Functional Integral Approach in the Theory of Color Superconductivity

In this series of lectures we present the functional integral method for studying the superconducting pairing of quarks with the formation of the diquarks as well as the quark-antiquark pairing in dense QCD. The dynamical equations for the superconducting order parameters are the nonlinear integral equations for the composite quantum fields describing the quark-quark or quark-antiquark systems. These composite fields are the bi-local fields if the pairing is generated by the gluon exchange while for the instanton induced pairing interactions they are the local ones. The expressions of the free energy densities are derived. The binding of three quarks is also discussed.Comment: 21 pages, 2 figures, Lectures at the VIth Vietnam International School in Theoretical Physics, Vung Tau, 27 December 1999 -- 08 January 200

Monte-Carlo simulation of the durability of glass fibre reinforced composite under environmental stress corrosion

The lifetime distribution of glass fibre subject to permanent environmental stress corrosion is very important for assessing the durability and damage tolerance of composites using glass reinforcement. A mechanical model based on the statistics of flaw spectra during stress corrosion and 3D shear lag model is presented. The proposed approach shows that it is possible to identify the influence of stress corrosion properties on the long term durability of glass fibre reinforced composites (GFRP)

A smoothed four-node piezoelectric element for analysis of two-dimensional smart structures

This paper reports a study of linear elastic analysis of two-dimensional piezoelectric structures using a smoothed four-node piezoelectric element. The element is built by incorporating the strain smoothing method of mesh-free conforming nodal integration into the standard four-node quadrilateral piezoelectric finite element. The approximations of mechanical strains and electric potential fields are normalized using a constant smoothing function. This allows the field gradients to be directly computed from shape functions. No mapping or coordinate transformation is necessary so that the element can be used in arbitrary shapes. Through several examples, the simplicity, efficiency and reliability of the element are demonstrated. Numerical results and comparative studies with other existing solutions in the literature suggest that the present element is robust, computationally inexpensive and easy to implement