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The thermal properties of individual subwavelength objects, which defy Planck’s law, are attracting significant fundamental and applied interest in different research areas. Special attention has been devoted to anisotropic structures made of polar dielectrics featuring thicknesses smaller than both the thermal wavelength and the skin depth. Recently, a novel experimental technique has enabled the measurement of the thermal emissivity of anisotropic SiO2 nanoribbons (with thicknesses on the order of 100 nm), demonstrating that their emission properties can be largely tuned by adjusting their dimensions. However, despite the great interest aroused by these results, their rigorous theoretical analysis has remained elusive due to the computational challenges arising from the vast difference in the length scales involved in the problem. In this work, we present a systematic theoretical analysis of the thermal emission properties of these dielectric nanoribbons based on simulations within the framework of fluctuational electrodynamics carried out with the boundary element method implemented in the SCUFF-EM code. In agreement with the experiments, we show that the emissivity of these subwavelength structures can be largely tuned and enhanced over the thin-film limit. We elucidate that the peculiar emissivity of these nanoribbons is due to the very anisotropic thermal emission that originates from the phonon polaritons of this material and the properties of the waveguide modes sustained by these dielectric structures. Our work illustrates the rich thermal properties of subwavelength objects, as well as the need for rigorous theoretical methods that are able to unveil the complex thermal emission phenomena emerging in this class of systems, J.J.G.E. was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through an FPU grant (FPU19/05281). J.B.A. acknowledges financial support from the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovacioń y Universidades (RTI2018-098452-B-I00). J.C.C. acknowledges funding from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (PID2020-114880GB-I00)

It is widely recognized in engineering fracture mechanics that integral and differential forms of nonlocal damage models with a constant internal length scale suffer from an incorrect representation of failure mechanisms either by spurious damage growth or by incorrect damage initiation and propagation. In this regard, in this thesis, a displacement-based gradient-enhanced damage model (GEDM) with a transient internal length scale is formulated and used for failure analysis of quasi-brittle materials. Research is focused on mode-I and mode-II failure mechanisms.In a GEDM, a local field is enhanced into a nonlocal field and the nonlocal field is the output of the enhancement. Displacement-based GEDM enhances local displacement fields into nonlocal displacement fields instead of enhancing local equivalent strain fields into nonlocal equivalent strain fields, as in strain- and stressbased GEDMs. The key ingredient of the proposed extension is a transient internal length scale that tends to zero as the damage parameter tends to one. Various expressions for this transient internal length scale are proposed, formulated, and discussed. Also, the need for correction on the gradient activity operator in mode-II failure is demonstrated. To this end, an anisotropic formulation of the displacementbased GEDM is formulated and used to control the material failure mechanism in mode-II failure. Examples of the new model regularization capabilities are compared to the original/classical displacement-based GEDM with a constant internal length scale.Despite the existence of spurious damage growth in mode-I failure for two dimensional problems (4-point bending beam example) for both the transient isotropic and the transient anisotropic versions, spurious damage growth is eliminated for mode-I failure in one-dimensional problems. Also, the proposed transient isotropic model eliminates spurious damage growth for mode-II failure in two-dimensional problems. However, the damage migration issue is not solved. This issue is addressed by the implementation of the transient anisotropic model. The transient anisotropic model has no damage spreading and damage migration issues in mode-II failure and realistic damage initiation and propagation are guaranteed. These features enable the representation of failure patterns i.e., thin crack-like shear-band. In practical terms this leads to a non-broadening shear fracture process zone in the wake of the crack tip, addressing one of the main criticisms of existing gradient damage models. Applicability of the proposed models is demonstrated by representative one- and two-dimensional examples.

The velocity model is one of the main factors affecting the accuracy of microseismic event localization. This paper addresses the issue of the low accuracy of microseismic event localization in tunnels and, combined with active-source technology, proposes a “source–station” velocity model. The velocity model assumes that the velocity from the source to each station is different, and it can greatly improve the accuracy of the time-difference-of-arrival algorithm. At the same time, for the case of multiple active sources, the MLKNN algorithm was selected as the velocity model selection method through comparative testing. The results of numerical simulation and laboratory tests in the tunnel showed that the average location accuracy of the “source–station” velocity model was improved compared with that of the isotropic velocity and sectional velocity models, with numerical simulation experiments improving accuracy by 79.82% and 57.05% (from 13.28 m and 6.24 m to 2.68 m), and laboratory tests in the tunnel improving accuracy by 89.26% and 76.33% (from 6.61 m and 3.00 m to 0.71 m). The results of the experiments showed that the method proposed in this paper can effectively improve the location accuracy of microseismic events in tunnels.

An equivalent single layer approach to model fracture events of multidirectional balanced thin-ply laminates via the use of the Phase Field method is explored. The inherent anisotropic nature of a multidirectional laminate is taken into account through the use of a structural tensor, defined from scaled directional vectors, which can account for the variation in fracture toughness of the laminates in varying directions. The scaling constants are defined using the lay-up of the laminate and the intra-laminar fracture toughness of the lamina, minimizing the number of input parameters required while also alleviating the structural tensor of a pure numerical and geometric meaning. They have a significant effect in the solution, and are here related to materials properties, not only providing a new perspective on their definition but also allowing the reduction of the number of numerical parameters used to calibrate the anisotropic PF model. The numerical implementation of the proposed formulation is performed using a simple and robust thermal analogy in Abaqus by exploiting the use of an anisotropic conductivity matrix that plays the role of the structural tensor in the anisotropic phase field formulation, which reduces the complexity of the simulations. Experimental results, based on open-hole tension and double edge-notched tension, are reproduced via simulation validating the model for size effects and for the response to off-axis loading. Successful prediction of notch size effects in multidirectional composite laminates is achieved by means of an equivalent single layer approach, incl. the off-axis open-hole tension strengths of a directional thin-ply laminate. All numerical strength predictions were well within acceptable errors of the respective experimental values.

We investigate a degenerating elliptic problem in a multi-structure $\Omega_\varepsilon$ of $ \mathbb{R}^3$, in the framework of the thermal stationary conduction with highly contrasting diffusivity. Precisely, $\Omega_\varepsilon$ consists of a fixed basis $\Omega^-$ surmounted by a thin cylinder $\Omega_\varepsilon^+$ with height $1$ and cross-section with a small diameter of order $\varepsilon$. Moreover, $\Omega^+_\varepsilon$ contains a cylindrical core, always with height $1$ and cross-section with diameter of order $\varepsilon$, with conductivity of order $1$, surrounded by a ring with conductivity of order $\varepsilon^2$. Also $\Omega^-$ has conductivity of order $\varepsilon^2$. By assuming that the temperature is zero on the top and on the bottom of the boundary of $\Omega_\varepsilon$, while the flux is zero on the remaining part of the boundary, under a suitable choice of the source term we prove that the limit problem, as $\varepsilon$ vanishes, boils down to two uncoupled problems: one in $\Omega^-$ and one in $\Omega^+_1$, and the problem in $\Omega^+_1$ is nonlocal. Moreover, a corrector result is obtained.

Specific finite detail modeling of the human body gives a capable primary enhancement to the prediction of damage risk through automobile impact. Currently, car crash protection countermeasure improvement is based on an aggregate of testing with installed anthropomorphic test devices (i.e., ATD or dummy) and a mixture of multibody (dummy) and finite element detail (vehicle) modeling. If an incredibly easy finite element detail version can be advanced to capture extra statistics beyond the abilities of the multi-body structures, it might allow advanced countermeasure improvement through a more targeted prediction of overall performance. Numerous research has been done on finite element analysis of broken femurs. However, there are two missing pieces of information: 1- choosing the right material properties, and 2- designing a precise model including the inner structure of the bone. In this research, most of the chosen material properties for femur bone will be discussed and evaluated.

