Xue-Qian Fang^1,2, Hong-Wei Liu¹, Yong-Mao Zhao¹, Guo-Quan Nie^1,1 and Jin-Xi Liu¹

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.40, No.2, pp. 145-164, 2014, DOI:10.3970/cmc.2014.040.145

Abstract Electro-elastic surface/interface around nano-sized piezoelectric inclusions shows great effect on the response of piezoelectric nano-structures. In this paper, a theoretical model is proposed to examine the surface/interface effect on the electromechanical responses around a nano-sized elliptical piezoelectric inclusion embedded in an infinite piezoelectric matrix under far-field loading with an arbitrary angle, and the effect of loading angle is considered Combining the conformal mapping technique and electro-elastic surface/interface theory, a closed form solution of this problem is obtained and the interactive effect between the surface/interface and the aspect ratio of the elliptical inclusion is examined. More >

A.I. Dimitriadis¹, N.V. Kantartzis¹ and T.D. Tsiboukis¹

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.39, No.3, pp. 231-265, 2014, DOI:10.3970/cmc.2014.039.231

Abstract The most important surface susceptibility models for the electromagnetic characterization of periodic metafilms, based on the dipole approximation method, are systematically analyzed in this paper. Specifically, two well-known techniques, which lead to a set of local effective surface parameters, are investigated along with a new dynamic non-local modeling algorithm. The latter formulation is properly expanded, in order to be applicable for any arbitrary periodic metafilm, irrespective of its way of excitation. The featured schemes are then directly compared toward their ability to efficiently predict the reflection and transmission properties of several lossless and lossy metafilms. More >

Yanxia Zhang¹, Tiina Nypelö^1,*, Carlos Salas¹, Julio Arboleda¹, Ingrid C. Hoeger^1,*, Orlando J. Rojas^1,2,*

Journal of Renewable Materials, Vol.1, No.3, pp. 195-211, 2013, DOI:10.7569/JRM.2013.634115

Abstract Cellulose nanofi brils (CNF), also known as nanofi brillar cellulose (NFC), are an advanced biomaterial made mainly from renewable forest and agricultural resources that have demonstrated exceptional performance in composites. In addition, they have been utilized in barrier coatings, food, transparent fl exible fi lms and other applications. Research on CNF has advanced rapidly over the last decade and several of the fundamental questions about production and characterization of CNF have been addressed. An interesting shift in focus in the recent reported literature indicates increased efforts aimed at taking advantage of the unique properties of More >

Espósito ME¹, ME Sequeira², JD Paoloni³, MC Blanco⁴, N Amiotti¹

Phyton-International Journal of Experimental Botany, Vol.82, pp. 35-44, 2013, DOI:10.32604/phyton.2013.82.035

Abstract We investigated the levels of F and its relationship with As, B and V in ground and surface waters of the southern Pampas, where cases of dental and skeletal fluorosis, and arsenic in hair and urine samples have been detected in the rural population. Eating vegetables and cereals grown in irrigated areas with excessive fluoride may increase the risk of fluorosis due to the addition of the extra F contributed from other sources such as drinking water. Moreover, if these elements exceed the tolerance of crops produce toxicity and, like salinity, they decrease the potential… More >

T.W. Dong¹, H.S. Liu¹, S.L. Jiang², L.Gu¹, Q.W. Xiao¹, Z. Yu¹, X.F. Liu³

CMES-Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences, Vol.95, No.5, pp. 369-390, 2013, DOI:10.3970/cmes.2013.095.369

Abstract In this paper, we present a free surface flow model with a forced revolving moving boundary for partially filled screw extrusion. The incompressible smoothed particle hydrodynamics (ISPH) is used to simulate this complex flow. A set of organic glass experimental device for this partially filled fluid is manufactured. SPH results are satisfactorily compared with experiment results. The computed free surfaces are in good agreement with the free surfaces obtained from the experiment. Further analysis shows that with the increase of the speed, the average velocity of fluid increases, the effect of centrifugal force begin to More >

W. Zhao^1,2, J.K. Liu³, X.Y. Li², Q.W. Yang⁴, Y.Y. Chen⁵

CMES-Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences, Vol.93, No.6, pp. 469-488, 2013, DOI:10.3970/cmes.2013.093.469

Abstract In order to obtain reliable structural design, it is of extreme importance to evaluate the failure probability, safety levels of structure (reliability analysis) and the effect of a change in a variable parameter on structural safety (sensitivity analysis) when uncertainties are considered. With a computationally cheaper approximation of the limit state function, various response surface methods (RSMs) have emerged as a convenient tool to solve this especially for complex problems. However, the traditional RSMs may produce large errors in some conditions especially for those highly non-linear limit state functions. Instead of the traditional least squares… More >

Yuhang Jing¹, Ming Hu^2,3

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.38, No.1, pp. 43-59, 2013, DOI:10.3970/cmc.2013.038.043

Abstract Nanostructuring of thermoelectric materials bears promise for manipulating physical parameters to improve the energy conversion efficiency of thermoelectrics. In this paper the thermal transport in Si/Ge superlattice nanotubes is investigated by performing nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations aiming at realizing low thermal conductivity by surface roughening. Our calculations revealed that the thermal conductivity of Si/Ge superlattice nanotubes depends nonmonotonically on periodic length and increases as the wall thickness increases. However, the thermal conductivity is not sensitive to the inner diameters due to the strong surface scattering at thin wall thickness. In addition, introducing roughness onto the More >

Raveendranath U Nair¹, R M Jha¹

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.37, No.2, pp. 109-121, 2013, DOI:10.3970/cmc.2013.037.109

Abstract Enhancement of electromagnetic performance of A-sandwich radome using aperture-type Jerusalem cross frequency selective surface (FSS) is presented. The Jerusalem cross FSS array is embedded in the mid-plane of the core of Asandwich radome to enhance the EM performance parameters over the entire Xband. For modeling the Jerusalem cross FSS embedded radome panel and evaluation of its EM performance parameters, equivalent transmission line method in conjunction with equivalent circuit model is used. A comparative study of Jerusalem cross FSS embedded A-sandwich radome and A-sandwich radome of identical material and thickness (core and skin layers) indicate that More >

Ying Xu¹, Shengping Shen^1,2

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.28, No.1, pp. 81-96, 2012, DOI:10.3970/cmc.2012.028.081

Abstract This paper considers the surface effect through the surface and bulk electric Gibbs free energy. The analytical expressions are derived for the effective elastic, dielectric and piezoelectric modulus for nano-structural elements in electromechanical coupling problems. Numerical examples for PZT are given to illustrate the size effects on the electromechanical properties of nano-particles, nano-wires and nano-films quantitatively. The solution shows that the electromechanical properties of piezoelectric nano-material are size-dependent but the size effects on the elastic property and dielectric property are different. More >

M. Q. Chau^1,2, X. Han¹, Y. C. Bai¹, C. Jiang¹

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.27, No.2, pp. 128-142, 2012, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2012.027.128

Abstract The first-order reliability method (FORM) is one of the most widely used structural reliability analysis techniques due to its simplicity and efficiency. However, direct using FORM seems disability to work well for complex problems, especially related to high-dimensional variables and computation intensive numerical models. To expand the applicability of the FORM for more practical engineering problems, a response surface (RS) approach based FORM is proposed for structural reliability analysis. The radial basis function (RBF) is employed to approximate the implicit limit-state functions combined with Latin Hypercube Sampling (LHS) strategy. To guarantee the numerical stability, the More >