REPORT on the TRUCK BRAKE LINING WORKSHOP and FLEET OPERATORS' SURVEY

The report summarizes what transpired during brake linings-related workshop held at the Fall 2003 meeting of the Technology and Maintenance Council (TMC) in Charlotte, NC. The title of the workshop was ''Developing a Useful Friction Material Rating System''. It was organized by a team consisting of Peter Blau (Oak Ridge National Laboratory), Jim Britell (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration), and Jim Lawrence (Motor and Equipment Manufacturers Association). The workshop was held under the auspices of TMC Task Force S6 (Chassis), chaired by Joseph Stianche (Sanderson Farms, Inc.). Six invited speakers during the morning session provided varied perspectives on testing and rating aftermarket automotive and truck brake linings. They were: James R. Clark, Chief Engineer, Foundation Brakes and Wheel Equipment, Dana Corporation, Spicer Heavy Axle and Brake Division; Charles W. Greening, Jr, President, Greening Test Labs; Tim Duncan, General Manager, Link Testing Services;Dennis J. McNichol, President, Dennis NationaLease; Jim Fajerski, Business Manager, OE Sales and Applications Engineering, Federal Mogul Corporation; and Peter J. Blau, Senior Materials Development Engineer, Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The afternoon break-out sessions addressed nine questions concerning such issues as: ''Should the federal government regulate aftermarket lining quality?''; ''How many operators use RP 628, and if so, what's good or bad about it?''; and ''Would there be any value to you of a vocation-specific rating system?'' The opinions of each discussion group, consisting of 7-9 participants, were reported and consolidated in summary findings on each question. Some questions produced a greater degree of agreement than others. In general, the industry seems eager for more information that would allow those who are responsible for maintaining truck brakes to make better, more informed choices on aftermarket linings. A written fleet operator survey was also conducted during the TMC meeting. Twenty-one responses were received, spanning fleet sizes between 12 and 170,000 vehicles. Responses are summarized in a series of tables separated into responses from small (100 or fewer powered vehicles), medium (101-1000 vehicles), and large fleets (>1000 vehicles). The vast majority of fleets do their own brake maintenance, relying primarily on experience and lining manufactures to select aftermarket linings. At least half of the responders are familiar to some extent with TMC Recommended Practice 628 on brake linings, but most do not use this source of test data as the sole criterion to select linings. Significant shortfalls in the applicability of TMC RP 628 to certain types of brake systems were noted

A comparison of several surface finish measurement methods as applied to ground ceramic and metal surfaces

Surface finish is one of the most common measures of surface quality of ground ceramics and metal parts and a wide variety of methods and parameters have been developed to measure it. The purpose of this investigation was to compare the surface roughness parameters obtained on the same two specimens from three different types of measuring instruments: a traditional mechanical stylus system, a non-contact laser scanning system, and the atomic force microscope (two different AFM systems were compared). The same surface-ground silicon nitride and Inconel 625 alloy specimens were used for all measurements in this investigation. Significant differences in arithmetic average roughness, root-mean-square roughness, and peak-to-valley roughness were obtained when comparing data from the various topography measuring instruments. Non-contact methods agreed better with the others on the metal specimen than on the ceramic specimen. Reasons for these differences include the effective dimensions and geometry of the probe with respect to the surface topography; the reflectivity of the surface, and the type of filtering scheme Results of this investigation emphasize the importance of rigorously specifying the manner of surface roughness measurement when either reporting roughness data or when requesting that roughness data be provided

Frictional behavior of automotive brake materials under wet and dry conditions

The purpose of this effort was to develop an improved understanding of the relationship between the structure and frictional behavior of materials in the disc brake/rotor interface with a view toward improving the performance of automotive disc brakes. The three tasks involved in this Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) were as follows: Task 1. Investigation of Brake Pads and Rotors. Characterize surface features of worn brake pads and rotors, with special attention to the transfer film which forms on them during operation. Ford to supply specimens for examination and other supporting information. Task 2. Effects of Atmosphere and Repeated Applications on Brake Material Friction. Conduct pin-on-disk friction tests at ORNL under controlled moisture levels to determine effects of relative humidity on frictional behavior of brake pad and rotor materials. Conduct limited tests on the characteristics of friction under application of repeated contacts. Task 3. Comparison of Dynamometer Tests with Laboratory Friction Tests. Compare ORNL friction data with Ford dynamometer test data to establish the degree to which the simple bench tests can be useful in helping to understand frictional behavior in full-scale brake component tests. This final report summarizes work performed under this CRADA

