Offshore pipelines that transport hydrocarbons under high pressure and high temperature are usually thermally insulated to maintain an elevated temperature and prevent any heat loss to the surroundings. However, the temperatures at the outer-wall of the pi ...
Monolithic integrated circuits (ICs) have been miniaturized over the past five decades, and today their components range in size from hundreds of microns to several nanometers. Making point contact with electrical samples under a microscope is referred to ...
In this thesis several advances are made to the emerging field of 3D printed mechanical sensors. Techniques and processes were developed to enable the integration of highly conductive, and capacitive and piezoresistive sensing features embedded within 3D p ...
In this paper, we present a novel control architecture for the online adaptation of bipedal locomotion on inclined obstacles. In particular, we introduce a novel, cost-effective, and versatile foot sensor to detect the proximity of the robot's feet to the ...
This article describes a novel method for applying a contact force in the range of 1 to 100 μN with pointed probe on a microscale sample in order to perform ohmic electrical measurements. The solution is based on the new TIVOT active load cell combining th ...
Soft actuator is the main technology that drives the development of soft robotics as it defines the capabilities of soft machines. One of the key challenges in soft actuator research is to simultaneously produce complex morphing (e.g., surface morphing) an ...
In materials, the evolution of crack surfaces is intimately linked with the self-contact occurring between them. The developed contact forces not only mitigate the effect of stress concentration at crack tip but also contribute sig- nificantly to the trans ...
Dense granular flows -debris or pyroclastic flows, avalanches, granular flows in heaps, silos or rotating drums-are ubiquitous to many natural and industrial processes. Their grain composition is often polydisperse, with particles differing in shape, size ...
The past decades have seen numerous efforts to apply the finite volume methodology to solid mechanics problems. However, only limited work has been done by the finite volume community toward the simulation of mechanical contact. In this article, we present ...
In concrete structures, opened cracks contribute significantly to the transfer of shear and normal stresses through the contact forces occurring between fractured surfaces. Such contact forces are due to protruding asperities, engaged by interlocking and f ...