The effect of a porous polyethylene matrix on the structure and mechanical and deformational properties of electroactive composites

Two types of new electroactive composite systems based on elastic substrates (porous polyethylene films) have been elaborated. The systems of the first type are composed of electroconductive polymers (polypyrrole and polyaniline) obtained by in situ oxidative polymerization of their monomers on porous polyethylene substrates. The composites of the second type contain a cross-linked polyelectrolyte, and they were prepared by polymerization of acrylic acid with a macromolecular cross-linker on the porous substrates. The mechanical properties and the deformational behavior of the porous films and composites have been investigated and analyzed. __________ Translated from Mekhanika Kompozitnykh Materialov, Vol. 42, No. 6, pp. 825–838, November–December, 2006.     

Creep of polymer concrete in the nonlinear region

Two polyester-based polymer concretes with various volume content of diabase as an extender and aggregate are tested in creep under compression at different stress levels. The phenomenological and structural approaches are both used to analyze the experimental data. Common features of changes in the instantaneous and creep compliances are clarified, and a phenomenological creep model which accounts for the changes in the instantaneous compliance and in the retardation spectrum depending on the stress level is developed. It is shown that the model can be used to describe the experimental results of stress relaxation and creep under repeated loading. Modeling of the composite structure and subsequent solution of the optimization problem confirm the possibility of the existence of an interphase layer more compliant than the binder. A direct correlation between the interphase volume content and the instantaneous compliance of the composite is revealed. It is found that the distinction in nonlinearity of the viscoelastic behavior of the two polymer concretes under investigation can be due to the difference in their porosity. Submitted to the 11th International Conference on Mechanics of Composite Materials (Riga, June 11–15, 2000.) Translated from Mekhanika Kompozitnykh Materialov, Vol. 36, No. 2, pp. 147–164, 2000.     

Fracture analysis of a high-strength concrete and a high-strength steel-fiber-reinforced concrete

This paper addresses the use of R-curves to study the fracture behavior of high-strength concrete and steel-fiber-reinforced concrete subjected to crack ing in a three-point bending configuration. The R-curves are modeled through an effective approach based on the equations of linear-elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM), which relates the applied load to the fundamental displacements of notched-through beams loaded monotonically. It is initially shown that, for quasi-brittle materials, the R-curves responses can be evaluated in a quasi-analytical way, using the load-crack mouth opening, the load-load line displacement, or exclusively the displacement responses obtained experimentally. Afterward, the methodology is used to obtain the fracture responses of high-strength and fiber-reinforced concretes, up to the final stages of rupture. Russian translation published in Mekhanika Kompozitnykh Materialov, Vol. 43, No. 5, pp. 701–710, September–October, 2007.     

Algebraic formulae for compositions of functions in rings

In this article algebraic formulae for compositions of the linearly limited functions in abstract rings are proved. The proofs are based on the method of mathematical induction and can be generalized for other algebraic systems. Rostov University, Rostov-at-Don, Russia. Published in Lietuvos Matematikos Rinkinys, Vol. 34, No. 3, pp. 320–330, July–September, 1994.     

The effect of C<Subscript>60</Subscript> fullerene on the toughening of epoxy compositions

The effect of C₆₀ fullerene on the mechanical properties of epoxy resins has been investigated. It is found that this filler affects the tensile modulus and tensile strength of epoxy compositions only slightly, but their impact strength at a 0.01–0.12 wt.% content of C₆₀ increases by about 100–200%. A molecular mechanism of the toughening effect of C₆₀ on epoxy resins is suggested.     

On the Coincidence of Limit Shapes for Integer Partitions and Compositions,and a Slicing of Young Diagrams

We consider the slicing of Young diagrams into slices associated with summands that have equal multiplicities. It is shown that for the uniform measure on all partitions of an integer n, as well as for the uniform measure on partitions of an integer n into m summands with m ∼ An^α, α ≤ 1/2, all slices after rescaling concentrate around their limit shapes. The similar problem is solved for compositions of an integer n into m summands. These results explain why the limit shapes of partitions and compositions coincide in the case α < 1/2. Bibliography: 10 titles. __________ Translated from Zapiski Nauchnykh Seminarov POMI, Vol. 307, 2004, pp. 266–280.     

Thermomechanical and adhesive properties of radiation-modified polymer composites for thermosetting products

Gamma-irradiated blends of polyethylene (PE) with ethylene-propylene-diene copolymer (EPDM) and a thermotropic liquid-crystalline polymer (LCP) are investigated at absorbed radiation doses not exceeding 150 kGy (10 kGy=1 Mrad). The temperature dependences of elastic moduli, tension diagrams at a temperature above the melting point of the crystalline phase of PE, and long-term strain recovery curves for oriented test specimens are presented. The kinetics of thermal relaxation and shrinkage stresses in previously oriented composite specimens upon their heating and cooling is investigated. Data on the influence of LCP additions on the adhesive interaction of the compositions with steel are obtained. The peculiarities of thermomechanical and adhesion properties of these composites are discussed taking into account the morphologic and calorimetric data obtained. Translated from Mekhanika Kompozitnykh Materialov, Vol. 36, No. 3, pp. 379–394, May–June, 2000.     

