The role of surface roughness in the measurement of slipperiness

Surface roughness has been shown to have substantial effects on the slip resistance between shoe heels and floor surfaces under various types of walking environments. This paper summarizes comprehensive views of the current understanding on the roles of surface roughness on the shoe and floor surfaces in the measurement of slipperiness and discusses promising directions for future research. Various techniques and instruments for surface roughness measurements and related roughness parameters are reviewed in depth. It is suggested that a stylus-type profilometer and a laser scanning confocal microscope are the preferred instruments for surface roughness measurements in the field and laboratory, respectively. The need for developing enhanced methods for reliably characterizing the slip resistance properties is highlighted. This could be based on the principal understanding of the nature of shoe and floor interface and surface analysis techniques for characterizing both surfaces of shoe and floor. Therefore, surface roughness on both shoe and floor surfaces should be measured and combined to arrive at the final assessment of slipperiness. While controversies around the friction measurement for slipperiness assessment still remain, surface roughness measurement may provide an objective alternative to overcoming the limitations of friction measurements.     

The role of surface roughness in the measurement of slipperiness.

Surface roughness has been shown to have substantial effects on the slip resistance between shoe heels and floor surfaces under various types of walking environments. This paper summarizes comprehensive views of the current understanding on the roles of surface roughness on the shoe and floor surfaces in the measurement of slipperiness and discusses promising directions for future research. Various techniques and instruments for surface roughness measurements and related roughness parameters are reviewed in depth. It is suggested that a stylus-type profilometer and a laser scanning confocal microscope are the preferred instruments for surface roughness measurements in the field and laboratory, respectively. The need for developing enhanced methods for reliably characterizing the slip resistance properties is highlighted. This could be based on the principal understanding of the nature of shoe and floor interface and surface analysis techniques for characterizing both surfaces of shoe and floor. Therefore, surface roughness on both shoe and floor surfaces should be measured and combined to arrive at the final assessment of slipperiness. While controversies around the friction measurement for slipperiness assessment still remain, surface roughness measurement may provide an objective alternative to overcoming the limitations of friction measurements.     

Prediction of surface roughness in ball-end milling process by utilizing dynamic cutting force ratio

The aim of this research is to propose the practical model to predict the in-process surface roughness during the ball-end milling process by utilizing the dynamic cutting force ratio. The proposed model is developed based on the experimentally obtained results by employing the exponential function with five factors of the spindle speed, the feed rate, the tool diameter, the depth of cut, and the dynamic cutting force ratio. The experimentally obtained results showed that the frequency of the dynamic cutting force corresponds with the frequency of the surface roughness profile in the frequency domain. Hence, the dimensionless dynamic cutting force ratio is proposed regardless of the cutting conditions to predict the in-process surface roughness by taking the ratio of the area of the dynamic cutting force in X axis to that in Z axis. The multiple regression analysis is adopted to calculate the regression coefficients at 95 % confident level. The experimentally obtained model has been verified by using the new cutting conditions. It is understood that the developed surface roughness model can be used to predict the in-process surface roughness with the high accuracy of 92.82 % for the average surface roughness and 91.54 % for the surface roughness.     

不同尺度下颗粒活性炭表面分形特征的研究

采用图象法、染料吸附和N2吸附-脱附实验分别确定颗粒活性炭的表面分形维数,探讨不同尺度下颗粒活性炭的表面分形特征,为描述环境污染物在颗粒活性炭介质微界面上的传质、反应的非线性规律提供支撑。结果表明,颗粒活性炭的表面从分子尺度(几个A)到微观尺度(几个微米)之间一般都具有多分形特征,且不同尺度范围内的表面分形维数差异较大．在研究尺度的范围内．图象分辨率的增大,相应的Ds一般呈变小的趋势,但图象法确定的纳米尺度下的Ds值远小于吸附法确定的A尺度下的Ds值。SEM图象计算出的Ds为2．04-2．39,AFM图象计算出的Ds为2．00-2．43。N2吸附-脱附法确定颗粒活性炭孔表面分形维数Ds为2．97以上,比分形吸附等温线确定的外表面和部分孔表面综合的表面分形维数值Ds=2．59高出许多。另外,图象法确定的表面分形特征的尺度变化范围约为100-102量级之间,确定的表面分形维数是纯粹几何意义上的表面粗糙特征的描述,可能需要多角度的大量代表性图片来综合分析;而吸附法是描述颗粒特定尺度下整个表面的粗糙程度。它们在同一尺度下的分形维数值是否相关或相等,依然是需要我们进一步的探讨。     

