Modeling and experimental investigations of the stress-softening behavior of soft collagenous tissues

This paper deals with the formulation of a micro-mechanically based dam-age model for soft collagenous tissues. The model is motivated by (i) a sliding filament model proposed in the literature [1] and (ii) by experimental observations from electron microscopy (EM) images of human abdominal aorta specimens, see [2]. Specifically, we derive a continuum damage model that takes into account statistically distributed pro- teoglycan (PG) bridges. The damage model is embedded into the constitutive framework proposed by Balzani et al. [3] and adjusted to cyclic uniaxial tension tests of a hu- man carotid artery. Furthermore, the resulting damage distribution of the model after a circumferential overstretch of a simplified arterial section is analyzed in a finite element calculation

Modeling of damage in soft biological tissues and application to arterial walls

A new material model is proposed for the description of stress-softening observed in cyclic tension tests performed on soft biological tissues. The modeling framework is based on the concept of internal variables introducing a scalar-valued variable for the representation of fiber damage. Remanent strains in fiber direction can be represented as a result of microscopic damage of the fiber crosslinks. Particular internal variables are defined able to capture the nature of soft biological tissues that no damage occurs in the physiological loading domain. A specific model is adjusted to experimental data taking into account the supra-physiological loading regime. For the description of the physiological domain polyconvex functions are used which also take into account fiber dispersion in a phenomenological approach. The applicability of the model in numerical simulations is shown by a representative example where the damage distribution in an arterial cross-section is analyzed

Modeling of damage in soft biological tissues and application to arterial walls

A new material model is proposed for the description of stress-softening observed in cyclic tension tests performed on soft biological tissues. The modeling framework is based on the concept of internal variables introducing a scalar-valued variable for the representation of fiber damage. Remanent strains in fiber direction can be represented as a result of microscopic damage of the fiber crosslinks. Particular internal variables are defined able to capture the nature of soft biological tissues that no damage occurs in the physiological loading domain. A specific model is adjusted to experimental data taking into account the supra-physiological loading regime. For the description of the physiological domain polyconvex functions are used which also take into account fiber dispersion in a phenomenological approach. The applicability of the model in numerical simulations is shown by a representative example where the damage distribution in an arterial cross-section is analyzed

INSPIRE PROJECT: INTEGRATED TECHNOLOGIES FOR SMART BUILDINGS AND PREDICTIVE MAINTENANCE

Abstract. Applying integrated digital technologies for the management and maintenance of the existing built heritage appears to be one of the main current challenges for the definition and application of digitisation protocols for the construction supply chain. Key enabling technologies, collaborative platforms, Big Data management and information integration in a BIM environment are areas of increasing experimentation. In the field of intervention on the built heritage, it is the boundaries and opportunities offered by the integration of many different information sources that constitutes the main challenge. Furthermore, the study of the accessibility and usability of data and information from sources such as the three-dimensional terrestrial survey, existing databases, sensor networks, and satellite technologies make it possible to investigate both different ways of data modelling, even with a view to the development of predictive algorithms, and of visualisation and information management. The study illustrates part of the results of the InSPiRE project, an industrial research project financed with European structural funds and carried out in a public-private partnership by four universities and public research bodies, an innovation centre and six companies, SMEs, large enterprises, and start-ups. Specifically, the project highlights the growing importance of BIM-based modelling as a tool to lead users, both experts and non-experts, through the multiple information paths resulting from the relation between data and metadata

Relaxed incremental formulations for damage at finite strains including strain softening

Relaxation is a promosing technique to overcome mesh-dependency in computational damage mechanics originating from the non-convexity of an underlying incremental variational formulation. This technique does not require an internal length scale parameter. However, in case of damage formulations, for many years the decrease of stresses with an increase of strains, referred to as strain-softening, could not be modeled in the relaxed regime. This contribution discusses several possibilities of relaxation that lead to suitable models for stress- and strain-softening

Multidimensional rank-one convexification of incremental damage models at finite strains

This paper presents computationally feasible rank-one relaxation algorithms for the efficient simulation of a time-incremental damage model with nonconvex incremental stress potentials in multiple spatial dimensions. While the standard model suffers from numerical issues due to the lack of convexity, the relaxation techniques circumvent the problem of non-existence of minimizers and prevent mesh dependency of the solutions of discretized boundary value problems using finite elements. By the combination, modification and parallelization of the underlying convexification algorithms the approach becomes computationally feasible. A descent method and a Newton scheme enhanced by step size control strategies prevents stability issues related to local minima in the energy landscape and the computation of derivatives. Special techniques for the construction of continuous derivatives of the approximated rank-one convex envelope are discussed. A series of numerical experiments demonstrates the ability of the computationally relaxed model to capture softening effects and the mesh independence of the computed approximations

Optimal refrigerator

We study a refrigerator model which consists of two $n$-level systems interacting via a pulsed external field. Each system couples to its own thermal bath at temperatures $T_h$ and $T_c$, respectively ($\theta\equiv T_c/T_h<1$). The refrigerator functions in two steps: thermally isolated interaction between the systems driven by the external field and isothermal relaxation back to equilibrium. There is a complementarity between the power of heat transfer from the cold bath and the efficiency: the latter nullifies when the former is maximized and {\it vice versa}. A reasonable compromise is achieved by optimizing the product of the heat-power and efficiency over the Hamiltonian of the two system. The efficiency is then found to be bounded from below by $\zeta_{\rm CA}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{1-\theta}}-1$ (an analogue of the Curzon-Ahlborn efficiency), besides being bound from above by the Carnot efficiency $\zeta_{\rm C} = \frac{1}{1-\theta}-1$. The lower bound is reached in the equilibrium limit $\theta\to 1$. The Carnot bound is reached (for a finite power and a finite amount of heat transferred per cycle) for $\ln n\gg 1$. If the above maximization is constrained by assuming homogeneous energy spectra for both systems, the efficiency is bounded from above by $\zeta_{\rm CA}$ and converges to it for $n\gg 1$.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figure

(13)C or Not (13)C: Selective Synthesis of Asymmetric Carbon-13-Labeled Platinum(II) cis-Acetylides.

Asymmetric isotopic labeling of parallel and identical electron- or energy-transfer pathways in symmetrical molecular assemblies is an extremely challenging task owing to the inherent lack of isotopic selectivity in conventional synthetic methods. Yet, it would be a highly valuable tool in the study and control of complex light-matter interactions in molecular systems by exclusively and nonintrusively labeling one of otherwise identical reaction pathways, potentially directing charge and energy transport along a chosen path. Here we describe the first selective synthetic route to asymmetrically labeled organometallic compounds, on the example of charge-transfer platinum(II) cis-acetylide complexes. We demonstrate the selective (13)C labeling of one of two acetylide groups. We further show that such isotopic labeling successfully decouples the two ν(C≡C) in the mid-IR region, permitting independent spectroscopic monitoring of two otherwise identical electron-transfer pathways, along the (12)C≡(12)C and (13)C≡(13)C coordinates. Quantum-mechanical mixing leads to intriguing complex features in the vibrational spectra of such species, which we successfully model by full-dimensional anharmonically corrected DFT calculations, despite the large size of these systems. The synthetic route developed and demonstrated herein should lead to a great diversity of asymmetric organometallic complexes inaccessible otherwise, opening up a plethora of opportunities to advance the fundamental understanding and control of light-matter interactions in molecular systems