Academic literature on the topic 'Joint Task Force-3'

[abstFig src='/00280001/11.jpg' width=""230"" text='Hydraulic dual arm robot prototype' ]This paper reports on a hydraulic dual arm robot developed as a rapid prototype for our hydraulic humanoid robot. The lightweight arms (4 kg each) have three joints driven by hydraulic linear servo actuators that can achieve higher torque and speed than human arms. A double four-bar linkage provides a wide range of motion (210°) to the shoulder joint. Each joint has torque controllability that is fully utilized for compliant whole-body motion control tasks. Based on singular perturbation analysis, we discuss how damping on the joints is actively modulated by hydraulic force feedback control, which is then utilized in our passivity-based task-space force control scheme. The effectiveness of the proposed system is experimentally evaluated through zero-force tracking gravity compensation with a 10 kg payload and object manipulation tasks.

During object manipulation, grip force is coordinated with load force, which is primarily determined by object kinematics. Proximal arm kinematics may affect grip force control, as proximal segment motion could affect control of distal hand muscles via biomechanical and/or neural pathways. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of proximal kinematics on grip force modulation during object manipulation. Fifteen subjects performed three vertical lifting tasks that involved distinct proximal kinematics (elbow/shoulder), but resulted in similar end-point (hand) trajectories. While temporal coordination of grip and load forces remained similar across the tasks, proximal kinematics significantly affected the grip force-to-load force ratio ( P = 0.042), intrinsic finger muscle activation ( P = 0.045), and flexor-extensor ratio ( P < 0.001). Biomechanical coupling between extrinsic hand muscles and the elbow joint cannot fully explain the observed changes, as task-related changes in intrinsic hand muscle activation were greater than in extrinsic hand muscles. Rather, between-task variation in grip force (highest during task 3) appears to contrast to that in shoulder joint velocity/acceleration (lowest during task 3). These results suggest that complex neural coupling between the distal and proximal upper extremity musculature may affect grip force control during movements, also indicated by task-related changes in intermuscular coherence of muscle pairs, including intrinsic finger muscles. Furthermore, examination of the fingertip force showed that the human motor system may attempt to reduce variability in task-relevant motor output (grip force-to-load force ratio), while allowing larger fluctuations in output less relevant to task goal (shear force-to-grip force ratio).

In this study, the effect of active joint failure on the mobility, velocity, and static force of parallel robot manipulators is investigated. Two catastrophic active joint failure types are considered: joint jam and actuator force loss. To investigate the effect of failure on mobility, the Gru¨bler’s mobility equation is modified to take into account the kinematic constraints imposed by various branches in the manipulator. In the case of joint jam, the manipulator loses the ability to move and apply force in a specific portion of its task space; while in the case of actuator force loss, the manipulator gains an unconstrained motion in a specific portion of the task space in which an externally applied force cannot be resisted by the actuator forces. The effect of joint jam and actuator force loss on the velocity and on the force capabilities of parallel manipulators is investigated by examining the change in the Jacobian matrix, its inverse, and transposes. It is shown that the reduced velocity and force capabilities after joint jam and loss of actuator force could be determined using the null space vectors of the transpose of the Jacobian matrix and its inverse. Computer simulation is conducted to demonstrate the application of the developed methodology in determining the post-failure trajectory of a 3-3 six-degree-of-freedom Stewart-Gough manipulator, when encountering active joint jam and actuator force loss.

This article reports the most recent work of the OMERACT Ultrasound Task Force (post OMERACT 8) and highlights of future research priorities discussed at the OMERACT 9 meeting, Kananaskis, Canada, May 2008. Results of 3 studies were presented: (1) assessing intermachine reliability; (2) applying the scoring system developed in the hand to other joints most commonly affected in rheumatoid arthritis (RA); and (3) assessing interobserver reliability on a deep target joint (shoulder). Results demonstrated good intermachine reliability between multiple examiners, and good applicability of the scoring system for the hand on other joints (including shoulder). Study conclusions were discussed and a future research agenda was generated, notably the further development of a Global OMERACT Sonography Scoring (GLOSS) system in RA, emphasizing the importance of testing feasibility and added value over standard clinical variables. Future disease areas of importance to develop include a scoring system for enthesitis and osteoarthritis.

