Effect of prestrain on fatigue crack propagation in mild steel containing non-metallic inclusions

The effect of tensile prestrain on fatigue crack propagation behaviour of commercial mild steel with significant amount of stringer inclusions has been studied. In prestrained materials the usual stable stage II crack growth region is preceded by a phase wherein a retardation in crack growth rate occurs. No such behaviour is observed in annealed material. The amount of retardation is found to increase with increase in prestrain. A mechanism for the observed retardation in crack growth rate is also presented.

Effect of Prestrain on Fracture Toughness of Rolled Mild Steel with Significant Inclusion Content

The basic method of JIc calculation using a single specimen is discussed. Dokouipil's approach for evaluating the JIc value is extended further and the effect of prestrain on rolled mild steel with significant inclusions is studied using this modified approach. Although this method does not give an accurate value of JIc, it is quite effective for a comparative study. While the fracture toughness of annealed and 7% prestrained materials are about the same, the fracture toughness of 3% prestrained material is significantly lower.

Weak consistency of read-only transactions: A tool to improve concurrency in heterogeneous locking protocols

Three different types of consistencies, viz., semiweak, weak, and strong, of a read-only transaction in a schedule s of a set T of transactions are defined and these are compared with the existing notions of consistencies of a read-only transaction in a schedule. We present a technique that enables a user to control the consistency of a read-only transaction in heterogeneous locking protocols. Since the weak consistency of a read-only transaction improves concurrency in heterogeneous locking protocols, the users can help to improve concurrency in heterogeneous locking protocols by supplying the consistency requirements of read-only transactions. A heterogeneous locking protocol P' derived from a locking protocol P that uses exclusive mode locks only and ensures serializability need not be deadlock-free. We present a sufficient condition that ensures the deadlock-freeness of Pprime, when P is deadlock-free and all the read-only transactions in Pprime are two phase.

Comparative Study of Predictions of Flexural Strength of Steel Fiber Concrete

Several methods are available for predicting flexural strength of steel fiber concrete composites. In these methods, direct tensile strength, split cylinder strength, and cube strength are the basic engineering parameters that must be determined to predict the flexural strength of such composites. Various simplified forms of stress distribution are used in each method to formulate the prediction equations for flexural strength. In this paper, existing methods are reviewed and compared, and a modified empirical approach is developed to predict the flexural strength of fiber concrete composites. The direct tensile strength of the composite is used as the basic parameter in this approach. Stress distribution is established from the findings of flexural tests conducted as part of this investigation on fiber concrete prisms. A comparative study of the test values of an earlier investigation on fiber concrete slabs and the computed values from existing methods, including the one proposed, is presented.

Extended colored Petri net: An efficient tool for analyzing concurrent systems

This paper proposes a novel and simple definition of general colored Petri nets. This definition is coherent with that of (uncolored) Petri nets, preserves the reflexivity of the original net and is extended to represent inhibitors. Also suggested are systematic and formal merging rules to obtain a well-formed structure of the extended colored Petri net by folding a given uncolored net. Finally, we present a technique to compute colored invariants by selecting colored RP-subnets. On the average, the proposed technique performs better than the existing ones. The analysis procedure is explained through an illustrative example of a three-level interrupt-priority-handler scheme.

Infinite dimensional slow modulations in a well known delayed model for cutting tool vibrations

We apply the method of multiple scales (MMS) to a well-known model of regenerative cutting vibrations in the large delay regime. By ``large'' we mean the delay is much larger than the timescale of typical cutting tool oscillations. The MMS up to second order, recently developed for such systems, is applied here to study tool dynamics in the large delay regime. The second order analysis is found to be much more accurate than the first order analysis. Numerical integration of the MMS slow flow is much faster than for the original equation, yet shows excellent accuracy in that plotted solutions of moderate amplitudes are visually near-indistinguishable. The advantages of the present analysis are that infinite dimensional dynamics is retained in the slow flow, while the more usual center manifold reduction gives a planar phase space; lower-dimensional dynamical features, such as Hopf bifurcations and families of periodic solutions, are also captured by the MMS; the strong sensitivity of the slow modulation dynamics to small changes in parameter values, peculiar to such systems with large delays, is seen clearly; and though certain parameters are treated as small (or, reciprocally, large), the analysis is not restricted to infinitesimal distances from the Hopf bifurcation.

