In this study, the mechanical properties of graphene and single walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) were investigated based on molecular dynamics (MD) simulation. During the characterization of the mechanical properties, the atomistic interactions of the carbon atoms were described using the bonded and non-bonded energies. The bonded energy consists of four different interactions: Bond stretching, bond angle bending, dihedral angle torsion, and inversion. On the other hand, the non-bonded interaction between the carbon atoms within the cut-off ranges was regarded as the van der Waals (vdW) force. The effect of vdW force on the mechanical properties of graphene and SWCNTs would be mainly of concern. Simulation results indicated that the Young's modulus of the graphene with vdW force included is 15% higher than that without considering any vdW interaction. The same tendency also was observed in the armchair and zig-zag SWCNTs. Furthermore, it was revealed that the increment of moduli caused by the vdW force could be primarily attributed to the 1-4 vdW interaction. The influence of the vdW interactions on the mechanical properties of graphene and SWCNTs was then elucidated using the parallel spring concept.

This study presents an innovative fuzzy inverse method with the finite-element scheme for estimating the unknown time-varying load inputs on a three-dimensional (3D) spatial truss structural system. The finite-element scheme is employed to discretize the problem in space, allowing multidimensional problems of various geometries to be treated. This method is based on the fuzzy Kalman Filter (FKF) technology and the fuzzy weighting recursive least square method (FWRLSM). The fuzzy Kalman filter measures the system responses at two distinct nodes in the 3D spatial truss structure. The fuzzy weighting recursive least square method is derived using the residual innovation sequence to compute the input loads. The proposed method's superiority is demonstrated using several typical simulation cases that vary with different estimator and the distinct levels of the initial process noise covariance and the measurement noise covariance. The results show that this method has great stability and accuracy.

Many kinds of mechanical systems can be modeled as spatial rigid multibody systems (SR-MBS), which consist of a set of rigid bodies interconnected by joints, springs and dampers. Vibration calculation of SR-MBS is conventionally conducted by approximately linearizing the nonlinear equations of motion and constraint, which is very complicated and inconvenient for sensitivity analysis. A new algorithm based on constraint-topology transformation is presented to derive the oscillatory differential equations in three steps, that is, vibration equations for free SR-MBS are derived using Lagrangian method at first; then, an open-loop constraint matrix is derived to obtain the vibration equations for open-loop SR-MBS via quadric transformation; finally, a cut-joint constraint matrix is derived to obtain the vibration equations for closed-loop SR-MBS via quadric transformation. Through mentioned above, the vibration calculation can be significantly simplified and the sensitivity analysis can be conducted conveniently. The correctness of the proposed method has been verified by numerical experiments in comparison with the traditional approaches.

In this paper, analytical particular solutions of the augmented polyharmonic spline (APS) associated with Reissner plate model are explicitly derived in order to apply the dual reciprocity method. In the derivations of the particular solutions, a coupled system of three second-ordered partial differential equations (PDEs), which governs problems of Reissner plates, is initially transformed into a single six-ordered PDE by the Hörmander operator decomposition technique. Then the particular solutions of the coupled system can be found by using the particular solution of the six-ordered PDE derived in the first author's previous study. These formulas are further implemented for solving problems of Reissner plates under arbitrary loadings. In the solution procedure, an arbitrary loading measured at some scattered points is first interpolated by the APS and a corresponding particular solution can then be approximated by using the prescribed formulas. After that the complementary homogeneous problem is formally solved by the method of fundamental solutions (MFS). Numerical experiments are carried out to validate these particular solutions.

Miniature synthetic jet actuators are low operating power, zero-net-mass-flux and very compact devices which have demonstrated their capability in modifying the subsonic flow characteristics for boundary layer flow control. In order to improve the design active flow control systems, the present study aims to examine the formation and interaction of unsteady flowfield of a synthetic jet with external crossflow. In view of a single synthetic jet emitting into a turbulent boundary layer crossflow via a circular orifice, the theoretical model utilized the transient three-dimensional conservation equations of mass and momentum for compressible, turbulent flows with a negligible temperature variation over the computational domain. The motion of a movable membrane plate was also treated as the moving boundary by prescribing the displacement on the plate surface. The predictions by the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software ACE+® were compared with the measured transient phase-averaged velocities in literature for code validation. The predictions showed the time evolution of the large vortical structure originating from the jet orifice and its successive interaction with the crossflow to change the flow structure inside the boundary layer.

In this paper, the first-order ordinary differential constitutive equations of endochronic theory were combined with the principle of virtual work for simulating the response of creep (moment is kept constant for a period of time) or relaxation (curvature is kept constant for a period of time) of thin-walled tubes subjected to pure bending with different curvature-rates at the preloading stage. A group of Fourier series was used to describe the circumferential displacements of the tube. Thus, a system of nonlinear algebraic equations was determined. This system of equations can be solved by numerical method. Experimental data tested by Pan and Fan [1] were compared with the theoretical simulations in this study. It is shown that the theoretical formulations effectively simulate the experimental data.

