Spectral analysis of the flow sound interaction at a bias flow liner

The interaction between the flow field and the sound field is responsible for the sound absorption at perforated acoustic liners with bias flow and has to be investigated contactlessly. Based on the optically measured flow velocity spectrum, an energy analysis was performed. As a result, the generation of broadband flow velocity fluctuations in the shear layer surrounding the bias flow caused by the flow sound interaction has been observed. In addition, the magnitude of this acoustically induced flow velocity oscillation exhibits a correlation with the acoustic dissipation coefficient of the bias flow liner. This supports the assumption that an energy transfer between the flow field and the sound field is responsible for the acoustic damping.     

Local zone wise elastic and plastic properties of electron beam welded Ti–6Al–4V alloy using digital image correlation technique: A comparative study between uniform stress and virtual fields method

Joining of materials using welding results in the formation of material zones with varying microstructure across the weld. Extraction of the mechanical properties of those individual heterogeneous zones are important in designing components and structures comprised of welds. In this study, the zone wise local extraction of the elastic and plastic properties of an electron beam welded Ti–6Al–4V titanium alloy has been carried out using both the uniform stress method (USM) and the virtual fields method (VFM) involving digital image correlation (DIC) technique. The surface strain field obtained using DIC technique from a transverse weld specimen tensile testing is used for extracting the zone wise strain evolution. Initially, using uniform stress assumption, zone wise full range stress–strain curves are extracted. In USM methodology, the elastic and plastic material models are fitted to the zone wise stress–strain curves and required parameters are extracted from it. But inherent disadvantage is lot of images need to be processed for the parameter extraction. Recently, VFM is gaining lot of popularity in characterization domain as it is robust, accurate and faster. VFM is based on the principle of virtual work where, the weak form of local equilibrium equations and kinematically admissible virtual displacement fields are utilized for parameter extraction. Hollomon׳s power law is used here as the hardening rule. Young׳s modulus, Poisson׳s ratio, yield stress, strength coefficient and strain hardening exponent are the parameters extracted zone wise using both USM and VFM. A Vicker׳s microhardness measurement is also conducted across the weld zone towards mapping the strength behavior. Fusion zone has reported higher yield strength, strength coefficient and Poisson׳s ratio. Young׳s modulus value is found decreasing from base metal towards the fusion zone. The trend observed in parameter variation across the weld zone obtained by both USM and VFM compares very well. Due to various advantages associated with VFM technique it is generally recommended for parameter extraction.     

An evaluation method for measuring SPL and mode shape of tire cavity resonance by using multi-microphone system

This paper presents an evaluation method for measuring the sound pressure level and mode shapes of tire cavity resonance by using a multi-microphone system. Two commercial tires were evaluated to compare abilities of noise suppression by means of this method in the range of the first resonance from 200 to 260 Hz. One tire was a special tire that suppresses tire cavity resonance with polyurethane foam mounted on the tire’s inner liner. The other tire was a normal tire with no polyurethane foam. The mode shape change from vertical to horizontal direction in both tires. However, the sound pressure level of the special tire was lower than the normal tire at all frequencies.     

Sound absorption properties of polyurethane foams derived from crude glycerol and liquefied coffee grounds polyol

The main objective of this study was to evaluate the sound absorption properties of rigid polyurethane foams (PUFs) produced from crude glycerol (CG) and/or liquefied coffee grounds derived polyol (POL). The lignin content of POL proved to have a major influence on the structure and mechanical properties of the foams. Indeed, the POL content increased the cell size of the foams and their stiffness, which subsequently influenced the sound absorption coefficients. The POL derived foam has slightly higher sound absorption coefficient values at lower frequencies, while the CG foam has higher sound absorption coefficient values at higher frequencies. In turn, the foam prepared using a 50/50 mixture of polyols presents slightly higher sound absorption coefficient values in the medium frequencies range due to a balance between the cell structure and the mechanical properties. The results obtained seem to suggest that the mechanisms involved in sound wave absorption depend on the formulation used to prepare the foams. Additionally higher POL contents improved the thermal stability of PUFs as well as their mechanical properties. From this work the suitability of CG and/or POL derived PUFs as sound absorbing materials has been proven.     

Bipartite flocking for multi-agent systems

This paper addresses the bipartite flock control problem where a multi-agent system splits into two clusters upon internal or external excitations. Using structurally balanced signed graph theory, LaSalle’s invariance principle and Barbalat’s Lemma, we prove that the proposed algorithm guarantees a bipartite flocking behavior. In each of the two disjoint clusters, all individuals move with the same direction. Meanwhile, every pair of agents in different clusters moves with opposite directions. Moreover, all agents in the two separated clusters approach a common velocity magnitude, and collision avoidance among all agents is ensured as well. Finally, the proposed bipartite flock control method is examined by numerical simulations. The bipartite flocking motion addressed by this paper has its references in both natural collective motions and human group behaviors such as predator–prey and panic escaping scenarios.     

Determinación de la presión sonora radiada por pistones circulares y anillos no planos usando un método numérico simplificado

Although the study of the sound pressure radiation from membranes and plates is not new, current and future applications have produced a large body of recent research in the field. Several works have been published on the radiation from general plane surfaces and some particular geometries such as rectangular, circular, elliptic and annular. However, the case of sound radiation from non-planar axisymmetric rings that could be applied to the design of coaxial loudspeakers has not received much attention. In this article, a simplified numerical approach for determining the sound pressure radiated from symmetric non-planar pistons and rings is presented. The method can also include those cases having a radially-symmetric velocity distribution.     

Anisotropic sound and shock waves in dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate

We study the propagation of anisotropic sound and shock waves in dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate in three dimensions (3D) as well as in quasi-two (2D, disk shape) and quasi-one (1D, cigar shape) dimensions using the mean-field approach. In 3D, the propagation of sound and shock waves are distinct in directions parallel and perpendicular to dipole axis with the appearance of instability above a critical value corresponding to attraction. Similar instability appears in 1D and not in 2D. The numerical anisotropic Mach angle agrees with theoretical prediction. The numerical sound velocity in all cases agrees with that calculated from Bogoliubov theory. A movie of the anisotropic wave propagation in a dipolar condensate is made available as supplementary material.     

Message passing interface and multithreading hybrid for parallel molecular docking of large databases on petascale high performance computing machines

A mixed parallel scheme that combines message passing interface (MPI) and multithreading was implemented in the AutoDock Vina molecular docking program. The resulting program, named VinaLC, was tested on the petascale high performance computing (HPC) machines at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. To exploit the typical cluster‐type supercomputers, thousands of docking calculations were dispatched by the master process to run simultaneously on thousands of slave processes, where each docking calculation takes one slave process on one node, and within the node each docking calculation runs via multithreading on multiple CPU cores and shared memory. Input and output of the program and the data handling within the program were carefully designed to deal with large databases and ultimately achieve HPC on a large number of CPU cores. Parallel performance analysis of the VinaLC program shows that the code scales up to more than 15K CPUs with a very low overhead cost of 3.94%. One million flexible compound docking calculations took only 1.4 h to finish on about 15K CPUs. The docking accuracy of VinaLC has been validated against the DUD data set by the re‐docking of X‐ray ligands and an enrichment study, 64.4% of the top scoring poses have RMSD values under 2.0 Å. The program has been demonstrated to have good enrichment performance on 70% of the targets in the DUD data set. An analysis of the enrichment factors calculated at various percentages of the screening database indicates VinaLC has very good early recovery of actives. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.