Modeling and control design of a wind tunnel model support

The 12-Foot Pressure Wind Tunnel at Ames Research Center is being restored. A major part of the restoration is the complete redesign of the aircraft model supports and their associated control systems. An accurate trajectory control servo system capable of positioning a model (with no measurable overshoot) is needed. Extremely small errors in scaled-model pitch angle can increase airline fuel costs for the final aircraft configuration by millions of dollars. In order to make a mechanism sufficiently accurate in pitch, a detailed structural and control-system model must be created and then simulated on a digital computer. The model must contain linear representations of the mechanical system, including masses, springs, and damping in order to determine system modes. Electrical components, both analog and digital, linear and nonlinear must also be simulated. The model of the entire closed-loop system must then be tuned to control the modes of the flexible model-support structure. The development of a system model, the control modal analysis, and the control-system design are discussed

Specialising finite domain programs with polyhedra

A procedure is described for tightening domain constraints of finite domain logic programs by applying a static analysis based on convex polyhedra. Individual finite domain constraints are over-approximated by polyhedra to describe the solution space over ninteger variables as an n dimensional polyhedron. This polyhedron is then approximated, using projection, as an n dimensional bounding box that can be used to specialise and improve the domain constraints. The analysis can be implemented straightforwardly and an empirical evaluation of the specialisation technique is given

Trends in aircraft design

The improved performance of aircraft during the past decade has resulted in the need for new design and production techniques. Particular examples are integral construction and the use of sandwich panels. Although these processes are costly, especially when applied to titanium and steel construction, their use is likely to be necessary, at least to some extent. on many supersonic aircraft. The supersonic airliner is no exception to this and the paper discusses the design aspects of this type of aircraft which have a bearing on production problems. It is concluded that more research aimed at reducing the cost of sophisticated forms of construction is required

The teaching of aircraft design

Aircraft Design has been taught at the College of Aeronautics since 1946. The course is at postgraduate level and is of two years duration. In the first year the students are given three exercises in component design which aim to teach a logical approach and the fundamentals of the subject. During the second year each student works as a member of a team engaged in the design of a complete aircraft, which is chosen to be of a type currently being investigated by industry. The project aircraft invariably incorporates experimental features and the design work is therefore of the nature of research

Incremental closure for systems of two variables per inequality

Subclasses of linear inequalities where each inequality has at most two vari- ables are popular in abstract interpretation and model checking, because they strike a balance between what can be described and what can be efficiently computed. This paper focuses on the TVPI class of inequalities, for which each coefficient of each two variable inequality is unrestricted. An implied TVPI in- equality can be generated from a pair of TVPI inequalities by eliminating a given common variable (echoing resolution on clauses). This operation, called result , can be applied to derive TVPI inequalities which are entailed (implied) by a given TVPI system. The key operation on TVPI is calculating closure: satisfiability can be observed from a closed system and a closed system also simplifies the calculation of other operations. A closed system can be derived by repeatedly applying the result operator. The process of adding a single TVPI inequality to an already closed input TVPI system and then finding the closure of this augmented system is called incremental closure. This too can be calcu- lated by the repeated application of the result operator. This paper studies the calculus defined by result , the structure of result derivations, and how deriva- tions can be combined and controlled. A series of lemmata on derivations are presented that, collectively, provide a pathway for synthesising an algorithm for incremental closure. The complexity of the incremental closure algorithm is analysed and found to be O (( n 2 + m 2 )lg( m )), where n is the number of variables and m the number of inequalities of the input TVPI system

Rare Variant of Vastus Medialis Detected in vivo by Ultrasound and Confirmed by High-resolution MRI.

[Purpose] This report describes an unusual incidental finding during ultrasound investigation of the vastus medialis muscle. Volunteers underwent ultrasound scanning as part of an on-going investigation into the architecture of the vastus medialis muscle. [Subjects and Methods] The distal thighs of forty-one subjects were scanned using the Philips iU22 US system. An unusual muscle morphology was detected bilaterally in one subject, who then underwent a 3T Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scan in order to further investigate the muscle morphology. The subject in question was a 32 year-old female who suffers from recurrent bilateral patellar dislocations. [Results] The MRI scan confirmed the ultrasound findings, and indicated the presence of the vastus medialis in two layers, with the VML continuing deep, separate from the VMO. [Conclusion] Although this rare variant has been been reported in previous cadaveric studies, we believe this to be the first report in the literature of this morphology in vivo. The biomechanical implications of this muscle arrangement are unknown, but it may not be without significance that this individual suffers from recurrent patellar dislocations

Twistor Spaces for QKT Manifolds

We find that the target space of two-dimensional (4,0) supersymmetric sigma models with torsion coupled to (4,0) supergravity is a QKT manifold, that is, a quaternionic K\"ahler manifold with torsion. We give four examples of geodesically complete QKT manifolds one of which is a generalisation of the LeBrun geometry. We then construct the twistor space associated with a QKT manifold and show that under certain conditions it is a K\"ahler manifold with a complex contact structure. We also show that, for every 4k-dimensional QKT manifold, there is an associated 4(k+1)-dimensional hyper-K\"ahler one.Comment: 25 pages, phyzz

Four-point functions in N=2 superconformal field theories

Four-point correlation functions of hypermultiplet bilinear composites are analysed in N=2 superconformal field theory using the superconformal Ward identities and the analyticity properties of the composite operator superfields. It is shown that the complete amplitude is determined by a single arbitrary function of the two conformal cross-ratios of the space-time variables.Comment: 36 pp LaTeX2e, uses amsfonts, amssymb. Some references adde