An experimental and statistical study of the behavior of the vibration field in two coupled lightweight wooden joist floors

The aim of this study was to evaluate the vibration level attenuation of a common wooden floor structure and to present the results together with the statistical precision of the evaluation. Linear regression was used to determine the attenuation rate in the two main directions of the floor structure. The probability for the attenuation rate to be zero was calculated. The attenuation rate was found to be high in the direction perpendicular to the beams with a probability to be zero lower than 0.001. In the direction parallel to the beams the attenuation rate was found to be close to zero.     

Numbers,scale and symbols: the public understanding of nanotechnology

Nanotechnology will be an increasing part of the everyday lives of most people in the world. There is a general recognition that few people understand the implications of the technology, the technology itself or even the definition of the word. This lack of understanding stems from a lack of knowledge about science in general but more specifically difficulty in grasping the size scale and symbolism of nanotechnology. A potential key to informing the general public is establishing the ability to comprehend the scale of nanotechnology. Transitioning from the macro to the nanoscale seems to require an ability to comprehend scales of one-billion. Scaling is a skill not common in most individuals and tests of their ability to extrapolate size based upon scaling a common object demonstrates that most individuals cannot scale to the extent needed to make the transition to nanoscale. Symbolism is another important vehicle to providing the general public with a basis to understand the concepts of nanotechnology. With increasing age, individuals are able to draw representations of atomic scale objects, but these tend to be iconic and the different representations not easily translated. Ball and stick models are most recognized by the public, which provides an opportunity to present not only useful symbolism but also a reference point for the atomic scale.     

Deflagration to detonation transition in fast flames and tracking with chemical explosive mode analysis

In the context of vapour cloud explosion, the flame acceleration process can lead to conditions promoting deflagration to detonation transition (DDT), potentially leading to increased damages in accidental scenarios. This study focuses on this phenomenon by performing simulations of detonation reinitiation for fast flames in the Chapman–Jouguet deflagration regime. It is obtained experimentally by the attenuation of an incident detonation by an array of obstacles. A primary objective of the paper is to demonstrate the ability of the numerical model to reproduce the major experimental trends, namely the variation of the reinitiation propensity for different initial pressures and blockage ratios (BRs). Chemical explosive mode analysis (CEMA) is also adapted to the context of this study, in order to identify locally the propagation regime and to provide insights on the reinitiation mechanism. An a priori validation of the CEMA methodology is first performed on relevant canonical one-dimensional configurations. Subsequently, ensembles of five realizations are computed at different initial pressures and BRs and compared to experimental data. They are shown to reproduce the major observed trends in terms of detonation reinitiation length with respect to the operating conditions, with significant variability from one realization to another. In addition, the reinitiation mechanism is also found to be consistent with experimental observations and a previous numerical study of the same configuration. The CEMA methodology adapted to this context is able to identify locally the different propagation regimes, and to track the highly reactive zones that coherently couple with transverse pressure perturbations, leading to the formation of a strongly reacting kernel which eventually triggers the detonation reinitiation.     

南海北部海域内波环境下声传播损失起伏统计特性

浅海内波会引起声传播能量随时间的起伏变化,进而影响水声设备的工作性能.本文利用2015年南海北部一次浅海声场起伏实验数据,对比分析了浅海线性内波和孤立子内波条件下的声传播损失统计特性.在孤立子内波条件下,声传播损失起伏明显加剧,可达11 dB,且分布明显展宽,相对于线性内波的环境,声传播损失起伏可增加5 dB.从简正波...     

Flavor symmetry,EMC results and the spin content of the proton

The analysis of the EMC result on the quark contribution to the spin of the proton has caused considerable confusion and is unnecessarily complicated because of the completely unjustified and incorrect use of SU(3) flavor symmetry to provide input on the proton wave function from hyperon decays. There is no reliable method for obtaining information on the proton spin structure from data on the couplings of currents to hyperons. Interesting peculiar results obtained without use of SU(3) and hyperon data show the crucial point to be the apparent contradiction between the contribution of valence u quarks to the proton spin observed in the axial vector contribution to nucleon beta decay and the failure of this contribution to appear in the conventional quark-parton interpretation of the EMC results. When input from hyperon data is not used this paradox can be resolved without requiring the quark contribution to the proton spin to be near zero, but it can be large only if it is due to the strange quarks, with the nonstrange quark contribution opposite to the spin of the proton.     

