Hand-drawn sketch of a shallow von Mises truss: two bars meeting at a central pinned apex, pinned supports at both ends, with a downward red load arrow labelled P

Geometric Instability — Snap-Through of the von Mises Truss

A von Mises truss snaps through under load even though its bars stay straight and elastic. A reduced 0D model shows the instability is purely geometric: the location of the limit point depends on geometry alone, not on the material.

Isometric illustration of an engineer's desk: a laptop showing a spiralling oscillation, a notebook sketch of a spring–mass–belt model, and a brake disc

How a Brake Squeals — Even When Friction Is Constant

A disc brake squeals even when friction is essentially constant. A minimal two-degree-of-freedom model shows the squeal comes from an asymmetric coupling, not from negative damping.