Force-unconstrained (singular) poses of the 3-PRR planar parallel manipulator (PPM), where the underscore indicates the actuated joint, and the 4-PRR, a redundant PPM with an additional actuated branch, are presented. The solution of these problems is based upon concepts of reciprocal screw quantities and kinematic analysis. In general, non-redundant PPMs such as the 3-PRR are known to have two orders of infinity of force-unconstrained poses, i.e., a three-variable polynomial in terms of the task-space variables (position and orientation of the mobile platform). The inclusion of redundant branches eliminates one order of infinity of force-unconstrained configurations for every actuated branch beyond three. The geometric identification of force-unconstrained poses is carried out by assuming one variable for each order of infinity. In order to simplify the algebraic procedure of these problems, the assumed or “free” variables are considered to be joint displacements. For both manipulators, an effective elimination technique is adopted. For the 3-PRR, the roots of a 6th-order polynomial determine the force-unconstrained poses, i.e., surfaces in a three dimensional space defined by the task-space variables. For the 4-PRR, a 64th-order polynomial determines curves of force-unconstrained poses in the same dimensional space.

ABSTRACTThis study develops a kinematic/kinetic model to evaluate the effect of different handle angles on wrist loading during lifting task. An imaged-based motion analysis system is used to study the movement pattern, force and moment of the wrist joint among nine different handle angles. Six CCD cameras were used to record 3-D trajectories of limb-mounted markers based on the laboratory coordination system as defined by an 8-marker cube. Euler angles are used to describe the orientation of a distal segment reference frame relative to a proximal segment reference frame. Each segment of the upper extremities is regarded as a uniform rigid body with six degrees of freedom. The resultant loading of the wrist joints was determined using an inverse dynamic procedure.This study indicates that tool handles can be designed or selected to reduce manual loading and the potential for injury during tool use. The mean curve of joint force and moment provided consultations and understandings of the wrist loading during lifting task. In this study, handles that kept the wrist joints in a dorsiflexed and radial deviated position, showed significant reduction in stresses around the surrounding soft tissue.

1. Six subjects performed three series of pointing tasks with the unconstrained arm. Series one and two required subjects to move as fast as possible with different weights attached to the wrist. The first required flexion at both shoulder and elbow joints. The second required shoulder flexion and elbow extension. The third series required flexion at both joints and subjects were intentionally instructed to vary movement speed. These three pointing tasks were selected as the simplest progression from single to multiple degree of freedom movements in which different patterns of motoneuron excitation are required depending on whether movements are made against different loads or at different intended speeds. 2. Changes in load and changes in intended speed both produced systematic but different changes in the patterns of muscle activity and joint torque in both the elbow and shoulder muscles. These patterns are the same found during constrained, single-joint elbow flexion movements. The changes are expressed in the rates of rise, durations, and latencies of the electromyographic (EMG) bursts and in the rates of rise of torque that have specific dependencies based on the force requirements of the task. 3. A consistent, almost linear relationship is observed between muscle torque at the shoulder and at the elbow for all three tasks. Similar systematic changes were not seen in the kinematic description of joint angles.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

The article deals with study of problems related to the interaction of investigators with operational units during the appointment and conduct of the search. On the basis of the scientific analysis of normative-legal acts certain features of correctness of carrying out such investigative (search) action, as search with observance of all requirements specified in the Criminal procedure code of Ukraine and the laws of Ukraine have been found out. After having analyzed the regulations in accordance with this issue, it has been concluded that the interaction between investigative and operational units is carried out in the following organizational forms: 1) exchange of information; 2) joint discussion of opinions, proposals, conclusions on the materials of the proceedings and on issues of interaction; 3) joint planning; 4) joint participation in carrying out separate investigative (search) actions. It has been concluded that the effective procedural interaction of the investigator with the operational units during the search as part of the investigative task force is characterized by the following features: 1) the search has the same purpose; 2) all actions of the members of the investigative task force must be agreed upon during the development of a single plan; 3) each of the members of the investigative task force acts within its powers and retains its functional independence; 4) work as a member of the investigative task force gives the investigator the opportunity to use the data obtained promptly as soon as possible, and to operational officers – the information obtained during the search (in compliance with the principles of strict confidentiality)

