title: Pulse propagation in a chain of o-rings with and without precompression.
abstract: We implement a binary collision approximation to study pulse propagation in a chain of o-rings. In particular, we arrive at analytic results from which the pulse velocity is obtained by simple quadrature. The predicted pulse velocity is compared to the velocity obtained from the far more resource-intensive numerical integration of the equations of motion. We study chains without precompression, chains precompressed by a constant force at the chain ends (constant precompression), and chains precompressed by gravity (variable precompression). The application of the binary collision approximation to precompressed chains provides an important generalization of a successful theory that had up to this point only been implemented to chains without precompression, that is, to chains in a sonic vacuum.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Física, CCEN, Universidade Federal da Paraíba, Caixa Postal 5008, 58059-900 João Pessoa, PB, Brazil.
authors.forename: Italo'Ivo Lima Dias
authors.initials: IL
authors.lastname: Pinto
authors.forename: Alexandre
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rosas
authors.forename: Aldo H
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Romero
authors.forename: Katja
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Lindenberg
mesh_terms: D006112:Gravitation; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009038:Motion; D017711:Nonlinear Dynamics; D055585:Physical Phenomena