State-space approach for an infinite medium with a spherical cavity based upon two-temperature generalized thermoelasticity theory and fractional heat conduction

This paper is concerned with the determination of the thermoelastic displacement, stress, conductive temperature, and thermodynamic temperature in an infinite isotropic elastic body with a spherical cavity. A general solution to the problem based on the two-temperature generalized thermoelasticity theory (2TT) is introduced. The theory of thermal stresses based on the heat conduction equation with Caputo’s time-fractional derivative of order α is used. Some special cases of coupled thermoelasticity and generalized thermoelasticity with one relaxation time are obtained. The general solution is provided by using Laplace’s transform and state-space techniques. It is applied to a specific problem when the boundary of the cavity is subjected to thermomechanical loading (thermal shock). Some numerical analyses are carried out using Fourier’s series expansion techniques. The computed results for thermoelastic stresses, conductive temperature, and thermodynamic temperature are shown graphically and the effects of two-temperature and fractional-order parameters are discussed.     

Simulation of human ischemic stroke in realistic 3D geometry

In silico research in medicine is thought to reduce the need for expensive clinical trials under the condition of reliable mathematical models and accurate and efficient numerical methods. In the present work, we tackle the numerical simulation of reaction–diffusion equations modeling human ischemic stroke. This problem induces peculiar difficulties like potentially large stiffness which stems from the broad spectrum of temporal scales in the nonlinear chemical source term as well as from the presence of steep spatial gradients in the reaction fronts, spatially very localized. Furthermore, simulations on realistic 3D geometries are mandatory in order to describe correctly this type of phenomenon. The main goal of this article is to obtain, for the first time, 3D simulations on realistic geometries and to show that the simulation results are consistent with those obtain in experimental studies or observed on MRI images in stroke patients.For this purpose, we introduce a new resolution strategy based mainly on time operator splitting that takes into account complex geometry coupled with a well-conceived parallelization strategy for shared memory architectures. We consider then a high order implicit time integration for the reaction and an explicit one for the diffusion term in order to build a time operator splitting scheme that exploits efficiently the special features of each problem. Thus, we aim at solving complete and realistic models including all time and space scales with conventional computing resources, that is on a reasonably powerful workstation. Consequently and as expected, 2D and also fully 3D numerical simulations of ischemic strokes for a realistic brain geometry, are conducted for the first time and shown to reproduce the dynamics observed on MRI images in stroke patients. Beyond this major step, in order to improve accuracy and computational efficiency of the simulations, we indicate how the present numerical strategy can be coupled with spatial adaptive multiresolution schemes. Preliminary results in the framework of simple geometries allow to assess the proposed strategy for further developments.     

A multi-objective hot-rolling scheduling problem in the compact strip production

This paper addresses a hot-rolling scheduling problem from compact strip production processes. At first, a mathematical model that consists of two coupled sub-problems is presented. The first sub-problem is the sheet-strip assignment problem that is about how to assign sheet-strips to rolling-turns with the objective of minimizing virtual sheet-strips. The second is the sheet-strip sequencing problem that is about how to sort the sheet-strips in each rolling-turn with the objective of minimizing the maximal changes in thickness between adjacent sheet-strips and the change times of the thickness so as to ensure high quality sheet-strips to be produced. And then, an improved hot-rolling scheduling heuristic is proposed to solve the sheet-strip assignment problem. A multi-objective evolutionary algorithm is developed to find the Pareto optimal or near-optimal solutions for the sheet-strip sequencing problem. Besides, the problem-specific knowledge is explored. The key operators including crossover operator, mutation operator and repair operator are designed for the multi-objective evolutionary algorithm. At last, extensive experiments based on real-world instances from a compact strip production process are carried out. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms for solving the hot-rolling scheduling problem under consideration.     

Efficient numerical realization of discontinuous Galerkin methods for temporal discretization of parabolic problems

We present an efficient and easy to implement approach to solving the semidiscrete equation systems resulting from time discretization of nonlinear parabolic problems with discontinuous Galerkin methods of order $r$ . It is based on applying Newton’s method and decoupling the Newton update equation, which consists of a coupled system of $r+1$ elliptic problems. In order to avoid complex coefficients which arise inevitably in the equations obtained by a direct decoupling, we decouple not the exact Newton update equation but a suitable approximation. The resulting solution scheme is shown to possess fast linear convergence and consists of several steps with same structure as implicit Euler steps. We construct concrete realizations for order one to three and give numerical evidence that the required computing time is reduced significantly compared to assembling and solving the complete coupled system by Newton’s method.     

