Search results for "Normal force"

Measurement of take-off forces in ski jumping

2007

The force measuring system constructed under the frost rail inrun track element was used for measurement of take-off forces in ski jumping. Several calibrations of the normal forces made on several days showed no significant differences between the calibration sessions. Loading the different places of the track element showed differences less than 5% between the places for the total 10-m distance and less than 3% for the straight take-off table. Two international-level ski jumpers served as subjects during the testing of the system. Further preliminary results from 2 different performances techniques are presented. The force curves of subjects displayed totally different patterns: Two disti…

Casimir-Polder force density between an atom and a conducting wall

2007

In this paper we calculate the Casimir-Polder force density (force per unit area acting on the elements of the surface) on a metallic plate placed in front of a neutral atom. To obtain the force density we use the quantum operator associated to the electromagnetic stress tensor. We explicitly show that the integral of this force density over the plate reproduces the total force acting on the plate. This result shows that, although the force is obtained as a sum of surface element-atom contributions, the stress-tensor method includes also nonadditive components of Casimir-Polder forces in the evaluation of the force acting on a macroscopic object.

Wormlike Polystyrene Brushes in Thin Films

1997

Mono- and multilayer films were prepared on mica by solution casting of a high molecular weight polymacromonomer, i.e., a polymethacrylate of about 1000 repeating units each of which was substituted by a polystyrene chain with a molecular weight of about 5000 Da. The films were studied by tapping scanning force microscopy. The material showed a remarkable preference for forming well-defined monolayers of a thickness of 6.5 ± 0.2 nm consistent with the hard core diameter of the collapsed cylindrical brush molecules. When the films were probed with high normal force, the single molecules were observed to organize in a dense nematic-like packing as expected for inherently stiff molecules. In o…

2015

In everyday life, one of the most frequent activities involves accelerating and decelerating an object held in precision grip. In many contexts, humans scale and synchronize their grip force, normal to the finger/object contact, in anticipation of the expected tangential load force, resulting from the combination of the gravitational and the inertial forces. In many contexts, grip force and load force are linearly coupled. A few studies have examined how we adjust the parameters - gain and offset - of this linear relationship. However, the question remains open as to how the brain adjusts grip force regardless of whether load force is generated by different combinations of weight and inerti…