Logarithmic correction to the probability of capture for dissipatively perturbed Hamiltonian systems

Hamiltonian systems are analyzed with a double homoclinic orbit connecting a saddle to itself. Competing centers exist. A small dissipative perturbation causes the stable and unstable manifolds of the saddle point to break apart. The stable manifolds of the saddle point are the boundaries of the basin of attraction for the competing attractors. With small dissipation, the boundaries of the basins of attraction are known to be tightly wound and spiral-like. Small changes in the initial condition can alter the equilibrium to which the solution is attracted. Near the unperturbed homoclinic orbit, the boundary of the basin of attraction consists of a large sequence of nearly homoclinic orbits surrounded by close approaches to the saddle point. The slow passage through an unperturbed homoclinic orbit (separatrix) is determined by the change in the value of the Hamiltonian from one saddle approach to the next. The probability of capture can be asymptotically approximated using this change in the Hamiltonian. The well-known leading-order change of the Hamiltonian from one saddle approach to the next is due to the effect of the perturbation on the homoclinic orbit. A logarithmic correction to this change of the Hamiltonian is shown to be due to the effect of the perturbation on the saddle point itself. It is shown that the probability of capture can be significantly altered from the well-known leading-order probability for Hamiltonian systems with double homoclinic orbits of the twisted type, an example of which is the Hamiltonian system corresponding to primary resonance. Numerical integration of the perturbed Hamiltonian system is used to verify the accuracy of the analytic formulas for the change in the Hamiltonian from one saddle approach to the next. (c) 1995 American Institute of Physics.     

Fermi-liquid theory of the electron-electron interaction effects in disordered metals

Influence of the arbitrary strong interaction between the electrons on the thermodynamic and transport properties of disordered metals is considered. The contributions of the interaction in the diffusion channel to all of the quantities are shown to depend on only one Fermi-liquid interaction constant (to take interaction in the cooper channel into account one has to include one constant more). It is found very convenient to divide all of the diffusion corrections on the parts which correspond to different values of the total spin of the electron and hole j:j = 0 and j = 1. It is the interaction with j=1 that leads to magnetic field dependence of the diffusion contributions. In the presence of spin-dependent scattering of the electron only the contribution related to the interaction with j=0 are important. These contributions to all of the quantities are universal, i.e. they do not depend on any interaction constant.     

An investigation and modelling of energy dissipation through sloshing in an egg-shaped shell

Sloshing absorbers work on a similar principle to that of tuned vibration absorbers. A sloshing absorber consists of a tank, partially filled with liquid. The absorber is attached to the structure to be controlled, and relies on the structure's motion to excite the liquid. Consequently, a sloshing wave is produced at the liquid free surface possessing energy dissipative qualities to suppress excessive vibrations of the structure.The hen's egg has evolved to dissipate vibration energy rapidly to protect its contents. An uncooked hen's egg's capability to rapidly dissipate potentially harmful energy, is due to sloshing of its contents. Hence, there may be lessons to learn from the natural design of an egg which could be employed in the engineered (artificial) design of a sloshing absorber.The primary objective of this work is to identify the physical events responsible for effective energy dissipation in an eggshell, at different fill levels. A secondary objective is to demonstrate the suitability of the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method for numerical predictions in such an unusually shaped shell. Through numerical predictions, the possibility of modifying the egg's design to further encourage dissipation patterns is explored briefly. Simple experiments are also presented to check the validity of the numerical predictions.     

宽波段单色仪多级谱高精度波长定标

通常利用单色仪输出的单色光对空间遥感光谱仪进行波长定标。提出以空间遥感光谱仪的置信度为标准,来评价宽波段单色仪高精度波长定标精度的方法。通过对仪器精度的分析,分别求出单色仪的波长的重复性误差和偏差。应用高压汞灯的本征谱和光栅衍射多级谱作为定标谱线,避免更换灯源带来的误差。通过粗细定标相结合的方法,缩短扫描时间,并且运用高斯拟合对波峰进行精确定位,缩小误差。最后利用高次拟合得到的关系式,测出单色仪波长精度,计算出空间遥感光谱仪定标的置信度。以1.5 M单色仪为例,单色仪在200～840 nm波段内波长精度±0.016 nm,则空间遥感光谱仪的波长精度达到±0.050 nm的置信度为99.82%。     