A dynamic contact problem which reduces to a singular integral equation with two fixed singularities

The problem of the harmonic sheat oscillations of an elastic strip, coupled to an elastic half-space is considered. Using the method of integral transformations, the problem is reduced to a singular integral equation in the contact stresses in the region where the strip and the half-space are coupled when there are two fixed singularities at points bounding the integration intervals. One of the main results of this paper is the method of solving this equation numerically, taking into account the true singularity of the solution and based on the use of special quadrature formulae for singular integrals. The approximate solution obtained provides the possibility of numerically investigating the effect of the oscillation frequency and the ratio of the elastic constants of the strip and the half-space on the stress distribution in the contact area.     

An efficient method for solving non-linear singularly perturbed two points boundary-value problems of fractional order

In this paper, we discuss a numerical solution of a class of non-linear fractional singularly perturbed two points boundary-value problem. The method of solution consists of solving reduced problem and boundary layer correction problem. A series method is used to solve the boundary layer correction problem, and then the series solutions is approximated by the Pade’ approximant of order [m, m]. Some theoretical results are established and proved. Two numerical examples are discussed to illustrate the efficiency of the present scheme.     

FEM analysis for residual stress prediction in hot rolled steel strip during the run-out table cooling

With the increasing demand of higher quality hot rolled strips, flatness defects occurred on the strips during the cooling process on the run-out table have received significant attention and should be considered in the online shape control model. Non-uniform temperature distribution and cooling across the strip width are the main reasons why the strip becomes unflatten after cooling process although the strip is rolled flat at the finishing mill. A thermal, microstructural and mechanical coupling analysis model for predicting flatness change of steel strip during the run-out table cooling process was established using ABAQUS Finite Element Software. In this model, Esaka phase transformation kinetics model was employed to calculate the phase transformation, and coupled with temperature calculation by means of the user subroutine program HETVAL. An elasto-plasticity constitutive model of the material, in which conventional elastic and plastic strains, thermal strain, phase transformation strain and transformation induced plastic strain were taken into account, was derived and realized using the user subroutine program UMAT. The conclusion that the flatness of the steel strip will develop to edge wave defect under the functions of the different thermal and microstructural behaviors across strip width direction during the run-out table cooling procedure was acquired through the analysis results of this model. The calculation results of this analysis model agree with the actual measurements and observation, therefore this model has a high accuracy. To better control the flatness quality of hot rolled steel strip, the shape compensation control strategy of slight center wave rolling is proposed based on the analysis result. This control strategy has been verified by actual measurements, and applied in actual production.     

A nonlinear optimal control problem for the nonsteady temperature of a layer with constraints on the thermal stress

We propose a numerical method of constructing the optimal heating regime for a thermally stressed unbounded layer with constraints on the control and thermal stresses. Solving the nonlinear optimization problem for rapidity is reduced to solving the inverse problem of thermoelasticity. The results of numerical studies are presented. Translated fromMatematichni Metody i Fiziko-Mekhanichni Polya, Vol. 38, 1995.     

Application of differential quadrature to transport processes

The methodology and numerical solution of problems concerning transport processes via the method of differential quadrature are presented. Application of the method is demonstrated by solving a simple one-dimensional, time-dependent (transient) diffusion process involving an irreversible reaction without any flux across the end boundary. In addition, the same technique is used (for the first time to the authors' knowledge) to solve a steady-state problem. For this purpose, a convection-diffusion problem involving an irreversible reaction is considered. The demonstration is carried out in two ways, (1) using the Bellman et al. technique which employs approximation formulas for higher order partial derivatives derived by iterating the linear quadrature approximation for the first order partial derivative, and (2) using individual quadratures to approximate the partial derivatives of first, as well as higher orders, as suggested by Mingle. Both approaches give the same results; however, the latter saves an appreciable amount of iterative computing effort despite the fact that it requires separate weighting coefficients for each individual quadrature. Since the technique of differential quadrature can produce solutions with sufficient accuracy even when using as few as three discrete points, both the programming task and computational effort are alleviated considerably. For these reasons the differential quadrature approach appears to be very practical in solving a variety of problems related to transport phenomena.     

