Smart computing approach for design and scale-up of conical spouted beds with open-sided draft tubes

Open-sided draft tubes provide an optimal gas distribution through a cross flow pattern between the spout and the annulus in conical spouted beds.The design,optimization,control,and scale-up of the spouted beds require precise information on operating and peak pressure drops.In this study,a multi-layer perceptron(MLP)neural network was employed for accurate prediction of these hydrodynamic characteristics.A relatively huge number of experiments were accomplished and the most influential dimensionless groups were extracted using the Buckingham-pi theorem.Then,the dimensionless groups were used for developing the MLP model for simultaneous estimation of operating and peak pressure drops.The iterative constructive technique confirmed that 4-14-2 is the best structure for the MLP model in terms of absolute average relative deviation(AARD%),mean square error(MSE),and regression coefficient(R²).The developed MLP approach has an excellent capacity to predict the transformed operating(MSE=0.00039,AARD%=1.30,and R²=0.76099)and peak(MSE=0.22933,AARD%=11.88,and R2=0.89867)pressure drops.     

Effective enhanced model for a large deformable soft pneumatic actuator

Soft pneumatic actuators have been widely used for implementing sophisticated and dexterous movements,due to numerous fascinating features compared with their rigid counterparts.Relatively speaking,modeling and analysis of an entire soft pneumatic actuator considering contact interaction between two adjacent air chambers is extremely rare,which is exactly what we are particularly interested in.Therefore,in order to establish an accurate mechanical model and analyze the overall configuration and stress distribution for the soft pneumatic actuator with large deflection,we consider the contact interaction of soft materials rather than hard materials,to produce an effective enhanced model for soft contact of a large deformable pneumatic actuator.In this article,a multiple-point contact approach is developed to circumvent the mutual penetration problem between adjacent air chambers of the soft actuator that occurs with the single-point contact approach employed in linear elastic rigid materials.In contrast to the previous simplified rod-based model that did not focus on contact interaction which was adopted to clarify the entire deformation of the actuator,the present model not only elaborates nonlinear large deformation and overall configuration variations,but also accurately delineates stress distribution law inside the chamber structure and the stress concentration phenomenon.By means of a corresponding static experiment,a comparison of the simulation results with experimental data validates the effectiveness and accuracy of this model employing a multiple-point contact approach.Excellent simulation of the actual bending deformation of the soft actuator is obtained,while mutual penetration is successfully circumvented,whereas the model with single-point contact cannot achieve those goals.Finally,as compared with the rod-based model,the results obtained using the proposed model are more consistent with experimental data,and simulation precision is improved.     

Axially variable-length solid element of absolute nodal coordinate formulation

An axially variable-length solid element with eight nodes is proposed by integrating the arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) formulation and the absolute nodal coordinate formulation (ANCF). In addition to the nodal positions and slopes of eight nodes, two material coordinates in the axial direction are used as the generalized coordinates. As a consequence, the nodes in the ALE-ANCF are not associated with any specific material points and the axial length of the solid element can be varied over time. These two material coordinates give rise to a variable mass matrix and an additional inertial force vector. Computationally efficient formulae of the additional inertial forces and elastic forces, as well as their Jacobians, are also derived. The dynamic equation of a flexible multibody system (FMBS) with variable-length bodies is presented. The maximum and minimum lengths of the boundary elements of an FMBS have to be appropriately defined to ensure accuracy and non-singularity when solving the dynamic equation. Three numerical examples of static and dynamic problems are given to validate the variable-length solid elements of ALE-ANCF and show their capability.     

Application of micro-morphology in the physical characterization of urban road dust

Urban road dust was collected from Vellore City,Tamil Nadu,India,and analyzed.Scanning electron microscopy(SEM)was used to examine road dust from nine sampling locations in the study region.SEM image analysis was used to identify various shape factors of collected dust particles.The equivalent spherical diameter of most particles was between 10μm and 30μm.Fine particles had greater concentrations at locations with higher traffic flow.Particles were categorized into four classes based on their shape factors,viz.,spherical,mineral,elongated,or irregular.Spherical particles had the smallest mean equivalent diameter(1.95μm)and mineral particles had the largest diameter(33.3μm).Spherical particles made up the smallest portion of road dust(0-12%)in the study region and mineral particles made up the largest(45-65%).Elongated and irregular particles,each made up 23-30%of road dust.Electron dispersive X-ray spectroscopy analysis was used to identify the elemental composition of dust particles.Spherical particles were mostly from combustion sources and mineral particles were largely of crustal origin.No individual source was found for irregular and elongated particles.Biological debris was the major source of irregular particles.     

