Time-dependent Green's functions for an anisotropic bimaterial with viscous interface

By virtue of the Stroh formalism, we derive the exact closed-form solutions for the time-dependent two-dimensional Green's functions due to a line force and line dislocation in an anisotropic bimaterial with a viscous interface. We first reduce the boundary value problem to two coupled homogeneous first-order partial differential equations, which can be solved using a decoupling technique. The full-field expressions of the time-dependent displacements and stresses due to the line force and line dislocation interacting with the viscous interface are obtained.     

Influence of swirl on the stability of a rod in annular leakage flow

The influence of swirl (flow rotation) on the stability of a rod in annular leakage flow is investigated. Under the assumption of laminar flow and plane vibrations (no whirling), it is shown that the swirl acts, in effect, as an elastic foundation with negative foundation stiffness, the magnitude being proportional to the mean circumferential flow rate squared. Consequently, swirl always lowers the critical axial flow speed in case of divergence instability of a rod of finite length. Numerical analysis is needed to predict the effect of swirl in case of flutter instability of a finite rod; this is not performed here. However, for the flutter-like instability of travelling waves in an infinite rod-channel system, it is shown analytically that swirl again always lowers the critical axial flow speed. Finally, it is found that by circumferential flow alone, the travelling waves are extinguished at a certain flow rate, followed by a divergence-like instability.     

SOME GENERAL EFFECTS OF STRONG HIGH-FREQUENCY EXCITATION: STIFFENING, BIASING AND SMOOTHENING

Mechanical high-frequency (HF) excitation provides a working principle behind many industrial and natural applications and phenomena. This paper concerns three particular effects of HF excitation, that may change the apparent characteristics of mechanical systems: (1) stiffening, by which the apparent linear stiffness associated with an equilibrium is changed, along with derived quantities such as stability and natural frequencies; (2) biasing by which the system is biased towards a particular state, static or dynamic, which does not exist or is unstable in the absence of the HF excitation; and (3) smoothening, referring to a tendency for discontinuities to be effectively “smeared out” by HF excitation. Illustrating first these effects for a few specific systems, analytical results are provided that quantify them for a quite general class of mechanical systems. This class covers systems that can be modelled by a finite number of second order ordinary differential equations, generally non-linear, with periodically oscillating excitation terms of high frequency and small amplitude. The results should be useful for understanding the effects in question in a broader perspective than is possible with specific systems, for calculating effects for specific systems using well-defined formulas, and for possibly designing systems that display prescribed characteristics in the presence of HF excitation.     

Meshfree analysis of softening elastoplastic solids using variational multiscale method

A meshfree multiscale method is presented for efficient analysis of elastoplastic solids. In the analysis of softening elastoplastic solids, standard finite element methods or meshfree methods typically yield mesh-dependent results. The reason for this well-known effect is the loss of ellipticity of the boundary value problem. In this work, the scale decomposition is carried out based on a variational form of the problem. A coarse scale is designed to represent global behavior and a fine scale to represent local behavior. A fine scale region is detected from the local failure analysis of an acoustic tensor to indicate a region where deformation changes abruptly. Each scale variable is approximated using a meshfree method. Meshfree approximation is well-suited for adaptivity. As a method of increasing the resolution, a partition of unity based extrinsic enrichment is used. In particular, fine scale approximations are designed to appropriately represent local behavior by using a localization angle. Moreover, the regularization effect through the convexification of non-convex potential is embedded to represent fine scale behavior. Each scale problem is solved iteratively. The proposed method is applied to shear band problems. In the results of analysis about pure shear and compression problems, straight shear bands can be captured and mesh-insensitive results are obtained. Curved shear bands can also be captured without mesh dependency in the analysis of indentation problem.     

Damage and fracture evaluation of granular composite materials by digital image correlation method

This paper presents the applications of digital image correlation technique to the mesoscopic damage and fracture study of some granular based composite materials including steelfiber reinforced concrete, sandstone and crystal-polymer composite. The deformation fields of the composite materials resulted from stress localization were obtained by the correlation computation of the surface images with loading steps and thus the related damage prediction and fracture parameters were evaluated. The correlation searching could be performed either directly based on the gray levels of the digital images or from the wavelet transform (WT) coefficients of the transform spectrum. The latter was developed by the authors and showed higher resolution and sensitivity to the singularity detection. Because the displacement components came from the rough surfaces of the composite materials without any coats of gratings or fringes of optical interferometry, both surface profiles and the deformation fields of the composites were visualized which was helpful to compare each other to analyze the damage of those heterogeneous materials. The project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (10125211 and 10072002), the Scientific Committee of Yunnan Province for the Program of Steel Fiber Reinforced Concrete, and the Institute of Chemical Materials, CAEP at Mianyang     

Axisymmetric frictionless contact of functionally graded materials

The main interest of this study is a new method to solve the axisymmetric frictionless contact problem of functionally graded materials (FGMs). Based on the fact that an arbitrary curve can be approached by a series of continuous but piecewise linear curves, the FGM is divided into a series of sub-layers with shear modulus varying linearly in each sub-layer and continuous at the sub-interfaces. With this model, the axisymmetric frictionless contact problem of a functionally graded coated half-space is investigated. By using the transfer matrix method and Hankel integral transform technique, the problem is reduced to a Cauchy singular integral equation. The contact pressure, contact region and indentation are calculated for various indenters by solving the equations numerically. An erratum to this article can be found at