Anisotropic Elastic-Viscoplastic Properties at Finite Strains of Injection-Moulded Low-Density Polyethylene

Injection-moulding is one of the most common manufacturing processes used for polymers. In many applications, the mechanical properties of the product is of great importance. Injection-moulding of thin-walled polymer products tends to leave the polymer structure in a state where the mechanical properties are anisotropic, due to alignment of polymer chains along the melt flow direction. The anisotropic elastic-viscoplastic properties of low-density polyethylene, that has undergone an injection-moulding process, are therefore examined in the present work. Test specimens were punched out from injection-moulded plates and tested in uniaxial tension. Three in-plane material directions were investigated. Because of the small thickness of the plates, only the in-plane properties could be determined. Tensile tests with both monotonic and cyclic loading were performed, and the local strains on the surface of the test specimens were measured using image analysis. True stress vs. true strain diagrams were constructed, and the material response was evaluated using an elastic-viscoplasticity law. The components of the anisotropic compliance matrix were determined together with the direction-specific plastic hardening parameters.     

A simple three‐wave approximate Riemann solver for the Saint‐Venant‐Exner equations

Erosion and sediments transport processes have a great impact on industrial structures and on water quality. Despite its limitations, the Saint‐Venant‐Exner system is still (and for sure for some years) widely used in industrial codes to model the bedload sediment transport. In practice, its numerical resolution is mostly handled by a splitting technique that allows a weak coupling between hydraulic and morphodynamic distinct softwares but may suffer from important stability issues. In recent works, many authors proposed alternative methods based on a strong coupling that cure this problem but are not so trivial to implement in an industrial context. In this work, we then pursue 2 objectives. First, we propose a very simple scheme based on an approximate Riemann solver, respecting the strong coupling framework, and we demonstrate its stability and accuracy through a number of numerical test cases. However, second, we reinterpret our scheme as a splitting technique and we extend the purpose to propose what should be the minimal coupling that ensures the stability of the global numerical process in industrial codes, at least, when dealing with collocated finite volume method. The resulting splitting method is, up to our knowledge, the only one for which stability properties are fully demonstrated.     

Modelling pH-Dependent and Microstructure-Dependent Streaming Potential Coefficient and Zeta Potential of Porous Sandstones

In this paper, we have significantly modified an existing model for calculating the zeta potential and streaming potential coefficient of porous media and tested it with a large, recently published, high-quality experimental dataset. The newly modified model does not require the imposition of a zeta potential offset but derives its high salinity zeta potential behaviour from Stern plane saturation considerations. The newly modified model has been implemented as a function of temperature, salinity, pH, and rock microstructure both for facies-specific aggregations of the new data and for individual samples. Since the experimental data include measurements on samples of both detrital and authigenic overgrowth sandstones, it was possible to model and test the effect of widely varying microstructural properties while keeping lithology constant. The results show that the theoretical model represents the experimental data very well when applied to model data for a particular lithofacies over the whole salinity, from 10^?5 to 6.3 mol/dm³, and extremely well when modelling individual samples and taking individual sample microstructure into account. The new model reproduces and explains the extreme sensitivity of zeta and streaming potential coefficient to pore fluid pH. The low salinity control of streaming potential coefficient by rock microstructure is described well by the modified model. The model also behaves at high salinities, showing that the constant zeta potential observed at high salinities arises from the development of a maximum charge density in the diffuse layer as it is compressed to the thickness of one hydrated metal ion.