The irreversible thermal expansion of an energetic material

The works deals with a macroscopically isotropic energetic material based on triamino-trinitrobenzene (TATB) crystals bonded with a small volume fraction of a thermoplastic polymer. This material is shown experimentally to display an irreversible thermal expansion behavior characterized by dilatancy and variations of its thermal expansion coefficient when heated or cooled outside a narrow reversibility temperature range. The analysis of cooling results suggests the existence of residual stresses in the initial state, attributed to the manufacturing process. Microstructure-level FFT computations including the very strong anisotropic thermoelastic TATB crystal response and temperature-dependent binder plasticity, show that strong internal stresses develop in the disoriented crystals under thermal load, either heating or cooling. Upon cooling, binder plastic yielding in hindered, thus promoting essentially brittle microcracking, while it is favored upon heating. Despite its low volume fraction, the role of the binder is essential, its plastic yielding causing stress redistribution and residual stresses upon cooling back to ambient.

Study on the Mechanical Properties of Fly-Ash-Based Light-Weighted Porous Geopolymer and Its Utilization in Roof-Adaptive End Filling Technology

This paper aims to study the porous structure and the mechanical properties of fly-ash-based light-weighted porous geopolymer (FBLPG), exploring the feasibility of using it in roof-adaptive end filling technology based on its in-situ foaming characteristics and plastic yielding performance. A porous structure model of FBLPG during both the slurry and solid period was established to study their influence factor. In addition, this study also built a planar structure model in the shape of a honeycomb with bore walls, proving that the bore walls possess the characteristics of isotropic force. FBLPG shows a peculiar plastic yielding performance in the experiment where its stress stays stable with the gradual increase of the deformation, which can guarantee the stability of a filling body under the cycled load from the roof. At the same time, the in-situ foaming process combined with the unique filling technique can make the FBLPG filling body fully in contact with the irregular roof. This roof-adaptive end filling technology makes it a successful application in plugging the 1305 working face, which avoids problems of the low tight-connection ratio and secondary air-leakage channel resulted from the traditional filling technology, effectively improving coal production in terms of safety and high efficiency.

Effect of Plastic Anisotropy on the Collapse of a Hollow Disk under Thermal and Mechanical Loading

Plastic anisotropy significantly affects the behavior of structures and machine parts. Given the many parameters that classify a structure made of anisotropic material, analytic and semi-analytic solutions are very useful for parametric analysis and preliminary design of such structures. The present paper is devoted to describing the plastic collapse of a thin orthotropic hollow disk inserted into a rigid container. The disk is subject to a uniform temperature field and a uniform pressure is applied over its inner radius. The condition of axial symmetry in conjunction with the assumption of plane stress, permits an exact analytic solution. Two plastic collapse mechanisms exist. One of these mechanisms requires that the entire disk is plastic. According to the other mechanism, plastic deformation localizes at the inner radius of the disk. Additionally, two special solutions are possible. One of these solutions predicts that the entire disk becomes plastic at the initiation of plastic yielding (i.e., plastic yielding simultaneously initiates in the entire disk). The other special solution predicts that the plastic localization occurs at the inner radius of the disk with no plastic region of finite size. An essential difference between the orthotropic and isotropic disks is that plastic yielding might initiate at the outer radius of the orthotropic disk.

