Reliability-based load and resistance factors for soil-nail walls

Existing soil nailing design methodologies are essentially based on limit equilibrium principles that together with a lumped factor of safety or a set of partial factors on the material parameters and loads account for uncertainties in design input parameter values. Recent trends in the development of design procedures for earth retaining structures are towards load and resistance factor design (LRFD). In the present study, a methodology for the use of LRFD in the context of soil-nail walls is proposed and a procedure to determine reliability-based load and resistance factors is illustrated for important strength limit states with reference to a 10 m high soil-nail wall. The need for separate partial factors for each limit state is highlighted, and the proposed factors are compared with those existing in the literature.

Thermal Weight Functions and Stress Intensity Factors for Bonded Dissimilar Media Using Body Analogy

In this study, an analytical method is presented for the computation of thermal weight functions in two dimensional bi-material elastic bodies containing a crack at the interface and subjected to thermal loads using body analogy method. The thermal weight functions are derived for two problems of infinite bonded dissimilar media, one with a semi-infinite crack and the other with a finite crack along the interface. The derived thermal weight functions are shown to reduce to the already known expressions of thermal weight functions available in the literature for the respective homogeneous elastic body. Using these thermal weight functions, the stress intensity factors are computed for the above interface crack problems when subjected to an instantaneous heat source.

A derivation of thermodynamic quantities of liquid alloys from their structure factors

A method of deriving the thermodynamic properties of mixing in liquid alloys Delta G, Delta S and Delta H, from low-Q scattering data has been presented. As an example, the method has been demonstrated with liquid Na-Ga alloys for which both thermodynamic and diffraction data have recently been obtained by the authors.

Implications of unitarity and analyticity for the D pi form factors

We consider the vector and scalar form factors of the charm-changing current responsible for the semileptonic decay D -> pi/nu. Using as input dispersion relations and unitarity for the moments of suitable heavy-light correlators evaluated with Operator Product Expansions, including O(alpha(2)(s)) terms in perturbative QCD, we constrain the shape parameters of the form factors and find exclusion regions for zeros on the real axis and in the complex plane. For the scalar form factor, a low-energy theorem and phase information on the unitarity cut are also implemented to further constrain the shape parameters. We finally propose new analytic expressions for the D pi form factors, derive constraints on the relevant coefficients from unitarity and analyticity, and briefly discuss the usefulness of the new parametrizations for describing semileptonic data.

Factors Affecting Laser-Excited Photoluminescence from ZnO Nanostructures

The role of defects on laser-excited photoluminescence of various ZnO nanostructures has been investigated. The study shows that defects present in ZnO nanostructures, specially Zn-related defects play a crucial role in determining the laser-excited photoluminescence intensity (LEI). ZnO nanoparticles as well as nanorods (NR) annealed in oxygen atmosphere exhibit remarkable enhancement in LEI. A similar enhancement is also shown by Al-doped ZnO NR. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.

The Dπ form factors from analyticity and unitarity

We study the shape parameters of the Dπ scalar and vector form factors using as input dispersion relations and unitarity for the moments of suitable heavy-light correlators evaluated with Operator Product Expansions, including O(α 2 s) terms in perturbative QCD. For the scalar form factor, a low energy theorem and phase information on the unitarity cut are implemented to further constrain the shape parameters. We finally determine points on the real axis and isolate regions in the complex energy plane where zeros of the form factors are excluded.

The Kπ form factors from analyticity and unitarity

Analyticity and unitarity techniques are employed to obtain bounds on the shape parameters of the scalar and vector form factors of semileptonic K l3 decays. For this purpose we use vector and scalar correlators evaluated in pQCD, a low energy theorem for scalar form factor, lattice results for the ratio of kaon and pion decay constants, chiral perturbation theory calculations for the scalar form factor at the Callan-Treiman point and experimental information on the phase and modulus of Kπ form factors up to an energy t in = 1GeV 2. We further derive regions on the real axis and in the complex-energy plane where the form factors cannot have zeros.