3,481 research outputs found
On the use of advanced material point methods for problems involving large rotational deformation
The Material Point Method (MPM) is a quasi Eulerian-Lagrangian approach to solve solid mechanics problems involving large deformations. The standard MPM [1] discretises the physical domain using material points which are advected through a standard finite element background mesh. The method of mapping state variables back and forth between the material points and background mesh nodes in the MPM significantly influences the results. In the standard MPM (sMPM), a material point only influences its parent element (i.e. the background element in which it is located), which can cause spurious stress oscillations when material points cross between elements. The instability is due to the sudden transfer of stiffness between elements. It can also result in some elements having very little stiffness or some internal elements loosing all stiffness. Therefore, several extensions to the sMPM have been proposed, each of which replaces the material point with a deformable particle domain. The most notable of these extensions are the Generalised Interpolation Material Point (GIMP), the Convected Particle Domain Interpolation (CPDI1) and Second-order CPDI (CPDI2) methods [2]. In this paper, the sMPM, CPDI1 and CPDI2 approaches are unified for geometrically non-linear elasto-plastic problems using an implicit solver and their performance investigated for large rotational problems. This type of deformation is common in applications in the area of soil mechanics, for example the vane shear test and, specifically of interest here, the installation of screw piles. Screw piles are currently used as an onshore foundation solution and research being undertaken at Durham, Dundee and Southampton universities is exploring their use in the area of offshore renewables. The numerical modelling using the MPM aims to predict the installation torque and vertical force as well as understanding the âstateâ of the soil around the screw pile which is critical in understanding the long term performance of the foundation. In the analysis, the pile is assumed to be a rigid body and no-slip boundary condition is used at the pile-soil interface. The boundary condition is imposed using the moving mesh concept within an unstructured mesh fixed to the pile. It will be shown that the CPDI2 approach produces erroneous torque due to particle domain distortion, while the CPDI1 approach and sMPM predict physically realistic mechanical responses
Solar Magnetic Carpet I: Simulation of Synthetic Magnetograms
This paper describes a new 2D model for the photospheric evolution of the
magnetic carpet. It is the first in a series of papers working towards
constructing a realistic 3D non-potential model for the interaction of
small-scale solar magnetic fields. In the model, the basic evolution of the
magnetic elements is governed by a supergranular flow profile. In addition,
magnetic elements may evolve through the processes of emergence, cancellation,
coalescence and fragmentation. Model parameters for the emergence of bipoles
are based upon the results of observational studies. Using this model, several
simulations are considered, where the range of flux with which bipoles may
emerge is varied. In all cases the model quickly reaches a steady state where
the rates of emergence and cancellation balance. Analysis of the resulting
magnetic field shows that we reproduce observed quantities such as the flux
distribution, mean field, cancellation rates, photospheric recycle time and a
magnetic network. As expected, the simulation matches observations more closely
when a larger, and consequently more realistic, range of emerging flux values
is allowed (4e16 - 1e19 Mx). The model best reproduces the current observed
properties of the magnetic carpet when we take the minimum absolute flux for
emerging bipoles to be 4e16 Mx. In future, this 2D model will be used as an
evolving photospheric boundary condition for 3D non-potential modeling.Comment: 33 pages, 16 figures, 5 gif movies included: movies may be viewed at
http://www-solar.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/~karen/movies_paper1
Diffusion over a saddle with a Langevin equation
The diffusion problem over a saddle is studied using a multi-dimensional
Langevin equation. An analytical solution is derived for a quadratic potential
and the probability to pass over the barrier deduced. A very simple solution is
given for the one dimension problem and a general scheme is shown for higher
dimensions.Comment: 13 pages, use revTeX, to appear in Phys. Rev. E6
2D and 3D Polar Plume Analysis from the Three Vantage Positions of STEREO/EUVI A, B, and SOHO/EIT
Polar plumes are seen as elongated objects starting at the solar polar
regions. Here, we analyze these objects from a sequence of images taken
simultaneously by the three spacecraft telescopes STEREO/EUVI A and B, and
SOHO/EIT. We establish a method capable of automatically identifying plumes in
solar EUV images close to the limb at 1.01 - 1.39 R in order to study their
temporal evolution. This plume-identification method is based on a multiscale
Hough-wavelet analysis. Then two methods to determined their 3D localization
and structure are discussed: First, tomography using the filtered
back-projection and including the differential rotation of the Sun and,
secondly, conventional stereoscopic triangulation. We show that tomography and
stereoscopy are complementary to study polar plumes. We also show that this
systematic 2D identification and the proposed methods of 3D reconstruction are
well suited, on one hand, to identify plumes individually and on the other
hand, to analyze the distribution of plumes and inter-plume regions. Finally,
the results are discussed focusing on the plume position with their
cross-section area.Comment: 22 pages, 10 figures, Solar Physics articl
Complication prevalence following use of tutoplast-derived human acellular dermal matrix in prosthetic breast reconstruction: A retrospective review of 203 patients
