Material force method: theoretical and numerical aspects in nonlinear electro-elastostatics

Formulations of the spatial and material motion problem in nonlinear electroelastostatics are considered in this work by a virtual work approach. Based on these formulations, a finite element discretization is realized and a numerical example is presented to demonstrate possible uses of the material force method in studying the closing process of cracks. (© 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Pressure effects on the thermodynamic and mechanical properties of zinc-blende ZnTe compound

In this paper, the moment method in statistical mechanics has been employed to study the pressure effects on thermodynamic and mechanical properties of zinc-blende zinc telluride using many-body potential. We have derived the analytical expressions of the pressure-dependent lattice parameter, volume compression as well as mean-square displacement of zinc-blende type compound. Numerical calculations performed for ZnTe compound up to 12 GPa are found to be in good and reasonable agreement with available experimental data as well as with previous theoretical studies. These results have been used to evaluate the bulk modulus and its first pressure derivative of ZnTe. The present moment method has taken into account the quantum zero-point vibrations at low temperature and the higher-order anharmonic terms in the atomic displacements. This research shows the advantage of moment method on extensively studying thermo-mechanical properties of materials under high pressures.     

Rayleigh waves in an isotropic elastic half-space coated by a thin isotropic elastic layer with smooth contact

In the present paper, we are interested in the propagation of Rayleigh waves in an isotropic elastic half-space coated with a thin isotropic elastic layer. The contact between the layer and the half space is assumed to be smooth. The main purpose of the paper is to establish an approximate secular equation of the wave. By using the effective boundary condition method, an approximate, yet highly accurate secular equation of fourth-order in terms of the dimensionless thickness of the layer is derived. From the secular equation obtained, an approximate formula of third-order for the velocity of Rayleigh waves is established. The approximate secular equation and the formula for the velocity obtained in this paper are potentially useful in many practical applications.     

Degradable conjugates from oxanorbornadiene reagents

Oxanorbornadienedicarboxylate (OND) reagents were explored for purposes of binding and releasing drugs from serum albumins as representative macromolecular carriers. Being highly reactive Michael acceptors, ONDs form adducts with thiols and amines, which then undergo retro-Diels-Alder fragmentation. A study of more than 30 model adducts revealed a number of modifications that can be used to influence adduct stability. For the most reactive OND linkers, the labeling of the single available bovine serum albumin (BSA) cysteine residue was complete within minutes at a mid-micromolar concentration of reactants. While a selectivity of greater than 1000-fold for thiol over amine was observed with model amino acids, the labeling of protein amines with ONDs is fast enough to be practical, as demonstrated by the reaction with thiol-depleted BSA. The OND-amine adducts were found to be up to 15 times more stable than OND-thiol adducts, and to be sensitive to acid by virtue of a stereochemically dependent acceleration of cycloreversion. The release rate of fluorescent cargo from serum albumins was tuned by selecting the coupling partners: the available half-lives ranged from 40 min to 7 days at 37 °C. Such versatility of release profiles from protein carriers, controlled by the nature of the OND linkage, is a useful addition to the drug delivery toolbox.     

Singly and doubly lithium doped silicon clusters: geometrical and electronic structures and ionization energies

The geometric structures of neutral and cationic Si(n)Li(m)(0/+) clusters with n = 2-11 and m = 1, 2 are investigated using combined experimental and computational methods. The adiabatic ionization energy and vertical ionization energy (VIE) of Si(n)Li(m) clusters are determined using quantum chemical methods (B3LYP/6-311+G(d), G3B3, and CCSD(T)/aug-cc-pVxZ with x = D,T), whereas experimental values are derived from threshold photoionization experiments in the 4.68-6.24 eV range. Among the investigated cluster sizes, only Si(6)Li(2), Si(7)Li, Si(10)Li, and Si(11)Li have ionization thresholds below 6.24 eV and could be measured accurately. The ionization threshold and VIE obtained from the experimental photoionization efficiency curves agree well with the computed values. The growth mechanism of the lithium doped silicon clusters follows some simple rules: (1) neutral singly doped Si(n)Li clusters favor the Li atom addition on an edge or a face of the structure of the corresponding Si(n)(-) anion, while the cationic Si(n)Li(+) binds with one Si atom of the bare Si(n) cluster or adds on one of its edges, and (2) for doubly doped Si(n)Li(2)(0/+) clusters, the neutrals have the shape of the Si(n+1) counterparts with an additional Li atom added on an edge or a face of it, while the cations have both Li atoms added on edges or faces of the Si(n)(-) clusters.     

