Accelerator Components Research Articles

Biomechanics Analysis of Combat Sport (Silat) By Using Motion Capture System

‘Silat’ is a Malay traditional martial art that is practiced in both amateur and in professional levels. The intensity of the motion spurs the scientific research in biomechanics. The main purpose of this abstract is to present the biomechanics method used in the study of ‘silat’. By using the 3D Depth Camera motion capture system, two subjects are to perform ‘Jurus Satu’ in three repetitions each. One subject is set as the benchmark for the research. The videos are captured and its data is processed using the 3D Depth Camera server system in the form of 16 3D body joint coordinates which then will be transformed into displacement, velocity and acceleration components by using Microsoft excel for data calculation and Matlab software for simulation of the body. The translated data obtained serves as an input to differentiate both subjects’ execution of the ‘Jurus Satu’. Nine primary movements with the addition of five secondary movements are observed visually frame by frame from the simulation obtained to get the exact frame that the movement takes place. Further analysis involves the differentiation of both subjects’ execution by referring to the average mean and standard deviation of joints for each parameter stated. The findings provide useful data for joints kinematic parameters as well as to improve the execution of ‘Jurus Satu’ and to exhibit the process of learning a movement that is relatively unknown by the use of a motion capture system.

Selection of MEMS Accelerometers for Tilt Measurements

In order to build a tilt sensor having a desired sensitivity and measuring range, one should select an appropriate type, orientation, and initial position of an accelerometer. Various cases of tilt measurements are considered: determining exclusively pitch, axial tilt, or both pitch and roll, where Cartesian components of the gravity acceleration are measured by means of low-g uni-, bi-, tri-, or multiaxial micromachined accelerometers. 15 different orientations of such accelerometers are distinguished (each illustrated with respective graphics) and related to the relevant mathematical formulas. Results of the performed experimental study revealed inherent misalignments of the sensitive axes of micromachined accelerometers as large as 1°. Some of the proposed orientations make it possible to avoid a necessity of using the most misaligned pairs of the sensitive axes; some increase the accuracy of tilt measurements by activating all the sensitive axes or reducing the effects of anisotropic properties of micromachined triaxial accelerometers; other orientations make it possible to reduce a necessary number of the sensitive axes at full measurement range. An increase of accuracy while using multiaxial accelerometers is discussed. Practical guidelines for an optimal selection of a particular micromachined accelerometer for a specific case of tilt measurement are provided.

Comparative Analysis of Peak Impact Acceleration and Impact Shock Frequency Components According to the Type of Treadmill for Treadmill-running

Objective: The purpose of this study was to show differences in impact variables between treadmills with (treadmills B, C, and D) and treadmills without a shock-absorbing function (treadmill A) to propose the development of a treadmill with improved or added shock-absorbing function to reduce impact shock. Method: Thirteen male students in their twenties who had habitual rear foot strike during running ran on four treadmills at 2.67 m/sec while ankle and neck acceleration data were collected. The magnitude of the ankle and neck acceleration peaks and peak positive ankle acceleration were calculated. The power spectral density of each signal was calculated to transform the ankle and neck accelerations in the frequency domain. Results: The peak positive ankle acceleration on treadmill B was significantly lesser than that on treadmills A and D, and that on treadmill C was significantly less than that on treadmill A (p< .01). Peak positive neck acceleration was not statistically different between the treadmills. The frequencies of the peak power of the ankle and neck acceleration signal within the lower and higher frequency ranges were not statistically different between the treadmills. The signal power magnitude of the ankle in higher frequency ranges on treadmill B was significantly less than that on treadmills A, C, and D (p< .01). The signal power magnitude of the ankle in higher frequency ranges was not statistically different between the treadmills. The signal power magnitudes of the neck acceleration signal within the lower and higher frequency ranges were not statistically significantly different between the treadmills. Conclusion: Our results indicate that the shock-absorbing function of a treadmill plays a role in reducing impact shock. Therefore, in future treadmill development, shock-absorbing function should be improved or incorporated to reduce impact shock to the body.

