Experimental Method for Complex Thermo-mechanical Material Analysis

An experimental system for complex thermo-mechanical material analysis is presented in this article. The system provides simultaneous measurements of tensile properties as well as heat generation in the process of tensile deformation. The cooling curve of the sample after its reversible deformation was measured. On the basis of an exponential model of a cooling body with respect to the Biot number Bi, it is possible to calculate the specific heat capacity c _p , the thermal diffusivity α, and the thermal conductivity k. The method had been tested on a variety of materials and the results were compared to those in the technical literature or obtained by reference independent experiments and showed very good agreement.     

Prediction of concrete creep and shrinkage: past, present and future

The first part of the paper summarizes various aspects of the prediction of concrete creep and shrinkage to be discussed in the conference lecture. They include the theories of physical mechanism, prediction models, constitutive equations, computational approaches, probabilistic aspects, and research directions. The second part then presents two new prediction models. One of them deals with the approximate prediction formulae for pore relative humidity distributions, required for realistic creep and shrinkage analysis, and the other deals with the extrapolation of short time measurements of creep and shrinkage into long times.     

Microplane Model M4 for Concrete. II: Algorithm and Calibration

This paper represents Part II of a two-part study in which a new improved version of the microplane constitutive model for damage-plastic behavior of concrete in 3D is developed. In Part II, an explicit numerical algorithm for model M4 is formulated, the material parameters of model M4 are calibrated by optimum fitting of the basic test data available in the literature, and the model is verified by comparisons with these data. The data in which strain localization must have occurred are delocalized, and the size effect is filtered out from the data where necessary. Although model M4 contains many material parameters, all but four have fixed values for all types of concretes. Thus the user needs to adjust only four free material parameters to the data for a given concrete, for which a simple sequential identification procedure is developed. If the user's data consist only of the standard compression strength and the strain at uniaxial stress peak, the adjustment is explicit and immediate. Good agreement with an unusually broad range of material test data is achieved.     

Solving production scheduling with earliness/tardiness penalties by constraint programming

This paper deals with an application of constraint programming in production scheduling with earliness and tardiness penalties that reflects the scheduling part of the Just-In-Time inventory strategy. Two scheduling problems are studied, an industrial case study problem of lacquer production scheduling, and also the job-shop scheduling problem with earliness/tardiness costs. The paper presents two algorithms that help the constraint programming solver to find solutions of these complex problems. The first algorithm, called the cost directed initialization, performs a greedy initialization of the search tree. The second one, called the time reversing transformation and designed for lacquer production scheduling, reformulates the problem to be more easily searchable when the default search or the cost directed initialization is used. The conducted experiments, using case study instances and randomly generated problem instances, show that our algorithms outperform generic approaches, and on average give better results than other nontrivial algorithms.     

Practical prediction of cyclic humidity effect in creep and shrinkage of concrete

The previously published BP Model for prediction of concrete creep and shrinkage is generalized to cover the increase of creep caused by the cyclic component of environmental relative humidity. A simple formula, which is partly empirical, partly based on the diffusion theory, is proposed and is calibrated by comparisons with test data from the literature.     

Drying creep of concrete: constitutive model and new experiments separating its mechanisms

A new experimental method which allows the direct separation of the components of drying creep due to microcracking and stress-induced shrinkage is developed, demonstrated and validated. The basic idea is to compare the curvature creep of beams subjected to the same bending moment but very different axial forces. The results confirm that drying creep has two different sources: microcracking and stress-induced shrinkage. The latter increases continuously, whereas the former first increases and then decreases. The test results are fitted using a finite element model. The results validate the present model for drying creep. The microcracking is described by an established model, and the free (unrestrained) shrinkage of a material element is shown to depend approximately linearly on the humidity drop.     

Temperature Effect on Concrete Creep Modeled by Microprestress-Solidification Theory

The previously developed microprestress-solidification theory for concrete creep and shrinkage is generalized for the effect of temperature (not exceeding 100°C). The solidification model separates the viscoelasticity of the solid constituent, the cement gel, from the chemical aging of material caused by solidification of cement and characterized by the growth of volume fraction of hydration products. This permits considering the viscoelastic constituent as non-aging. The temperature dependence of the rates of creep and of volume growth is characterized by two transformed time variables based on the activation energies of hydration and creep. The concept of microprestress achieves a grand unification of theory in which the long-term aging and all transient hygrothermal effects simply become different consequences of one and the same physical phenomenon. The microprestress, which is independent of the applied load, is initially produced by incompatible volume changes in the microstructure during hydration, and later builds up when changes of moisture content and temperature create a thermodynamic imbalance between the chemical potentials of vapor and adsorbed water in the nanopores of cement gel. As recently shown, this simultaneously captures two basic effects: First, the creep decreases with increasing age at loading after the growth of the volume fraction of hydrated cement has ceased; and, second, the drying creep, i.e., the transient creep increases due to drying (Pickett effect) which overpowers the effect of steady-state moisture content (i.e., less moisture—less creep). Now it is demonstrated that the microprestress buildup and relaxation also captures a third effect: The transitional thermal creep, i.e., the transient creep increase due to temperature change. For computations, an efficient (exponential-type) integration algorithm is developed. Finite element simulations, in which the apparent creep due to microcracking is taken into account separately, are used to identify the constitutive parameters and a satisfactory agreement with typical test data is achieved.     

You like it,you learn it: affectivity and learning in competitive social role play gaming

Despite the alleged ability of digital game-based learning (DGBL) to foster positive affect and in turn improve learning, the link between affectivity and learning has not been sufficiently investigated in this field. Regarding learning from team-based games with competitive elements, even less is known about the relationship between competitiveness (as a dispositional trait) and induced positive affect. In this media comparison study with between-subject design, participants (N?=?325; high school and college students) learned about the EU’s policy agenda by means of a debate-based method delivered through one of three educational media: a) through a social role-playing game with competitive elements played on computers, b) through a very similar game played without computers and c) through a non-game workshop. Unlike many previous DGBL studies, this study used participant randomization and strived to address the teacher effect and the length of exposure effect, while also using the same learning materials and a very similar educational method for all three treatments. Both games induced comparatively higher generalized positive affect and flow. Participants also learned more with the games. Positive affect, but not flow, mediated the influence of educational media on learning gains. Participants’ competitiveness was partly related to positive affect and experiencing flow but unrelated to learning gains. These outcomes held both when the game was played using computers, as well as without them. The study indicates that the ability of an educational intervention to instigate positive affect is an important feature that should be considered by educational designers.     

Calculation of countercurrent separation processes—III. Computation of two interlinked columns.

The relaxation procedure is used for solution of two interlinked distillation columns. Both approaches-sequential iterative method and the block relaxation technique are compared. A new algorithm making use of simultaneous solution of all equations is proposed.