Abstract: A system, method and software product for prescribing rigid body in finite element analysis is described. According to one aspect, user defines a rigid body orientation time history based on a variety of schemes including, but not limited to, direction cosine, orientation angles, Euler parameters, Rodriguez parameters, and Caley-Klein parameters. The unique combination in one of the schemes is converted to direction cosine time histories first. The direction cosine matrix can then be interpolated from either the defined or the converted direction cosine time history at each solution cycle. The time derivative of the direction cosine matrix and the resulting angular velocity matrix are calculated. The solution for the equation of motions is obtained using calculated angular velocity for each solution cycle until the simulation ends. According to another aspect, the present invention interpolates user specified rigid body orientations time history in several schemes including, piecewise linear, cubic spline.

Abstract: A method, system and computer program product pertained to adaptive discretization refinement of shell structure is disclosed. The adaptive mesh-free model is based on a technique for dividing the critical area into a finer model. The present invention is a method for enabling adaptive mesh-free shell structure in a time-domain analysis, the method comprises: defining the mesh-free shell structure by a structural geometry description file including a plurality of nodes and a reference 3-D mesh, which includes a plurality of shell elements, mapping the 3-D reference mesh into a 2-D parametric plane, wherein the 2-D parametric mesh includes a plurality of integration cells corresponding to the plurality of shell elements, solving structural responses at current solution cycle using mesh-free mathematical approximations pertaining to each of the plurality of integration cells, performing adaptive discretization refinement for the plurality of the integration cells.

Abstract: A double visual-interface socket compliant with socket design rules set forth in the Digital Visual Interface standard comprises: a lower socket unit including plural L-shaped terminal pins; an upper socket unit disposed above the lower socket unit and including plural terminal pins; an adapter module including plural L-shaped pins arranged in rows; and a circuit board having plural terminal guide holes and plural extension guide holes. The terminal guide holes are inserted by, soldered to, and therefore electrically connected with the terminal pins of the upper socket unit, respectively. The extension guide holes are electrically connected with the terminal guide holes, respectively, and are inserted by, soldered to, and therefore electrically connected with ends of the L-shaped pins of the adapter module, respectively. The opposite ends of the L-shaped pins of the adapter module are substantially aligned with bottom ends of the L-shaped terminal pins of the lower socket unit.

Abstract: Shapeable materials of interest are modeled with a rectangular mesh having N columns and M rows of substantially similar shell elements. The shapeable materials of interest are held in tension between a sink and a source. A column of fictitious elements is added to make the mesh wrapped-around continuous. The fictitious elements are marked as inactive, while other elements are marked as active. As the simulation moves on, the active elements are marched in the product producing direction of the machinery. When a pre-defined distance has traveled in the simulation the present invention performs the following: Activate inactive elements at the source; Copy all history data including stresses from the last column of active elements to newly activated elements; Deactivate the lead column of active elements at the sink; and Move the set of nodal boundary conditions to newly established boundary nodes at the sink and the source.

Abstract: A two-level transformation scheme to enable a practical fast mesh-free method is disclosed. The first level transformation transforms the original chosen mesh-free shape function to a first transformed mesh-free shape function that preserves Kronecker delta properties. The first transformed mesh-free function allows the essential boundary conditions to be imposed directly. The second-level transformation scheme employs a low pass filter function served as a regularization process that filters out the higher-order terms in the monomial mesh-free approximation obtained from the first-level transformation scheme with desired consistency and completeness conditions. This integration scheme requires only a low-order integration rule comparing to the high order integration rule used in the traditional mesh-free methods. The present invention simplifies the boundary condition treatments and avoids the usage of high-order integration rule and therefore is more practical than the traditional mesh-free methods.

Abstract: System and method for enabling direct determination of rigid body motion using data collected from a plurality of independent accelerometers are disclosed. A mechanical object that can be theoretically emulated as a rigid body is instrumented with a plurality of accelerometers at different locations. Direct determination of rigid body motion at a location of interest includes following operations at each solution time step: transform local acceleration to global, integrate accelerations to obtain velocities, calculate direction cosine matrix using the angular velocity matrix, form a first set of redundant equations, obtain the angular velocity by solving the first set of equations using either least squares fitting or a selective Gaussian elimination scheme, form a second set of redundant equations and obtain the translational velocity by solving the second set of equations using either the averaged value or a pre-defined rule such as minimizing the contribution from the rotational term.

Abstract: A system, method and software product for modeling spot welds in a finite element analysis is described. The spots welds are represented by beam elements or solid elements in accordance with an indicator flag. The flag may also be specified as the number (e.g., an integer such as 1, 4, 8 or 16) of solid elements in a cluster representing spot weld. The solid elements may include, but not limited to, hexahedron, tetrahedron, and the likes. The number of solid elements and required nodes are generated for each spot weld based on the indicator flag. A table is formed to group the generated solid elements in a cluster together, so that the force and moment resultants of the spot weld can be computed and assembled in a file.

Abstract: Modular camcorders are described. According to one exemplary embodiment of the present invention, a modular camcorder includes a digital video camera unit (“camera unit”) and a portable multimedia player (PMP) modular unit (“PMP unit”). The camera unit includes a camera means for capturing images of an object, and a recording means for recording the captured images and associated audio therewith. The PMP unit comprises a display monitor (e.g., LCD) and a storage device (e.g., hard disk). In the standalone mode, the PMP unit is an apparatus such as a MP3 player. When the PMP unit is coupled to the camera unit via a pair of matching connectors, the combined device becomes the modular camcorder. The pair of matching connectors (e.g., a female/male, or male/female) is designed such that one of them is located on the camera unit and the other on the PMP unit.

