Arbitrary Mass Distribution Research Articles

Effects of inertia on the time-averaged propulsive performance of a pitching and heaving foil

The inertia may play an important role in the unsteady behavior of a flapping foil. Of particular relevance in forward flapping locomotion is how the foil inertia may affect its time-averaged propulsive performance. This is the question addressed by the present study from a general, nonlinear formulation of the unsteady interaction with the surrounding fluid of a thin, flexible, two-dimensional and non-uniform foil undergoing prescribed pitching and heaving motion of any amplitude about an arbitrary pivot axis. For a rigid foil it is shown that, although the unsteady inertial forces and moments may be much larger than the unsteady aerodynamic forces and moments if the fluid density is much smaller than the foil density, the inertia does not affect the cycle-averaged propulsive performance for harmonic pitching and heaving motion, independently of their amplitude. Inertia may affect only the cycle-averaged moment if the mean angle of attack is not zero, but without affecting the cycle-averaged power input, and therefore the propulsive efficiency. When a small flexural deflection of the foil is considered, although the cycle-averaged inertial thrust and lift also vanish for any amplitude of the pitching and heaving harmonic motion, the cycle-averaged power input does not. Thus, the foil inertia contributes through the moment and power to the time-averaged propulsive performance for any flexural deflection of the foil, obtained her e analytically in terms of the trailing edge location for general pitching and heaving motion of any amplitude and phase and small flexural deflection amplitude. Simple analytical results are also provided for inertia dominated deflection, characterizing the conditions that minimize the power consumption. The results are valid for arbitrary chord-wise distribution of mass, thickness and (sufficiently large) stiffness of the foil.

Gravitational inversion for arbitrary surface mass distribution—application to earth's time-variable gravity with topography

SUMMARY The aim of this paper is gravitational inversion, that is, the determination of the mass density distribution of a central body when given the observed external gravitational field that is produced by the mass itself. This inversion for a 3-D mass distribution is known to be grossly non-unique; whereas that for a 2-D mass distribution on a spherical surface is known to be unique. The latter justifies the surface ‘mascon’, or equivalent-water-thickness, solutions when not considering any interior mass transports for the Earth's time-variable gravity as observed by the GRACE satellite. In this paper, using the gravitational multipole formalism cast in the framework of linear Hilbert space with the notion of inner product, we do two things further: (i) we prove mathematically that the 2-D gravitational inversion on an arbitrary surface is unique; and (ii) we derive the algorithm that leads to the unique exact 2-D mass distribution solution, up to a truncated finite spherical harmonic degree. This pertains directly to reaching refined GRACE mascon solutions that account for the actual Earth surface shape including the ellipsoidal figure and the topography. In the process, we also (re)formulate the exact equations, for spherical or arbitrary shape, unifying the formulae that have appeared in the GRACE-relevant literature.

Multipole decomposition of gravitational lensing

We study gravitational lensing by a generic extended mass distribution. For that, we consider the diffraction of electromagnetic (EM) waves by an extended, weakly aspherical, gravitating object. We account for the static gravitational field of such a lens by representing its exterior potential in the most generic form, expressed via an infinite set of symmetric trace free (STF) tensor multipole mass moments. This yields the most general form of the gravitational phase shift, which allows for a comprehensive description of the optical properties of a generic gravitational lens. We found that at each order of the STF moments, the gravitational phase shift is characterized by only two parameters: a magnitude and a rotation angle that characterize the corresponding caustics, which form in the point spread function (PSF) of the lens. Both of these parameters are uniquely expressed in terms of the transverse-trace free (TT) projections of the multipole moments on the lens plane. Not only does this result simplify the development of physically consistent models of realistic lenses, it also drastically reduces the number of required parameters in the ultimate model. To help with the interpretation of the results, we established the correspondence of the gravitational phase shift expressed via the TT-projected STF multipole mass moments and its representation via spherical harmonics. For axisymmetric mass distributions, the new results are consistent with those that we obtained in previous studies. For arbitrary mass distributions, our results are novel and offer new insight into gravitational lensing by realistic astrophysical systems. These findings are discussed in the context of ongoing astrophysical gravitational lensing investigations as well as observations that are planned with the solar gravitational lens (SGL).

