King post truss as a motif for internal structure of (meta)material with controlled elastic properties

One of the most interesting challenges in the modern theory of materials consists in the determination of those microstructures which produce, at the macro-level, a class of metamaterials whose elastic range is many orders of magnitude wider than the one exhibited by ‘standard’ materials. In Dell’Isola et al. (2015 Zeitschrift für angewandte Mathematik und Physik 66, 3473- 3498. (doi: 10.1007/s00033-015-0556-4)), it was proved that, with a pantographic microstructure constituted by ‘long’ microbeams it is possible to obtainmetamaterials whose elastic range spans up to an elongation exceeding 30%. In this paper, we demonstrate that the same behaviour can be obtained bymeans of an internal microstructure based on a king post motif. This solution shows many advantages: it involves only microbeams; all constituting beams are undergoing only extension or compression; all internal constraints are terminal pivots. While the elastic deformation energy can be determined as easily as in the case of long-beam microstructure, the proposed design seems to have obvious remarkable advantages: it seems to be more damage resistant and therefore to be able to have a wider elastic range; it can be realized with the same three-dimensional printing technology; it seems to be less subject to compression buckling. The analysis which we present here includes: (i) the determination of Hencky-type discrete models for king post trusses, (ii) the application of an effective integration scheme to a class of relevant deformation tests for the proposed metamaterial and (iii) the numerical determination of an equivalent second gradient continuum model. The numerical tools which we have developed and which are presented here can be readily used to develop an extensive measurement campaign for the proposed metamaterial

Discrete Dirac system: rectangular Weyl functions, direct and inverse problems

A transfer matrix function representation of the fundamental solution of the general-type discrete Dirac system, corresponding to rectangular Schur coefficients and Weyl functions, is obtained. Connections with Szeg\"o recurrence, Schur coefficients and structured matrices are treated. Borg-Marchenko-type uniqueness theorem is derived. Inverse problems on the interval and semiaxis are solved.Comment: Section 2 is improved in the second version: some new results on Halmos extension are added and arguments are simplifie

Totally odd depth-graded multiple zeta values and period polynomials

Inspired by a paper of Tasaka, we study the relations between totally odd, motivic depth-graded multiple zeta values. Our main objective is to determine the rank of the matrix $C_{N,r}$ defined by Brown. We will give new proofs for (conjecturally optimal) upper bounds on the rank of $C_{N,3}$ and $C_{N,4}$, which were first obtained by Tasaka. Finally, we present a recursive approach to the general problem, which reduces evaluating the rank of $C_{N,r}$ to an isomorphism conjecture.Comment: 14 page

Blocks of minimal dimension

Any block with defect group P of a finite group G with Sylow-p-subgroup S has dimension at least |S|2/|P|; we show that a block which attains this bound is nilpotent, answering a question of G. R. Robinson

Differential qd algorithm with shifts for rank-structured matrices

Although QR iterations dominate in eigenvalue computations, there are several important cases when alternative LR-type algorithms may be preferable. In particular, in the symmetric tridiagonal case where differential qd algorithm with shifts (dqds) proposed by Fernando and Parlett enjoys often faster convergence while preserving high relative accuracy (that is not guaranteed in QR algorithm). In eigenvalue computations for rank-structured matrices QR algorithm is also a popular choice since, in the symmetric case, the rank structure is preserved. In the unsymmetric case, however, QR algorithm destroys the rank structure and, hence, LR-type algorithms come to play once again. In the current paper we discover several variants of qd algorithms for quasiseparable matrices. Remarkably, one of them, when applied to Hessenberg matrices becomes a direct generalization of dqds algorithm for tridiagonal matrices. Therefore, it can be applied to such important matrices as companion and confederate, and provides an alternative algorithm for finding roots of a polynomial represented in the basis of orthogonal polynomials. Results of preliminary numerical experiments are presented