On Finite Shear

If a pair of material line elements, passing through a typical particle P in a body, subtend an angle Θ before deformation, and Θ+γ after deformation, the pair of material elements is said to be sheared by the amount γ. Here all pairs of material elements at P are considered for arbitrary deformations. Two main problems are addressed and solved. The first is the determination of all pairs of material line elements at P which are unsheared. The second is the determination of that pair of material line elements at P which suffers the maximum shear. All unsheared pairs of material elements in a given plane π(S) with normal S passing through P are considered. Provided π(S) is not a plane of central circular section of the C-ellipsoid at P (where C is the right Cauchy-Green strain tensor), it is seen that corresponding to any material element in π(S) there is, in general, one companion material element in π(S) such that the element and its companion are unsheared. There are, however, two elements in π(S) which have no companions. We call their corresponding directions \textit{limiting directions.} Equally inclined to the direction of least stretch in the plane π(S), the limiting directions play a central role. It is seen that, in a given plane π(S), the pair of material line elements which suffer the maximum shear lie along the limiting directions in π(S). If Θ _L is the acute angle subtended by the limitig directions in π(S) before deformation, then this angle is sheared into its supplement π−Θ _L so that the maximum shear γ^*;(S) is γ^*=π− 2 Θ _L . If S is given and C is known, then Θ _L may be determined immediately. Its calculation does not involve knowing the eigenvectors or eigenvalues of C. When all possible planes through P are considered, it is seen that the global maximum shear γ^* _G occurs for material elements lying along the limiting directions in the plane spanned by the eigenvectors of C corresponding to the greatest principal stretch λ₃ and the least λ₁. The limiting directions in this principal plane of C subtend the angle and . Generally the maximum shear does not occur for a pair of material elements which are originally orthogonal. For a given material element along the unit vector N, there is, in general, in each plane π(S passing through N at P, a companion vector M such that material elements along N and M are unsheared. A formula, originally due to Joly (1905), is presented for M in terms of N and S. Given an unsheared pair π(S), the limiting directions in π(S) are seen to be easily determined, either analytically or geometrically. Planar shear, the change in the angle between the normals of a pair of material planar elements at X, is also considered. The theory of planar shear runs parallel to the theory of shear of material line elements. Corresponding results are presented. Finally, another concept of shear used in the geology literature, and apparently due to Jaeger, is considered. The connection is shown between Cauchy shear, the change in the angle of a pair of material elements, and the Jaeger shear, the change in the angle between the normal N to a planar element and a material element along the normal N. Although Jaeger's shear is described in terms of one direction N, it is seen to implicitly include a second material line element orthogonal to N. Accepted: May 25, 1999     

Identities in Finite Strain

First of all the deformation is considered of two infinitesimal material line elements lying along vectors M,N emanating from a particle at X in a body. For all M,N lying in a given plane, an identity is derived relating the stretches along M,N and the angles of the pair of infinitesimal material line elements before and after deformation. Then, the deformation is considered of three non-coplanar infinitesimal material line elements lying along vectors M,N,P emanating from a particle at X in a body. An identity is derived relating the stretches along M,N,P and the angles between the three pairs of infinitesimal material line elements before and after deformation. The identity is factored leading to easy interpretation. The special case of infinitesimal strain is considered.      

Optimal prediction for moment models: crescendo diffusion and reordered equations

A direct numerical solution of the radiative transfer equation or any kinetic equation is typically expensive, since the radiative intensity depends on time, space and direction. An expansion in the direction variables yields an equivalent system of infinitely many moments. A fundamental problem is how to truncate the system. Various closures have been presented in the literature. We want to generally study the moment closure within the framework of optimal prediction, a strategy to approximate the mean solution of a large system by a smaller system, for radiation moment systems. We apply this strategy to radiative transfer and show that several closures can be re-derived within this framework, such as P _N , diffusion, and diffusion correction closures. In addition, the formalism gives rise to new parabolic systems, the reordered P _N equations, that are similar to the simplified P _N equations. Furthermore, we propose a modification to existing closures. Although simple and with no extra cost, this newly derived crescendo diffusion yields better approximations in numerical tests.     

