IMECE2006-14416 MODELING AND TESTING OF A NEW POLYMER-BASED IMPACT TOOL DESIGN TO REDUCE NOISE, VIBRATION AND BIOMECHANICAL INJURIES

ABSTRACT A new power impact tool design has been developed and tested using advanced engineering polymers to replace traditional metal components. The new polymer-metal impact mechanism generates less noise, lower vibrations, and potentially reduces biomechanical injuries. Power tools are known to cause several medical ailments including Hand-Arm Vibration Syndrome (HAV), Raynaud's phenomenon, and Vibration White Finger unless the daily exposure and/or dosage is limited. To evaluate the effects of a polymer-metal impact mechanism on tool performance, a non-linear model describing the equations of motion and resulting output forces were developed. In addition, a number of experiments with a high frequency Instron test machine and prototype tools were performed to validate the model and compare performance of conventional power tools to the new polymer based design. The results show that although adding a polymer does reduce noise and vibration, the reduction in impact force is relatively small and statistically insignificant. Various polymer materials and shapes were evaluated and results show that for durability and performance, the optimum appears to be a plug inserted in a cavity in either the piston or the cutting tool, thus creating a state of confined compression on the polymer. The polymer used in this research was Minlon® (mineral reinforced Nylon66), and durability was improved when the polymer inserts were cycled with compressive loads before use in the power tool

Open at the Close: Literary Essays on Harry Potter

While philosophers, historians, theologians, sociologists, educators and children’s literature specialists, even business professors have take on Harry Potter in single-author studies and essay collections, literary scholars have yet to give these novels the careful attention they deserve. This book, “Open at the Close: Literary Essays on Harry Potter,” attempts to remedy that by assembling a series of scholarly articles on the Harry Potter novels from a variety of literary perspectives

Moving Earth: Ecofeminist Sites in Hemingway’s \u3cem\u3eFor Whom the Bell Tolls\u3c/em\u3e and Gellhorn’s \u3cem\u3eA Stricken Field\u3c/em\u3e

Comparison study focusing on the interconnected relationship between identity construction and geographical place. Using an ecofeminist lens, Farr explores how Hemingway’s and Gellhorn’s 1939 novels simultaneously link foreign landscapes with autobiographical character development. Speculates that Jordan’s transformation during the pivotal earth moving scene with Maria may have been influenced by Hemingway’s reciprocal, yet independent, authorial relationship with Gellhorn at the time

This Book is an Action: Feminist Print Culture and Activist Aesthetics

Second-wave feminism and the written word\u27s power to incite social change The Women\u27s Liberation Movement held a foundational belief in the written word\u27s power to incite social change. In this new collection, Jaime Harker and Cecilia Konchar Farr curate essays that reveal how second-wave feminists embraced this potential with a vengeance. The authors in This Book Is an Action investigate the dynamic print culture that emerged as the feminist movement reawakened in the late 1960s. The works created by women shined a light on taboo topics and offered inspiring accounts of personal transformation. Yet, as the essayists reveal, the texts represented something far greater: a distinct and influential American literary renaissance. On the one hand, feminists took control of the process by building a network of publishers and distributors owned and operated by women. On the other, women writers threw off convention to venture into radical and experimental forms, poetry, and genre storytelling, and in so doing created works that raised the consciousness of a generation. Examining feminist print culture from its structures and systems to defining texts by Margaret Atwood and Alice Walker, This Book Is an Action suggests untapped possibilities for the critical and aesthetic analysis of the diverse range of literary production during feminism\u27s second wave.https://egrove.olemiss.edu/libarts_book/1022/thumbnail.jp