Mechanical bearings with tunable compliance after biological role model of blood sinus hairs

In follicle sinus complex of sinus hairs, two blood vessels seem to have a prominent function. Up to date, their biological role is unknown, however, hypothesis suggest that they are used as hydraulical bearing for the hair which is used to change the stiffness and compliance of the fixation depending on the application. Because of the size of the structures of interest experiments at the living object to clarify the biological role are not possible so far. Therefore, mechatronic approaches can help to investigate advantages and possibilities of a bearing with tunable compliance. Thus, in the current thesis, it is develop a mathematical modeling, multi-body simulation and a mechatronic demonstrator of a swinging rod in a bearing with tunable compliance. The tunable compliance of the system was inspired of Jack Spring principle of work, which change the compliance by decreasing the number of active coils.Tesi

Investigations on the mechanical relevance of prominent vibrissa features for surface texture detection

The tactile hairs of animals are used as paradigm for artificial tactile sensors. In the case of mystacial vibrissae, the animals can determine the distance to an object, recognize the shape of the object and detect the surface texture of the object. The goal is to design an artificial tactile sensor inspired by the natural paradigm. In the present work, the vibrissa and the follicle-sinus-complex are modeled as a one-sided clamped beam within the limits of the non-linear Euler-Bernoulli beam theory. The theoretical background of the function principle and the effects of typical properties of the natural vibrissa, e.g., a tapered shape and a pre-curvature while operating in surface texture detection are analyzed. The beam-surface contact is described by Coulomb’s law of friction. When the beam is in touch with the surface, a quasi-static displacement of the support takes place. As a consequence of the displacement the support reactions are changing. The resulting support reactions are analyzed in parameter studies and beneficial levels of tapering and pre-curvature are identified

Shaping the future by engineering: 58th IWK, Ilmenau Scientific Colloquium, Technische Universität Ilmenau, 8 - 12 September 2014 ; programme

Druckausgabe erschienen im Universitätsverlag Ilmenau: Shaping the future by engineering : 58th IWK, Ilmenau Scientific Colloquium, Technische Universität Ilmenau, 8 - 12 September 2014 ; programme / Department of Mechanical Engineering, Technische Universität Ilmenau. [Hrsg.: Peter Scharff. Red.: Andrea Schneider] Ilmenau : Univ.-Verl. Ilmenau, 2014. - 155 S. ISBN 978-3-86360-085-

Modeling middle cerebral artery stroke in rats : an examination of the skilled reaching impairments

xiii, 345 leaves : ill. ; 29 cm. + 1 CD-ROMMiddle cerebral artery (MCA) stroke can produce chronic incapacitating motor impairments. Understanding the neural basis of the motor syndromes is complicated by the diversity of neural structures damaged but the problem can be addressed in laboratory rats by inducing selective infarcts. Nevertheless, the motor syndromes that ensue from stroke in rats remain poorly understood and undermine its potential as a model for clinical stroke. The objective of the present thesis was to document the skilled reaching impairments from neocortical and subcortical MCA infarcts in rats. In addition, the integrity of the motor system components spared by the infarct was assessed neurophysiologically and neuroanatomically. Characteristic reaching impairments emerged from each infarct but there were also some overlapping features that might be explained by neural dysfunction extending beyond the boundaries of the infarct. The present studies showed that the laboratory rat is an ideal animal model for studying stroke, which should be of interest to both clinical and research scientists studying stroke

Programming the cerebellum

It is argued that large-scale neural network simulations of cerebellar cortex and nuclei, based on realistic compartmental models of me major cell populations, are necessary before the problem of motor learning in the cerebellum can be solved, [HOUK et al.; SIMPSON et al.