• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.1 no.4
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• pp.263-274
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• 2009

The modified Cam clay (MCC) model is used to study the response of virgin compressed clay in undrained compression. The MCC deviatoric stress-strain relationship is obtained in closed form. Elastic and plastic deviatoric strains are taken into account in the analysis. For the determination of the elastic strain components, both a variable shear modulus and constant shear modulus are considered. Constitutive relationships are applied to the well-known London and Weald clays sheared in undrained compression.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.353-362
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• 2009

In the process of turbine modernizations, the investigation of the influences of water passage roughness on radial flow machine performance is crucial and validates the efficiency step up between reduced scale model and prototype. This study presents the specific losses per component of a Francis turbine, which are estimated by CFD simulation. Simulations are performed for different water passage surface roughness heights, which represents the equivalent sand grain roughness height. As a result, the boundary layer logarithmic velocity profile still exists for rough walls, but moves closer to the wall. Consequently, the wall friction depends not only on roughness height but also on its shape and distribution. The specific losses are determined by CFD numerical simulations for each component of the prototype, taking into account its own specific sand grain roughness height. The model efficiency step up between reduced scale model and prototype value is finally computed by the assessment of specific losses on prototype and by evaluating specific losses for a reduced scale model with smooth walls. Furthermore, surveys of rough walls of each component were performed during the geometry recovery on the prototype and comparisons are made with experimental data from the EPFL Laboratory for Hydraulic Machines reduced scale model measurements. This study underlines that if rough walls are considered, the CFD approach estimates well the local friction loss coefficient. It is clear that by considering sand grain roughness heights in CFD simulations, its forms a significant part of the global performance estimation. The availability of the efficiency field measurements provides an unique opportunity to assess the CFD method in view of a systematic approach for turbine modernization step up evaluation. Moreover, this paper states that CFD is a very promising tool for future evaluation of turbine performance transposition from the scale model to the prototype.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.155-168
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• 2015

No-load speed is an important performance factor for the safe operation of hydropower systems. In turbine design, the manufacturers must conduct several model tests to calculate the accurate value of no-load speed for the complete range of operating conditions, which are expensive and time-consuming. The present study presents steady and unsteady methods for calculating no-load speed of a Francis turbine. The steady simulations are implemented using a commercial flow solver and an iterative algorithm that relies on a smooth relation between turbine torque and speed factor. The unsteady method uses unsteady RANS simulations that have been integrated with a user subroutine to compute and return the value of runner speed, time step and friction torque. The main goal of this research is to evaluate and compare the two methods by calculating turbine dynamic parameters for three test cases consisting of high and medium head Francis turbines. Overall, the numerical results agreed well with experimental data. The unsteady method provided more accurate results in the opening angle range from 20 to 26 degrees. Nevertheless, the steady results showed more consistency than unsteady results for the three different test cases at different operating conditions.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.171-194
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• 2002

In this paper, the behaviour of axially loaded partially encased composite columns made with light welded H steel shapes is examined using ABAQUS finite element modelling. The results of the numerical simulations are compared to the response observed in previous experimental studies on that column system. The steel shape of the specimens has transverse links attached to the flanges to improve its local buckling capacity and concrete is poured between the flanges only. The test specimens included 14 stubcolumns with a square cross section ranging from 300 mm to 600 mm in depth. The transverse link spacing varied from 0.5 to 1 times the depth and the width-to-thickness ratio of the flanges ranged from 23 to 35. The numerical model accounted for nonlinear stress-strain behaviour of materials, residual stresses in the steel shape, initial local imperfections of the flanges, and allowed for large rotations in the solution. A Riks displacement controlled strategy was used to carry out the analysis. Plastic analyses on the composite models reproduced accurately the capacity of the specimens, the failure mode, the axial strain at peak load, the transverse stresses in the web, and the axial stresses in the transverse links. The influence of applying a typical construction loading sequence could also be reproduced numerically. A design equation is proposed to determine the axial capacity of this type of column.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.85-96
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• 2011