Abstract: A system, method and software product for defining material properties hierarchically in a finite element analysis of a structure is disclosed. As a material type is created, the type is checked whether it is a root material type. If so, all of the material properties are defined explicitly in the current definition. Otherwise, the parent material type is searched and located first until the traversing finds a root definition. All of the material properties of the parent material type(s) found are read in and stored as the base properties of the material to be created. The material properties explicitly defined in the current definition of the material will either overwrite or add to the base properties. The material properties definition resembles a hierarchical tree: each of the material properties type has a parent material except the root material type which is on the top of the tree.

Abstract: The present invention discloses an improved expansion card slot structure including a slot base with a plurality of rear-end fixing pins, and a shield bracket installed at the slot base for shielding a rear-end port of the slot base and allowing a plurality of contact portions of the shield bracket to be in contact respectively with an upper end of each rear-end fixing pin, and a plurality of elastic arms to be in contact respectively with a main body portion of each rear-end fixing pin and disposed proximate to a lower end of each rear-end fixing pin. With this structure, the invention increases the number of electromagnetic interference (EMI) contact points and provides a shorter path for grounding and eliminating noises to improve the electromagnetic interference (EMI) effect.

Abstract: A system, method and software product for simulating inflation of an enclosed volume using gas particles is described. A gas flow characteristics is defined. A group of gas particles is created in the enclosed volume to simulate the injected gas. The average velocity of the gas particles is determined by the temperature and the molar mass of the gas represented by the particles. The gas particles travel through the nozzle into the enclosed volume in random directions. All gas particles are checked for collisions with the boundary and with one another. After detection of a collision, the energy of the particle is transferred either to the boundary or anther particle. The kinetic energy of a gas particle includes a translation and a spinning-plus-vibration component. Only the translation component is transferred to the boundary, while both components are readjusted after a collision between two particles. In addition, the initial balance ratio is restored after a particle-to-particle collision.

Abstract: Systems and methods for determining material properties of elastomers for the Mullins effect are described. In one aspect of the present invention, material properties of an elastomer membrane specimen are obtained using a system comprising a bi-axial test device, a pump, a fluid reservoir, a linear variable differential transformer, a pressure transducer and a computer. The bi-axial test device comprises a top plate and a bottom plate. The top plate has an elliptical shape hole configured to allow the specimen to be expanded up by pressures of the inflating fluids. The hole is so dimensioned that the specimen can be expanded with a relatively low pressure. The bottom plate is a solid plate configured with a fluid intake at one side and a fluid outlet at the other end. The fluid intake is connected to the fluid reservoir. Fluids stored in the fluid reservoir are pumped into the bi-axial test device by the pump. The fluid outlet is connected to the pressure transducer.

Abstract: Thin solid state drive (SSD) housing structures are described. According to one embodiment of the invention, a structure for housing an SSD includes a pair of brackets configured to support a PCBA of the SSD at either side of the PCBA via one or more ledges with corresponding fastener holes pre-configured thereon. The ledges are attached to inside surface of the brackets. Each of the brackets has a slab shape with a length and a height. The length is parallel to horizontal direction, while the height parallel to vertical. The ledges are located at mid-height and orientated substantially perpendicular to the brackets such that the PCBA is supported horizontally. In order to securely connect the PCBA with the brackets, a plurality of metal fasteners is used. The fasteners are placed through the fastener holes on the ledges and through corresponding alignment holes pre-configured on the PCBA.

Abstract: A system, method and software product for simulating fracture propagation in brittle materials is disclosed. Using the fracture energy release rates and the critical separations of the three fundamental fracture modes obtained independently from experiments, and a user defined normalized curve representing the traction-separation law, the present invention simulates the fracture propagation in a non-linear dynamic analysis. By using either dimensional or dimensionless effective separation approach, the actual tractions are calculated at each solution cycle based on user's choice. In addition, loading, unloading and reloading conditions are also continuously traced to ensure the proper constitutive equations are used. Three fracture modes are seamlessly mixed and integrated.

Abstract: A light source module including: at least one lighting seat bodies equipped with light-emitting diodes, the light-emitting diodes being connected with a lighting circuit, whereby after the lighting circuit is closed, the light-emitting diodes are driven and lighted; and a light guide medium, at least one face of the light guide medium being defined as an incident face right facing light-projecting faces of the light-emitting diodes. A back face of the light guide medium is printed with multiple reflective sections. The light coming into the light guide medium is reflected by the reflective sections to a front face of the light guide medium and goes out from the front face.

Abstract: A method, system and computer program product pertained to engineering analysis of a general three-dimensional (3-D) shell structure using the mesh-free technique is disclosed. The structural responses are solved with mesh-free technique after the 3-D shell structure is mapped to a two-dimensional plane. According to one aspect, the present invention is a method for mesh-free analysis of a general three-dimensional shell structure, the method comprises: defining the general shell structure as a physical domain represented by a plurality of nodes in a three-dimensional space, creating a plurality of projected nodes by mapping the plurality of nodes in the three-dimensional space onto a two-dimensional plane, assigning a plurality of domain of influences, one for each of the plurality of projected nodes, and calculating a solution of the physical domain using a set of mathematical approximations pertaining to each of the plurality of projected nodes.