1. The activity of single motor units was recorded in the first dorsal interosseus muscle of human subjects while they performed an isometric ramp-and-hold maneuver. Motor-unit activity was characterized before and after fatigue by the use of a branched bipolar electrode that was positioned subcutaneously over the test muscle. Activity was characterized in terms of the forces of recruitment and derecruitment and the discharge pattern. The purpose was to determine, before and after fatigue, whether motor-unit activity was affected by the direction in which the force was exerted. 2. Regardless of the task during prefatigue trials, interimpulse intervals were 1) more variable during increases or decreases in force than when force was held constant at the target value (4-6% above the recruitment force), and 2) more clustered around an arbitrary central value than would be expected with a normal (Gaussian) distribution. Both effects were seen during the flexion and abduction tasks. The behavior of low-threshold motor units in first dorsal interosseus is thus largely unaffected by the direction of the force exerted by the index finger. The absence of a task (i.e., a direction of force) effect suggests that the resultant force vector about the metacarpophalangeal joint of the index finger is not coded in terms of discrete populations of motor units, but, rather, it is based on the net muscle activity about the joint. 3. Motor-unit behavior during and after fatigue showed that the relatively homogeneous behavior seen before fatigue could be severely disrupted. The fatiguing protocol involved the continuous repetition, to the endurance limit, of a 15-s ramp-and-hold maneuver in which the abduction target force was 50% of maximum and was held for 10-s epochs (ramps up and down were approximately 2 s each). Motor-unit threshold was assessed by the forces of recruitment and derecruitment associated with each cycle of the fatigue test. Changes in recruitment force during the protocol were either minimal or, when present, not systematic. In contrast, the derecruitment force of all units exhibited a marked and progressive increase over the course of the test. 4. After the fatigue test, when the initial threshold tasks were repeated, the behavior of most motor units changed. These changes included the derecruitment of previously active motor units, the recruitment of additional motor units, and an increased discharge variability of units that remained recruited. The variation in recruitment order seemed to be much greater than that reported previously for nonfatiguing conditions.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

A Joint Task Force of eminent public health experts of India was constituted by IPHA, and IAPSM to help the Government of India for containment of COVID-19 pandemic in the country. The terms of reference of the Joint Task Force was to 1) To review and collate the scientific epidemiological literature pertaining to COVID-19 in India at national and state level; 2) To develop consensus amongst the experts regarding COVID-19 disease epidemiology and trends and develop action plan based on the consensus; 3) To widely disseminate the consensus statement and action plan with public health experts, other medical professional associations and other key stakeholders; 4) To share the consensus statement with the policy makers at highest level at centre and state.

AbstractThis paper focuses on finger force magnitude analysis during stiffness discrimination task. In the frame of their Study and research work MS students from the Université Grenoble Alpes specially designed an experimental bench allowing to simulate a pseudo-haptic spring. Then, a series of stiffness discrimination tests between reals springs and a pseudo-haptic spring were performed. Finger pressing forces and students’ (subjects’) perception of spring stiffness were recorded and analyzed. The analysis of psychometric curves indicates that subjects underestimate the simulated stiffness of the pseudo-haptic spring. The results also indicate that the peak of finger force applied on pseudo-haptic spring increases as the simulated stiffness increases. Moreover, it was found that the relationships between the logarithm of stiffness and the finger force were linear for the real springs and the pseudo-haptic spring. Pseudo-haptics effect being provided by specially designed isometric force feedback device, the results of this study may be useful for computer-based rehabilitation tasks designed for motor disorder patients with muscle deficiency associated with limited joint movement range or for injured athletes in the process of rehabilitation.

(27 JANUARY 2015) [Trans.: Abdulbasit Kassim] Available at: http://jihadology.net/2015/01/27/al-urwah-al-wuthqa-foundation-presents-a-new-video-message-from-from-boko-%e1%b8%a5arams-jamaat-ahl-al-sunnah-li-dawah-wa-l-jihad-interview-with-the-official-spokesma/ From 3–7 January 2015, Boko Haram attacked Baga, a town on the border with Chad, and gained control over the military base of the multinational Joint Task Force. According to Amnesty International, the attack on Baga, which claimed as many as 2,000 lives, was the deadliest attack in the history of Boko Haram. Although the Nigerian military underestimated the number of casualties, Abu Mus‘ab al-Barnawi, son of Muhammad Yusuf, in this interview explained the reasons Boko Haram attacked Baga and the strategic importance of the city to the group and the Nigerian military. This video and the next video (text 54) are unique for the fact that they were issued under a new media agency, al-‘Urwa al-Wuthqā, and did not mention Shekau at all, while the style and contents of the videos carry many of the messages of Ansaru, protesting Muslim civilian deaths. It is likely that the speaker in this video represented a faction of Boko Haram that comprised of former Ansaru members who reintegrated with Boko Haram ...

