1708results about "Material strength using single impulsive force" patented technology

Apparatus, systems, and methods for monitoring head acceleration and / or forces acting thereon are disclosed. A device for monitoring an acceleration or a force acting on the head of a user includes a flexible article adapted to be worn on the head of the user; and a monitoring assembly coupled to the flexible article. The monitoring assembly includes a sensor for measuring a force on the head and transmitting data relating to the force, the sensor disposed proximate to the head, a processor adapted to receive the force data from the sensor, and a flexible strip operatively connecting the sensor and the processor.

Embodiments are directed to strengthened glass articles comprising a thickness t≦1 mm (1000 μm), an inner region under a central tension CT (in MPa), and at least one compressive stress layer adjacent the inner region and extending within the strengthened glass article from a surface of the strengthened glass article to a depth of layer DOL (in μm), wherein the strengthened glass article is under a compressive stress at the surface CSs (in MPa), wherein the strengthened glass article is an alkali aluminosilicate glass article comprising 0-5 mol % Li2O, and at least 3 mol % Al2O3, and wherein the DOL≧70 μm, and a CSs / DOL ratio≧2.5 MPa / μm.

A helmet includes a head enclosure with an open cavity for the head of a user and a shock detector attached to the head enclosure that provides a signal when the head enclosure is subjected an impact exceeding a predetermined level.

A control system is operable to selectably activate shock damping devices associated with a bicycle so as to eliminate bobbing encountered under extreme pedaling conditions. The system includes a crank axle torque detector which operates to detect a level of torque applied to a crank axle and provide a control signal corresponding to the level of torque. A shock damping device is coupled to the frame of the cycle, and functions to absorb and dampen mechanical shocks communicated to the frame. The shock damping device includes an activator for controlling its damping function. The activator is operable to receive the control signal from the crank axle torque detector and control the shock damping device in response thereto. The control signal may be an electrical or a mechanical signal.

The present invention provides systems and methods to use a measured driving-point response of a nonlinear material to determine one or more elastic properties of the material. The present invention takes advantage of the full information represented by the transient component, the steady-state component, the anharmonic components, and the nonlinear response components of a measured driving-point response of a real nonlinear material, without limitation in the use of large-amplitude forces. The elastic properties are determined by forming and solving a time-domain system of linear equations representing a differential equation model of the driving-point motions of the material. Based on a single, short duration, large-amplitude driving point measurement, both linear and nonlinear properties can be determined; both large-amplitude and near-zero amplitude properties can be determined; and elastic-wave speed and elastic moduli and their variation with depth can be determined. The present invention also provides a system and a method to filter an input signal to either attenuate or preserve each of one or more selected harmonic components that are harmonics of a phase reference signal.

A method and apparatus for testing a football helmet utilizes a weighted pendulum arm to impart an impact force upon the helmet. Linear head acceleration and rotational head acceleration caused by the impact force is measured and a Head Impact Power Index is computed and used as a standard to judge the ability and effectiveness of the football helmet in preventing injury to a football player.

A method, system, and device for optimizing a vehicle's suspension includes: mounting at least one modified passive shock with a plurality of sensors onto a vehicle, where the shock is adjustable for a plurality of damping forces; connecting the shock to an electronic control unit being for adjusting the damping forces of the shock and reading the plurality of sensors; and running the vehicle through a plurality of test cycles where the electronic control unit reading the plurality of sensors during each test cycle and adjusting the shock to a different damping force between each test cycle, where the adjusted shock emulating the damping forces of multiple standard passive shocks.

An acoustic monitoring device has at least two acoustic sensors with a triggering mechanism and a multiplexing circuit. After the occurrence of a triggering event at a sensor, the multiplexing circuit allows a recording component to record acoustic emissions at adjacent sensors. The acoustic monitoring device is attached to a solid medium to detect the occurrence of damage.