Comparison of adeno-associated virus pseudotype 1, 2, and 8 vectors administered by intramuscular injection in the treatment of murine phenylketonuria

Phenylketonuria (PKU) is caused by hepatic phenylalanine hydroxylase (PAH) deficiency and is associated with systemic accumulation of phenylalanine (Phe). Previously we demonstrated correction of murine PKU after intravenous injection of a recombinant type 2 adeno-associated viral vector pseudotyped with type 8 capsid (rAAV2/8), which successfully directed hepatic transduction and Pah gene expression. Here, we report that liver PAH activity and phenylalanine clearance were also restored in PAH-deficient mice after simple intramuscular injection of either AAV2 pseudotype 1 (rAAV2/1) or rAAV2/8 vectors. Serotype 2 AAV vector (rAAV2/2) was also investigated, but long-term phenylalanine clearance has been observed only for pseudotypes 1 and 8. Therapeutic correction was shown in both male and female mice, albeit more effectively in males, in which correction lasted for the entire period of the experiment (>1 year). Although phenylalanine levels began to rise in female mice at about 8-10 months after rAAV2/8 injection they remained only mildly hyperphenylalaninemic thereafter and subsequent supplementation with synthetic tetrahydrobiopterin resulted in a transient decrease in blood phenylalanine. Alternatively, subsequent administration of a second vector with a different AAV pseudotype to avoid immunity against the previously administrated vector was also successful for long-term treatment of female PKU mice. Overall, this relatively less invasive gene transfer approach completes our previous studies and allows comparison of complementary strategies in the development of efficient PKU gene therapy protocols

Asymptotes in SU(2) Recoupling Theory: Wigner Matrices, 3j3j Symbols, and Character Localization

In this paper we employ a novel technique combining the Euler Maclaurin formula with the saddle point approximation method to obtain the asymptotic behavior (in the limit of large representation index $J$) of generic Wigner matrix elements $D^{J}_{MM'}(g)$. We use this result to derive asymptotic formulae for the character $\chi^J(g)$ of an SU(2) group element and for Wigner's $3j$ symbol. Surprisingly, given that we perform five successive layers of approximations, the asymptotic formula we obtain for $\chi^J(g)$ is in fact exact. This result provides a non trivial example of a Duistermaat-Heckman like localization property for discrete sums.Comment: 36 pages, 3 figure

On the Propagation of Slip Fronts at Frictional Interfaces

The dynamic initiation of sliding at planar interfaces between deformable and rigid solids is studied with particular focus on the speed of the slip front. Recent experimental results showed a close relation between this speed and the local ratio of shear to normal stress measured before slip occurs (static stress ratio). Using a two-dimensional finite element model, we demonstrate, however, that fronts propagating in different directions do not have the same dynamics under similar stress conditions. A lack of correlation is also observed between accelerating and decelerating slip fronts. These effects cannot be entirely associated with static local stresses but call for a dynamic description. Considering a dynamic stress ratio (measured in front of the slip tip) instead of a static one reduces the above-mentioned inconsistencies. However, the effects of the direction and acceleration are still present. To overcome this we propose an energetic criterion that uniquely associates, independently on the direction of propagation and its acceleration, the slip front velocity with the relative rise of the energy density at the slip tip.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figure

