Strain induced strengthening of soft thermoplastic polyurethanes under cyclic deformation

We investigate the cyclic mechanical behavior in uniaxial tension of three different commercial thermoplastic polyurethane elastomers (TPU) often considered as a sustainable replacement for common filled elastomers. All TPU have similar hard segment contents and linear moduli but sensibly different large strain properties as shown by X-ray analysis. Despite these differences, we found a stiffening effect after conditioning in step cyclic loading which greatly differs from the common softening (also referred as Mullins effect) observed in chemically crosslinked filled rubbers. We propose that this self-reinforcement is related to the fragmentation of hard domains, naturally present in TPU, in smaller but more numerous sub-units that may act as new physical crosslinking points. The proposed stiffening mechanism is not dissimilar to the strain-induced crystallization observed in stretched natural rubber, but it presents a persistent nature. In particular, it may cause a local reinforcement where an inhomogeneous strain field is present, as is the case of a crack propagating in cyclic fatigue, providing a potential explanation for the well-known toughness and wear resistance of TPU.     

Conceptual continuity as a mode of understanding complex systems: Applications to the dynamics sociopolitical systems

In complex biological systems, entities that are conceptually distinct but empirically related—such as sunlight and plant growth or antigene and immune response—are being explicitly linked through the identification of highly specific uninterrupted interaction sequences that take place between their macromolecular system components. These uninterrupted sequences of causation include common elements that are shared by the empirically related but conceptually distinct entities. Through the identification of specific shared elements, “conceptual continuity” is established between these entities. Examples are introduced to suggest that in sociopolitical systems, an analogous conceptual continuity can be established between distinct sociopolitical entities. The identification of specific shared elements, essential for the well being of each of the entities, can play a significant role in resolving conflicts between those separated by seemingly insurmountable obstacles such as race or religion or ideology. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity 11:20–24, 2006     

利用CCD光电测量系统测量杨氏弹性模量

提出一种测量微小伸长量的光电测量方法,即利用CCD光电测量系统将单缝衍射的光强分布转换为电信号,经过计算机处理后输出光强分布曲线,从相邻波谷读出衍射条纹间隔,通过软件的简单操作直接输出测量结果.实现了数据采集及运算结果的实时化、半自动化,并克服了传统方法的测量困难和数据处理的复杂计算.利用这一方法测定了钢丝的杨氏弹性模量,与标称值符合得较好.     

Preservation of Lipschitz constants by Bernstein type operators

Summary We obtain preservation inequalities for Lipschitz constants of higher order in simultaneous approximation processes by Bernstein type operators. From such inequalities we derive the preservation of the corresponding Lipschitz spaces.     

WEIGHTED APPROXIMATION ON SZASZ—TYPE OPERATORS

In this paper, we use weighted modules ω(?)(f,t)w to study the pointwise approximation on Szasz-type operators, and obtain the direct and converse theorem, as well as characterizations of the pointwise approximation of Jacobi-weighted Szasz-type operators.     

On the Behaviors of Hyperspace Topologies for Subspaces

For a topological space X we denote by CL(X) the collection of all nonempty closed subsets of X. Suppose we have a map T which assigns in some coherent way to every topological space X some topology T(X) on CL(X). In this paper we study continuity and inverse continuity of the map iA,X :(CL(A),T{A)) → (CL(X),T(X)) defined by iA,x(F) = F whenever F ∈CL(A), for various assignment T; in particular, for locally finite topology, upper Kuratowski topology, and Attouch-Wets topology, etc.     

Amine‐cured epoxy/clay nanocomposites. II. The effect of the nanoclay aspect ratio

The thermophysical and mechanical properties of a nanocomposite material composed of amine‐cured diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A (DGEBA) reinforced with organomontmorillonite clay are reported. The storage modulus at 100 °C, which was above the glass‐transition temperature (T_g), increased approximately 350% with the addition of 10 wt % (6.0 vol %) of clay. Below the T_g, the storage modulus at 30 °C increased 50% relative to the value of unfilled epoxy. It was determined that the T_g linearly increased as a function of clay volume percent. The tensile modulus of epoxy at room temperature increased approximately 50% with the addition of 10 wt % of clay. The reinforcing effect of the organoclay nanoplatelets is discussed with respect to the Tandon–Weng and Halpin–Tsai models. A pseudoinclusion model is proposed to describe the behavior of randomly oriented, uniformly dispersed platelets in nanocomposite materials. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 42: 4391–4400, 2004     

Multilevel a posteriori error analysis for reaction–convection–diffusion problems

We present a new approach to the a posteriori error analysis of stable Galerkin approximations of reaction–convection–diffusion problems. It relies upon a non-standard variational formulation of the exact problem, based on the anisotropic wavelet decomposition of the equation residual into convection-dominated scales and diffusion-dominated scales. The associated norm, which is stronger than the standard energy norm, provides a robust (i.e., uniform in the convection limit) control over the streamline derivative of the solution. We propose an upper estimator and a lower estimator of the error, in this norm, between the exact solution and any finite dimensional approximation of it. We investigate the behaviour of such estimators, both theoretically and through numerical experiments. As an output of our analysis, we find that the lower estimator is quantitatively accurate and robust.     

GIRSANOV'S THEOREM ON ABSTRACT WIENER SPACES

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The continuity of superposition operators on some sequence spaces defined by moduli

Let λ and μ be solid sequence spaces. For a sequence of modulus functions Φ = (ϕ k) let λ(Φ) = {x = (x _k ): (ϕk(|x _k |)) ∈ λ}. Given another sequence of modulus functions Ψ = (ψ_k), we characterize the continuity of the superposition operators P _f from λ(Φ) into μ (Ψ) for some Banach sequence spaces λ and μ under the assumptions that the moduli ϕk (k ∈ ℕ) are unbounded and the topologies on the sequence spaces λ(Φ) and μ(Ψ) are given by certain F-norms. As applications we consider superposition operators on some multiplier sequence spaces of Maddox type. This research was supported by Estonian Science Foundation Grant 5376.