Failure analysis in postbuckled composite T-sections

Blade-stiffened skin designs made of composite materials have the potential to produce highly efficient structures, when the large strength reserves in the postbuckling range are utilised. This paper investigates the failure under postbuckling deformations of T-section specimens cut from a blade-stiffened panel, by comparing experimental results to finite element models. In the experimental work, T-section specimens with a particular lay-up and geometry were tested to failure in antisymmetric and symmetric loading rigs. These loading rigs simulate deformations on skin-stiffener interfaces during panel postbuckling. For the numerical analysis, two-dimensional models of the interface cross-section were used with a strength-based criterion that monitored failure within each ply. The use of a zero-thickness layer of cohesive elements has also been investigated in order to simulate the delamination behaviour. The numerical predictions are compared to the experimental results in terms of the failure load, specimen stiffness and specimen behaviour. The analysis approach is shown to be capable of predicting the critical damage locations and initiation loads for both antisymmetric and symmetric loadings. The successful prediction of failure in skin-stiffener interfaces can be linked to a global-local approach for efficient analysis of large, fuselage-representative composite structures.     

Formulation of an improved smeared stiffener theory for buckling analysis of grid-stiffened composite panels

An improved smeared stiffener theory for stiffened panels is presented that includes skin-stiffener interaction effects. The neutral surface profile of the skin-stiffener combination is developed analytically using the minimum potential energy principle and statics conditions. The skin-stiffener interaction is accounted for by computing the bending and coupling stiffness due to the stiffener and the skin in the skin-stiffener region about a shift in the neutral axis at the stiffener. Buckling load results for axially stiffened, orthogrid, and general grid-stiffened panels are obtained using the smeared stiffness combined with a Rayleigh-Ritz method and are compared with results from detailed finite element analyses.     

单轴力多约束条件下复合材料单向加筋壁板结构效率分析方法

通过建立复合材料单向加筋壁板单元的基本力学假设和计算分析模型,提出了一种多约束条件下进行快速结构效率分析的方法,并利用该方法对典型的复合材料单向加筋壁板进行了结构效率分析和优化,得到了其结构效率随各设计参数的变化趋势和相对最优结构参数。本文方法综合考虑筋条总体稳定性、局部稳定性、结构静强度约束及其之间相互影响,并在基本假设的基础上将复合材料结构离散变量转化为独立的连续设计变量,使得结构力学性能分析和优化分析大为简化,对本文方法所得结果与试验及有限元分析所得结果做了比较,吻合得较好。研究结果为复合材料单向加筋壁板的设计提供了直接参考,具有较好的实际工程应用和参考价值。      

An alternative TLM method for steady‐state convection–diffusion

Recent papers have introduced a novel and efficient scheme, based on the transmission line modelling (TLM) method, for solving one‐dimensional steady‐state convection–diffusion problems. This paper introduces an alternative method. It presents results obtained using both techniques, which suggest that the new scheme outlined in this paper is the more accurate and efficient of the two. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Electromigration at gold–aluminium interfaces and in thin aluminium tracks

The in situ method to study accelerated ageing of electronic interconnections under current stress has been applied to (a) Au ball bonds on A11% Si metallization, and (b) thin aluminium tracks. For the Au ball bonds, it has been shown that direct current stresses above 10⁸ Am^?2 cause electromigration effects at the Au-Al interface, and that the ageing behaviour depends on the direction of the applied direct current stress. It was also shown that the addition of 1 per cent Cu to the metallization strongly retards void formation, and hence open contact failure. For the thin aluminium tracks, it has been shown that the early stage of electromigration, which can be studied accurately with the in situ technique, is closely related to the stress relaxation within the track. It is therefore concluded that the kinetics of electromigration can only be described if the kinetics of stress relaxation are well understood.     

Macromechanics study of stable fatigue crack growth in Al–Cu–Li–Mg–Ag alloy

This study was made on a fresh variety of Al–Li base alloy to investigate the role of ageing precipitates and microstructure dimensions in the fatigue crack growth resistance. The fatigue crack growth rate was measured in three different states of the material (i.e. base metal in T8 condition, friction stir weld and laser beam weld in full‐aged condition). Metallurgical analysis showed that the base metal in T8 temper is precipitation hardened by an equivalent amount of δ′ (AL₃Li), T₁ (AI₂CuLi) and θ′ (AI₂Cu) precipitates. The friction stir weld retained the morphology of strengthening precipitate; however, coarsening of Cu containing precipitates has occurred. On the other hand, laser beam weld showed a different type of CuAl phase morphology, which is characteristic of cast metal. The results of fatigue tests confirmed that fatigue crack growth resistance largely depends on microstructural features, specifically the strengthening phases. The fatigue crack resistance was in the order of base metal > laser beam weldment > friction stir weldment. The CuAl phase played a vital role in the crack closure of the laser beam weldment, thus enhancing the fatigue life as compared with the friction stir weldment, which was evident from the plot between log of da/dN (crack growth in each cycle) and log of ΔK (stress intensity range).     

