What physical phenomena can be neglected when modelling concrete at high temperature? A comparative study. Part 1: Physical phenomena and mathematical model

The paper deals with modelling of hygro-thermal performance and thermo-chemical degradation of concrete exposed to high temperature. Several possible simplifications in modelling of heat and mass transport phenomena in heated concrete are considered and their effect on the results of numerical simulations is analyzed.A mathematical model of concrete at high temperature, already extensively validated with respect to experiments, is used as the reference model. It is based on mechanics of multiphase porous media and considers all important couplings and material nonlinearities, as well as different properties of water above the critical point of water, i.e. 647.3 K (374.15 °C).In this part of the paper, first physical phenomena, as well as heat and mass flux and sources in a concrete element are studied, both during slow and fast heating process, to examine the relative importance of different flux components. Then, the mathematical model of concrete at high temperature, developed by Authors in the last 10 years, is briefly presented and for the first time all the constitutive relationships of the model are summarized and discussed in detail. Finally, the method of numerical solution of the model equations is thoroughly presented.In the companion paper (part II) a brief literature review of the existing mathematical models of concrete at high temperature and a summary of their main features and physical assumptions will be presented. Then, extensive numerical studies will be performed with several simplified models, neglecting chosen physical phenomenon or flux components, to evaluate the difference between the results obtained with the simplified models and with the reference model. The study will concern hygric, thermal and degradation performance of 1-D and 2-D axisymmetric concrete elements during fast and slow heating. The analysis will allow us to indicate which simplifications in modeling of concrete at high temperature are practically and physically possible, without generating excessive errors with respect to the full reference model.     

How should preconceptional cystic fibrosis carrier screening be provided? Opinions of potential providers and the target population

BACKGROUND: Since the identification of the cystic fibrosis (CF) gene, large-scale CF carrier screening has become possible. One possible target group is couples planning a pregnancy (preconceptional screening), providing a maximum number of reproductive options and a minimum of time constraints. OBJECTIVES: To identify obstacles in the implementation of a preconceptional CF carrier screening programme, to find out how potential providers and the target population think the screening should be implemented, and to determine whether potential providers think they are able to provide the screening programme. METHODS: A survey was conducted among 200 general practitioners (GPs), 134 Municipal Health Service (MHS) workers and 303 recently married couples. RESULTS: 52% (102/197) of the eligible GPs participated, 84% (113/134) of the MHS workers and 70% (380/544) of the individuals planning a pregnancy. In general, potential providers and the target population had a positive attitude towards CF screening. Preferred methods of informing the target population were: in leaflets, during a GP consultation for those people seeking advice before pregnancy, and sending a personal invitation to all people of reproductive age. Potential providers believed that they would be able to provide the screening programme. Important perceived obstacles were the absence of a preconceptional care setting, high workload, and lack of financial resources. CONCLUSION: Different intervention strategies will be necessary to overcome the obstacles in the implementation. The positive attitude towards CF carrier screening in combination with the willingness of the potential providers to participate in the screening programme will make it easier to overcome the obstacles.     

Stress-induced potential barriers and charge distributions in a piezoelectric semiconductor nano?ber

The performance of a piecewise-stressed ZnO piezoelectric semiconductor nano?ber is studied with the multi-?eld coupling theory. The ?elds produced by equal and opposite forces as well as sinusoidally distributed forces are examined. Speci?c distributions of potential barriers, wells, and regions with effective polarization charges are found. The results are fundamental for the mechanical tuning on piezoelectric semiconductor devices and piezotronics.     

What physical phenomena can be neglected when modelling concrete at high temperature? A comparative study. Part 2: Comparison between models

The paper deals with modelling of hygro-thermal performance and thermo-chemical degradation of concrete exposed to high temperature. Several possible simplifications in modelling of heat and mass transport phenomena in heated concrete are considered and their effect on the results of numerical simulations is analyzed.In part I of the companion paper, the physical phenomena, and heat and mass flux and sources in a concrete element were studied, both during slow and fast heating process, to examine the relative importance of different flux components. Then, the mathematical model of concrete at high temperature, developed by Authors in the last 10 years, was briefly presented and for the first time all the constitutive relationships of the model are summarized and discussed in detail. Finally, the method of numerical solution of the model equations was thoroughly presented.In this part of the paper a brief literature review of the existing mathematical models of concrete at high temperature and a summary of their main features and physical assumptions is presented first. Then, extensive numerical study is performed with several simplified models, neglecting a chosen physical phenomenon or flux component, to evaluate a difference between the results obtained with the simplified models and with the reference model. The study concerns hygric, thermal and degradation performance of 1-D and 2-D axisymmetric concrete elements during fast and slow heating. The analysis will allow us to indicate which simplifications in modeling of concrete at high temperature are practically and physically possible, without generating excessive differences of the results with respect to the full reference model.     

