The long-term success of dental implants depends, in part, on the stress distribution created in the bone, when the implant is loaded by biting forces. In this presentation, we present our findings on the stress distribution characteristics of a dental implant by varying bone mechanical properties surrounding the implant.

Transverse vibration of two axially moving beams connected by a Winkler elastic foundation is analyzed analytically. The system is a model of paper and paper-cloth (wire-screen) used in paper making. The two beams are tensioned, translating axially with a common constant velocity, simply supported at their ends, and of different materials and geometry. Due to the effect of translation, the dynamics of the system displays gyroscopic motion. The Euler-Bernoulli beam theory is used to model the deflections, and the governing equations are expressed in the canonical state form. The natural frequencies and associated mode shapes are obtained. It is found that the natural frequencies of the system are composed of two infinite sets describing in-phase and out-of-phase vibrations. In case the beams are identical, these modes become synchronous and asynchronous, respectively. Divergence instability occurs at the critical velocity; and, the frequency-velocity relationship is similar to that of a single traveling beam. The effects of the mass, flexural rigidity, and axial tension ratios of the two beams, as well as the effects of the elastic foundation stiffness are investigated.

The effect of an asymmetric distribution of asperity heights is accounted for in a recently developed scale-dependent multiasperity model of contact and friction. A Weibull distribution of asperity heights is used which allows the skew and kurtosis to be varied, but not independently of each other. The contact and friction model used includes the effects of adhesion and of scale-dependent friction. The results obtained demonstrate that positive/negative skew decreases/increases both the friction coefficient and its dependence on the magnitude of the normal load.

As surfaces become smoother and loading forces decrease in applications such as MEMS and NEMS devices, the asperity contacts which comprise the real contact area will continue to decrease into the nano scale regime. Thus it becomes important to understand how the material and topographical properties of surfaces contribute to measured friction forces at this nano scale. We have incorporated the single asperity nano contact model of Hurtado and Kim into a multi-asperity model for contact and friction which includes the effect of asperity adhesion forces using the Maugis-Dugdale model. Our model spans the range from nano-scale to micro-scale to macro-scale contacts. We have identified three key dimensionless parameters representing combinations of surface roughness measures, Burgers vector length, surface energy, and elastic modulus. Results are given for the normal and friction forces vs. separation, and for the friction coefficient vs. normal force for various values of these key parameters.

The dynamic response of an axially translating continuum subjected to the combined effects of a pair of spring supported frictional guides and axial acceleration is investigated; such systems are both non-conservative and gyroscopic. The continuum is modeled as a tensioned string translating between two rigid supports with a time dependent velocity profile. The equations of motion are derived with the extended Hamilton’s principle and discretized in the space domain with the finite element method. The stability of the system is analyzed with the Floquet theory for cases where the transport velocity is a periodic function of time. Direct time integration using an adaptive step Runge-Kutta algorithm is used to verify the results of the Floquet theory. Results are given in the form of time history diagrams and instability point grids for different sets of parameters such as the location of the stationary load, the stiffness of the elastic support, and the values of initial tension. This work showed that presence of friction adversely affects stability, but using non-zero spring stiffness on the guiding force has a stabilizing effect.