This study proposes a new algorithm for a higher-order vector finite element method based on two new types of second-order edge elements to solve the electromagnetic field diffusion problem in a 3D anisotropic medium. To avoid source singularity in the quasistatic variant of Maxwell’s function, a secondary field formulation was adopted. The modeling domain was discretized using two types of quadratic edge hexahedral elements, which were obtained using the edge unification method to reduce variables on each side of two conventional quadratic edge elements. Compared with the traditional quadratic element, the number of unknowns that needed to be solved was significantly reduced. The sparse linear equation of the finite element system was solved using an open-source direct solver called MUMPS. The numerical results demonstrated that the proposed algorithm has the same level of accuracy as the conventional vector finite element method and has a significant advantage over it in terms of computational cost.

A novel method for complex amplitude manipulation of spin light is proposed based on a double-layer compact anisotropic metasurface. A new degree of freedom (DOF) is introduced through independently rotating the two layers to achieve a full range control of the amplitude. Then additional full range phase shift is further imparted independently based on the traditional Pancharatnam-Berry (PB) phase mechanism by the global rotation of the meta-atom. As a result, the ability of full range and arbitrary complex amplitude manipulation is achieved on meta-atom level. Time consuming massive geometric parameter searching is avoided in the proposed method, which is beneficial to the complicated metadevice design. Based on this theory, two devices for multi-beam generation and Airy beam deflection are designed and experimentally verified, respectively. The good agreement between the calculated and measured results confirms the advantage of the proposed method. Our findings may trigger great interest in high-performance functional metaoptics devices with compact size in integrated systems.

In order to investigate the reflected beam shifts in the anisotropic chiral metamaterial based on the Ωparticle resonance model, we give the expression of the Goos-H?nchen(GH) shifts of reflected beam by using the stationary phase method. The numerical results show that for the incidence of the transverse magnetic wave, the relative GH shifts of co-polarization reflection are enhanced at two Brewster angles, and the enhancement peak of GH shift is larger corresponding to the large Brewster angle. Meanwhile, the enhancement of GH shifts at large Brewster angle is very sensitive to the thickness of the chiral material and incident frequency, the transition of the positive and negative enhancement of the GH shift can be realized by slightly adjusting the thickness or incident frequency. As the incident angle is fixed, the positive and negative transition of the co-polarization GH shifts at different thicknesses can be realized by selecting the appropriate incident frequency. In addition, for the fixed thickness of chiral materials, the positive and negative enhancement of the co-polarization GH shifts at different frequencies can be achieved by modifying the incident angles slightly.

La anisotropía en cualquier condición está relacionada con la dependencia a la homogeneidad direccional que posee un sistema. En capas geológicas, esta anisotropía posee un vínculo muy estrecho con la dirección deposicional, la cual determina, en gran parte, la fábrica nativa del material tactoide. En suelos arcillosos este factor es aún más influyente, debido al carácter laminar de la microestructura de este tipo de materiales. Razón por la cual, es indispensable conocer la respuesta de suelos arcillosos, cuando se imponen trayectorias de esfuerzos en sentidos diferentes a los generados en la dirección natural de su consolidación. En términos meramente ingenieriles, los materiales anisotrópicos son aquellos que presentan diferentes propiedades mecánicas, de acuerdo con las distintas direcciones en que se realice su análisis. Por lo anterior, se pretende evaluar el comportamiento de los suelos, cuando exhiben una anisotropía inducida al ser sometidos a una carga en diferentes direcciones, con el fin de identificar las variaciones que pueden llegar a presentar en su resistencia al corte. Por lo general, los suelos arcillosos en el contexto colombiano han sido analizados ampliamente con estándares que ayudan a identificar y caracterizar su comportamiento convencional, como medio isotrópico convencional. Sin embargo, la anisotropía de estos suelos se ha estudiado muy poco, considerándolos generalmente como isotrópicos y estimando que tienen idénticas propiedades en todas sus direcciones. El presente estudio genera un aporte al nuevo conocimiento en esta temática, evaluando la variación en los parámetros de compresión inconfinada, de acuerdo con la anisotropía de los suelos cohesivos. Para tal fin se realizarán ensayos de compresión inconfinada en muestras cohesivas reconstituidas a diferentes esfuerzos de preconsolidación. La anisotropía inducida también será considerada en el momento del muestreo, el cual será realizado a diferentes inclinaciones sobre los bloques reconstituidos. Con el estudio actual, se permitirá concluir el comportamiento que tendrán los suelos arcillosos al ser sometidos a diferentes cargas en distintas direcciones a la preconsolidación, mediante los ensayos realizados de compresión inconfinada. Resumen ............................................................................................................................................ ix 1. Introducción ..................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Planteamiento del tema ................................................................................................................. 3 1.2 Justificación del proyecto ............................................................................................................... 5 2. Objetivos .......................................................................................................................................... 6 2.1 Objetivo general.............................................................................................................................. 6 2.2 Objetivos específicos...................................................................................................................... 6 2.2.1 Objetivos específicos .................................................................................................................. 6 3. Marco Referencial ............................................................................................................................ 6 3.1 Marco legal ..................................................................................................................................... 6 3.2 Marco conceptual ........................................................................................................................... 7 3.2.1 ¿Qué es la anisotropía? .............................................................................................................. 8 3.2.2 Influencia de la anisotropía en propiedades del suelo................................................................ 11 3.2.3 Ensayo de compresión inconfinada ........................................................................................... 15 3.3 Marco teórico ................................................................................................................................ 17 3.3.1 Anisotropía en aspectos geotécnicos ........................................................................................ 17 3.3.1.1 Trayectorias de esfuerzo ........................................................................................................ 19 3.3.1.2 Estado de esfuerzos in-situ .................................................................................................... 19 3.3.1.3 Módulo de elasticidad ............................................................................................................. 21 3.3.1.4 Cohesión ................................................................................................................................. 25 3.3.1.5 Ángulo de fricción interna ........................................................................................................ 28 3.3.2 Anisotropía en suelos no saturados .............................................................................................31 4. Materiales y Métodos .......................................................................................................................35 4.1 Caracterización de materiales ....................................................................................................... 35 4.1.1 Ensayos índice ........................................................................................................................... 36 4.2 Reconstitución de muestras .......................................................................................................... 37 4.3 Ensayos de compresión inconfinada ............................................................................................. 38 5. Resultados y discusión .................................................................................................................... 39 5.1 Ensayos para cuantificar la influencia de la anisotropía en la resistencia al corte no drenada...... 39 5.1.1 Ensayos de compresión inconfinada .......................................................................................... 39 6. Conclusiones, recomendaciones, limitaciones y prospectiva .......................................................... 47 Conclusiones ........................................................................................................................................ 47 Recomendaciones ................................................................................................................................ 48 Limitaciones .......................................................................................................................................... 49 7. Referencias ....................................................................................................................................... 50 The anisotropy in any condition is related to the dependence on the directional homogeneity that a system possesses. In geological layers, this anisotropy has a very close link with the depositional direction, which largely determines the native fabric of the tactoid material. In clay soils this factor is even more influential, due to the laminar nature of the microstructure of this type of material. For this reason, it is essential to know the response of clay soils, when stress paths are imposed in directions different from those generated in the natural direction of their consolidation. In purely engineering terms, anisotropic materials are those that have different mechanical properties, according to the different directions in which their analysis is carried out. Therefore, it is intended to evaluate the behavior of soils, when they exhibit an induced anisotropy when subjected to a load in different directions, in order to identify the variations that they may present in their shear strength. In general, clay soils in the Colombian context have been extensively analyzed with standards that help identify and characterize their conventional behavior. However, the anisotropy of these soils has been studied very little, generally considering them to be isotropic and estimating that they have identical properties in all directions. The present study generates a contribution to the new knowledge on this subject, trying to evaluate the variation in the parameters of unconfined compression, according to the anisotropy of cohesive soils. For this purpose, unconfined compression tests will be carried out on reconstituted cohesive samples at different preconsolidation stresses. The induced anisotropy will be considered at the time of sampling, which will be carried out at different inclinations on the reconstituted blocks. With the current study, it will be possible to conclude the behavior that clayey soils will have when subjected to different loads in different directions to preconsolidation, through unconfined compression tests. Maestría

