A unified theory for brittle and ductile shear mode fracture

A unified theory captures both brittle and ductile fracture. The fracture toughness is proportional to the applied stress squared and the length of the crack. For purely brittle solids, this criterion is equivalent to Griffith's theory. In other cases, it provides a theoretical basis for the Irwin-Orowan formula. For purely ductile solids, the theory makes direct contact with the Bilby-Cottrell-Swinden model. The toughness is highest in ductile materials because the shielding dislocations in the plastic zone provide additional resistance to crack growth. This resistance is the force opposing dislocation motion, and the Peach-Koehler force overcomes it. A dislocation-free zone separates the plastic zone from and the tip of the crack. The dislocation-free zone is finite because molecular forces responsible for the cohesion of the surfaces near the crack tip are not negligible. At the point of crack growth, the length of the dislocation-free zone is constant and the shielding dislocations advance in concert. As in Griffith's theory, the crack is in unstable equilibrium. The theory shows that a dimensionless variable controls the elastoplastic behaviour. A relationship for the size of the dislocation-free zone is derived in terms of the macroscopic and microscopic parameters that govern the fracture.     

Curvature investigation in tapered fibers and its application to sensing and mode conversion

Non-adiabatic tapered fibers are basic photonic components used in a wide range of applications. Here we investigate a way to increase their utility through the controllable bending of one of their tapered sections. The experiments carried out explain, for the first time, the mechanics of this approach showing how these tapers can be used to build more sensitive sensors. Their use as highly efficient mode converters is also discussed.     

The deformation and fracture of balloons

Inflation of balloons provides a straightforward way of achieving large biaxial deformations. Previous studies have shown that when a balloon bursts, crack propagation occurs at very high speed – much higher than would be expected from the low strain modulus and elastic wave velocity of the rubber. The present paper is concerned with studies of the deformation and fracture of cylindrical balloons. On inflation, the deformations of such a balloon pass through an unstable region but subsequently increase monotonically with pressure. In this relatively high pressure region, the ratio of the longitudinal and circumferential extension ratios is broadly in accord with expectations from high-strain elasticity theory when the ratio of the corresponding stresses is taken into account. On bursting, crack speeds up to around 300 m/s in this region. It is shown that these speeds are in accord with large increase in incremental moduli for the highly-strained rubber. Marked changes in crack tip profile observed at very high crack speeds are consistent with control of the rate of growth by inertia rather than by the viscoelastic properties of the rubber (as is believed to be the case at lower speeds). Consistent with this, various elastomers having different glass transition temperatures show similar crack growth behaviour in the very high speed region.     

Dinuclear gold (I)-di-N-heterocyclic carbene complexes: syntheses,structure, density functional theory calculation and photoluminescence study

The synthesis and characterizations for a series of dinuclear gold (I)-di-NHC complexes, 1–8 through the trans-metalation method of their respective silver (I)-di-NHC complexes, i–viii are reported (where NHC = N-heterocyclic carbene). The successful complexation of a series of unusual non-symmetrical and symmetrical di-NHC ligands, 3,3'-(ethane-1,2-diyl)-1-alkylbenzimidazolium-1'-butylbenzimidazolium (with alkyl = methyl, ethyl, propyl, butyl, pentyl, hexyl, heptyl, benzyl) with the gold (I) ions are suggested by elemental analysis, Fourier transform-infrared, ¹H- and ¹³C-NMR data. The ¹³C-NMR spectra of 1–8 show a singlet sharp peak in the range of 190.00–192.00 ppm, indicating the presence of a carbene carbon that bonded to the gold (I) ion. From single crystal X-ray diffraction data, the structure of complex 6 with the formula of [di-NHC-Au (I)]₂·2PF₆ is obtained [where NHC = 3,3'-(ethane-1,2-diyl)-1-hexylbenzimidazolium-1'-butylbenzimidazolium]. The photophysical study in solid state of 6 displays an intense photoluminescence with a strong emission maxima, λ_em = 480 nm, upon excitation at 340 nm at room temperature. Interestingly, the emission maximum at 77 K shows a structural character with a strong peak at 410 nm, a medium at 433 nm and a weak at 387 nm, accompanied by a tail band to about 500 nm.     