Separation between coherent and turbulent fluctuations: what can we learn from the empirical mode decomposition?

The performances of a new data processing technique, namely the empirical mode decomposition, are evaluated on a fully developed turbulent velocity signal perturbed by a numerical forcing which mimics a long-period flapping. First, we introduce a “resemblance” criterion to discriminate between the polluted and the unpolluted modes extracted from the perturbed velocity signal by means of the empirical mode decomposition algorithm. A rejection procedure, playing, somehow, the role of a high-pass filter, is then designed in order to infer the original velocity signal from the perturbed one. The quality of this recovering procedure is extensively evaluated in the case of a single tone perturbation (sine wave) by varying both the amplitude and the frequency of the perturbation. An excellent agreement between the recovered and the reference velocity signals is found, even though some discrepancies are observed when the perturbation frequency overlaps the frequency range corresponding to the energy-containing eddies as emphasized by both the energy spectrum and the structure functions. Finally, our recovering procedure is successfully performed on a non-stationary perturbation (linear chirp) covering a broad range of frequencies.     

Interval,ellipsoidal, and super-ellipsoidal calculi for experimental and theoretical treatment of uncertainty: Which one ought to be preferred?

In this study we compare three calculi listed in the title for analysis of structures involving uncertainty. The main idea is based on the consideration that the maximum structural response predicted by the preferred theory ought to be minimal, and the minimum structural response predicted by the preferred theory ought to be maximal, to constitute a lower overestimation. We present analytic results that allow one to calculate the structural response via the interval, ellipsoidal or super-ellipsoidal calculus. We provide several examples of truss structures and illustrate that in different situations, depending on the available data, one of these calculi ought to be preferred. Conclusion is made on the preferable approach to be the super-ellipsoidal calculus.     

Why monotonous and non-monotonous steady-flow curves can be obtained with the same non-Newtonian fluid? A single explanation

We show that a pronounced variation of the apparent viscosity with shear joined to the control shear mode of a rheometer can justify why monotonous and non-monotonous steady-flow curves can be obtained testing the same non-Newtonian fluid.     

Time-fractional KdV equation: formulation and?solution using variational methods

In this work, the semi-inverse method has been used to derive the Lagrangian of the Korteweg?Cde Vries (KdV) equation. Then the time operator of the Lagrangian of the KdV equation has been transformed into fractional domain in terms of the left-Riemann?CLiouville fractional differential operator. The variational of the functional of this Lagrangian leads neatly to Euler?CLagrange equation. Via Agrawal??s method, one can easily derive the time-fractional KdV equation from this Euler?CLagrange equation. Remarkably, the time-fractional term in the resulting KdV equation is obtained in Riesz fractional derivative in a direct manner. As a second step, the derived time-fractional KdV equation is solved using He??s variational-iteration method. The calculations are carried out using initial condition depends on the nonlinear and dispersion coefficients of the KdV equation. We remark that more pronounced effects and deeper insight into the formation and properties of the resulting solitary wave by additionally considering the fractional order derivative beside the nonlinearity and dispersion terms.     

Mullins�� effect in semicrystalline polymers: experiments and?modeling

Experimental data are reported on isotactic polypropylene in uniaxial cyclic tensile tests with various maximum strains at room temperature. It is demonstrated that polypropylene reveals all characteristic features (hysteresis of energy, damage accumulation, and strain-hardening) of the Mullins effect. Constitutive equations are derived for the viscoplastic behavior of semicrystalline polymers at three-dimensional deformations with small strains. Adjustable parameters in the stress?Cstrain relations are found by fitting the observations. Numerical simulation shows that the model adequately predicts the viscoplastic response of polypropylene in uniaxial and biaxial cyclic tests.     

Can Moderately Rarefied Gas Transport Through Round and Flat Tight Channels of Fractured Porous Media be Described Accurately?