In this paper, the flocculation properties of polyethylene oxide (PEO) on kaolinite and the mechanism of adsorption on kaolinite anisotropic substrates were explored. As revealed by the experimental results, the settling rate and removal rate of kaolinite increased with increasing PEO concentration, but too high PEO concentration would cause the small particles to stabilize and become difficult to settle. Furthermore, to probe deep into the interactions between PEO and kaolinite anisotropic substrates, the morphology of adsorbed PEO, interfacial adsorption structure, and dynamic behavior of water molecules were determined by quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation (QCM-D) and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. The adsorption amount of PEO on different mineral surfaces is in the order of kaolinite > alumina > silica, and the thickness of the adsorption structure formed by alumina is greater than that of silica. As illustrated by the MD simulation results, the adsorption of PEO reduces the concentration of water molecules attached to the kaolinite surface. The PEO forms a double-layer adsorption structure on the 001 surface, while forming a tight monolayer adsorption structure on the 001¯ surface, weakening the interaction between the surface and the water molecules. The above results demonstrate that the adsorption of PEO effectively weakened the hydration dispersion of kaolinite and promoted the agglomeration of kaolinite particles.

This paper investigates the application of Physics-Informed Neural Networks (PINNs) in modelling constitutive laws for transverse electromagnetic polarized waves in all three space dimensions governed by Maxwell Faraday equation and Ampere's circuital law. The constitutive relationships for electrical permittivity and conductivity are modelled for the 1D case. In 2D, constitutive laws for electric displacement and polarization fields are modelled for anisotropic materials without using the data for either of the two fields. Constitutive laws for bi-anisotropic media are modelled in 3D, where the electromagnetic fields are coupled. It is observed that using PDEs as a guiding constraint regularizes the learning procedure efficiently for training the neural network when no direct measurements of the functions of interest are available. Furthermore, the presented method outperforms the state-of-the-art Gaussian process regression and data-driven deep neural network in the presence of sparse indirect noisy measurement data. For all the numerical experiments, the presented method solves the forward problem simultaneously modelling the constitutive law.

Shape morphing materials, especially those fabricated by 4D printing, are gaining much attention due to their versatility of actuation and capability of being programmed in advance. These materials become particularly interesting for biomedical applications where implant materials could be remotely actuated, exerting a force on the surrounding tissues and cells. However, applications in this field have been restricted due to the biocompatibility of the materials and the character of the required stimuli, generally not compatible with physiological environments. Magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) represent a great opportunity to this end; however, the actuation results in a uniform movement toward the magnet that requires anchoring of the object. Here, for the first time, the application of anisotropic Fe3O4 MNPs is described, and synthesized by a novel and easy route, that can be aligned on pre-defined patterns within objects printed by digital light processing, resulting in materials that can be actuated remotely (4D printing). These nanoparticles (178 nm x 55 nm), show good biocompatibility when directly seeded on top of human mesenchymal stem cells, despite being uptaken. Most importantly, the alignment of the MNPs can tune the movement of fabricated nanocomposite materials, resulting in complex movements of attraction or repulsion depending on the direction of the applied magnetic field. T.K., and S.C.-E. contributed equally to this work. This work was supported financially by the Province of Limburg and the Brightlands Materials Center. The authors were also grateful to the research program Innovation Fund Chemistry, which was partly financed by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) under TA grant agreement 731.016.202 ("DynAM"). The authors acknowledge the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Scott & White who isolated and provided the cells through a grant from NCRR of the NIH (Grant #P40RR017447).

The characteristics of rock instability precursors and the principal stress direction are very crucial for the prevention of geological disasters. This study investigated the qualitative relationship between rock instability precursors and principal stress direction through wave velocity in rock acoustic emission (AE) experiments. Results show that the wave velocity variation exhibits obvious anisotropic characteristics in 0%–20% and 60%–90% of peak strength due to the differences of stress-induced microcrack types. The amplitude of wave velocity variation is related to the azimuth and position of wave propagation path, which indicates that the principal stress direction can be identified by the anisotropic characteristics of wave velocity variations. Furthermore, the experiments also demonstrate that the AE event rate and wave velocity show quiet and stable variations in the elastic stage of rock samples, while they present a trend of active and unstable variations in the plastic stage. It implies that both the AE event rate and wave velocity are effective monitoring parameters for rock instability. The anisotropic characteristics of the wave velocity variation and AE event rate are beneficial complements for identifying the rock instability precursors and determining the principal stress direction, which provides a new analysis method for stability monitoring in practical rock engineering.

A nonlinear unsteady-state mathematical model employing torque balance and Frank free energy according to the Leslie-Ericksen continuum theory is developed and implemented to simulate the performance of nematic liquid crystal biosensor films with aqueous interfaces. A transient liquid crystal-aqueous interface realignment is modeled using the Euler–Lagrange equation by changing the easy axis when the surfactant molecules at the interface are introduced. In our study, we evaluated the dynamics between bulk and interface by controlling surface properties of the interface, such as homeotropic anchoring energy and surface viscosity. In addition, transient optical interference and response time have been examined in this study. Our parametric study results indicated that both homeotropic anchoring energy and surface viscosity at the interface contribute to bulk reorientation. Furthermore, the obtained numerical results indicate that as homeotropic anchoring strength increases, the effective birefringence decreases more gradual due to the increasing surfactant concentration at the aqueous interface, consistent with available experimental observations. Our results have been validated and compared to experimental results from thin-film liquid crystal biosensors in this study.

Myocardial infarction is a leading cause of death worldwide and has severe consequences including irreversible damage to the myocardium, which can lead to heart failure. Cardiac tissue engineering aims to re-engineer the infarcted myocardium using tissues made from human-induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs) to regenerate heart muscle and restore contractile function via an implantable epicardial patch. The current limitations of this technology include both biomanufacturing challenges in maintaining tissue integrity during implantation and biological challenges in inducing cell alignment, maturation, and coordinated electromechanical function, which, when overcome, may be able to prevent adverse cardiac remodeling through mechanical support in the injured heart to facilitate regeneration. Polymer scaffolds serve to mechanically reinforce both engineered and host tissues. Here, we introduce a novel biodegradable, customizable scaffold composed of wet-spun polycaprolactone (PCL) microfibers to strengthen engineered tissues and provide an anisotropic mechanical environment to promote engineered tissue formation. We developed a wet-spinning process to produce consistent fibers which are then collected on an automated mandrel that precisely controls the angle of intersection of fibers and their spacing to generate mechanically anisotropic scaffolds. Through optimization of the wet-spinning process, we tuned the fiber diameter to 339 ± 31 µm and 105 ± 9 µm and achieved a high degree of fidelity in the fiber structure within the scaffold (fiber angle within 1.8° of prediction). Through degradation and mechanical testing, we demonstrate the ability to maintain scaffold mechanical integrity as well as tune the mechanical environment of the scaffold through structure (Young’s modulus of 120.8 ± 1.90 MPa for 0° scaffolds, 60.34 ± 11.41 MPa for 30° scaffolds, 73.59 ± 3.167 MPa for 60° scaffolds, and 49.31 ± 6.90 MPa for 90° scaffolds), while observing decreased hysteresis in angled vs. parallel scaffolds. Further, we embedded the fibrous PCL scaffolds in a collagen hydrogel mixed with hiPSC-CMs to form engineered cardiac tissue with high cell survival, tissue compaction, and active contractility of the hiPSC-CMs. Through this work, we develop and optimize a versatile biomanufacturing process to generate customizable PCL fibrous scaffolds which can be readily utilized to guide engineered tissue formation and function.

