Combinational Mechanics and Stable Loading

调查人员将开发在飞机、卡车、轮船、货架和托盘等移动和存储设备上装载货物的算法，以确保货物安全平衡和稳定。这样的问题有这样的一般形式：给定一个结构和一组力和力矩，这些力和力矩应该应用于结构的哪里？这是对机械工程传统设计问题的补充：给出一组最坏情况下的力和力矩，设计一种结构来承受它们。研究人员创造了“组合力学”这个术语来描述将要研究的问题。由于对重心、变形、固有频率等的关注，这些问题涉及到力学问题。这些问题是组合的，因为力通常来自要存储的物品的重量，因此结构上的合力取决于物品的排列方式。这项研究的方法代表了对传统负荷规划方法的创新。组合力学领域的发展可能会为这种性质的物流问题打开新的解释之门。

The investigators will develop algorithms for stowing cargo on movement-and-storage devices such as airplanes, trucks, ships, shelves, and pallets so that the load is safely balanced and stable. Such problems have this general form: Given a structure and a set of forces and moments, where should those forces and moments be applied to the structure? This complements the traditional design questions of mechanical engineering: Given a set of worst-case forces and moments, design a structure to bear them. The investigators have coined the term "combinatorial mechanics" to describe the issues to be studied. The problems involve mechanics because of the concern for the center-of-gravity, deformation, natural frequency, and so on. The problems are combinatorial because the forces generally arise from the weight of items to be stored, and so the resultant forces on the structure depend on how the items are arranged. The approach to this research represents an innovative departure from traditional load planning approaches. The development of a field of combinatorial mechanics could open the door to novel interpretations of logistics problems of this nature.