Propulsion and energy harvesting performances of a flexible thin airfoil undergoing forced heaving motion with passive pitching and deformation of small amplitude

The fluid–structure interaction in a foil undergoing prescribed heave with passive pitching and flexibility about any pivot is formulated in the linear inviscid limit using a quartic approximation for the deflection. The resulting system of three algebraic equations is valid for arbitrary mass and stiffness distributions of the foil. The small pitching and deformation amplitudes result linearly from two of the equations, while the third equation provides the force at the pivot point that generates the heaving motion, and hence the power input. This general formulation allows to analyze jointly both the propulsion and the energy harvesting problems for this class of flapping foils. In the first case, the thrust force is readily obtained from the prescribed heave and the resulting pitching and deformation, and consequently the propulsive efficiency once the power input is computed. In the second problem, the energy may be harvested by linear and/or torsional dampers at the pivot point, so that the efficiency of the system is readily computed once the pitch motion and the power input are obtained. Thus, the present work allows for a depth parametric survey and analysis of these two physical problems. The best performance is usually obtained around the first natural frequency of the fluid–structure system, which is obtained here by minimizing an algebraic function. The formulation is validated by reproducing some previous results for both problems, most of them obtained numerically for rigid foils and without the simplicity nor the richness in the parameter space of the present formulation. The parametric range for which flexibility maximizes the propulsion and the energy harvesting efficiencies in relation to an otherwise identical rigid-foil system is analyzed.

Principal vectors and equivalent mass descriptions for the equations of motion of planar four-bar mechanisms

The use of principal points and principal vectors in the formulation of the equations of motion of a general 4R planar four-bar linkage is shown with two kinds of methods, one that opens kinematic loops and one that does not. The opened kinematic loop approach analyses the moving links as a system with a tree connectivity, introducing reaction forces for closing the loops. Compared with the conventional Newton–Euler method, this approach results in fewer equations and constraint forces, whereas the mass matrix entries remain meaningful, but there is a stronger coupling between the equations. Two equivalent mass formulations for the closed kinematic loop approach are presented, which need not open the loop and introduce loop constraint forces in the equations of motion. With the method of complex joint masses, the mass of the links closing the loops is represented by real and virtual equivalent masses, defining the principal points. The principle of virtual work with the inclusion of inertia terms is used to derive the equations of motion. As an example the dynamic balance conditions of the four-bar linkage are derived. With the method of the equivalent mass matrix it is shown how a constant mass matrix can be used to describe the dynamics of binary links with an arbitrary mass distribution. A four-bar linkage could be modelled with only three truss elements instead of the conventional result with three or more beam elements, which gives a significant reduction of the computational complexity.

Covariant equations of motion of extended bodies with arbitrary mass and spin multipoles

This paper employs the post-Newtonian approximations of scalar-tensor theory of gravity along with the Cartesian STF tensors and the Blanchet-Damour multipole formalism to derive translational and rotational equations of motion of N extended bodies with arbitrary distribution of mass and velocity. We assume that spacetime can be covered by a global coordinate chart which is Minkowskian at infinity. We also introduce N local coordinate charts adapted to each body and covering a finite domain of space around the body. Gravitational field of each body is parametrized by an infinite set of the body's mass and spin multipoles and tidal multipoles of external N-1 bodies. The origin of the local coordinates is set moving along accelerated worldline of the center of mass of the body by an appropriate choice of the internal and external dipole moments of its gravitational field. Translational and rotational equations of motion are derived by integrating microscopic equations of matter and applying the method of asymptotic matching. The matching is also used for separating the post-Newtonian self-field effects from the external gravitational environment and for constructing the effective background spacetime manifold. It allows us to present the equations of translational and rotational motion of each body in covariant form by making use of the Einstein principle of equivalence. Our approach significantly generalizes the Mathisson-Papapetrou-Dixon covariant equations of motion with regard to the number of body's multipoles and the post-Newtonian terms taken into account. The equations of translational and rotational motion derived in the present paper include the infinite set of mass and spin multipoles of the bodies and can be used for much more accurate prediction of orbital dynamics of extended bodies in inspiraling binary systems before they merge.

