Statistical analysis of the effect of side-grooving on the measurement of brittle fracture toughness

Fracture mechanics specimens are commonly side-grooved to promote uniformity of the crack tip stress field, but this practice may affect the fracture toughness measured because of changes in the net thickness and in the constraint. This study, based on Weibull statistics, shows that, for brittle fracture, the difference between the fracture toughness measured with plain-sided and 20 percent side-grooved specimens results essentially from the difference in net thicknesses. It is also shown that the effect of constraint should not be evaluated from the load arrying capacity of the specimen, but rather from the distribution of stress intensity factor along the crack front.

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Résumé Il est courant de nantir d'une entaille de bord les éprouvettes de mécanique de rupture pour provoquer un champ de contraintes uniforme à l'extrémité de la fissure. Cette pratique peut néanmoins affecter la ténacité à la rupture en raison des modifications dans l'épaisseur nette et dans le bridage.La présente étude, que est basée sur l'approache probabilistique de Weibull, montre que dans une rupture fragile la différence entre les ténacités à la rupture mesurées avec des éprouvetes sans entailles et avec un entaillage à 20% résulte essentiellement de la différence qui caractérise les épaisseurs nettes:On montre également que l'effet du bridage ne peut être déduit de la capacité qu'a l'éprouvette de supporter la charge, mais bien plutôt de la distribution du facteur d'intensité des contraintes le long du front de la fissure.

     

Mechanical Load Fault Detection in Induction Motors by Stator Current Time-Frequency Analysis

This paper examines the detection of mechanical faults in induction motors by an original use of stator current time-frequency analysis. Mechanical faults lead generally to periodic load torque oscillations. The influence of the torque oscillations on the induction motor stator current is studied using an analytical approach. The mechanical fault results in a sinusoidal phase modulation of the stator current, which is equivalent to a time-varying frequency. Based on these assumptions, several signal processing methods suitable for stator current signature analysis are discussed: classical spectral analysis, instantaneous frequency estimation, and the Wigner distribution. Experimental and simulation results validate the theoretical approach in steady-state operating conditions     

Narrow-bandwidth optical waveguide transmission filters

A general method for fabricating narrowband transmission filters at optical frequencies is proposed. For fibre- or integrated-optic applications the method consists of forming a waveguide loop by connecting the output ports of a 3dB coupler to each other. A Bragg reflection grating in the loop determines the filters frequency response.     

3H](azidophenyl)ureido taxoid photolabels peptide amino acids 281-304 of alpha-tubulin

The taxoid binding site on porcine brain tubulin was covalently labeled, in the presence or absence of Taxotere, with the photoaffinity reagent [3H]-p-(azidophenyl)ureido taxoid derivative [3H]TaxAPU [Combeau, C., Commercon, A., Mioskowski, C., Rousseau, B., Aubert, F., & Goeldner, M. (1994) Biochemistry 33, 6676-6683]. After disulfide reduction and carboxymethylation, the alkylated tubulin samples were treated with trypsin and the mixtures of peptides were first fractionated by gel filtration over Sephadex G50. Anion exchange chromatography of the radioactive areas showed, for one area, three major radioactive signals which were further analyzed by reversed phase C18 HPLC, leading to well-resolved radioactive peaks. Microsequencing of these different peaks gave a complete sequence of a tryptic fragment on alpha-tubulin (alpha-281-304) and two partial peptide sequences of a tryptic fragment on beta-tubulin (beta-217-229) in addition to sequences of mixture of peptides. The radioactive signals were lost while concentrating the samples for microsequencing, preventing the identification of the modified amino acids. These results identify the first peptide on alpha-tubulin which binds to the taxoids and confirm the involvement of both alpha- and beta-tubulin in the taxoid binding site.     

256-channel bidirectional optical interconnect using VCSELs andphotodiodes on CMOS

Two-dimensional parallel optical interconnects (2-D-POIs) are capable of providing large connectivity between elements in computing and switching systems. Using this technology we have demonstrated a bidirectional optical interconnect between two printed circuit boards containing optoelectronic (OE) very large scale integration (VLSI) circuits. The OE-VLSI circuits were constructed using vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) and photodiodes (PDs) flip-chip bump-bonded to a 0.35-μm complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) chip. The CMOS was comprised of 256 laser driver circuits, 256 receiver circuits, and the corresponding buffering and control circuits required to operate the large transceiver array. This is the first system, to our knowledge, to send bidirectional data optically between OE-VLSI chips that have both VCSELs and photodiodes cointegrated on the same substrate     

On-Line Monitoring of Mechanical Faults in Variable-Speed Induction Motor Drives Using the Wigner Distribution

This paper deals with the detection of mechanical load faults in induction motors during speed transients. The detection strategy is based on stator current analysis. Mechanical load faults generally lead to load torque oscillations at specific frequencies related to the mechanical rotor speed. The torque oscillations produce a characteristic sinusoidal phase modulation of the stator current. Speed transients result in time-varying supply frequencies that prevent the use of classical, Fourier transform-based spectral estimation. This paper proposes the use of a time-frequency distribution, the Wigner Distribution, for stator current analysis. Fault indicators are extracted from the distribution for on-line condition monitoring. The proposed methods are implemented on a low-cost digital signal processor. Experimental results in a steady-state and during transients with load torque oscillations and load imbalance are presented.