This paper presents a novel transmission design that consists of a parallel combination of an MR damper and a compliant element together acting in series with an actuator. By adjusting the magnetic field to vary the amount of damping, the transmission can be switched between compliant and effectively rigid modes. Transmission compliance between an actuator and its load has several benefits: It enables (1) storage of elastic energy to improve efficiency, (2) filtering of shocks acting on the load that would otherwise be transmitted to the actuator, and (3) facilitation of force control by converting it to a position control problem. Despite these benefits, the design objective for most robotic systems remains to minimize transmission compliance to improve transmission bandwidth, improving the ability to control the position of the load with high precision. With the new transmission presented in this paper, compliance becomes a tunable quantity allowing joint stiffness to be optimized based upon the task requirements.

Crude oil and ethanol unit train derailments sometimes result in the release of large volumes of flammable liquids which ignite and endanger the safety of persons, property, and the environment. Current methods to reduce the probability and mitigate the consequences of High-Hazard Flammable Train (HHFT) derailments include operational speed constraints, enhanced tank car design/build requirements, improved car and track inspection and maintenance, and use of advanced braking systems. The train brake system can dissipate more energy in a derailment scenario if the brake signal propagation rate is increased, the brake force against the wheel tread is increased, or a combined approach is used. This paper describes a simplified energy conservation model used to determine the emergency braking stopping distance and energy dissipation benefits available for three advanced train braking systems. A 3×3 matrix of brake configurations was defined by three brake signal propagation rates and three car net braking ratio (NBR) values. The brake signal propagation rate was modeled for trains with conventional head-end locomotive power, pneumatic car braking, and no two-way end-of-train device (CONV); locomotive distributed power with pneumatic car braking (trailing DP); and locomotive power with electronically-controlled pneumatic (ECP) braking. Car NBR values of 10, 12.8, and 14 percent were selected to reflect the expected brake force range available from older equipment in the existing tank car fleet (10% NBR) to the maximum acceptable value for new or rebuilt cars (14% NBR). Various in-train emergency brake application scenarios for loaded unit trains were modeled while accounting for the gross effects of derailment/collision blockage forces. Empirical data from four trailing distributed power train derailment events were used to estimate an average derailment/collision blockage force (ADF) and simulate the trailing consist braking performance. The ADF results were subsequently used in a more general tank car unit train parametric study to evaluate the effects of train speed, track grade, and in-train derailment position for each brake configuration in the matrix. The simplified energy conservation model was used to 1) quantify the number of trailing consist cars expected to stop short of the derailment location and 2) compare the car-by-car energy state of each car in the trailing consist that was calculated to reach the derailment location. Results for the empirical and parametric study cases are compared graphically and observations are discussed relative to two assumed baseline brake configurations.

Simulations based on forward dynamics have been used to identify the biomechanical mechanisms how human movement is generated. They used either net joint torques [1] or muscle forces [2, 3, 4] as actuators to drive forward simulation. However, very few models used EMG-based patterns to define muscle excitations [4] or were actually driven by EMGs. Muscle activation patterns vary from subject to subject and from movement to movement, and the activations depend on the control task, sometimes quite different even for the same joint angle and joint torque [5]. Using EMG as input can account for subjects’ different muscle activation patterns and help revealing the neuromuscular control strategies.

