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The paper reviews possibilities to predict buckling of thin cylindrical shells with non-destructive techniques during operation. It studies shallow shells made of high strength materials. Such structures are known for surface displacements exceeding the thickness of the elements. In the explored shells relaxation oscillations of significant amplitude can be generated even under relatively low internal stresses. The problem of the cylindrical shell oscillation is mechanically and mathematically modeled in a simplified form by conversion into an ordinary differential equation. To create the model, the researches of many authors were used who studied the geometry of the surface formed after buckling (postbuckling behavior). The nonlinear ordinary differential equation for the oscillating shell matches the well-known Duffing equation. It is important that there is a small parameter before the second time derivative in the Duffing equation. The latter circumstance enables making a detailed analysis of the obtained equation and describing the physical phenomena — relaxation oscillations — that are unique to thin high-strength shells.

It is shown that harmonic oscillations of the shell around the equilibrium position and stable relaxation oscillations are defined by the bifurcation point of the solutions to the Duffing equation. This is the first point in the Feigenbaum sequence to convert the stable periodic motions into dynamic chaos. The amplitude and the period of relaxation oscillations are calculated based on the physical properties and the level of internal stresses within the shell. Two cases of loading are reviewed: compression along generating elements and external pressure.

It is highlighted that if external forces vary in time according to the harmonic law, the periodic oscillation of the shell (nonlinear resonance) is a combination of slow and stick-slip movements. Since the amplitude and the frequency of the oscillations are known, this fact enables proposing an experimental facility for prediction of the shell buckling with non-destructive techniques. The following requirement is set as a safety factor: maximum load combinations must not cause displacements exceeding specified limits. Based on the results of the experimental measurements a formula is obtained to estimate safety against buckling (safety factor) of the structure.

Corrosion damage to metals and alloys is one of the main problems of strength and durability of metal structures and products operated in contact with chemically aggressive environments. Recently, there has been a growing interest in computer modeling of the evolution of corrosion damage, especially pitting corrosion, for a deeper understanding of the corrosion process, its impact on the morphology, physical and chemical properties of the surface and mechanical strength of the material. This is mainly due to the complexity of analytical and high cost of experimental in situ studies of real corrosion processes. However, the computing power of modern computers allows you to calculate corrosion with high accuracy only on relatively small areas of the surface. Therefore, the development of new mathematical models that allow calculating large areas for predicting the evolution of corrosion damage to metals is currently an urgent problem.

In this paper, the evolution of the corrosion front in the interaction of a polycrystalline metal surface with a liquid aggressive medium was studied using a computer model based on a cellular automat. A distinctive feature of the model is the specification of the solid body structure in the form of Voronoi polygons used for modeling polycrystalline alloys. Corrosion destruction was performed by setting the probability function of the transition between cells of the cellular automaton. It was taken into account that the corrosion strength of the grains varies due to crystallographic anisotropy. It is shown that this leads to the formation of a rough phase boundary during the corrosion process. Reducing the concentration of active particles in a solution of an aggressive medium during a chemical reaction leads to corrosion attenuation in a finite number of calculation iterations. It is established that the final morphology of the phase boundary has a fractal structure with a dimension of 1.323 ± 0.002 close to the dimension of the gradient percolation front, which is in good agreement with the fractal dimension of the etching front of a polycrystalline aluminum-magnesium alloy AlMg6 with a concentrated solution of hydrochloric acid. It is shown that corrosion of a polycrystalline metal in a liquid aggressive medium is a new example of a topochemical process, the kinetics of which is described by the Kolmogorov–Johnson– Meil–Avrami theory.

The paper presents an analysis of the nonlinear equation of spin wave transport by the method of characteristics. The conclusion of a new mathematical model of spin wave propagation is presented for the solution of which the characteristic is applied. The behavior analysis of the behavior of the real and imaginary parts of the wave and its amplitude is performed. The phase portraits demonstrate the dependence of the desired function on the nonlinearity coefficient. It is established that the real and imaginary parts of the wave oscillate by studying the nature of the evolution of the initial wave profile by the phase plane method. The transition of trajectories from an unstable focus to a limiting cycle, which corresponds to the oscillation of the real and imaginary parts, is shown. For the amplitude of the wave, such a transition is characterized by its amplification or attenuation (depending on the nonlinearity coefficient and the chosen initial conditions) up to a certain threshold value. It is shown that the time of the transition process from amplification (attenuation) to stabilization of the amplitude also depends on the nonlinearity parameter. It was found out that at the interval of amplification of the amplitude of the spin wave, the time of the transition process decreases, and lower amplitude values correspond to higher parameters of nonlinearity.

