A top-down multi-scale modeling for actuation response of polymeric artificial muscles

A class of innovative artificial muscles made of high-strength polymeric fibers such as fishing lines or sewing threads have been discovered recently. These muscles are fabricated by a simple “twist-insertion” procedure, which have attracted increasing attention due to their low cost and readily availability, giant tensile stroke, record energy density, and easy controllability. In the present paper, we established a multi-scale modeling framework for the thermomechanical actuation responses by a top-down strategy, spanning from macro-scale helical spring analysis down to molecular level chain interaction study. Comparison between modeling results and experimental results exhibited excellent agreement. The effect of the micro-, meso- and macro-scale parameters on the actuation responses of the artificial muscle was further discussed through a parametric study per the validated model. This work helps understand the physical origin behind the remarkable tensile actuation behavior of the twisted-then-coiled polymeric artificial muscles and also provides inspirations for optimal design of advanced artificial muscles made by twist-insertion procedure.     

量子力学和分子力学组合方法

量子力学和分子力学(QM/MM)组合方法结合了量子力学的精确性和分子力学的高效性,在研究凝聚态中的化学反应及生物大分子的结构和活性等方面发挥着重要作用。本文主要介绍了QM/MM组合方法的基本原理及国内外有关QM/MM组合方法的研究进展。     

An efficient method for solving highly anisotropic elliptic equations

Solving elliptic PDEs in more than one dimension can be a computationally expensive task. For some applications characterized by a high degree of anisotropy in the coefficients of the elliptic operator, such that the term with the highest derivative in one direction is much larger than the terms in the remaining directions, the discretized elliptic operator often has a very large condition number – taking the solution even further out of reach using traditional methods. This paper will demonstrate a solution method for such ill-behaved problems. The high condition number of the D-dimensional discretized elliptic operator will be exploited to split the problem into a series of well-behaved one and (D − 1)-dimensional elliptic problems. This solution technique can be used alone on sufficiently coarse grids, or in conjunction with standard iterative methods, such as Conjugate Gradient, to substantially reduce the number of iterations needed to solve the problem to a specified accuracy. The solution is formulated analytically for a generic anisotropic problem using arbitrary coordinates, hopefully bringing this method into the scope of a wide variety of applications.     

Micromechanical Analysis of the Trabecular Bone Stress State at the Interface with Metallic Biomedical Devices*

An iterative procedure for the stress analysis at interfaces between dissimilar materials is presented. The problem is specialised to the case of biomaterial interfaces with particular reference to materials which are characterised by tiny microstructures. The procedure is based on a recursive analysis of small size problems defined upon subdomains obtained by partitioning the whole structural domain. The kinematic boundary conditions are iteratively adjusted by using appropriate preconditioners. The numerical example reported in this paper shows that the procedure is effective regardless of the degree of material heterogeneity, in contrast with the results obtained by using a coarse mesh for the whole domain. The procedure seems to be a promising one for determining the structural strength of interfaces between trabecular bone and metal implants requiring accurate evaluation of stress at the scale level of the single microstructure exhibited by the bone.     

Multi-scale micromorphic theory for hierarchical materials

For the design of materials, it is important to faithfully model macroscopic materials response together with mechanisms and interactions occurring at the microstructural scales. While brute-force modeling of all the details of the microstructure is too costly, many of the current homogenized continuum models suffer from their inability to capture the correct underlying deformation mechanisms—especially when localization and failure are concerned. To overcome this limitation, a multi-scale continuum theory is proposed so that kinematic variables representing the deformation at various scales are incorporated. The method of virtual power is then used to derive a system of coupled governing equations, each representing a particular scale and its interactions with the macro-scale. A constitutive relation is then introduced to preserve the underlying physics associated with each scale. The inelastic behavior is represented by multiple yield functions, each representing a particular scale of microstructure, but collectively coupled through the same set of internal variables. The theory is illustrated by two applications. First, a one-dimensional example of a three-scale material is presented. After the onset of softening, the model shows that the localization zone is distributed according to two distinct length scale determined by the model. Second, a two-scale continuum model is introduced for the failure of porous metals. By comparing the theory to a direct numerical simulation (DNS) of the microstructure for a specimen in tension, we show that the model capture the main physics, and at the same time, remains computationally affordable.     

Synthetic Aperture Radar image nonlinear enhancement algorithm based on NSCT transform

Due to the imaging mechanism, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images are susceptible to speckle noise, which affects radar image interpretation. So image denoising and enhancement are important topics of improving SAR image performance. A nonlinear image enhancement algorithm based on nonsubsampled contourlet transform (NSCT) is proposed in this paper. The image is decomposed into coefficients of different scales and directions through nonsubsampled contourlet transform. It is denoised by the threshold method of the multi-scale product of NSCT coefficients. Then thresholds of the nonlinear enhancement function are determined according to the coefficients of each scale. The two parameters of the function, among which one is used to control the range of enhancement and the other can determine the strength of enhancement, are obtained by solving nonlinear equations. The coefficients processed by the enhancement function are used to reconstruct the image. The simulation results on the Matlab platform show that the algorithm has a good effect of enhancing details of images and suppressing noise signals meanwhile.     

Remote sensing image segmentation based on Dynamic Statistical Region Merging

Using the Statistical Region Merging (SRM) for remote sensing image segmentation, we found the result is unsatisfactory. To improve segmentation accuracy and the correctness, this paper proposed a Dynamic Statistical Region Merging (DSRM). It tries to let the most similar regions to be tested first. At first, it redefines the dissimilarity based-on regions. Then, it dynamically updates the dissimilarity and adjusts the test order during the procedure of merging. Experiments demonstrate the accuracy of the DSRM is higher than the SRM and its computational complexity is approximately linear. In addition, we extend the DSRM to multi-band remote sensing image and use it for multi-scale segmentation.     

Focusing on the meso-scales of multi-scale phenomena—In search for a new paradigm in chemical engineering

To celebrate the 90th birthday of Professor Mooson Kwauk, who supervised the multi-scale research at this Institute in the last three decades, we dedicate this paper outlining our thoughts on this subject accumulated from our previous studies. In the process of developing, improving and extending the energy- minimization multi-scale （EMMS） method, we have gradually recognized that meso-scales are critical to the understanding of the different kinds of multi-scale structures and systems. It is a common challenge not only for chemical engineering but also for almost all disciplines of science and engineering, due to its importance in bridging micro- and macro-behaviors and in displaying complexity and diversity. It is believed that there may exist a common law behind meso-scales of different problems, possibly even in different fields. Therefore, a breakthrough in the understanding of meso-scales will help materialize a revolutionary progress, with respect to modeling, computation and application.     

Theory of plastic mechanism control for the seismic design of braced frames equipped with friction dampers

An innovative approach for the design of a seismic resistant system composed by the combination of a MR-Frame and a bracing system equipped with friction dampers is presented. From a multi-scale point of view, at local scale, supplementary energy dissipation is provided by means of friction dampers, while, at global scale, the development of a global type mechanism is assured involving all the friction dampers equipping the structure. The activation of all the friction dampers requires an advanced design procedure. Toward this end, the theory of plastic mechanism control, which is based on the application of the kinematic theorem of plastic collapse is extended to the concept of mechanism equilibrium curve, is applied. The fulfillment of the design goal has been pointed out by means of both pushover and dynamic non linear analyses whose results are herein presented and discussed.