SummaryUse of human acellular dermal matrix (ADM) during prosthetic breast reconstruction has increased. Several ADM products are available produced by differing manufacturing techniques. It is not known if outcomes vary with different products. This study reports the complication prevalence following use of a tutoplast-derived ADM (T-ADM) in prosthetic breast reconstruction. We performed a retrospective chart review of 203 patients (mean follow-up times 12.2 months) who underwent mastectomy and immediate prosthetic breast reconstruction utilizing T-ADM, recording demographic data, surgical indications and complication (infection, seroma, hematoma, wound healing exceeding three weeks and reconstruction failure). During a four-year period, 348 breast reconstructions were performed Complications occurred in 16.4% of reconstructed breasts. Infection occurred in 6.6% of breast reconstructions (3.7% â major infection, requiring intravenous antibiotics and 2.9% minor infection, requiring oral antibiotics only). Seromas occurred in 3.4% and reconstruction failure occurred in 0.6% of breast reconstructions. Analysis suggested that complication prevalence was significantly higher in patients with a BMI >30 (p = 0.03). The complication profile following T-ADM use is this series is comparable to that reported for with other ADM products. T-ADM appears to be a safe and acceptable option for use in ADM-assisted breast reconstruction
Coherent transport in a two-electron quantum dot molecule
We investigate the dynamics of two interacting electrons confined to a pair
of coupled quantum dots driven by an external AC field. By numerically
integrating the two-electron Schroedinger equation in time, we find that for
certain values of the strength and frequency of the AC field we can cause the
electrons to be localised within the same dot, in spite of the Coulomb
repulsion between them. Reducing the system to an effective two-site model of
Hubbard type and applying Floquet theory leads to a detailed understanding of
this effect. This demonstrates the possibility of using appropriate AC fields
to manipulate entangled states in mesoscopic devices on extremely short
timescales, which is an essential component of practical schemes for quantum
information processing.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures; the section dealing with the perturbative
treatment of the Floquet states has been substantially expanded to make it
easier to follo
Purchase or rent? Optimal pricing for 3D printing capacity sharing platforms
Online sharing platforms have attracted considerable research and management attention across a number of industries, including travel, real estate, and cloud computing. They also have great potential for the 3D printing (3DP) industry, offering users the choice between owning or renting 3DP capacity. For matching supply and demand, capacity pricing is crucial. In this paper we consider two fundamental questions concerning pricing: (i) What is the optimal pricing strategy for a 3DP capacity sharing platform? (ii) How do usage level and printer heterogeneity affect consumersâ choice between in-house printing (owning) and outsourcing (renting)? Using queuing analysis, we derive the structural properties of the solutions to the problems. Furthermore, we conduct numerical studies using real-world data to generate managerial insights from the analytical findings. A key finding is that governments should focus on encouraging technological progress to lower the printersâ prices in order to improve the well-being of the industry. When considering two types of printers, we find that it is more beneficial for the platform if the high capacity printer dominates the market, as the platform then retains the prominent role in âredistributingâ the 3DP capacity.</p
Simplified amino acid alphabets based on deviation of conditional probability from random background
The primitive data for deducing the Miyazawa-Jernigan contact energy or
BLOSUM score matrix consists of pair frequency counts. Each amino acid
corresponds to a conditional probability distribution. Based on the deviation
of such conditional probability from random background, a scheme for reduction
of amino acid alphabet is proposed. It is observed that evident discrepancy
exists between reduced alphabets obtained from raw data of the
Miyazawa-Jernigan's and BLOSUM's residue pair counts. Taking homologous
sequence database SCOP40 as a test set, we detect homology with the obtained
coarse-grained substitution matrices. It is verified that the reduced alphabets
obtained well preserve information contained in the original 20-letter
alphabet.Comment: 9 pages,3figure
Image-based measurement of alveoli volume expansion in an animal model of a diseased lung
Currently, there does not exist reliable MV
treatment or protocols in critical care to treat acute respiratory diseases, and thus no proven way to optimise care to minimise the mortality, length of stay or cost. The overall approach of this research is to improve protocols by using appropriate computer models that take into account the essential lung mechanics. The aim of this research is to create an automated algorithm for tracking the boundary of individual or groups of alveoli, and to
convert this into a pressure volume curve for three different types of alveoli. A technique called in vivo microscopy has been developed by Schiller et al which visualizes the inflation and deflation of individual alveoli in a surfactant deactivation model of lung injury in pigs. Three different types of alveoli were
tracked using data from Schiller et al, type I, II and III. These types correspond to healthy alveoli, non-collapsing but partially
diseased alveoli, and fully collapsing diseased alveoli respectively.
The boundaries of all the alveoli that were tracked, compared well visually to the movies. Pressure versus Area curves were
derived for both inflation and deflation, they captured the expected physiological behaviour, and were qualitatively similar
to the quasi-static pressure area curves derived in Schiller et al, Quantitative differences are due to the dynamic effects of ventilation which were not investigated in Schiller et al
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