Micromechanics Of Fatigue Crack-Growth At Low Stress Intensities In A High-Strength Steel

An attempt to systematically investigate the effects of microstructural parameters in influencing the resistance to fatigue crack growth (FCG) in the near-threshold region under three different temper levels has been made for a high strength low alloy steel to observe in general, widely different trends in the dependence of both the total threshold stress intensity range, DELTA-K(th) and the intrinsic or effective threshold stress intensity range, DELTA-K(eff-th) on the prior austenitic grain size (PAGS). While a low strain hardening microstructure obtained by tempering at high temperatures exhibited strong dependence of DELTA-K(th) on the PAGS by virtue of strong interactions of crack tip slip with the grain boundary, a high strength, high strain hardening microstructure as a result of tempering at low temperature exhibited a weak dependence. The lack of a systematic variation of the near-threshold parameters with respect to grain size in temper embrittled structures appears to be related to the wide variations in the amount of intergranular fracture near threshold. Crack closure, to some extent provides a basis on which the increases in DELTA-K(th) at larger grain sizes can be rationalised. This study, in addition, provides a wide perspective on the relative roles of slip behaviour embrittlement and environment that result in the different trends observed in the grain size dependence of near-threshold fatigue parameters, based on which the inconsistency in the results reported in the literature can be clearly understood. Assessment of fracture modes through extensive fractography revealed that prior austenitic grain boundaries are effective barriers to cyclic crack growth compared to martensitic packet boundaries, especially at low stress intensities. Fracture morphologies comprising of low energy flat transgranular fracture can occur close to threshold depending on the combinations of strain hardening behaviour, yield strength and embrittlement effects. A detailed consideration is given to the discussion of cyclic stress strain behaviour, embrittlement and environmental effects and the implications of these phenomena on the crack growth behaviour near threshold.

Stress-strain characteristics of Tress-strain characteristics of reinforcing steel bars under cyclic loading

This paper presents test results for 22 high strength deformed bars and nine mild steel bars subjected to monotonic repeated and reversed axial loading to determine the stress-strain behavior. Equations have been proposed for the stress-strain curves and have been compared with test results. Satisfactory agreement was obtained.

Stress-Strain Characteristics of Reinforcing Steel Bars Under Cyclic Loading

This paper presents test results for 22 high strength deformed bars and nine mild steel bars subjected to monotonic repeated and reversed axial loading to determine the stress-strain behavior. Equations have been proposed for the stress-strain curves and have been compared with test results. Satisfactory agreement was obtained.

A numerical study of projectile impact on mild steel armour plates

The present article deals with the development of a finite element modelling approach for the prediction of residual velocities of hard core ogival-nose projectiles following normal impact on mild steel target plates causing perforation. The impact velocities for the cases analysed are in the range 818–866.3 m/s. Assessment of finite element modelling and analysis includes a comprehensive mesh convergence study using shell elements for representing target plates and solid elements for jacketed projectiles with a copper sheath and a rigid core. Dynamic analyses were carried out with the explicit contact-impact LS-DYNA 970 solver. It has been shown that proper choice of element size and strain rate-based material modelling of target plate are crucial for obtaining test-based residual velocity.The present modelling procedure also leads to realistic representation of target plate failure and projectile sheath erosion during perforation, and confirms earlier observations that thermal effects are not significant for impact problems within the ordnance range. To the best of our knowledge, any aspect of projectile failure or degradation obtained in simulation has not been reported earlier in the literature. The validated simulation approach was applied to compute the ballistic limits and to study the effects of plate thickness and projectile diameter on residual velocity, and trends consistent with experimental data for similar situations were obtained.

A finite element analysis of dynamic fracture initiation by ductile failure mechanisms in a 4340 steel

In some recent dropweight impact experiments [5] with pre-notched bend specimens of 4340 steel, it was observed that considerable crack tunneling occurred in the interior of the specimen prior to gross fracture initiation on the free surfaces. The final failure of the side ligaments happened because of shear lip formation. The tunneled region is characterized by a flat, fibrous fracture surface. In this paper, the experiments of [5] (corresponding to 5 m/s impact speed) are analyzed using a plane strain, dynamic finite element procedure. The Gurson constitutive model that accounts for the ductile failure mechanisms of micro-void nucleation, growth and coalescence is employed. The time at which incipient failure was observed near the notch tip in this computation, and the value of the dynamic J-integral, J d, at this time, compare reasonably well with experiments. This investigation shows that J-controlled stress and deformation fields are established near the notch tip whenever J d , increases with time. Also, it is found that the evolution of micro-mechanical quantities near the notch root can be correlated with the time variation of J d .The strain rate and the adiabatic temperature rise experienced at the notch root are examined. Finally, spatial variations of stresses and deformations are analyzed in detail.