An analytical model for predicting the shear strength of unsaturated soils

The prediction of shear strength for unsaturated soils remains to be a significant challenge due to their complex multi-phase nature. In this paper, a review of prior experimental studies is firstly carried out to present important pieces of evidence, limitations, and some design considerations. Next, an overview of the existing shear strength equations is summarized with a brief discussion. Then, a micromechanical model with stress equilibrium conditions and multi-phase interaction considerations is presented to provide a new equation for predicting the shear strength of unsaturated soils. The validity of the proposed model is examined for several published shear strength data of different soil types. It is observed that the shear strength predicted by the analytical model is in good agreement with the experimental data, and get high performance compared to the existing models. The evaluation of the outcomes with two criteria, using average relative error and the normalized sum of squared error, proved the effectiveness and validity of the proposed equation. Using the proposed equation, the nonlinear relationship between shear strength, saturation degree, volumetric water content, and matric suction are observed.

Micromechanical approach to viscoelastic stress analysis of a pin-loaded hole in unidirectional laminated PMC

This paper aims to investigate the effect of viscoelastic behavior of polymer matrix of unidirectional fiber-reinforced laminated composite on stress distribution around the pin-loaded hole under tensile loading. The Laplace transform is used to prevent the integral form of matrix governing stress-strain relation. Applying a micromechanical model, all equilibrium equations for the fibers are written analytically in the Laplace domain. The numerical algorithm of Gaver–Stehfest is implemented, and the governing equations were solved at any given time to extract the concerned results in the time domain. The obtained results are validated against the Finite Element Method results obtained through ANSYS software. Moreover, a comparison of the results of this study at the time equal zero with elastic solutions of other references showed a good agreement. The results revealed that in the long term, the maximum tensile load in the intact fiber around the pinhole was enlarged and the tensile load in fibers far from the pinhole slightly was decreased. Moreover, the location of the maximum axial load that had occurred on pinhole edges was moved slightly toward the center over time.

Dynamical Behaviors of Sinusoidal Nanocomposite Plates Subjected to Thermomechanical Loads

In this paper, a new plate structure has been found with the change of profile according to the sine function which we temporarily call as the sinusoidal plate. The classical plate theory and Galerkin’s technique have been utilized in estimating the nonlinear vibration behavior of the new non-rectangular plates reinforced by functionally graded (FG) graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) resting on the Kerr foundation. The FG-GNP plates were assumed to have two horizontal variable edges according to the sine function. Four different configurations of the FG-GNP plates based on the number of cycles of sine function were analyzed. The material characteristics of the GNPs were evaluated in terms of two models called the Halpin–Tsai micromechanical model and the rule of mixtures. First, to verify this method, the natural frequencies of new non-rectangular plates made of metal were compared with those obtained by the Finite Element Method (FEM). Then, the numerical outcomes are validated by comparing with the previous papers for rectangular FGM/GNP plates — a special case of this structure. Furthermore, the impacts of the thermal environment, geometrical parameters, and the elastic foundation on the dynamical responses are scrutinized by the 2D/3D graphical results and coded in Wolfram-Mathematica. The results of this work proved that the introduced approach has the advantages of being fast, having high accuracy, and involving uncomplicated calculation.

Parameter Interval Uncertainty Analysis of Internal Resonance of Rotating Porous Shaft–Disk–Blade Assemblies Reinforced by Graphene Nanoplatelets

This paper conducts a parameter interval uncertainty analysis of the internal resonance of a rotating porous shaft–disk–blade assembly reinforced by graphene nanoplatelets (GPLs). The nanocomposite rotating assembly is considered to be composed of a porous metal matrix and graphene nanoplatelet (GPL) reinforcement material. Effective material properties are obtained by using the rule of mixture and the Halpin–Tsai micromechanical model. The modeling and internal resonance analysis of a rotating shaft–disk–blade assembly are carried out based on the finite element method. Moreover, based on the Chebyshev polynomial approximation method, the parameter interval uncertainty analysis of the rotating assembly is conducted. The effects of the uncertainties of the GPL length-to-width ratio, porosity coefficient and GPL length-to-thickness ratio are investigated in detail. The present analysis procedure can give an interval estimation of the vibration behavior of porous shaft–disk–blade rotors reinforced with graphene nanoplatelets (GPLs).