photogenerated charge carriers. Herein, we find that the photocatalytic CO₂RR efficiency at the abundant gas-liquid interface provided by microdroplets is two orders of magnitude higher than that of the corresponding bulk phase reaction. Even in the absence of sacrificial agents, the production rates of HCOOH over WO₃ ⋅ 0.33H₂O mediated by microdroplets reaches 2536 μmol h⁻¹ g⁻¹ (vs. 13 μmol h⁻¹ g⁻¹ in bulk phase), which is significantly superior to the previously reported photocatalytic CO₂RR in bulk phase reaction condition. Beyond the efficient delivery of CO₂ to photocatalyst surfaces within microdroplets, we reveal that the strong electric field at the gas-liquid interface of microdroplets essentially promotes the separation of photogenerated electron-hole pairs. This study provides a deep understanding of ultrafast reaction kinetics promoted by the gas-liquid interface of microdroplets and a novel way of addressing the low efficiency of photocatalytic CO₂ reduction to fuel.     

Gearhart–Koshy acceleration for affine subspaces

The method of cyclic projections finds nearest points in the intersection of finitely many affine subspaces. To accelerate convergence, Gearhart & Koshy proposed a modification which, in each iteration, performs an exact line search based on minimising the distance to the solution. When the subspaces are linear, the procedure can be made explicit using feasibility of the zero vector. This work studies an alternative approach which does not rely on this fact, thus providing an efficient implementation in the affine setting.     

Projectile acceleration in a single-stage gun at breech pressures below 50 MPa

Experimental studies were carried out to investigate projectile acceleration in a single-stage gun at breech pressures below 50 MPa. The gun was driven by firing either liquid or solid propellant. In-bore projectile velocity was continuously recorded using the well-known, precise VISAR interferometer technique so that accurate projectile acceleration data could be deduced. Both the attained projectile acceleration and muzzle exit velocity depend upon the charge-to-mass ratio and the pressure at which the blow-out disk ruptures. The results obtained from these experiments render information on the interplay between propellant combustion and projectile acceleration for low in-bore pressure regimes, and they provide the input data required for adequate numerical simulation.