Technical carbon (soot) is a product obtained by thermal decomposition (pyrolysis) of hydrocarbons (usually oil) in a stream of heat carrier gas. Technical carbon is widely used as a reinforcing component in the production of rubber and plastic masses. Tire production uses 70% of all carbon produced. In furnace carbon production, the liquid hydrocarbon feedstock is injected into the natural gas combustion product stream through nozzles. The raw material is atomized and vaporized with further pyrolysis. It is important for the raw material to be completely evaporated before the pyrolysis process starts, otherwise coke, that contaminates the product, will be produced. It is impossible to operate without mathematical modeling of the process itself in order to improve the carbon production technology, in particular, to provide the complete evaporation of the raw material prior to the pyrolysis process. Mathematical modelling is the most important way to obtain the most complete and detailed information about the peculiarities of reactor operation.

A three-dimensional mathematical model and calculation method for raw material atomization and evaporation in the thermal gas flow are being developed in the FlowVision software package PC. Water is selected as a raw material to work out the modeling technique. The working substances in the reactor chamber are the combustion products of natural gas. The motion of raw material droplets and evaporation in the gas stream are modeled in the framework of the Eulerian approach of interaction between dispersed and continuous media. The simulation results of raw materials atomization and evaporation in a real reactor for technical carbon production are presented. Numerical method allows to determine an important atomization characteristic: average Sauter diameter. That parameter could be defined from distribution of droplets of raw material at each time of spray forming.

The coconut tree is often mentioned as the “tree of life” due to its immense benefits to the human community ranging from edible products to building materials. Rugose spiraling whitefly (RSW), a natural enemy seems to be a major threat to farmers in bringing up these coconut trees. A mathematical model to study the dynamics of pest population in the presence of predator and parasite is developed. The biologically feasible equilibrium points are derived. Local asymptotic stability as well as global asymptotic stability is analyzed at the points. Furthermore, in order to educate farmers on pest control, we have added the impact of awareness programs in the model. The conditions of existence and stability properties of all feasible steady states of this model are analyzed. The result reveals that predator and parasite play a major role in reducing the immature pest. It also shows that pest control activities through awareness programs further reduce the mature pest population which decreases the egg laying rate which in turn reduces the immature population.

The article deals with the nonlinear boundary-value problem of hydrogen permeability corresponding to the following experiment. A membrane made of the target structural material heated to a sufficiently high temperature serves as the partition in the vacuum chamber. Degassing is performed in advance. A constant pressure of gaseous (molecular) hydrogen is built up at the inlet side. The penetrating flux is determined by mass-spectrometry in the vacuum maintained at the outlet side.

A linear model of dependence on concentration is adopted for the coefficient of dissolved atomic hydrogen diffusion in the bulk. The temperature dependence conforms to the Arrhenius law. The surface processes of dissolution and sorptiondesorption are taken into account in the form of nonlinear dynamic boundary conditions (differential equations for the dynamics of surface concentrations of atomic hydrogen). The characteristic mathematical feature of the boundary-value problem is that concentration time derivatives are included both in the diffusion equation and in the boundary conditions with quadratic nonlinearity. In terms of the general theory of functional differential equations, this leads to the so-called neutral type equations and requires a more complex mathematical apparatus. An iterative computational algorithm of second-(higher- )order accuracy is suggested for solving the corresponding nonlinear boundary-value problem based on explicit-implicit difference schemes. To avoid solving the nonlinear system of equations at every time step, we apply the explicit component of difference scheme to slower sub-processes.

