Thin-Shells and Thin-Shell Wormholes in New Massive Gravity

Within 2+1-dimensional cosmological new massive gravity, we consider thin-shell and thin-shell wormhole construction. For this, we introduce first, the junction conditions apt for the fourth order terms in the action of the theory. Then, by employing some specific static solutions in new massive gravity, we study the characteristics of associated thin-shells and thin-shell wormholes. Our finding suggests that, firstly, there cannot exist any thin-shells regarding our chosen solutions of cosmological new massive gravity, and secondly, the constructed thin-shell wormhole does not need to be symmetric. More importantly, the thin-shell wormhole, if ever forms, possesses null energy density and null angular pressure on its throat which preferable to their negative-valued counterparts.Comment: 11 pages, no figur

Reconstruction of the phonon relaxation times using solutions of the Boltzmann transport equation

We present a method for reconstructing the phonon relaxation time distribution τ[subscript ω]=τ(ω) (including polarization) in a material from thermal spectroscopy data. The distinguishing feature of this approach is that it does not make use of the effective thermal conductivity concept and associated approximations. The reconstruction is posed as an optimization problem in which the relaxation times τ[subscript ω]=τ(ω) are determined by minimizing the discrepancy between the experimental relaxation traces and solutions of the Boltzmann transport equation for the same problem. The latter may be analytical, in which case the procedure is very efficient, or numerical. The proposed method is illustrated using Monte Carlo solutions of thermal grating relaxation as synthetic experimental data. The reconstruction is shown to agree very well with the relaxation times used to generate the synthetic Monte Carlo data and remains robust in the presence of uncertainty (noise).United States. Dept. of Energy. Office of Science (Solid-State Solar-Thermal Energy Conversion Center Awards DE-SC0001299 and DE-FG02-09ER46577

Flow simulation and investigating the effects of cutoff wall on the uplift pressure in earth dams

Since the construction of dam is significantly important both according to economic and safety aspects, it should be carefully assessed before construction. The use of available software is one of the evaluation and behavioral investigation methods. On this basis, we have investigated the effect of cutoff wall on the seepage flow, uplift pressure, etc, in the body of earth dam in Baft city through numerical modeling using the finite element method through GeoStudio software package. The results of this analysis indicate that the location and dimensions of cutoff wall significantly affects its performance on reducing the seepage flow. The soil type in terms of permeability is another important parameter and the results indicate that the one-time reduction of soil dam penetration reduces the seepage flow by 97%.Keywords: Earth dam, cutoff wall, soil permeability, GeoStudio software, uplift pressure

Development of an oxide-dispersion-strengthened steel by introducing oxygen carrier compound into the melt aided by a general thermodynamic model

In general, melting process is not a common method for the production of oxide dispersion strengthened (ODS) alloys due to agglomeration and coarsening of oxide particles. However, vacuum casting process has recently been employed as a promising process to produce micro-scale oxide dispersed alloys. In this paper, we report the process and characterization of in situ formation and uniform dispersion of nano-scale Y-Ti oxide particles in Fe-10Ni-7Mn (wt.%) alloy. The processing route involves a solid-liquid reaction between the added TiO2 as an oxygen carrier and dissolved yttrium in liquid metal leading to an optimal microstructure with nano-sized dispersed oxide particles. The developed thermodynamic model shows the independence of the final phase constituents from experimental conditions such as melting temperature or vacuum system pressure which offers a general pathway for the manufacture of oxide dispersion strengthened materials.1131Ysciescopu

Design of Driver-Assist Systems Under Probabilistic Safety Specifications Near Stop Signs

In this paper, we consider the problem of designing in-vehicle driver-assist systems that warn or override the driver to prevent collisions with a guaranteed probability. The probabilistic nature of the problem naturally arises from many sources of uncertainty, among which the behavior of the surrounding vehicles and the response of the driver to on-board warnings. We formulate this problem as a control problem for uncertain systems under probabilistic safety specifications and leverage the structure of the application domain to reach computationally efficient implementations. Simulations using a naturalistic data set show that the empirical probability of safety is always within 5% of the theoretical value in the case of direct driver override. In the case of on-board warnings, the empirical value is more conservative due primarily to drivers decelerating more strongly than requested. However, the empirical value is greater than or equal to the theoretical value, demonstrating a clear safety benefit