Matching gauge theory and string theory in a decoupling limit of AdS/CFT

We identify a regime of the AdS/CFT correspondence in which we can quantitatively match N=4 super Yang-Mills (SYM) for small 't Hooft coupling with weakly coupled type IIB string theory on AdS_5 x S^5. We approach this regime by taking the same decoupling limit on both sides of the correspondence. On the gauge theory side only the states in the SU(2) sector survive, and in the planar limit the Hamiltonian is given by the XXX_{1/2} Heisenberg spin chain. On the string theory side we show that the decoupling limit corresponds to a non-relativistic limit. In this limit some of the bosonic modes and all of the fermionic modes of the string become infinitely heavy and decouple. We first take the decoupling limit of the string sigma-model classically. This enables us to identify a semi-classical regime with semi-classical string states even though we are in a regime corresponding to small 't Hooft coupling. We furthermore analyze the quantum corrections that enter in taking the limit. From this we infer that gauge theory and string theory match, both in terms of the action and the spectrum, for the leading part and the first correction away from the semi-classical regime. Finally we consider the implications for the hitherto unexplained matching of the one-loop contribution to the energy of certain gauge theory and string theory states, and we explain how our results give a firm basis for the matching of the Hagedorn temperature in hep-th/0608115.Comment: 29 pages, 1 figure. v2: Version published in JHEP, section 4 improve

Magnetic Heisenberg-chain/pp-wave correspondence

We find a decoupling limit of planar N=4 super Yang-Mills (SYM) on R x S^3 in which it becomes equivalent to the ferromagnetic XXX_{1/2} Heisenberg spin chain in an external magnetic field. The decoupling limit generalizes the one found in hep-th/0605234 corresponding to the case with zero magnetic field. The presence of the magnetic field is seen to break the degeneracy of the vacuum sector and it has a non-trivial effect on the low energy spectrum. We find a general connection between the Hagedorn temperature of planar N=4 SYM on R x S^3 in the decoupling limit and the thermodynamics of the Heisenberg chain. This is used to study the Hagedorn temperature for small and large value of the effective coupling. We consider the dual decoupling limit of type IIB strings on AdS_5 x S^5. We find a Penrose limit compatible with the decoupling limit that gives a magnetic pp-wave background. The breaking of the symmetry by the magnetic field on the gauge theory side is seen to have a geometric counterpart in the derivation of the Penrose limit. We take the decoupling limit of the pp-wave spectrum and succesfully match the resulting spectrum to the low energy spectrum on the gauge theory side. This enables us to match the Hagedorn temperature of the pp-wave to the Hagedorn temperature of the gauge theory for large effective coupling. This generalizes the results of hep-th/0608115 to the case of non-zero magnetic field.Comment: 35 pages, 2 figures. v2: Refs. adde

A Monte-Carlo study of the AdS/CFT correspondence: an exploration of quantum gravity effects

In this paper we study the AdS/CFT correspondence for N=4 SYM with gauge group U(N), compactified on S^3 in four dimensions using Monte-Carlo techniques. The simulation is based on a particular reduction of degrees of freedom to commuting matrices of constant fields, and in particular, we can write the wave functions of these degrees of freedom exactly. The square of the wave function is equivalent to a probability density for a Boltzman gas of interacting particles in six dimensions. From the simulation we can extract the density particle distribution for each wave function, and this distribution can be interpreted as a special geometric locus in the gravitational dual. Studying the wave functions associated to half-BPS giant gravitons, we are able to show that the matrix model can measure the Planck scale directly. We also show that the output of our simulation seems to match various theoretical expectations in the large N limit and that it captures 1/N effects as statistical fluctuations of the Boltzman gas with the expected scaling. Our results suggest that this is a very promising approach to explore quantum corrections and effects in gravitational physics on AdS spaces.Comment: 40 pages, 7 figures, uses JHEP. v2: references adde

BF models, Duality and Bosonization on higher genus surfaces

The generating functional of two dimensional $BF$ field theories coupled to fermionic fields and conserved currents is computed in the general case when the base manifold is a genus g compact Riemann surface. The lagrangian density $L=dB{\wedge}A$ is written in terms of a globally defined 1-form $A$ and a multi-valued scalar field $B$. Consistency conditions on the periods of $dB$ have to be imposed. It is shown that there exist a non-trivial dependence of the generating functional on the topological restrictions imposed to $B$. In particular if the periods of the $B$ field are constrained to take values $4\pi n$, with $n$ any integer, then the partition function is independent of the chosen spin structure and may be written as a sum over all the spin structures associated to the fermions even when one started with a fixed spin structure. These results are then applied to the functional bosonization of fermionic fields on higher genus surfaces. A bosonized form of the partition function which takes care of the chosen spin structure is obtainedComment: 17 page