Prestressed concrete deep slabs with openings

A series of small-scale models of prestressed concrete reactor vessels, with and without perforations in the end slab, were loaded to failure. All vessels failed in shear. The presence of penetrations did not decrease the strength of the end slab. The behavior of the vessels is described. Using a finite-element model, the stress conditions in the end slab at the failure load are evaluated. A method for calculating the shear strength of a deep slab is described. The method consists of three consecutive steps. First, calculate the load at which the inclined crack is initiated. Second, determine the shape of the load-carrying dome that is carved out inside the slab. Third, calculate and evaluate the stress conditions in the dome.     

Effects of TiO2, ZnO,and Fe3O4 nanofillers on rheological behavior,microstructure, and reaction kinetics of rigid polyurethane foams

Effects of different types and shapes of titanium dioxide, zinc oxide, and magnetite nanofillers on the rheological behavior of polyol/nanofiller suspensions, on the rigid polyurethane foam formation reaction, and hence on the final microstructure were investigated. The rheological percolation threshold of polyol/nanofiller suspensions decreased as the aspect ratio of nonspherical nanoparticles (platelet or rod) increased, regardless of the nanofiller type. The results of reaction kinetics showed that above a critical surface area (≈30 m²), independently of nanofiller type, the reaction rate increased as the surface area increased. The introduction of oxide surfaces reduced the final cell size until a critical surface area (≈30 m²). However, above this critical value cell size distribution gets wider and the cell size can no longer be correlated with the surface area. In the latter case, an increase of the reaction rate and the polymerization reaction being exothermic may facilitate uncontrolled cell nucleation, growth, and hence coalescence which results in an uncontrolled foam structure. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2016 , 133, 43658.     

Numerical modeling and simulation of wheel radial fatigue tests

A computational methodology is proposed for fatigue damage assessment of metallic automotive components and its application is presented with numerical simulations of wheel radial fatigue tests. The technique is based on the local strain approach in conjunction with linear elastic FE stress analyses. The stress–strain response at a material point is computed with a cyclic plasticity model coupled with a notch stress–strain approximation scheme. Critical plane damage parameters are used in the characterization of fatigue damage under multiaxial loading conditions. All computational modules are implemented into a software tool and used in the simulation of radial fatigue tests of a disk-type truck wheel. In numerical models, the wheel rotation is included with a nonproportional cyclic loading history, and dynamic effects due to wheel–tire interaction are neglected. The fatigue lives and potential crack locations are predicted using effective strain, Smith–Watson–Topper and Fatemi–Socie parameters using computed stress–strain histories. Three-different test conditions are simulated, and both number of test cycles and crack initiation sites are estimated. Comparisons with the actual tests proved the applicability of the proposed approach.     

Monitoring of population shifts in an enriched nitrifying system under gradually increased cadmium loading

The changes in nitrifying bacterial population under cadmium loading were monitored and evaluated in a laboratory scale continuous-flow enriched nitrification system. For this purpose, the following molecular microbiological methods were used: slot–blot hybridization, denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE), real-time PCR followed by melting curve analysis, cloning and sequence analysis. The initial cadmium concentration was incrementally increased from 1 to 10 mg/l which led to a drop in ammonia removal efficiency from 99 to 10%. Inhibition was recovered when cadmium loading was stopped. During the second application of cadmium, nitrifying population became more tolerant. Even at 15 mg/l Cd, only a minor inhibition was observed. To investigate the variations in ammonia and nitrite oxidizing bacteria populations in a period of 483 days, ammonia monooxygenase (amoA) and 16S rRNA genes-based molecular techniques were used. An obvious shift was experienced in the diversity of ammonia oxidizers after the first application of 10 mg/l Cd. Metal-tolerant ammonia oxidizing species became dominant and the microbial diversity sharply shifted from Nitrosomonas and Nitrosococcus sp. to Nitrosospira sp. which were observed to tolerate higher cadmium loadings. This result indicated that the extent of nitrification inhibition was not only related to the metal concentration and quantity of microorganisms but also depended on the type of species.     

