AERODYNAMIC DAMPING OF RANDOMLY EXCITED PLATES IN STATIONARY AND MOVING AIR

An experimental study of the aerodynamic damping of oscillating plates has been undertaken. Plates of various shapes were placed into an air flow normal to the plate and excited to oscillate parallel to the flow direction by electromagnetic forces of equal amplitudes and random frequencies. The aerodynamic damping of oscillating plates, evaluated in terms of a quality Q-factor from a frequency response resonance curve, was found to vary linearly with the absolute pressure in stationary surrounding air and with the air flow velocity in moving air. The flow velocity was also found to affect the aerodynamic damping more than the absolute pressure. A simple empirical model has been developed to predict the variation of the aerodynamic damping with the flow velocity.     

ON THE ROLES OF COMPLEMENTARY AND ADMISSIBLE BOUNDARY CONSTRAINTS IN FOURIER SOLUTIONS TO THE BOUNDARY VALUE PROBLEMS OF COMPLETELY COUPLED r TH ORDER PDES

A heretofore unavailable double Fourier series based approach, for obtaining non-separable solution to a system of completely coupled linear r th order partial differential equations with constant coefficients and subjected to general (completely coupled) boundary conditions, has been presented. The method has been successfully implemented to solve a class of hitherto unsolved boundary-value problems, pertaining to free and forced vibrations of arbitrarily laminated anisotropic doubly curved thin panels of rectangular planform, with arbitrarily prescribed (both symmetric and asymmetric with respect to the panel centerlines) admissible boundary conditions and subjected to general transverse loading.Existing solutions such as those due to Navier or Levy are based on the well-known method of separation of variables. Such solutions represent particular solutions whenever the method of separation of variables work, and when these particular solution functions fortuitously satisfy the boundary conditions. For derivation of the complementary solution, the complementary boundary constraints are introduced through boundary discontinuities of some of the particular solution functions and their partial derivatives. Such discontinuities form sets of measure zero.Various cases of lamination, geometry and dynamic response (forced and free vibrations) of a class of thin anisotropic laminated shells (curved panels) have been shown to follow from the above. Six sets of boundary conditions are used to illustrate the present method for the derivation of complementary solutions. Navier-type solutions whenever available form special cases of the present general solution.     

ANALYSIS OF A PIEZOELECTRIC MULTIMORPH IN EXTENSIONAL AND FLEXURAL MOTIONS

Impedance and admittance matrices are presented for the analysis of the beam-type piezoelectric multimorph (PM). Each piezoelectric layer is polarized in the thickness direction. The stacking sequence can be arbitrary, and both the extensional and flexural motions are considered. The variational principle is used for deriving the lumped conjugate parameters: two mechanical ports for the extensional motion, four mechanical ports for the flexural motion, and m electrical ports for the m piezoelectric layers. The resonance and antiresonance frequencies are then easily calculated from the admittance matrices. For the case of all the piezoelectric layers either in series or parallel connection, them +6 ports reduce to the seven ports, and its impedance and admittance matrices are presented. The present methods are applied to the cantilevered PM and their electromechanical behavior is studied. The tip trajectory of the cantilevered piezomotor is also investigated using the presented matrices. It is found that the present methods are very effective in analyzing the multilayer piezoelectric transducers.     

Raman spectroscopy of topotecan, an inhibitor of DNA topoisomerase I

Topotecan (TPT), a water-soluble derivative of camptothecin (inhibitor of human DNA topoiomerase I), has found wide application in cancer chemotherapy. The central problem in using topotecan is the presence of lactone rings in its molecules, which undergo hydrolysis at a physiological pH yielding an inactive and even toxic form of the drug. The analysis of Raman spectra of TPT in H₂O and D₂O solutions made it possible to assign the spectral bands to the vibrations of particular molecular groups. Spectral features indicative of the opening of the lactone rings of the TPT molecules, deprotonation of the hydroxyl groups in their quinoline fragments, and of possible participation of the hydroxyl and carbonyl groups in H bonding are found. The data obtained are necessary to study the molecular mechanisms of TPT-DNA interaction and the formation of ternary complexes between TPT, DNA, and DNA topoisomerase I.     

Accuracy of Determining Reverberation Parameters during Recovery of a Signal with Reverberation Distortions in the Case of Discrete Delays

We discuss the accuracy of determining reverberation parameters, which is required to recover a signal with reverberation distortions. It is shown that if the signal with distortions is digitized under conditions of the sampling theorem, then it is insufficient to determine the delay time of the retarded signal with an accuracy of the sampling interval. We present an iterative algorithm for determining the reverberation parameters with sufficient accuracy.     

VIBRATION AND STABILITY OF ANNULAR PLATES IN NON-LINEAR CREEP CONDITIONS

This paper presents a study on the influence of the physical non-linearity of material in creep conditions on vibration and stability of non-uniform annular plates subjected to a follower force radially distributed at the outer edge. The stability analysis requires first the calculation of a membrane stress distribution and then the application of the kinetic stability criterion, making use of small superposed vibrations. The differential equations of the membrane and vibration states have been integrated by means of the transfer matrix method which allowed the determination of the relationships between the real and imaginary parts of the complex frequency and compressive force (characteristic curves). The results have been presented in numerous figures.     

Dynamical Characteristics of Traveling Wave Packets of Total Electron Content Disturbances

Using the COPHASE method and the GPS interferometry method for travelling ionospheric disturbances, we analyze in detail the spatio-temporal properties of travelling wave packets (TWP) of total electron content (TEC) disturbances. The analysis is performed on the example of a clearest TWP manifestation observed in California, USA, in October 18, 2001, using the GLOBDET technique, developed at the Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics of the Siberian Branch of RAS for global detection and monitoring of natural and technogenic ionospheric disturbances on the basis of TEC variations retrieved from the global network of GPS receivers. In the time domain, TWPs are quasi-periodic TEC oscillations of duration about 1 h, period of 10–20 min, and amplitude exceeding that of the background TEC fluctuations by at least one order of magnitude. The velocity and direction of TWP motion are similar to those of mid-latitude mesoscale travelling ionospheric disturbances, as obtained earlier from the analysis of phase parameters of HF radio signals and the signals of geostationary satellites and discrete space radio sources.     

Temperature and junction-type dependency of Andreev reflection in MgB2

We studied the voltage and temperature dependency of the dynamic conductance of normal metal-MgB₂ junctions obtained either with the point-contact technique (with Au and Pt tips) or by making Ag-paint spots on the surface of MgB₂ samples. The fit of the conductance curves with the generalized BTK model gives evidence of pure s-wave gap symmetry. The temperature dependency of the gap, measured in Ag-paint junctions (dirty limit), follows the standard BCS curve with 2Δ/k_BT_c=3.3. In out-of-plane, high-pressure point-contacts we obtained almost ideal Andreev reflection characteristics showing a single small s-wave gap Δ=2.6±0.2 meV (clean limit).