The transient piezothermoelastic problem of a thick functionally graded thermopiezoelectric strip due to nonuniform heat supply

This paper is concerned with the theoretical treatment of the transient piezothermoelastic problem involving a thick functionally graded thermopiezoelectric strip due to nonuniform heat supply in the width direction. The thermal, thermoelastic and piezoelectric constants of the strip are assumed to vary exponentially in the thickness direction. The transient two-dimensional temperature is analyzed by the methods of Laplace and finite sine transformations. We obtain the exact solution for a simply supported strip under the state of plane strain. Some numerical results for the temperature change, the displacement, the stress and electric potential distributions are presented in figures and table. Furthermore, the influence of the nonhomogeneity of the material and that of the electric boundary conditions are investigated.     

Two-dimensional transient dynamic response of orthotropic layered media

In this study, two-dimensional transient dynamic response of orthotropic plane layered media is investigated. The plane multilayered media consist of N different generally orthotropic, homogeneous and linearly elastic layers with different ply angles. In the generally orthotropic layer, representing a ply reinforced by unidirectional fibers with an arbitrary orientation angle, the principal material directions do not coincide with body coordinate axes. The solution is obtained by employing a numerical technique which combines the use of Fourier transform with the method of characteristics. The numerical results are displayed in curves denoting the variations of stress and displacement components with time at different locations. These curves clearly reveal, in wave profiles, the scattering effects caused by the reflections and refractions of waves at the boundaries and at the interfaces of the layers, and also the effects of anisotropy caused by fiber orientation angle. The curves properly predict the sharp variations in the response at the neighborhood of the wave fronts, which shows the power of the numerical technique employed in the study. By suitably adjusting the elastic constants, the results for multilayered media with transversely isotropic layers, or layers with cubic symmetry, or isotropic layers can easily be obtained from the general formulation. Furthermore, solutions for some special cases, including Lamb’s problem for an elastic half-space, are obtained and compared with the available solutions in the literature and very good agreement is found. Preliminary version presented at the Second International Congress on Mechatronics (MECH2K3), Graz, Austria, July 14-17, 2003.     

Boundary element analysis of uncoupled transient thermo-elastic problems with time- and space-dependent heat sources

A boundary element method (BEM) for the analysis of two- and three-dimensional uncoupled transient thermo-elastic problems involving time- and space-dependent heat sources is presented. The domain integrals are efficiently treated using the Cartesian transformation and the radial integration methods without considering any internal cells. Similar to the dual reciprocity method (DRM), some internal points without any connectivity are considered; however, in contrast to the DRM, any arbitrary mesh-free interpolation method can be used in the present formulation. There is no need to find any particular solutions and the shape functions in the mesh-free interpolation method can be arbitrary and sufficiently complicated. Unlike the DRM, the generated system of equations contains the unknowns only on the boundary. After finding the primary unknowns on the boundary, the temperature, displacement, and stress components at all internal points can directly be found without solving any system of equations. Three examples with different forms of heat sources are presented to demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed method. Although the proposed BEM is mathematically more complicated than domain methods, such as the finite element method (FEM), it is more efficient from a modelling viewpoint since only the surface mesh has to be generated in the presented method.     

Error analysis of large-time approximations for decay chains

Consider a radioactive decay chain X₁ → ? → X_n→ and let N_n(t) be the amount of X_n at time t. This paper establishes error bounds for large-time approximations to N_n(t) that include and generalize the transient equilibrium approximations and other known approximations. The error bounds allow one to find the range of t for which these approximations can be used with a given degree of precision.     