Nanocomposites based on a styrene-acrylate copolymer and organically modified montmorillonite 1. Mechanical properties

The preparation of polymer nanocomposites by mixing a solution of a styrene-acrylate copolymer with a suspension of organically modified montmorillonite in dimethyl formamide is described. Seven different compositions with organomontmorillonite content from 0 to 7 wt.% were prepared and tested. Results of their X-ray diffraction analysis are presented. Data on the influence of organomontmorillonite content on the tensile stress-strain curves, elastic modulus, strength, and ultimate elongation of the nanocomposites are obtained. The concentration dependences of elastic properties of materials with differently oriented platelike nanoparticles is analyzed by using an algorithm elaborated for stepwise calculations of elastic constants with account of the features of structural hierarchy of intercalated and exfoliated nanocomposites. __________ Translated from Mekhanika Kompozitnykh Materialov, Vol. 42, No. 3, pp. 375–388, May–June, 2006.     

Reconstruction of the spectral type of limiting distributions in dynamical conflict systems

We establish the conditions of reconstruction of pure spectral types (pure point, pure absolutely continuous, or pure singularly continuous spectra) in the limiting distributions of dynamical systems with compositions of alternative conflict. In particular, it is shown that the point spectrum can be reconstructed starting from the states with pure singularly continuous spectra. __________ Translated from Ukrains’kyi Matematychnyi Zhurnal, Vol. 59, No. 6, pp. 771–784, June, 2007.     

Strength and fracture properties of advanced SiC-based fibers

The tensile strength and the fracture properties of advanced SiC-based fibers were characterized, and an extensive fractographic analysis was conducted to correlate their mechanical behavior and microstructure. Tensile tests re vealed that the strength of Hi-Nicalon™ and Hi-Nicalon™ Type S fibers was sensitive to a critical flaw. The inspection of fracture surfaces revealed that the fracture of these fibers originated mainly at the critical flaw, which was surrounded by an obvious mirror zone. The Tyranno™-SA fiber showed a transcrystalline fracture behavior. The different fracture behavior observed in this work could be related to different fabrication processes and compositions at the grain boundary. For the Hi-Nicalon™ and Hi-Nicalon™ Type S fibers, the critical flaw size was linearly related to the mirror size. By using the linear fracture mechanics, the fracture toughness and the critical fracture energy of the fibers were estimated. Russian translation published in Mekhanika Kompozitnykh Materialov, Vol. 42, No. 6, pp. 759–770, November–December, 2006.     

Automorphisms of Maps with a Given Underlying Graph and Their Application to Enumeration

A graph is called a semi-regular graph if its automorphism group action on its ordered pair of adjacent vertices is semi-regular. In this paper, a necessary and sufficient condition for an automorphism of the graph F to be an automorphism of a map with the underlying graph F is obtained. Using this result, all orientation-preserving automorphisms of maps on surfaces (orientable and non-orientable) or just orientable surfaces with a given underlying semi-regular graph F are determined. Formulas for the numbers of non-equivalent embeddings of this kind of graphs on surfaces (orientable, non-orientable or both) are established, and especially, the non-equivalent embeddings of circulant graphs of a prime order on orientable, non-orientable and general surfaces are enumerated.     

On Linear Combinatorics II. Structure Theorems via Additive Number Theory

R with few compositions and/or small image sets. Here the fine structure of such sets of mappings will be described in terms of generalized arithmetic and geometric progressions, yielding Freiman–Ruzsa type results for a non-Abelian group. Received: November 28, 1996     

Homoclinic and Periodic Orbits Arising Near the Heteroclinic Cycle Connecting Saddle-focus and Saddle Under Reversible Condition

In this paper, we study the dynamical behavior for a 4-dimensional reversible system near its heteroclinic loop connecting a saddle-focus and a saddle. The existence of infinitely many reversible 1-homoclinic orbits to the saddle and 2-homoclinic orbits to the saddle-focus is shown. And it is also proved that, corresponding to each 1-homoclinic （resp. 2-homoclinic） orbit F, there is a spiral segment such that the associated orbits starting from the segment are all reversible 1-periodic （resp. 2-periodic） and accumulate onto F. Moreover, each 2-homoclinic orbit may be also accumulated by a sequence of reversible 4-homoclinic orbits.     