In this work, a numerical study of the dynamical behavior of unsteady and anisotropic turbulent flow downstream a 90° bended pipe was presented. For this purpose, comparative computations are carried out employing two flow configurations, bend pipe with ribs and bend pipe without ribs with a curvature radius ratio Rc/D=2.0. In the bend pipe with ribs, the pitch ratios Pt/e=40 and the rib height to pipe diameter e/D is 0.1. This model has been utilized to assess the effect of ribs on flow where the presence of the ribs leads to a complex velocity field with regions of flow separation upstream and downstream of the ribs. The Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) approach is employed and the computational model is validated by comparisons with the existing experimental data. The simulations are conducted with the commercials CFD software FLUENT for Dean number varying from 5000 to 40000. The result analysis shows that the higher resistance generated by the ribs produced relatively larger velocity gradient (∂U/∂y) compared to the case of bend pipe without ribs where a more uniform mean velocity profile is observed. The turbulence intensities are higher in the ribbed bend pipe compared to those in the non-ribbed case and depend faintly on the Dean number. The levels of the Reynolds shear stresses are significantly enhanced by the ribs compared to the case without ribs. This increasing is explained by significantly higher levels of turbulence production over those ribs produced by large values of ∂U/∂y.

Anisotropic CuCrO2 thin films were successfully prepared on glass substrate by the electrospinning method followed by annealing at 600 °C. The directionality of the nanowires increased with increases in rotation speed. In addition, the structural formation and optoelectronic behavior of the CuCrO2 thin films have been studied by X-ray powder diffraction studies, transmission electron microscopy, field emission scanning electron microscopy, and UV-vis spectroscopy. The X-ray diffraction studies revealed a delafossite properties of the CuCrO2. The electrical conductivity in the parallel and vertical directions of the films produced at 2000–3000 rpm differed by two to three orders of magnitude. The optical transmittance properties of the CuCrO2 thin films were improved by increasing the rotation speed.

Modern technology shows increased demands on the strength properties of machines, their parts, as well as various structures, reducing their weight, volume and size, which leads to the need to use anisotropic composite materials. Finding criteria to determine the ultimate strength characteristics of structural elements, engineering structures is one of the urgent problems of solid mechanics. Strength problems in structures are often reduced to finding out the nature of the local stress state at the vertices of the joints of the constituent parts. The solution of this urgent problem for composite anisotropic plates can be found in this article, where the author continues the research in this area, extending them to the bending of anisotropic composite plates. The aim of the work is to study the limit stress state of anisotropic composite plates in the framework of the classical theory of plate bending. The outer edges of the plate are considered to be free. Using the classical theory of anisotropic plate bending in the space of physical and geometric parameters, the hypersurface equations determining the low-stress zones for the edge of the contact surface of a composite cylindrical orthotropic plate are obtained. Modern technological processes of welding, surfacing, soldering and bonding allow to produce structural elements of monolithic interconnected dissimilar anisotropic materials. The combination of different materials with qualities corresponding to certain operating conditions opens up great opportunities to improve the technical and economic characteristics of machines, equipment and structures. It can contribute to a significant increase in their reliability, durability, reduce the cost of production and operation. On this basis, the solution proposed in this work can be useful to increase the strength of composite materials.

Peripheral nerve regeneration with large defects needs innovative design of nerve guidance conduits (NGCs) which possess anisotropic guidance, electrical induction and right mechanical properties in one. Herein, we present, for the first time, facile fabrication and efficient neural differentiation guidance of anisotropic, conductive, self-snapping, hydrogel-based NGCs. The hydrogels were fabricated via crosslinking of graphitic carbon nitride (g-C 3N 4) upon exposure with blue light, incorporated with graphene oxide (GO). Incorporation of GO and in situ reduction greatly enhanced surface charges, while decayed light penetration endowed the hydrogel with an intriguing self-snapping feature by the virtue of a crosslinking gradient. The hydrogels were in the optimal mechanical stiffness range for peripheral nerve regeneration and supported normal viability and proliferation of neural cells. The PC12 ​cells differentiated on the electroactive g-C 3N 4 H/rGO3 (3 ​mg/mL GO loading) hydrogel presented 47% longer neurite length than that of the pristine g-C 3N 4 H hydrogel. Furthermore, the NGC with aligned microchannels was successfully fabricated using sacrificial melt electrowriting (MEW) moulding, the anisotropic microchannels of the 10 ​μm width showed optimal neurite guidance. Such anisotropic, electroactive, self-snapping NGCs may possess great potential for repairing peripheral nerve injuries.

The anisotropic Ginzburg-Landau system $\Delta u+\delta \nabla (div u) +\delta curl^*(curl u)=(|u|^2-1) u$, for $u\colon\mathbb R^2\to\mathbb R^2$ and $\delta\in (-1,1)$, models the formation of vortices in liquid crystals. We prove the existence of entire solutions such that $|u(x)|\to 1$ and $u$ has a prescribed topological degree $d\leq -1$ as $|x|\to\infty$, for small values of the anisotropy parameter $|\delta| < \delta_0(d)$. Unlike the isotropic case $\delta=0$, this cannot be reduced to a one-dimensional radial equation. We obtain these solutions by minimizing the anisotropic Ginzburg-Landau energy in an appropriate class of equivariant maps, with respect to a finite symmetry subgroup., FONDECYT 1210405, Chilean research grant, France-Chile ECOS-Sud C18E06 and ANID projects ACE210010 and FB210005, ANR project ANR-18-CE40-0023 and COOPINTER project IEA-297303. ANID projects ACE210010 and FB210005. National Science Centre, Poland (Grant No. 2017/26/E/ST1/00817). BERC 2018-2021 program. BCAM Severo Ochoa excellence accreditation SEV-2017-0718. Project PID2020-114189RB-I00 (PID2020-114189RB-I00 / AEI / 10.13039/501100011033).

Anisotropic mesh adaptation is important for accurately predicting engineering quantities of interest with high-order finite element discretizations. Spacetime approaches, whereby time is treated as an additional spatial dimension and the mesh is fully coupled in space and time, have also shown to be effective in reducing the number of degrees of freedom needed to achieve a certain level of accuracy. Previous efforts have successfully demonstrated four- dimensional mesh adaptation capabilities so as to support adaptive simulations in 3d + t. However, these algorithms have been restricted to sequential implementations. Parallel mesh adaptation strategies have become increasingly important in 3d numerical simulations. Therefore, the goal of this work is to extend those strategies to perform parallel four-dimensional anisotropic mesh adaptation. We employ a functionality-first approach to parallelize an existing sequential mesh adaptation tool. This approach iteratively adapts the mesh while keeping partition interfaces fixed, and then migrates partition interfaces into the interior so they can be adapted during a subsequent pass within an adaptation iteration. We demonstrate that the algorithm scales well as the number of processors increases while maintaining good metric conformity for three- and four-dimensional problems.

An anisotropic metasurface that performs a reflectarray and transmitarray on each side is proposed. The proposed configuration comprises $15\times15$ unit cells that consist of polarization converters and a polarization filter. Two topologies are developed for the unit cells to meet five design goals simultaneously, including reflection magnitude, transmission magnitude, reflection phase difference, transmission phase difference, and polarization conversion ratio. By arranging the two topologies of unit cells according to a required phase distribution, in-phase reflection and transmission are achieved on each side. A prototype is designed, fabricated, and analyzed at 28.0 GHz. The feed is implemented as a quasi-Yagi antenna with gain of 8.0 dBi. When linearly-polarized electromagnetic waves impinge on the top, the proposed metasurface functions as a reflectarray and offers gain of 17.9 dBi. When the feed antenna illuminates the bottom, the proposed metasurface performs a transmitarray and depicts gain of 19.1 dBi. Moreover, when the both sides are arranged with feeds, a unidirectional pattern with power gain of 20.3 dBi is obtained. Such a “twin-feed mode” demonstrates a highly-directed main beam with orthogonal polarization components, which is useful in dual-polarized communications. Thus, the proposed metasurface provides antenna applications with low-cost, low-complexity, and multifunctional wavefront manipulation.

