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Material parameter identification using constitutive models of elasticity, viscoelasticity, rateindependent plasticity and viscoplasticity has a long history with regard to homogeneous and inhomogeneous deformations. For example, uniaxial tensile tests, pure shear tests, torsion experiments of thin-walled tubes or biaxial tensile tests are used to obtain the material parameters by solving the inverse problem. Frequently, the parameters are determined by numerical optimization tools. In this paper, we investigate some very basic single- and two-layered examples regarding identifiability, because these tests are the basis for more complex geometrical and physical nonlinear problems. These simple examples are the uniaxial tensile/compression case, biaxial tensile tests of a cruciform specimen, torsion of a thin-walled tube, a thick-walled tube under internal pressure and the indentation test. For the thick-walled tube under internal and external pressure with an axial pre-strain with several layers, an analytical solution is provided directly suitable for programming. The aim is to get an understanding whether some problems lead to non-identifiable parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract  This paper presents an infrared image processing procedure that was developed to study calorific effects accompanying material fatigue. This method enables us to separately estimate patterns of thermoelastic and dissipative sources. Heat sources were estimated on the basis of partial derivative operators present in a local form of the heat equation by using a set of approximation functions that locally fits the temperature field and takes the spectral properties of the sought sources into account. Numerical examples were used to check the validity of the method and to highlight its capabilities along with its limits. The paper concludes with examples of thermal image processing extracted from fatigue tests performed on a dual-phase steel. The coupling sources were compared to the theoretical predictions induced by a basic thermoelastic model, while the heterogeneous character of the fatigue development was highlighted in terms of dissipation sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper concerns the flow of an incompressible, viscous fluid past a porous spherical particle enclosing a solid core, using particle-in-cell method. The Brinkman's equation in the porous region and the Stokes equation for clear fluid are used. At the fluid-porous interface, the stress jump boundary condition for the tangential stresses along with continuity of normal stress and velocity components are employed. No-slip and impenetrability boundary conditions on the solid spherical core have been used. The hydrodynamic drag force experienced by a porous spherical particle enclosing a solid core and permeability of membrane built up by solid particles with a porous shell are evaluated. It is found that the hydrodynamic drag force and dimensionless hydrodynamic permeability depends not only on the porous shell thickness, particle volume fraction γ and viscosities of porous and fluid medium, but also on the stress jump coefficient. Four known boundary conditions on the hypothetical surface are considered and compared: Happel's, Kuwabara's, Kvashnin's and Cunningham's (Mehta-Morse's condition). Some previous results for the hydrodynamic drag force and dimensionless hydrodynamic permeability have been verified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The solution space of many systems of ordinary differential (OD) or partial differential (PD) equations in engineering or mathematical physics 'can/cannot' be parameterized by a certain number of arbitrary functions behaving like potentials. Among the well-known OD examples, we recall that a classical control system is parametrizable if and only if it is controllable. One interesting PD case is concerned with continuum mechanics where the first-order stress equations admit a rather simple second-order parametrization by means of the single Airy function in dimension 2. The purpose of this paper is to apply the new techniques of 'Algebraic Analysis', a mixture of differential geometry and homological algebra, in order to give a positive and explicit answer concerning the possibility to obtain a first-order parametrization of the stress/couple-stress equations met in the study of Cosserat media. At the same time, as a corollary of the homological test involved, we shall give for the first time the reason for which the compatibility conditions (CC) for the deformation tensor in classical elasticity theory are 'second order' while the corresponding CC for the Cosserat fields are only 'first order' and explain why this order is equal to the order of the corresponding parametrization. Finally, a close link existing between Cosserat elasticity and Weyl electromagnetism is also provided within a conformal framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of new microtensile tests conducted to investigate the mechanical properties of submicron-thick freestanding copper films. The method, used in this study, allows the observation of materials response under uniaxial tensile loads with measurements of stress at strain rates up to 5.5 × 10−4/s. It also facilitates tension–tension fatigue experiments under a variety of mean stress conditions at cyclic loading frequencies to 20 Hz. The sample processes involve fabrication of a supporting frame with springs and alignment beams all made of electroplated nickel. Electroplating took place on top of a previously deposited sample rather than creating a structure by subtractive fabrication. Tensile sample loading is applied using a piezoelectric actuator. Load was measured using a capacitance gap sensor with a novel mechanical coupling to the sample. Tension–tension fatigue experiments were carried out with feedback to give load control. Fatigue tests were conducted on sputter-deposited 500 and 900 nm copper films with grain sizes ∼50 nm. Fatigue life reached 105 cycles at low mean load, which decreased with an increase in the mean load. The results indicate decreasing plasticity with increasing mean load. