Shear-free Surfaces Research Articles

Enhanced beam and plate finite elements with shear stress continuity for compressible sandwich structures

This paper concerns and presents new improved beam and plate finite elements for analysing sandwich structures from the structural and modal points of view. In this study, the material behaviour is supposed to be linear elastic and orthotropic, but the method could be extended for nonlinear problems as well. The current models are able to treat the compressibility of the soft core materials, besides the interlaminar continuity conditions and the zero shear stresses on the shear-free surfaces are granted by the Lagrange multiplier method. In order to provide stress continuity along the element boundaries, the Hermite interpolation is employed for the elementary formulations that yields subparametric finite elements. On the contrary, the semi-analytical solutions of these enhanced beam and plate models are also discussed here for particular boundary conditions. The verification of the new finite elements is carried out by two case studies. The test examples are modelled and solved in commercial finite element software (ANSYS) with general shell and solid elements, too. The results derived from different models are subjected to a comprehensive comparison. Also, the structural and modal analyses of the test examples are presented during the case studies. The structural analysis of an overconstrained sandwich panel is also discussed to point out the significance of the proper shear stress distributions. Finally, the advantages and disadvantages of the newly developed elements and semi-analytical solutions are revealed in detail.

Classical mechanics via general relativity and Maxwell’s theory: a bit of magic

In the 1950’s Herman Bondi observed that a very effective way to study gravitational radiation was to use null surfaces as part of the coordinate system for analyzing the Einstein (Einstein–Maxwell) equations. A particular class of such surfaces, (referred to as Bondi null surfaces) with their associated null tetrad, has now been the main tool for this analysis for many years; their use—until recently—has been almost ubiquitous. Several years ago we realized that there was an attractive alternative to the use of Bondi coordinates, namely to use coordinates (in the asymptotic null future space–time region) that were as close to ordinary flat-space light-cones as possible—very different from Bondi surfaces. There were initially serious impediments to this program: these new null surfaces (referred to as asymptotically shear-free surfaces, ASF) were determined by solving a non-linear differential equation (the “good-cut” equation) whose solutions were most often complex. Eventually these problems were overcome and the program was implemented. In a series of papers, using the ASF null surfaces to study the asymptotically flat Einstein (or Einstein–Maxwell) equations, a variety of surprising (strange) results were obtained. Using only the Einstein and Maxwell equations, we found a large number of the basic relations of classical mechanics. They included very detailed conservation laws, well know kinematic relations and dynamic equations and even the Abraham–Lorentz–Dirac radiation reaction force and the rocket force. As interesting as these were, they came with a serious enigma. These relations from classical mechanics had no relationship with the physical space–time. The space for the action of these relations was the parameter space of solutions of the good-cut equation—a complex space, known as H-space. The enigma—what possible relationship did these standard appearing classical relations have with physical space–time? It is the purpose of this work to establish such a relationship—objects in H-space are related to structures in physical space–time. For example, a complex world-line in H-space becomes in physical space–time an asymptotically shear-free null geodesic congruence where its twist describes its intrinsic spin and if charged, its magnetic dipole.

Drag reduction by the introduction of shear-free surfaces in a turbulent channel flow

In this paper, a novel technique for drag reduction in turbulent flows is presented. The technique involves the modification of the large scales of turbulent flows and is a passive approach. The lateral transport of momentum, which is a dominant mechanism in turbulence, is attenuated by the introduction of moving shear-free surfaces (SFSes). This brings about a reduction in the drag. 2D simulations have been carried out for a turbulent channel flow using shear stress transport (SST) Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) model and validated with the available experimental results. The interaction between the plates and the fluid is two way, and is enforced either by the use of a rigid body solver with moving mesh, or by considering the SFSes to be fixed at particular locations and then updating the velocities of the plates at those locations. The latter is equivalent to solving a fully developed flow in the moving mesh case. The number, shape, size and placement of the SFSes strongly influence the amount of drag reduction. The phenomenon is confirmed to be governed by a ‘slow’ turbulent time scale. Further, the efficacy of the method is seen to depend on the ratio of two time scales – an advection time scale indicating the ‘resident time’ near an SFS, and the turbulent time scale. In addition, the effectiveness of the approach is improved by judicious placement of multiple SFSes in the flow.

