0000000000022753
AUTHOR
A. Milazzo
Stock assessement and management by restocking of Melicertus kerathurus (Forskäl, 1775) in the shallow coastal waters at Selinunte
From 1998 to 2010, monitoring was performed on the catch and fishing effort of Melicerctus kerathurus by the artisanal fleet based at the port at Marinella di Selinunte which operates in the wide gulf between Capo San Marco and Capo Granitola along the southwestern coast of Sicily. In 2004, a repopulation experiment with Melicerctus kerathurus post-larvae raised in an aquaculture plant from wild indigenous breeders was carried out in this area. The catch and cpue, in both number of specimens and in yield, were practically doubled in 2005. From 2006, catch and cpue returned to levels observed in the years prior to 2005. With the exception of 2004 and 2005, the stock of Melicerctus kerathurus…
An Improved Hierarchical ACA Technique for Sound Absorbent Materials
This paper presents an improved adaptive cross approximation (ACA) approach developed in conjunction with the Hierarchical format matrix and the GMRES solver. A novel scheme to generate the cluster tree (based upon preliminary considerations of the prescribed boundary conditions) and an improved ACA algorithm (approximating the system matrix for mixed Robin conditions) are described. The asymptotic smoothness property of a kernel generated by a linear combination of two asymptotic smooth kernels is demonstrated. Numerical results show the new approach to be up to 50% faster than the conventional ACA approach.
Analytical solution for the transient response of symmetric magnetoelectric laminated beams
In this paper an analytical solution is presented for the forced vibration problem of magnetoelectric symmetric laminated beams. In deriving the mathematical model the Timoshenko’s beam theory is used and the electric and magnetic fields are assumed to be quasi-static. The model is written for a magnetoelectric sensing device by applying proper magnetoelectric boundary conditions on the beam top and bottom surfaces. The model highlights that the magneto-electro-mechanical couplings affect the bending stiffness and that the magnetoelectric inputs can be treated as equivalent bending moments. Forced vibration analyses are presented to assess the reliability of the solution.
NONLOCAL LAYER-WISE ADVANCED THEORIES FOR LAMINATED PLATES
Eringen nonlocal layer-wise models for the analysis of multilayered plates are formulated in the framework of the Carrera Unified Formulation and the Reissner Mixed Variational Theorem (RMVT). The use of the layer-wise approach and RMVT ensures the fulfilment of the transverse stress equilibrium at the layers’ interfaces and allows the analysis of plates with layers exhibiting different characteristic lengths in their nonlocal behaviour. A Navier solution has been implemented and tested for the static bending of rectangular simply-supported plates. The obtained results favourably compare against available three-dimensional analytic results and demonstrate the features of the proposed theori…
Buckling and post-buckling of variable stiffness plates with cutouts by a single-domain Ritz method
Structural components with variable stiffness can provide better performances with respect to classical ones and offer an enlarged design space for their optimization. They are attractive candidates for advanced lightweight structural applications whose functionalities often impose the presence of cutouts that requires accurate and effective analysis for their design. In the present work, a single-domain Ritz formulation is proposed, implemented and validated for the analysis of buckling and post-buckling behaviour of variable stiffness plates with cutouts. The plate model is based on the first-order shear deformation theory with nonlinear von Karman strain–displacement relationships. The p…
Progressive non-linear damage of variable angle tow composite plates by a Ritz approach
In this work a Ritz model for progressive non-linear damage analysis of variable angle tow composite plates is presented. The damage is treated in the framework of continuum damage mechanics and its evolution is based on a linear softening law with which four damage indices are computed for degrading the mechanical properties of the material. A set of analyses have been carried out to investigate how damage evolves in VAT composite plates under progressive loading.
Electromechanical impedance method for the health monitoring of bonded joints: Numerical modelling and experimental validation
The electromechanical impedance (EMI) method is one of the many nondestructive evaluation approaches proposed for the health monitoring of aerospace, civil, and mechanical structures. The method consists of attaching or embedding one or more wafer-type piezoelectric transducers (PZTs) to the system of interest, the host structure, and measuring certain electrical characteristics of the transducers. As these characteristics are also related to the impedance of the host structure, they can be used to infer the mechanical properties of the monitored structure. In the study presented in this paper, we utilize the EMI to monitor the quality of adhesively bonded joints. A finite element formulati…
A BOUNDARY ELEMENT FORMULATION FOR MICROMECHANICAL HOMOGENIZATION OF POLYCRYSTALLINE MATERIALS WITH PIEZOELECTRIC COUPLING
A novel boundary element formulation for the evaluation of the effective properties of threedimensional polycrystalline aggregates with piezoelectric coupling is presented. The aggregates are modelled at the scale of their constituent crystals and are artificially generated through Voronoi-Laguerre tessellations. The electro-mechanical behaviour of each crystal is represented upon introducing an ad-hoc mesh of its boundary and a generalised integral representation of the governing equations of the piezoelectric problem. The behaviour of the whole aggregate is then retrieved upon introducing a suitable set of electro-mechanical interface conditions at the grain boundaries. With respect to cl…
Exploitation competition between hole‐nesters ( Muscardinus avellanarius , Mammalia and Parus caeruleus , Aves) in Mediterranean woodlands
Data from a long-term study (1993-2003) using artificial nest-boxes, were analysed to examine competition for nesting between blue tit Parus caeruleus and common dormouse Muscardinus avellanarius in Sicily. Occupation rates and the reproductive biology of the blue tit in sample woodlots outside the distribution area of the common dormouse were used as a control in sample areas where the two species were syntopic. A selection test showed that the two species, when living in syntopy, actively chose the small nest-boxes, thus overlapping in the use of the same spatial resource. The experimental exclusion of the common dormouse from nest-boxes caused an increase of blue tit occupation rate. Onc…
DEVELOPMENT AND APPLICATIONS OF A VIRTUAL HYBRID PLATFORM FOR MULTISCALE ANALYSIS OF ADVANCED STRUCTURES OF AIRCRAFT (DEVISU)
This paper outlines the main findings of the project “DEvelopment and applications of a VIrtual hybrid platform for multiscale analysis of advanced StructUres of aircraft” (DEVISU), which deals with failure of composite structures and noise/vibration reduction, along with investigation of new materials for aerospace applications.