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a critical review of literature on fracture analysis of concrete structural components. Review includes various fracture models, tension softening models, methodologies for crack growth analysis and remaining life prediction. The widely used fracture models which are based on fictitious crack approach and effective elastic crack approach have been explained. Various tension softening models such as linear, bi-linear, tri-linear, etc. have been presented with appropriate expressions. From the critical review of models, it has been observed that some of the models have complex expressions involving many parameters. There is a need to develop some more generalised models. Studies have been conducted on crack growth analysis and remaining life prediction using linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM) principles. From the studies, it has been observed that there is significant difference between predicted and experimental observations. The difference in the values is attributed to not considering the tension softening effect in the analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The castings produced by the evaporative pattern casting (EPC) process have blow holes. The blow holes in EPC castings are because of the non-escape of the gas produced as a result of burning of polystyrene pattern in the sand mold. To overcome the problem of blow holes, the EPC process is combined with the vacuum (V)- process. The vacuum applied to EPC mold draws the decomposed gases and improves the casting quality produced by the EPC process. The developed hybrid process has been termed as the vacuum assisted evaporative pattern casting (VAEPC) process. The objective of this paper to investigates the effect of process parameters, i.e, degree of vacuum, pouring temperature, grainfineness number, amplitude of vibration and time of vibration on the impact strength of Al-7% Si alloy castings in VAEPC process. In order to evaluate the effect of selected process parameters, the response surface methodology (RSM) is used to formulate a mathematical model which correlates the independent process parameters with the desired impact strength. The central composite rotatable design has been used to conduct the experiments. The results indicate that the impact strength decreases with increases in the grainfineness number and pouring temperature. Whereas, it has an inverse relationship with amplitude of vibration, time of vibration and degree of vacuum. The best value of impact strength (2.34 N/mm2) has been obtained at 400 mm Hg degree of vacuum imposed, 650°C as pouring temperature, 60 as sand grainfineness number, 460 μm as amplitude of vibration, and 70 s as time of vibration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the decomposition theorem of elastic beams, two classes of exact stress states are investigated for the equations of three dimensional elasticity governing elastic beams in bending deformations with free faces. One of these is the analogue of the Levy solution for elastic plates and is designated as the interior state. The other complementary class corresponds to a decaying state and is designated as the Papkovich-Fadle state. The appropriate boundary conditions have been established recently for the prescribed data at the end edge of beams to induce only an exponentially decaying elastostatic state. The present paper describes how these conditions may be used to determine the boundary conditions of these two states. The decomposition theorem of beams effectively allows us to split the prescribed edge-data correctly into two parts, one for the interior solution components and the other for the decaying solution components. An analytical solution of the decaying state is formulated to verify the validity of our boundary conditions. The results in turn show that the necessary conditions for the Papkovich-Fadle state are also sufficient conditions. The boundary conditions obtained for the interior state show that the interior solution determined by these conditions is the correct solution in the beam interior up to exponentially small terms. Moreover, with the separate consideration of the interior and decaying solution components, a relatively simple analytical solution is often practical and desirable, and the numerical computation process is essentially simplified. As an illustrative example, the present results are applied to the end-loaded cantilever beam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares the efficiency of multibody system (MBS) dynamic simulation codes that rely on different implementations of linear algebra operations. The dynamics of an N-loop four-bar mechanism has been solved with an index-3 augmented Lagrangian formulation combined with the trapezoidal rule as numerical integrator. Different implementations for this method, both dense and sparse, have been developed, using a number of linear algebra software libraries (including sparse linear equation solvers) and optimized sparse matrix computation strategies. Numerical experiments have been performed in order to measure their performance, as a function of problem size and matrix filling. Results show that optimal implementations can increase the simulation efficiency in a factor of 2–3, compared with our starting classical implementations, and in some topics they disagree with widespread beliefs in MBS dynamics. Finally, advices are provided to select the implementation which delivers the best performance for a certain MBS dynamic simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we present a mixed stabilized finite element formulation that does not lock and also does not exhibit unphysical oscillations near the incompressible limit. The new mixed formulation is based on a multiscale variational principle and is presented in two different forms. In the first form the displacement field is decomposed into two scales, coarse-scale and fine-scale, and the fine-scale variables are eliminated at the element level by the static condensation technique. The second form is obtained by simplifying the first form, and eliminating the fine-scale variables analytically yet retaining their effect that results with additional (stabilization) terms. We also derive, in a consistent manner, an expression for the stabilization parameter. This derivation also proves the equivalence between the classical mixed formulation with bubbles and the Galerkin least-squares type formulations for the equations of linear elasticity. We also compare the performance of this new mixed stabilized formulation with other popular finite element formulations by performing numerical simulations on three well known test problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the stress and displacement distributions of continuously varying thickness beams with one end clamped and the other end simply supported under static loads. By introducing the unit pulse functions and Dirac functions, the clamped edge can be made equivalent to the simply supported one by adding the unknown horizontal reactions. According to the governing equations of the plane stress problem, the general expressions of displacements, which satisfy the governing differential equations and the boundary conditions at two ends of the beam, can be deduced. The unknown coefficients in the general expressions are then determined by using Fourier sinusoidal series expansion along the upper and lower boundaries of the beams and using the condition of zero displacements at the clamped edge. The solution obtained has excellent convergence properties. Comparing the numerical results to those obtained from the commercial software ANSYS, excellent accuracy of the present method is demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract  Dynamic failure events such as armor penetration and explosive fragmentation are too complex to