This study introduces the development of a new body weight support system using pneumatic actuators for gait training. The main scope of this work is to provide a new design, validation, and assessment for active body weight support systems to reproduce a subject’s normal walking behavior. Based on the assessments and its evaluations, the novel body weight support system using pneumatic muscle actuators shows many advantageous characteristics, such as simplicity, low cost, maintenance of a constant unloading force, and ease of control of the supported force. The capability of the novel body weight support system to generate unloading forces that track the center of pressure, because it switches from left to right and vice versa as the subject walks, is especially interesting.

Deflectometry is a non-destructive, full-field phase measuring method, which is usually used for inspecting optical specimens with special characteristics, such as highly reflective or specular surfaces, as well as free-form surfaces. One of the important steps in the Deflectometry method is to retrieve the surface from slope data of points on the sample map or surface reconstruction. This paper proposes a modal reconstruction method using an adjustable number of Zernike polynomials. In addition, the proposed method enables the analyses on practical surfaces that require an infinite number of Zernike terms to be represented. Experiments on simulated surfaces indicated that the algorithm is able to reveal the number of major-contributing Zernike terms, as well as reconstruct the surface with a micrometer-scale from slope data with a signal-to-noise ratio of 10.

In recent years, the Body Weight Support system has been considered to be an indispensable component in gait training systems, which be used to improve the ability to walk of hemiplegic, stroke, and spinal cord injury patients. Previous studies investigated the influence of the Body Weight Support system on gait parameters were based on the implementation with healthy subjects or patients with high assistance. Consequently, the influences of the Body Weight Support systems on gait rehabilitation in clinical practice are still unclear and need further investigation. In this study, we investigated the effects of the two Body Weight Support systems, the active body weight support system and the Counter Weight system, on an abnormal gait, which was generated by restriction of the right knee joint and 3 kg-weight on the right ankle joint. Both Body Weight Support systems improve the gait parameters of the abnormal gait such as the center of mass, the center of pressure, margin of stability, and step parameters. The active Body Weight Support system with the unloading force modulation showed more advanced and better behavior in comparison with the Counter Weight system. The results suggested the applicability of two Body Weight Support systems in clinical practice as a recovered gait intervention.

Preventing surface damage is crucial for optimal machine performance, with lubricants and additives playing a vital role in achieving this objective. This study specifically focuses on evaluating the influence of fly-ash additives on the wear resistance of machine components when incorporated into lubricant oil. The experiments were conducted following ASTM standard operating conditions, utilizing the four-ball wear test to measure the scratch width and weight loss of balls using different lubricant oil formulations, including 0, 0.1%, 0.5%, 0.75%, and 1% additive. The findings demonstrate that the inclusion of 0.5% fly ash additive in the lubricant oil results in a significant reduction in both scratch width and weight loss of the balls. However, it should be noted that higher additive ratios may lead to increased scratch width and weight loss due to the agglomeration of the fly ash particles on the sliding surfaces. To achieve optimal effectiveness in reducing friction and wear, it is recommended to carefully control the content of fly ash within an appropriate range. Furthermore, this study highlights the width of scratches on balls as a reliable indicator for assessing the anti-wear properties of oils. The insights gained from this research offer valuable guidance to manufacturers in the selection of suitable anti-wear oils for specific applications. Further investigations could explore the impact of different lubricants and additive ratios to identify the most appropriate lubrication parameters. Overall, this study contributes to a better understanding of the effects of fly ash additives on the performance of lubricant oil and provides practical guidance for optimizing lubrication strategies in diverse industrial contexts.