A computer-aided tool for ergonomic workplace design and preventive health care

Preventive health care is one of the basic challenges facing ergonomics. The aim to prevent occupationally generated musculoskeletal disorders and diseases may be achieved by appropriate workplace and product design. ERGOMan is a computer-aided 3D man model suitable for ergonomic and movement simulation at industrial workstations. Within a common project of the above mentioned institutions ERGOMan's inventory of ergonomics design tools shall be enhanced in a way that ERGOMan will be able to give detailed information on load or stress situations, which might effect the executability and tolerability of work situations with high probability. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Korrosionsschutz durch Duromere

Corrosion protection by duromeric materials Duromeric materials as coating materials can be easily form thin coatings, are superior with respect to temperature resistance to plastomeric and elastomeric materials and are easily modified. On the other hand duromeric coatings are brittle and little resistant to temperature variations and they require furnaces for curing. The protection is influenced by various factors including application method, surface preparation, distortion and elongation of the particular piece and specific properties of the medium to which the coating is exposed. In this connection, pH value and electrode potential are vital factors, although the exact mechanism has not yet been established.     

Judgments of the distance to nearby virtual objects: interaction of viewing conditions and accommodative demand

Ten subjects adjusted a real-object probe to match the distance of nearby virtual objects optically presented via a see-through, helmet-mounted display. Monocular, binocular, and stereoscopic viewing conditions were used with two levels of required focus. Observed errors may be related to changes in the subjects' binocular convergence. The results suggest ways in which virtual objects may be presented with improved spatial fidelity.     

Specific heat of disordered and amorphous rare-gas solids: Quench-condensed pure and binary films

We report measurements of the low-temperature specific heatC of crystalline pure rare-gas films (Ne, Ar, Kr, Xe) and amorphous rare-gas mixtures (Ne-Xe, Ar-Xe) condensed at low temperatures (T6 K). For both the crystalline and the amorphous films a large contribution toC linear inT (0.5 mJ/mol K²) is found at very low temperatures (T<1 K), which is attributed to tunneling states. Annealing strongly decreases this contribution. At higher temperatures an enhancement ofC with respect to bulk samples is observed, which is explained by surface vibrations arising from the porous structure of the films. For the crystalline films, this contribution is reduced upon annealing, while only a slight annealing effect is found for the amorphous mixtures.     

ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion 2014–15: Fibre Placement on a Pneumatic Body Based on a Water Spider Web

Process-based biomimetics focuses on the transfer of biological principles to architectural construction. To realise the ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion 2014 -15, presented here by Moritz Doerstelmann, Jan Knippers, Valentin Koslowski, Achim Menges, Marshall Prado, Gundula Schieber and Lauren Vasey of the Institute for Computational Design (ICD) and Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE) research team at the University of Stuttgart, sensor-driven robotic fabrication was combined with advanced design computation and simulation. This enabled the construction of an architectural fibre structure on a pneumatic mould, drawing on the complex design of the web of a water spider.     

Material Performance

A central concern of architecture as a material practice is the way in which built and natural environments interact to provide exciting and sustainable modes of habitation. Key to this is the way in which material performance is understood and instrumentalised. In the first part of this article, Michael Hensel and Defne Sunguroglu research the characteristics of wood in order to explore how a material's variable behaviour and its response to extrinsic stimuli might substantially contribute to performance-oriented design. This leads them to argue for a wider, more inclusive definition for ‘smart materials’ that puts less emphasis on the new and fully recognises the potential of variable behaviour. In the second part, Achim Menges discusses a research project that demonstrates the full impact of this approach to material performance and the integral relationship between formation and materialisation processes. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Differentiation and performance: multi-performance architectures and modulated environments

The architectural tradition of the West is fundamentally characterised by substantial structures and building typologies that link tectonics with function and representation. It has been focusing on the relation between the material constituents that frame space and its direct relation to programme on the one hand, and to social formations on the other. Interior environments are largely homogenised, a preference inherited from Modernist open-plan arrangements and facilitated by vast paraphernalia of electrical and mechanical equipment. Here, Michael Hensel and Achim Menges argue for an ecological understanding of architecture that promotes the differentiation of environmental conditions through a morphological intelligence, which promises not only a new spatial paradigm for architectural design, but also a far more sustainable one that links the performance capacity of material systems with environmental modulation and the resulting provisions and opportunities for inhabitation. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Towards self-organisational and multiple-performance capacity in architecture

Techniques and Technologies in Morphogenetic Design expands and develops the themes of the previous, highly successful Emergence: Morphogenetic Design Strategies issue of 4 (Vol 74, No 3, 2004), which was also guest-edited by Michael Hensel, Achim Menges and Michael Weinstock of the Emergence and Design Group. While the first volume elucidated the concepts of emergence and self-organisation in relation to the discipline of architecture, this issue augments its theoretical and methodological foundation within a biological paradigm for architectural design, while also discussing promising, related, instrumental techniques for design, manufacturing and construction. Michael Hensel introduces the issue and explains how it addresses a much broader range of scales, from the molecular to that of macro-structure and, beyond, to ecological relations. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.