Effects of geometry factors on microvortices evolution in confined square microcavities

Recently, microcavities have become a central feature of diverse microfluidic devices for many biological applications. Thus, the flow and transport phenomena in microcavities characterized by microvortices have received increasing research attention. It is important to understand thoroughly the geometry factors on the flow behaviors in microcavities. In an effort to provide a design guideline for optimizing the microcavity configuration and better utilizing microvortices for different applications, we investigated quantitatively the liquid flow characteristics in different square microcavities located on one side of a main straight microchannel by using both microparticle image velocimetry (micro-PIV) and numerical simulation. The influences of the inlet Reynolds numbers (with relatively wider values Re?=?1–400) and the hydraulic diameter of the main microchannel (D_H?=?100, 133 μm) on the evolution of microvortices in different square microcavities (100, 200, 400 and 800 μm) were studied. The evolution and characteristic of the microvortices were investigated in detail. Moreover, the critical Reynolds numbers for the emergence of microvortices and the transformation of flow patterns in different microcavities were determined. The results will provide a useful guideline for the design of microcavity-featured microfluidic devices and their applications.     

Effects of surface roughness and interface wettability on nanoscale flow in a nanochannel

Non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations have been carried out to investigate the effect of surface roughness and interface wettability on the nanorheology and slip boundary condition of simple fluids in a nanochannel of several atomic diameters width. The solid surfaces decorated with periodic nanostrips are considered as the rough surface in this study. The simulation results showed that the interface wettability and the surface roughness are important in determining the nanorheology of the nanochannel and fluid slip at solid–fluid interface. It is observed that the presence of surface roughness always suppresses the fluid slip for hydrophilic and hydrophobic surface nanochannels. For fluids over smooth and hydrophobic surfaces, the snapshots of fluid molecules show that an air gap or nanobubble exists at the fluid–solid interface, resulting in the apparent slip velocity. For a given surface with fixed interface wettability, the fluid velocities increase by increasing the driving force, while the driving force has no significant influence on the density structure of fluid molecules. The fluid slip and the flow rate are measured for hydrophilic and hydrophobic nanochannels. The flow rates in rough surface nanochannels are smaller than those of smooth surface walls due to the increase of drag resistance at the solid–fluid interface. The dependence between fluid slip and flow rate showed that the slip length increases approximately linearly with the flow rate for both the hydrophobic and hydrophilic surface nanochannels.     

Tool electrode geometry and process parameters influence on different feature geometry and surface quality in electrical discharge machining of AISI H13 steel

Electro discharge machining process (EDM) is frequently used when machining of high complex and accurate features is required. Indeed, it is specially recommended for hard materials and micro-machined features. However, due to the process nature, there is still incomprehension on process parameters influence at the final quality features, ending up by lower productivity and quality ratios. On the other hand, fashioning and re-shaping of required electrodes for each feature are time consuming phases and the number of stored electrodes is very high. Therefore, in order to increase the global EDM process productivity, quality and flexibility, standardized simple electrode shapes, capable to machine different features, must be found. This study presents the influence of the main EDM process parameters and different tool geometries on basic process performance measures. A set of designed experiments with varying parameters such as pulsed current, open voltage, pulse time and pulse pause time are carried out in H13 steel using different geometries of copper electrodes. In addition, material removal rate , surface roughness and different dimensional and geometrical micro-accuracies are analyzed through statistical methods. Results help to select appropriate EDM process parameters to machine parts depending on product requirements.     

Investigation of surface roughness effects on fluid flow in passive micromixer

Surface roughness effects are dominant at microscale. In this study, microchannels are fabricated on Silicon substrate. The roughness morphology is modeled for the fabricated structure using Weierstrass-Mandelbrot function for self-similar fractals. A two dimensional model of hexagonal passive micromixer is analyzed with surface roughness present on inner walls of channels using parallel Lattice Boltzmann method, implemented on sixteen node cluster. The results are compared by simulating this micromixer structure using Navier–Stokes equations. The experimental results on the fabricated micromixers are also presented. The effects of relative roughness, fractal dimension and Reynolds number are discussed on laminar flow in hexagonal passive micromixers. The study concludes the importance of modeling surface roughness effect for better mixing efficiency.     