A system for detecting and displaying force data relating to impacts received on an item of athletic equipment includes two or more items of athletic equipment each having a force sensor, logic and a wireless transmitter therein, a receiver adapted to receiver signals from each of the transmitters, and a processor for formatting the data for display. The force sensor may be a capacitive force sensor. The logic may have an operating mode and a sleep mode, with an inertial sensor providing a signal to cause the logic to switch from sleep mode to operating mode. The logic identifies and stores signals exceeding a threshold for transmission. Transmissions are repeated, and the receiver is adapted to distinguish and discard corrupted and repeated transmissions. The display provides an indication of force and number of recorded hits in association with the names of the competitors. The athletic equipment may be boxing gloves, and the force and number of hit data may be provided simultaneously with images and commentary for a boxing match. The data may be displayed as a standalone graphic or superimposed over an image of a match.

The present invention provides systems and methods to used a measured driving-point response of a nonlinear material to determined one or more elastic properties of the material. The present invention takes advantage of the full information represented by the transient component, the steady-state component, the anharmonic components, and the nonlinear response components of a measured driving-point response of a real nonlinear material, without limitation in the use of large-amplitude forces. The elastic properties are determined by forming and solving a time-domain system of linear equations representing a differential equation model of the driving-point motions of the material. Based on a single, short duration, large-amplitude driving point measurement, both linear and nonlinear properties can be determined; both large-amplitude and near-zero amplitude properties can be determined; and elastic-wave speed and elastic moduli and their variation with depth can be determined.

An impact monitoring apparatus that includes a support member made of an elastic material capable of being attached to or worn by a user and at least one force measuring element attached to the support member. The force measuring elements may be easily removed from the support member. The force measuring element may include an indicator capable of indicating the amount of force or impact sustained by the user. If the force measuring element does not include an indicator, then the apparatus may further include an indicator that is associated with the force measuring element.

A helmet includes a head enclosure with an open cavity for the head of a user and a shock detector attached to the head enclosure that provides a signal when the head enclosure is subjected an impact exceeding a predetermined level.

The present invention discloses a determination apparatus for concrete impact flexural-tensile injury based on non-equilibrium state. The determination apparatus is characterized by comprising a gas gun, a bullet, an incident rod, a transmission rod, a strain sheet, a bridge box and a data acquisition system connected with a computer, wherein the strain sheet is adhered on the middle portion of the incident rod and is connected with the data acquisition system through the bridge box, the incident rod and the transmission rod are respectively provided with a sleeve head, the sleeve heads are respectively provided with a pad block, and a concrete specimen is sandwiched between the pad blocks on the two rods. With the determination apparatus and the determination method of the present invention, the concrete injury theory is introduced into the flexural concrete determination under impact load, such that the difficulty that the flexural concrete injury time is short under the impact load is overcome, and the relationship curve between the tensile strength and the injury time during the concrete flexibility is obtained; and the difficult problem that the transmitted wave is difficult to determine through the test is overcome, and the error is substantially reduced during the wave superimposing.

An electronically adjustable shock absorber, and a system, method, and algorithm for developing a vehicle suspension. The shock absorber has damping characteristics that can be adjusted electronically to match a desired set of damping characteristics. The test method includes closed loop control of the electronically adjustable shock to achieve user-provided damping characteristics. The characteristics can be selected from a graphical user interface to simulate different internal flow passages of a shock absorber. Some embodiments make possible the simulated testing of different hardware embodiments, without the need to make the actual shock absorbers and without the need interrupt the vehicle suspension testing for multiple shock absorber installations.

Measured values obtained from a running test of an object to be tested and a module on a test bench such as a flat belt type chassis dynamo, and computation based upon numerical models of components other than the object to be tested and the module, are related to each other so as to reproduce a condition near to an actual running condition, for the object to be tested and the module so as to precisely analyze how the object to be tested and the module affects upon the motion of the overall vehicle during actual running of the vehicle. Thus it is possible to evaluate dynamic characteristics of respective vehicle components and a module which relate to the maneuvering performance of the vehicle, on a test bench in a condition in which a load variation and an alignment variation are taken into consideration.