The results of numerical modeling are presented to confirm the fitness of the model to experimental data. The degrees of impact of variations in hydrogen permeability parameters (“derivatives”) on the penetrating flux and the concentration distribution of H atoms through the sample thickness are determined. This knowledge is important, in particular, when designing protective structures against hydrogen embrittlement or membrane technologies for producing high-purity hydrogen. The computational algorithm enables using the model in the analysis of extreme regimes for structural materials (pressure drops, high temperatures, unsteady heating), identifying the limiting factors under specific operating conditions, and saving on costly experiments (especially in deuterium-tritium investigations).

High-purity hydrogen is required for clean energy and a variety of chemical technology processes. A considerable part of hydrogen is to be obtained by methane conversion. Different alloys, which may be wellsuited for use in gas-separation plants, were investigated by measuring specific hydrogen permeability. One had to estimate the parameters of diffusion and sorption to numerically model the different scenarios and experimental conditions of the material usage (including extreme ones), and identify the limiting factors. This paper presents a nonlinear model of hydrogen permeability in accordance with the specifics of the experiment, the numerical method for solving the boundary-value problem, and the results of parametric identification for the alloy V₈₅Ni₁₅.

Theoretical and experimental investigations of water vapor interaction with porous materials are carried out both at the macro level and at the micro level. At the macro level, the influence of the arrangement structure of individual pores on the processes of water vapor interaction with porous material as a continuous medium is studied. At the micro level, it is very interesting to investigate the dependence of the characteristics of the water vapor interaction with porous media on the geometry and dimensions of the individual pore.

In this paper, a study was carried out by means of mathematical modelling of the processes of water vapor interaction with suffering pore of the cylindrical type. The calculations were performed using a model of a hybrid type combining a molecular-dynamic and a macro-diffusion approach for describing water vapor interaction with an individual pore. The processes of evolution to the state of thermodynamic equilibrium of macroscopic characteristics of the system such as temperature, density, and pressure, depending on external conditions with respect to pore, were explored. The dependence of the evolution parameters on the distribution of the diffusion coefficient in the pore, obtained as a result of molecular dynamics modelling, is examined. The relevance of these studies is due to the fact that all methods and programs used for the modelling of the moisture and heat conductivity are based on the use of transport equations in a porous material as a continuous medium with known values of the transport coefficients, which are usually obtained experimentally.

In this paper, we address the mathematical modeling of robots based on tensegrity structures. The pivotal property of such structures is the forming elements working only for compression or tension, which allows the use of materials and structural solutions that minimize the weight of the structure while maintaining its strength.

Tensegrity structures hold several properties important for collaborative robotics, exploration and motion tasks in non-deterministic environments: natural compliance, compactness for transportation, low weight with significant impact resistance and rigidity. The control of such structures remains an open research problem, which is associated with the complexity of describing the dynamics of such structures.

We formulate an approach for describing the dynamics of such structures, based on second-order dynamics of the Cartesian coordinates of structure elements (rods), first-order dynamics for angular velocities of rods, and first-order dynamics for quaternions that are used to describe the orientation of rods. We propose a numerical method for solving these dynamic equations. The proposed methods are implemented in the form of a freely distributed mathematical package with open source code.

Further, we show how the provided software package can be used for modeling the dynamics and determining the operating modes of tensegrity structures. We present an example of a tensegrity structure moving in zero gravity with three rigid rods and nine elastic elements working in tension (cables), showing the features of the dynamics of the structure in reaching the equilibrium position. The range of initial conditions for which the structure operates in the normal mode is determined. The results can be directly used to analyze the nature of passive dynamic movements of the robots based on a three-link tensegrity structure, considered in the paper; the proposed modeling methods and the developed software are suitable for modeling a significant variety of tensegrity robots.

Flexible software for modeling polymeric film production by use of blown extrusion has been developed. It consists of library of mathematical models for extrusion and forming blown film, sub-system for changeover to new type of film and sub-system for investigation of extrusion and forming for film quality control under film production. The sub-system for changeover allows to choose the equipment of extrusion line on technical and economic indices, to synthesize 3D model of the line and to generate regulation ranges of regime parameters for given type of film. The sub-system for investigation allows to calculate temperature profiles of heating and cooling material, geometrical and optical characteristics of film depending on regime parameters for stages of extrusion and forming and to evaluate regime parameters ensuring given quality of polymeric film.