TEDxDelft 2012 | Performer: Arend Schwab – bicycles

An assistant professor in theoretical and applied mechanics who is into bicyles : Meet TEDx Delft – 2012 performer, Arend Schwab from Delft University of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Arend did his BSc Engineering at Dordrecht (1979) and MSc Engineering (1983) and PhD (2002) at Delft. He runs the bicycle mechanics lab and teaches mechanics. Whenever Arend comes up with an assignment for his students, the hallway of the faculty is crammed with all sorts of very strange objects that resemble bikes only slighlty. Considering bicyles constitute 40{95388bbb2e9df0f2b3d26445fc24fe82185b1b567dbb094bc3a45074083d0a2b} of the Netherlands traffic making it the bicycle capital of the world, his work is very interesting  not only for the dutch people but anyone who ever rode a bicycle.

Amongst his fields of interest are: Multibody Dynamics, dynamics of flexible multibody system, finite element method, legged locomotion, speed skating, and bicycle dynamics. In particular the treatment of contact phenomena like in collisions and rolling (non-holonomic constraints) is his special interest. He has given academic talks related to his area of expertise in various universities all over the world. However, the concept of TED is relatively new to him and he is very excited to present his intriguing research at such a grand platform.