Gründerzeitliche Mauerwerksbauten unter Erdbebeneinwirkung – Tragverhalten im Widerspruch zur aktuell angewandten Nachbemessung

Historic masonry buildings under earthquakes – Load‐bearing behaviour in contradiction to the currently applied methods of analysis The stability of historic masonry buildings must be guaranteed not only under normal conditions, but also during natural disasters. The seismic assessment of the masonry buildings of the Gründerzeit (1840–1918) in Vienna is a central topic in the qualitative and constructive assessment. Although masonry construction has been used for many centuries, the realistic evaluation of the load‐bearing behaviour is still a complex challenge. The methods of analysis according to current regulations are only insufficiently able to reflect the real load‐bearing behaviour and the possible activation of global failure mechanisms. As a result, the simplified verification is often difficult to calculate for many historic buildings, and questionable reinforcement measures are taken to compensate, even though the buildings have already experienced several earthquakes and survived most of them without damage. The present work deals with the approaches of current methods of analysis and aims to identify problem points and to compare them with time history analysis, which is supported by a powerful material model based on test series. It is shown that the conventional analysis for the historic masonry buildings without consideration of the interaction and load transfer effects as well as the characteristic construction methods only partially reflect the real load‐bearing behaviour. The work is intended to be a contribution to the technical expert discussions on the seismic safety of historic buildings and to stimulate the discussion on the formulation of realistic methods of analysis.     

Bottom‐Up Design of Composite Supraparticles for Powder‐Based Additive Manufacturing

Additive manufacturing promises high flexibility and customized product design. Powder bed fusion processes use a laser to melt a polymer powder at predefined locations and iterate the scheme to build 3D objects. The design of flowable powders is a critical parameter for a successful fabrication process that currently limits the choice of available materials. Here, a bottom‐up process is introduced to fabricate tailored polymer‐ and composite supraparticles for powder‐based additive manufacturing processes by controlled aggregation of colloidal primary particles. These supraparticles exhibit a near‐spherical shape and tailored composition, morphology, and surface roughness. These parameters can be precisely controlled by the mixing and size ratio of the primary particles. Polystyrene/silica composite particles are chosen as a model system to establish structure–property relations connecting shape, morphology, and surface roughness to the adhesion within the powder, which is accessed by tensile strength measurements. The adhesive properties are then connected to powder flowability and it is shown that the resulting powders allow the formation of dense powder films with uniform coverage. Finally, successful powder bed fusion is demonstrated by producing macroscopic single layer specimens with uniform distribution of nanoscale silica additives.     

The Next Generation of Colloidal Probes: A Universal Approach for Soft and Ultra‐Small Particles

The colloidal probe technique, which is based on the atomic force microscope, revolutionizes direct force measurements in many fields, such as interface science or biomechanics. It allows for the first time to determine interaction forces on the single particle or cell level. However, for many applications, important “blind spots” remain, namely, the possibility to probe interaction potentials for nanoparticles or complex colloids with a soft outer shell. Definitely, these are colloidal systems that are currently of major industrial importance and interest from theory. The here‐presented novel approach allows for overcome the aforementioned limitations. Its applicability has been demonstrated for 300 nm sized carboxylate‐modified latex particles as well as sub‐micron core–shell particles with a soft poly‐N‐isopropylacrylamide hydrogel shell and a rigid silica core. For the latter, which until now cannot be studied by the colloidal probe technique, determined is the temperature dependency of electrosteric and adhesion forces has been determined on the single particle level.     

Modelling the Performance of Single-Photon Counting Kinetic Inductance Detectors

We present the first published results of near-infrared single-photon detection in aluminium lumped element kinetic inductance detectors (LEKIDs). Using aluminium as a well-understood material that follows conventional superconductor theory, we discuss and validate a model that describes the energy-resolving performance of a LEKID to single-photon absorption events. We also discuss data analysis techniques used to extract single-photon detections from noisy data. We measure an energy resolution of 662 meV for a 1550 nm photon source which is in close agreement to our model predictions for this non-optimised device limited by generation–recombination noise.     

Characterization of the Mechanical Stress–Strain Performance of Aerospace Alloy Materials Using Frequency-Domain Photoacoustic Ultrasound and Photothermal Methods: An FEM Approach

Determining and keeping track of a material’s mechanical performance is very important for safety in the aerospace industry. The mechanical strength of alloy materials is precisely quantified in terms of its stress–strain relation. It has been proven that frequency-domain photothermoacoustic (FD-PTA) techniques are effective methods for characterizing the stress–strain relation of metallic alloys. PTA methodologies include photothermal (PT) diffusion and laser thermoelastic photoacoustic ultrasound (PAUS) generation which must be separately discussed because the relevant frequency ranges and signal detection principles are widely different. In this paper, a detailed theoretical analysis of the connection between thermoelastic parameters and stress/strain tensor is presented with respect to FD-PTA nondestructive testing. Based on the theoretical model, a finite element method (FEM) was further implemented to simulate the PT and PAUS signals at very different frequency ranges as an important analysis tool of experimental data. The change in the stress–strain relation has an impact on both thermal and elastic properties, verified by FEM and results/signals from both PT and PAUS experiments.     

A hybrid algorithm for the vehicle routing problem with backhauls,time windows and three-dimensional loading constraints

OR Spectrum - This paper deals with a special vehicle routing problem with backhauls where customers may want to receive items from a depot and, at the same time, return items back to the depot....