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dc.contributor.advisorKen Kamrin.en_US
dc.contributor.authorTownsend, Stephen (Stephen C.)en_US
dc.contributor.otherMassachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering.en_US
dc.date.accessioned2019-01-11T16:03:46Z
dc.date.available2019-01-11T16:03:46Z
dc.date.copyright2018en_US
dc.date.issued2018en_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/119936
dc.descriptionThesis: S.B., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, 2018.en_US
dc.descriptionCataloged from PDF version of thesis.en_US
dc.descriptionIncludes bibliographical references (page 59).en_US
dc.description.abstractThe complexities of granular materials make modeling the interactions between grains and solid intruders, such as a wheel, incredible difficult. Often, modeling these interactions requires discrete particle simulation methods, such as the Discrete Element Method (DEM), a process that is prohibitively computationally intensive for large systems. The difficulty of modeling granular materials has posed great difficulty for design engineers, particularly those interested in granular locomotion, since there is no way to gain predictive insight into the performance of a given granular locomotion system. A granular locomotion scaling law was developed, which instructs how to scale size, mass, and driving parameters in order to relate dynamic behaviors of different locomotors in the same granular media. For the development of this scaling relationship, a general wheel operating in an ideal Coulombic material was considered. Through dimensional analysis, the system was described as a function of a set of dimensionless numbers which are ratios of the dimensional parameters of the system. From the dimensionless description of the system, a set of scaling families are derived, where each member of a family has the same dimensionless inputs but different dimensional parameters. Then, DEM simulations were used to verify that each member of a given scaling family had the same dimensionless outputs. The DEM simulations found a high level of agreement between the dimensionless outputs of systems in the same scaling family, demonstrating the predictive power of the granular locomotion scaling law.en_US
dc.description.statementofresponsibilityby Stephen Townsend.en_US
dc.format.extent59 pagesen_US
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.publisherMassachusetts Institute of Technologyen_US
dc.rightsMIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.en_US
dc.rights.urihttp://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582en_US
dc.subjectMechanical Engineering.en_US
dc.titleDeriving and verifying a general granular locomotion scaling lawen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US
dc.description.degreeS.B.en_US
dc.contributor.departmentMassachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
dc.identifier.oclc1079909354en_US


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