Safety/reliability analyses of GA aircraft in design and certification stage in Czech republic

The purpose of the paper was to provide the reader with basic insight into practical problems solved in the Czech aerospace industry and with a list of requirements and recommendations of civil airworthiness regulations on the field of reliability. This includes a short historical introduction, a list of basic requirements, and recommendations of the regulations for different aircraft categories. The general aviation category (sport airplanes and small transport airplanes) is covered in more depth. Recommended procedures for reliability analyses are also covered (with a focus on the design and certification process), including a brief summary of their utilization in the Czech aerospace industry. Special attention is paid on the activities of the Brno University of Technology (and its Institute of Aerospace Engineering). A practical example of safety assessment based on an electronic avionic system for small GA aircraft is also provided. First published online: 14 Oct 201

Diffuse neutron scattering in relaxor ferroelectric PbMg1/3Nb2/3O3

High energy resolution neutron spin-echo spectroscopy has been used to measure intrinsic width of diffuse scattering discovered earlier in relaxor ferroelectric crystals. The anisotropic and transverse components of the scattering have been observed in different Brillouin zones. Both components are found to be elastic within experimental accuracy of 1 eV. Possible physical origin of the static-like behavior is discussed for each diffuse scattering contribution.Comment: Submitted to the "Physical Chemistry and Chemical Physics" (Proceedings of the QENA2004

Energy harvesting technologies for structural health monitoring of airplane components - a review

With the aim of increasing the efficiency of maintenance and fuel usage in airplanes, structural health monitoring (SHM) of critical composite structures is increasingly expected and required. The optimized usage of this concept is subject of intensive work in the framework of the EU COST Action CA18203 "Optimising Design for Inspection" (ODIN). In this context, a thorough review of a broad range of energy harvesting (EH) technologies to be potentially used as power sources for the acoustic emission and guided wave propagation sensors of the considered SHM systems, as well as for the respective data elaboration and wireless communication modules, is provided in this work. EH devices based on the usage of kinetic energy, thermal gradients, solar radiation, airflow, and other viable energy sources, proposed so far in the literature, are thus described with a critical review of the respective specific power levels, of their potential placement on airplanes, as well as the consequently necessary power management architectures. The guidelines provided for the selection of the most appropriate EH and power management technologies create the preconditions to develop a new class of autonomous sensor nodes for the in-process, non-destructive SHM of airplane components.The work of S. Zelenika, P. Gljušcic, E. Kamenar and Ž. Vrcan is partly enabled by using the equipment funded via the EU European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) project no. RC.2.2.06-0001: “Research Infrastructure for Campus-based Laboratories at the University of Rijeka (RISK)” and partly supported by the University of Rijeka, Croatia, project uniri-tehnic-18-32 „Advanced mechatronics devices for smart technological solutions“. Z. Hadas, P. Tofel and O. Ševecek acknowledge the support provided via the Czech Science Foundation project GA19-17457S „Manufacturing and analysis of flexible piezoelectric layers for smart engineering”. J. Hlinka, F. Ksica and O. Rubes gratefully acknowledge the financial support provided by the ESIF, EU Operational Programme Research, Development and Education within the research project Center of Advanced Aerospace Technology (Reg. No.: CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019/0000826) at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Brno University of Technology. V. Pakrashi would like to acknowledge UCD Energy Institute, Marine and Renewable Energy Ireland (MaREI) centre Ireland, Strengthening Infrastructure Risk Assessment in the Atlantic Area (SIRMA) Grant No. EAPA\826/2018, EU INTERREG Atlantic Area and Aquaculture Operations with Reliable Flexible Shielding Technologies for Prevention of Infestation in Offshore and Coastal Areas (FLEXAQUA), MarTera Era-Net cofund PBA/BIO/18/02 projects. The work of J.P.B. Silva is partially supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) in the framework of the Strategic Funding UIDB/FIS/04650/2020. M. Mrlik gratefully acknowledges the support of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic-DKRVO (RP/CPS/2020/003

Identification of major safety issues for a futuristic personal plane concept

The paper describes activities related to the safety assessment of a futuristic personal plane concept, done by researchers at the Institute of Aerospace Engineering (IAE), Brno University of Technology, as a part of the FP7 PPlane research project. Activities under the PPlane project were carried out in joint cooperation with an international research team led by ONERA (France). The aim of the FP7 EU project PPlane (Personal Plane) is to identify new potential concepts and technologies for future air transport, namely to create a future Personal Air Transport System (PATS). The personal air vehicle is understood to be analogous to a private car in terms of accessibility and ease of operation. Such a novel transportation system could help to reduce congestion on roads and enable more efficient transportation of passengers to their destinations. The introduction of PATS is a long-term goal which requires considerable progress beyond the current state-of-the-art technology as well as in related areas. The major enabling technology is believed to be a high level of automation in new air vehicles which would require either no or minor piloting skills of passengers. The paper was presented at the READ 2013 conference in Brno (Czech Republic) and is reprinted with the permission of the conference organizers

Mixture Components Inference for Sparse Regression: Introduction and Application for Estimation of Neuronal Signal from fMRI BOLD

Sparse linear regression methods including the well-known LASSO and the Dantzig selector have become ubiquitous in the engineering practice, including in medical imaging. Among other tasks, they have been successfully applied for the estimation of neuronal activity from functional magnetic resonance data without prior knowledge of the stimulus or activation timing, utilizing an approximate knowledge of the hemodynamic response to local neuronal activity. These methods work by generating a parametric family of solutions with different sparsity, among which an ultimate choice is made using an information criteria. We propose a novel approach, that instead of selecting a single option from the family of regularized solutions, utilizes the whole family of such sparse regression solutions. Namely, their ensemble provides a first approximation of probability of activation at each time-point, and together with the conditional neuronal activity distributions estimated with the theory of mixtures with varying concentrations, they serve as the inputs to a Bayes classifier eventually deciding on the verity of activation at each time-point. We show in extensive numerical simulations that this new method performs favourably in comparison with standard approaches in a range of realistic scenarios. This is mainly due to the avoidance of overfitting and underfitting that commonly plague the solutions based on sparse regression combined with model selection methods, including the corrected Akaike Information Criterion. This advantage is finally documented in selected fMRI task datasets

Attachment of trianglamines to silicon wafers, chiral recognition by chemical force microscopy

International audienc

Domain-wall engineering and topological defects in ferroelectric and ferroelastic materials

Ferroelectric and ferroelastic domain walls are 2D topological defects with thicknesses approaching the unit cell level. When this spatial confinement is combined with observations of emergent functional properties, such as polarity in non-polar systems or electrical conductivity in otherwise insulating materials, it becomes clear that domain walls represent new and exciting objects in matter. In this Review, we discuss the exotic polarization profiles that can arise at domain walls with multiple order parameters and the different mechanisms that lead to domain-wall polarity in non-polar ferroelastic materials. The emergence of energetically degenerate variants of the domain walls themselves suggests the existence of interesting quasi-1D topological defects within such walls. We also provide an overview of the general notions that have been postulated as fundamental mechanisms responsible for domain-wall conduction in ferroelectrics. We then discuss the prospect of combining domain walls with transition regions observed at phase boundaries, homo- and heterointerfaces, and other quasi-2D objects, enabling emergent properties beyond those available in today’s topological systems