8 research outputs found
In-plane Density Gradation of Shoe Midsoles for Optimized Cushioning Performance
Midsoles are important components in footwear as they provide shock
absorption and stability, thereby improving comfort and effectively preventing
certain foot and ankle injuries. A rationally tailored midsole can potentially
mitigate plantar pressure, improving performance and comfort levels. Despite
the importance of midsole design, the potential of using in-plane density
gradation in midsole has been rarely explored in earlier studies. The present
work investigates the effectiveness of in-plane density gradation in shoe
midsoles using a new class of polyurea foams as the material candidate. Their
excellent cushioning properties justify the use of polyurea foams. Different
polyurea foam densities, ranging from 95 to 350 kg/m3 are examined and tested
to construct density-dependent correlative mathematical relations required for
the optimization process. An optimization framework is then created to allocate
foam densities at certain plantar zones based on the required cushioning
performance constrained by the local pressures. The interior-point algorithm
was used to solve the constrained optimization problem. The optimization
algorithm introduces a novel approach, utilizing the maximum specific energy
absorption as the objective function. The optimization process identifies
specific foam densities at various plantar regions for maximum biomechanical
energy dissipation without incurring additional weight penalties. Our results
suggest midsole design can benefit from horizontal (in-plane) density
gradation, leading to potential weight reduction and localized cushioning
improvements. With local plantar peak pressure data analysis, the optimization
results indicate low-density polyurea foams (140 kg/m3) for central and lateral
phalanges, whereas stiffer foams (185-230 kg/m3) are identified as suitable
candidates for metatarsal and arch regions in an in-plane density graded
midsole design.Comment: 31 pages, 6 figures This work is submitted for consideration at the
Journal of Sports Engineering and Technology: Part P and currently under peer
review process. Data will be available upon request from the corresponding
autho
Computing Fast and Scalable Table Cartograms for Large Tables
Given an m x n table T of positive weights and a rectangle R with an area equal to the sum of the weights, a table cartogram computes a partition of R into m x n convex quadrilateral faces such that each face has the same adjacencies as its corresponding cell in T, and has an area equal to the cell's weight. In this thesis, we explored different table cartogram algorithms for a large table with thousands of cells and investigated the potential applications of large table cartograms. We implemented Evans et al.'s table cartogram algorithm that guarantees zero area error and adapted a diffusion-based cartographic transformation approach, FastFlow, to produce large table cartograms. We introduced a constraint optimization-based table cartogram generation technique, TCarto, leveraging the concept of force-directed layout. We implemented TCarto with column-based and quadtree-based parallelization to compute table cartograms for table with thousands of cells. We presented several potential applications of large table cartograms to create the diagrammatic representations in various real-life scenarios, e.g., for analyzing spatial correlations between geospatial variables, understanding clusters and densities in scatterplots, and creating visual effects in images (i.e., expanding illumination, mosaic art effect). We presented an empirical comparison among these three table cartogram techniques with two different real-life datasets: a meteorological weather dataset and a US State-to-State migration flow dataset. FastFlow and TCarto both performed well on the weather data table. However, for US State-to-State migration flow data, where the table contained many local optima with high value differences among adjacent cells, FastFlow generated concave quadrilateral faces. We also investigated some potential relationships among different measurement metrics such as cartographic error (accuracy), the average aspect ratio (the readability of the visualization), computational speed, and the grid size of the table. Furthermore, we augmented our proposed TCarto with angle constraint to enhance the readability of the visualization, conceding some cartographic error, and also inspected the potential relationship of the restricted angles with the accuracy and the readability of the visualization. In the output of the angle constrained TCarto algorithm on US State-to-State migration dataset, it was difficult to identify the rows and columns for a cell upto 20 degree angle constraint, but appeared to be identifiable for more than 40 degree angle constraint
Framework for The Generation and Design of Naturally Functionally Graded Lattice Structures
Functionally Graded Lattice (FGL) Structures have shown improved performance over uniform lattice structures in different fields. Another form of functional grading can be seen in materials in nature, where the cellular structure can vary in both cell porosity and size. To distinguish between lattice structures that vary in porosity only and lattice structures that vary in both, we will refer to the latter in this research as Naturally Functionally Graded Lattice (NFGL) structures. Research into NFGL structures' performance against FGL structures in the literature is lacking. Furthermore, the current methods in the literature to generate these structures are severely limited and suffer from multiple drawbacks. This research aims to develop a framework, namely the NFGL Framework, to generate NFGL structures without the drawbacks that exist in current methods and to improve the performance of the generated structures using the NFGL Framework against existing FGL structures. The NFGL Framework uses a novel method to generate nodes for NFGL structures from using a developed simplified sphere packing algorithm to generate conformal NFGL structures in a deterministic and computationally efficient manner. Furthermore, the NFGL Framework can perform a similarity analysis using a modified Mean Structural Similarity (MSSIM) index to improve the performance of the generated NFGL structure. The generated structures using the NFGL Framework were tested against the existing methods and showed to overcome the drawbacks of these methods with improved performance and computational time. Furthermore, the generated NFGL structures were tested against FGL structures and the results showed a performance gain from the use of NFGL structures over FGL structures with a reduced computational cost.Ph.D