HgCl2/I2复合催化剂协同催化合成异丙醇钇的研究

以金属钇和异丙醇为原料，以HgCl2/I2为复合催化剂，通过对金属钇的机械加工以增加其比表面，并将异丙醇脱水使其含水量降低至0．05％，体系在82℃回流5h，经过滤、减压蒸馏，得到了白色海绵状异丙醇钇，其产率高达83％，合成时间比文献报道的缩短了19h，产率提高了8％。文章确定了催化剂的最佳用量为20gY加入60mg HgCl2/I2，研究了合成产率与HgCl2/I2催化剂和HgCl2催化剂的依赖关系及异丙醇中含水量对合成产率的影响，并对HgCl2/I2的催化作用机理进行了初步探讨。     

A priori tests of a stochastic mode reduction strategy

Several a priori tests of a systematic stochastic mode reduction procedure recently devised by the authors [Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 96 (1999) 14687; Commun. Pure Appl. Math. 54 (2001) 891] are developed here. In this procedure, reduced stochastic equations for a smaller collections of resolved variables are derived systematically for complex nonlinear systems with many degrees of freedom and a large collection of unresolved variables. While the above approach is mathematically rigorous in the limit when the ratio of correlation times between the resolved and the unresolved variables is arbitrary small, it is shown here on a systematic hierarchy of models that this ratio can be surprisingly big. Typically, the systematic reduced stochastic modeling yields quantitatively realistic dynamics for ratios as large as 1/2. The examples studied here vary from instructive stochastic triad models to prototype complex systems with many degrees of freedom utilizing the truncated Burgers–Hopf equations as a nonlinear heat bath. Systematic quantitative tests for the stochastic modeling procedure are developed here which involve the stationary distribution and the two-time correlations for the second and fourth moments including the resolved variables and the energy in the resolved variables. In an important illustrative example presented here, the nonlinear original system involves 102 degrees of freedom and the reduced stochastic model predicted by the theory for two resolved variables involves both nonlinear interaction and multiplicative noises. Even for large value of the correlation time ratio of the order of 1/2, the reduced stochastic model with two degrees of freedom captures the essentially nonlinear and non-Gaussian statistics of the original nonlinear systems with 102 modes extremely well. Furthermore, it is shown here that the standard regression fitting of the second-order correlations alone fails to reproduce the nonlinear stochastic dynamics in this example.     

BEPCII直线加速器相控系统设计研究

为了补偿由于各种因素引起的微波相位漂移,BEPCII直线加速器需要建立微波相位反馈控制系统.能量最大法将用来确定每台功率源的最佳相位.沿直线加速器速调管长廊铺设相位稳定同轴线提供相位参考.现在已经完成了关键部件,如PAD单元、IfA 单元的开发.搭建了相控最小系统对系统进行了验证.     

Cl/HN3/I2全气相化学激光体系的化学动力学模拟计算

 对Cl/HN₃/I₂产生NCl(a)/I激光的过程进行了化学动力学计算，主要考察了Cl,HN₃和I₂的初始粒子数密度及其配比对小信号增益系数的影响。结果发现,当温度为400K, 初始Cl粒子数密度为1×10¹⁵，1×10¹⁶和1×10¹⁷cm^-3时,小信号增益系数分别达到1.6×10^-4,1.1×10^-3和1.1×10^-2cm^-1，获得最佳小信号增益系数的HN₃和I₂的初始粒子数密度分别为初始Cl粒子数密度的1～2倍和2%～4%。同时，对Cl，HN₃和I₂配比对小信号增益系数和增益持续时间的影响进行了讨论。     

Thinking and Turing's test

The questions raised by A. M. Turing in his paper on thought and machines are discussed. Human thought is considered in turn as a concept of normal language usage, as a basic concept of psychology, and as the basis of intellectual activity. It is concluded that neither of these notions of thought identifies something specific that a human being can or cannot do. The imitation game proposed by Turing for deciding whether a machine can think is found to result from an arbitrary empoverishment of the channel of communication between the interrogator and the item under investigation. Turing's notions of thinking are shown to lead to logical difficulties. An alternative view of consciousness, that would place it beyond the reach of any finite test, is finally discussed.     

Optimal convex hull algorithms on enhanced meshes

In this paper we propose time-optimal convex hull algorithms for two classes of enhanced meshes. Our first algorithm computes the convex hull of an arbitrary set ofn points in the plane inO (logn) time on a mesh with multiple broadcasting of sizen×n. The second algorithm shows that the same problem can be solved inO (1) time on a reconfigurable mesh of sizen×n. Both algorithms achieve time lower bounds for their respective model of computation.This work was supported by NASA under grant NCCI-99.Additional support by the National Science Foundation under grant CCR-8909996 is gratefully acknowledged.