Translaminar fracture toughness testing of composites: A review

A comprehensive review of techniques for the experimental characterisation of the fracture toughness associated with the translaminar (fibre-breaking) failure modes of continuously reinforced laminated composites is presented. The collection of work relating to tensile failure reveals a varied approach in terms of specimen configuration, size and data reduction, despite the existence of an ASTM standard. Best practices are identified and suggestions for extending the scope of the current standard are made. Works on compressive failure are found to be less comprehensive. Measurement of the toughness associated with initiation of the failure mode in isolation has been achieved, but this review finds that significant research steps need to be taken before a resistance curve can be fully characterised.     

Bifurcation to infinitely many sinks

This paper considers one parameter families of diffeomorphisms {F _t } in two dimensions which have a curve of dissipative saddle periodic pointsP _t , i.e.F _t ⁿ (P _t )=P _t and |detDF _t ⁿ (P _t )|<1. The family is also assumed to create new homoclinic intersections of the stable and unstable manifolds ofP _t as the parameter varies throught ₀. Gavirlov and Silnikov proved that if the new homoclinic intersections are created nondegenerately att ₀, then there is an infinite cascade of periodic sinks, i.e. there are parameter valuest _n accumulating att ₀ for which there is a sink of periodn [GS2, Sect. 4]. We show that this result is true for real analytic diffeomorphisms even if the homoclinic intersection is created degenerately. We give computer evidence to show that this latter result is probably applicable to the Hénon map forA near 1.392 andB equal ?0.3. Newhouse proved a related result which showed the existence of infinitely many periodic sinks for a single diffeomorphism which is a perturbation of a diffeomorphism with a nondegenerate homoclinic tangency. We give the main geometric ideas of the proof of this theorem. We also give a variation of a key lemma to show that the result is true for a fixed one parameter family which creates a nondegenerate tangency. Thus under the nondegeneracy assumption, not only is there a cascade of sinks proved by Gavrilov and Silnikov, but also a single parameter valuet* with infinitely many sinks.     

Suboptimal Kronrod extension formulae for numerical quadrature

Summary We consider cases where the Stieltjes polynomial associated with a Gaussian quadrature formula has complex zeros. In such cases a Kronrod extension of the Gaussian rule does not exist. A method is described for modifying the Stieltjes polynomial so that the resulting polynomial has no complex zeros. The modification is performed in such a way that the Kronrod-type extension rule resulting from the addition of then+1 zeros of the modified Stieltjes polynomial to the original knots of the Gaussian rule has only slightly lower degree of precision than normally achieved when the Kronrod extension rule exists. As examples of the use of the method, we present some new formulae extending the classical Gauss-Hermite quadrature rules. We comment on the limited success of the method in extending Gauss-Laguerre rules and show that several modified extensions of the Gauss Gegenbauer formulae exist in cases where the standard Kronrod extension does not.     

Variational conditions with smooth constraints: structure and analysis

 This is an expository paper about the analysis of variational conditions over sets defined in finite-dimensional spaces by fairly smooth functions satisfying a constraint qualification. The primary focus is on results that can provide quantitative and computable sensitivity information for particular instances of the problems under study, and our objective is to give a personal view of the state of current knowledge in this area and of gaps in that knowledge that require future work. The writing style is informal, in keeping with the objective of focusing the reader's attention on the basic concepts and the relationships between them, rather than on details of the particular results themselves. Received: December 1, 2002 / Accepted: April 25, 2003 Published online: May 28, 2003 Key words. variational condition – variational inequality – complementarity – sensitivity – stability – nondegeneracy Mathematics Subject Classification (2000): Primary: 90C31. Secondary: 47J20, 49J40, 49J53, 90C33     

The experimental structure of199Au and the interacting boson-fermion model

Gamma rays of¹⁹⁹Au obtained after double neutron capture in¹⁹⁷Au were measured at the ILL high flux reactor. A level scheme up to 1770 keV excitation energy is established. The result is compared with IBFM and Boson-Fermion-Symmetry calculations.