Numerical Approach for Assessing System Dynamic Availability Via Continuous Time Homogeneous Semi-Markov Processes

Continuous-time homogeneous semi-Markov processes (CTHSMP) are important stochastic tools to model reliability measures for systems whose future behavior is dependent on the current and next states occupied by the process as well as on sojourn times in these states. A method to solve the interval transition probabilities of CTHSMP consists of directly applying any general quadrature method to the N ² coupled integral equations which describe the future behavior of a CTHSMP, where N is the number of states. However, the major drawback of this approach is its considerable computational effort. In this work, it is proposed a new more efficient numerical approach for CTHSMPs described through either transition probabilities or transition rates. Rather than N ² coupled integral equations, the approach consists of solving only N coupled integral equations and N straightforward integrations. Two examples in the context of availability assessment are presented in order to validate the effectiveness of this method against the comparison with the results provided by the classical and Monte Carlo approaches. From these examples, it is shown that the proposed approach is significantly less time-consuming and has accuracy comparable to the method of N ² computational effort.     

Transient thermoelastic response in a cracked strip of functionally graded materials via generalized fractional heat conduction

This work is devoted to analyzing a thermal shock problem of an elastic strip made of functionally graded materials containing a crack parallel to the free surface based on a generalized fractional heat conduction theory. The embedded crack is assumed to be insulated. The Fourier transform and the Laplace transform are employed to solve a mixed initial-boundary value problem associated with a time-fractional partial differential equation. Temperature and thermal stresses in the Laplace transform domain are evaluated by solving a system of singular integral equations. Numerical results of the thermoelastic fields in the time domain are given by applying a numerical inversion of the Laplace transform. The temperature jump between the upper and lower crack faces and the thermal stress intensity factors at the crack tips are illustrated graphically, and phase lags of heat flux, fractional orders, and gradient index play different roles in controlling heat transfer process. A comparison of the temperature jump and thermal stress intensity factors between the non-Fourier model and the classical Fourier model is made. Numerical results show that wave-like behavior and memory effects are two significant features of the fractional Cattaneo heat conduction, which does not occur for the classical Fourier heat conduction.     

A mathematical model and two-stage heuristic for hot rolling scheduling in compact strip production

This paper addresses a new hot rolling scheduling problem from the compact strip production process, which is the mainstream production technology that is used worldwide for sheet strips. The problem is modeled as a combination of two coupled sub-problems. One sub-problem is a sheet strip assignment problem that assigns sheet strips to rolling turns with the constraints of safe values of different gauge levels, and the other is a sheet strip sequencing problem that decides the rolling sequence for all of the sheet strips in a rolling turn to form a particular parabolic shape in thickness. To solve this hot rolling scheduling problem, we present a novel approach that consists of a sheet strip assignment heuristic and a sheet strip sequencing heuristic. The sheet strip assignment heuristic minimizes the number of virtual sheet strips by generating rolling turns according to the ordered sheet strips with maximum gauge level and their safe values. The sheet strip sequencing heuristic minimizes the average change of the thickness of adjacent sheet strips by arranging a certain number of duplicate sheet strips to the increasing stage of a rolling turn. Extensive experiments based on both synthetic and real-world instances from a compact strip production process show the effectiveness of the proposed two-stage heuristic in solving the hot rolling scheduling problem.     

Implementation and comparison of various approaches to solving coupled thermal analysis problems on unstructured meshes

The features of a simplified approach to coupled thermal analysis problems as based on the integration of the energy equation for a viscous compressible gas are discussed. The gas velocity field is assumed to be frozen, and a single iteration is run to update it at each step of the coupling procedure. The equation describing the temperature distribution in a solid is discretized using the finite element method, while the Navier-Stokes equations describing the velocity and gas temperature distributions are discretized using the finite-volume method. The system of difference equations resulting from the finite-volume discretization is solved by applying a multigrid method and the generalized minimal residual method. The capabilities of the approaches developed are demonstrated by solving several model problems. The accelerations of the computational algorithm obtained with the use of the full and simplified approaches to the solution of the problem and various methods for solving the system of difference equations are compared.     

Microsopic Simulation of Thermally-Induced 2nd Order Eigenstresses in AlSi-Alloys

Due to the different coefficients of thermal expansion of aluminium and silicon, high residual stresses of second order occur in Al-Si alloys depending on the cooling rate during the molding process. In products as for example crank cases made of Al-Si alloys these residual stresses may cause microcracks. In the work at hand measurements of the eigenstresses in the single phases (i.e. residual stresses of second kind) performed via neutron diffractometry are compared to numerical simulations for a specific cooling rate. To this end a three-phase model is presented, which considers the α aluminium, the eutectic aluminium, and the silicon particles. The presented model is able to predict the residual stresses in the single phases within an elastoplastic framework. The simulation of tensile loadings of these structures are compared to experiments. The numerical computations are carried on stochastic geometry models by using a fast solver [1] for the Lippmann-Schwinger integral equation, which is based on the fast Fourier transformation. (© 2014 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Mid-frequency dynamic characteristics prediction of thin plate based on B-spline wavelet on interval finite element method