be treated by classical single-crack continuum fracture mechanics. In such cases deformation and fracture result from multiple cracks, voids, and shear bands acting simultaneously and influencing one another’s evolution. An alternative “meso” fracture mechanics is needed that treats microfailure activity while permitting fast and inexpensive predictive computations. This paper discusses the approach and experiments that elucidate and quantify failure physics on the micron level. “Rosetta Stone” experiments that isolate a damage mode, produce statistical distributions of damage features, and “freeze in” damage at various stages of development are described and illustrated. The observations and data lead to equations describing nucleation and growth of cracks, voids, and shear bands. The resulting mesomechanical material failure models link the microworld with the macroworld and can be used in continuum hydrocodes for fast, efficient simulations of dynamic fracture scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a novel method for the quality evaluation of resistance spot welds. The evaluation is based on computer vision methods, which allow non-destructive on-line real-time processing. The input of the system is the image of a weld imprint on a metal band which covers the electrodes against wear and soiling. The shape and size of the structures within the imprint correlate with the nugget area and, therefore, allow an accurate estimation of the quality of the spot weld. The system segments the electrode imprint and computes the nugget area from the minimum and maximum axis of a fitted ellipse. This method does not need training samples to perform reliable quality estimation. Additionally, the used algorithms are easy to implement and efficient, which guarantees real-time ability. Since there is only a single low-cost camera needed, the hardware can be placed directly on the gun arm, which makes a fast evaluation possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is of great interest for economical and security reasons to understand the compressive properties of underground cemented paste backfill. In this paper, the stress–strain behaviours of cemented paste backfill (CPB) subjected to uniaxial compression and conventional triaxial tests are presented and discussed. The effect of CPB basic components, strength, ageing and confining pressure on the deformation behaviour of CPB are evaluated and discussed. The results show that the stress–strain behaviour of CPB is strongly influenced by the confinement, the age and strength of CPB, and its components. The increase in confining pressure leads to a change in the mode of failure, in the stiffness, and an increase in the strength. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents experimental results on the deformation, local buckling, and fracture of D16AT plates with two parallel edge cracks under tension. The distribution of strains and deflections over typical cross-sections and buckling modes are determined. The influence of the crack length and the distance between the cracks on the local buckling stresses and breaking stresses is studied. The effect of local buckling on the strength of the plate is evaluated [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is concerned with the determination of edge effect zone in a laminated composite with laminas subject to longitudinal compression. The dependence of the maximum decay length on the ratio between the period of external loading and the structure parameter is studied. The load period depends on the number of unloaded laminas. The decay of the edge effect is analyzed by numerically solving a boundary-value problem of elasticity for piecewise-homogeneous materials and using a quantitative decay criterion for the near-edge normal stresses [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polymer nanocomposites are particle-filled polymers in which at least one dimension of the dispersed particles is in the nanometer range. Dispersing nanosize particles in a polymer matrix induces superior mechanical properties compared to traditional macro fillers. Nanolevel reinforcement also affects the tribological properties and needs to be clearly understood before using in practical applications. Friction and wear characteristics of Nylon 6 nanocomposites under dry sliding conditions are reported in this paper. Nylon 6 with 5% organoclay was prepared by melt intercalation technique. The tensile behaviour is evaluated according to ASTM standards. A pin-on-disc type tribometer is used for evaluating the friction and wear behaviour. It is found that the Nylon 6 nanocomposites have superior tribological properties than unfilled polymer. Formation of uniform tenacious transfer layer by Nylon 6 nanocomposite on the counterface contributes to the reduction in coefficient of friction and specific wear rate. Nylon Nancomposites exhibited high wear resistance compared with the neat Nylon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reports on the results from analysis of some nonclassical fracture problems that allow for stresses along cracks. The results have been obtained by the author and his collaborators at the Institute of Mechanics (Kiev) since 1980 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The propagation behavior of Love waves in a piezoelectric layered structure with inhomogeneous initial stress is studied. Solutions of the mechanical displacement and electrical potential function are obtained for the isotropic elastic layer and transversely isotropic piezoelectric substrate, respectively, by solving the coupled electromechanical field equations. Firstly, effects of the inhomogeneous initial stress on the dispersion relations and phase velocity of Love wave propagation are discussed. Then the influence of the initial stress gradient coefficient on the stress, mechanical displacement and electrical potential distribution in the layer and the substrate is investigated in detail. The results reported in this paper are not only meaningful for the design of surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices with high performance, but also effective for evaluating the residual stress distribution in the layered structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyzes new publications on the brittle fracture mechanics of prestressed materials. It is found out that new scientific results published in the International Journal of Solids and Structures in 2002 are a particular case of the results obtained at the Institute of Mechanics 20 years ago [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the simultaneous identification of the Poisson ratio, the shear modulus and a circular cavity embedded in an isotropic linear elastic material from boundary measurements is investigated. The numerical method proposed is based on the least-squares minimisation of the errors between the measured and the calculated tractions on the outer boundary using the boundary element method (BEM). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]