For the past two decades, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) Office of Research and Development has sponsored research conducted by the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (Volpe Center) in safety matters related to the transportation of hazardous materials by railroad tank cars. Recent research conducted by the Volpe Center has included the application of semi-empirical and computational (i.e., finite element analysis) methods to estimate the puncture resistance of conventional railroad tank cars under generalized head and shell impact scenarios. Subsequent work identified sandwich structures as a potential technology to improve the puncture resistance of the commodity-carrying tank under impact loading conditions. This paper summarizes basic research (i.e., testing and analysis) conducted to examine the deformation behavior of flat-welded steel sandwich panels under two types of quasi-static loading: (1) uniaxial compression; and (2) bending through an indenter. The objectives of these tests were to: (1) confirm the analytical and computational (i.e., finite element) modeling of sandwich structures, (2) examine the fabrication issues associated with such structures (e.g., material selection and welding processes), and (3) observe the deformation behavior and local collapse mechanisms under the two different types of loading. In addition, the uniaxial compression tests were performed to rank or screen different core geometries. Five core geometries were examined in the compression tests: pipe or tubular cores with outer diameters equal to 2, 3, and 5 inches; a 2-inch square diamond core; and a double-corrugated core called an X-core with a 5-inch core height. The compression tests showed excellent repeatability of structural (i.e., force-crush) response for panels with similar cores and welding. The 3-inch pipe core and the diamond core were selected as candidate cores for the next test series because they possess attributes of moderate strength and moderate relative density. In addition, force-crush curves calculated from finite element analysis were in reasonable agreement with the measured curves for all cores. Bend tests using a 12-inch by 12-inch indenter with 1-inch radius rounded edges were also conducted. The panels were simply-supported over 4-inch diameter rollers spanning 24 inches between the centers of the rollers. The bend tests included three variables: (1) core type (diamond core and 3-inch pipe core); (2) core orientation relative to the supports (cores running either parallel or perpendicular to the rollers used to support the panels); and (3) face sheet type (solid plates on both sides, strips used as face sheets on both sides, and a combination of solid plates and strips. Finite element analysis of the bend tests produced nearly identical shapes to the measured force-displacement curves.

Three-dimensional flow structures around and fluiddynamic forces acting on a rectangular cylinder in oscillatory flow were investigated by numerical simulation using finite volume method. The computations were carried out for three kinds of cross-sections with width/height ratio (d/H) d/H = 0.6, 1.0 and 2.0 and for the amplitude of oscillating flow in the range of 2.5 ≤ the Keulegan-Carpenter number (KC) ≤ 25, the Stokes number (β) = 95. The calculated flow patterns and the drag and inertia force coefficients of Morison equation acting on the cylinder were compared with the experimental ones using a U-tube water tank. In this paper, we note how the KC number and the width/height ratio of the cylinders affect the unsteady and three-dimensional flow structures such as the “longitudinal vortices” and “transverse street” which formed in the case of a circular cylinder fixed in oscillatory flow, and how the CD and the CM values of Morison coefficients change corresponding to the change of the behavior of the flow patterns. Furthermore the relationship between spanwise correlation coefficient of the transverse force R(x3), where x3 is the spanwise position from the bottom of the cylinder, and three-dimensional vortex structures were investigated.

This paper is the first in a two-part series on the puncture performance of railroad tank cars carrying hazardous materials in the event of an accident. Various metrics are often mentioned in the open literature to characterize the structural performance of tank cars under accident loading conditions. One of the consequences in terms of structural damage to the tank during accidents is puncture. This two-part series of papers focuses on four metrics to quantify the performance of tank cars against the threat of puncture: (1) speed, (2) force, (3) energy, and (4) conditional probability of release. In this paper (Part I), generalized tank car impact scenarios are illustrated. Particular focus is given to the generalized shell impact scenario because performance-based requirements for shell puncture resistance are being considered by the regulatory agencies in United States and Canada. Definitions for the four performance metrics are given. Physical and mathematical relationships among these metrics are outlined. Strengths and limitations of these performance metrics are discussed. In Part II, the multi-disciplinary approach to develop engineering tools to estimate the performance metrics will be described. The complementary connection between testing and modeling will be emphasized. Puncture performance metrics, which were estimated from other sources, will be compared for different tank car designs. These comparisons will be presented to interpret the metrics from a probabilistic point of view. In addition, sensitivity of the metrics to the operational and design factors will be examined qualitatively.

