Design of multiple-ply laminated composite tapered beams

A study of a special case of symmetric laminated composite cantilever beams is presented. The approach models beams that are tapered both in depth and width and investigates the effect of the ply layup angle and the ply taper on bending and interlaminar shearing stresses. For the determination of stresses and deflections, the beam stiffness matrices are expressed as linear functions of the beam length. Using classical lamination theory (CLT) the stiffness matrices are determined and assembled at strategic locations along the length of the beam. They are then inverted and necessary stiffness parameters are obtained numerically and extracted for determination of design information at each location chosen. Several ply layup configurations are investigated, and design considerations are presented based on the findings. Finally, recommendations for the design of these beams are presented, and a means for anticipating the location of highest stresses is offered

Magnetic excitations in ferro-pnictide materials controlled by a quantum critical point into hidden order

The two-orbital J1-J2 model that describes a square lattice of frustrated spin-1 iron atoms is analyzed within the linear spin-wave approximation and by exact diagonalization over a 4x4 cluster. A quantum critical point (QCP) is identified that separates hidden magnetic order at weak Hund's rule coupling from a commensurate spins density wave (cSDW) at strong Hund's rule coupling. Although the moment for cSDW order is small at the QCP, the critical linear spin-wave spectrum shows strong low-energy excitations centered at the wavenumbers that correspond to cSDW order. These disperse anisotropically. A fit to the magnetic excitation spectrum of ferro-pnictide materials obtained recently by inelastic neutron scattering measurements notably accounts for the absence of softening at the wavenumber that corresponds to Neel order.Comment: 20 pages, 8 figures, added discussion on doping, published versio

Nature of Decoupling in the Mixed Phase of Extremely Type-II Layered Superconductors

The uniformly frustrated layered XY model is analyzed in its Villain form. A decouple pancake vortex liquid phase is identified. It is bounded by both first-order and second-order decoupling lines in the magnetic field versus temperature plane. These transitions, respectively, can account for the flux-lattice melting and for the flux-lattice depinning observed in the mixed phase of clean high-temperature superconductors.Comment: 11 pages of PLAIN TeX, 1 postscript figure, published version, many change

The puzzling harmonic behavior of the Cathedral QPO in XTE J1859+226

Abridged: We present a spectral and temporal analysis of the Cathedral QPO detected in the power density spectra of the microquasar XTE J1859+226 obtained with RXTE. This type of QPO manifests as two peaks with similar amplitudes and harmonically related centroid frequencies (~3 and ~6 Hz). The amplitude of the ~3 Hz feature varies in anticorrelation with the count rate, by about ~50. The ~6 Hz feature shows a slight increase (~7%) of its amplitude with count rate. The RMS-spectra of the two peaks are quite different. The ~3 Hz feature is softer than the other one, and shows a cut-off at an energy of ~6 keV while the RMS of the 6 Hz increases up to at least 20 keV. We also study the bicoherence, $b^2(\mu,\nu)$. The values b^2(~3,~3) and b^2(~6,~6) are rather high and similar to the type C QPOs of GRS 1915+105. By comparison with the latter source the fact that the bicoherence of the ~3 Hz feature is higher than that of the other peak, would tend to indicate that the ~3 Hz is the fundamental QPO. The value of b^2(~3,~6)$ is, however, low and therefore indicates a behavior that is different than that seen in GRS 1915+105. We suggest that, rather than pure harmonics, we may see different modes of the same underlying phenomenon competing to produce QPOs at different frequencies.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, published in ApJ, vol 735, p79 Version corrected for small mistake

Effective diffusivity of passive scalars in rotating turbulence

We use direct numerical simulations to compute turbulent transport coefficients for passive scalars in turbulent rotating flows. Effective diffusion coefficients in the directions parallel and perpendicular to the rotations axis are obtained by studying the diffusion of an imposed initial profile for the passive scalar, and calculated by measuring the scalar average concentration and average spatial flux as a function of time. The Rossby and Schmidt numbers are varied to quantify their effect on the effective diffusion. It is find that rotation reduces scalar diffusivity in the perpendicular direction. The perpendicular diffusion can be estimated from mixing length arguments using the characteristic velocities and lengths perpendicular to the rotation axis. Deviations are observed for small Schmidt numbers, for which turbulent transport decreases and molecular diffusion becomes more significant.Comment: 10 pages, 13 figures. Slightly modified version to address referees' comment

Long-Range Order of Vortex Lattices Pinned by Point Defects in Layered Superconductors

How the vortex lattice orders at long range in a layered superconductor with weak point pinning centers is studied through a duality analysis of the corresponding frustrated XY model. Vortex-glass order emerges out of the vortex liquid across a macroscopic number of weakly coupled layers in perpendicular magnetic field as the system cools down. Further, the naive magnetic-field scale determined by the Josephson coupling between adjacent layers is found to serve as an upperbound for the stability of any possible conventional vortex lattice phase at low temperature in the extreme type-II limit.Comment: 13 pgs., 1 table, published versio