Controlling Surface Interactions with Grafted Polymers

The interactions between surfaces modified with grafted polymers is studied theoretically. The aim of this work is to find polymer surface modifications that will result in localized attractive interactions between the surfaces. The practical motivation of the work is to find means to control the distance between bilayers and solid supports in supported membranes. Two theoretical approaches are used, the analytical treatment of Alexander and a molecular theory. It is found that grafting each end of the polymer to each surface results in an interaction with a well defined minimum. The location of the minima is found to be very close to the thickness of the polymer layer when the chains are grafted to only one of the surfaces. The predictions of the analytical theory are in excellent agreement with the molecular approach in this case. It is found that increasing the surface coverage increases the strength of the interaction. However, increasing the polymer chain length at fixed surface coverage results in a decrease of the free energy cost associated with separating the surfaces from their optimal distance. For the cases in which grafting to both surfaces is not possible, the molecular theory is used to study the effect of functionalizing segments of the chain to achieve an attractive well. It is found that by functionalizing the free end-groups of the polymers with segments attracted to the membrane, the range of the attractive interaction is significantly larger than the thickness of the unperturbed layer. Functionlizing the middle segments of the chains results in a shorter range attraction but of the same strength as in the end-functionalized layers. The optimal polymer modification is found to be such that the functionlized groups are attracted to the bare surface but are not attracted to the grafting surface. The relevance of the results to the design of experimental surface modifiers is discussed.     

Lumped-element technique for the measurement of complex density.

A novel lumped-element technique is employed to measure the complex density of a gas in circular pores. The complex density expresses the geometry-dependent viscous coupling between the gas and the pore walls and is related to the thermoacoustic function f(mu), or equivalently, F(lambdaV). The acoustic impedance of a compliant region coupled to a pore (or pore-array) is measured and the impedance of the compliant region is subtracted to yield the impedance of the pore(s) alone, which is directly related to F(lambdaV). Pores of different lengths are measured in order to eliminate end effects. Working down to very low frequencies achieves a wide range of values for the ratio of the viscous penetration depth to the mean pore size. The results agree very well with analytical solutions for circular pores. The technique is also applied to two porous foam materials. Comparing the results to previous measurements of the complex compressibility, it is shown that two different shape factors (or equivalently, characteristic dimensions) are required to account for the data.     

Dissipative relativistic fluid dynamics for nuclear collisions

In the context of the Müller-Israel-Stewart second-order theory for dissipative fluids due to Grad, we analyze the effects of thermal conduction and viscosity in heavy ion collisions. We contrast the results to those of the first-order theory due to Eckart and to Landau and Lifshitz and to those of perfect (ideal) fluid due to Euler. We study the energy density and entropy density evolution of a pion gas produced in the heavy ion collisions. The truncated version of the second-order theory is used to find the dissipative quantities.     

Superconducting energy gap anomalies in NbN films

Nine NbN films ranging in thickness from 0.02 to 0.03 μm were studied by measuring the temperature dependence from 1.5 K to over 20 K of the ultrasonic attenuation of 700 MHz surface acoustic waves. The resulting curves did not fit the predictions of BCS. When the curves were numerically inverted to show the temperature dependence that the superconducting energy gap would need to have to produce the observed attenuation, they were found to be nearly constant at a value less than half of the BCS value. An analysis prompted by the Anderson theories of 2-D localizations shows the attenuation per film thickness to be proportional to the logarithm of the thickness.     

On the forced response of waveguides using the wave and finite element method

The forced response of waveguides subjected to time harmonic loading is treated. The approach starts with the wave and finite element (WFE) method where a segment of the waveguide is modeled using traditional finite element methods. The mass and stiffness matrices of the segment are used to formulate an eigenvalue problem whose solution yields the wave properties of the waveguide. The WFE formulation is used to obtain the response of the waveguide to a convected harmonic pressure (CHP). Since the Fourier transform of the response to a general excitation is a linear combination of the responses to CHPs, the response to a general excitation can be obtained via an inverse Fourier transform process. This is evaluated analytically using contour integration and the residue theorem. Hence, the approach presented herein enables the response of a waveguide to general loading to be found by: (a) modeling a segment of the waveguide using finite element methods and post-processing it to obtain the wave characteristics, (b) using Fourier transform and contour integration to obtain the wave amplitudes and (c) using the wave amplitudes to find the response at any point in the waveguide. Numerical examples are presented.     