Dynamic Tests for Assessment of Pedestrian Comfort for Design of a Stayed Highway Bridge

Assessment of the performance of a road bridge for pedestrian comfort at design stage is often carried out following simplified rules defined by design codes of practice. The purpose of this paper is to assess the effectiveness of one such simplified procedure by means of actual dynamic load tests carried out on an unconventional cable-stayed bridge with precast pre-stressed deck and solid section 47 mm diameter steel bars acting as tension members in lieu of specific traditional strand cable systems. The rule given by the Spanish Design Code (IAP-11, “Instrucción sobre las acciones a considerar en el proyecto de puentes de carretera”, 2011) is taken as the basic design requirement to be assessed by a series of time records of the vertical acceleration caused by passage of the control vehicle. The tests consisted on recording vertical component of accelerations at the mid-span section where the stays converge just outside of the pedestrian sidewalk. The control or reference vehicle used for the tests conforms to the requirements described in the Spanish IAP-11 Code. The focus of the paper is to establish a direct comparison between the code-prescribed analyses of the structure under the reference vehicle to evaluate pedestrian comfort according to IAP-11. Computed maximum accelerations at the mid-span section are found to be approximately one half of the measured values, fact that is at least partially attributed to ignoring the inertial mass and mechanical characteristics of the reference truck that does not allow for vehicle-structure interaction.

The activation of W and Zr by deuterons at energies up to 20 MeV

The proton and deuteron induced reactions are of a great interest for the assessment of induced radioactivity of accelerator components, target and beam stoppers. In order to investigate the important nuclides, we have carried up the irradiation experiments with the variable-energy cyclotron U-120 M of the NPI CAS Řež. The production cross sections of the nuclides 179,181,182m,182,183,184m,184,186Re and 187W from reaction on natural W were investigated by deuteron beams of 20 MeV energy. A part of preliminary results of deuteron activation of natural Zr is also shown. The stacked-foil technique was utilized. The comparison of present results to data of other authors and to predictions of evaluated data libraries is discussed.

Sparse Cholesky Factorization on FPGA Using Parameterized Model

Cholesky factorization is a fundamental problem in most engineering and science computation applications. When dealing with a large sparse matrix, numerical decomposition consumes the most time. We present a vector architecture to parallelize numerical decomposition of Cholesky factorization. We construct an integrated analytical parameterized performance model to accurately predict the execution times of typical matrices under varying parameters. Our proposed approach is general for accelerator and limited by neither field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) nor application-specific integrated circuit. We implement a simplified module in FPGAs to prove the accuracy of the model. The experiments show that, for most cases, the performance differences between the predicted and measured execution are less than 10%. Based on the performance model, we optimize parameters and obtain a balance of resources and performance after analyzing the performance of varied parameter settings. Comparing with the state-of-the-art implementation in CPU and GPU, we find that the performance of the optimal parameters is 2x that of CPU. Our model offers several advantages, particularly in power consumption. It provides guidance for the design of future acceleration components.

Evaluate the Activation of Linear Accelerator Components and Shielding Wall through Simulation

Evaluate the Activation of Linear Accelerator Components and Shielding Wall through Simulation

Proton and deuteron activation measurements at the NPI and future plans in SPIRAL2/NFS

The proton- and deuteron-induced reactions are of a great interest for the assessment of induced radioactivity of accelerator components, target and beam stoppers as well as isotope production for medicine. In the present work, the deuteron-induced reaction cross sections on zinc were investigated by stacked-foil activation technique with deuteron beam of 20 MeV energy from the cyclotron U-120M of NPI CAS Řež. Also the proton activation cross section measurement of iron is presented. The comparison of present results to data of other authors and to predictions of evaluated data libraries is discussed. The investigation shall continue for higher proton and deuteron energy interval 20–35 MeV at SPIRAL2/NFS facility using a charged particle irradiation chamber with pneumatic transport system to measure isotopes and isomers with half-lives in minutes-regions.

국내 연안 카페리 차량 고박 장치 안전성에 관한 연구: 제2부 가속도 예측 방법에 따른 고박 안전도 비교 연구

For a carferry with a displacement of 1,633 tonf, a seakeeping analysis-based direct load approach (DLA) was used in Part I of these series, where the final deliverable was the long-term probabilistic acceleration components. In Part II of these series, the tangential acceleration components are explained based on two approaches: a standard called the IMO CSS code and simple formulas with the probable maximum roll and pitch rotations. The subsequent tangential acceleration-induced external force components are also introduced for these two approaches. The lashing strength components were selected from the IMO CSS code. It was assumed that two different vehicles (a car and a truck) were stowed at the most distant locations on the main deck to assume the largest tangential acceleration components and were secured with four steel wires with longitudinal and transverse lashing angles of <TEX>$45^{\circ}$</TEX>. Four cases were considered, with different methods for predicting the acceleration components and different tools for the external loads and lashing strengths involved: cases Rule-LS (rule-based maximum probable roll and pitch angles for predicting the acceleration components in conjunction with LashingSafety), DLA-LS (seakeeping-based long-term acceleration components with LashingSafety), CSS-LC (IMO CSS code-based acceleration components using LashCon), and CSS-LS (IMO CSS code-based acceleration components using LashingSafety). In terms of the acceleration and external force components, the CSS-LC and CSS-LS results are more than two times the results of Rule-LS. Thus, when the external forces and lashing strengths are evaluated using CSS-LC and CSS-LS, the truck needs more lashing wires, while Rule-LS and DLA-LS predict that the present lashing configuration is on the safe side.