Self‐Catalyzed Growth of Co–N–C Nanobrushes for Efficient Rechargeable Zn–Air Batteries

Highly efficient and stable bifunctional electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction and evolution are essential for aqueous rechargeable Zn–air batteries, which require highly active sites as well as delicate structural design for increasing effective active sites and facilitating mass/electron transfer. Herein, a scalable and facile self‐catalyzed growth strategy is developed to integrate highly active Co–N–C sites with 3D brush‐like nanostructure, achieving Co–N–C nanobrushes with Co,N‐codoped carbon nanotube branches grown on Co,N‐codoped nanoparticle assembled nanowire backbones. Systematic investigations suggest that nanobrushes deliver significantly improved electrocatalytic activity compared with nanowire or nanotube counterparts and the longer nanotube branches give the better performance. Benefiting from the increase of accessible highly active sites and enhanced mass transfer and electron transportation, the present Co–N–C nanobrush exhibits superior electrocatalytic activity and durability when used as a bifunctional oxygen catalyst. It enables a rechargeable Zn–air battery with a high peak power density of 246 mW cm^?2 and excellent cycling stability. These results suggest that the reported synthetic strategy may open up possibilities for exploring efficient electrocatalysts for diverse applications.     

An algorithm for fast critical plane search in computer‐aided engineering durability analysis under multiaxial random loadings: Application to the Carpinteri–Spagnoli–Vantadori spectral method

This paper presents a new algorithm to implement the Carpinteri–Spagnoli–Vantadori (CSV) multiaxial fatigue criterion for random loading and to shorten the computation time. This goal is achieved after calculating the exact expressions of stress spectral moments in every rotated plane, which allow the maximum variance and expected maximum peak of normal/shear stress to be computed directly. This permits the new algorithm to determine the five rotations of the critical plane without using ‘for/end’ loops (which represent a slow numerical operation), although some information on stress signals examined is lost. Two examples are presented to demonstrate the advantages of the new algorithm in comparison with its standard version, which are particularly remarkable when considering the stress output of all finite element model nodes. The approach behind the new algorithm can be extended to other multiaxial spectral criteria that use angular rotations or direction cosines to locate the critical plane or the direction of maximum stress variance.     

An efficient block preconditioner for Jacobian‐free global–local multiscale methods

In this paper, we develop a block preconditioner for Jacobian‐free global–local multiscale methods, in which the explicit computation of the Jacobian may be circumvented at the macroscale by using a Newton–Krylov process. Effective preconditioning is necessary for the Krylov subspace iterations (e.g. GMRES) to enhance computational efficiency. This is, however, challenging since no explicit information regarding the Jacobian matrix is available. The block preconditioning technique developed in this paper circumvents this problem by effectively deflating the spectrum of the Jacobian matrix at the current Newton step using information about only the Krylov subspaces corresponding to the Jacobian matrices in the previous Newton steps and their representations on those subspaces. This approach is optimal and results in exponential convergence of the GMRES iterations within each Newton step, thus minimizing expensive microscale computations without requiring explicit Jacobian formation in any step. In terms of both computational cost and storage requirements, the action of a single block of the preconditioner per GMRES step scales linearly as the number of degrees of freedom of the macroscale problem as well as the dimension of the invariant subspace of the preconditioned Jacobian matrix. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An augmented Cartesian grid method for Stokes–Darcy fluid–structure interactions

A new finite difference method based on Cartesian meshes is proposed for solving the fluid–structure interaction between a fluid flow modeled by the Stokes equations and a porous media modeled by the Darcy's law. The idea is to introduce several augmented variables along the interface between the fluid flow and the porous media so that the problem can be decoupled as several Poisson equations. The augmented variables should be chosen so that the Beavers–Joseph–Saffman and other interface conditions are satisfied. In the discretization, the augmented variables have co‐dimension one compared with that of the primitive variables and are solved through the Schur complement system. A non‐trivial analytic solution with a circular interface is constructed to check second‐order convergency of the proposed method. Numerical examples with various interfaces and parameters are also presented. Some simulations show interesting behaviors of the fluid–structure interaction between the fluid flow and the porous media. The computational framework can be applied to other multi‐phase and multi‐physics problems. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fast BEM–FEM mortar coupling for acoustic–structure interaction

A coupling algorithm based on Lagrange multipliers is proposed for the simulation of structure–acoustic field interaction. Finite plate elements are coupled to a Galerkin boundary element formulation of the acoustic domain. The interface pressure is interpolated as a Lagrange multiplier, thus, allowing the coupling of non‐matching grids. The resulting saddle‐point problem is solved by an approximate Uzawa‐type scheme in which the matrix–vector products of the boundary element operators are evaluated efficiently by the fast multipole boundary element method. The algorithm is demonstrated on the example of a cavity‐backed elastic panel. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A failure analysis methodology for revealing esd damage to integrated circuits

A range of chemical and physical techniques is required in order to identify the failure sites and failure machanisms of ICs subjected to ESD transients. The damage features of ESD failures from the field are shown to be similar to those produced by simulated human-body-model testing. A curve tracer technique can be used to predict the location of an ESD failure site in the input or output circuit of an IC. Junction shorts induced by ESD transients form as a result of a combination of heating at the site of second breakdown, together with the heat generated by the discharge current in the discharge path. The ESD sensitivity of a given input or output circuit is dependent on the spacing between the input contact window. and the contact window of the nearest diffusion-to-Vss metallization.     

