This proposal requests funds to permit Drs. Kenneth D. Willmert, Professor, and M. Sathyamoorthy, Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Clarkson University, to pursue with Dr. Yong San Yoon, Associate Professor and Principal Research Scientist, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), for a period of 24 months, a program of research to develop a joint clearance model for mechanical devices and to apply it in the vibrational analysis of linkages undergoing deformations due to high speeds and large loads. This research also will seek to determine the optimal design of counterweights to reduce, as much as possible, the joint forces. The research adds an international cooperative dimension to domestic research grants supported by the National Science Foundation (Grant No. DMC8500627) and Air Force Office of Scientific Research (Grant No. AFOSR-84-0076) on use of the supercomputer for non-linear analysis and optimal design of dynamic mechanical systems. Dr. Yoon will continue the development of the joint clearance model and verify its accuracy. He also will apply the Gauss constrained optimization method, developed by Willmert and Sathyamoorthy, to the counterweight design problem. Drs. Willmert and Sathyamoothy will apply the joint clearance model to mechanisms with flexible members using small deformation linear analysis, and they will analyze large deformations of mechanisms with clearances. Together these collaborators will optimally design mechanisms whose links are undergoing large deformations and whose joints have clearances. This project is relevant to the objectives of the U.S.-Korea Cooperative Science Program which seeks to increase the level of cooperation between U.S. and Korean scientists and engineers through the exchange of scientific information, ideas, skills, and techniques and through collaboration on problems of mutual benefit. The U.S. and Korean collaborators are highly respected scientists who have extensive research experience and productive publication records in the field of the proposal.