Investigations on the flow behaviour in microfluidic device due to surface roughness: a computational fluid dynamics simulation

In the field of micro-fluidics device, as the cross section of micro-channel comes down to the scale of few tens of micro-meters, surface area to volume ratio increases significantly, and due to this, surface dependent phenomenon dominates during flow of the fluid. This surface dependent phenomenon is mainly governed by surface roughness as an important parameter which directly influences on flow and results in the loss of pressure head due to the building of localised pressure as well as eddy flow. To understand this mechanism, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation is carried out. In the present CFD simulation, fluid and solid interactions are modelled in two different types. The first is modelled as pure slip between them so that the effect of roughness can be investigated as a main source of friction factor. The second model consists the effect of the pure adhesion by maintain zero relative velocity on the surface of micro-channel. Behaviour of fluid flow and increase in pressure-drop are observed differently in the both types of model. It is observed that the rise in pressure-drop occurs exponentially as size of a channel reduces from 300 to 100 µm. This phenomenon reveals the science of the size effect on micro-channels. The surface roughness of micro-channel is simulated and it is also observed that the surface finish up to few tens of nanometers does not affect the fluid flow. However, the flow resistance increases as the surface roughness increases up to few hundreds of nanometers, and the pressure-drops along the channel length. In the present case, an elevated temperature of fluid mitigates the effect of surface roughness up to some extent for the efficient flow of fluid in a micro-fluidic device. Hence, micro-fluidic device with nano-finished micro-channel and elevated temperature of fluid is recommended for economic and efficient utilisation of the device.

     

Development of a fuzzy-nets-based in-process surface roughness adaptive control system in turning operations

This paper discusses the development of an in-process surface roughness adaptive control system for a CNC turning operation, using fuzzy-nets modeling and tool vibrations measured with an accelerometer. The goal of this system is to predict the surface roughness of a surface being turned, determine if the surface roughness being generated is higher than the desired specification, and if so to adapt the feed rate of the turning operation in order to obtain a surface roughness no higher than that specified. Fuzzy-nets models for prediction of surface roughness and adapted feed rate were trained using feed rate, spindle speed, tangential vibration and measured surface roughness data collected during experimental runs. A series of validation runs indicated that the system could successfully meet its goal both in detecting out-of-spec surface roughness conditions, and adapting the machine tool to obtain a final surface roughness at or slightly below the desired surface roughness.     

Theoretical analysis of a new, efficient microfluidic magnetic bead separator based on magnetic structures on multiple length scales

We present a theoretical analysis of a new design for microfluidic magnetic bead separation. It combines an external array of mm-sized permanent magnets with magnetization directions alternating between up and down with μm-sized soft magnetic structures integrated in the bottom of the separation channel. The concept is studied analytically for simple representative geometries and by numerical simulation of an experimentally realistic system geometry. The array of permanent magnets provides long-range magnetic forces that attract the beads to the channel bottom, while the soft magnetic elements provide strong local retaining forces that prevent captured beads from being torn loose by the fluid drag. The addition of the soft magnetic elements increases the maximum retaining force by two orders of magnitude. The design is scalable and provides an efficient and simple solution to the capture of large amounts of magnetic beads on a microsystem platform.     

Investigation of cutting parameter effects on surface roughness in lathe boring operation by use of a full factorial design

The main objective of this study is to investigate cutting parameter effects of surface roughness in a lathe dry boring operation. A full factorial design was used to evaluate the effect of six (6) independent variables (cutting speed, feed rate, depth of cut, tool nose radius, tool length and type of boring bar) and their corresponding two-level interactions. In this experiment, the dependant variable was the resulting fast cut surface roughness (R,). In order to perform all possible variable combinations, a total of 216 cuts were.

The results revealed that using short tool length always provide good surface roughness and that only slight improvement on surface roughness can be achieved by properly controlling the cutting parameters and/or the type of boring bar used. The results also revealed that using a long tool length may results in vibration that could be efficiently controlled by the use of a damped boring bar. With such a long tool length, the cutting variables become important factors to control in order to significantly improve surface roughness results with both types of boring bars. A prediction model is proposed for each types of boring bar. Both models are highly significant, p<0.00001, with coefficients of determination of 0.56 and 0.57 for a standard boring bar and a damped boring bar, respectively.     