Bifurcations of Fine 3-point-loop in Higher Dimensional Space

By using the linear independent fundamental solutions of the linear variational equation along the heteroclinic loop to establish a suitable local coordinate system in some small tubular neighborhood of the heteroclinic loop, the Poincaré map is constructed to study the bifurcation problems of a fine 3–point loop in higher dimensional space. Under some transversal conditions and the non–twisted condition, the existence, coexistence and incoexistence of 2–point–loop, 1–homoclinic orbit, simple 1–periodic orbit and 2–fold 1–periodic orbit, and the number of 1–periodic orbits are studied. Moreover, the bifurcation surfaces and existence regions are given. Lastly, the above bifurcation results are applied to a planar system and an inside stability criterion is obtained. This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (10371040), the Shanghai Priority Academic Disciplines and the Scientific Research Foundation of Linyi Teacher’s University     

Self-similar and Markov composition structures

The bijection between composition structures and random closed subsets of the unit interval implies that the composition structures associated with S ⋂ [0, 1] for a self-similar random set S ⊂ ℝ₊ are those that are consistent with respect to a simple truncation operation. Using the standard coding of compositions by finite strings of binary digits starting with a 1, the random composition of n is defined by the first n terms of a random binary sequence of infinite length. The locations of 1’s in the sequence are the positions visited by an increasing time-homogeneous Markov chain on the positive integers if and only if S = exp(−W) for some stationary regenerative random subset W of the real line. Complementing our study presented in previous papers, we identify self-similar Markov composition structures associated with the two-parameter family of partition structures. Bibliography: 19 titles. Published in Zapiski Nauchnykh Seminarov POMI, Vol. 326, 2005, pp. 59–84.     

Local and asymptotic analysis of the flow generated by the Cahn–Hilliard–Gurtin equations

We consider the Cahn–Hilliard–Gurtin equation which corresponds, in the isotropic case, to the viscous Cahn–Hilliard equation. The convergence of its solutions toward some steady state is investigated by means of a proper generalization of the Lojasiewicz–Simon Theorem to nongradient-like flows. Furthermore, when the anisotropic coefficients are small, we prove that these steady states can be approximated by the corresponding stationary solutions of the viscous Cahn–Hilliard equation provided that the latter are local minimizers of the Ginzburg–Landau free energy. Received: April 26, 2004; revised: February 24, 2005     

Volume-preserving Fields and Reeb Fields on 3-manifolds

Volume-preserving field X on a 3-manifold is the one that satisfies LxΩ = 0 for some volume Ω. The Reeb vector field of a contact form is of volume-preserving, but not conversely. On the basis of Geiges-Gonzalo＇s parallelization results, we obtain a volume-preserving sphere, which is a triple of everywhere linearly independent vector fields such that all their linear combinations with constant coefficients are volume-preserving fields. From many aspects, we discuss the distinction between volume-preserving fields and Reeb-like fields. We establish a duality between volume-preserving fields and h-closed 2-forms to understand such distinction. We also give two kinds of non-Reeb-like but volume-preserving vector fields to display such distinction.     

Commutative combinatorial Hopf algebras

We propose several constructions of commutative or cocommutative Hopf algebras based on various combinatorial structures and investigate the relations between them. A commutative Hopf algebra of permutations is obtained by a general construction based on graphs, and its noncommutative dual is realized in three different ways, in particular, as the Grossman–Larson algebra of heap-ordered trees. Extensions to endofunctions, parking functions, set compositions, set partitions, planar binary trees, and rooted forests are discussed. Finally, we introduce one-parameter families interpolating between different structures constructed on the same combinatorial objects.     

On the quiver-theoretical quantum Yang–Baxter equation

Quivers over a fixed base set form a monoidal category with tensor product given by pullback. The quantum Yang–Baxter equation, or more properly the braid equation, is investigated in this setting. A solution of the braid equation in this category is called a “solution” for short. Results of Etingof–Schedler–Soloviev, Lu–Yan–Zhu and Takeuchi on the set-theoretical quantum Yang–Baxter equation are generalized to the context of quivers, with groupoids playing the role of groups. The notion of “braided groupoid” is introduced. Braided groupoids are solutions and are characterized in terms of bijective 1-cocycles. The structure groupoid of a non-degenerate solution is defined; it is shown that it is a braided groupoid. The reduced structure groupoid of a non-degenerate solution is also defined. Non-degenerate solutions are classified in terms of representations of matched pairs of groupoids. By linearization we construct star-triangular face models and realize them as modules over quasitriangular quantum groupoids introduced in papers by M. Aguiar, S. Natale and the author.     

Poissonian subordinators,the Wiener–Ornstein–Uhlenbeck field,and a relation between the Ornstein–Uhlenbeck processes and Brownian bridges

We apply to a sequence of i.i.d. random variables a time change operator via a Poisson process that is independent of this sequence. We consider sums of independent copies of processes constructed in this way and having continuous time. Finite limit distributions of these sums coincide with the finite limit distributions of the Wiener–Ornstein–Uhlenbeck field that is the tensor product of a Brownian motion and the Ornstein–Uhlenbeck process. The transition characteristics of the limit Ornstein–Uhlenbeck process are described by Brownian bridges that are builded into the Wiener–Ornstein–Uhlenbeck field. Bibliography: 4 titles.