A parallel hp‐FEM infrastructure for three‐dimensional structural acoustics

This paper describes a parallel three‐dimensional numerical infrastructure for the solution of a wide range of time‐harmonic problems in structural acoustics and vibration. High accuracy and rate of error‐convergence, in the mid‐frequency regime,is achieved by the use of hp‐finite and infinite element approximations. The infrastructure supports parallel computation in both single and multi‐frequency settings. Multi‐frequency solves utilize concurrent factoring of the frequency‐dependent linear algebraic systems and are naturally scalable. Scalability of large‐scale single‐frequency problems is realized by using FETI‐DP—an iterative domain‐decomposition scheme. Numerical examples are presented to cover applications in vibratory response of fluid‐filled elastic structures as well as radiation and scattering from elastic structures submerged in an infinite acoustic medium. We demonstrate both the numerical accuracy as well as parallel scalability of the infrastructure in terms of problem parameters that include wavenumber and number of frequencies, polynomial degree of finite/infinite element approximations as well as the number of processors. Scalability and accuracy is evaluated for both single and multiple frequency sweeps on four high‐performance parallel computing platforms: SGI Altix, SGI Origin, IBM p690 SP and Linux‐cluster. Results show good performance on shared as well as distributed‐memory architecture. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Meticulous analysis and consequences of microstructure changes on melt rheology and dynamic viscoelasticity of thermoplastic vulcanizates upon reprocessing

Thermoplastic vulcanizates (TPVs), which are a special class of elastomer alloy, prepared by dynamic vulcanization possess unique morphology of finely dispersed micron‐size cross‐linked elastomeric particles in a continuous thermoplastic matrix. The present study investigates the microstructure formation of elastomeric phase and its associated morphological changes during reprocessing of TPVs based on poly[styrene‐b‐(ethylene‐co‐butylene)‐b‐styrene] triblock co‐polymer (S‐EB‐S) and solution polymerized styrene butadiene elastomer (S‐SBR) by scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy. Semi‐efficient and efficient sulfur‐based curing systems have been adopted to cure the elastomeric phase and a comparative study has been made to demonstrate and explain the effect of reprocessing on the melt rheology and dynamic viscoelasticity of the TPVs. The present work also provides a better insight and guidance to control the microstructure of the cross‐linked elastomeric phase to prepare selectively co‐continuous or dispersed phase morphology. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2014 , 131, 41182.     

Possibility to Use Hydrothermally Synthesized CuFeS<Subscript>2</Subscript> Nanocomposite as an Acceptor in Hybrid Solar Cell

Here we have approached the plausible use of CuFeS₂ nanocomposite as an acceptor in organic–inorganic hybrid solar cell. To produce CuFeS₂ nanocomposite, hydrothermal strategy was employed. The room-temperature XRD pattern approves the synthesized material as CuFeS₂ with no phase impurity (JCPDS Card no: 37-0471). The elemental composition of the material was analyzed from the TEM-EDX data. The obtained selected area electron diffraction (SAED) planes harmonized with the XRD pattern of the synthesized product. Optical band gap (4.14 eV) of the composite from UV–Vis analysis depicts that the synthesized material is belonging to wide band gap semiconductor family. The HOMO (? 6.97 eV) and LUMO (? 2.93 eV) positions from electrochemical study reveal that there is a possibility of electron transfer from MEH-PPV to CuFeS₂. The optical absorption and photoluminescence spectra of MEH-PPV:CuFeS₂ (donor:acceptor) composite were recorded sequentially by varying weight ratios. The monotonic blue shifting of the absorption peak position indicated the interaction between donor and acceptor materials. The possibility of electron transfer from donor (MEH-PPV) to acceptor (CuFeS₂) was approved with photoluminescence analysis. Subsequently, we have fabricated a hybrid solar cell by incorporating CuFeS₂ nanocomposite with MEH-PPV in open atmosphere and obtained 0.3% power conversion efficiency.     

Assessment of the effect of residual stresses in elastic-plastic fracture of dissimilar welded components

Residual stresses in welds pose a significant threat to the structural integrity of a component, especially in the presence of defects and are required to be accounted for in assessing component safety. Although the R6 assessment procedure suggests various approximate methods for incorporating these effects in defect assessment, most of them are overly conservative and not very cost-effective. A more reliable approach is to characterise the weld residual stresses around a defect and study how they interact with primary load. The current paper analyses the effects of weld residual stresses on the fracture of a dissimilar weld in the presence of defect. The weld is made between modified 9Cr–1Mo steel and 316LN stainless steel using autogenous electron beam welding. A C(T) specimen was extracted from the centre of the weld and a crack introduced in the fusion zone using electro-discharge machining. The residual stresses around the crack were measured on a grid of measurement points at mid-thickness of the C(T) specimen using neutron diffraction on the strain diffractometer SALSA at ILL, Grenoble. The measured residual stresses around the crack-tip were incorporated into a finite element model and the interaction of these with applied load was predicted under fracture.     