This paper was developed as part of an effort by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to identify risk factors associated with bumps in the prevention of fatalities and accidents in highly stressed, bump-prone ground conditions. Changes of failure mechanism with increasing confinement, from extensional-to shear-dominated failure, are widely observed in the rupture of intact specimens at the laboratory scale and in rock masses. In the previous analysis conducted in 2018, both unconfined and triaxial compressive tests were conducted to investigate the strength characteristics of some specimens of a Utah coal, including the spalling limits, the ratio of apparent unconfined compressive strength (AUCS) to unconfined compressive strength (UCS), the damage characteristics, and the post-yield dilatancy. These mechanical characteristics were found to be strongly anisotropic as a function of the orientation of the cleats relative to the loading direction. However, the transition from extensional to shear failure at the given confinements was not clearly identified. In this study, a total of 20 specimens were additionally prepared from the same coal sample used in the previous study and then tested under both unconfined and triaxial compressive conditions. The different confining stresses are used as analogs for different width-to-height (W/H) ratios of pillar strength. Although the W/H ratios of the specimens were not directly considered during testing, the equivalent W/H ratios of a pillar as a function of the confining stresses were estimated using an existing empirical solution. According to this relationship, the W/H at which in-situ pillar behavior would be expected to transition from brittle to ductile is identified.

The plate problem has been investigated for centuries while exact solutions for anisotropic plates are still hard to obtain. In this paper, we aim to get exact solutions for rectangular anisotropic plates with four clamped edges through the state space method. A state space equation for the anisotropic elasticity is derived from the linear elasticity theory for the first time. The Fourier series in exponential form are adopted in the current work. This can transform the transfer matrix with differential operators in state space into a constant matrix. After superposition and differential treatments, the equations for the boundary conditions of four clamped edges are then combined with the state space equation for the anisotropic elasticity, forming a new compound state space which represents the 3D anisotropic plate problem to be solved. By use of the state space method, a solvable linear equation system under the compound state space is formed. Example solution cases for both orthotropic and monoclinic plates with different thicknesses are provided. For comparison purpose, numerical results from the finite element method are also given to indicate the reliability and accuracy of the current state space method.

Scaffolds and porous composites synthesized by freeze casting method and polymer infiltration can be applied in the fields of bone grafting materials, implants, filtration, and thermal insulation due to the anisotropic and interconnected porous structure. Freeze casting techniques have been applied to synthesize a wide variety of scaffolds with aligned channels. Typical freeze casting method requires sintering as-casted scaffolds at high temperature which limits the materials selection and its applicability. In this study, a novel sintering-free sol–gel/freeze-casting hybrid method is established. The as-synthesized gel can be shaped by mold more easily compared to powder by the novel mold assisted melting method. This pioneering method surpassed the limitation of freeze-drying under low pressure and temperature, facilitating controllable reaction under mild condition. Another important advantage is that the sintering process at a high temperature is no longer required which broadens the materials selection and potential applications. Besides, microstructural features can be controlled by tuning the water content in the gel and the cooling rate. Moreover, composite scaffolds with high porosity (>90%) and proper mechanical stability are synthesized by mixing gel and polymer. The bio-inspired scaffolds and composites fabricated by this novel sintering-free sol–gel/freeze-casting hybrid method possess advantages and great potentials in various applications.

Three-dimensional (3D) printing has great potential for creating tissues and organs to meet shortfalls in transplant supply, and biomaterial inks are key components of many such approaches. There is a need for biomaterial inks that facilitate integration, infiltration, and vascularization of targeted 3D-printed structures. This study is therefore focused on creating new biomaterial inks from self-assembled capillary alginate gel (Capgel), which possesses a unique microstructure of uniform tubular channels with tunable diameters and densities. First, extrusions of Capgel through needles (0.1–0.8 mm inner diameter) were investigated. It was found that Capgel ink extrudes as slurries of fractured and entangled particles, each retaining capillary microstructures, and that extruded line widths W and particle sizes A were both functions of needle inner diameter D, specifically power-law relationships of W~D0.42 and A~D1.52, respectively. Next, various structures were successfully 3D-printed with Capgel ink, thus demonstrating that this biomaterial ink is stackable and self-supporting. To increase ink self-adherence, Capgel was coated with poly-L-lysine (PLL) to create a cationic “skin” prior to extrusion. It was hypothesized that, during extrusion of Capgel-PLL, the sheared particles fracture and thereby expose cryptic sites of negatively-charged biomaterial capable of forming new polyelectrolyte bonds with areas of the positively-charged PLL skin on neighboring entangled particles. This novel approach resulted in continuous, self-adherent extrusions that remained intact in solution. Human lung fibroblasts (HLFs) were then cultured on this ink to investigate biocompatibility. HLFs readily colonized Capgel-PLL ink and were strongly oriented by the capillary microstructures. This is the first description of successful 3D-printing with Capgel biomaterial ink as well as the first demonstration of the concept and formulation of a self-adherent Capgel-PLL biomaterial ink.

We examine how a square-grid microstructure affects the manner in which a Bingham fluid is convected in a sidewall-heated rectangular porous cavity. When the porous microstructure is isotropic, flow arises only when the Darcy–Rayleigh number is higher than a critical value, and this corresponds to when buoyancy forces are sufficient to overcome the yield threshold of the Bingham fluid. In such cases, the flow domain consists of a flowing region and stagnant regions within which there is no flow. Here, we consider a special case where the constituent pores form a square grid pattern. First, we use a network model to write down the appropriate macroscopic momentum equations as a Darcy–Bingham law for this microstructure. Then detailed computations are used to determine strongly nonlinear states. It is found that the flow splits naturally into four different regions: (i) full flow, (ii) no-flow, (iii) flow solely in the horizontal direction and (iv) flow solely in the vertical direction. The variations in the rate of heat transfer and the strength of the flow with the three governing parameters, the Darcy–Rayleigh number, Ra, the Rees–Bingham number, Rb, and the aspect ratio, A, are obtained.

In this paper, we study the dynamical properties of the exciton-polaron in the microtubule. The study was carried out using a unitary transformation and an approximate diagonalization technique. Analytically, the modeling of exciton-polaron dynamics in microtubules is presented. From this model, the ground state energy, mobility, and entropy of the exciton-polaron are derived as a function of microtubule's parameters. Numerical results show that, depending on the three vibrational modes (protofilament, helix, antihelix) in MTs, exciton-polaron energy is anisotropic and is more present on the protofilament than the helix and absent on the antihelix. Taking into account the variation of the protofilament vibrations by fixing the helix vibrations, exciton-polaron moves between the 1st and 2nd protofilaments. It is seen that the variation of the two vibrations induces mobility of the quasiparticle between the 1st and 15th protofilament. This result points out the importance of helix vibrations on the dynamics of quasiparticles. It is observed that the mobility of the exciton polaron and the entropy of the system are strongly influenced by the vibrations through the protofilament and helix. The effects of the one through the antihelix is negligible. The entropy of the system is similar to that of mobility. Confirming that the quasiparticles move in the protofilament faster than in the helix.