This paper is the second in a two-part series on the puncture performance of railroad tank cars carrying hazardous materials in the event of an accident. Various metrics are often mentioned in the open literature to characterize the structural performance of tank cars under accident loading conditions. One of the consequences in terms of structural damage to the tank during accidents is puncture. This two-part series of papers focuses on four metrics to quantify the performance of tank cars against the threat of puncture: (1) speed, (2) force, (3) energy, and (4) conditional probability of release. In Part I, generalized tank car impact scenarios were illustrated. Particular focus is given to the generalized shell impact scenario because performance-based requirements for shell puncture resistance are being considered by the regulatory agencies in United States and Canada. Definitions for the four performance metrics were given. Physical and mathematical relationships among these metrics were outlined. Strengths and limitations of these performance metrics were discussed. In this paper (Part II), the multi-disciplinary approach to develop engineering tools to estimate the performance metrics is described. The complementary connection between testing and modeling is emphasized. Puncture performance metrics, which were estimated from other sources, are compared for different tank car designs. These comparisons are presented to interpret the metrics from a probabilistic point of view. In addition, sensitivity of the metrics to the operational and design factors is examined qualitatively.

In this study, the concept of force and moment-workspaces is introduced. The force-moment capability analysis of parallel-manipulators is used to generate the force and moment workspaces. Force and moment workspaces of the manipulator are used to visualize the boundary of the workspace along with the sustainable/applicable value of force or moment depending on the maximum limits of the manipulator’s actuators. A method which analytically sets the greatest number of actuators to their maximum values is used for the determination of the force and moment workspaces. Four cases, two for finding the maximum magnitude of force with the value of moment either prescribed or associated and two for finding the maximum magnitude of moment with a prescribed or associated force, are explained and discussed. The redundantly-actuated 3-RRRS (all revolute joints actuated), six degree-of-freedom parallel manipulator is used as an example case for the analysis. The results show that a more even force/moment distribution is achieved for points lying inside the boundary of the maximum reachable workspace. It is shown that the proposed force and moment workspaces are an effective design tool for parallel manipulators. In addition, these force and moment workspaces can be seen as an efficient tool for task planning.