Mechanics and mechanism of cut resistance of protective materials

A sliding sharp edge penetrating material is one of the most dangerous cases of cutting because it requires the smallest applied load. A better understanding of the cutting mechanism is a fundamental step to develop new and more performing protective materials. This study aims at analyzing cutting mechanics and mechanism in the presence of friction. The International Standard ISO 13997 cut test method consists in measuring the distance that a straight blade slides horizontally to cut through a material under a constant applied normal force and was used to investigate cutting phenomena.In practice, cut resistance of a material is contributed by the intrinsic strength of material and the frictional distribution. Two types of friction distributions are involved in cutting: a macroscopic friction induced by the gripping of the material and by the applied normal load on the two sides of the blade; and the other the sliding friction associated with cut through of the material that occurs along the face of the blade tip. For most materials, frictional forces due to lateral gripping could be several times greater than the friction due to the applied normal force. Thus, the cutting energy required for breaking molecular chains is much smaller than the energy dissipated for friction. The elastic modulus, the structure of the material as well as the sliding velocity have significant influence on the friction. Therefore all these properties can affect the cutting resistance results.     

Stable Recovery of Analytic Functions using Basic Hypergeometric Series

Two stable sampling formulas for reconstructing analytic functions from exponentially spaced samples are considered. Criterion for selecting regularization parameter and error estimates are obtained.     

Development of an analytical method for the simultaneous determination of 15 carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and polycyclic aromatic nitrogen heterocyclic compounds. Application to diesel particulates

A new method enabling the determination of 15 priority carcinogenic polyaromatic compounds (PAC) proposed by the US National Toxicology Program (NTP) has been developed and applied to diesel exhaust particulates (DEP). The clean-up procedure consists of solid-phase extraction (SPE) and HPLC fractionation on silica phases followed by liquid-liquid extraction and chromatography on a polyvinylbenzene copolymer column. The method gives good recoveries for all PAC studied except dibenzo[a,j]acridine and dibenzo[a,h]pyrene, for which recovery values are below 80%. The use of GC-MS ion trap and its capacity to achieve single-ion storage enhanced the sensitivity of the method, enabling the detection of high-molecular-weight PAH in the low ng g(-1) concentration range. Intermediate polarity GC columns, e.g. BPX-50 or equivalent, enabled better separation, when applied to DEP analysis, than the generally used DB-5 apolar phase. This is observed mainly for separation of isomeric compounds belonging to the benzofluoranthene and dibenzopyrene families. The application of this method to DEP sampled from the exhaust of a diesel engine and in confined locations such as a tunnel has shown that all PAH of the NTP list could be detected, except dibenzo[a,h]pyrene. No dibenzacridine or dibenzocarbazole could be detected in such matrices. The method is sufficiently sensitive to be applicable to environmental exposure measurements in occupational health surveys.     

Processing the capillary viscometry data of fluids with yield stress

The capillary viscometer is used to measure the shear stress-shear rate relationship of a wide range of purely viscous fluids. It is however not considered as an appropriate instrument for obtaining the yield stress and the post-yield behaviour of fluids that have a yield stress. This is partly because conventional methods of processing the capillary viscometry data of purely viscous fluids cannot be applied to similar data of fluids with yield stress. The unavoidable experimental noise in the capillary data, particularly at low shear rates, also makes it difficult to obtain a reliable estimate of the yield stress from capillary data. In this investigation the problem of converting the capillary viscometry data of yield stress fluids into a shear stress-shear rate curve and a yield stress is formulated as a Volterra integral equation of the first kind. This is an ill-posed problem i.e. noise in the data will be amplified by inappropriate methods of data processing. A method, based on Tikhonov regularisation that takes into account the ill-posed nature of the problem, is then developed to solve this problem for fluids with yield stress. The performance of this method is assessed by applying it to a set of “synthetic” capillary viscometry data with added random noise and to a set of experimental data for a concentrated suspension of TiO₂ taken from the literature. In both cases Tikhonov regularisation was able to extract the complete shear properties of these fluids from capillary viscometry data alone. Received: 22 November 1999/Accepted: 17 December 1999