Overview of plasma line broadening

We review the basics of line broadening, its relation to fluctuations and disorder, what causes broadening, the memory loss mechanism and the Standard Theory of line broadening developed by H.R. Griem and others from a modern viewpoint. This modern view benefits from many years of progress and includes a coherent theoretical perspective without the need for a conceptually different view of electrons and ions. Both electrons and ions are described in terms of their random fields. This modern and unified view allows, among other things, extending the range of validity of line profile calculations to complex situations.     

Atomistic computer simulations of shock waves

I present a brief history, from my own personal perspective, of molecular dynamics (MD) computer simulations of shock waves without chemical reaction. Beginning with radiation-damage cascades in the 1960's, followed by shock waves in perfect crystals in the 1970's, dense fluids in the 1980's, and dilute gases in the 1990's, the field of MD simulations (not to mention the computers supporting them) has evolved to the point where we can begin to study weakshock induced plasticity in the solid state, which is dominated by sparsely distributed initial defects. Finally, I conclude with a brief discussion of new developments in the related area of simulating shock-induced spallation in solids, and comment on atomistic simulations of shockwave phenomena of the future (including chemical reaction), made possible by the advent of massively parallel computers.     

The computer simulations of polymer dynamics in porous media

We designed and developed a simple model of polymer chains. Three types of model chains with different internal macromolecular architecture were studied: linear, star-branched with f=3 arms of equal length and rings. The chains consisted of identical united atoms (segments) and were restricted to a simple cubic lattice with the excluded volume interactions only (the athermal system). The macromolecules were confined between two parallel impenetrable walls with a set of irregular obstacles that can be treated as a crude model of porous media. The properties of the model studied were determined by the Monte Carlo simulations. A Metropolis-like sampling algorithm with local changes of chains’ conformation was used. The short- and long-time dynamic properties of the model system were studied. The differences in the mobility of chains and their fragments for different internal polymer architectures were shown and discussed. The possible mechanisms of chain’s motion were discussed.This paper was presented at the 2nd Annual European Rheology Conference (AERC) held on April 21–23, 2005 in Grenoble, France.     

Comparison with experimental data of computer simulations of the expansion of spark breakdown in air

Calculated results obtained earlier by means of a computer in the simulation of the expansion of spark breakdown in air are compared with the data of an experiment.Translated from Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 4, pp. 182–184, July–August, 1979.I thank V. P. Korobeinikov for supplying the originals of the photographs of [2].     

Compressible rubber materials: experiments and simulations

Porous rubber materials are often used in automotive industries. In this paper, a carbon black-filled one is investigated, which is used, for example, as sealing. Such materials are distinguished by viscoelastic behaviour and by a structural compressibility induced by the porous structure. To identify the material behaviour, uniaxial tension tests and hydrostatic compression tests are performed. Therein the main focus of attention lies on the basic elasticity and on the viscoelasticity in the whole loading range. An important observation of these tests is the viscoelastic behaviour under hydrostatic compression, which has to be included in the material model. Because of the two-phase character of cellular rubber, the theory of porous media is taken into account. To model the structural compressibility, a volumetric–isochore split of the deformation gradient is used. Therein the volumetric part includes the aspect of the point of compaction. Finally, the concept of finite viscoelasticity is applied introducing an intermediate configuration. Because of the viscoelastic behaviour under hydrostatic compression, the volumetric–isochore split is taken into account for the nonequilibrium parts, too. Nonlinear relaxation functions are used to model the process-dependent relaxation times and the highly nonlinear behaviour with respect to the deformation and feedrate. The material parameters of the model are estimated using a stochastic identification algorithm.     

Gas-dynamic colliders: Numerical simulations

A collision of supersonic flows of gas mixtures with disparate molecular weights, which are limited in their cross-sectional size, in vacuum leads to formation of a cloud with an elevated concentration and elevated temperature of the heavy gas. Under certain conditions, the governing factor is the collision of molecules of the heavy gas being compressed at the center of the collision of the flows. The generator of such a flow can be called a collider. Results of studying the flows in jet-type, cylindrical, and mixed two-stage colliders are described. The main attention is paid to separation of gases in terms of energy and composition. __________ Translated from Prikladnaya Mekhanika i Tekhnicheskaya Fizika, Vol. 48, No. 3, pp. 142–151, May–June, 2007.     