Efficient algorithm for 3D bimodulus structures

The bimodulus material is a classical model to describe the elastic behavior of materials with tension-compression asymmetry.Due to the inherently nonlinear properties of bimodular materials,traditional iteration methods suffer from low convergence efficiency and poor adaptability for large-scale structures in engineering.In this paper,a novel 3D algorithm is established by complementing the three shear moduli of the constitutive equation in principal stress coordinates.In contrast to the existing 3D shear modulus constructed based on experience,in this paper the shear modulus is derived theoretically through a limit process.Then,a theoretically self-consistent complemented algorithm is established and implemented in ABAQUS via UMAT;its good stability and convergence efficiency are verified by using benchmark examples.Numerical analysis shows that the calculation error for bimodulus structures using the traditional linear elastic theory is large,which is not in line with reality.     

Instability inspection of parametric vibrating rectangular Mindlin plates lying on Winkler foundations under periodic loading of moving masses

Parametric resonance is one of the most important issues in the study of dynamical behavior of structures. In this paper, dynamic instability of a moderately thick rectangular plate on an elastic foundation is investigated in the case of parametric and external resonances due to periodic passage of moving masses. The governing coupled partial differential equations (PDEs) of the system, with consideration of the first-order shear deformation theory (FSDT) or Mindlin plate theory, are presented and they are reduced to a set of ordinary differential equations (ODEs) with time-dependent coefficients using the Galerkin procedure. All inertial components of the moving masses are adopted in the dynamical formulation. Instability survey is carried out for three different loading trajectories considerably interested in many practical applications of the issue, i.e. rectilinear, diagonal and orbiting trajectories. In order to analyze the resonance conditions, the incremental harmonic balance (IHB) method is introduced to calculate instability boundaries, as well as external resonance curves in parameters plane. A comprehensive study is done to assess effects of thickness ratio and foundation stiffness on the resonance conditions. It is found that an increase in the plate's thickness ratio leads to a reduction in values of critical parameters. Moreover, it is observed that in creasing the foundation stiffness moves the in stability regions and resona nee curves to higher frequencies of the moving masses and also leads to further stability of the parametrically excited system at lower frequencies. Time response simulations done via Runge-Kutta method confirmed the results predicted by IHB method.     

Theoretical analysis on elastic buckling of nanobeams based on stress-driven nonlocal integral model

Several studies indicate that Eringen's nonlocal model may lead to some inconsistencies for both Euler-Bernoulli and Timoshenko beams, such as cantilever beams subjected to an end point force and fixed-fixed beams subjected a uniform distributed load. In this paper, the elastic buckling behavior of nanobeams, including both EulerBernoulli and Timoshenko beams, is investigated on the basis of a stress-driven nonlocal integral model. The constitutive equations are the Fredholm-type integral equations of the first kind, which can be transformed to the Volterra integral equations of the first kind. With the application of the Laplace transformation, the general solutions of the deflections and bending moments for the Euler-Bernoulli and Timoshenko beams as well as the rotation and shear force for the Timoshenko beams are obtained explicitly with several unknown constants. Considering the boundary conditions and extra constitutive constraints, the characteristic equations are obtained explicitly for the Euler-Bernoulli and Timoshenko beams under different boundary conditions, from which one can determine the critical buckling loads of nanobeams. The effects of the nonlocal parameters and buckling order on the buckling loads of nanobeams are studied numerically, and a consistent toughening effect is obtained.     

Towards multi-fidelity simulation of flows around an underwater vehicle with appendages and propeller

Flow around a real-life underwater vehicle often happens at a high Reynolds number with flow structures at different scales from the boundary layer around a blade to that around the hull. This poses a great challenge for large-eddy simulation of an underwater vehicle aiming at resolving all relevant flow scales. In this work, we propose to model the hull with appendages using the immersed boundary method, and model the propeller using the actuator disk model without resolving the geometry of the blade. The proposed method is then applied to simulate the flow around Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency(DARPA) suboff. An overall acceptable agreement is obtained for the pressure and friction coefficients. Complex flow features are observed in the near wake of suboff. In the far wake, the core region is featured by a jet because of the actuator disk, surrounded by an annular region with velocity deficit due to the body of suboff.     