Spacetimes foliated by Killing horizons

It seems to be expected that a horizon of a quasi-local type, such as a Killing or an isolated horizon, by analogy with a globally defined event horizon, should be unique in some open neighbourhood in the spacetime, provided the vacuum Einstein or the Einstein–Maxwell equations are satisfied. The aim of our paper is to verify whether that intuition is correct. If one can extend a so-called Kundt metric, in such a way that its null, shear-free surfaces have spherical spacetime sections, the resulting spacetime is foliated by so-called non-expanding horizons. The obstacle is Kundt's constraint induced at the surfaces by the Einstein or the Einstein–Maxwell equations, and the requirement that a solution be globally defined on the sphere. We derived a transformation (reflection) that creates a solution to Kundt's constraint out of data defining an extremal isolated horizon. Using that transformation, we derived a class of exact solutions to the Einstein or Einstein–Maxwell equations of very special properties. Each spacetime we construct is foliated by a family of the Killing horizons. Moreover, it admits another, transversal Killing horizon. The intrinsic and extrinsic geometries of the transversal Killing horizon coincide with the one defined on the event horizon of the extremal Kerr–Newman solution. However, the Killing horizon in our example admits yet another Killing vector tangent to and null at it. The geometries of the leaves are given by the reflection.

Nonlinear eddy viscosity modelling for turbulence and heat transfer near wall and shear-free boundaries

Abstract New turbulence and turbulent heat flux models are proposed for capturing flow and thermal fields bounded by walls or free surfaces. The models are constructed using locally definable quantities only, without any recourse to topographical parameters. For the flow field, the proposed model is a cubic nonlinear k–e–A three equation eddy viscosity model. It employs dependence on Lumley's stress flatness parameter A, by solving its modelled transport equation as the third variable. Since A vanishes at two-component turbulence boundaries, introducing its dependency enables a turbulence model to capture the structure of turbulence near shear-free surfaces as well as wall boundaries. To close the modelled A equation, an up-to-date second-moment closure is applied. For the thermal field, an explicit algebraic second-moment closure for turbulent heat flux is proposed. The new aspect of this heat flux model is the use of nonlinear Reynolds stress terms in the eddy diffusivity tensor. This model complies with the linearity and independence principles for passive scalar. The proposed models are tested in fully developed plane channel, open channel and plane Couette–Poiseuille flows at several fluid Prandtl numbers. The results show the very encouraging performance of the present proposals in capturing anisotropic turbulence and thermal fields near both wall and shear-free boundaries in the range of 0.025⩽Pr⩽95.

Local similarity solutions in the presence of a slip boundary condition

The local solution behavior near corners formed by the intersection of a slip surface with either a no-slip or a shear-free boundary is analyzed by finite element calculations of the two-dimensional flow of an inertialess Newtonian fluid in several model flow geometries; these flows are the flow in a tapered contraction, a sudden expansion and the extrudate swell from a planar die. Local finite element mesh refinement based on irregular, embedded elements is used to obtain extremely fine resolution of the velocity and pressure fields near the region where there is a sudden change in boundary condition. The calculations accurately reproduce the expected asymptotic behavior for a shear-free surface intersecting a no-slip boundary, where the solution is given by a self-similar form for the velocity and pressure fields. Replacing the shear-free condition with a slip condition yields a similar form for the local velocity and pressure fields and indicates that the slip boundary behaves, to leading order, as a shear-free surface. Calculations for a slip boundary intersecting a shear-free surface yield similar results, with the local behavior being given by asymptotic analysis for two shear-free surfaces intersecting to form a wedge. These results suggest that replacing the no-slip boundary condition in planar Newtonian die swell with a slip boundary condition can give rise to local behavior of velocity gradients and pressure which is more singular than the flow created with no-slip boundary conditions. This prediction is confirmed by calculations of Newtonian die swell with slip. These calculations also demonstrate that the local solution in Newtonian die swell is sensitive to the details of the numerical method.

Impact of the constitutive equation and singularity on the calculation of stick-slip flow: The modified upper-convected maxwell model (MUCM)

Calculations of viscoelastic flows using the upper-convected Maxwell (UCM) model in geometries which include sharp corners or moving and free liquid/fluid contact lines are known to be non-convergent with mesh refinement. A modified upper-convected Maxwell (MUCM) model is proposed which partially alleviates this difficulty. The MUCM model is derivable from network theory and allows the fluid relaxation time to decrease at increasing values of the trace of the stress tensor. The MUCM model yields stress fields that reduce to the a symptotic expressions for a Newtonian fluid near singularities at non-deformable boundaries. Calculations using a Galerkin finite element method are presented for the planar stick-slip problem of the flow between two no-slip surfaces joined to two shear-free surfaces. Results for fine meshes show the correct asymptotic behavior near the singularity for the MUCM model and converge to much higher values of the Deborah number than for the UCM model. However, the results for the MUCM model are still constrained by numerical instabilities related to approximating the stress behavior near the singularity.