Tribological Behavior of Very Thin Confined Films

The tribological properties of two smooth surfaces in the presence of a thin confined film are investigated with a generic model for the interaction between two surfaces and with computer simulations. It is shown that at large normal contact pressures, an ultra thin film automatically leads to static friction between two flat surfaces - even if the surfaces are incommensurate. Commensurability is nevertheless the key quantity to understand the tribological behavior of the contact. Qualitative differences between commensurate and incommensurate contacts remain even in the presence of a thin film. The differences mainly concern the thermal diffusion of the contact and the transition between smooth sliding and stick-slip.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure

Optimal Formation Design for Imaging and Fuel Usage

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/77028/1/AIAA-20080-363.pd

Trusted Distributed Autonomy Demonstration Experiment: Simulation Based Results

The goal of the Trusted Distributed Autonomy Demonstration Experiment (TDADE) is to develop and demonstrate a fully autonomous, distributed, trusted, and adaptive onboard autonomy software solution that enables resilient management of resources in proliferated space constellations, to meet complex Missions at Scale

On-Line Symbolic Constraint Embedding for Simulation of Hybrid Dynamical Systems

In this paper we present a simulator designed to handle multibody systems with changing constraints, wherein the equations of motion for each of its constraint configurations are formulated in minimal ODE form with constraints embedded before they are passed to an ODE solver. The constraint-embedded equations are formulated symbolically according to a re-combination of terms of the unconstrained equations, and this symbolic process is undertaken on-line by the simulator. Constraint-embedding undertaken on-the-fly enables the simulation of systems with an ODE solver for which constraints are not known prior to simulation start or for which the enumeration of all constraint conditions would be unwieldy because of their complexity or number. Issues of drift associated with DAE solvers that usually require stabilization are sidestepped with the constraint-embedding approach. We apply nomenclature developed for hybrid dynamical systems to describe the system with changing constraints and to distinguish the roles of the forward dynamics solver, a collision detector, and an impact resolver. We have prototyped the simulator in MATLAB and demonstrate the design using three representative examples.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/43263/1/11044_2005_Article_269.pd