The human brain, primarily composed of white blood cells, is centered on the neurological system. Incorrectly positioned cells in the immune system, blood vessels, endocrine, glial, axon, and other cancer-causing tissues, can assemble to create a brain tumor. It is currently impossible to find cancer physically and make a diagnosis. The tumor can be found and recognized using the MRI-programmed division method. It takes a powerful segmentation technique to produce accurate output. This study examines a brain MRI scan and uses a technique to obtain a more precise image of the tumor-affected area. The critical aspects of the proposed method are the utilization of noisy MRI brain images, anisotropic noise removal filtering, segmentation with an SVM classifier, and isolation of the adjacent region from the normal morphological processes. Accurate brain MRI imaging is the primary goal of this strategy. The divided section of the cancer is placed on the actual image of a particular culture, but that is by no means the last step. The tumor is located by categorizing the pixel brightness in the filtered image. According to test findings, the SVM could partition data with 98% accuracy.

Anisotropic polymer/nanoparticle composites display unique mechanical, thermal, electrical, and optical properties depending on confirmation and configuration control of the composing elements. Processes, such as vapor deposition, ice-templating, nanoparticle self-assembly, additive manufacturing, or layer-by-layer casting, are explored to design and control nanoparticle microstructures with desired anisotropy or isotropy. However, limited attempts are made toward nanoparticle patterning during continuous fiber spinning due to the thin-diameter cross section and 1D features. Thus, this research focuses on a new patterning technique to form ordered nanoparticle assembly in layered composite fibers. As a result, distinct layers can be retained with innovative tool design, unique material combinations, and precise rheology control during fiber spinning. The layer multiplying-enabled nanoparticle patterning is demonstrated in a few material systems, including polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)-boron nitride (BN)/PVA, polyacrylonitrile (PAN)-aluminum (Al)/PAN, and PVA-BN/graphene nanoplatelet (GNP)/PVA systems. This approach demonstrates an unprecedentedly reported fiber manufacturing platform for well-managed layer dimensions and nanoparticle manipulations with directional thermal and electrical properties that can be utilized in broad applications, including structural supports, heat exchangers, electrical conductors, sensors, actuators, and soft robotics. W.X. and R.F. contributed equally to this work. This work was funded by the Global Sports Institute (GSI) at Arizona State University and the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF, EAGER 1902172). Scopus

In the latest experimental success, NbOI2 two-dimensional (2D) crystals with anisotropic electronic and optical properties have been fabricated (Adv. Mater. 33 (2021), 2101505). In this work inspired by the aforementioned accomplishment, we conduct first-principles calculations to explore the mechanical, electronic, and optical properties of NbOX2 (X = Cl, Br, I) nanosheets. We show that individual layers in these systems are weakly bonded, with exfoliation energies of 0.22, 0.23, and 0.24 J m−2, for the isolation of the NbOCl2, NbOBr2, and NbOI2 monolayers, respectively, distinctly lower than those of the graphene. The optoelectronic properties of the single-layer, bilayer, and bulk NbOCl2, NbOBr2, and NbOI2 crystals are investigated via density functional theory calculations with the HSE06 approach. Our results indicate that the layered bulk NbOCl2, NbOBr2, and NbOI2 crystals are indirect gap semiconductors, with band gaps of 1.79, 1.69, and 1.60 eV, respectively. We found a slight increase in the electronic gap for the monolayer and bilayer systems due to electron confinement at the nanoscale. Our results show that the monolayer and bilayer of these novel 2D compounds show suitable valence and conduction band edge positions for visible-light-driven water splitting reactions. The first absorption peaks of these novel monolayers along the in-plane polarization are located in the visible range of light which can be a promising feature to design advanced nanoelectronics. We found that the studied 2D systems exhibit highly anisotropic mechanical and optical properties. The presented first-principles results provide a comprehensive vision about direction-dependent mechanical and optical properties of NbOX2 (X = Cl, Br, I) nanosheets.

In this thesis, several examples of responsive liquid crystal elastomer microparticles are reported, as well as chiral nematic films. Bipolar nematic liquid crystal elastomer particles were of significant interest due their reversible shape change at the liquid crystal to isotropic phase transition. Furthermore, a spontaneous deformation of spherical droplets into spindle shaped particles upon irradiation with UV light was investigated. The spontaneous deformation and resulting particle surface morphology was studied to elucidate the phenomenon. Droplets and particles were subjected to external stimuli such as temperature and magnetic fields to produce samples with polar alignment not seen before in the literature. In addition, a microfluidic method is reported for the introduction of nanoparticles into bipolar nematic droplets with greater control of both droplet diameter as well as the number of nanoparticles within droplets compared to methods previously reported. To achieve this, polymer nanoparticles were dyed with fluorescent dye and suspended in organic solvent so that they were compatible with the microfluidic inner phase containing nematic monomer, photoinitiator and crosslinker in chloroform, to which they were added. After photopolymerisation, yielding nanoparticle infiltrated elastomer microparticles, we demonstrated, for the first time, a reversible shape change response to temperature of nematic elastomer microparticles with localised nanoparticles, an initial step for applications of these materials within areas such as micromechanics and soft robotics. Finally, doped chiral nematic systems were produced in the form of elastomer film and microparticle optical reflectors, and in some cases the dopant was extracted to produce chiral imprinted elastomers. Chiral doped monomer systems with tuneable selective reflection colours across the whole visible spectrum at room temperature are reported along with their responsiveness to temperature and pressure. Elastomer microparticles exhibited high quality optical properties after polymerisation, due to preserved internal mesogen alignment stemming from the particle size, monodispersity and overall quality of the droplets produced using our microfluidic method.

We study the pointwise multiplier property of the characteristic function of the half-space on weighted mixed-norm anisotropic vector-valued function spaces of Bessel potential and Triebel-Lizorkin type., 15 pages

A method for the calculation of the acoustic performance of open-cell foammaterials is discussed. From a known micro-structural geometry and theconstituent material, the relevant acoustic properties are computed using apreviously published analytical method for the calculation of the dynamicdrag impedance and a previously published method for the calculation of theelastic moduli. These have been combined and are here used to generate thenecessary inputs to a fully anisotropic state space formulation of a TransferMatrix Method (TMM) based solution where only geometry and materialproperties need to be known. From the TMM solution, the sound absorptionand sound transmission loss of multilayer panels including anisotropic opencell materials is estimated. It is shown that the proposed method may beused in an optimization of sound absorption in multi-layer porous materials, where the different layers can have different degrees of anisotropy in theiracoustic and elastic properties. In the current work, the micro-geometry is based on the Kelvin cellwhich then is modified to achieve a controlled degree of anisotropy. The method has been validated by comparing the absorption and sound transmission loss for isotropic porous materials have been compared to equivalent structures computed with a commercial TMM mode, including a porous material which has been fully characterized with regard to previously published Johnson-Champoux-Allard parameters. In addition the calculated dynamic drag impedance has been compared to measurements conductedon a series of small samples with a defined 3D printed micro geometry forwhich the static flow resistivity has been measured. The method in general underestimates the dynamic drag impedance compared to the static flowresistivity due to not including the contributions to the losses from the constrictions between the struts close to the cell vertices. All verification showa good degree of agreement, confirming that for open-cell porous materials with reasonably high porosity the method may be used for design of novel acoustic treatments. En metod för beräkning av de akustiska egenskaperna hos skummaterialmed öppna celler diskuteras. Baserat på en känd mikrogeometri and de ingående materialen kan de relevanta akustiska egenskaperna beräknas. Metoden bygger på arbeten för dynamiskt flödesmotstånd och beräkning avelastiska egenskaper som publicerats tidigare. De egenskaperna ¨ar inkluderade i en fullt anisotrop formulering för lösning av en state space TransferMatrix Method (TMM) beräkning, där endast geometri och material krävs som indata. Från TMM-beräkningen kan ljudabsorption och ljudtransmission i konstruktioner med flera skikt uppskattas. Möjligheten att göra optimering av ljudabsorption av flera kombinerade skikt med olika grader avanisotropi i beräknade akustiska och styvhetsegenskaper har visats. I detta arbete baseras mikrogeometrin på en Kelvincell-geometri, som modifierats för att uppnå en definerad grad av anisotropi. Metoden har validerats genom att jämföra absorption och ljudtransmission av ekvivalenta strukturer beräknade med ett kommersiellt TMM-program på ett skum-material som karaktäriserats med avseende på publicerade Johnson-Champoux-Allard parametrar. Dessutom har de beräknade dynamiska flödesmotstånden jämförts medmätningar av statiskt flödesmotstånd på små prov tillverkade med 3D-printer. Metoden underskattar generellt flödesmotståndet jämfört med det uppmätta statiska flödesmotståndet eftersom inverkan av trånga sektioner mellan mikro-strävorna negligeras. All verifiering visar en god nivå av överensstämmelse och bekräftar att metoden skulle kunna användas för att göra nya typer av akustiska konstruktioner i flera lager med porösa material med öppna celler och relativt hög porositet . QC 220905 VinnExcellence Center for ECO2 Vehicle design, VinnExcellence Center for ECO2 Vehicle design

