245 research outputs found
Thermal activation of rupture and slow crack growth in a model of homogenous brittle materials
Slow crack growth in a model of homogenous brittle elastic material is
described as a thermal activation process where stress fluctuations allow to
overcome a breaking threshold through a series of irreversible steps. We study
the case of a single crack in a flat sheet for which analytical predictions can
be made, and compare them with results from the equivalent problem of a 2D
spring network. Good statistical agreement is obtained for the crack growth
profile and final rupture time. The specific scaling of the energy barrier with
stress intensity factor appears as a consequence of irreversibility. In
addition, the model brings out a characteristic growth length whose physical
meaning could be tested experimentally.Comment: To be published in : Europhysics Letter
Uniaxial and biaxial soft deformations of nematic elastomers
We give a geometric interpretation of the soft elastic deformation modes of
nematic elastomers, with explicit examples, for both uniaxial and biaxial
nematic order. We show the importance of body rotations in this non-classical
elasticity and how the invariance under rotations of the reference and target
states gives soft elasticity (the Golubovic and Lubensky theorem). The role of
rotations makes the Polar Decomposition Theorem vital for decomposing general
deformations into body rotations and symmetric strains. The role of the square
roots of tensors is discussed in this context and that of finding explicit
forms for soft deformations (the approach of Olmsted).Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures, RevTex, AmsTe
Subcritical crack growth in fibrous materials
We present experiments on the slow growth of a single crack in a fax paper
sheet submitted to a constant force . We find that statistically averaged
crack growth curves can be described by only two parameters : the mean rupture
time and a characteristic growth length . We propose a model
based on a thermally activated rupture process that takes into account the
microstructure of cellulose fibers. The model is able to reproduce the shape of
the growth curve, the dependence of on as well as the effect of
temperature on the rupture time . We find that the length scale at which
rupture occurs in this model is consistently close to the diameter of cellulose
microfibrils
Sliding Luttinger liquid phases
We study systems of coupled spin-gapped and gapless Luttinger liquids. First,
we establish the existence of a sliding Luttinger liquid phase for a system of
weakly coupled parallel quantum wires, with and without disorder. It is shown
that the coupling can {\it stabilize} a Luttinger liquid phase in the presence
of disorder. We then extend our analysis to a system of crossed Luttinger
liquids and establish the stability of a non-Fermi liquid state: the crossed
sliding Luttinger liquid phase (CSLL). In this phase the system exhibits a
finite-temperature, long-wavelength, isotropic electric conductivity that
diverges as a power law in temperature as . This two-dimensional
system has many properties of a true isotropic Luttinger liquid, though at zero
temperature it becomes anisotropic. An extension of this model to a
three-dimensional stack exhibits a much higher in-plane conductivity than the
conductivity in a perpendicular direction.Comment: Revtex, 18 pages, 8 figure
Efficient algorithms for computing Sommerfeld integral tails
Sommerfeld-integrals (SIs) are ubiquitous in the analysis of problems involving antennas and scatterers embedded in planar multilayered media. It is well known that the oscillating and slowly decaying nature of their integrands makes the numerical evaluation of the SI real-axis tail segment a very time consuming and computationally expensive task. Therefore, SI tails have to be specially treated. In this paper we compare two recently developed techniques for their efficient numerical evaluation. First, a partition-extrapolation method, in which the integration-then-summation procedure is combined with a new version of the weighted averages (WA) extrapolation technique, is summarized. The previous variants of WA technique are also discussed. Then, a review of double-exponential (DE) quadrature formulas for direct integration of the SI tails is presented. The efficient way of implementing the algorithms, their pros and cons, as well as comparisons of their performance are discussed in detail
Failure time in the fiber-bundle model with thermal noise and disorder
The average time for the onset of macroscopic fractures is analytically and
numerically investigated in the fiber-bundle model with quenched disorder and
thermal noise under a constant load. We find an implicit exact expression for
the failure time in the low-temperature limit that is accurately confirmed by
direct simulations. The effect of the disorder is to lower the energy barrier.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures; accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
Aerobic capacity and respiratory patterns are better in recreational basketball-engaged university students than age-matched untrained males
Study aim: To asses and compare the aerobic capacity and respiratory parameters in recreational basketball-engaged university students with age-matched untrained young adults. Material and methods: A total of 30 subjects were selected to took part in the study based on recreational-basketball activity level and were assigned to a basketball (BG: N = 15, age 22.86 ± 1.35 yrs., body height 185.07 ± 5.95 cm, body weight 81.21 ± 6.15 kg) and untrained group (UG: N = 15, age 22.60 ± 1.50 yrs., body height 181.53 ± 6.11 cm, body weight 76.89 ± 7.30 kg). Inspiratory vital capacity (IVC), forced expiration volume (FEV1), FEV1/IVC ratio, maximal oxygen consumption (VO2max), ventilatory threshold (VO2VT) and time to exhaustion, were measured in all subjects. Student T-test for independent Sample and Cohen's d as the measure of the effect size were calculated. Results: Recreational basketball-engaged students (EG) reached significantly greater IVC (t = 7.240, p < 0.001, d = 1.854), FEV1 (t = 10.852, p < 0.001, d = 2.834), FEV1/IVC ratio (t = 6.370, p < 0.001, d = 3.920), maximal oxygen consumption (t = 9.039, p < 0.001, d = 3.310), ventilatory threshold (t = 9.859, p < 0.001, d = 3.607) and time to exhaustion (t = 12.361, p < 0.001, d = 4.515) compared to UG. Conclusions: Long-term exposure to recreational basketball leads to adaptive changes in aerobic and respiratory parameters in male university students
Continuum limit, Galilean invariance, and solitons in the quantum equivalent of the noisy Burgers equation
A continuum limit of the non-Hermitian spin-1/2 chain, conjectured recently
to belong to the universality class of the noisy Burgers or, equivalently,
Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation, is obtained and analyzed. The Galilean invariance
of the Burgers equation is explicitly realized in the operator algebra. In the
quasi-classical limit we find nonlinear soliton excitations exhibiting the
dispersion relation with dynamical exponent .Comment: 12 pages, latex, no figure
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