{"id":72575,"date":"2017-12-19T15:13:20","date_gmt":"2017-12-20T01:13:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=72575"},"modified":"2020-01-13T14:17:55","modified_gmt":"2020-01-14T00:17:55","slug":"research-may-contribute-to-manufacturing-and-medical-industry-improvements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2017\/12\/19\/research-may-contribute-to-manufacturing-and-medical-industry-improvements\/","title":{"rendered":"Research may contribute to manufacturing and medical industry improvements"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>
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Joseph Brown. The position of the notebooks illustrates how the cantilevers described in his paper work.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A paper on the mechanics of interlocking structures by a University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at M\u0101noa<\/a> assistant professor highlights a discovery that could have far-reaching effects in the manufacturing and medical industries.<\/p>\n

The paper, Nonlinear Mechanics of Interlocking Cantilevers<\/a>, by Joseph J. Brown<\/strong>, assistant professor in mechanical engineering, was published in the Journal of Applied Mechanics<\/em>. The research explored the mechanical behavior and design of simple interlocking structures and was conducted in collaboration with colleagues from the University of Colorado.<\/p>\n

Mechanical interlocking is the behavior that occurs when parts are assembled by sliding them together until they “snap-through” into a final position. Until now only a few types of interlocking joints could be modeled, but this paper expands the ability of engineers to design and analyze snap-together systems.<\/p>\n

The team started exploring this problem after earlier work in nanotechnology fabrication<\/a> led to its demonstration of surfaces that joined together by ultrasmall (less than 300 atoms thick) interlocking tabs.<\/p>\n

In the new paper, the team compared mathematical and computational models of a simple snap-together system and tested these models with an experiment. The results of this work demonstrated snap-through results from the geometry of a problem and that these systems can be designed to achieve at least a 50-times difference between the force required to press them together versus the force required to pull them apart.<\/p>\n

The team projects that, in addition to providing a basis for further work in large-deflection mechanics (the study of objects subject to a large amount of bending), the discovery will contribute to design of new part assembly mechanisms for manufacturing and medical materials. <\/p>\n

Some possible applications include ultrahigh temperature joints, medical adhesives, joining of dissimilar materials and assembly of complex or flexible parts.<\/p>\n

Brown joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering<\/a> in August 2017. Prior to coming to UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa, he was a senior research associate at the University of Colorado Boulder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The research explored the mechanical behavior and design of simple interlocking structures and was conducted in collaboration with the University of Colorado.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[179,182,158,9],"class_list":["post-72575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research","tag-college-of-engineering","tag-engineering","tag-publication","tag-uh-manoa","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t