Thermoelectric power generation

Although the polarisation of the light was discovered at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Vikings could have used the polarised light around the tenth century in their navigation to America, using a ‘sunstone’ evoked in the Icelandic Sagas. Indeed, the birefringence of the Iceland spar (calcite), a common crystal in Scandinavia, permits a simple observation of the axis of polarisation of the skylight at the zenith. From this, it is possible to guess the azimuth of a hidden Sun below the horizon, for instance. The high sensitivity of the differential method provided by the ordinary and extraordinary beams of calcite at its so-called isotropy point is about two orders higher than that of the best dichroic polariser and permits to reach an accuracy of ±1° for the Sun azimuth (at sunrise and sunset). Unfortunately, due to the relative fragility of calcite, only the so-called Alderney crystal was discovered on board a 16th ancient ship. Curiously, beyond its use as a sunstone by the Vikings, during these last millennia calcite has led to the discovery of the polarisation of the light itself by Malus and is currently being used to detect the atmospheres of exoplanets. Moreover, the differential method for the light polarisation detection is widely used in the animal world.     

3-幂零矩阵的Jordan标准型在GL_n(F)共轭作用下的迷向子群

研究迷向子群的结构是有限域上典型群几何中的一个重要问题.刻画了3-幂零矩阵的Jordan标准型在GLn(F)共轭作用下的迷向子群的结构.     

On the stability of a compressible Rivlin's cube made of transversely isotropic material

^** Email: kostas.soldatos{at}nottingham.ac.uk This paper considers a unit cube made of a compressible, transverselyisotropic elastic material, with the direction of transverseisotropy being aligned normal to one pair of the cube's faces,and investigates the stability of a dilatation equilibrium stateof that cube, with respect to superposed pure homogeneous deformationswith principal directions parallel to the cube edges. This dilatation,intermediate equilibrium state (state I) of the cube is assumedattainable in two different ways. Accordingly, in what is termedas the ‘principal stability problem’ under investigation,state I is considered to be that of uniform dilatation, whichis attained upon loading normally and uniformly the oppositefaces of the unit cube with certain pairs of equal and oppositelydirected forces having appropriately selected magnitudes. Inwhat is termed as the ‘modified stability problem’under investigation, the same compressible, transversely isotropicunit cube is loaded uniformly by three identical pairs of equaland oppositely directed forces acting normally to its faces,and, hence, it attains in state I the shape of a certain rectangularparallelepiped. The necessary and sufficient conditions forstability of state I of the cube deformation are obtained inthe form of three inequalities, which are found to hold regardlessof whether the intermediate equilibrium state I is that of uniformdilatation or that of the aforementioned rectangular parallelepiped(non-uniform dilatation). These, however, lead to quite differentspecific results and conclusions when applied in connectionwith, first, the principal and, then, the modified stabilityproblem of a unit cube made of a particular type of a transverselyisotropic extension of the Blatz–Ko (isotropic) material.     

Deformation of dispersely failing unidirectional composites

An anisotropic medium is considered in which, upon loading, scattered microdamages accumulate giving rise to nonlinear and residual strains. The damage at a point of the medium is characterized by a scalar function on a unit sphere, referred to as the damage function. This function is approximated by a fourth-rank tensor used for specifying the relation between the increments of strains and stresses. The calculation dependences are presented in detail for a unidirectional composite, which is taken to be a homogeneous transversely isotropic medium. Determination of the unknown constants is illustrated by the example of an actual fiberglass plastic. Institute of Polymer Mechanics, University of Latvia, Riga, LV-1006, Latvia. Translated from Mekhanika Kompozitnykh Materialov, Vol. 35, No. 5, pp. 561–574, September–October, 1999.     

An analytical poroelastic model for laboratorial mechanical testing of the articular cartilage (AC)

The articular cartilage (AC) can be seen as a biphasic poroelastic material. The cartilage deformation under compression mainly leads to an interstitial fluid flow in the porous solid phase. In this paper, an analytical poroelastic model for the AC under laboratorial mechanical testing is developed. The solutions of interstitial fluid pressure and velocity are obtained. The results show the following facts. (i) Both the pressure and fluid velocity amplitudes are proportional to the strain loading amplitude. (ii) Both the amplitudes of pore fluid pressure and velocity in the AC depend more on the loading amplitude than on the frequency. Thus, in order to obtain the considerable fluid stimulus for the AC cell responses, the most effective way is to increase the loading amplitude rather than the frequency. (iii) Both the interstitial fluid pressure and velocity are strongly affected by permeability variations. This model can be used in experimental tests of the parameters of AC or other poroelastic materials, and in research of mechanotransduction and injury mechanism involved interstitial fluid flow.     

Azimuthal anchoring of a nematic liquid crystal on a grooved interface with anisotropic polar anchoring

Zhang Y J et al.[Zhang Y J,Zhang Z D,Zhu L Z and Xuan L 2011 Liquid Cryst.38 355] investigated the effects of finite polar anchoring on the azimuthal anchoring energy at a grooved interface,in which polar anchoring was isotropic in the local tangent plane of the surface.In this paper,we investigate the effects of both isotropic and anisotropic polar anchoring on the surface anchoring energy in the frame of Fukuda et al.’s theory.The results show that anisotropic polar anchoring strengthens the azimuthal anchoring of grooved surfaces.In the one-elastic-constant approximation(K11 = K22 = K33 = K),the surface-groove-induced azimuthal anchoring energy is entirely consistent with the result of Faetti,and it reduces to the original result of Berreman with an increase in polar anchoring.Moreover,the contribution of the surface-like elastic term to the Rapini-Papoular anchoring energy is zero.     

Finite elastic deformations of transversely isotropic circular cylindrical tubes

We consider the finite radially symmetric deformation of a circular cylindrical tube of a homogeneous transversely isotropic elastic material subject to axial stretch, radial deformation and torsion, supported by axial load, internal pressure and end moment. Two different directions of transverse isotropy are considered: the radial direction and an arbitrary direction in planes normal locally to the radial direction, the only directions for which the considered deformation is admissible in general. In the absence of body forces, formulas are obtained for the internal pressure, and the resultant axial load and torsional moment on the ends of the tube in respect of a general strain-energy function. For a specific material model of transversely isotropic elasticity, and material and geometrical parameters, numerical results are used to illustrate the dependence of the pressure, (reduced) axial load and moment on the radial stretch and a measure of the torsional deformation for a fixed value of the axial stretch.     

应变Ge空穴有效质量的各向异性与各向同性

在利用k·p微扰理论获得应变Ge/Si_1-xGe_x价带E（k）-k关系的基础上,研究得到了（001）,（101）,（111）面应变Ge/Si_1-xGe_x沿不同晶向及各向同性的价带空穴有效质量.结果显示,应变Ge/Si_1-xGe_x沿各晶向的带边有效质量随应力增大而减小,且沿[010]晶向最小;子带空穴有效质量在应力较大时变化不明显,并且在数值上与带边空穴有效质量相差不大.最后利用各向同性有效质量与文献结果进行比对,验证了结果的正确性.