Quantitative carbide analysis using the Rietveld method for 2.25Cr–1Mo–0.25V steel

It is usually difficult to quantitatively determine the mass fraction of each type of precipitates in steels using transmission electron microscopy and traditional X-ray powder diffraction analysis methods. In this paper the Rietveld full-pattern fitting algorithm was employed to calculate the relative mass fractions of the precipitates in 2.25Cr–1Mo–0.25V steel. The results suggest that the fractions of MC, M₇C₃ and M₂₃C₆ carbides were evaluated precisely and relatively quickly. In addition, it was found that the fine MC phase dissolved into the matrix with prolonged tempering.     

Modelling the dependency of the Smith–Watson–Topper parameter on the cycles‐to‐failure using serial hybrid neural networks

Calculating the fatigue damage with a strain‐based approach requires an ?–N durability curve that links the strain amplitude to the corresponding number of cycles‐to‐failure. This ?–N curve is usually modelled by the Coffin–Manson relationship. If a loading mean‐level also needs to be considered, the original Coffin–Manson relationship is modified using a Smith–Watson–Topper parameter. In this article a methodology for modelling the dependence of the Smith–Watson–Topper parameter on the number of cycles‐to‐failure is presented. The core of the presented methodology represents a multilayer perceptron neural network combined with the Smith–Watson–Topper analytical model. The article presents the theoretical background of the methodology, which is applied for the case of the experimental fatigue data. The results show that it is possible to model ?–N curves for different influential parameters, such as the specimen's diameter and the testing temperature. The results further show that it is possible to predict ?–N curves even for those combinations of the influential parameters for which no experimental data about the material endurance is available. This fact makes the presented model very suitable for the application in an R&D process when a durability of a product should be estimated on the basis of a very limited set of experimental data about the material endurance characteristics.     

Co Nanoislands Rooted on Co–N–C Nanosheets as Efficient Oxygen Electrocatalyst for Zn–Air Batteries

Developing non‐precious‐metal bifunctional oxygen reduction and evolution reaction (ORR/OER) catalysts is a major task for promoting the reaction efficiency of Zn–air batteries. Co‐based catalysts have been regarded as promising ORR and OER catalysts owing to the multivalence characteristic of cobalt element. Herein, the synthesis of Co nanoislands rooted on Co–N–C nanosheets supported by carbon felts (Co/Co–N–C) is reported. Co nanosheets rooted on the carbon felt derived from electrodeposition are applied as the self‐template and cobalt source. The synergistic effect of metal Co islands with OER activity and Co–N–C nanosheets with superior ORR performance leads to good bifuctional catalytic performances. Wavelet transform extended X‐ray absorption fine spectroscopy and X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy certify the formation of Co (mainly Co⁰) and the Co–N–C (mainly Co²⁺ and Co³⁺) structure. As the air‐cathode, the assembled aqueous Zn–air battery exhibits a small charge–discharge voltage gap (0.82 V@10 mA cm^?2) and high power density of 132 mW cm^?2, outperforming the commercial Pt/C catalyst. Additionally, the cable flexible rechargeable Zn–air battery exhibits excellent bendable and durability. Density functional theory calculation is combined with operando X‐ray absorption spectroscopy to further elucidate the active sites of oxygen reactions at the Co/Co–N–C cathode in Zn–air battery.     

Determination of the Gurson–Tvergaard damage model parameters for simulating small punch tests

The objective of the final small punch test (SPT) is to determine the fracture properties of materials, such as fracture toughness, when not enough material is available for the conduct of conventional fracture tests. The damage model developed by Gurson, and subsequently modified by Tvergaard and Needleman (GTN), allows for the numerical simulation of the elastic‐plastic behaviour until fracture. This model is based on several constitutive material parameters that must be calibrated if the model is to be properly applied. In this paper, we develop a consistent methodology for the identification of the GTN damage parameters based on the adjustment of the load‐displacement curve obtained in the SPTs. The methodology presented is applicable to simulating other different SPTs with different thicknesses and test temperatures. Also, the three‐dimensional modelling developed will be useful in the future for analysing the possible anisotropy exhibited by some materials. The next step in the simulation will be to determine its validity in other stress fields with different triaxiality ratios, like the one present in CT specimens, the ultimate goal being to allow for the estimation of the material fracture toughness.