The thermal properties of poly(oxy-1,4-benzoyl), poly(oxy-2,6-naphthoyl), and its copolymers

The thermal properties, i.e., heat capacity, enthalpy, entropy, and Gibbs function, and the transition behavior of the copolymer system of 4-hydroxybenzoic acid and 2,6-hydroxynaphthoic acid have been studied based on differential scanning calorimetry. The heat capacities of the glass, crystal, and anisotropic melt are shown to be largely additive on a molar basis. Additivity is lost in the two transition regions, glass transition and disordering transition. Isothermal crystallization experiments on the copolymers revealed the existence of two types of crystals which melt at high temperature (fast-grown crystals) and low temperature (slowly grown crystals). The ATHAS computation method is used to bring heat capacities of the solid state into agreement with approximate frequency spectra. The changes in heat capacity at the glass transitions occur at 434°K for the poly(oxy-1,4-benzoyl) [33.2 J/(K mol)] and at 420°K for poly(oxy-2,6-naphthoyl) [46.5 J/(K mol)]. The copolymers have a transition range of above 100°K. The anisotropic melt is linked to the well-known condis state of poly(oxy-1,4-benzoyl) by a continuous changes in disorder and mobility without an additional first-order transition.     

A new formulation of regularized meshless method applied to interior and exterior anisotropic potential problems

This paper proposes a new formulation of regularized meshless method (RMM), which differs from the traditional RMM in that the traditional formulation generates the diagonal elements of influence matrix via null-field integral equations, while our new one directly employs the boundary integral equations at the domain point to evaluate the diagonal elements. We test the present RMM formulation to two-dimensional anisotropic potential problems in finite and infinite domains in comparison with the traditional RMM. Numerical results show that the present RMM sharply outperforms the traditional RMM in the solution of interior problems, while the latter is clearly superior for exterior problems. A rigorous theoretical analysis of circular domain case also corroborates such numerical experiment observations and is provided in the appendix of this paper.     

Surface effects in the deformation of an anisotropic elastic material with nano-sized elliptical hole

We examine the effect of surface energy on an anisotropic elastic material weakened by an elliptical hole. A closed-form, full-field solution is derived using the standard Stroh formalism. In particular, explicit expressions for the hoop stress, normal, in-plane tangential and out-of-plane displacement components along the edge of the hole are obtained. These expressions clearly demonstrate the effect of elastic anisotropy of the bulk material on the corresponding field variables. When the material becomes isotropic, the hoop stress agrees with the well-known result in the literature while both the in-plane tangential and out-of-plane displacements vanish and the normal displacement is constant along the entire boundary of the elliptical hole.     

Phase field approach with anisotropic interface energy and interface stresses: Large strain formulation

A thermodynamically consistent, large-strain, multi-phase field approach (with consequent interface stresses) is generalized for the case with anisotropic interface (gradient) energy (e.g. an energy density that depends both on the magnitude and direction of the gradients in the phase fields). Such a generalization, if done in the “usual” manner, yields a theory that can be shown to be manifestly unphysical. These theories consider the gradient energy as anisotropic in the deformed configuration, and, due to this supposition, several fundamental contradictions arise. First, the Cauchy stress tensor is non-symmetric and, consequently, violates the moment of momentum principle, in essence the Herring (thermodynamic) torque is imparting an unphysical angular momentum to the system. In addition, this non-symmetric stress implies a violation of the principle of material objectivity. These problems in the formulation can be resolved by insisting that the gradient energy is an isotropic function of the gradient of the order parameters in the deformed configuration, but depends on the direction of the gradient of the order parameters (is anisotropic) in the undeformed configuration. We find that for a propagating nonequilibrium interface, the structural part of the interfacial Cauchy stress is symmetric and reduces to a biaxial tension with the magnitude equal to the temperature- and orientation-dependent interface energy. Ginzburg–Landau equations for the evolution of the order parameters and temperature evolution equation, as well as the boundary conditions for the order parameters are derived. Small strain simplifications are presented. Remarkably, this anisotropy yields a first order correction in the Ginzburg–Landau equation for small strains, which has been neglected in prior works. The next strain-related term is third order. For concreteness, specific orientation dependencies of the gradient energy coefficients are examined, using published molecular dynamics studies of cubic crystals. In order to consider a fully specified system, a typical sixth order polynomial phase field model is considered. Analytical solutions for the propagating interface and critical nucleus are found, accounting for the influence of the anisotropic gradient energy and elucidating the distribution of components of interface stresses. The orientation-dependence of the nonequilibrium interface energy is first suitably defined and explicitly determined analytically, and the associated width is also found. The developed formalism is applicable to melting/solidification and crystal-amorphous transformation and can be generalized for martensitic and diffusive phase transformations, twinning, fracture, and grain growth, for which interface energy depends on interface orientation of crystals from either side.     

An anisotropic area-preserving flow for convex plane curves

This paper will deal with an anisotropic area-preserving flow which keeps the convexity of the evolving curve and the limiting curve converges to a homothety of a symmetric smooth strictly convex plane curve.     

Analytical layer-element solutions of Biot’s consolidation with anisotropic permeability and incompressible fluid and solid constituents

Based on the governing equations of 2D plane-strain Biot’s consolidation, the relationship between generalized displacements and stresses of a single soil layer with anisotropic permeability and incompressible fluid and solid constituents is described by an analytical layer-element, which is deduced in the Laplace–Fourier transform domain by using the eigenvalue approach. Taking the boundary conditions and the continuity of the soil layers into consideration, a global stiffness matrix is subsequently assembled and solved. As to the 3D case, the same derivation is employed after the application of a decoupling transformation. The actual solutions in the physical domain can further be acquired by inverting the Laplace–Fourier transform. Finally, numerical examples are carried out to verify the presented theory and discuss the influence of the anisotropic permeability on the consolidation behavior.     

Infrared ellipsometry of nanometric anisotropic dielectric layers on absorbing materials

An inversion problem of infrared ellipsometry is resolved on the basis of a fresh mathematical approach, which does not use the traditional regression analysis for data handling and has no need of initial guesses for the desired parameters. It is shown that obtained simple analytical equations for ellipsometric quantities open up new possibilities for determining optical parameters of an anisotropic ultrathin layer. The novel method possesses very high sensitivity because it is based on the phase conversion measurements of polarized reflected light. The method is tested using a numerical simulation and the results demonstrate clearly that it is successfully applicable for nanometric layers in the infrared spectral region.     

A finite volume scheme preserving extremum principle for convection–diffusion equations on polygonal meshes

We propose a nonlinear finite volume scheme for convection–diffusion equation on polygonal meshes and prove that the discrete solution of the scheme satisfies the discrete extremum principle. The approximation of diffusive flux is based on an adaptive approach of choosing stencil in the construction of discrete normal flux, and the approximation of convection flux is based on the second‐order upwind method with proper slope limiter. Our scheme is locally conservative and has only cell‐centered unknowns. Numerical results show that our scheme can preserve discrete extremum principle and has almost second‐order accuracy. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.