Interior dynamics of tidally-locked super-Earths: the case of LHS 3844b

<p>The vigour and style of mantle convection in tidally-locked super-Earths may be substantially different from Earth's regime. Earth's surface temperature is spatially uniform at 300 K, which is sufficiently cold to drive strong downwellings into the interior (i.e. subduction). In contrast, a tidally-locked super-Earth can have a large temperature contrast between the dayside and nightside, which we infer could lead to a dichotomy of the interior dynamics. We therefore use constraints from astrophysical observations to infer the possible pattern of flow in the interior of a tidally-locked super-Earth, using super-Earth LHS 3844b as a case study. We run mantle convection models using the code StagYY with two-dimensional spherical annulus geometry and parameters from the literature that are appropriate for LHS 3844b. The majority of the mantle is either perovskite or post-perovskite with the phase transition occurring around 1700 km depth (the total mantle depth is 3757 km). An upper and lower bound for the viscosity of post-perovskite is provided by previous theoretical calculations. We include plastic yielding to model the brittle nature of the lithosphere; plastic yielding occurs when the local stress state exceeds a prescribed yielding criteria and is commonly applied in studies of Earth to produce surface behaviour similar to plate tectonics.</p><p>For a low yield stress criteria (promoting a weak lithosphere), we find that plumes are generally evenly distributed between the dayside and nightside, albeit strong downwellings form on the nightside. Plumes on the nightside have less lateral mobility than on the dayside because they are confined by downwellings either side. In contrast, for a high yield stress criteria, the interior dynamics are mostly driven by a prominent downwelling on the dayside which flushes hot material from the lower thermal boundary layer around the CMB towards the nightside where plumes preferentially arise. This, in turn, leads to a return flow of colder material from the near surface of the nightside towards the dayside. This seemingly counterintuitive pattern of flow is a consequence of weak lithosphere (due to temperature) on the dayside that is able to deform and thereby subduct, whereas lithosphere on the nightside is too stiff to subduct.</p><p>Our models therefore show that the vigour of convection and the distribution of upwellings and downwellings of tidally locked super-Earths are sensitive to the strength of the lithosphere: plumes can either be equally distributed around the planet or preferentially occur on the nightside. In the first case, the cold downwellings are also equally distributed but more prominent on the nightside, whereas in the second case they are preferentially on the dayside. Somewhat unexpected, we do not observe a preference for hot plumes to congregate on the dayside. Our results have implications for space missions such as TESS, CHEOPS, JWST, PLATO and ARIEL that will discover and characterise super-Earths, thereby potentially probing for signals of volatile outgassing and volcanism.</p>

Factors controlling shear rupture roughness: An insight from field and laboratory experiments

<p>Faults and fracture surfaces record the history of slip events through a range of structural features in tectonically active zones. Slickensides, among them, prove to be the most prominent evidences of such slip movements. These linear features give us crucial information about the mechanical processes associated with shear surface roughness formation. We conducted extensive field survey in the Singhbhum Shear Zone, Eastern India, and report shear fractures of varying surface roughness from deformed quartzites. Shear surfaces encountered in the field study varied from very smooth, devoid of any lineation to strongly rough with prominent slickenlines.</p><p>For better understanding of the varied surface roughness, we performed analogue laboratory experiments. The experimental results suggest that the fracture orientation and the mode of shear failure are potential factors that control the fracture roughness. We used cohesive sand-talc models for the analogue experiments with varying sand:talc volume ratio, ranging from pure sand to pure talc variant. Experimental models with pure sand composition underwent Coulomb failure in the brittle regime. With subsequent increase in talc content, the behavior of failure switched to plastic yielding in the ductile regime. This transition from coulomb failure to plastic yielding produced a remarkable variation in the shear surface roughness characteristics. Shear surfaces formed by Coulomb failure are smooth and devoid any slickenlines, whereas, those formed by plastic yielding show prominent presence strongly linear roughness, defined by cylindrical ridge-grooves along the slip direction.</p><p>Shear surface roughness defined by linear irregularities become more prominent with increasing fracture orientation (θ) to the compression direction (θ = 30° to 60°). Increase in θ promotes the formation of smooth slickenlines at the cost of rough zones. For critical analysis and understanding of these features we develop a new computational technique. The technique is based on controlled optical images to map the shear surface geometry from field casts and laboratory samples. Binarization of the irregular surface images (cantor set) provides 1D fractal dimension (D), which is used to quantify the roughness variability, and the degree of their anisotropy in terms of ΔD (difference in D across and along the slip direction). From numerical models, we finally show onset of wave instability in the mechanically distinct rupture zone as an alternative mechanism for slickenlines formation.  </p>