The impact of surface roughness on flow through a rectangular microchannel from the laminar to turbulent regimes

Modifications of fluid flow within microscale flow passages by internal surface roughness is investigated in the laminar, transitional, and turbulent regimes using pressure-drop measurements and instantaneous velocity fields acquired by microscopic particle-image velocimetry (micro-PIV). The microchannel under study is rectangular in cross-section with an aspect ratio of 1:2 (depth: width) and a hydraulic diameter of D_h = 600 \upmu m.D_{\rm h} =600\,\upmu \hbox{m}. Measurements are first performed under smooth-wall conditions to establish the baseline flow characteristics within the microchannel followed by measurements for two different rough-wall cases [with RMS roughness heights of 7.51 \upmu m7.51\,\upmu \hbox{m} (0.0125D _h) and 15.1 \upmu m15.1\,\upmu \hbox{m} (0.025D _h)]. The roughness patterns under consideration are unique in that they are reminiscent of surface irregularities one might encounter in practical microchannels due to imperfect fabrication methods. The pressure-drop results reveal the onset of transition above Re_cr=1,800Re_{\rm cr}=1{,}800 for the smooth-wall case, consistent with the onset of transition at the macroscale, along with deviation from laminar behavior at progressively lower Re with increasing roughness. Mean velocity profiles computed from the micro-PIV ensembles at various Re for each surface condition confirm these trends, meaning Re_crRe_{\rm cr} is a strong function of roughness. The ensembles of velocity fields at each Re and surface condition in the transitional regime are subdivided into fields embodying laminar behavior and fields containing disordered motions. This decomposition reveals a clear hastening of the flow toward a turbulent state due both to the roughness dependence of Re _cr and an enhancement in the growth rate of the non-laminar fraction of the flow when the flow is in the early stages of transition. Nevertheless, the range of Re relative to Re _cr over which the flow transitions from a laminar to a turbulent state is found to be essentially the same for all three surface conditions. From a structural viewpoint, instantaneous velocity fields embodying disordered behavior in the transitional regime are found to contain large-scale motions consistent with hairpin-vortex packets irrespective of surface condition. These observations are in accordance with the characteristics of transitional and turbulent flows at the macroscale and therefore indicate that the overall structural paradigm of the flow is relatively insensitive to roughness. From a quantitative viewpoint, however, the intensity of both the velocity fluctuations and structural activity appear to increase substantially with increasing roughness, particularly in the latter stages of transition. These differences are further supported by the trends of single-point statistics of the non-laminar ensembles and quadrant analysis in which an intensification of the velocity fluctuations by surface roughness is noted in the region close to the wall, particularly for the wall-normal fluctuations.     

Effects of disk surface roughness on static flying characteristics of air bearing slider by using a combined method of Reynolds equation and rough disk surface

Reynolds equation was modified with adding the surface roughness parameters to analyze the effects of disk surface roughness on the static flying characteristic of an air bearing slider. However, the modification demands the complicated mathematical expressions and related knowledge of physics and mathematics. In this paper, a combined method of Reynolds equation without introducing the roughness parameters and rough disk surface is proposed to investigate the effects of disk surface roughness on the static flying characteristics of an air bearing slider, it is different from those models of modified Reynolds equation introducing the disk surface roughness used by many researchers. More importantly, this method avoids the complicated numerical calculation resulted from the mathematical expressions including the Peklenik parameter \(\gamma\) and roughness R_a. By using an Ω air bearing slider, we investigated the effects of disk surface roughness on the static flying characteristics of this slider, the results show that the Peklenik parameter \(\gamma\) and roughness R_a have a significant influence on the pressure distribution, the load carrying capacity and the location of the pressure centre.     

Relation between vegetation canopy surface temperature and the Sun-surface geometry in a mountainous region of central Italy

Evapotranspiration is the dominant energy exchange process in dense vegetated environments with an adequate water supply. If water is available vegetation canopy temperatures do not respond immediately upon intercepting solar radiation because of the apportionment of absorbed solar radiation into sensible and latent heat. This lag in the thermal conditions of vegetation canopy following the incident solar flux can be even more complex after sunrise because the presence of dew on the foliage requires more available energy investment in evaporating water and less energy spent in warming the foliage. The aim of this Letter, which is based on remotely-sensed thermal data obtained from Landsat Thematic Mapper in the daytime of a clear summer day, is to investigate the relationship between canopy surface temperatures and the incident solar radiation for a forested montainous landscape of central Italy. Results show that, under the conditions of our experiment, a time lag of one hour considerably increases the linear relation between vegetation canopy temperature and local solar illumination angle.     