We study the generation and flow of foam through rough-walled, fractured marble rocks that mimic natural fracture systems in carbonate reservoirs. Flow was isolated to the fracture network because of the very low rock permeability of the marble samples and foam generated in situ during co-injection of surfactant solution and gas. The foam apparent viscosities were calculated at steady pressure gradients for a range of gas fractions, and similar to foam flow in porous media, we identified two flow regimes for foam flow in fractures: a high-quality flow regime only dependent on liquid velocity and a low-quality flow regime determined by the gas and liquid velocities. Variations in local fluid saturation during co-injection were visualized and quantified using positron emission tomography combined with computed tomography.

     

Boundary layer ?ow of Maxwell ?uid due to torsional motion of cylinder: modeling and simulation

This paper investigates the boundary layer ?ow of the Maxwell ?uid around a stretchable horizontal rotating cylinder under the in?uence of a transverse magnetic?eld. The constitutive ?ow equations for the current physical problem are modeled and analyzed for the ?rst time in the literature. The torsional motion of the cylinder is considered with the constant azimuthal velocity E. The partial di?erential equations(PDEs)governing the torsional motion of the Maxwell ?uid together with energy transport are simpli?ed with the boundary layer concept. The current analysis is valid only for a certain range of the positive Reynolds numbers. However, for very large Reynolds numbers, the ?ow becomes turbulent. Thus, the governing similarity equations are simpli?ed through suitable transformations for the analysis of the large Reynolds numbers. The numerical simulations for the ?ow, heat, and mass transport phenomena are carried out in view of the bvp4 c scheme in MATLAB. The outcomes reveal that the velocity decays exponentially faster and reduces for higher values of the Reynolds numbers and the ?ow penetrates shallower into the free stream ?uid. It is also noted that the phenomenon of stress relaxation, described by the Deborah number, causes to decline the ?ow ?elds and enhance the thermal and solutal energy transport during the ?uid motion. The penetration depth decreases for the transport of heat and mass in the ?uid with the higher Reynolds numbers. An excellent validation of the numerical results is assured through tabular data with the existing literature.     

On the Optimal Pattern for Displacement Field Measurement: Random Speckle and DIC,or Checkerboard and LSA?

Experimental Mechanics - This paper deals with the optimal pattern that can be used to retrieve displacement fields by minimizing the optical residual calculated over small regions of contrasted...     

Asperity contact theories: Do they predict linearity between contact area and load?

During the last few years, the scientific community has been debating about which theory of contact between rough surfaces can be considered as the most accurate. The authors have been attracted by such a discussion and in this paper try to give their personal thought and contribution to this debate. We present a critical analysis of the principal contact theories of rough surfaces. We focus on the multiasperity contact models (which are all based on the original idea of Greenwood and Williamson (GW) [1966. Proc. R. Soc. London A 295, 300]), and also briefly discuss a relatively recent contact theory developed by Persson [2001. J. Chem. Phys. 115, 3840]. For small loads both asperity contact models and Persson's theory predict a linear relation between the area of true contact and the applied external load, but the two theories differ for the constant of proportionality. However, this is not the only difference between the two approaches. Indeed, we show that the fully calculated predictions of asperity contact models very rapidly deviates from the predicted linear relation already for very small and in many cases unrealistic vanishing applied loads and contact areas. Moreover, this deviation becomes more and more important as the PSD breadth parameter α (as defined by Nayak) increases. Therefore, the asymptotic linear relation of multiasperity contact theories turns out to be only an academic result. On the contrary, Persson's theory is not affected by α and shows a linear behavior between contact area and load up to 10–15% of the nominal contact area, i.e. for physical reasonable loads. The authors also prove that, at high separation, all multiasperity contact models, which take into account the influence of summit curvature variation as a function of summit height, necessarily converge to a (slightly) improved version of the GW model, which, therefore, remains one of the most important milestones in the field of contact mechanics of rough surfaces.     

Compressible Turbulence and Energetic Scales: What Is Known from Experiments in Supersonic Flows?

Some properties of large-scale structures in supersonic turbulent flows are examined through experiments. The large eddies considered here include energetic scales, which contribute predominantly to, say, turbulent energy and coherent structures. Different features are presented, such as the level of energy in supersonic free shear flows, the average size of energetic structures, and their characteristic timescales. It is shown that compressibility affects the level of velocity and the size of the energetic eddies, but in many common supersonic situations, the estimation of the timescales can be made from rules valid for solenoidal turbulence. Some implications for compressible turbulence modeling are suggested. Finally, the properties of coherent structures are considered in the case of mixing layers and in a separated shock/boundary layer interaction. Some features relative to the organization of the large eddies are given and the importance of the shock motion is discussed in relation to the shock/layer interaction. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.