Electrospun nanofibers can be effectively used as a surrogate for extracellular matrices (ECMs). However, in the context of cellular mechanobiology, their mechanical performances could be enhanced by using nanofibrous materials with a high level of structural organization. Herein, we developed multifibrillar yarns with superior mechanical performance based on biocompatible polyacrylonitrile as surrogate ECM. Nearly-perfect aligned nanofibers along with the axis of the multifibrillar yarn were prepared. These highly aligned yarns exhibit high strength, high toughness, good stress relaxation behavior, and are robust enough for technical or medical applications. Further, we analyzed the influence of the highly aligned-hierarchical topological structure of the material on cell proliferation and cell orientation using cells derived from epithelial and connective tissues. Compared to non-oriented electrospun multifibrillar yarns and flat films, the well-ordered topology in the electrospun polyacrylonitrile multifibrillar yarns triggers an improved proliferation of fibroblasts and epithelial cells. The fibroblast acquired an elongated morphology analogous to their behavior in the natural ECM. Hence, this heterogeneous multifibrillar material could be used to restore or reproduce the ECM for tissue engineering applications, notably in the skeletal muscle and tendon. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

The past decade has observed a significant surge in efforts to discover biological systems for the fabrication of metal nanoparticles. Among these methods, plant-mediated synthesis has garnered sizeable attention due to its rapid, cost-effective, environmentally benign single-step procedure. This study explores a step-wise, room-temperature protocol for the synthesis of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) using Carallia brachiata, a mangrove species from the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia. The effects of various reaction parameters, such as incubation time, metal ion concentration, amount of extract and pH, on the formation of stable colloids were monitored using UV-visible (UV-Vis) absorption spectrophotometry. Our findings revealed that the physicochemical properties of the AuNPs were significantly dependent on the pH. Changing the pH of the plant extract from acidic to basic appears to have resulted in a blue-shift in the main characteristic feature of the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) band, from 535 to 511 nm. The high-resolution-transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM) and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) images revealed the morphologies of the AuNPs synthesized at the inherent pH, varying from isodiametric spheres to exotic polygons and prisms, with sizes ranging from 10 to 120 nm. Contrarily, an optimum pH of 10 generated primarily spherical-shaped AuNPs with narrower size distribution (8–13 nm). The X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis verified the formation of AuNPs as the diffraction patterns matched well with the standard value of a face-centered cubic (FCC) Au lattice structure. The Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectra suggested that different functional groups are involved in the biosynthetic process, while the phytochemical test revealed a clear role of the phenolic compounds. The reduction of 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) was selected as the model reaction for evaluating the catalytic performance of the green-synthesized AuNPs. The catalytic activity of the small, isotropic AuNPs prepared using basic aqueous extract was more effective than the nanoanisotrops, with more than 90% of 4-NP conversion achieved in under an hour with just 3 mg of the nanocatalyst.

There are three subfamilies of patatin-related phospholipase A (pPLA) group of genes: pPLAI, pPLAII, and pPLAIII. Among the four members of pPLAIIIs (α, β, γ, δ), the overexpression of three isoforms (α, β, and δ) displayed distinct morphological growth patterns, in which the anisotropic cell expansion was disrupted. Here, the least studied pPLAIIIγ was characterized, and it was found that the overexpression of pPLAIIIγ in Arabidopsis resulted in longitudinally reduced cell expansion patterns, which are consistent with the general phenotype induced by pPLAIIIs overexpression. The microtubule-associated protein MAP18 was found to be enriched in a pPLAIIIδ overexpressing line in a previous study. This indicates that factors, such as microtubules and ethylene biosynthesis, are involved in determining the radial cell expansion patterns. Microtubules have long been recognized to possess functional key roles in the processes of plant cells, including cell division, growth, and development, whereas ethylene treatment was reported to induce the reorientation of microtubules. Thus, the possible links between the altered anisotropic cell expansion and microtubules were studied. Our analysis revealed changes in the transcriptional levels of microtubule-associated genes, as well as phospholipase D (PLD) genes, upon the overexpression of pPLAIIIγ. Overall, our results suggest that the longitudinally reduced cell expansion observed in pPLAIIIγ overexpression is driven by microtubules via transcriptional modulation of the PLD and MAP genes. The altered transcripts of the genes involved in ethylene-biosynthesis in pPLAIIIγOE further support the conclusion that the typical phenotype is derived from the link with microtubules.

Here we studied Bianchi type-I cosmological models with massive strings in general relativity in five dimensional space time. Out of the two different cases obtained here, one case leads to a five dimensional Bianchi type-I string cosmological model in general relativity while the other yields the vacuum Universe in general relativity in five dimensional space time. The physical and geometrical properties of the model Universe are studied and compared with the present day’s observational findings. It is observed that our model is anisotropic, expanding, shearing, and decelerates at an early stage and then accelerates at a later time. The model expands along x, y, and z axes and the extra dimension contracts and becomes unobservable at t → ∞. We also observed that the sum of the energy density (ρ) and the string tension density (λ) vanishes (ρ + λ = 0).

The increasing application of aluminum alloy, in combination with the growth in the complexity of components, provides new challenges for the numerical modeling of sheet materials. The material elastic–plasticity constitutive model is the most important factor affecting the accuracy of finite element simulation. The mixed hardening constitutive model can more accurately represent the real hardening characteristics of the material plastic deformation process, and the accuracy of the material property-related parameters in the constitutive model directly affects the accuracy of finite element simulation. Based on the Hill48 anisotropic yield criterion, combined with the Voce isotropic hardening model and the Armstrong–Frederic nonlinear kinematic hardening model, a mixed hardening constitutive model that considers material anisotropy and the Bauschinger effect was established. Analysis of the tension–compression experiment on the sheet using finite element method. Using the finite element model, the optimum geometry of the tension–compression experiment sample was determined. The cyclic deformation stress–strain curve of the 2A11 aluminum alloy sheet was obtained by a cyclic tensile–compression test, and the material characteristic parameters in the mixed hardening model were accurately determined. The reliability and accuracy of the established constitutive model of anisotropic mixed hardening materials were verified by the finite element simulation and by testing the cyclic tensile–compression problem, the springback problem, and the sheet in bending, unloading, and reverse bending problems. The tensile–compression experiment is an effective method to directly and accurately obtain the characteristic parameters of constitutive model materials.

Accurate predictions of the failure behaviors of quasi-brittle materials are of practical significance to underground engineering. In this work, a novel anisotropic damage model is proposed based on continuous damage mechanics. The anisotropic damage model includes a two-parameter parabolic-type failure criterion, a stiffness degradation model that considers anisotropic damage, and damage evolution equations for tension and shear, respectively. The advantage of this model is that the degradation of elastic stiffness only occurs in the direction parallel to the failure surface for shear damage, avoiding the interpenetration of crack surfaces. In addition, the shear damage evolution equation is established based on the equivalent shear strain on the failure face. A cyclic iterative method based on the proposed anisotropic damage model was developed to numerically simulate the fracture process of quasi-brittle materials. The developed model and method are important because the ready-made finite element software is difficult to simulate the anisotropic damage of quasi-brittle materials. The proposed anisotropic damage model was tested against a conventional damage model and validated against two benchmark experiments: uniaxial and biaxial compression tests and Brazilian splitting tests. The results demonstrate that the proposed anisotropic damage model simulates the mesoscale damage mode, macroscale fracture modes, and strength characteristics more effectively and accurately than conventional damage models.

