On the behaviour of rubberlike materials in compression and shear

Summary The mechanical behaviour of rubberlike materials is modelled in a phenomenological approach using a strain-energy formulation. Nonhomogeneous shear experiments on solid rubber specimens have been carried out as well as simple elongation tests on the same rubber compound. The elongation tests have been used to determine the model constants. By a comparison between experiment and numerical simulation of the nonhomogeneous shear test the predictive capabilities of the Mooney-Rivlin, the Ogden and the Besseling model have been assessed for compression-shear deformation paths. An analytical study explains the numerically observed behaviour.

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Über das Verhalten von Gummimaterialien unter Druck und Schubverformungen

Übersicht Das mechanische Verhalten von Gummimaterialien wird phänomenologisch modelliert unter Anwendung einer Formänderungsenergiefunktion. Es sind nicht-homogene Schubversuche auf dreidimensionale Versuchsproben aus Gummi so wie auch einfache Verlängerungsversuche auf Gummiproben der gleichen Zusammenstellung durchgeführt worden. Die Verlängerungsversuche sind durchgeführt worden um die Stoffkennwerte feststellen zu können. In einer Vergleichung zwischen dem Experiment und der numerischen Simulation von nicht-homogenen Schubversuchen ist die Genauigkeit des Mooney-Rivlinschen Modells, des Ogdenschen Modells und des Besselingschen Modells für kombinierte Druck-Schubverformungen festgestellt worden. In einem analytischen Studium wird das numerisch betrachtete Verhalten auseinandergesetzt.

     

Factorisation in the ring of exponential polynomials

We study factorisation in the ring of exponential polynomials and provide a proof of Ritt's factorisation theorem in modern notation and so generalised as to deal with polynomial coefficients as well as with several variables. We do this in the more general context of a group ring of a divisible torsion-free ordered abelian group over a unique factorisation domain.

     

Plant processing by simultaneous lactic acid fermentation and enzyme hydrolysis

Traditional ensiling of plant material by anaerobic lactic acid fermentation was combined with enzymatic hydrolysis (ENLAC for short) with cell wall degrading enzymes (hemicellulases, cellulases, and pectinases) to increase fiber digestibility or to increase the recovery of cell content from plants. Such findings were made using 0.015% (w/w, wet basis) Phylacell® enzyme preparation by ENLAC of corn and corn-sorghum mixtures, but not of forage grasses. Addition to alfalfa of a mixture of cell wall degrading enzymes, such as NOVO Viscozyme® together with NOVO Celluclast® each at 0.2–1.0% (w/w, wet basis), resulted in more rapid ensiling and improvement of rumen digestibility of silage by 20%. After 20 d of ensiling at 25 °C when the same enzymes were added to alfalfa at the 1.0% level, protein recovery by pressing increased by 35%, β-carotene recovery by 80%, and chlorophyll/xanthophyll recovery by 30%. ENLAC with the same enzymes also increased the recovery of sclareol from muscatel sage by 400%.

     

How should one define a (weak) crystal?

We compare two proposals for the study of positional long-range order: one in terms of the spectrum of the translation operator, the other in terms of the Fourier spectrum. We point out that only the first one allows for the consideration of molecular, as opposed to atomic, (weakly) periodic structures. We illustrate this point on the Thue-Morse system.     

Energy transfer between the flavin chromophores of electron-transferring flavoprotein fromMegasphaera elsdenii as inferred from time-resolved red-edge and blue-edge fluorescence spectroscopy

Both a mode-locked argon-ion laser and synchrotron radiation were used as excitation sources to obtain time-resolved polarized fluorescence of the two FAD cofactors in electron transferring flavoprotein fromMegasphaera elsdenii. Red-edge excited and blue-edge detected fluorescence anisotropy decay curves did not contain a fast relaxation process which was observed upon mainband excitation and detection. This relaxation was assigned to homo-energy transfer between the two FAD cofactors. Failure of energy transfer as observed with edge spectroscopy on this protein excludes restricted reorientational motion of the flavins as a possible mechanism of depolarization. From the global analysis of the fluorescence anisotropy decay surface obtained at multiple excitation and detection wavelengths, the distance between and the relative orientation of the flavins could be estimated. The methodology described has general applicability in other multichromophoric biopolymers and has the potential to acquire accurate geometrical parameters in these systems.     

Improved customer choice predictions using ensemble methods

In this paper various ensemble learning methods from machine learning and statistics are considered and applied to the customer choice modeling problem. The application of ensemble learning usually improves the prediction quality of flexible models like decision trees and thus leads to improved predictions. We give experimental results for two real-life marketing datasets using decision trees, ensemble versions of decision trees and the logistic regression model, which is a standard approach for this problem. The ensemble models are found to improve upon individual decision trees and outperform logistic regression.     

Trace norm estimates for products of integral operators and diffusion semigroups

We give trace norm estimates for products of integral operators and for diffusion semigroups. These are applied to differences of heat semigroups. A natural example of an integral operator with finite trace which is not trace class is given.     

KINETICS OF LUMINESCENCE QUENCHING IN MICELLAR ASSEMBLIES INCLUDING EXCHANGE OF PROBE and QUENCHER*

The luminescence decay of excited probes in micelles in the presence of a Poisson distribution of quenchers is considered under conditions where both probe and quencher within the lifetime of the excited probe may exchange between the micelles. Analytical and numerical results show that the luminescence decay can be expressed by a generalized self convolution product of a multiexponential decay function.     

Numerical analysis of time-dependent Boussinesq models

In this paper we analyse numerical models for time-dependent Boussinesq equations. These equations arise when so-called Boussinesq terms are introduced into the shallow water equations. We use the Boussinesq terms proposed by Katapodes and Dingemans. These terms generalize the constant depth terms given by Broer. The shallow water equations are discretized by using fourth-order finite difference formulae for the space derivatives and a fourth-order explicit time integrator. The effect on the stability and accuracy of various discrete Boussinesq terms is investigated. Numerical experiments are presented in the case of a fourth-order Runge-Kutta time integrator.