Shear behaviours of cohesionless mixed soils using the DEM:The influence of coarse particle shape

The coarse particles in mixed soils can be cobbles or gravels,with the main difference being their roundness(an indicator describing particle shape characteristics at an intermediate scale).The influence of coarse particle shape(i.e.,roundness)on the macroscopic and microscopic shear behaviours of cohesionless mixed soils with various fines contents(FCs)was investigated via the discrete element method in this study.The shapes of coarse particles were formed using the rotation-invariant spherical harmonic method proposed by previous investigators.An equation was proposed to predict the initial void ratios of samples in this study.A decrease in the roundness of coarse particles can increase the peak friction angle(FC≤40%)and critical friction angle(FC≤30%).As the roundness of coarse particles decreases,the peak dilatancy angle initially increases and then decreases(FC≤20%).Furthermore,it was found that the roundness of coarse particles hardly affects the classification of cohesionless mixed soils,as determined by probing the percentage contributions of coarse-coarse,coarse-fine,and fine-fine contacts.When cohesionless mixed soils change from an underfilled structure to an interactive-underfilled structure at the critical state,the main forms of coarse-coarse contacts were discovered.Additionally,the force-fabric anisotropy mechanisms of the influences of the roundness and rolling resistance coefficient of coarse particles on the shear strengths of cohesionless mixed soils were found to be different.     

Reaction performance of fluidized bed catalytic reactor of Group C+particles

Group C particles are often regarded as non-fluidizable but have proven to effectively fluidize with nanoparticle addition,which results in small bubbles and a high gas holdup in the dense phase during the experiments.Group C⁺particles provide an increased surface area for gas-solid contact and improve the reaction performance,especially for gas-phase catalytic reactions.On the basis of a previous study of the ozone decomposition reaction using Group C⁺particles,a two-phase model was used to evaluate the reactor contact efficiency,and was used to compare the partial oxidation performance of the n-butane to maleic anhydride reaction in fluidized-bed catalytic reactors of Group C⁺and Group A particles.The reactor with Group C⁺particles achieved a higher n-butane conversion and MAN yield compared with that using Group A particles,based on the identical catalyst quantity or on the same gas residence time.Therefore,the reactor with Group C⁺particles can achieve the same reaction conversion and yield with fewer catalysts or a smaller reactor size,or both.Therefore,the fluidized bed catalytic reactor of Group C⁺particles is expected to be of major significance in industrial processes,especially for gas-phase catalytic reactions.     

岩质圆形隧洞围岩应力场弹塑性新解

针对动态接触问题的有限元并行计算，提出了一种新的接触算法. 新算法引入局部拉氏 乘子技术来计算接触力. 由于同时考虑了无穿透的接触约束条件和相邻接触对的相互影响， 较之广泛使用的罚参数法，新算法使接触约束条件和系统平衡方程得到更充分的满足. 虽然 为提高接触计算精度而在局部采用了迭代技术，但算法仍然具有较高的效率，且与显式时间 积分方案完全相容. 此外，通过构造专门的区域分解方案，实现了将现有为串行程序开发的 搜索算法平滑移植到并行环境的目标. 数值算例表明，所提出的接触算法具有很好的并行性， 在保证了接触问题并行计算精度的同时，取得了满意的并行效率.     

大规模并行结构动力分析分层计算方法

多核分布式存储超级计算机的兴起为大规模并行结构动力分析提供了强有力的计算工具。根据多核分布式计算环境的特点,提出了一种大规模并行结构动力分析分层计算方法。该方法在传统隐式动力分析的区域分解法的基础上,利用两级分区和两次缩聚策略进行求解。不但通过进一步缩减求解问题规模有效提高了界面方程的收敛速度,而且通过三层并行计算有效提高了通信效率。该方法并不对有限元模型引入近似,属于精确的动力子区域分层计算方法。典型数值算例表明,该方法计算精度与商业软件ANSYS完全法求解精度相当;同传统区域分解法相比,该方法能够获得较高的并行计算性能。     

An Efficient Parallel ADI Algorithm for Turbomachinery Flows

The paper describes a domain decomposition strategy which allows high efficiency parallel simulations of turbomachinery flows. The implicit ADI parallel solver is based on the scalar approximate factorisation. The Navier-Stokes (NS) and turbulence model equations are discretised by centred finite differences. The results prove that the parallel calculations with domain decomposition, in which each sub-domain explicitly communicates with the adjacent ones at the end of each implicit iteration, may suffer from a considerable deterioration of the convergence rate. A simple sub-iterative domain recoupling strategy allows recovering the convergence rate of a single processor computation. The strategy is carefully analysed and optimised in terms of inter-processor data communication rate and algorithm memory requirements. The span-wise domain decomposition is particularly suited for turbomachinery flows and is applied to a radial impeller and to an axial turbine stator and stage to prove the validity and the accuracy of the proposed approach. The results indicate that the parallel recoupled algorithm usually reach efficiencies of 0.8, with peaks over 0.9 with up to 16 processors, thereby allowing a considerable speed-up of design and verification calculations.     