Heat transfer during transient compression: Measurements and simulations

Experiments have been performed to assess the utility of unsteady one-dimensional heat conduction modelling for the calculation of heat losses during a free piston compression process. Heat transfer measurements have been obtained within a gun tunnel barrel using surface junction thermocouple instrumentation. The gun tunnel was operated with a relatively heavy piston such that the shock waves induced by the piston motion were weak. Peak heat transfer values are estimated reasonably well by the unsteady one-dimensional model. However, overall quantitative agreement between the measurements and calculations has not been achieved at this stage, principally because the development of turbulent heat transport was not properly modelled. Received 21 September 2001 / Accepted 11 March 2002 – Published online 11 June 2002     

Non-Newtonian deterministic lateral displacement separator: theory and simulations

Deterministic lateral displacement devices have been proved to be an efficient way to perform continuous particle separation in microfluidic applications (Huang et al. Science 304:987–990, 2004). On the basis of their size, particles traveling through an array of obstacles follow different paths and can be separated in outflow. One limitation of such a technique is that each device works for a specific critical size to achieve particle separation, and a new device with different geometrical properties needs to be fabricated, as the dimensions of the particles to be separated change. In this work, we demonstrate the possibility to tune the critical particle size in a deterministic lateral displacement device by using non-Newtonian fluids as suspending liquid. The analysis is carried out by extending the theory developed for a Newtonian constitutive law (Inglis et al. Lab Chip 6:655–658, 2006) to account for fluid shear-thinning. 3-D finite element simulations are performed to compute the dynamics of a spherical particle flowing through the deterministic ratchet. The results show that fluid shear-thinning, by altering the flow field between the obstacles, contributes to decrease the critical particle diameter as compared to the Newtonian case. Numerical simulations demonstrate that tunability of the critical separation size can be achieved by using the flow rate as control parameter. A design formula, relating the separation diameter to the fluid rheology and the relevant geometrical parameters of the device, is derived. Such a formula, originally developed for a power-law model, is proved to work for non-Newtonian liquids with a general viscosity trend.     

Aerodynamics of ski jumping: experiments and CFD simulations

The aerodynamic behaviour of a model ski jumper is investigated experimentally at full-scale Reynolds numbers and computationally applying a standard RANS code. In particular we focus on the influence of different postures on aerodynamic forces in a wide range of angles of attack. The experimental results proved to be in good agreement with full-scale measurements with athletes in much larger wind tunnels, and form a reliable basis for further predictions of the effects of position changes on the performance. The comparison of CFD results with the experiments shows poor agreement, but enables a clear outline of simulation potentials and limits when accurate predictions of effects from small variations are required.     

A mixing propagation model of computer viruses and countermeasures

Based on the CMC antivirus strategy proposed by Chen and Carley, a mixing propagation model of computer viruses and countermeasures is suggested. This model has two potential virus-free equilibria and two potential endemic equilibria. The existence and global stability of these equilibria are fully investigated. From the obtained results it can be deduced that the CMC strategy is efficacious in deracinating viruses.     

Micro-pillar plasticity: 2.5D mesoscopic simulations

The plastic behavior of micro- and nano-scale crystalline pillars is investigated under nominally uniform compression. The transition from forest hardening to exhaustion hardening dominated behavior is shown to emerge from discrete dislocation dynamics simulations upon reduction in the initial source density. The analyses provide new insight into the scaling of flow stress with specimen size and also highlight the connection between individual dislocation mechanisms, collective phenomena and overall behavior.     

A capacitor memory for an analogue computer

Summary The article describes a memory system in which capacitors are used as memory elements; the dc voltages stored in the capacitors represent the value of the function to be remembered in a number of pre-determined points. During the read-out the function is linearly interpolated between each pair of consecutive values. In the design of the system standard computer units were used as far as possible.     

A computer method for simulating service loads

A recently presented study addressed the problem of analyzing field data that are best characterized as nonstationary stochastic signais. The analysis method hypothesizes that the nonstationary signal consists of two stationary signals, which belong to different populations, occurring consecutively according to a suitable probabilistic model. The analysis procedure involves the following: segmenting the time history, estimating the population of each segment, estimating the power spectrum of each segment, averaging the power spectra which belong to each population, presenting the power spectra via parameters of digital filters (which shape white noise sequences into sequences with the measured power spectra), and measuring the parameters of the probabilistic model. In this paper a simulation method is presented that uses the results of the analysis method mentioned above to create a sequence that simulates the statistical characteristics of the nonstationary field data. This simulation method is designed to be efficiently implemented on a general-purpose computer of any size, including micros. First, a review of the stochastic model is given. Then the steps of simulation are presented: generating a white sequence on the digital computer, generating the probabilistic model, and developing an algorithm for using digital filters in shaping the power spectra. Sample results are shown to reflect the soundness of the procedure. This simulation method can prove useful in computer studies of the fatigue of mechanical components under field loading. Since it is exactly reproducible in different laboratories, this method can also serve in comparison studies of fatigue-life prediction procedures. Paper was presented at V International Congress on Experimental Mechanics held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada on June 10–15, 1984.     