A helmet blastometer for characterizing the direction, speed, magnitude, and duration of a blast event to determine the likelihood of blast-induced traumatic brain injury (biTBI). A set of external sensors, each having one or more time of arrival (TOA) gages, is mounted at various positions on a rigid outer shell of the helmet. Each external sensor includes a first TOA gage that produces a TOA signal in response to a fast rising blast induced positive pressure change above a predetermined threshold. These positive pressure change TOA signals are received by a receiver and analyzed to determine direction, speed, and magnitude of a blast. At least one of the external sensors may also include a second TOA gauge that produces a TOA signal in response to a negative pressure change below a predetermined threshold. The positive and negative pressure change TOA signals from the same external sensor are used by the receiver processor to determine blast duration. In another embodiment, a second set of internal contact pressure sensors is connected to an inner liner of the helmet to detect contact pressure on a user's head. Preferably, the receiver processor determines that a biTBI has likely been sustained by when one or more of the blast direction, speed, magnitude and contact pressure has satisfied a predetermined biTBI threshold, upon which a biTBI warning indicator may be triggered.

Sensors and systems for monitoring structural health conditions. The present invention provides a device for monitoring structural health conditions including a dielectric substrate, a piezoelectric device for actuating and / or sensing Lamb waves, a molding layer deposited over the piezoelectric device, a cover layer deposited over the molding layer and a hoop layer surrounding the piezoelectric device and being attached to the substrate. The device further includes an optical fiber coil sensor attached to the dielectric substrate, where the coil sensor has a rolled optical fiber cable and a coating layer applied to the rolled optical fiber cable. The present invention also provides a diagnostic patch network that includes a plurality of patch sensors attached to a host structure and a bridge box connected to the patch sensors. The bridge box sends information of structural health conditions to and receive power from a ground control system using a wireless communication technique.

Systems and methods are provided for determining an acceleration at a location of interest within one of a user's head and neck. At least one of linear acceleration data, angular acceleration data, angular velocity data, and orientation data is produced using at least one sensing device substantially rigidly attached to an ambient-accessible surface of the user's head. The location of interest is represented relative to a position of the at least one sensing device as a time-varying function. An acceleration at the location of interest is calculated as a function of the data produced at the sensing device and the time-varying function representing the location of interest. The calculated acceleration at the location of interest is provided to at least one of the user and an observer in a human-perceptible form.

The present invention discloses a method for analyzing structure safety, and the method uses valid vibration measurement signals to obtain mutual feedbacks for a structural model analysis and a calibrated structural model to simulate a disaster situation to obtain the critical force exertion and deformation scale of a structure. The method is applied to capture the stability index of the structure to analyze the structure safety or applied for a structure safety evaluation or a health monitoring, or even for a structure multi-hazards safety determination.

An apparatus and method for determining the kinematic characteristics of a golf club head are disclosed. The apparatus includes at least one piezoelectric component selectively positioned within or upon a club head. The piezoelectric component is preferably positioned to the rear of the center of gravity, and near the midpoint of the face of the club head. During a golf club swing, the piezoelectric component determines the acceleration and deceleration of the golf club head. When the club head impacts an object such as a golf ball, the piezoelectric component is also operable to determine the velocity of the club head. It may also be desirable for the piezoelectric component to determine the magnitude of vibration during impact. In this manner, the piezoelectric component may function determine the efficiency of a golf club swing.

The invention relates to the technical field of mine support, and particularly relates to a test bed for testing integrated mechanical properties of an anchor rod and a test method. The test bed comprises a pushing and mixing test mechanism, an installation pretension test mechanism, a bending load test mechanism, an axial load test mechanism, a shearing load test mechanism and an impact load test mechanism, wherein the pushing and mixing test mechanism and the installation pretension test mechanism are arranged on an installation test bed, and the bending load test mechanism, the axial load test mechanism, the shearing load test mechanism and the impact load test mechanism are arranged on a work test bed. By using the test bed, the installing and working process of the anchor rod can be simulated in a laboratory, and one or multiple combined external forces such as torsion, stretching, bending, shearing and impact are applied to the anchor rod; and mutually independent loading systems are adopted to apply corresponding loads to the anchor rod, so as to carry out independent experiments of various loads in the installing and working process of the anchor rod or a combined loading test of a plurality of any working stresses such as stretching, shearing and impact caused by installation stress and surrounding rock deformation, thereby effectively testing the integrated mechanical properties of the anchor rod under the combined action of various different external forces.