Covariant equations of motion beyond the spin-dipole particle approximation

The present paper studies the post-Newtonian dynamics of N bodies in general relativity. We derive covariant equations of translational and rotational motion of N extended bodies having arbitrary distribution of mass and velocity of matter by employing the set of global and local coordinate charts on curved spacetime manifold of N-body system along with the mathematical apparatus of the Cartesian STF tensors and Blanchet-Damour multipole formalism. We separate the self-field effects of the bodies from the external gravitational environment and construct the effective background spacetime manifold by making use of the asymptotic matching technique. We make worldline of the center of mass of each body identical with that of the origin of the body-adapted local coordinates by the appropriate choice of the dipole moments. The covariant equations of motion are obtained by applying the Einstein principle of equivalence and the Fermi-Walker law of transportation of the linear momentum and spin of each body. Our approach significantly extends the Mathisson-Papapetrou-Dixon covariant equations of motion beyond the spin-dipole particle approximation by accounting for the entire infinite set of the internal multipoles of the bodies which are gravitationally coupled with the curvature tensor of the background manifold and its covariant derivatives. The results of our study can be used for much more accurate prediction of orbital dynamics of extended bodies in inspiraling binary systems and construction of templates of gravitational waves at the merger stage when the strong gravitational interaction between the higher-order multipoles of the bodies play a dominant role. The covariant theory of the post-Newtonian equations of motion beyond the spin-dipole approximation is a solid foundation for future improvements in long-term accuracy of relativistic celestial ephemerides of the solar system bodies.

Chaotic Dynamics in the Planar Gravitational Many-Body Problem with Rigid Body Rotations

The discovery of Pluto’s small moons in the last decade has brought attention to the dynamics of the dwarf planet’s satellites. With such systems in mind, we study a planar [Formula: see text]-body system in which all the bodies are point masses, except for a single rigid body. We then present a reduced model consisting of a planar [Formula: see text]-body problem with the rigid body treated as a 1D continuum (i.e. the body is treated as a rod with an arbitrary mass distribution). Such a model provides a good approximation to highly asymmetric geometries, such as the recently observed interstellar asteroid ‘Oumuamua, but is also amenable to analysis. We analytically demonstrate the existence of homoclinic chaos in the case where one of the orbits is nearly circular by way of the Melnikov method, and give numerical evidence for chaos when the orbits are more complicated. We show that the extent of chaos in parameter space is strongly tied to the deviations from a purely circular orbit. These results suggest that chaos is ubiquitous in many-body problems when one or more of the rigid bodies exhibits nonspherical and highly asymmetric geometries. The excitation of chaotic rotations does not appear to require tidal dissipation, obliquity variation, or orbital resonance. Such dynamics give a possible explanation for routes to chaotic dynamics observed in [Formula: see text]-body systems such as the Pluto system where some of the bodies are highly nonspherical.

Mutual gravitational potential, force, and torque of a homogeneous polyhedron and an extended body: an application to binary asteroids

Binary systems are quite common within the populations of near-Earth asteroids, main-belt asteroids, and Kuiper belt asteroids. The dynamics of binary systems, which can be modeled as the full two-body problem, is a fundamental problem for their evolution and the design of relevant space missions. This paper proposes a new shape-based model for the mutual gravitational potential of binary asteroids, differing from prior approaches such as inertia integrals, spherical harmonics, or symmetric trace-free tensors. One asteroid is modeled as a homogeneous polyhedron, while the other is modeled as an extended rigid body with arbitrary mass distribution. Since the potential of the polyhedron is precisely described in a closed form, the mutual gravitational potential can be formulated as a volume integral over the extended body. By using Taylor expansion, the mutual potential is then derived in terms of inertia integrals of the extended body, derivatives of the polyhedron’s potential, and the relative location and orientation between the two bodies. The gravitational forces and torques acting on the two bodies described in the body-fixed frame of the polyhedron are derived in the form of a second-order expansion. The gravitational model is then used to simulate the evolution of the binary asteroid (66391) 1999 KW4, and compared with previous results in the literature.

Theory of Kinematic Motion Control of a Rigid Body

The authors present a review of the works on the theory of kinematic control of the rotational (angular) motion of a rigid body and spatial motion of a free rigid body, which is a composition of the rotational and translational (trajectory) movements of a rigid body. The theory is based on the use of the quaternion and biquaternion kinematic models of the rigid body motion. They also provide a review of the papers devoted to the problems of construction of the optimal laws of change of the angular momentum of a dynamically symmetric rigid body and rigid body with an arbitrary mass distribution, which ensures its optimal translation from an arbitrary initial angular position to the desired final angular position. These tasks occupy an intermediate position between the kinematic and dynamic problems of control of the rotational rigid body motion and play an important role in the theory of control of orientation of the spacecraft using the rotating flywheels. The theory of kinematic motion control has various topical applications in the space flight mechanics, inertial navigation, and mechanics of robotics.

