Reduction of contact stress by use of relief notches

The photoelastic method is used to investigate the possibility of relieving the large local stresses that develop in the corners of a right angled indenter compressing a semi-infinite body by inducing geometric changes to the indenter/semi-infinite body configuration. It is shown that a circular notch cut along the free edges of the indenter can totally eliminate the large corner stresses. The notch, if placed along the interface edge of the half plane, can reduce the stress concentration, but never eliminate it. The results obtained have wide practical application.     

Two- and three-dimensional analysis of bose-einstein correlations inπ +/K+p interactions at 250 GeV/c

The NA22 data onπ ^? π ^? correlations are analyzed in terms of a number of two- and three-dimensional parametrizations (Gaussian space-time, Goldhaber, Bowler string-like, Bertsch hydrodynamical, Kopylov-Podgoretskii, etc.). Contrary to the results obtained for e⁺e^? andµp collisions, the Goldhaber parametrization, as well as string-like models, fail in describing the hadron-hadron data. Better fits are obtained in the framework of surface-emitting fireball-like models, both when including and excluding hydrodynamical expansion of nuclear matter. Our results indicate that pion radiation occurs at earlier stages of matter evolution than in nuclear collisions.     

The effect of crack wake characteristics on fatigue crack closure: Part I—a crack wake removal study

In this first paper of a two-paper series the effect of successive crack wake removal on the closure load level and the load-CMOD behavior is studied using the Rigid-Insert Crack Closure Model (RICC). This study indicates that under the conditions that closure starts at the crack tip (e.g., a uniform K-increasing crack wake) a gradual crack wake removal up to distances very close to the tip, does not have any effect on the closure load level, while the load-CMOD behavior may change significantly. However, a continuous decrease may occur in the contact load level as a result of a gradual removal of a K-decreasing crack wake. The predicted behaviors are experimentally verified for two different alloys.     

FFT solution of the Robbins problem

An FFT method is described for the solution of Poisson's equationover a rectangular region with Robbins boundary conditions oneither one or two sides of the region, together with suitableconditions on the rest of the boundary. In contrast to earlierapplications of the FFT technique, the equations for the Fourierharmonic amplitudes do not decouple into simpler independentsystems and an effective iterative scheme is developed for thesolution of these equations. A theoretical convergence analysisis shown generally to support the results obtained from practicalcomputation. For the test problems considered the method isfound to take between 3 and 4 times the execution time for problemssoluble directly by the FFT technique.     

Descriptive Complexity and Reflective Properties of Combinatorial Configurations

We study the Ramsey theoretic properties of combinatorial configurationswhich are generated by infinite binary strings which are randomin the sense of Kolmogorov-Chaitin.     

The dynamics of desorption induced by atomic hydrogen: HD/Cu(111)

Recent observations of a direct reaction between adsorbates and hydrogen atoms incident from the gas phase are interpreted in terms of an Eley-Rideal reaction. A detailed comparison of the experimental data for the HD/Cu(111) system with quantum mechanical model calculations corroborates such an interpretation. The peculiar isotope effect observed can be understood from the different dynamical implications of appropriately rescaled potential energy surfaces. The width of the measured time-of-flight spectrum is explained from the overlapping contributions of the populated vibrational levels. The angular distributions are rationalized by contributions both from ‘indirect’ events, where the incident atoms make several bounces in the surface well prior to reaction, and ‘direct’ reactive events.