Modeling and experimental analysis of polypropylene honeycomb multi-layer sandwich composites under four-point bending

The behavior of a simple and innovative multi-layer sandwich panels having a polypropylene honeycomb core has been investigated carefully, theoretically and experimentally. A four-point bending test was performed to detect the mechanical characteristics of the multi-layer core. The experimental results emphasize a better rigidity of the multi-layer structure compared to the weakness displayed by the single-layer configuration. In fact, a small increase in the final weight of the component leads to a significant increase of the mechanical properties. In the second part of this study, analytical and numerical homogenization approaches were developed to compute the effective properties of the single polypropylene honeycomb core. The numerical model complies with the experimental protocol, and the simulation conducted is aiming to reproduce a typical four-point bending test on a polypropylene honeycomb multi-layer sandwich panel. Both numerical and experimental results are presented in details and a good correlation between them is highlighted

Fission of actinides through quasimolecular shapes

International audienceThe potential energy of heavy nuclei has been calculated in the quasimolecular shape path from a generalized liquid drop model including the proximity energy, the charge and mass asymmetries and the microscopic corrections. The potential barriers are multiple-humped. The second maximum is the saddle-point. It corresponds to the transition from compact one-body shapes with a deep neck to two touching ellipsoids. The scission point lies at the end of an energy plateau well below the saddle-point and where the effects of the nuclear attractive forces between two separated fragments vanish. The energy on this plateau is the sum of the kinetic and excitation energies of the fragments. The shell and pairing corrections play an essential role to select the most probable fission path. The potential barrier heights agree with the experimental data and the theoretical half-lives follow the trend of the experimental values. A third peak and a shallow third minimum appear in asymmetric decay paths when one fragment is close to a double magic quasi-spherical nucleus, while the smaller one changes from oblate to prolate shapes

Numerical Study of the Bond Strength Evolution of Corroded Reinforcement in Concrete in Pull‐Out Tests

The corrosion of rebars in reinforced concrete structures impacts their geometry (diameter and ribs) and mass, damages the concrete at the interface between the two materials, deteriorates the bond strength, and causes the cracking of the concrete cover. In the following study, a 2D numerical model of the pull‐out test is presented in order to study the impact of corrosion on the bond strength. Several parameters are investigated: the embedment depth, the rebar’s diameter, and the width of the concrete cover. The model reproduces the slip of the rebar and the failure through the splitting of concrete. It integrates an interface between the two materials and a concrete damage model that simulate the deterioration of concrete in compression and tension. The results obtained are validated with experimental data from the literature. Moreover, a parametric study is carried out to determine the impact of the embedment depth, the diameter of the rebar, and the concrete cover on the bond strength. The present study confirms that a greater embedment depth increases the pulling load. The study also confirms that the rebar’s diameter impacts highly the loss of bond between the rebar and the concrete cover. Lastly, the final main result of this paper is that the width of the concrete cover slows the loss of bond strength between the two materials

Experimental-numerical characterization of the fracture behaviour of P264GH steel notched pipes subject to internal pressure

The rupture phenomenon of a mechanical structure requires critical consideration, because of its safety constructions. A detailed experiment of material features as well as the Young’s modulus, yield strength, material toughness or fracture resistance provides useful information to predict the life integrity of a pipe structure. This paper presents the most accurate experimental techniques for characterization of a pipe-like structure to assess its reliability. Standard traction tests, dynamic Charpy tests and pressure tests were performed to envisage the crack propagation progress. Detailed information on fracture process was obtained by a robust numerical approach using the finite element method

Internal cracks and non-metallic inclusions as root causes of casting failure in sugar mill roller shafts