Stokes constants of an oblate ellipsoid of revolution with equidensites homothetic to its surface

The theory of equilibrium figures was actively developed in the 19th century, when it was found that the observed massive celestial bodies (the Sun, planets, and satellites) had an almost ellipsoidal form. The existence of exactly ellipsoidal figures was also established. The gravitational potential of these figures is represented by a Laplace series with its coefficients (Stokes’ constants I n ) determined by some integral operator. The general term of the series was found for a homogeneous ellipsoid of revolution and the first terms of the series were found for some other mass distributions. Here, we have obtained the general term of the series for an arbitrary mass distribution given that the equidensites (surfaces of equal density) are homothetic to the outer surface of the ellipsoid of revolution. Simple estimates and an asymptotics of I n have also been obtained.

Fast 3‐D large‐scale gravity and magnetic modeling using unstructured grids and an adaptive multilevel fast multipole method

AbstractA novel fast and accurate algorithm is developed for large‐scale 3‐D gravity and magnetic modeling problems. An unstructured grid discretization is used to approximate sources with arbitrary mass and magnetization distributions. A novel adaptive multilevel fast multipole (AMFM) method is developed to reduce the modeling time. An observation octree is constructed on a set of arbitrarily distributed observation sites, while a source octree is constructed on a source tetrahedral grid. A novel characteristic is the independence between the observation octree and the source octree, which simplifies the implementation of different survey configurations such as airborne and ground surveys. Two synthetic models, a cubic model and a half‐space model with mountain‐valley topography, are tested. As compared to analytical solutions of gravity and magnetic signals, excellent agreements of the solutions verify the accuracy of our AMFM algorithm. Finally, our AMFM method is used to calculate the terrain effect on an airborne gravity data set for a realistic topography model represented by a triangular surface retrieved from a digital elevation model. Using 16 threads, more than 5800 billion interactions between 1,002,001 observation points and 5,839,830 tetrahedral elements are computed in 453.6 s. A traditional first‐order Gaussian quadrature approach requires 3.77 days. Hence, our new AMFM algorithm not only can quickly compute the gravity and magnetic signals for complicated problems but also can substantially accelerate the solution of 3‐D inversion problems.

Collisions of massive particles, timelike thin shells and formation of black holes in three dimensions

We study collisions of massive pointlike particles in three dimensional anti-de Sitter space, generalizing the work on massless particles in [1]. We show how to construct exact solutions corresponding to the formation of either a black hole or a conical singularity from the collision of an arbitrary number of massive particles that fall in radially and collide at the origin of AdS. No restrictions on the masses or the angular and radial positions from where the particles are released, are imposed. We also consider the limit of an infinite number of particles, obtaining novel timelike thin shell spacetimes. These thin shells have an arbitrary mass distribution as well as a non-trivial embedding where the radial location of the shell depends on the angular coordinate, and we analyze these shells using the junction formalism of general relativity. We also consider the massless limit and find consistency with earlier results, as well as comment on the stress-energy tensor modes of the dual CFT.

Mutual potential between two rigid bodies with arbitrary shapes and mass distributions

Formulae to compute the mutual potential, force, and torque between two rigid bodies are given. These formulae are expressed in Cartesian coordinates using inertia integrals. They are valid for rigid bodies with arbitrary shapes and mass distributions. By using recursive relations, these formulae can be easily implemented on computers. Comparisons with previous studies show their superiority in computation speed. Using the algorithm as a tool, the planar problem of two ellipsoids is studied. Generally, potential truncated at the second order is good enough for a qualitative description of the mutual dynamics. However, for ellipsoids with very large non-spherical terms, higher order terms of the potential should be considered, at the cost of a higher computational cost. Explicit formulae of the potential truncated to the fourth order are given.

Алгоритм оптимального по энергии разворота космического аппарата при произвольных граничных условиях

The problem of the optimal turn in the sense of minimal energy loss of a spacecraft as a rigid body with an arbitrary distribution of mass without constraint of a control action and under arbitrary boundary conditions is considered in the quaternion statement. In the class of the generalized conical motions a modification was made of the task of optimal rotation, which allowed to obtain analytical solution to the movement equations containing any constants and two any scalar functions (parameters of the generalized conic movement). Concerning these functions and their derivatives the optimizing problem with a square functionality, in which the second derivative of these two functions acts as control, was formulated and solved using Pontryagin maximum principle. Explicit expressions for the optimal angular velocity and the optimal control vectors of a spacecraft are presented. The motion trajectory of a spacecraft is generalized as a conical precession. Algorithm for the optimal turn of a spacecraft is given. The found analytical solution to the modified problem can be considered as an approximate solution to the classical problem of an optimal turn of a spacecraft under arbitrary boundary conditions. Numerical examples are presented showing that the solution of the modified problem well approximates the solution of the classical problem of a spacecraft optimal turn. These examples contain reorientations of the International Space Station and of the Space Shuttle.