A finite element method combined with three-dimensional anisotropic piezoelectric continuum damage mechanics is presented to simulate quasi-static crack propagation behavior in piezoelectric ceramics in this paper. In this method, the three-dimensional anisotropic piezoelectric damage constitutive model is utilized for characterizing the effects of mechanical and electrical damages on the fields near the crack tip, the combined-damage from the dominant mechanical and electrical damage components is regarded as the fracture criterion, and the gradient of combined-damage is assumed to control crack growth direction. A set of numerical simulations of the midspan crack propagation in a three-point bending PZT-4 beam are performed in various loading conditions. After the numerical results are validated by comparison with the corresponding experimental ones, the effects of mechanical and electrical loads on the cracking be havior are respectively evaluated. It is found from the obtained results that mechanical and electrical loads influence on the damage fields in the vicinity of the crack-tip, as well as the crack growth rate, in a significant way. With the increment in mechanical loading, the crack growth rate obviously increases. This means that positive and negative electric fields enhance and inhibit crack propagation, respectively.

Research on new techniques of multi-chamber mufflers equipped with a side inlet and internal nonperforated intruding tubes has been discussed in recent literature; however, the research work of multichamber mufflers in conjunction with side inlet and open-ended perforated intruding tubes which may efficiently increase the acoustical performance has been neglected. Therefore, the main purpose of this paper is to optimize the best design shape of multi-chamber side mufflers with open-ended perforated intruding tubes within a limited space.

In this paper, the four-pole system matrix in evaluating the acoustic performance is also deduced in conjunction with a simulated algorithm (SA). Results reveal that the maximum sound transmission loss (STL) is precisely located at the desired target tone. In addition, the acoustical performance of mufflers conjugated with perforated intruding tubes is superior to those equipped with non-perforated tubes. Additionally, the noise reduction ability for a three-chamber side muffler with a non-perforated intruding tube and a two-chamber side muffler with perforated intruding tubes are equivalent. Moreover, mufflers with more chambers will increase the acoustic performance for both pure tone and broadband noise.

In proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs), a low interfacial pressure between the bipolar plates and the membrane exchange assembly (MEA) results in a high contact resistance. Conversely, an excessive interfacial pressure reduces the porosity of the gas diffusion layer (GDLs) and may damage the proton exchange membrane (PEM). Consequently, the performance of a PEMFC is critically dependent upon the clamping method. Accordingly, this study emphasizes the development of a numerical methodology for analyzing clamping of a PEMFC and constructs a detailed three-dimensional (3D) full-scale finite element (FE) model of a PEMFC with the traditional and most popular point-load design as an example. The numerical method is first validated by experiments. A series of simulations are then performed on the example cases (i.e. 2-bolt, 4-bolt or 6-bolt) to analyze their behaviors on the contact pressure between the bipolar plates and the MEA and the corresponding effects on the GDL porosity and the contact resistance, under the constraints that the membrane and gaskets remain within their respective elastic limits and the porosity of the GDL has a value higher than 0.5. Overall, to complete the analysis procedures proposed in this paper, the results show that the six-bolt clamping mode with a tightening torque of 16 N-m achieves a uniform pressure distribution and a high interfacial pressure, and therefore represents the optimal clamping mode for the performed example cases.

The effect of shape memory alloy (SMA) on the postbuckling behavior of rectangular cross-ply and angle-ply plates by varying the SMA fiber spacing was investigated using the Finite Element Method. The formulation of the location-dependent linear, nonlinear stiffness matrices due to non-homogeneous material properties and the temperature-dependent recovery stress stiffness matrix were derived. Numerical results show that the increase of SMA fiber volume fraction and prestrain may generate more recovery stress, and increase the stiffness of SMA reinforced composite laminate. Therefore, the postbuckling deflections of the plate may be decreased significantly. The buckling mode that plate will buckle into is dependent on the fiber orientation of the angle-ply laminates. When the SMA fibers are concentrated in the center of the plate, the postbuckling deflections of the plate will be decreased considerably.

An elastic Bernoulli–Euler beam model is developed for thermal-mechanical vibration and buckling instability of a single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) conveying fluid and resting on an elastic medium by using the theories of thermal elasticity mechanics and nonlocal elasticity. The differential quadrature method is adopted to obtain the numerical solutions to the model. The effects of temperature change, nonlocal parameter and elastic medium constant on the vibration frequency and buckling instability of SWCNT conveying fluid are investigated. It can be concluded that at low or room temperature, the first natural frequency and critical flow velocity for the SWCNT increase as the temperature change increases, on the contrary, while at high temperature the first natural frequency and critical flow velocity decrease with the increase of the temperature change. The first natural frequency for the SWCNT decreases as the nonlocal parameter increases, both the first natural frequency and critical flow velocity increase with the increase of the elastic medium constant.

