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Physics Students Design and Construct a Novel Type of Wind-Powered Mechanical Clock

WOOSTER, Ohio � Two Independent Study�s (I.S.), one National Science Foundation grant, and five years of intermittent research by College of ������˾�� students under the guidance of John Linder, chair of the department of physics, have resulted in the design and construction of an innovative wind-powered mechanical clock. It utilizes 3D-printed bistable elements that interact with the wind to couple them one-way, producing a perpetual transverse motion. The research was recently published inChaos, an interdisciplinary journal of nonlinear science.
�Momentum conservation, or Newton�s third law, ensures two-way or bidirectional coupling for typical media like guitar strings and spring mattresses. One-way, or unidirectional, coupling enables the propagation of solitary waves, or solitons, with diverse behaviors in otherwise dissipative media, but at the expense of both momentum and energy conservation,� Lindner explained. �Nevertheless, one-way media are possible, provided the coupling is powered to conserve overall momentum and energy.�
Funded by a grant from the NSF, this original concept extracts energy and momentum from moving air to generate solitary waves continuously with no intrinsic power source. �Wind forces (the) elements into a spatially alternating configuration � thereby compelling indefinite one-way motion. (It) demonstrates the creation, propagation, and annihilation of solitons,� according to Lindner.
The final product represents five years of recurrent work, which Lindner began with Katsuo Maxted �12, whose I.S. was �Cyclic Aero-Mechanical Array of One-Way Coupled Oscillators.� The idea steadily evolved, with elements becoming smaller among other updates, thanks in part to summer research by Prakrit Shrestha �14 and Matt King-Smith �16.
And in 2015-16, Graham Schattgen �16 improved it further with his I.S., �Air Powered One-Way Arrays.� His final array included decreasing the size of the elements further and reducing the number of the 3D printing spacers, which led to observations of spontaneous soliton-antisolitan creation.
Lindner, Maxted, Shrestha, King-Smith, and Schattgen were all co-authors of theChaosarticle, as was Tessa Rosenberger, a current undergraduate student at the University of Dallas who perfected the apparatus last year in ������˾���s NSF-funded summer research program.

Posted in News on March 22, 2017.