Steady state computations are routinely used by design engineers to evaluate and compare losses in hydraulic components. In the case of the draft tube diffuser, however, experiments have shown that while a significant number of operating conditions can adequately be evaluated using steady state computations, a few operating conditions require unsteady simulations to accurately evaluate losses. This paper presents a study that assesses the predictive capacity of a combination of steady and unsteady RANS numerical computations to predict draft tube losses over the complete range of operation of a Francis turbine. For the prediction of the draft tube performance using k-${\varepsilon}$ turbulence model, a methodology has been proposed to average global performance indicators of steady flow computations such as the pressure recovery factor over an adequate number of periods to obtain correct results. The methodology will be validated using two distinct flow solvers, CFX and OpenFOAM, and through a systematic comparison with experimental results obtained on the FLINDT model draft tube.

• Journal of Communications and Networks
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.297-305
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• 2009

Multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) networks require dynamic flow admission control to guarantee end-to-end quality of service (QoS) for each Internet protocol (IP) traffic flow. In this paper, we propose to tackle the joint routing and admission control problem for the IP traffic flows in MPLS networks without rerouting already admitted flows. We propose two mathematical programming models for this problem. The first model includes end-to-end delay constraints and the second one, end-to-end packet loss constraints. These end-to-end QoS constraints are imposed not only for the new traffic flow, but also for all already admitted flows in the network. The objective function of both models is to minimize the end-to-end delay for the new flow. Numerical results show that considering end-to-end delay (or packet loss) constraints for all flows has a small impact on the flow blocking rate. Moreover, we reduces significantly the mean end-to-end delay (or the mean packet loss rate) and the proposed approach is able to make its decision within 250 msec.

• Journal for History of Mathematics
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.33-44
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• 2007

This paper examines a historical case- the French Revolution- of conceptual change in mathematics. The case that is a space of possibility gave birth to a new community of mathematical practitioners. Carnot and Monge shared the particular conceptions of the problems, aims, and methods of a field and contributed to found Ecole Polytechnique. I intend to show how Carnot's and Monge's mathematical endeavours responded to social, political and technological developments in French society.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.132-141
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• 2015

This paper presents a CFD-based methodology for the prediction of guide vane torque in hydraulic turbine distributor for aligned and misaligned configurations. A misaligned or desynchronized configuration occurs when the opening angle of one guide vane differs from the opening angle of all other guide vanes, which may lead to a torque increase on neighbouring guide vanes. A fully automated numerical procedure is presented, that automates computations for a complete range of operation of a 2D or 3D distributor. Results are validated against laboratory measurements.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.125-140
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• 2015

This paper describes the numerical calculation of elastic properties of a simulated microstructure of cement paste from very early age, when most previous models fail to give accurate results. The development of elastic properties of tricalcium silicate pastes was calculated by discretising a numerical resolution-free 3D vector microstructure to a regular cubic mesh. Due to the connections formed in the microstructure as an artefact of the meshing procedure, the simulated elastic moduli were found to be higher than expected. Furthermore, the percolation of the solids was found to occur even before hydration started. A procedure to remove these artefacts, on the basis of the information available in the vector microstructures was developed. After this correction, a better agreement of the experimental results with calculations was obtained between 20% and 40% hydration. However, percolation threshold was found to be delayed significantly. More realistic estimates of percolation threshold were obtained if either flocculation or a densification of calcium silicate hydrate with hydration was assumed.

• Journal of international Conference on Electrical Machines and Systems
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.325-330
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• 2014

Eddy current induction is used in a wide range of electronic devices, for example in detection sensors. Due to the advances in computer hardware and software, the need for 3D computation and system comprehension is a requirement to develop and optimize such devices nowadays. Pure theoretical models are mostly limited to special cases. On the other hand, the classical use of commercial Finite Element (FE) electromagnetic 3D models is not computationally efficient and lacks modeling flexibility or robustness. The proposed approach focuses on: (1) implementing theoretical formulations in 3D (FE) model of a detection device as well as (2) an automatic Volumetric Estimation Method (VEM) developed to selectively model the target finite elements. Due to these two approaches, this model is suitable for parametric studies and optimization of the number, location, shape, and size of PCB receivers in order to get the desired target discrimination information preserving high accuracy with tenfold reduction in computation time compared to commercial FE software.