The present paper reveals an analytically computational method for the inverse Cauchy problem of Laplace equation. For the sake of analyticity, and also for the frequent use of rectangular plate in engineering structure, we only consider the analytical solution in a two-dimensional rectangular domain, wherein a missing boundary condition is recovered from a partial measurement of the Neumann data on an accessible boundary. The Fourier series is used to formulate a first-kind Fredholm integral equation for the unknown function of data. Then, we consider a Lavrentiev regularization amended to a second-kind Fredholm integral equation. The termwise separable property of kernel function allows us to obtain a closed-form solution of the regularization type. The uniform convergence and error estimation of the regularization solution are proven. The numerical examples show the effectiveness and robustness of the new method.

Vehicle energy absorbing components usually have a curved shape to avoid interference with other components like engine, driving system and fuel tank, etc. Crush behaviour of the S-shape square tubes, as a simplified model of front member of a vehicle body, is investigated in the present study. Experimental and numerical investigation into the quasi static crushing of such tubes was performed. Experimental tests were carried out with cross head speed of 5mm/min. Finite element analysis was performed using ABAQUS/Explicit to simulate quasi-static tests conditions. The predicted crushing characteristics such as global deformation mode, plastic folding mode and load-displacement response obtained by numerical approach were found to be in good agreement with the experimental results. The validated numerical model was then used in the parametric study to examine the effect of design parameters such as wall thickness, web width, curve angle and radius of curvature on the energy absorption capability of the S-shape square tubes. It is shown that some interesting relationships can be discovered by the parametric study to be used as useful design approach for improving the performance of the S-shape tubes.

In this study, radiated noise is investigated by experimental and numerical methods for a straight exhaust pipe of diameter 23mm that replaces the original exhaust pipe of a motorcycle of EZ 125cc provided by Kwang Yang Motor Co. In experiment, temperature, pressure and flow speed of the exhausted gas have been measured for different engine speeds ranging from 3000-5000rpm without loading. Sound pressure levels (SPL) at a distance of 0.5m from the exhaust pipe exit for different inclination angles (0° ∼ 90°) were recorded and compared with the result of simulation. In numerical simulation, a high-resolution 5th-order Euler solver was used and conducted on a parallel computation system with a cluster of 4 personal computers with dual processors. It is found that the back-and-forth reflection of expansion waves inside the pipe due to the shock wave diffraction around the pipe exit is the mechanism of radiating sound waves from the exhaust pipe. The numerical result shows the exhausted-gas flow with complicated vortex rings and its associated acoustic field. The acoustic field indicates that there are three sound lobes with different directivities for the engine speed of 4000rpm.

The effect of heat transfer on the axisymmetric flow of MHD micropolar fluid between two radially stretching sheets is described. The governing partial differential equations are reduced into the ordinary differential equations by using transformations. The resulting problems are solved by homotopy analysis method (HAM). Dimensionless velocities and temperature are plotted for the variation of influential parameters. The local skin friction coefficient, local couple stress coefficient and Nusselt number are tabulated with respect to the influence of several physical parameters.

This study uses a novel concept of capacity coupling of chiller-cooling tower system to investigate the system energy performance. System performance factor (SPF) of the chiller-cooling tower system is used in the analysis. A regression function is obtained for hourly reset of condensing water temperature so to achieve maximum SPF. The regression function includes parameters such as ambient wet bulb temperature, chiller load ratio, tower capacity ratio, and a dimensionless relative efficiency of chiller and cooling tower. The regression function has an R2 close to 1 compared to the computed results. It is found that for capacity coupling ratio of 1.1 ∼ 1.6, SPF would increase by about 3 ∼ 6% compared with a typical base control. The effect of wet air return is presented as an equivalent wet bulb temperature. It has been found that SPF would decrease significantly when higher equivalent wet bulb temperature occurs at the tower inlet.

Transient temperature field of laminated plate which considering radiation is analyzed by laying temperature lines in every layer in this paper. Finite element equations are established by using high-order displacement field which considering shear effect based on the temperature analysis. Then thermally induced vibration of laminated plate is investigated by solving the finite element equation with numerical method. Compared with numerical results of ANSYS by using 3-D coupled element (SOLID5), the methods presented in this paper have a satisfied precision and better efficiency. It can give reference to the thermally induced vibration analysis of thin-large flexible laminated appendages of spacecraft.