NEAR-EARTH ASTEROID SATELLITE SPINS UNDER SPIN–ORBIT COUPLING

We develop a fourth-order numerical integrator to simulate the coupled spin and orbital motions of two rigid bodies having arbitrary mass distributions under the influence of their mutual gravitational potential. We simulate the dynamics of components in well-characterized binary and triple near-Earth asteroid systems and use surface of section plots to map the possible spin configurations of the satellites. For asynchronous satellites, the analysis reveals large regions of phase space where the spin state of the satellite is chaotic. For synchronous satellites, we show that libration amplitudes can reach detectable values even for moderately elongated shapes. The presence of chaotic regions in the phase space has important consequences for the evolution of binary asteroids. It may substantially increase spin synchronization timescales, explain the observed fraction of asynchronous binaries, delay BYORP-type evolution, and extend the lifetime of binaries. The variations in spin rate due to large librations also affect the analysis and interpretation of lightcurve and radar observations.

Construction of optimal laws of variation of the angular momentum vector of a rigid body

We consider the problem of constructing optimal preset laws of variation of the angular momentum vector of a rigid body taking the body from an arbitrary initial angular position to the required terminal angular position in a given time. We minimize an integral quadratic performance functional whose integrand is a weighted sum of squared projections of the angular momentum vector of the rigid body. We use the Pontryagin maximum principle to derive necessary optimality conditions. In the case of a spherically symmetric rigid body, the problem has a well-known analytic solution. In the case where the body has a dynamic symmetry axis, the obtained boundary value optimization problem is reduced to a system of two nonlinear algebraic equations. For a rigid body with an arbitrarymass distribution, optimal control laws are obtained in the form of elliptic functions. We discuss the laws of controlled motion and applications of the constructed preset laws in systems of attitude control by external control torques or rotating flywheels.

THE DEPENDENCE OF PRESTELLAR CORE MASS DISTRIBUTIONS ON THE STRUCTURE OF THE PARENTAL CLOUD

The mass distribution of prestellar cores is obtained for clouds with arbitrary internal mass distributions using a selection criterion based on the thermal and turbulent Jeans mass and applied hierarchically from small to large scales. We have checked this methodology comparing our results for a lognormal density PDF with the theoretical CMF derived by Hennebelle and Chabrier, namely a power-law at large scales and a log-normal cutoff at low scales, but our method can be applied to any mass distributions representing a star-forming cloud. This methodology enables us to connect the parental cloud structure with the mass distribution of the cores and their spatial distribution, providing an efficient tool for investigating the physical properties of the molecular clouds that give rise to the prestellar core distributions observed. Simulated fBm clouds with the Hurst exponent close to the value H=1/3 give the best agreement with the theoretical CMF derived by Hennebelle and Chabrier and Chabrier's system IMF. Likewise, the spatial distribution of the cores derived from our methodology show a surface density of companions compatible with those observed in Trapezium and Ophiucus star-forming regions. This method also allows us to analyze the properties of the mass distribution of cores for different realizations. We found that the variations in the number of cores formed in different realizations of fBm clouds (with the same Hurst exponent) are much larger than the expected root N statistical fluctuations, increasing with H.

Reduced Mass-Weighted Proper Decomposition for Modal Analysis

A method of modal analysis by a mass-weighted proper orthogonal decomposition for multi-degree-of-freedom and distributed-parameter systems of arbitrary mass distribution is outlined. The method involves reduced-order modeling of the system mass distribution so that the discretized mass matrix dimension matches the number of sensed quantities, and hence the dimension of the response ensemble and correlation matrix. In this case, the linear interpolation of unsensed displacements is used to reduce the size of the mass matrix. The idea is applied to the modal identification of a mass-spring system and an exponential rod.

On the existence of certain axisymmetric interior metrics

One of the effects of noncommutative coordinate operators is that the delta function connected to the quantum mechanical amplitude between states sharp to the position operator gets smeared by a Gaussian distribution. Although this is not the full account of the effects of noncommutativity, this effect is, in particular, important as it removes the point singularities of Schwarzschild and Reissner–Nordström solutions. In this context, it seems to be of some importance to probe also into ringlike singularities which appear in the Kerr case. In particular, starting with an anisotropic energy-momentum tensor and a general axisymmetric ansatz of the metric together with an arbitrary mass distribution (e.g., Gaussian), we derive the full set of Einstein equations that the noncommutative geometry inspired Kerr solution should satisfy. Using these equations we prove two theorems regarding the existence of certain Kerr metrics inspired by noncommutative geometry.