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Claude Bourgeois, an engineering consultant and former Centre Suisse d'Electronique et de Microtechnique (CSEM) researcher, used Maple to model and optimize barrel springs made of composite materials compatible with deep etching on silicon. The use of composite materials should double the running time, i.e. the operating time of watches when they are at rest.
Bone is a complex tissue, which is highly optimized for biological and mechanical functions. Researchers are currently examining how bone architecture changes with age and how it alters when various pathologies are present or absent. In particular, the prediction of bone fracture remains elusive.
Dr. Maria-Grazia Ascenzi of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), performs research in her Bone Micro-Mechanics laboratory to better understand bone micro-structures. She conducts experimental biomechanics on bone micro-specimens and uses the powerful computational abilities of Maple to model the percentages and orientations of the various elementary components and the details of fundamental micro-level units of compact bone.
David Parker, an engineer with many years of experience working in electronics engineering and related fields, has always been interested in the topic of renewable energy, particularly solar energy. For a recent course on Laplace Transforms and Applications, Parker wrote a paper on the analysis in the s-domain of a series RLC circuit. In the paper, he predicts the response of a bandpass filter RLC circuit using theoretical Laplace transform techniques, and then compares his calculated results with simulated measurements from MapleSim and with the actual physical response of a breadboarded circuit. The resultant MapleSim simulations for frequency, impulse, step, and ramp responses matched the theoretical predictions extremely well.
“[My work] would have been much more difficult without Maple and MapleSim,” said Parker.
MapleSim is a high-performance multi-domain modeling and simulation tool that is based on an intuitive block-diagram design. It allows engineers to simulate complex systems quickly by dragging, dropping, and connecting a wide range of pre-built physical components from multiple physical domains. It also provides an environment for creating new components.
Dr. Ed Melcarek, an experienced engineer based in Ontario, Canada, with a flair for creating small, unique, and very intriguing technical applications, recently discovered MapleSim. He exploited MapleSim’s innovative user interface and powerful engine to model the solutions in two creative projects.
Everyone from business travelers to weekend warriors understands the importance of battery life and the frustration of dealing with drained laptop batteries. Because approximately 200 million computers are manufactured in the world each year, this issue is not trivial. Alan Elbanhawy, a power systems industry expert, investigates ways to optimize battery life in notebook computers.He worked with the widely popular engineering and mathematics software Maple from Maplesoft to develop three applications dealing in great depth with power loss mechanisms in these converters. The research helped engineers better understand the power losses inherent in these devices and enabled them to refine their design process, save energy, and help the environment.
Pre-crash shoulder belt tensioning is a new technology designed to reduce automotive crash injuries.Pre-crash tensioning technology increases the opportunity to secure a passenger safely before a crash. Sensors and logic, designed to anticipate a crash, activate a motorized seat belt retractor that secures a shoulder belt around an occupant before the crash. Craig Good, a partner at Collision Analysis (Calgary) Ltd. and Ph.D. graduate at the University of Calgary used Maplesoft products to create a 2-D occupant model, using experimentally measured data. Once the model was created, it gave Good the flexibility to evaluate different scenarios to optimize the system.
The Control Systems Lab researchers at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, directed by Associate Professor Kamran Iqbal, are doing ground-breaking work in the field of biomechanics, with special focus on biomechanical modeling of human voluntary movements. Using DynaFlexPro and Maple™, they rapidly produced a bipedal model to study the sit-to-stand transfer maneuver. By selecting the joints, bodies and frames carefully, it was easy to create biomechanical models.