On Determinants having Complex Conjugate Columns or Rows

It is proved that the determinant, det D, of an N × N matrix D having n ≤ N/2 pairs of complex conjugate columns (or rows), while all other elements are real-valued, is given by det D =(−2i)ⁿdet S,n = 0,1,2,... in which S is a certain residual matrix having real-valued elements. Thus, det D is either real-valued or pure imaginary according as n is even (including n = 0 ) or odd, respectively. The general theorem is illustrated in an example. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Phase Shifting Full-Field Interferometric Methods for Determination of In-Plane Tensorial Stress

A new method that combines phase shifting photoelasticity and transmission Coherent Gradient Sensing (CGS) is developed to determine the tensorial stress field in thin plates of photoelastic materials. A six step phase shifting photoelasticity method determines principal stress directions and the difference of principal stresses. The transmission CGS method utilizes a standard four step phase shifting method to measure the x and y first derivatives of the sum of principal stresses. These stress derivatives are numerically integrated using a weighted preconditioned conjugate gradient (PCG) algorithm, which is also used for the phase unwrapping of the photoelastic and CGS phases. With full-field measurement of the sum and difference of principal stresses, the principal stresses may be separated, followed by the Cartesian and polar coordinate stresses using the principal stress directions. The method is demonstrated for a compressed polycarbonate plate with a side V-shaped notch. The experimental stress fields compare well with theoretical stress fields derived from Williams solution for a thin plate with an angular corner.     

New exact solution of Euler’s equations (rigid body dynamics) in the case of rotation over the fixed point

A new exact solution of Euler’s equations (rigid body dynamics) is presented here. All the components of angular velocity of rigid body for such a solution differ from both the cases of symmetric rigid rotor (which has two equal moments of inertia: Lagrange’s or Kovalevskaya’s case), and from the Euler’s case when all the applied torques are zero, or from other well-known particular cases. The key features are the next: the center of mass of rigid body is assumed to be located at meridional plane along the main principal axis of inertia of rigid body, besides, the principal moments of inertia are assumed to satisfy to a simple algebraic equality. Also, there is a restriction at choosing of initial conditions. Such a solution is also proved to satisfy to Euler–Poinsot equations, including invariants of motion and additional Euler’s invariant (square of the vector of angular momentum is a constant). So, such a solution is a generalization of Euler’s case.     

Comparison of optical and mechanical measurements of second normal stress difference relaxation following step strain

Relaxation of the second normal stress difference (N ₂) following step strain of a concentrated monodisperse polystyrene solution has been studied using mechanical and optical rheometry. Measurements of normal thrust in a parallel plate geometry are corrected for strain inhomogeneity and combined with independent measurements of the first normal stress difference (N ₁) to determine N ₂. Optical experiments were performed using a novel configuration where flow birefringence data collected using multiple light paths within the shear plane are combined with the stress-optical law to determine all three independent stress components for shearing deformations. This technique eliminates end effects, and provides an opportunity to oversample the stress tensor and develop consistency checks of experimental data. N ₂ is found to be nonzero at all accessible times, and relaxes in roughly constant proportion to N ₁. This reflects nonaffine distribution of chain segments, even well within the regime of chain retraction at short times. Data collected with the two techniques are reasonably consistent with each other, and with results of previous studies, generally lying between the predictions of the Doi-Edwards model with and without the independent alignment approximation. The normal stress ratio –N ₂/N ₁ shows pronounced strain thinning in the nonlinear regime.     

