On the immersed boundary‐lattice Boltzmann simulations of incompressible flows with freely moving objects

For simulating freely moving problems, conventional immersed boundary‐lattice Boltzmann methods encounter two major difficulties of an extremely large flow domain and the incompressible limit. To remove these two difficulties, this work proposes an immersed boundary‐lattice Boltzmann flux solver (IB‐LBFS) in the arbitrary Lagragian–Eulerian (ALE) coordinates and establishes a dynamic similarity theory. In the ALE‐based IB‐LBFS, the flow filed is obtained by using the LBFS on a moving Cartesian mesh, and the no‐slip boundary condition is implemented by using the boundary condition‐enforced immersed boundary method. The velocity of the Cartesian mesh is set the same as the translational velocity of the freely moving object so that there is no relative motion between the plate center and the mesh. This enables the ALE‐based IB‐LBFS to study flows with a freely moving object in a large open flow domain. By normalizing the governing equations for the flow domain and the motion of rigid body, six non‐dimensional parameters are derived and maintained to be the same in both physical systems and the lattice Boltzmann framework. This similarity algorithm enables the lattice Boltzmann equation‐based solver to study a general freely moving problem within the incompressible limit. The proposed solver and dynamic similarity theory have been successfully validated by simulating the flow around an in‐line oscillating cylinder, single particle sedimentation, and flows with a freely falling plate. The obtained results agree well with both numerical and experimental data. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Analytical solution and semi-analytical solution for anisotropic functionally graded beam subject to arbitrary loading

Analytical and semi-analytical solutions are presented for anisotropic functionally graded beams subject to an arbitrary load, which can be expanded in terms of sinusoidal series. For plane stress problems, the stress function is assumed to consist of two parts, one being a product of a trigonometric function of the longitudinal coordinate (x) and an undetermined function of the thickness coordinate (y), and the other a linear polynomial of x with unknown coefficients depending on y. The governing equations satisfied by these y-dependent functions are derived. The expressions for stresses, resultant forces and displacements are then deduced, with integral constants determinable from the boundary conditions. While the analytical solution is derived for the beam with material coefficients varying exponentially or in a power law along the thickness, the semi-analytical solution is sought by making use of the sub-layer approximation for the beam with an arbitrary variation of material parameters along the thickness. The present analysis is applicable to beams with various boundary conditions at the two ends. Three numerical examples are presented for validation of the theory and illustration of the effects of certain parameters. Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 10472102, 10432030, and 10725210)     

Electromagnetic wave scattering by many small particles

Scattering of electromagnetic waves by many small particles of arbitrary shapes is reduced rigorously to solving linear algebraic system of equations bypassing the usual usage of integral equations. The matrix elements of this linear algebraic system have physical meaning. They are expressed in terms of the electric and magnetic polarizability tensors. Analytical formulas are given for calculation of these tensors with any desired accuracy for homogeneous bodies of arbitrary shapes. An idea to create a “smart” material by embedding many small particles in a given region is formulated.     

Developing a unified FVE‐ALE approach to solve unsteady fluid flow with moving boundaries

In this study, an arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian (ALE) approach is incorporated with a mixed finite‐volume–element (FVE) method to establish a novel moving boundary method for simulating unsteady incompressible flow on non‐stationary meshes. The method collects the advantages of both finite‐volume and finite‐element (FE) methods as well as the ALE approach in a unified algorithm. In this regard, the convection terms are treated at the cell faces using a physical‐influence upwinding scheme, while the diffusion terms are treated using bilinear FE shape functions. On the other hand, the performance of ALE approach is improved by using the Laplace method to improve the hybrid grids, involving triangular and quadrilateral elements, either partially or entirely. The use of hybrid FE grids facilitates this achievement. To show the robustness of the unified algorithm, we examine both the first‐ and the second‐order temporal stencils. The accuracy and performance of the extended method are evaluated via simulating the unsteady flow fields around a fixed cylinder, a transversely oscillating cylinder, and in a channel with an indented wall. The numerical results presented demonstrate significant accuracy benefits for the new hybrid method on coarse meshes and where large time steps are taken. Of importance, the current method yields the second‐order temporal accuracy when the second‐order stencil is used to discretize the unsteady terms. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The electrodynamics of rod-like microparticles based on optically induced dielectrophoresis