Chemical modification of proteins. 2. Blocking of amino groups and basic amino acids and crosslinking of polypeptide chains in casein and field bean globulin by reaction with dialdehyde starch]

The reaction of dialdehyde starch with casein and field-bean globulin leads to a blocking of the protein amino groups and to a decrease of free lysine, arginine and histidine. Maximum values are reached at high protein concentrations and great molar reagent excess. At best 80-93% of the amino groups or of the available lysine may be blocked in this way. For 1% casein and I and 5% globulin solutions, the pH optimum of the reaction lies at approximately 8; for 5% casein solutions, it is shifted towards the neutral to weakly acidic range. The value for the proportion of unblocked lysine is higher (approximately 5%) when determined by amino-acid analysis after acid total hydrolysis than when measured by means of the colorimetric method according to Carpenter (20%). The difference is designed as reversibly blocked lysine proportion. There is a linear correlation between the proportion of blocked lysine and the relative nutritional value as determined by means of the test organism Tetrahymena pyriformis. Dependently on protein concentration and reagent excess, gel chromatographically detectable cross-linking products of higher molecular weight are formed by the reaction of dialdehyde starch with casein. In 5% protein solutions, such products with molecular weights of less than or equal to 900 000 are the sole detectable components.     

Cracked semi-infinite cylinder and finite cylinder problems

This work considers the analysis of a cracked semi-infinite cylinder and a finite cylinder. Material of the cylinder is assumed to be linearly elastic and isotropic. One end of the cylinder is bonded to a fixed support while the other end is subjected to axial tension. Solution of this problem can be obtained by superposition of solutions for an infinite cylinder subjected to uniformly distributed tensile load at infinity (I) and an infinite cylinder having a penny-shaped rigid inclusion at z = 0 and two penny-shaped cracks at z = ±L (II). General expressions for the perturbation problem (II) are obtained by solving Navier equations with Fourier and Hankel transforms. When the radius of the inclusion approaches the radius of the cylinder, the end at z = 0 becomes fixed and when the radius of the cracks approach the radius of the cylinder, the ends at z = ±L become cut and subject to uniform tensile load. Formulation of the problem is reduced to a system of three singular integral equations. By using Gauss–Lobatto and Gauss–Jacobi integration formulas, these three singular integral equations are converted to a system of linear algebraic equations which is solved numerically.     

Measured and simulated flow downstream of the submerged sluice gate

In this study, turbulent flow downstream of the submerged sluice gate was investigated experimentally and numerically. Experimental studies were conducted in a laboratory flume to measure the flow velocities and turbulence characteristics. Three‐dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation was performed to investigate the flow structure downstream of the sluice gate. It is found that the flow downstream of the submerged sluice gate is highly three‐dimensional and unsteady in nature because of the interaction of mean flow and recirculation flow. The three‐dimensional simulation results indicate that the interacted flow triggers the formation of two corner vortices. Secondary velocities associated with the free surface vortices are found to be about 6% of the mean jet velocity at the inlet, which is significant for the river bank erosion. Vortex induced free surface fluctuations were also observed in the vicinity of the submerged gate.     

Multi-functional floating-point MAF designs with dot product support

This paper presents multi-functional double-precision and quadruple-precision floating-point multiply-add fused (FPMAF) designs. The double-precision FPMAF design can execute adouble-precision floating-point multiply-add, or two single-precision floating-point multiplications, or a single-precision floating-point dot product. The quadruple-precision FPMAF can perform similar operations with quadruple, double and single precision operands. These architectures can perform a dot-product operation two times or more faster than a basic FPMAF design. The presented multi-functional designs are compared with basic double-precision and quadruple-precision FPMAF designs by ASIC syntheses. The syntheses results show that the proposed double-precision implementation has 8%more area than a standard double-precision FPMAF implementation, and the proposed quadruple-precision design has 12.5% more area than a standard quadruple-precision FPMAF. Both of the proposed designs have one more pipeline stage compared to the basic designs.     

Predicting peak pinch strength: Artificial neural networks vs. regression

Cumulative trauma disorders (CTDs) of the upper extremities are one of the major ergonomics areas of research. Pinching is a common risk factor associated with the development of hand/wrist CTDs. The capacity standards of peak pinch strength for various postures are needed to design the tasks in harmony with the workers. This paper describes the formulation, building and comparison of pinch strength prediction models that were obtained using two approaches: Statistical and artificial neural networks (ANN). Statistical and ANN models were developed to predict the peak chuck pinch strength as a function of different combinations of five elbow and seven shoulder flexion angles, and several anthropometric and physiological variables. The two modeling approaches were compared. The results indicate ANN models to provide more accurate predictions over the standard statistical models.