A contact searching algorithm for contact-impact problems

A new contact searching algorithm for contact-impact systems is proposed in this paper. In terms of the cell structure and the linked-list, this algorithm solves the problem of sorting and searching contacts in three dimensions by transforming it to a retrieving process from two one-dimensional arrays, and binary searching is no longer required. Using this algorithm, the cost of contact searching is reduced to the order ofO(N) instead ofO(Nlog₂ N) for traditional ones, whereN is the node number in the system. Moreover, this algorithm can handle contact systems with arbitrary mesh layouts. Due to the simplicity of this algorithm it can be easily implemented in a dynamic explicit finite element program. Our numerical experimental result shows that this algorithm is reliable and efficient for contact searching of three dimensional systems. The project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (59875045), and the State Key Laboratory of Automobile Safety and Energy Saving (K9705)     

Exploration of the rotational power consumption of a rigid flapping wing

The development of Micro Air Vehicles with flapping wings is inspired from the observation and study of natural flyers such as insects and birds. This article explores the rotational power consumption of a flapping wing using a mechanical flapper at Re ≃ 4,500. This mechanical flapper is simplified to a 2D translation and a rotation in a water tank. Moreover, the wing kinematics are reduced to a linear translation and a rotation for the purpose of our study. We introduce the notion of non-ideal flapper and associated non-ideal rotational power. Such non-ideal devices are defined as consuming power for adding and removing mechanical power to and from the flow, respectively. First, we use a traditional symmetrical wing kinematic which is a simplified kinematic inspired from natural flyers. The lift coefficient of this flapping is about C _L ≃ 1.5. This symmetrical wing kinematic is chosen as a reference. Further, wing kinematics with asymmetric rotations are then compared with this one. These new kinematics are built using a differential velocity defined according to the translational kinematics, a time lag and a distance, r _kp. The analogy of this distance is discussed as a key point to follow along the chord. First, the wing kinematics are varied keeping a similar shape for the profiles of the angular velocity. It is shown that when compared to the reference wing kinematic, a 10% reduction in the rotational power is obtained whilst the lift is reduced by 9%. Second, we release the limitation to a similar shape for the profiles of the angular velocity leading to a novel shape for the angular velocity profile named here as “double bump” profile. With these new wing kinematics, we show that a 60% reduction in the non-ideal rotational power can be achieved whilst the lift coefficient is only reduced by 1.7%. Such “double bump kinematics” could then be of interest to increase the endurance of Micro Air Vehicles.     

N-Homoclinic bifurcations for homoclinic orbits changing their twisting

We study bifurcations, calledN-homoclinic bifurcations, which produce homoclinic orbits roundingN times (N2) in some tubular neighborhood of original homoclinic orbit. A family of vector fields undergoes such a bifurcation when it is a perturbation of a vector field with a homoclinic orbit.N-Homoclinic bifurcations are divided into two cases; one is that the linearization at the equilibrium has only real principal eigenvalues, and the other is that it has complex principal eigenvalues. We treat the former case, espcially that linearization has only one unstable eigenvalue. As main tools we use a topological method, namely, Conley index theory, which enables us to treat more degenerate cases than those studied by analytical methods.     

GENERAL SOLUTION OF THE OVERALL BENDING OF FLEXIBLE CIRCULAR RING SHELLS WITH MODERATELY SLENDER RATIO AND APPLICATIONS TO THE BELLOWS (Ⅳ)-CALCULATION FOR U-SHAPED BELLOWS

This is one of the applications of Part (I), in which the angular stiffness, and the corresponding stress distributions of U-shaped bellows were discussed. The bellows was divided into protruding sections, concave sections and ring plates for the calculation that the general solution (I) with its reduced form to ring plates were used respectively, but the continuity of the surface stresses and the meridian rotations at each joint of the sections were entirely satisfied. The resent results were compared with those of the slender ring shell solution proposed earlier by the authors, the standards of the Expansion Joint Manufacturers Association (EJMA), the experiment and the finite element method. It is shown that the governing equation and the general solution (I) are very effective. Contributed by HUANG Qian Biography: ZHU Wei-ping (1962-)     

Stability of some low‐order approximations for the Stokes problem

Two‐level low‐order finite element approximations are considered for the inhomogeneous Stokes equations. The elements introduced are attractive because of their simplicity and computational efficiency. In this paper, the stability of a Q₁(h)–Q₁(2h) approximation is analysed for general geometries. Using the macroelement technique, we prove the stability condition for both two‐ and three‐dimensional problems. As a result, optimal rates of convergence are found for the velocity and pressure approximations. Numerical results for three test problems are presented. We observe that for the computed examples, the accuracy of the two‐level bilinear approximation is compared favourably with some standard finite elements. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Long-term behavior of mineral-filled polymer composites modeled by discrete spectra

