The Tribomechadynamics Research Camp (TRC) is a month long research collaboration for students from the postdoctoral level to the high school level. Due to the ongoing pandemic, the next TRC will be in 2024 at Imperial College London, in the UK. The goal of the TRC is to bring together participants with diverse technical backgrounds from around the world to work in small teams on projects germane to interfacial mechanics and the dynamics of coupled structures. It is our hope that this experience will help form lasting collaborations and make significant progress towards solving several of the major challenges in these research areas. There is no registration fee.
Important dates for the next TRC are:
- March 15th, Applications are due
- April 1st, Acceptance notifications and team assignments will be sent out
- May 1st, Homework assignments and team meetings will be scheduled
- July 1st, the TRC begins in London
- August 2nd, the TRC concludes
Information for Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Researchers
The primary thrust of the Tribomechadynamics Research Camp is a research activity in which teams of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers collaborate to investigate problems at the forefront of interfacial dynamics. The Research Camp is the successor to the Nonlinear Dynamics of Coupled Structures and Interfaces Summer program, which was hosted by Rice University and Imperial College London from 2017-2018. Past projects have included investigations of wear evolving hysteresis models for joint mechanics, in situ measurements of contact pressure within a bolted interface, the experimental investigation of the local kinematics of an interface using digital image correlation, and comparison of different methods (such as comparing the suitability of the asymptotic numerical method against the harmonic balance method for modeling nonlinear systems with friction).
Applications for participation will include a copy of your CV, a letter of recommendation by your advisor including a statement that your home institution covers your travel expenses, and a cover letter detailing your research interests and project preference. Specific projects for the 2024 TRC will be:
- Project 1: System Identification of Closely Spaced Modes
Measured data often consists of multi-modal responses; however, existing nonlinear system identification techniques, excluding time-frequency analyses, assume that experimental data is either uni-modal or that the modes are well separated and can be filtered. This project seeks to investigate recent advances in nonlinear system identification for identifying the characteristics of closely spaced modes. This project is part of a larger initiative that spans multiple research camps. At the end of the project, a multi-institutional challenge will be hosted in which test data measured by the ETEST camp at Sandia National Laboratories will be provided with the goal of identifying the modal characteristics of the structure. Results will be compared against other novel techniques being explored both by NOMAD at Sandia National Laboratories as well as other research groups that choose to participate in the challenge. - Project 2: Methods for Strongly Discontinuous Contact Events Based on Time Step Integration
Harmonic Balance is widely used for the vibration simulation of jointed structures. However, it struggles in the case of strongly discontinuous contact events such as recurrent stick-slip or liftoff-collision events of a complete contact area. This and non-periodic processes (chaos; transient loading; shock response) motivate using dedicated methods based on time step integration. The purpose of this project is to assess the current state of the art in this regard for an appropriate test case spanning both recently developed methods and more established approaches. The selected methods will be applied to a three-dimensional model of a beam with a curved tip, undergoing stick-slip interactions with a plate. The technical motivation behind this test case is squeak noise is cars and measurement data is available for qualitative comparison. - Project 3: Monitoring the Interface Behaviour of Bolted Joints
Validating the localized nonlinear contact behaviour of a jointed structure is a challenging task since monitoring the interface during a vibration cycle to identify stick, slip and separation zones, without changing the interface, is very difficult. Total internal reflection has recently been used at ICL to measure the interface conditions of simple, well controlled joints, where two see through interfaces were illuminated via a laser and the reflected/transmitted light from the interface was recorded. The change in reflection/transmission can reveal localised contact zones and show their transition from stick to slip during a vibration cycle. This project will apply the total internal reflection technique to more realistic structures (manufactured prior to the TRC), to obtain for the first time a full picture of the contact conditions during a vibration cycle.
Note that participation in the Research Camp will give European-based students credit for attending English-based conferences and workshops. Certificates of completion/participation will be made to assist with this. There are no registration fees to participate.