A computer simulation of the tension test

A dynamic finite-difference computer program is used to calculate the quasi-static necking deformation of a round tensile bar to 71 per cent reduction in area. Finite strain and rotation are accounted for. We modelled the behavior of A-533 Grade B Class 1 nuclear-pressure-vessel steel as elastic work-hardening plastic material, using J₂-flow theory and a flow curve obtained from a simple tensile test. Up to the time of fracture, computed results of neck radius vs load and elongation, load vs elongation, and neck profile vs neck radius compare favorably with experimental results. We present the macroscopic stress and strain state at fracture and compare these results with those of Bridgman and other calculators. Our calculated neck stress shows monotonically decreasing stress in the radial direction and does not show the sharp stress peaks on the axis or the rounder stress peaks off the axis that these earlier calculations show. We find considerable differences from the Bridgman solution. An iterative computer method is introduced to allow correction of simple tension-test data to a universal flow-stress curve valid for large strain.     

A necklace model for vesicles simulations in 2D

The aim of this paper is to propose a new numerical model to simulate 2D vesicles interacting with a Newtonian fluid. The inextensible membrane is modeled by a chain of circular rigid particles, which are maintained in cohesion by using two different types of forces. First, a spring force is imposed between neighboring particles in the chain. Second, in order to model the bending of the membrane, each triplet of successive particles is submitted to an angular force. Numerical simulations of vesicles in shear flow have been run using FEM and the FreeFem++ software. Exploring different ratios of inner and outer viscosities, we recover the well‐known ‘tank‐treading’ and ‘tumbling’ motions predicted by a theory and experiments. Moreover, for the first time, 2D simulations of the ‘vacillating‐breathing’ regime without special ingredient such as thermal fluctuations are recovered. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Impact of woven fabric: Experiments and mesostructure-based continuum-level simulations

Woven fabric is an increasingly important component of many defense and commercial systems, including deployable structures, restraint systems, numerous forms of protective armor, and a variety of structural applications where it serves as the reinforcement phase of composite materials. With the prevalence of these systems and the desire to explore new applications, a comprehensive, computationally efficient model for the deformation of woven fabrics is needed. However, modeling woven fabrics is difficult due, in particular, to the need to simulate the response both at the scale of the entire fabric and at the meso-level, the scale of the yarns that compose the weave. Here, we present finite elements for the simulation of the three-dimensional, high-rate deformation of woven fabric. We employ a continuum-level modeling technique that, through the use of an appropriate unit cell, captures the evolution of the mesostructure of the fabric without explicitly modeling every yarn. Displacement degrees of freedom and degrees of freedom representing the change in crimp amplitude of each yarn family fully determine the deformed geometry of the mesostructure of the fabric, which in turn provides, through the constitutive relations, the internal nodal forces. In order to verify the accuracy of the elements, instrumented ballistic impact experiments with projectile velocities of 22-550 m/s were conducted on single layers of Kevlar^® fabric. Simulations of the experiments demonstrate that the finite elements are capable of efficiently simulating large, complex structures.     

A multi-mechanism model for cutting simulations combining visco-plastic asymmetry and phase transformation

We develop a multi-mechanism model for strainrate- and temperature-dependent asymmetric plastic material behavior accompanied by phase transformations, which are important phenomena in steel production processes. To this end the well-known Johnson–Cook model is extended by the concept of weighting functions, and it is combined with a model of transformation-induced plasticity (TRIP) based on Leblond’s approach. The bulk model is formulated within a thermodynamic framework at large strains, and it will be specialized and applied to cutting processes in steel production. In this prototype situation we have: Transformation of the martensitic initial state into austenite, then retransformation of martensite. For incorporation of visco-plastic asymmetry two variations of the classical Johnson–Cook model are presented: In “Model A” we introduce a rate dependent flow factor with a rate independent yield function. In “Model B” we introduce a rate independent flow factor with a rate dependent yield function. In the examples parameters are identified for the material DIN 100Cr6, and we illustrate the characteristic effects of our multimechanism model, such as strain softening due to temperature, rate dependence and temperature dependence as well as the SD-effect. A finite-element simulation illustrates the different mechanisms for a cutting process.