An apparatus and method are provided for the in-situ measurement of the stiffness of a layer of soil or other surface of interest. The apparatus includes a contact foot for engaging the surface and a drive transducer coupled to the contact foot for applying a vibratory force to the contact foot in response to a drive signal. A motion sensor is coupled to the contact foot and in a preferred embodiment an additional sensor measures the force applied to the contact foot and hence to the surface. These sensors generate corresponding output signals. The output signals are used to generate a measurement signal that is representative of the surface stiffness.

The invention relates to a multi-field coupled coal rock impact loading experimental device and method. The experimental device comprises an axial static pressure loading device, an axial static pressure loading hydraulic oil pump, an axial static pressure oil delivery pipe, an ambient pressure loading hydraulic oil pump, an ambient pressure loading oil delivery pipe, a radial ambient pressure loading device, a gas tank, a gas inlet pipe, a gas pressure regulating valve, an air extracting pump, a gas sensor, a gas outlet pipe, a cold and hot dual-purpose compressor, a servo oil pump and a cold and hot dual-purpose oil delivery pipe. By using the experimental device and method, a coal rock sample can be in a multi-field coupling state and the condition that the coal rock sample is in axial static loading, radial ambient pressure static loading, gas pressure and temperature coupling states, so that an experiment can be carried out aiming to the dynamic loading conditions.

Sonic excitation is used to locate, without contact, an object or defect beneath a surface. Defects may include, for example, damage and flaws in load bearing concrete structures wrapped in plastic, fiberglass or composite sheathing, while buried objects amenable to detection include landmines or above-ground mines.

An impact detection system provides a means of sensing, monitoring and recording impact events on an impact surface using at least one sensor that is incorporated into the impact surface. The sensor(s) can be integral with, attached to or located behind various types of impact surface including various types of garments that can be worn by an individual or on composite materials such as an aircraft fuselage for example. The impact detection system includes a portable impact detection device electrically connected to the sensor(s) and is used to detect ballistic or non-ballistic type impacts on the impact surface. The portable impact detection device processes the impact data detected by the sensor(s) and stores the data for analysis at a later time or outputs the data to a third party system for review and / or analysis.

A nondestructive method of and apparatus for detecting degradation of reinforcing members embedded within a structure is disclosed. Degradation can arise from many sources, such as corrosion, fracture, cracking, fatigue, chemical reaction, etc. The device includes an inducing instrument(210) to induce a vibration of the reinforcing members (110)and a measuring device (220) to detect the vibration of the reinforcing members. The measurement is analyzed to detect the presence of reinforcing member degradation or reinforcing member-to-concrete bonding. The device may include a controller (230) to enhance the detection. The device may also include an amplifier (240) to further increase the energy in the waves imparted to the structure and the acoustic waves detected by the measuring instrument.(220)

The invention discloses a triaxial impact ground pressure true simulation test system. The triaxial impact ground pressure true simulation test system is characterized by comprising a flexible loading unit, a confining pressure loading unit and an impact loading unit, wherein the flexible loading unit is used for applying vertical pressure on a test piece through a loading oil cylinder and a counterforce steel strand, the confining pressure loading unit is used for enabling the test piece to be under the condition of triaxial stress, the impact loading system is used for applying impact load on the test piece, the test piece is destroyed under the conditions of high stress and impact disturbance, the strength of the test piece is reduced, the test piece generates a certain displacement, in the process, the counterforce steel strand in the flexible loading unit is used for quickly supplementing load to the test piece, and further the extrusion and the action of external surrounding rocks to coal and rock masses are simulated. The triaxial impact ground pressure true simulation test system can be used for well simulating the occurring conditions of impact ground pressure, and the triaxial loading conditions are especially applicable to the simulation of gravity type impact ground pressure in a mining roadway.

An apparatus is provided for recording information about an event resulting in application of a force to a body. The apparatus comprises data recording means for recording the information, sensor means for sensing a parameter which enables a predetermined source of force to be distinguished from another, different source of force, and control means responsive to the sensed parameter for controlling the data recording means. The sensor means may comprise a pressure sensor for sensing shockwaves resulting from an explosive force and the resulting signal used to distinguish from other events, such as blunt impacts. The pressure signal may be used to control the storage of acceleration data for injury analysis.