A discrete spectra transformation technique is used for the processing and analysis of long-term stress relaxation and creep compliance data of mineral-filled polymer composites. A non-linear regression simultaneously adjusts the parameters of N discrete relaxation or retardation spectra. For small N the solution is insensitive to the choice of regression starting value sets. From the relaxation time spectrum a corresponding discrete retardation spectrum and creep compliance can be calculated using the Laplace transform and vice versa. The analysis of long-term (more than 1200 days) both relaxation and retardation experimental data demonstrates the applicability of the transformation technique. Comparisons of the experimental and calculated spectra are given. The influence of the filler amount is demonstrated.     

Applications of the dual integral formulation in conjunction with fast multipole method to the oblique incident wave problem

In this paper, the dual integral formulation is derived for the modified Helmholtz equation in the propagation of oblique incident wave passing a thin barrier (zero thickness) by employing the concept of fast multipole method (FMM) to accelerate the construction of an influence matrix. By adopting the addition theorem, the four kernels in the dual formulation are expanded into degenerate kernels that separate the field point and the source point. The source point matrices decomposed in the four influence matrices are similar to each other or only to some combinations. There are many zeros or the same influence coefficients in the field point matrices decomposed in the four influence matrices, which can avoid calculating the same terms repeatedly. The separable technique reduces the number of floating‐point operations from O((N)²) to O(N log^a(N)), where N is the number of elements and a is a small constant independent of N. Finally, the FMM is shown to reduce the CPU time and memory requirement, thus enabling us to apply boundary element method (BEM) to solve water scattering problems efficiently. Two‐moment FMM formulation was found to be sufficient for convergence in the singular equation. The results are compared well with those of conventional BEM and analytical solutions and show the accuracy and efficiency of the FMM. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Three-dimensional darcian free convection near a stagnation point on an isothermal surface

The unsteady free convection boundary-layer flow in a fluid-saturated porous medium near a general three-dimensional stagnation point is considered. It is shown that the problem can be reduced to an equivalent two-dimensional problem by a simple transformation of variables. The form of solution then depends only on the sign of the quantity a + b, where a and b are the principal curvatures of the body at the stagnation point.     

On the consequences of material frame-indifference in algebraic stress models

The principle of material frame-indifference (MFI) is a fundamental and controversial principle of continuum mechanics that has been invoked recently to derive nonlinear algebraic models for stresses of viscoelastic liquids. The purpose of the present study is to identify regions of a flow field where MFI should be considered. Such regions are identified by computing the angular velocity of the principal directions of the rate-of-deformation tensor in order to obtain an Euclidean objective vorticity tensor. An analysis is carried out for uniform shear and extensional flows, and for a Couette flow. The method is then applied to the planar flow through an abrupt 4:1 contraction and to the two-dimensional stream past a circular cylinder. The main results are: (1) MFI should be taken into account in regions characterized by the transition between two different kinematics and a significant velocity magnitude, and (2) MFI can be safely ignored in regions of pure viscometric behaviour as well as in recirculation regions. The consequences of MFI being taken into account are then examined upon using the Euclidean objective vorticity tensor in a simple algebraic constitutive law for viscoelastic fluids.     

A connection between linear normal modes and lines of curvature on the potential surface

For the N-degree-of-freedom of linear conservative vibratory systems, the corresponding potential functions can be viewed as N-hypersurfaces in (N + 1)-dimensional space. In this paper, a connection between the geometrical properties (principal curvatures, curvature lines) of potential surfaces and the vibratory characteristics (natural frequencies, linear modes) of the system is built. It is proved that the linear normal modes are exactly the projections of the lines of curvature on the potential surface onto the configuration space with metric m_ij (the mass-matrix); and that the squared natural frequencies are exactly the principal curvatures, at the origin of the configuration space, of the potential surface.     