On the spectral equivalence of unconventional finite elements and their conventional relatives

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Adaptive thermo-fluid moving boundary computations for interfacial dynamics

In this study,we present adaptive moving boundary computation technique with parallel implementation on a distributed memory multi-processor system for large scale thermo-fluid and interfacial flow computations.The solver utilizes Eulerian-Lagrangian method to track moving(Lagrangian) interfaces explicitly on the stationary(Eulerian) Cartesian grid where the flow fields are computed.We address the domain decomposition strategies of Eulerian-Lagrangian method by illustrating its intricate complexity of the computation involved on two different spaces interactively and consequently,and then propose a trade-off approach aiming for parallel scalability.Spatial domain decomposition is adopted for both Eulerian and Lagrangian domain due to easy load balancing and data locality for minimum communication between processors.In addition,parallel cell-based unstructured adaptive mesh refinement(AMR) technique is implemented for the flexible local refinement and even-distributed computational workload among processors.Selected cases are presented to highlight the computational capabilities,including Faraday type interfacial waves with capillary and gravitational forcing,flows around varied geometric configurations and induced by boundary conditions and/or body forces,and thermo-fluid dynamics with phase change.With the aid of the present techniques,large scale challenging moving boundary problems can be effectively addressed.     

一种基于面-面局部搜索的接触算法

接触-碰撞算法是影响动态接触问题数值分析精度的重要因素,发展健壮、精确的局部搜索算法对提高数值模拟精度具有重要意义。为解决点-面接触搜索算法存在的盲区问题,提出了一种基于面-面的局部搜索算法,并发展了相应的接触力计算方法。新的接触算法以面心坐标与特征长度表征接触片,进行预搜索快速排除不会发生接触的潜在接触对;利用主从接触片的投影与侵入深度关系确定接触片间的接触状态;利用等参逆变换解析给出接触点,避免了方程组的迭代求解。典型算例与工程实例计算表明,本文算法消除了接触搜索的盲区,具有很好的健壮性与计算精度。     

Dynamic simulation of liquid-filled flexible multibody systems via absolute nodal coordinate formulation and SPH method

A new computation method is proposed to study the coupled dynamics of a partially liquid-filled flexible multibody system, where the liquid is modeled by using the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method and the flexible bodies are described by using the Absolute Nodal Coordinate Formulation (ANCF). Extra virtual particles are introduced and embedded in the liquid neighboring the rigid or flexible boundaries in order to prevent field particles from penetrating the boundary and force them to follow the deformation of flexible boundary. The interaction forces between the liquid and the flexible multibody system are transmitted by the virtual particles. The domain decomposition is used to improve the efficiency of interaction detection in SPH computation. A predictor-corrector scheme is used to solve the governing equations of liquid discretized by SPH particles. The generalized-alpha method based on sparse matrix storage skill is used to solve a huge set of dynamic equations of the multibody system. The OpenMP+OpenACC based parallel computation skills are embedded in the iteration processes to speed up the computation efficiency. Finally, three numerical examples are given to validate the proposed computation method.     

HIA: A Hybrid Integral Approach to model incompressible isotropic hyperelastic materials – Part 2: Finite element analysis

The present paper is devoted to the modeling of finite deformations of hyperelastic bodies by using the Hybrid Integral Approach (HIA) model introduced by the Authors. This model combines the affine behavior of chains included in the molecular 8-chains density, the interleaving constraint part and an original phenomenological integral density which allows to balance the mismatch between model and experimental data. A total Lagrangian formulation is adopted to describe the geometrical and material non-linearities and a finite element implementation is performed in the FER software. Four test examples, including homogeneous and non-homogeneous deformations, as well as complex computation involving dynamic contact and impact are proposed to show the applicability of the developed approach and the efficiency of the model.     

Efficient solution algorithms for thermomechanical contact problems based on a domain/boundary decomposition method

An efficient domain/boundary decomposition method is presented for fully coupled thermomechanical problems with contact boundaries. The whole domain is regarded as a union of subdomains, an interface, and contact interfaces. Penalized variational formulations are performed to connect the interface or contact interfaces with the neighboring subdomains that satisfy continuity constraints on the displacement and temperature fields. As a result, non-linear finite element computations due to the contact boundaries can be localized within a few subdomains or contact interfaces. Therefore, the computational efficiency can be enhanced considerably by devising suitable solution algorithms. A variety of numerical examples were tested to confirm the important features of the new algorithms presented.     

列车与结构动态耦合分析的并行计算方法

在分析结构动态响应时考虑列车与结构的动态耦合作用,采用详细三维有限元模型会带来计算量太大的问题。本文采用并行计算方法,根据列车与结构动态耦合模型的计算特点,设计实现了列车结构耦合均衡的分区算法,并以两个工程应用为例,利用该方法对列车结构三维数值模型进行分区计算,结果表明该分区方法比递归坐标二分法有更好的并行效率。