Due to low computing efficiency and dispersion errors, Traditional Finite Element Methods (TFEMs) based on general polynomials cannot provide efficient dynamic solutions within mid-frequency domain which is the gap between low and high frequency domain. It is also defined as mid-frequency problem in the field of sound and vibration analysis. To solve this problem, it is essential to overcome these two disadvantages simultaneously based on much better computing efficiency and numerical stability. Fortunately, due to the multi-scale/multi-resolution features, the c₁ type Wavelet Finite Element Methods (WFEMs) own much better computing efficiency and numerical stability. Therefore, WFEMs will be introduced for dealing with the low computing efficiency and dispersion errors and solving the mid-frequency problem based on multi-element analysis. But, due to the complex nodes numbering and Degree of Freedoms (DOFs) numbering, the c₁ type WFEMs combined with existing assembling formulas cannot provide efficient solutions by multi-element analysis any more. Therefore, this paper mainly consists of two parts of research work. On the one hand, the proper assembling formulas are derived detailedly based on c₁ type WFEMs. On the other hand, the method combining c₁ type B-spline wavelet thin plate element with the newly derived assembling formulas is proposed for predicting dynamic characteristics and solving mid-frequency problem related to thin plate structures. The numerical study shows that both computing efficiency and numerical stability of the proposed method are much better than TFEMs’. Furthermore, the proposed method's prediction ability can break through the limitation of TFEMs’ highest computing accuracy. In addition, the proposed method is verified by experimental study for predicting acceleration Frequency Response Functions (FRFs) of thin plate within 5 Hz–1000 Hz, and the experimental results indicate that the proposed method provides the potential to solve mid-frequency problem related to thin plate structures.     

An arc flow-based optimization approach for the two-stage guillotine strip cutting problem

Despite its broad range of industrial applications, the two-stage guillotine restriction has received very scant attention in the strip cutting literature. An integer linear programming model that is based on a special graph structure is devised for this strongly NP-hard problem. In addition to being easy to implement, the empirical study on a large set of instances from the literature and from real industrial world cases shows the efficiency of the proposed method while solving instances with high multiplicity factor.     

Computation of thermal residual stresses in optic fibers

We propose an analytic method of determining all the components of the residual stress tensor in optic fibers. The method is based on solving a plane problem for a cylindrical structure with singular stresses. We obtain closed-form solutions of the problem in the case of a piecewise-constant distribution of free deformations that model the presence of inclusions in the fiber with different values of the thermal coefficient of expansion. We also consider inclusions with cross sections in the shape of a circle, a central ellipse and a central annular sector. We describe the results obtained on this basis in the computation of residual thermal stresses.Translated fromMatematicheskie Metody i Fiziko-Mekhanicheskie Polya, Issue 34, 1991, pp. 79–83.     

Solving Linear Systems Whose Elements Are Nonlinear Functions of Intervals

The paper addresses the problem of solving linear algebraic systems the elements of which are, in the general case, nonlinear functions of a given set of independent parameters taking on their values within prescribed intervals. Three kinds of solutions are considered: (i) outer solution, (ii) interval hull solution, and (iii) inner solution. A simple direct method for computing a tight outer solution to such systems is suggested. It reduces, essentially, to inverting a real matrix and solving a system of real linear equations whose size n is the size of the original system. The interval hull solution (which is a NP-hard problem) can be easily determined if certain monotonicity conditions are fulfilled. The resulting method involves solving n+1 interval outer solution problems as well as 2n real linear systems of size n. A simple iterative method for computing an inner solution is also given. A numerical example illustrating the applicability of the methods suggested is solved.     

Stress analysis of cross-ply composite laminates with transverse cracks

A boundary-discontinuous Fourier expansion method to analyze the displacements and stresses in cross-ply composite laminates with transverse cracks is presented. The governing equations of the problem are derived on the basis of the generalized plane strain assumption and two-dimensional equations of elasticity. By employing the boundary-discontinuous Fourier expansion method, the governing equations in the form of coupled high-order ODEs are transformed to a set of systems of linear algebraic equations. The method is used to obtain solutions for which published results can be found for comparisons. Compared with the conventional numerical methods for solving coupled high-order ODEs, the method presented is more efficient. Further parametric studies are carried out for cracked laminates with various geometric and material properties. Russian translation published in Mekhanika Kompozitnykh Materialov, Vol. 44, No. 6, pp. 795–826, November–December, 2008.