Analysis of therapeutic peptides in human urine by combination of capillary zone electrophoresis-electrospray mass spectrometry with preparative capillary isotachophoresis sample pretreatment

The presented study deals with the off-line coupling of preparative isotachophoresis (pITP) with on-line combination of capillary zone electrophoresis with electrospray mass spectrometric detection (CZE-ESI-MS) used for the analysis of therapeutic peptides (anserine, carnosine, and buserelin) in complex matrix (urine). Preparative capillary isotachophoresis, operating in a discontinuous fractionation mode in column-coupling configuration, served as a sample pretreatment technique to separation, and fractionation of mixture of therapeutic peptides present in urine at low concentration level. The fractions isolated by pITP procedure were subsequently analyzed by capillary zone electrophoresis with electrospray mass spectrometric detection. Acetic acid at 200 mmol L(-1) concentration served as background electrolyte in CZE stage and it is compatible with MS detection in positive ionization mode. In pITP fractionation procedure, sodium cation (10 mmol L(-1) concentration) as leading ion and beta-alanine as terminating ion (20 mmol L(-1) concentration) were used. While using CZE-ESI-MS, the limits of detection were 0.18 μg mL(-1) for carnosine, 0.17 μg mL(-1) for anserine and 0.64 μg mL(-1) for buserelin in water and 0.19 μg mL(-1) for carnosine, 0.50 μg mL(-1) for anserine and 0.74 μg mL(-1) for buserelin in 10 times diluted urine, respectively. The cleaning power of pITP sample pretreatment was proved as the peptides provided the higher MS signals at lower concentration levels resulting from the minimized matrix effects. The quality of obtained MS/MS spectra was very good so that they can provide information about the structure of analytes, and they were used for verification of the analytes identities. The pITP pretreatment improved the detection limits of the analyzed therapeutic peptides at least 25 times compared to the CZE-ESI-MS itself.     

Complex dynamics of epidemic models on adaptive networks

There has been a substantial amount of well mixing epidemic models devoted to characterizing the observed complex phenomena (such as bistability, hysteresis, oscillations, etc.) during the transmission of many infectious diseases. A comprehensive explanation of these phenomena by epidemic models on complex networks is still lacking. In this paper we study epidemic dynamics in an adaptive network proposed by Gross et al., where the susceptibles are able to avoid contact with the infectious by rewiring their network connections. Such rewiring of the local connections changes the topology of the network, and inevitably has a profound effect on the transmission of the disease, which in turn influences the rewiring process. We rigorously prove that the adaptive epidemic model investigated in this paper exhibits degenerate Hopf bifurcation, homoclinic bifurcation and Bogdanov–Takens bifurcation. Our study shows that adaptive behaviors during an epidemic may induce complex dynamics of disease transmission, including bistability, transient and sustained oscillations, which contrast sharply to the dynamics of classical network models. Our results yield deeper insights into the interplay between topology of networks and the dynamics of disease transmission on networks.     

Inverse heat conduction problem in a thin circular plate and its thermal deflection

An inverse problem of transient heat conduction in a thin finite circular plate with the given temperature distribution on the interior surface of a thin circular plate being a function of both time and position has been solved with the help of integral transform technique and also determine the thermal deflection on the outer curved surface of a thin circular plate defined as 0 ? r ? a, 0 ? z ? h. The results, obtained in the series form in terms of Bessel’s functions, are illustrated numerically.     

Water-induced micellar structures of block copoly(oxyethylene-oxypropylene-oxyethylene) in o-xylene

We previously reported the water-induced micelle formation of copoly(oxyethylene-oxy-propylene-oxyethylene), Pluronic L64, in o-xylene. The micellar properties could be controlled by varying the water to EO ratio (Z) in micelles. in micelles. In this paper, laser light scattering, transient electric birefringence (TEB), and synchrotron small-angle x-ray scattering (SAXS) were used to study the micellar structure at different Z values. Both TEB and SAXS results further confirmed the micellar shape transition from that of a sphere to a nonspherical shape. A comparison between TEB and dynamic light-scattering results as well as the SAXS experiments showed an ellipsoidal shape for micelles when Z > 1.3 with the oblate being the more reasonable form for fitting all the experimental parameters. The degree of asymmetry appeared to be not high. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Transient behaviour of a double-channel Markovian queue with limited waiting space

For a double channel Markovian queue with finite waiting space the difference equations satisfied by the Laplace transforms of the state probabilities at finite time are solved and the state probabilities are obtained in a simple closed form which can be easily used to find the important parameters of the system.