The political decisions and policy leading to the Royal Australian Air Force having no fighters or interceptors for the coming war against Japan

The thesis provides an understanding of the ignored need for a modern air defence system for the Australian air force to meet the growing threat from Japan in the 1930s and early 1940s. The quality of advice provided to, and accepted by, Australian politicians was misleading and eliminated the need for fighters and interceptors despite glaring evidence to the contrary. Based on primary source material, including official documents, Allied and Axis pilot memoirs, popular aviation literature and newspaper and magazine articles and interviews, the thesis highlights the inability of Australian politicians to face the reality of the international situation.

Reiss family portrait on the occasion of the wedding of Harry Gould to Eva Fantl; Royal Connaught Hotel, Hamilton, Ontario.

Standing l-r: George? son of Max Reiss?, Max Reiss, Harry Gould, Moritz Reiss, Joe Reiss, and Herbert Reiss; Seated l-r: Trude Reiss (wife of Herbert), Else Reiss (mother of Joe), Lily Friedlander Gould, Eva Fantl Gould, Trude Reiss (wife of Joe), and Marta Reiss (wife of Max)

Reiss family portrait on the occasion of the wedding of Harry Gould to Eva Fantl; Royal Connaught Hotel, Hamilton, Ontario.

Standing l-r: George? son of Max Reiss?, Max Reiss, Harry Gould, Moritz Reiss, Joe Reiss, and Herbert Reiss; Seated l-r: Trude Reiss (wife of Herbert), Else Reiss (mother of Joe), Lily Friedlander Gould, Eva Fantl Gould, Trude Reiss (wife of Joe), and Marta Reiss (wife of Max)

Bianca and Felix Gerstmann boarding a Royal Air Mail airplane; Singapore Portraits Couples

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Bianca and Felix Gerstmann boarding a Royal Air Mail airplane; Singapore Portraits Couples

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Royal Air Mail plane in Singapore Transportation

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Royal Air Mail plane in Singapore Transportation

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Safety Assessment of a Masonry Arch Bridge: Field Testing and Simulations

The safety of an in-service brick arch railway bridge is assessed through field testing and finite-element analysis. Different loading test train configurations have been used in the field testing. The response of the bridge in terms of displacements, strains, and accelerations is measured under the ambient and design train traffic loading conditions. Nonlinear fracture mechanics-based finite-element analyses are performed to assess the margin of safety. A parametric study is done to study the effects of tensile strength on the progress of cracking in the arch. Furthermore, a stability analysis to assess collapse of the arch caused by lateral movement at the springing of one of the abutments that is elastically supported is carried out. The margin of safety with respect to cracking and stability failure is computed. Conclusions are drawn with some remarks on the state of the bridge within the framework of the information available and inferred information. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)BE.1943-5592.0000338. (C) 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.

Snap-through and pull-in instabilities of an arch-shaped beam under an electrostatic loading

The snap-through and pull-in instabilities of the micromachined arch-shaped beams under an electrostatic loading are studied both theoretically and experimentally. The pull-in instability that results in a system collision with an electrode substrate may lead to a system failure and, thus, limits the system maximum displacement. The beam/plate structure with a flat initial configuration under an electrostatic loading can only experience the pull-in instability. With the different arch configurations, the structure may experience either only the pull-in instability or the snap-through and pull-in instabilities together. As shown in our computation and experiment, those arch-shaped beams with the snap-through instability have the larger maximum displacement compared with the arch-shaped beams with only the pull-in stability and those with the flat initial configuration. The snap-through occurs by exerting a fixed load, and the structure experiences a discontinuous displacement jump without consuming power. Furthermore, after the snap-through jump, the structures are demonstrated to have the capacity to withstand further electrostatic loading without pull-in. Those properties of consuming no power and increasing the structure deflection range without pull-in is very useful in microelectromechanical systems design, which can offer better sensitivity and tuning range.

Asymmetric structure of an isolated flux arch

This paper extends two-dimensional model of symmetric magnetostatic flux arches confined in stratified atmospheres (Zhang and Hu, 1992, 1993) to asymmetric models. Numerical results show that the flux structure is influenced greatly by the boundary condition of magnetic field, the force-free factor, the atmospheric pressure distribution and the position of footpoints (especially the width ratio of outlet to entrance, which differs from symmetric case).