Kink instability of a highly deformable elastic cylinder

When a soft elastic cylinder is bent beyond a critical radius of curvature, a sharp fold in the form of a kink appears catastrophically at its compressed side while the tensile side remains smooth. The critical radius increases linearly with the diameter of the cylinder but remains independent of its material properties such as modulus; the maximum deflection at the location of the kink depends on both the material and geometric properties of the cylinder. The catastrophic dynamics of evolution of the kink depicts propagation of a shear wave from the location of the kink towards the edges signifying that kinking is an elastic response of the material which results in extreme localization of curvature. We have rationalized this phenomenon in the light of the classical Euler's buckling instability in slender elastic rods.     

A parametric investigation of the friction performance of PC‐ABS parts processed by FDM additive manufacturing process

The friction performance is an important factor of parts processed by fused deposition modeling (FDM) for various engineering applications. It is one type of failure made of surface contact. The proper use of FDM process parameters can bring a significant reduction in friction and the amount of wear, thereby leading to a reduction in the material waste. To date, very little studies have been performed in this area. This paper investigates the effect of FDM manufacturing parameters on the friction performance of polycarbonate‐acrylonitrile butadiene styrene prototypes processed by FDM using definitive screening design and partial least squares method. The observation of surface morphology was obtained by the scanning electron microscopy to examine the effect of process parameters on the microstructure. The experimental results have shown that layer thickness, air gap, raster angle, and build orientation are the most influential factors affecting the friction performance of FDM manufactured parts. The proposed approach presented in this study provides an impetus to develop analytical modeling and functional relationships between FDM manufacturing parameters and friction performance. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Estimation of distribution coefficient of polonium in geological matrices around uranium mining site

In case of ground (groundwater) contamination or contaminants release from the disposal modules (facilities) to the geo-environment, the fate of contaminant transport is mainly governed by the parameter called distribution (partition) coefficient, K _d. It is a measure of sorption of contaminants to soils. For that the sorption of polonium in soil were carried out using laboratory batch method in different soil samples collected from different places around Turamdih uranium mining site. The kinetics of polonium sorption were also carried out at different time intervals which clearly indicates that sorption equilibrium for polonium achieved at around 72 h. The K _d for polonium varies from 1,443 to 7,501.3 L/kg in soil samples. Chemical characterization of soil and ground water samples were carried out to know the effect of various chemical parameters with distribution coefficient of polonium.     

Phytochemical investigation and antifeedant activity of Premna latifolia leaves

The essential oil of Premna latifolia Roxb. was obtained by hydrodistillation of fresh leaves of the plant having an oil yield of 0.05%, both non-polar and essential oil were analysed by GC and GC-MS. Hexane fraction of the leaves of P. latifolia was transesterified and analysed by GC and GC-MS, 40 non-polar components were identified comprising 89.3%. The most abundant fatty acid constituents were hexadecanoic acid (25.04%), 8,11,14-docosatrienoic acid (13.62%), octadecanoic acid (6.82%), 9,12-octadecadienoic acid (4.19%) and 29 components were investigated in the essential oil which comprises 78.1%. The most abundant oil constituents were 1-octen-3-ol (35.69%), terpendiol II (7.19%), δ-guaiene (7.49%) 2-undecanone (4.80%) and α-pinene (3.27%). Different extracts were also tested against polyphagous crop pest Spodoptera litura for antifeedant activity. Essential oil showed maximum growth reduction of 56.83% followed by chloroform extract of 43.93%.     

An ?-uniform hybrid scheme for singularly perturbed delay differential equations

In this paper, a singularly perturbed delay differential equation of first order has been considered. The problem is solved by using a hybrid scheme on a Shishkin mesh. The difference scheme is shown to converge to the continuous solution uniformly with respect to the perturbation parameter. Truncation errors are obtained. Finally, numerical experiments are carried out on a test problem, confirming the effectiveness of the proposed technique.     