Structures with Surface-Bonded PZT Piezoelectric Patches: a BEM Investigation into the Strain-transfer Mechanism for SHM applications
In this work a three-dimensional BEM model is used for the analysis of structures with cracks and surface bonded piezoelectric PZT patches used as strain sensors. The cracked structure is modelled by the dual boundary element method, which allows for accurate and reliable crack analysis, while the piezoelectric patch is analyzed by a finite element state-space approach, that embodies both the full electro-mechanical coupling and the suitable sensor’s boundary conditions. The model is used to investigate the strain-transfer mechanism from an host elastic structure to the piezoelectric layer, taking into account the effect of the adhesive layer, as well as the mechanical interaction between t…
An alternative 2D BEM for fracture mechanics in orthotropic materials
An original and alternative single domain boundary element formulation and its numerical implementation are presented for the analysis of orthotropic two-dimensional cracked bodies. The problem is formulated employing the classical displacement boundary integral representation and an alternative integral equation deduced on the basis of the stress function theory. This integral equation written on the crack provides the relations needed to determine the problem solution in the framework of linear elastic fracture mechanics. Numerical examples are reported and discussed to demonstrate the accuracy of the proposed approach.
A two-node finite element for linear magneto-electric laminated timoshenko beams
A new finite element is presented for linear magnetoelectric straight laminated beam subject to the assumptions of quasi-steady electromagnetic state. The mechanical model is based upon Timoshenko beam theory to account for shear deformation influences. The electromagnetic stacking sequence is proved to enter the equivalent elastic problem by affecting both the stiffness properties of the beam, in terms of axial and flexural coupling, and by modifying the mechanical boundary conditions as distributed loads. Shape functions are first written for the generalized beam mean-line kinematical quantities in such a way the obtained strain field fulfills the homogeneous governing equations of the eq…
IMPLICIT MESH DISCONTINUOUS GALERKIN FOR VARIABLE ANGLE TOW MULTILAYERED PLATES
This works presents a novel computational scheme for variable angle tow (VAT) multilayered plates [1]. The characteristic features of the proposed scheme are the combined use of a discontinuous Galerkin (dG) formulation and an implicitly defined mesh. The formulation is based on the principle of virtual displacements (PVD) and the Equivalent Single Layer (ESL) assumption for the mechanical behavior of the VAT plates [2]. The problem is first placed within the dG framework by suitably introducing an auxiliary variable and by rewriting the set of equations governing ESL VAT plates as a firstorder system of differential equations. Following Arnold et al.[3] and by introducing suitably defined …
TRANSIENT AND FREE-VIBRATION ANALYSIS OF LAMINATED SHELLS THROUGH THE DISCONTINUOUS GALERKIN METHOD
This paper presents a novel formulation for linear transient and free-vibration analysis of laminated shell structures based on Interior Penalty discontinuous Galerkin (DG) methods and variable-order through-the-thickness kinematics, whose combined use allows solving the shell problem with high-order accuracy throughout both the shell thickness and the shell modelling domain. The shell geometry is described via a generic system of curvilinear coordinates using either an analytical or a NURBS-based parametrization of the shell mid surface; the formulation also allows for the presence of cut-outs, which are implicitly represented by means of a level set function. After deriving the governing …
VIRTUAL ELEMENT METHOD FOR COMPUTATIONAL HOMOGENIZATIONS OF UNIDIRECTIONAL FIBER-REINFORCED COMPOSITE MATERIALS
The Virtual Element Method (VEM) is a generalization of the Finite Element Method (FEM) for the treatment of general polygonal/polyhedral mesh elements. Despite its recent introduction, VEM has been applied to several problems in structural mechanics. Due to such capability of dealing with mesh elements of general shape and of naturally addressing the presence of hanging nodes, the VEM ensures a noticeable simplification in the data preparation stage of the analysis, allowing implementing a mesh generation process over complex multi-domain geometries in a fully automated way. Moreover, for the lowest order VEM used in this contribution,no numerical integration is required to compute the sys…
Structural Health Monitoring Procedure for Composite Structures through the use of Artificial Neural Networks
In this paper different architectures of Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) for structural damage detection are studied. The main objective is to investigate an ANN able to detect and localize damage without any prior knowledge on its characteristics so as to serve as a real-time data processor for Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) systems. Two different architectures are studied: the standard feed-forward Multi Layer Perceptron (MLP) and the Radial Basis Function (RBF) ANNs. The training data are given, in terms of a Damage Index ℑD, properly defined using a piezoelectric sensor signal output to obtain suitable information on the damage position and dimensions. The electromechanical respon…