Central force optimization on a GPU: a case study in high performance metaheuristics

Central Force Optimization (CFO) is a new and deterministic population based metaheuristic algorithm that has been demonstrated to be competitive with other metaheuristic algorithms such as Genetic Algorithms (GA), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), and Group Search Optimization (GSO). While CFO often shows superiority in terms of functional evaluations and solution quality, the algorithm is complex and typically requires increased computational time. In order to decrease the computational time required for convergence when using CFO, this study presents the first parallel implementation of CFO on a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) using the NVIDIA Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA). Two versions of the CFO algorithm, Parameter-Free CFO (PF-CFO) and Pseudo-Random CFO (PR-CFO), are implemented using CUDA on a NVIDIA Quadro 1000M and examined using four test problems ranging from 10 to 50 dimensions. Discussion is made concerning the implementation of the CFO algorithms in terms of problem decomposition, memory access, scalability, and divergent code. Results demonstrate substantial speedups ranging from roughly 1 to 28 depending on problem size and complexity.     

Orchestrating the emergence of conceptual learning: a case study in a geometry class

This paper is about orchestrating the emergence of conceptual learning in a collaborative setting. We elaborate on the idea of critical moments in group learning, events which may lead to a particular development at the epistemic level regarding the shared object. We conjecture that teachers’ identification of critical moments may help them guide students to the emergence of conceptual learning. The complexity of small group settings in classrooms prevents teachers from noticing these critical moments, though. Here we present an environment, SAGLET (System for Advancing Group Learning in Educational Technologies), based on the VMT (Virtual Math Teams) environment (Stahl 2009), which allows teachers to observe multiple groups engaging in problem-solving in geometry. SAGLET capitalizes on machine learning techniques to inform teachers about on-line critical moments by sending them alerts, so that they can then decide whether (and how) to use the alerts in guiding their students. One teacher in an elementary school used SAGLET to help multiple groups of students solve difficult problems in geometry. We observed how the teacher mediated two cohorts of multiple groups at two different times in a mathematics classroom. We show that in both cases the teacher could detect the needs of the groups (partly thanks to the alerts) and could provide adaptive guidance for all the groups.     

Hands-free administration of subjective workload scales: Acceptability in a surgical training environment

IntroductionSubjective workload measures are usually administered in a visual–manual format, either electronically or by paper and pencil. However, vocal responses to spoken queries may sometimes be preferable, for example when experimental manipulations require continuous manual responding or when participants have certain sensory/motor impairments. In the present study, we evaluated the acceptability of the hands-free administration of two subjective workload questionnaires – the NASA Task Load Index (NASA-TLX) and the Multiple Resources Questionnaire (MRQ) – in a surgical training environment where manual responding is often constrained.MethodSixty-four undergraduates performed fifteen 90-s trials of laparoscopic training tasks (five replications of 3 tasks – cannulation, ring transfer, and rope manipulation). Half of the participants provided workload ratings using a traditional paper-and-pencil version of the NASA-TLX and MRQ; the remainder used a vocal (hands-free) version of the questionnaires. A follow-up experiment extended the evaluation of the hands-free version to actual medical students in a Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) training facility.ResultsThe NASA-TLX was scored in 2 ways – (1) the traditional procedure using participant-specific weights to combine its 6 subscales, and (2) a simplified procedure – the NASA Raw Task Load Index (NASA-RTLX) – using the unweighted mean of the subscale scores. Comparison of the scores obtained from the hands-free and written administration conditions yielded coefficients of equivalence of r = 0.85 (NASA-TLX) and r = 0.81 (NASA-RTLX). Equivalence estimates for the individual subscales ranged from r = 0.78 (“mental demand”) to r = 0.31 (“effort”). Both administration formats and scoring methods were equally sensitive to task and repetition effects. For the MRQ, the coefficient of equivalence for the hands-free and written versions was r = 0.96 when tested on undergraduates. However, the sensitivity of the hands-free MRQ to task demands (η_partial² = 0.138) was substantially less than that for the written version (η_partial² = 0.252). This potential shortcoming of the hands-free MRQ did not seem to generalize to medical students who showed robust task effects when using the hands-free MRQ (η_partial² = 0.396). A detailed analysis of the MRQ subscales also revealed differences that may be attributable to a “spillover” effect in which participants’ judgments about the demands of completing the questionnaires contaminated their judgments about the primary surgical training tasks.ConclusionVocal versions of the NASA-TLX are acceptable alternatives to standard written formats when researchers wish to obtain global workload estimates. However, care should be used when interpreting the individual subscales if the object is to make comparisons between studies or conditions that use different administration modalities. For the MRQ, the vocal version was less sensitive to experimental manipulations than its written counterpart; however, when medical students rather than undergraduates used the vocal version, the instrument’s sensitivity increased well beyond that obtained with any other combination of administration modality and instrument in this study. Thus, the vocal version of the MRQ may be an acceptable workload assessment technique for selected populations, and it may even be a suitable substitute for the NASA-TLX.