Single-particle and collective excitations in quantum wires made up of vertically stacked quantum dots: zero magnetic field

We report on the theoretical investigation of the elementary electronic excitations in a quantum wire made up of vertically stacked self-assembled InAs/GaAs quantum dots. The length scales (of a few nanometers) involved in the experimental setups prompt us to consider an infinitely periodic system of two-dimensionally confined (InAs) quantum dot layers separated by GaAs spacers. The resultant quantum wire is characterized by a two-dimensional harmonic confining potential in the x-y plane and a periodic (Kronig-Penney) potential along the z (or the growth) direction within the tight-binding approximation. Since the wells and barriers are formed from two different materials, we employ the Bastard's boundary conditions in order to determine the eigenfunctions along the z direction. These wave functions are then used to generate the Wannier functions, which, in turn, constitute the legitimate Bloch functions that govern the electron dynamics along the direction of periodicity. Thus, the Bloch functions and the Hermite functions together characterize the whole system. We then make use of the Bohm-Pines' (full) random-phase approximation in order to derive a general nonlocal, dynamic dielectric function. Thus, developed theoretical framework is then specified to work within a (lowest miniband and) two-subband model that enables us to scrutinize the single-particle as well as collective responses of the system. We compute and discuss the behavior of the eigenfunctions, band-widths, density of states, Fermi energy, single-particle and collective excitations, and finally size up the importance of studying the inverse dielectric function in relation with the quantum transport phenomena. It is remarkable to notice how the variation in the barrier- and well-widths can allow us to tailor the excitation spectrum in the desired energy range. Given the advantage of the vertically stacked quantum dots over the planar ones and the foreseen applications in the single-electron devices and in the quantum computation, it is quite interesting and important to explore the electronic, optical, and transport phenomena in such systems.     

Orlicz Figà – Talamanca Herz algebras and invariant means

The aim of this paper is to initiate a systematic study of the Orlicz Figà – Talamanca Herz algebras on locally compact groups. We also introduce and study invariant means on the dual of these algebras.     

Citrate - Nitrate route for the synthesis and characterization of TAG using sol-gel techniques

Terbium Aluminum Garnet (TAG) is an important optically active material and is one of the best materials known for the fabrication of optical isolators. TAG has a large Verdet constant and has good transmission in the region of 350–1500 nm of the electromagnetic spectrum. It is also known that TAG melts incongruently at 1840°C. This makes efficient synthesis of TAG important and challenging and forms the motivation of the present work to develop techniques for the synthesis of TAG at lower temperatures. In the present work we report the synthesis of TAG using sol-gel techniques following the citrate-nitrate route. The prepared sample is sintered at various temperatures in presence of air and characterized using X-ray diffraction, FT-IR spectroscopy, energy dispersive X-ray Analysis and the morphology is observed using the scanning electron microscopy.     

Two-step single-colour photoionization spectroscopy of atomic uranium

The single-colour photoionization spectrum of atomic uranium is recorded in the spectral region from 366 to 371 nm. Most of the 43 observed resonances are found to be associated with the two-step photoionization process. Based on known energy levels seven new transitions have been proposed. Three of these transitions originate either from the ground state or the lowest metastable state at 620 cm^–1.     

A finite element model for nonlinear behaviour of piezoceramics under weak electric fields

It has been experimentally observed that piezoceramic materials exhibit different types of nonlinearities under different combinations of electric and mechanical fields. When excited near resonance in the presence of weak e to a Duffinor such as jump phenomena and presence of superharmonics in the response spectra. There has not been much work in the litrature to model these types of nonlinearities. Some authors have developed one-dimensional models for the above phenomenon and derived closed-form solutions for the displacement response of piezo-actuators. However, the generalized three-dimensional (3-D) formulation of electric enthalpy, the variational formulation and the FEM implementation have not yet been addressed, which are the focus of this paper. In this work, these nonlinearities have been modelled in a 3-D piezoelectric continuum using higher order quadratic and cubic terms in the generalized electric enthalpy density function. The coupled nonlinear finite element equations have been derived using variational formulation. A special linearization technique for assembling the nonlinear matrices and solution of the resulting nonlinear equations has been developed. The method has been used for simulating the nonlinear frequency response of a lead zirconate titanate plate excited near its first in-plane vibration resonance frequency with sinusoidal excitations of different electric field strengths. The results have been compared with those of the experiment.