Due to its characteristics of noncontact, non-damage, high flux, and easy-to-achieve flexible manipulation, optically induced dielectrophoresis (ODEP) technology has been employed to manipulate microspherical biological particles, including separation, enrichment, capture, arrangement, and fusion. However, in nature, biomolecules are morphologically diverse, and some of them are rodlike. In order to illustrate the electrodynamics of rodlike particles under the action of ODEP, a transient multi-physical field coupling model of ODEP chip under the hypothesis of electrical double layer thin layer was established in this paper. The arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian method is used to track single-rod particle in the strong coupled flow field and electric field simultaneously. The influence of several key factors, including the applied alternating current (AC) electric voltage, the width of optical bright area, and the initial position of particle, on the trajectory of particle center was analyzed in positive dielectrophoresis (DEP) action and negative DEP action, respectively. Especially, the planar motion process of rodlike particles was discussed together. The research results reveal the electrodynamics behavior of rodlike particles based on the action of ODEP, which may provide theoretical support for the further design of rodlike biological cells manipulation chip based on AC ODEP technology in the future.     

Geometrically non-linear free and forced vibrations of simply supported circular cylindrical shells: A semi-analytical approach

The non-linear free and forced vibrations of simply supported thin circular cylindrical shells are investigated using Lagrange's equations and an improved transverse displacement expansion. The purpose of this approach was to provide engineers and designers with an easy method for determining the shell non-linear mode shapes, with their corresponding amplitude dependent non-linear frequencies. The Donnell non-linear shell theory has been used and the flexural deformations at large vibration amplitudes have been taken into account. The transverse displacement expansion has been made using two terms including both the driven and the axisymmetric modes, and satisfying the simply supported boundary conditions. The non-linear dynamic variational problem obtained by applying Lagrange's equations was then transformed into a static case by adopting the harmonic balance method. Minimisation of the energy functional with respect to the basic function contribution coefficients has led to a simple non-linear multi-modal equation, the solution of which gives in the case of a single mode assumption an expression for the non-linear frequencies which is much simpler than that derived from the non-linear partial differential equation obtained previously by several authors. Quantitative results based on the present approach have been computed and compared with experimental data. The good agreement found was very satisfactory, in comparison with previous old and recent theoretical approaches, based on sophisticated numerical methods, such as the finite element method (FEM), the method of normal forms (MNF), and analytical methods, such as the perturbation method.     

On dynamic buckling phenomena in axially loaded elastic-plastic cylindrical shells

Some characteristic features of the dynamic inelastic buckling behaviour of cylindrical shells subjected to axial impact loads are discussed. It is shown that the material properties and their approximations in the plastic range influence the initial instability pattern and the final buckling shape of a shell having a given geometry. The phenomena of dynamic plastic buckling (when the entire length of a cylindrical shell wrinkles before the development of large radial displacements) and dynamic progressive buckling (when the folds in a cylindrical shell form sequentially) are analysed from the viewpoint of stress wave propagation resulting from an axial impact. It is shown that a high velocity impact causes an instantaneously applied load, with a maximum value at t=0 and whether or not this load causes an inelastic collapse depends on the magnitude of the initial kinetic energy.     

Transverse Vibrations of Laminated Beams in Three-Dimensional Formulation

A new asymptotic method is proposed to describe the free and forced transverse vibrations of elastic laminated beams of arbitrary cross section using the three-dimensional elastic equations without additional hypotheses and constraints. For beams with layers of equal Poisson's ratio, the zero-order natural frequencies are equal to the natural frequencies predicted by classical beam theory based on the Bernoulli hypothesis. The method makes it possible to calculate the frequencies of free vibrations and amplitudes of forced vibrations with prescribed accuracy for the first natural modes __________ Translated from Prikladnaya Mekhanika, Vol. 41, No. 6, pp. 56–71, June 2005.     

Low-Dimensional Galerkin Models for Nonlinear Vibration and Instability Analysis of Cylindrical Shells

This paper discusses the derivation of discrete low-dimensional models for the non-linear vibration analysis of thin shells. In order to understand the peculiarities inherent to this class of structural problems, the non-linear vibrations and dynamic stability of a circular cylindrical shell subjected to dynamic axial loads are analyzed. This choice is based on the fact that cylindrical shells exhibit a highly non-linear behavior under both static and dynamic axial loads. Geometric non-linearities due to finite-amplitude shell motions are considered by using Donnell’s nonlinear shallow shell theory. A perturbation procedure, validated in previous studies, is used to derive a general expression for the non-linear vibration modes and the discretized equations of motion are obtained by the Galerkin method. The responses of several low-dimensional models are compared. These are used to study the influence of the modelling on the convergence of critical loads, bifurcation diagrams, attractors and large amplitude responses of the shell. It is shown that rather low-dimensional and properly selected models can describe with good accuracy the response of the shell up to very large vibration amplitudes.