One of the challenges in the numerical simulation of a system of particles in a fluid flow is to balance the need for an accurate representation of the flow around individual particles with the feasibility of simulating the fully-coupled dynamics of large numbers of particles. Over the past few years, several techniques have been developed for the direct numerical simulation of dispersed two-phase flows. Examples include the ALE-FEM formulation described by Hu et al. [1] and the DLM method of Patankar et al. [2]. The former uses a finite element mesh that conforms to the shape and position of each particle and evolves dynamically as the particles move, while the latter employs a fixed mesh and constraints are imposed in the volume of fluid occupied by the particle to reproduce a corresponding rigid body motion. In both the aim is to fully resolve the flow dynamics for each particle and there is a corresponding demand for high resolution of the flow. A typical approach used for gas-solid flows has been the point-force method that combines a Lagrangian tracking of individual particles with an Eulerian formulation for force feedback on the fluid flow. The latter approach has worked well for very small particles in systems of negligible void fraction but significant mass loading. The resolution level is very low and often the particles are smaller than the spacing between grid points. Its success comes from the averaging effect of large numbers of small particles and the fact that the influence of an individual particle is weak. The approach though is inaccurate for liquid-solid or bubbly flows when the individual particles are of finite size and the void fractions may easily be larger than 1%. In tracking the individual particles an equation of motion is formulated that relates the particle acceleration to the fluid forces acting on the particle, and these forces such as drag and lift are parameterized in terms of the local fluid velocity, velocity gradients and history of the fluid motion. Once flow modification is included however, it is harder to specify the local flow. The parameterizations also become more complex as effects of finite Reynolds number or wall boundaries are included. As a numerical procedure, the force-coupling method (FCM) does not require the same level of resolution as the DLM or ALE-FEM schemes and avoids the limitations of the point-force method. It gives a self-consistent scheme for simulating the dynamics of a system of small particle using a fixed numerical mesh and resolves the flow except close to the surface of each particle. Distributed, finite force-multipoles are used to represent the particles, and FCM is able to predict quite well the motion of isolated particles in shear flows and the interaction between moving particles. The method also provides insights into how the two-phase flow may be described theoretically and modeled. The idea of the force-coupling method was first introduced by Maxey et al. [3]. The basic elements of the method are given by Maxey & Patel [4] and Lomholt & Maxey [5]. In the basic version of the method, fluid is assumed to fill the whole flow domain, including the volume occupied by the particles. The presence of each particle is represented by a finite force monopole that generates a body force distribution f(x,t) on the fluid, which transmits the resultant force of the particles on the flow to the fluid. The velocity field u(x,t) is incompressible and satisfies ∇·u=0(1)ρDuDt=−∇p+μ∇2u+f(x,t),(2) where μ is the fluid viscosity and p is the pressure. The body force due to the presence of NP bubbles is f(x,t)=∑n=1NpF(n)Δ(x−Y(n)(t)),(3)Y(n)(t) is the position of the nth spherical particle and F(n)(t) is the force this exerts on the fluid. The force monopole for each particle is determined by the function Δ(x), which is specified as a Gaussian envelope Δ(x)=(2πσ2)−3/2exp(−x2/2σ2)(4) and the length scale σ is set in terms of the particle radius a as a/σ = π. The velocity of each particle V(n)(t) is found by forming a local average of the fluid velocity over the region occupied by the particle as V(n)(t)=∫u(x,t)Δ(x−Y(n)(t))d3x.(5) If mP and mF denote the mass of a particle and the mass of displaced fluid, the force of the particle acting on the fluid is F(n)=(mP−mF)(g−dV(n)dt).(6) This force is the sum of the net external force due to buoyancy of the particle and the excess inertia of the particle over the corresponding volume of displaced fluid. In addition a short-range, conservative force barrier is imposed to represent collisions between particles and prevent overlap. A similar barrier force is imposed, normal to the wall, to represent collisions between a particle and a rigid wall. With this scheme the body forces induce a fluid motion equivalent to that of the particles. The dynamics of the particles and the fluid are considered as one system where fluid drag on the particles, added-mass effects and lift forces are internal to the system. The method does not resolve flow details near to the surface of a particle, and indeed the no-slip condition is not satisfied on surface. At distances of about half a particle radius from the surface the flow though is fairly well represented. While there is no explicit boundary condition on the particle surface, the condition (5) ensures that the bubble and the surrounding fluid move together. The method has been applied to a variety of flow problems. Lomholt et al. [6] compared experimental results for the buoyant rise of particles in a vertical channel filled with liquid with results from corresponding simulations with FCM. The particle Reynolds numbers were in the range of 0 to 5 and the results agreed well. The wake-capture and the drafting, kissing and tumbling of pairs of particles, or of a group of three particles were found to match. Comparisons have made too with full direct numerical simulations performed with a spectral element code [7]. Liu et al. [8] examined the motion of particles in a channel at both low and finite Reynolds numbers, up to Re = 10. There was in general good agreement between the FCM results and the DNS for the particle motion, and the flow details were consistent away from the particle surface. There has been extensive work in the past on the sedimentation of particles in a homogeneous suspension, mainly for conditions of Stokes flow. Climent & Maxey [9] have verified that the FCM scheme reproduces many of the standard features found for Stokes suspensions. The results for finite Reynolds numbers illustrate how the structure of the suspension changes as fluid inertia is introduced, in particular limiting the growth in velocity fluctuation levels with system size. Further work has been done by Dance [10] on sedimenting suspensions in bounded containers. Recently we have been studying the dynamics of drag reduction by injecting micro-bubbles into a turbulent channel flow. This has been proven through experiments over the past 30 years to be an effective means for drag reduction but the details of the mechanisms involved have not been determined. Numerical simulations by Xu et al. [11] have shown clear evidence of drag reduction for a range of bubble sizes. A key feature is the need to maintain a concentration of bubbles in the near-wall region. In the talk, the method will be described and example results given. Specific issues relevant to gas-solid flows will be discussed.

The formulation of multibody dynamics in terms of natural coordinates (NCs) leads to equations of motion in the form of differential-algebraic equations (DAEs). A characteristic feature of the natural coordinates approach is a constant mass matrix. The DAEs make possible (i) the systematic assembly of open-loop and closed-loop multibody systems, (ii) the design of state-of-the-art structure-preserving integrators such as energy-momentum or symplectic-momentum schemes, and (iii) the direct link to nonlinear finite element methods. However, the use of NCs in the optimal control of multibody systems presents two major challenges. First, the consistent application of actuating joint-forces becomes an issue since conjugate joint-coordinates are not directly available. Secondly, numerical methods for optimal control with index-3 DAEs are still in their infancy. The talk will address the two aforementioned issues. In particular, a new energy-momentum consistent method for the optimal control of multibody systems in terms of NCs will be presented.