Friction Stir Welding (FSW) of Aged CuCrZr Alloy Plates

Friction Stir Welding (FSW) of Cu-0.80Cr-0.10Zr (in wt pct) alloy under aged condition was performed to study the effects of process parameters on microstructure and properties of the joint. FSW was performed over a wide range of process parameters, like tool-rotation speed (from 800 to 1200 rpm) and tool-travel speed (from 40 to 100 mm/min), and the resulting thermal cycles were recorded on both sides (advancing and retreating) of the joint. The joints were characterized for their microstructure and tensile properties. The welding process resulted in a sound and defect-free weld joint, over the entire range of the processparameters used in this study. Microstructure of the stir zone showed fine and equiaxed grains, the scale of which varied with FSW process parameters. Grain size in the stir zone showed direct correlation with tool rotation and inverse correlation with tool-travel speed. Tensile strength of the weld joints was ranging from 225 to 260 MPa, which is substantially lower than that of the parent metal under aged condition (~ 400 MPa), but superior to that of the parent material under annealed condition (~ 220 MPa). Lower strength of the FSW joint than that of the parent material under aged condition can be attributed to dissolution of the precipitates in the stir zone and TMAZ. These results are presented and discussed in this paper.

     

Morphological segmenting and neighborhood pixel-based locality preserving projection on brain fMRI dataset for semantic feature extraction: an affective computing study

Two specific chemical receptive fields of brain, namely the amygdala and the orbital-frontal cortex, are related to valence and arousal in medical experiments. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which is a noninvasive, repeatable, and atomical tool for medical imaging in clinic system, was widely used in affective computing; however, it faces its dataset processing difficulty for dimensional reduction as well as for decreasing the computational complexity. In addition, features extraction from those de-dimensionality datasets is a challenging issue. The current work solved the de-dimensionality issue by using some preprocessing algorithms including clustering, morphological segmenting, and locality preserving projection. In order to keep useful information in fMRI dataset for reduction process, improved neighborhood pixel-based locality preserving projection (NP-LPP) algorithm was addressed and continuously for feature extraction operating using Otsu weighted sum of histogram. Furthermore, a modified covariance power spectral density (MC-PSD) separately in an fMRI Valence–Arousal experiments was measured. The results were analyzed and compared with affective norms English words system. The experiments established that the proposed methods of NP-LPP effectively simplified high complexity of fMRI, and Otsu weighted sum of histogram exhibited superior performance for features extraction compared to the MC-PSD through the calculation root mean standard error. The current proposed method provided a potential application and promising research direction on human semantic retrieval through medical imaging dataset.

     

Texture anisotropy technique in brain degenerative diseases

Structural alterations anisotropy-based measured for different areas for the most common types of dementia diseases could be a biomarker of brain impairment. The current work aims to assess whether texture anisotropy can discriminate both healthy versus Alzheimer’s and Pick’s patients based on regional evaluation while maintaining high predictive power. The investigated area is reduced from the whole-brain surface to three major lobes (i.e., frontal, temporal and parietal). A predictive model was proposed to associate a disease with a specific area in the brain based on the anisotropy values. Simultaneous analysis of 1680 measurements from 105 brain magnetic resonance images acquired as T2w and PD sequences was performed to establish the significance of the model. The cerebral calcinosis disease has been used as artificial ground truth. The association based on textural anisotropy between targeted diseases and control patients was performed by using Pearson’s correlation coefficients. A new proposed consistency index investigated the texture anisotropy relevance for all image’s types and all analyzed classes and regions. The validation study is based on area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve that depicted the overall diagnostic performance of the texture anisotropy in each region. The proposed model demonstrated that texture anisotropy is accurate solution in diagnosis of Alzheimer’s and Pick’s diseases when the investigated area is reduced to major lobes, with sensitivity >90% and specificity >80%.

     

An EPQ model with promotional demand in random planning horizon: population varying genetic algorithm approach

One of the economic production quantity problems that have been of interest to researchers is the production with reworking of the imperfect items including waste most disposal form and vending the units. The available models in the literature assumed that the decay rate of the items is satisfied from three different points of view: (i) minimum demands of the customer’s requirement, (ii) demands to be enhanced for lower selling price and (iii) demands of the customers who are motivated by the advertisement. The model is developed over a finite random planning horizon, which is assumed to follow the exponential distribution with known parameters. The model has been illustrated with a numerical example, whose parametric inputs are estimated from market survey. Here the model is optimized by using a population varying genetic algorithm.     

An XPS Study with Depth Profiling for the Surface Oxide Layer Formed on Aluminides Produced on Superalloy 690 Substrates

Superalloy 690 substrates containing mainly Cr and Ni aluminides on the uppermost surface, formed by atmospheric plasma spraying and heat treatment, were oxidized at 1273 K in air for 2 h. Quantitative X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analyses indicated that the outermost surface layer formed on aluminides is composed of ~ 21.0 at.% Al⁺³ (as Al₂O₃), 17.0 at.% Al⁰ (elemental aluminium), 1.4 at.% Cr⁺³ (as Cr₂O₃) and 60.5 at.% O (in Al₂O₃ and Cr₂O₃ and also includes oxygen contaminant). Surface sputtering for 5 min exhibited splitting of Cr2p_3/2 peak into a doublet comprising Cr⁺³ (0.9 at.%) and Cr⁰ (0.4 at.%) with the presence of 1.15 at.% Ni⁰ in the surface layer that mainly contained ~ 37.3 at.% Al⁺³, 7.3 at.% Al⁰ and 52.9 at.% O. Surface sputtering for 15 min indicated surface composition similar to surface sputtered for 5 min but with a marked reduction in ratio of Al⁺³/Al⁰ (32.2 at.% Al⁺³/11.90 at.% Al⁰) in the surface layer.