Limit of hanger linearity in suspension footbridge dynamics: A new section model

The mechanical behaviour of suspension bridges is characterised by nonlinearities due to the main cables geometric effects and to the inability of the hangers to sustain compressive loads. The nonlinear effects due to hanger slackening are expected to increase in suspension footbridges due to lightweight decks, that is, low dead to live load ratio, and to shallow plate-girder decks with very low flexural and torsional stiffness. In this paper a new section model is proposed to study the limit of hanger linearity in lightweight suspension footbridges. The model is inspired to a four degrees-of-freedom model already proposed in the literature, but is expressed with a new formalism that allows some interesting properties to be outlined. Specifically, the expression of a particular frequency, herein called relative antiresonance frequency, as a function of the model generalised properties is derived: if the system is loaded with a harmonic force having that frequency, the linear behaviour of the hangers is assured for every value of the force amplitude. The proposed section model is applied to a footbridge benchmark subject to the pedestrian harmonic load and results are compared with those obtained through a nonlinear dynamic analysis on a 3D Finite Element model of the bridge.     

Pressure sensitivity kernels applied to time-reversal acoustics

Sensitivity kernels for receptions of broadband sound transmissions are used to study the effect of the transmitted signal on the sensitivity of the reception to environmental perturbations. A first-order Born approximation is used to obtain the pressure sensitivity of the received signal to small changes in medium sound speed. The pressure perturbation to the received signal caused by medium sound speed changes is expressed as a linear combination of single-frequency sensitivity kernels weighted by the signal in the frequency domain. This formulation can be used to predict the response of a source transmission to sound speed perturbations. The stability of time-reversal is studied and compared to that of a one-way transmission using sensitivity kernels. In the absence of multipath, a reduction in pressure sensitivity using time reversal is only obtained with multiple sources. This can be attributed both to the presence of independent paths and to cancellations that occur due to the overlap of sensitivity kernels for different source-receiver paths. The sensitivity kernel is then optimized to give a new source transmission scheme that takes into account knowledge of the medium statistics and is related to the regularized inverse filter.     

Numeration as a Factor Relating the Quantum and Classical Mechanics of Ideal Gases

We show that the statistical approach to quantum mechanics allows to define a factor related to numeration theory in mathematical logic, and to apply this factor to the study of the nucleus of helium-5 and other light nuclei. In particular, the use of this hidden factor of numbering gives us, instead of the quantum picture of the Bohr orbits for small energies, the purely classical behavior of particles corresponding to the rotation of wave packets around the nucleus.     

Use of rigid-body motion for the investigation and estimation of the measurement errors related to digital image correlation technique

The aim of this work is to investigate the sources of errors related to digital image correlation (DIC) technique applied to strain measurements. The knowledge of such information is important before the measured kinematic fields can be exploited. After recalling the principle of DIC, some sources of errors related to this technique are listed. Both numerical and experimental tests, based on rigid-body motion, are proposed. These tests are simple and easy-to-implement. They permit to quickly assess the errors related to lighting, the optical lens (distortion), the CCD sensor, the out-of-plane displacement, the speckle pattern, the grid pitch, the size of the subset and the correlation algorithm. The errors sources that cannot be uncoupled were estimated by amplifying their contribution to the global error. The obtained results permit to address a classification of the error related to the used equipment. The paper ends by some suggestions proposed in order to minimize the errors.     

Multistep processes in nuclear reactions

Recent applications of the theory of Feshbach, Kerman and Koonin to analyse multistep processes in nuclear reactions are described, and illustrated by detailed comparisons with a range of experimental data for neutron and proton reactions. The techniques used to distinguish between the multistep direct, multistep compound, compound and collective contributions to the cross-sections are described, and their effectiveness assessed. Particular attention is devoted to recent analyses that take into account the transitions from the multistep direct to the multistep compound chain and also to those that evaluate the collective contributions to the continuum region. The variation of the effective nucleonnucleon interaction with incident energy and target nucleus is studied, and the possibility of a parameter-free calculation is discussed. The extensions of the theory to include multiparticle emission from the direct chain and also to studies of alpha-particle emission are described.