Reaching record-low [formula omitted] at the CERN Large Hadron Collider using a novel scheme of collimator settings and optics

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN is built to collide intense proton beams with an unprecedented energy of 7TeV. The design stored energy per beam of 362MJ makes the LHC beams highly destructive, so that any beam losses risk to cause quenches of superconducting magnets or damage to accelerator components. Collimators are installed to protect the machine and they define a minimum normalized aperture, below which no other element is allowed. This imposes a limit on the achievable luminosity, since when squeezing β* (the β-function at the collision point) to smaller values for increased luminosity, the β-function in the final focusing system increases. This leads to a smaller normalized aperture that risks to go below the allowed collimation aperture. In the first run of the LHC, this was the main limitation on β*, which was constrained to values above the design specification. In this article, we show through theoretical and experimental studies how tighter collimator openings and a new optics with specific phase-advance constraints allows a β* as small as 40cm, a factor 2 smaller than β*=80cm used in 2015 and significantly below the design value β*=55cm, in spite of a lower beam energy. The proposed configuration with β*=40cm has been successfully put into operation and has been used throughout 2016 as the LHC baseline. The decrease in β* compared to 2015 has been an essential contribution to reaching and surpassing, in 2016, the LHC design luminosity for the first time, and to accumulating a record-high integrated luminosity of around 40 fb−1 in one year, in spite of using less bunches than in the design.

Influence of soil deformability on the seismic response of a masonry tower

The manuscript deals with the dynamic interaction between the seismic response of a masonry bell-tower and the soil layer below its foundations. The study is based on a direct soil-structure interaction analysis, by means of a complete 3D FEM model in which, beside the non-linear behaviour of the masonry material, a large portion of the foundation soil is taken into account, assuming a condition of non-reflection of the elastic waves within the domain of interest by means of infinite elements. A fairly refined description of the tower geometry allowed a thorough examination of the interaction between the characteristics of the motion transmitted from the ground and the damage mechanisms of the tower, which may include crack patterns related to the second mode of vibration and the collapse of the belfry. The results of modal analyses highlighted the extent to which the soil deformability modifies the shape of second natural vibration modes of the tower. A relevant reduction of the high frequency content of the vertical component at the base of the tower was also observed, especially in the case of a more deformable soil. In the non-linear dynamic analyses, a constitutive relation with plasticity and damage for the walls material was assumed, while as forcing actions, the strong ground motions recorded in Mirandola during the shock of May 29, 2012, and in Gemona during the Friuli Earthquake on September 15, 1976 were assumed. These analyses allowed us to investigate two main issues: (1) the capability to take into account the higher vibration modes, which tend to have a relevant role in the damage of the upper part, especially the tower crown and belfry; (2) the specific effect of the vertical component of ground acceleration, usually considered quite relevant for this structural typology. The damage scenarios obtained in a condition of deformable foundation soil resulted different from those obtained in the hypothesis of a fixed base support. In this case, the resort to non-linear dynamical models, which also include a significant volume of deformable soil, is recommended in order to perform an accurate assessment of damage scenarios.

Integral procedure to assess crack filling and mechanical contribution of polymer-based healing agent in encapsulation-based self-healing concrete

This work presents an experimental and numerical study to analyze the crack filling process in encapsulation-based self-healing concrete. A specimen consisting of two small concrete blocks has been designed containing capsules filled with a polyurethane-based healing agent. This design enables to control the capsule breakage and release of healing agent. Two setups are studied: (i) a two-capsule system, where one capsule contains the pre-polymer fluid and the other contains a water-based accelerator component, and (ii) a single capsule system with only the pre-polymer fluid. The amount of healing agent released in the crack is visualized using micro Computed Tomography scanning. Tensile mechanical tests are performed to evaluate the strength contribution of the cured healing agent. A computational fluid dynamics model has been developed to understand how the healing agent spreads in the crack as a function of the crack width.