The sugar mill roller shaft is one of the critical parts of the sugar industry. It requires careful manufacturing and testing in order to meet the stringent specification when it is used for applications under continuous fatigue and wear environments. For heavy industry, the manufacturing of such heavy parts (>600 mm diameter) is a challenge, owing to ease of occurrence of surface/subsurface cracks and inclusions that lead to the rejection of the final product. Therefore, the identification and continuous reduction of defects are inevitable tasks. If the defect activity is controlled, this offers the possibility to extend the component (sugar mill roller) life cycle and resistance to failure. The current study aims to explore the benefits of using ultrasonic testing (UT) to avoid the rejection of the shaft in heavy industry. This study performed a rigorous evaluation of defects through destructive and nondestructive quality checks in order to detect the causes and effects of rejection. The results gathered in this study depict macro-surface cracks and sub-surface microcracks. The results also found alumina and oxide type non-metallic inclusions, which led to surface/subsurface cracks and ultimately the rejection of the mill roller shaft. A root cause analysis (RCA) approach highlighted the refractory lining, the hot-top of the furnace and the ladle as significant causes of inclusions. The low-quality flux and refractory lining material of the furnace and the hot-top, which were possible causes of rejection, were replaced by standard materials with better quality, applied by their standardized procedure, to prevent this problem in future production. The feedback statistics, evaluated over more than one year, indicated that the rejection rate was reduced for defective production by up to 7.6%

Experimental/numerical investigation of mechanical behaviour of internally pressurized cylindrical shells with external longitudinal and circumferential semi-elliptical defects

This paper presents an experimental-numerical investigation on the mechanical behaviour of pressurized cylindrical shells with external longitudinal and circumferential cracks of semi-elliptical shape. The research is motivated by the need to develop advanced design methodologies for shell structures. For that purpose, strain gauges are utilized to monitor strain concentrations near the cracks, and finite element simulations are carried out to predict the corresponding stress intensity factor distributions. A good agreement between numerical simulations and experimental data is found. This confirms that virtual simulations/calculations provide a reliable approach to evaluating mechanical behaviour of pressurized cylindrical shells with crack defects

The influence of variations of geometrical parameters on the notching stress intensity factors of cylindrical shells

The modern approach of Virtual Engineering allows one to detect with some accuracy the residual life of components especially free of cracks. The life estimation becomes cumbersome when the components contain a crack. A straightforward formulation requires a parameter that considers geometrical constraints and materials properties. The magnitude of the stress singularity developed by the tip of a crack, needs to be expressed by the Stress Intensity Factors (SIF). In order to prove the validity of the results, calibration by experimental and/or analytical technique is required. To have a better understanding of this parameter, in the first part of this paper an analytical model to compute the SIF connected to crack propagation into Mode I has been implemented. The case study displays a pipeline component with a crack defect submitted to internal pressure. Therefore, an appropriate correlation between the analytical approach and numerical simulation has been established embedded

Computation of the stress intensity factor KI for external longitudinal semi-elliptic cracks in the pipelines by FEM and XFEM methods

Evaluation of structural integrity of a cracked structure has become an important matter in the industrial field since couples of decades. However, damage process occurred in a structural component is not yet fixed. The objective of this research was to compute the stress intensity factor KI, in mode I, using in the linear elastic domain, by the finite element method and the extended finite element method. The defect studied in this survey has a form of a longitudinal semi-elliptic crack, located on the outer surface of the tube. A summary of the paper contains a numerical convergence for each method in terms of accuracy and limitations. The proposed methodology and outcomes released from this study act as novel design tool for the industrial engineers when is required to generate a robust solution for product development working in critical conditions

Application of the extended isogeometric analysis (X-IGA) to evaluate a pipeline structure containing an external crack

This work proposes a novel strategy for a two-dimensional problem that includes the approach of extended isogeometric analysis (X-IGA) in order to detect the behavior of a crack in pipeline structures. The nonrational B-Spline uniform function (NURBS) was used for the approximation of the solution fields (displacements) taking into account its geometry constrains. The modeling of the X-IGA was implemented under Abaqus/Standard software via subroutine (UEL) where the Stress Intensity Factor (KI) was extracted. The results permit detecting with accuracy the fracture toughness of a pipeline structure containing an external crack that can be submitted to critical pressures. To validate the performances of the novel strategy a careful comparison with existing literature and analytical and numerical computation methods was performed