Load-Carrying Capacity of Circular Plates Made of a Fiber-Reinforced Composite

The load-carrying capacity of circular plates made of a fiber-reinforced composite and loaded with axisymmetric transverse forces under axisymmetric boundary conditions is investigated. The plates can be freely supported or clamped along their contour. To the known yield condition used, in the plane of main bending moments, there correspond irregular hexagons, which depend on the mechanical properties of composite constituents and some characteristic geometrical parameters. It is shown that, depending on the ratio of ultimate radial and circumferential bending moments, in the plastic state, the circular plates (the central part of the clamped plates) take the form of a cone or a frustum of cone. For each of the cases, the limit load is found, which is a function of the above-mentioned mechanical parameters. The statically allowable fields of bending moments and the corresponding allowable fields of deflection rates are determined. The solutions found are exact. Special cases for the freely supported plates are analyzed, and the results obtained are presented in the form of graphs.__________Translated from Mekhanika Kompozitnykh Materialov, Vol. 41, No. 2, pp. 177–192, March–April, 2005.     

A study of the mechanism and kinetics of interaction between nepheline powder and ammonium hydrofluoride

Behavior of a skeleton silicate, nepheline, in the reaction of fluorination with ammonium hydrofluoride was studied by means of differential-thermal, X-ray phase, and chemical analyses, IR spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscopy.     

Photon production in a dense medium

On the basis of diagram formalism for two-particle Green functions, the bremsstrahlung of charged particles interacting in a dense medium is investigated. In the case of production of soft photons, exact expressions for two-particle Green functions corresponding to the process of particle bremsstrahlung in the substance are obtained. The Green functions found are fully determined by the set of closed irreducible diagrams. It is shown that, in the case of radiation in a sufficiently dense medium in a far long-wave region of the spectrum, the coherent multiple particle scattering results in an additional (as compared that reported earlier in [1–13]) suppression of the bremsstrahlung photon yield.     

Damping of coupled phonon-plasmon modes

The effect of free carriers on the dispersion and damping of coupled phonon-plasmon modes is considered in the long-wave approximation. The electron and phonon scattering rate, as well as Landau damping, is taken into account.     

Comparative studies of femtosecond to microsecond laser pulses on selective pigmented cell injury in skin

Threshold radiant exposures for grossly apparent immediate whitening and ultrastructural alterations of melanosomes in black guinea pig skin were determined for a series of red visible laser pulses ranging from 4 x 10(-4) to 6.5 x 10(-14) s. Threshold exposures for melanosomal injury were found to be independent of pulsewidth when the pulsewidths were below the estimated thermal relaxation time of melanosomes. Threshold radiant exposures for melanosomal injury were found to increase when the pulsewidths were approximately equal to or above the thermal relaxation time of melanosomes. At longer pulse durations, fracturing of melanosomes was not observed despite the longer exposures necessary for injury. Instead, perimelanosomal vacuoles were noted. These findings are consistent with the theory of selective photothermolysis and provide evidence for the thermal initiation of melanosomal disruption.     

Cold compaction of ceramic powder: Computational analysis of the effect of pressing method and die shape

This paper deals with a computational analysis of the influence of the pressing method and part geometry on the final density distribution in the cold compaction process of ceramic alumina powders. The analysis is based on the explicit finite-element model proposed and validated in a previous study. The mechanical behavior of the processing material is described using a multisurface elastoplastic model, the modified Drucker-Prager/Cap model Published in Prikladnaya Mekhanika, Vol. 43, No. 10, pp. 129–134, October 2007.     

Symmetric <Emphasis Type="Italic">X</Emphasis><Subscript>9</Subscript> singularities and complex affine reflection groups

We establish a natural correspondence between the finite order automorphisms of the function singularities X ₉ and the complex crystallographic groups. A complete list of the related objects is obtained. To Vladimir Igorevich on the occasion of his 70th birthday     

Active-constraint variable ordering for faster feasibility of mixed integer linear programs

The selection of the branching variable can greatly affect the speed of the branch and bound solution of a mixed-integer or integer linear program. Traditional approaches to branching variable selection rely on estimating the effect of the candidate variables on the objective function. We present a new approach that relies on estimating the impact of the candidate variables on the active constraints in the current LP relaxation. We apply this method to the problem of finding the first feasible solution as quickly as possible. Empirical experiments demonstrate a significant improvement compared to a state-of-the art commercial MIP solver.     

New Branch-and-Cut Algorithm for Bilevel Linear Programming

Linear mixed 0–1 integer programming problems may be reformulated as equivalent continuous bilevel linear programming (BLP) problems. We exploit these equivalences to transpose the concept of mixed 0–1 Gomory cuts to BLP. The first phase of our new algorithm generates Gomory-like cuts. The second phase consists of a branch-and-bound procedure to ensure finite termination with a global optimal solution. Different features of the algorithm, in particular, the cut selection and branching criteria are studied in details. We propose also a set of algorithmic tests and procedures to improve the method. Finally, we illustrate the performance through numerical experiments. Our algorithm outperforms pure branch-and-bound when tested on a series of randomly generated problems. Work of the authors was partially supported by FCAR, MITACS and NSERC grants.