The Effect of the Vertical Acceleration on Stability Assessment of Seismically Loaded Earth Dams

Abstract In the assessment of slope stability, the vertical component of acceleration is commonly neglected. However, signal analyses performed on a large number of acceleration time histories have revealed that the vertical peak ground acceleration can be as high as the horizontal one. In this paper, a method of slope stability analysis regarding the vertical component of acceleration is proposed. It considers a rigid body system affected by the acceleration time histories in both horizontal and vertical directions. In a general case, the strength of the contact between acceleration components is time dependent. Parametric analysis was performed on the basis of cyclic harmonic loading, assuming a safety criterion in the form of permanent displacement. The results, for both harmonic and real acceleration time histories, were compared with the results of the commonly used Newmark’s sliding block approach, which revealed significant differences in permanent displacements calculated by the two methods.

Characterisation of the Eulerian and Lagrangian accelerations in the intermediate field of turbulent circular jets

ABSTRACTA rich data-set of Lagrangian trajectories from 3D particle tracking velocimetry is used to study the structure of various acceleration components, vorticity, and strain in the intermediate field of a circular jet at Reynolds number Re = 6000. The total acceleration is decomposed into three distinctive sets: (1) streamwise–radial; (2) tangential–normal; and (3) local–convective components. Probability density function (PDF) and joint distributions of each set are characterised at various radial locations from the jet core within a streamwise band 16 ≤ x/dh ≤ 17, where dh is the diameter of the pipe. The PDF of the relative angle between the acceleration components and the velocity vector is also included to aid the characterisation. Results show that the acceleration components are described by two distinctive distributions: one of them exhibits symmetry and heavy tails, while the other is best fitted by a power-law type. The tails of acceleration PDFs are heavier with larger radial distance from the core. The increased departure from the Gaussian distribution with the distance from the core is a result of the increasing turbulence levels promoted by the mean shear. The variation of the third and fourth moments between the streamwise–tangential and the radial–normal accelerations indicate the anisotropy of the jet. Joint PDF of each acceleration decomposition exhibits distinctive distribution that appears to depend from the distance from the jet core. However, the vorticity and strain show similar PDF across radial distances. Finally, complementary analysis of a jet from a semicircular pipe shows the footprint of the nozzle geometry in the acceleration structure of jets.

Effects of layout design changes on frontal crash behaviour of small motorcycles

ABSTRACTMotorcycle frontal crashes always cause serious and fatal head injuries to riders, and the behaviour of riders was known to be influenced by the behaviour of the motorcycle during crashes. Thus the present work was carried out with the main objective to study the effects of changes of layout design of a small motorcycle, particularly in regards to the arrangement of the engine block and air filter casing, on its behaviour in frontal crashes. The study was performed via finite element simulations using a motorcycle model with fully functional and deformable front wheel and fork structures. A two-level factorial experiment approach, 23, was used for the parametric study design, with the peak magnitude of horizontal and vertical accelerations of the motorcycle in the crash as response variables. The key peak magnitude of both the acceleration components which were found to be substantially affected by the layout changes showed the differences of 26.8% and 43.9% between the designs that yield the lowest and highest accelerations, respectively, for the horizontal and vertical accelerations. Empirical models for predicting the peak magnitude of the corresponding accelerations were established and the effect plots were also produced. The crash behaviour of the motorcycle in relation to the crash safety was discussed and it was concluded that the behaviour of the motorcycle in frontal crashes could be enhanced for better crash safety by a proper design of motorcycle layout.

A model for estimating horizontal aftershock ground motions for active crustal regions

Inconsistent observations on the characteristics of ground motions from aftershocks have been found, while there is increasing attention to effects of aftershock ground motions on structural behaviors. This study examines differences in ground motions from main shock and aftershock earthquakes using the NGA-West2 database, and propose an empirical model to estimate the average horizontal components of peak ground acceleration (PGA), and peak ground velocity (PGV), and 5% damped pseudo spectral acceleration (PSA) at various spectral periods of aftershock earthquakes for tectonically active crustal regions, as a function of aftershock to main shock magnitude ratio, distance ratio, and time-averaged shear-wave velocity in the upper 30m of soil deposits (VS30). Spectral accelerations from aftershock earthquakes are smaller than those from main shock earthquakes given the same magnitude, especially at short periods. Performance of the proposed model is evaluated using a mixed-effects residuals analysis. Period-dependent standard deviation of residuals is also presented.

Performance of a clinical gridded electron gun in magnetic fields: Implications for MRI-linac therapy.