We obtain some nonlocal characterizations for a class of variable exponent Sobolev spaces arising in nonlinear elasticity, in the theory of electrorheological fluids as well as in image processing for the regions where the variable exponent $p(x)$ reaches the value $1$., 15 pages

There are three subfamilies of patatin-related phospholipase A (pPLA) group of genes: pPLAI, pPLAII, and pPLAIII. Among the four members of pPLAIIIs (α, β, γ, δ), the overexpression of three isoforms (α, β, and δ) displayed distinct morphological growth patterns, in which the anisotropic cell expansion was disrupted. Here, the least studied pPLAIIIγ was characterized, and it was found that the overexpression of pPLAIIIγ in Arabidopsis resulted in longitudinally reduced cell expansion patterns, which are consistent with the general phenotype induced by pPLAIIIs overexpression. The microtubule-associated protein MAP18 was found to be enriched in a pPLAIIIδ overexpressing line in a previous study. This indicates that factors, such as microtubules and ethylene biosynthesis, are involved in determining the radial cell expansion patterns. Microtubules have long been recognized to possess functional key roles in the processes of plant cells, including cell division, growth, and development, whereas ethylene treatment was reported to induce the reorientation of microtubules. Thus, the possible links between the altered anisotropic cell expansion and microtubules were studied. Our analysis revealed changes in the transcriptional levels of microtubule-associated genes, as well as phospholipase D (PLD) genes, upon the overexpression of pPLAIIIγ. Overall, our results suggest that the longitudinally reduced cell expansion observed in pPLAIIIγ overexpression is driven by microtubules via transcriptional modulation of the PLD and MAP genes. The altered transcripts of the genes involved in ethylene-biosynthesis in pPLAIIIγOE further support the conclusion that the typical phenotype is derived from the link with microtubules.

Broadband photodetectors have attracted substantial attention in recent years. The ternary chalcogenide Ta2NiSe5 is a layered material with a direct narrow-band gap (Eg ~ 0.33 eV) which possesses greatly potential to broadband photodetectors. Here, high-quality bulk Ta2NiSe5 was synthesized by Chemical Vapor Transport (CVT) method. We demonstrate a photodetector based on exfoliated Ta2NiSe5 nanoflake, which exhibits a broadband photo-response from 405 nm to 4300 nm. Meanwhile, its main characteristics are superior to other typical 2D materials: high responsivity ~198.1 A W−1 at 1350 nm and ultrafast response time of ~27.4 µs. Long-time photocurrent reproducibility shows that the photodetector has excellent stability under atmosphere. Furthermore, the scanning photocurrent mapping reveals the photoconductive mechanism of Ta2NiSe5 photodetector. In addition, the anisotropic ratio of the photocurrent is ~1.46. The broadband photodetection, high responsivity, anisotropic and environmental stability achieved simultaneously in Ta2NiSe5 photodetector, which are promising for neotype electronics and optoelectronics field.

The movement of isotropic and anisotropic particles of iron and graphite within the polymer matrix was predicted and examined by the COMSOL simulation method. The interfacial adhesion of filler particles within the matrix was investigated under surface features observation. Carbonyl Iron (CI) particles, considered to be regular with a uniform size of (1–5 µm), were mixed with irregular particles of graphite (20–150 µm) with 30 V% in quantity in a silicone rubber matrix. The particle–matrix and particle–particle interactions were analyzed from the inner surface features. The drag of non-spherical particles and particle Reynolds numbers (Rep) were taken into consideration in point force models for both the Stokes (Rep ≪ 1) and Newton regime for particle shape. Newton regime is based on the aspect ratio for particles with regular and irregular shapes. The boundary area of the irregular particles holds like an anchor inside the polymer matrix for strong adhesion; however, regular particles have partial attachment due to the gravitational pull of attraction from the bottom contact points. However, uniform distribution of isotropic particles has been observed in comparison to the anisotropic particles within the polymer matrix.

Polaritons in anisotropic van der Waals materials (AvdWMs), with either hyperbolic or elliptical topologies, have garnered significant attention due to their ability of field confinement and many useful applications in in-plane polariton nanophotonics, including directional guiding, canalization, and hyperlensing. Here, we obtain the dispersion relation of hybrid surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) supported by a parallel-plate waveguide composed of an AvdWM, as an example tungsten ditelluride, that is coupled with a graphene layer. Through analytical calculations and numerical simulations, we first investigate the impact of losses on the modal characteristics of SPPs supported by the AvdWM. We then show that the coupling of the anisotropic layer to a graphene sheet in a parallel-plate waveguide heterostructure allows one to control the in-plane propagation and dispersion topology of the hybrid SPPs by changing the spacer thickness and the graphene chemical potential. Moreover, it is found that owing to the different coupling regimes, this anisotropic-isotropic SPPs hybridization can enhance the propagation length and spatial localization of the guided modes. We believe this approach can lead to the realization of vdW heterostructures with improved functionalities for in-plane and out-of-plane infrared nanophotonics.

This paper presents the effect of the micro-sized particles on the storage modulus and durability characteristics of magnetorheological elastomers (MREs). The initial phase of the investigation is to determine any associations among the microparticles’ weight percent fraction (wt%), structure arrangement, and the storage modulus of MRE samples. In order to carry out this, both isotropic and anisotropic types of MRE samples consisting of the silicone rubber matrix and 50, 60, 70, 75, and 80 wt% microparticles of carbonyl iron fractions are prepared. It is identified from the magneto-rheometer that the increase in storage modulus and decrease in linear viscoelastic region limit are observed in varying consistency depending on wt% and particle arrangement. The consistency of this dependency feature is highlighted by superimposing all of the graphs plotted to create the proposed the samples’ behavior model. In response to increasing magnetic stimulation, a sample of 70 wt% microparticles with an isotropic arrangement is found to be significant and stable. The experimentally defined fraction is then used for the durability test as the second phase of the investigation. During this phase, the durability evaluation is subjected to stress relaxation for an extended period of time. After undergoing durability testing, storage modulus performance is decreased by 0.7–13% at various magnetic stimulation levels. This result directly indicates that the storage modulus characteristics of different forms of MRE are sensitive to the different iron particle fractions’ and microparticles’ alignment. Therefore, important treatments to alter the storage modulus can be undertaken before the practical implementation to accommodate any desired performance of MRE itself and MRE application systems.

In this paper, we used a self-developed anisotropic cubic core holder to test anisotropic relative permeability by the unsteady-states method, and introduced the anisotropic relative permeability to the traditional numerical simulator. The oil–water two-phase governing equation considering the anisotropic relative permeability is established, and the difference discretization is carried out. We formed a new oil–water two-phase numerical simulation method. It is clear that in a heterogeneous rock with millimeter to centimeter scale laminae, relative permeability is an anisotropic tensor. When the displacement direction is parallel to the bedding, the residual oil saturation is high and the displacement efficiency is low. The greater the angle between the displacement direction and the bedding strike, the lower the residual oil saturation is, the higher the displacement efficiency is, and the relative permeability curve tends towards a rightward shift. The new simulator showed that the anisotropic relative permeability not only affects the breakthrough time and sweep range of water flooding, but also has a significant influence on the overall water cut. The new simulator is validated with the actual oilfield model. It could describe the law of oil–water seepage in an anisotropic reservoir, depict the law of remaining oil distribution of a typical fluvial reservoir, and provide technical support for reasonable injection-production directions.