Phase-resolved flow characteristics between two shrouded co-rotating disks

Flow characteristics in the interdisk midplane between two shrouded co-rotating disks were experimentally studied. A laser-assisted particle-laden flow-visualization method was used to identify the qualitative flow behaviors. Particle image velocimetry was employed to measure the instantaneous flow velocities. The flow visualization revealed rotating polygonal flow structures (hexagon, pentagon, quadrangle, triangle, and oval) existing in the core region of the interdisk spacing. There existed a difference between the rotating frequencies of the polygon and the disks. The rotating frequency ratio between the polygonal flow structure and the disks depended on the mode shapes of the polygonal core flow structures—0.8 for pentagon, 0.75 for quadrangle, 0.69 for triangle, and 0.6 for oval. The phase-resolved flow velocities relative to the bulk rotation speed of the polygonal core flow structure were calculated, and the streamline patterns were delineated. It was found that outside the polygonal core flow structure, there existed a cluster of vortex rings—each side of the polygon was associated with a vortex ring. The radial distributions of the time-averaged and phase-resolved ensemble-averaged circumferential and radial velocities were presented. Five characteristic regions (solid-body rotation region, hub-influenced region, buffer region, vortex region, and shroud-influenced region) were identified according to the prominent physical features of the flow velocity distributions in the interdisk midplane. In the solid-body rotation region, the fluid rotated at the angular velocity of the disks and hub. In the hub-influenced region, the circumferential flow velocity departed slightly from the disks’ angular velocity. The circumferential velocities in the hub-influenced and vortex regions varied linearly with variation of radial coordinates. The phase-resolved ensemble-averaged relative radial velocity profiles in the interdisk midplane at various phase angles exhibited grouping behaviors in three ranges of polygon phase angles (θ = 0 and α/2, 0 < θ < α/2, and α/2 < θ < α) because three-dimensional flow induced similar flow patterns to appear in the same range of polygon phase angles.     

A numerical study of pulsatile laminar flows in a pipe with a ring-type constriction

Numerical simulations have been carried out to study pulsatile laminar flows in a pipe with an axisymmetric ringtype constriction. Three types of pulsatile flows were investigated, namely a physiological flow, a pure sinusoidal flow and a non-zero mean velocity sinusoidal flow. The laminar flow governing equations were solved by the SIMPLE algorithm on a non-staggered grid and a modified Crank-Nicolson approximation was used to discretrize the momentum equations with respect to time. The maximum flow Reynolds numer (Re) is 100. The Womersley number (N_w) ranges from 0 to 50, with the corresponding Strouhal number (St) ranging from 0 to 3·98. The constriction opening ratio (d/D) and thickness ratio (h/D) are fixed at 0·5 and 0·1 respectively. Within the time period investigated, all these pulsatile flows include both forward and backward flows. The unsteady recirculation region and the recirculation points change in size and location with time. For N_w ≤ 1 and St≤ 1·56 x 10^?3 the three pulsatile flows have the same simple relation between the instantaneous flow rate and pressure loss (Δp) across the constriction and the pressure gradient in the axial direction (dp/dz) in the fully developed flow region. The phase angles between the flow rate and pressure loss and the pressure gradient are equal to zero. With increasing N_w and St, the phase angle between the flow rate and the dp/dz becomes larger and has its maximum value of 90° at N_w = 50 and St = 3·98. The three pulsatile flows also show different relations between the flow rate and the pressure gradient. The pure sinusoidal flow has the largest maximum pressure gradient and the non-zero mean velocity sinusoidal flow has the smallest. For larger N_w and St the fully developed velocity profiles in the fully developed flow region have a smaller velocity gradient along the radial direction in the central region. The maximum recirculation length increases for N_w ranging from 0 to 4·2, while this length becomes very small at N_w = 50 and St = 3·98. The deceleration tends to enlarge the recirculation region and this effect appears for N_w ≥ 3 and St ≥ 1·43×10^?2. Linear relations exist between the flow rate and the instantaneous maximum values of velocity, vorticity and shear stress.