MRI-linac therapy is a rapidly growing field, and requires that conventional linear accelerators are operated with the fringe field of MRI magnets. One of the most sensitive accelerator components is the electron gun, which serves as the source of the beam. The purpose of this work was to develop a validated finite element model (FEM) model of a clinical triode (or gridded) electron gun, based on accurate geometric and electrical measurements, and to characterize the performance of this gun in magnetic fields. The geometry of a Varian electron gun was measured using 3D laser scanning and digital calipers. The electric potentials and emission current of these guns were measured directly from six dose matched true beam linacs for the 6X, 10X, and 15X modes of operation. Based on these measurements, a finite element model (FEM) of the gun was developed using the commercial software opera/scala. The performance of the FEM model in magnetic fields was characterized using parallel fields ranging from 0 to 200 G in the in-line direction, and 0-35 G in the perpendicular direction. The FEM model matched the average measured emission current to within 5% across all three modes of operation. Different high voltage settings are used for the different modes; the 6X, 10X, and 15X modes have an average high voltage setting of 15, 10, and 11 kV. Due to these differences, different operating modes show different sensitivities in magnetic fields. For in line fields, the first current loss occurs at 40, 20, and 30 G for each mode. This is a much greater sensitivity than has previously been observed. For perpendicular fields, first beam loss occurred at 8, 5, and 5 G and total beam loss at 27, 22, and 20 G. A validated FEM model of a clinical triode electron gun has been developed based on accurate geometric and electrical measurements. Three different operating modes were simulated, with a maximum mean error of 5%. This gun shows greater sensitivity to in-line magnetic fields than previously presented models, and different operating modes show different sensitivity.

Adaptation of the standard EN 196-1 for mortar with accelerator

In certain applications, accelerators are added to favour a rapid evolution of mechanical properties in mortar and concrete. In order to assure adequate performance, it is necessary to test the compatibility between the accelerator and other components of the mixture. The EN 934-5 establishes that such evaluation of accelerators should be performed according with the procedure established in the EN 196-1. However, this standard does not take into account the inclusion of the accelerators or the particularities of the mortar produced with these admixtures. The objective of this paper is to adapt the EN 196-1 in order to characterize the strength of mortars with accelerator. First, an experimental parametric study to evaluate the influence of the production procedure on the results was conducted. Based on the results obtained, a modified production process was proposed. Then, a wide experimental program including a total of 40 mixes of mortars with different formulations and contents of accelerators was performed. Based on a statistical analysis, a new admissible variation used to calculate the compressive strength was proposed.

Development and applications of a multi-purpose digital controller with a System-on-Chip FPGA for accelerators

J-PARC Main Ring (MR) is a high intensity proton synchrotron which accelerates protons from 3GeV to 30GeV. It has operated at a beam intensity of 390kW and an upgrade toward the megawatt rating is scheduled. For higher beam intensity, some of the accelerator components require more intelligent and complicated functions. To consolidate such functions among various components, we developed multi-purpose digital boards using a System-on-Chip Field-Programmable Gated Array (SoC FPGA). In this paper, we describe the details of our developed boards as well as their possible applications. As an application of the boards, we have successfully performed the measurement of the betatron amplitude function during beam acceleration in J-PARC MR. The experimental setup and results of the measurement are also described in detail.

Limiting oxygen concentration for extinction of upward spreading flames over inclined thin polyethylene-insulated NiCr electrical wires with opposed-flow under normal- and micro-gravity

Materials, such as electrical wire, used in spacecraft must pass stringent fire safety standards. Tests for such standards are typically performed under normal gravity conditions and then extended to applications under microgravity conditions. The experiments reported here used polyethylene (PE)-insulated (thickness of 0.15mm) Nichrome (NiCr)-core (diameter of 0.5mm) electrical wires. Limiting oxygen concentrations (LOC) at extinction were measured for upward spreading flame at various forced opposed-flow (downward) speeds (0−25cm/s) at several inclination angles (0−75°) under normal gravity conditions. The differences from those previously obtained under microgravity conditions were quantified and correlated to provide a reference for the development of fire safety test standards for electrical wires to be used in space exploration. It was found that as the opposed-flow speed increased for a specified inclination angle (except the horizontal case), LOC first increased, then decreased and finally increased again. The first local maximum of this LOC variation corresponded to a critical forced flow speed resulted from the change in flame spread pattern from concurrent to counter-current type. This critical forced flow speed correlated well with the buoyancy-induced flow speed component in the wire's direction when the flame base width along the wire was used as a characteristic length scale. LOC was generally higher under the normal gravity than under the microgravity and the difference between the two decreased as the opposed-flow speed increases, following a reasonably linear trend at relatively higher flow speeds (over 10cm/s). The decrease in the difference in LOC under normal- and microgravity conditions as the opposed-flow speed increases correlated well with the gravity acceleration component in the wire's direction, providing a measure to extend LOC determined by the tests under normal gravity conditions (at various inclination angles and opposed-flow speeds) to LOC under microgravity conditions.