The problem of the optimal driving technique during the fuel economy competition is reconsidered. The vehicle is regarded as a particle moving on a trace with a variable slope angle. The fuel consumption is minimized as the vehicle covers the given distance in a given time. It is assumed that the run consists of two recurrent phases: acceleration with a full available engine power and coasting down with the engine turned off. The most fuel-efficient technique for shifting gears during acceleration is found. The decision variables are: the vehicle velocities at which the gears should be shifted, on the one hand, and the vehicle velocities when the engine should be turned on and off, on the other hand. For the data of students’ vehicle representing the Faculty of Power and Aeronautical Engineering it has been found that such driving strategy is more effective in comparison with a constant speed strategy with the engine partly throttled, as well as a strategy resulting from optimal control theory when the engine is still active.
The approach to numerical analyses was changed by the introduction of Eurocodes . The EN 1993-1-6 standard allows taking into account imperfections on the shape of a buckling form from a linear elastic bifurcation analysis. The article analyses the first ten forms of imperfection from a linear elastic bifurcation analysis on the reduction of the capacity of a cylindrical shell. Calculations were made using finite element methods.
This investigation is carried out to evaluate the repair and strengthening the techniques of elliptical paraboloid reinforced concrete shells with openings. An experimental program of several different techniques in repair and strengthening is executed. The materials, which are considered for strengthening, are; Glass fiber reinforced polymers GFRP at different position of the shell bottom surface, steel strip and external tie. They loaded by four concentrated loads affected on the corners of the opening. The initial and failure loads as well as the crack propagation for the tested shells at different loading stages, defl ections and failure load for repaired and shells are recorded. A non-linear computer program based on finite element techniques is used to study the behavior of these types of shells. Geometric and materials nonlinearities are considered in the analysis. The efficiency and accuracy of computer program are verified by comparing the program results with those obtained experimentally for the control shell with opening and strengthened shells.
The paper considers method of determination of solar radiation amount falling on arbitrarily oriented surface of a structure. Provided method allows calculation of influence of structure’s geographical coordinates, spatial orientation of structure’s surface, day of year and time of day on received amount of solar radiation. The method is intended for determination of thermal stresses and deformations of sheet steel structures caused by action of direct solar radiation. Examples show usage of provided method.
In the paper, the results of numerical simulations of the steam flow in a shell and tube heat exchanger are presented. The efficiency of different models of turbulence was tested. In numerical calculations the following turbulence models were used: k-ε, RNG k-ε, Wilcox k-ω, Chen-Kim k-ε, and Lam-Bremhorst k-ε. Numerical analysis of the steam flow was carried out assuming that the flow at the inlet section of the heat exchanger were divided into three parts. The angle of steam flow at inlet section was determined individually in order to obtain the best configuration of entry vanes and hence improve the heat exchanger construction. Results of numerical studies were verified experimentally for a real heat exchanger. The modification of the inlet flow direction according to theoretical considerations causes the increase of thermal power of a heat exchanger of about 14%.
The article presents a novel method that allows measurement of thermal conductivity that is based on Stefan-Boltzmann law. The developed method can be used to determine thermal conductivity of ceramic investment casting molds. The methodology for conducting thermal conductivity tests of ceramic material samples is presented. Knowledge of the value of thermal capacity and thermal conductivity as a function of temperature enables computer simulations of the process of cooling and solidification of liquid metal in a mold.
The paper presents the methodology that makes it possible to evaluate computational model and introduce current corrections to it. The methodology ensures proper interpretation of nonlinear results of numerical analyses of thin-walled structures. The suggested methodology is based on carrying out, in parallel to nonlinear numerical analysis, experimental research on some selected crucial zones of loadcarrying structures. Attention is drawn to the determinants concerning the performance of an adequate experiment. The author points out on indicating the role of model tests as a fast and economically justified research instruments practicable when designing thin-walled load-carrying structures.
The presented considerations are illustrated by an example of a structure whose geometrical complexity and ranges of deformation are characteristic for modern solutions applied in the load-carrying structures of airframes. As the representative example, one selected the area of the load-carrying structure that contains an extensive cut-out, in which the highest levels and stress gradients occur in the conditions of torsion evoking the post-buckling states within the permissible loads. The stress distributions within these ranges of deformations were used as the basis for determining the fatigue life of the structure.
In this paper, the authors investigate a cylindrical shell reinforced by carbon nanotubes. The critical buckling load is calculated using analytical method when it is subjected to compressive axial load. The Mori-Tanaka method is firstly utilized to estimate the effective elastic modulus of composites having aligned oriented straight CNTs. The eigenvalues of the problem are obtained by means of an analytical approach based on the optimized Rayleigh-Ritz method. There is presented a study on the effects of CNTs volume fraction, thickness and aspect ratio of the shell, CNTs orientation angle, and the type of supports on the buckling load of cylindrical shells. Furthermore the effect of CNTs agglomeration is investigated when CNTs are dispersed none uniformly in the polymer matrix. It is shown that when the CNTs are arranged in 90 degrees direction, the highest critical buckling load appears. Also, the results are plotted for different longitudinal and circumferential mode numbers. There is a specific value for aspect ratio of the cylinder that minimizes the buckling load. The results reveal that for very low CNTs volume fractions, the volume fraction of inclusions has no important effect on the critical buckling load.
The problem of optimal driving techniques during fuel economy competition is considered. The kinetic model of the record wheeled vehicle is proposed. It is regarded as a particle moving on a trace with variable slope angle. Engine characteristics are taken into account. The fuel consumption is minimized as the vehicle goes over a given distance. The problem is formulated in optimal control. The direct pseudospectral Chebyshev’s method is employed. The motion of student’s vehicle representing the Faculty of Power and Aeronautical Engineering during Shell Eco-marathon in Nogaro, France, in 2006, is used as an example.
In the present work, a tire model is derived based on geometrically exact shells. The discretization is done with the help of isoparametric quadrilateral finite elements. The interpolation is performed with bilinear Lagrangian polynomials for the midsurface as well as for the director field. As time stepping method for the resulting differential algebraic equation a backward differentiation formula is chosen. A multilayer material model for geometrically exact shells is introduced, to describe the anisotropic behavior of the tire material. To handle the interaction with a rigid road surface, a unilateral frictional contact formulation is introduced. Therein a special surface to surface contact element is developed, which rebuilds the shape of the tire.
The economic envelopes obtained by optimization techniques in open pit mining are transformed into operational phases that are suitable for extraction through ramp designs. This process is performed with the aid of specialized design software, which is still very manual, time consuming and highly dependent on the expertise of the planner. In this paper, we introduce a new methodology based on a mathematical model to automatically propose the design of ramps from the economic envelope of a pushback, with the resulting envelope having the maximum value. The developed model was tested against a real case scenario showing reasonable and useable solutions for the planner. Using this approach, a planner can evaluate several alternatives in a reasonable time before selecting the final design.
In this study, a molybdenum alloy with dispersed high-entropy particles was fabricated using the powder metallurgy method. The high-entropy powder, composed of Nb, Ta, V, W, and Zr elements with a same atomic fraction, was prepared via high-energy ball milling. Using this powder, an ideal core-shell powder, composed of high-entropy powder as core and Mo powder as shell, was synthesized via the milling and reduction processes. These processes enabled the realization of an ideal microstructure with the high-entropy phase uniformly dispersed in the Mo matrix. The sintered body was successfully fabricated via uniaxial compaction followed by pressureless sintering. The sintered body was analyzed by X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscope, and the high-entropy phase is uniformly dispersed in the Mo matrix.