Quasi-stiffness

Keywords— quasi-stiffness, ankle Joint, viscoelastic stiffness, hysteresis. 

Investigations have revealed that ankle quasi-stiffness and hysteresis change as gait speed changes. Moment-angle curves in the ankle joint have clockwise hysteresis loop at... 

Subject was initially instructed to walk at three normal, slow and fast self-selected speeds. After getting used to the test, three trials were performed for each speed. Ankle angles (degree), moments (N.m/kg) and powers (W) were processed using Vicon Motion Analysis software (Workstation version 4.6). Quasi-stiffness and hysteresis were computed from the moment-angle and power-time data. 

Table 1 Quasi-stiffness in 4 sub-phases in 3 gait speeds...

The slope of the moment-angle curve, quasi-stiffness , varied at different sub-phases and also at different speeds. It has already been proposed that ankle-foot system can be modeled as a spring and torque generator and the spring stiffness should change at different sub-phases of walking [3, 8, 9-11]. However, based on our study, the quasi-stiffness is a function of walking speed. 

Quasi-isotropic laminates have the same ia-plane stiffness properties ia all directions (1), which are defined ia terms of the [A] matrix of the laminate. For the laminate to be quasi-isotropic. 

Resilient but rigid foundations such as by providing spring mounts or rubber pads for machines on the floor or for components and devices mounted on the machine so that they are able to absorb the vibrations, caused by resonance and quasi resonance effects, due to filtered out narrow band ground movements. The stiffness of the foundation (coefficient of the restoring force, k) may be chosen such that it would make the natural frequency of the equipment... 

The term quasi-isotropic iaminate is used to describe laminates that have isotropic extensionai stiffnesses (the same in all directions in the plane of the laminate). As background to the definition, recall that the term isotropy is a material property whereas laminate stiffnesses are a function of both material properties and geometry. Note also that the prefix quasi means in a sense or manner. Thus, a quasi-isotropic laminate must mean a laminate that, in some sense, appears isotropic, but is not actually isotropic in all senses. In this case, a quasi-isotropic... 

Quasi-isotroplc laminates do not behave like Isotropic homogeneous materials. Discuss why not, and describe how they do behave. Why is a two-ply laminate with a [0°/90°] sacking sequerx and equat-thickness layers not a quasi-isotropic laminate Determine whether the extensional stiffnesses are the same irrespective of the laminate axes for the two-ply and three-ply cases. Hint use the invariant properties In Equation (2.93). 

In a transported PDF simulation, the chemical source term, (6.249), is integrated over and over again with each new set of initial conditions. For fixed inlet flow conditions, it is often the case that, for most of the time, the initial conditions that occur in a particular simulation occupy only a small sub-volume of composition space. This is especially true with fast chemical kinetics, where many of the reactions attain a quasi-steady state within the small time step At. Since solving the stiff ODE system is computationally expensive, this observation suggests that it would be more efficient first to solve the chemical source term for a set of representative initial conditions in composition space,156 and then to store the results in a pre-computed chemical lookup table. This operation can be described mathematically by a non-linear reaction map ... 

When the quasi-elastic method is used, the viscoelastic resultant moment can be approximated by substituting the time-dependent stiffnesses for elastic stiffnesses in Equation 8.30 and making use of the convolution integral. The resulting moments are... 

The solid curves in the figure represent the molecular weight dependence of r)0 for quasi-binary system consisting of a fractionated xanthan sample and 0.1 mol/1 aqueous NaCl. The circles for quasi-ternary solutions almost follow them at the same c, except at small 2. Thus, to a first approximation, r)o of stiff polymer solutions is independent of molecular weight distribution, and may be treated as a function of Mw or Mv and c. 

Recently Sato et al. [144,145] have extended the viscosity equation, Eq. (74), to multicomponent solution containing stiff-chain polymer species with different lengths. They showed a favorable comparison of the extended theory with the viscosity data for the quasi-ternary xanthan solutions presented in Fig. 21. 

The first two sections of Chapter 5 give a practical introduction to dynamic models and their numerical solution. In addition to some classical methods, an efficient procedure is presented for solving systems of stiff differential equations frequently encountered in chemistry and biology. Sensitivity analysis of dynamic models and their reduction based on quasy-steady-state approximation are discussed. The second central problem of this chapter is estimating parameters in ordinary differential equations. An efficient short-cut method designed specifically for PC s is presented and applied to parameter estimation, numerical deconvolution and input determination. Application examples concern enzyme kinetics and pharmacokinetic compartmental modelling. 

Existence and uniqueness of the particular solution of (5.1) for an initial value y° can be shown under very mild assumptions. For example, it is sufficient to assume that the function f is differentiable and its derivatives are bounded. Except for a few simple equations, however, the general solution cannot be obtained by analytical methods and we must seek numerical alternatives. Starting with the known point (tD,y°), all numerical methods generate a sequence (tj y1), (t2,y2),. .., (t. y1), approximating the points of the particular solution through (tQ,y°). The choice of the method is large and we shall be content to outline a few popular types. One of them will deal with stiff differential equations that are very difficult to solve by classical methods. Related topics we discuss are sensitivity analysis and quasi steady state approximation. 

The quasi steady state approximation is a powerful method of transforming systems of very stiff differential equations into non-stiff problems. It is the most important, although somewhat contradictive technique in chemical kinetics. Before a general discussion we present an example where the approximation certainly applies. 

As seen from the output of Example 5.4A, the solution of the system (5.50-53) is far from easy even for the stiff integrator M72. In the following we solve the same problem applying the quasi steady state approx imation. 

The use of the compressibility term can be described as follows. The greater the stiffness a system model has, the more quickly the flow reacts to a change in pressure, and vice versa. For instance, if all fluids in the system are incompressible, and quasi-steady assumptions are used, then a step change to a valve should result in an instantaneous equilibrium of flows and pressures throughout the entire system. This makes for a stiff numerical solution, and is thus computationally intense. This pressure-flow solution technique allows for some compressibility to relax the problem. The equilibrium time of a quasi-steady model can be modified by changing this parameter, for instance this term could be set such that equilibrium occurs after 2 to 3 seconds for the entire model. However, quantitative results less than this timescale would then potentially not be captured accurately. As a final note, this technique can also incorporate flow elements that use the momentum equation (non-quasi-steady), but its strength is more suited by quasi-steady flow assumptions. 

As an example, if only quasi-steady flow elements are used with volume pressure elements, a model s smallest volume size (for equal flows) will define the timescale of interest. Thus, if the modeler inserts a volume pressure element that has a timescale of one second, the modeler is implying that events which happen on this timescale are important. A set of differential equations and their solution are considered stiff or rigid when the final approach to the steady-state solution is rapid, compared to the entire transient period. In part, numerical aspects of the model will determine this, but also the size of the perturbation will have a significant impact on the stiffness of the problem. It is well known that implicit numerical methods are better suited towards solving a stiff problem. (Note, however, that The Mathwork s software for real-time hardware applications, Real-Time Workshop , requires an explicit method presumably in order to better guarantee consistent solution times.)... 

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