Cohabitation: quantifying an equitable share

Discusses the House of Lords judgment in Stack v Dowden on the factors the courts may consider when determining whether to rebut the presumption that former cohabitees, who were registered as joint legal owners of a property, were also joint beneficial owners with equal shares in the property. [From the Legal Journals Index]

Quantifying the beneficial interests of cohabitees

Discusses entitlements to a share of the sale proceeds of the family home where partners are cohabiting but not married and the property is registered in the name of one person only. Explains the obligation to establish that a cohabitee has an equitable interest in the property under the principles of constructive or resulting trusts. Considers how the court is able to quantify the respective shares, both before and after Oxley v Hiscock. [From the Legal Journals Index]

Multiscale modelling of dendrite growth during vacuum arc remelting

Vacuum Arc Remelting (VAR) is the accepted method for producing homogeneous, fine microstructures that are free of inclusions required for rotating grade applications. However, as ingot sizes are increasing INCONEL 718 becomes increasingly susceptible to defects such as freckles, tree rings, and white spots increases for large diameter billets. Therefore, predictive models of these defects are required to allow optimization of process parameters. In this paper, a multiscale and multi-physics model is presented to predict the development of microstructures in the VAR ingot during solidification. At the microscale, a combined stochastic nucleation approach and finite difference solution of the solute diffusion is applied in the semi-solid zone of the VAR ingot. The micromodel is coupled with a solution of the macroscale heat transfer, fluid flow and electromagnetism in the VAR process through the temperature, pressure and fluid flow fields. The main objective of this study is to achieve a better understanding of the formation of the defects in VAR by quantifying the influence of VAR processing parameters on grain nucleation and dendrite growth. In particular, the effect of different ingot growth velocities on the microstructure formation was investigated. It was found that reducing the velocity produces significantly more coarse grains.

Numerical and experimental studies of a substructural identification strategy

For structural health monitoring it is impractical to identify a large structure with complete measurement due to limited number of sensors and difficulty in field instrumentation. Furthermore, it is not desirable to identify a large number of unknown parameters in a full system because of numerical difficulty in convergence. A novel substructural strategy was presented for identification of stiffness matrices and damage assessment with incomplete measurement. The substructural approach was employed to identify large systems in a divide-and-conquer manner. In addition, the concept of model condensation was invoked to avoid the need for complete measurement, and the recovery process to obtain the full set of parameters was formulated. The efficiency of the proposed method is demonstrated numerically through multi-storey shear buildings subjected to random force. A fairly large structural system with 50 DOFs was identified with good results, taking into consideration the effects of noisy signals and the limited number of sensors. Two variations of the method were applied, depending on whether the sensor could be repositioned. The proposed strategy was further substantiated experimentally using an eight-storey steel plane frame model subjected to shaker and impulse hammer excitations. Both numerical and experimental results have shown that the proposed substructural strategy gave reasonably accurate identification in terms of locating and quantifying structural damage.

Rights for cohabitants

Reviews the guidance given by the House of Lords in Stack v Dowden on quantifying the beneficial interests of cohabiting parties in their former family home when one party seeks to rebut the presumption of joint beneficial ownership. Comments on the subsequent application of the principles by the county court in Adekunle v Ritchie and by the Privy Council in Abbott v Abbott, highlighting the approaches used to establish an equitable interest and to quantify the parties' shares in the properties. Considers whether statutory intervention is now needed to resolve the difficulties. [From Legal Journals Index]

The benefits of a health impact assessment in relation to fuel poverty: assessing Luton's affordable warmth strategy and the need for a national strategy

The links between fuel poverty and poor health are well documented, yet there is no statutory requirement on local authorities to develop fuel poverty strategies, which tend to be patchy nationally and differ substantially in quality. Fuel poverty starts from the perspective of income, even though interventions can improve health. The current public health agenda calls for more partnership-based, cost-effective strategies based on sound evidence. Fuel poverty represents a key area where there is currently little local evidence quantifying and qualifying health gain arising from strategic interventions. As a result, this initial study sought to apply the principles of a health impact assessment to Luton’s Affordable Warmth Strategy, exploring the potential to identify health impact arising – as a baseline for future research – in the context of the public health agenda. A national strategy would help ensure the promotion of targeted fuel poverty strategies.

Comparisons between “sand blast” and “centripetal effect accelerator” type erosion testers

There are two major types of erosion testing devices that are used throughout the world for quantifying particle impact erosion against a solid surface. The first of these uses pressurised air to accelerate abrasive particles through a nozzle so that they impinge upon a target specimen. The second adopts a rotating disc to accelerate abrasive particles using the centripetal effect so that they impinge upon a series of targets arranged around the periphery of the disc. This paper reports the findings of a collaborative project that was designed to compare the performance and results obtained from a rig of each of the two types mentioned above. The sand blast type rig was provided by The Department of Powder Science Technology (POSTEC) at The Telemark Technological Research and Development Centre (TEL-TEK), Porsgrunn, Norway while the centripetal effect accelerator was provided by The Wolfson Centre for Bulk Solids Handling Technology, University of Greenwich, London, UK. The test programme included tests against a wide range of materials that are commonly used in pneumatic handling facilities. (Pneumatic handling is a means of conveying and transporting powders and granular solid materials in bulk in industrial process plant, through pipelines using a gas as the carrier medium.) Olivine sand was used as the abrasive and it was projected against the test specimens at velocities and concentrations commensurate with those seen in pneumatic conveyors. In all instances the materials used in the test programme were taken from the same batch so that scatter of experimental results due to specimen variation was minimised. The paper contains a series of recommendations for erosion testing equipment. A discussion based on the results and their applicability to the prediction of wear in pneumatic conveyors concludes the paper.