The AISC Seismic Provisions and CSA S-16 Standard require a minimum moment of inertia for the vertical boundary elements (VBEs) in steel plate shear walls (SPSWs) to avoid undesirable VBE behaviors. The equation limiting VBE flexibility has been derived from a flexibility factor, ωt, developed in plate girder theory and the limit on VBE flexibility has been empirically specified based on previo...

This paper describes one-dimensional (parallel) laminar and transitional regimes of natural convection in a viscous stably stratified fluid due to temporally-periodic variations in the surface temperature of infinite vertical plates and cylinders. Analytical solutions are obtained for the periodic laminar regime for arbitrary values of stratification, Prandtl number and forcing frequency. The s...

Introduction: There are several options for cerebrospinal fluid diversion in patients with normal pressure hydrocephalus. Fixed and programmable valves, with or without anti-siphon devices, have been used for ventriculoperitoneal shunts and horizontal-vertical valves for lumboperitoneal shunts. Recently, a horizontal-vertical valve was developed for ventriculoperitoneal shunts and has been demo...

The Prandtl number dependence of unsteady laminar natural convection along an infinite vertical plate in a thermally stratified fluid is investigated. Flows are induced by an impulsive (step) change in plate temperature and by a suddenly imposed plate heat flux. Analytical solutions of the viscous equations of motion and thermodynamic energy are obtained for Prandtl numbers near unity by the me...

In this paper we present a proposal to solve the problem of license plate recognition using a three layer fuzzy neural network. In the first stage the plate is detected inside the digital image using rectangular perimeter detection and the finding of a pattern by pattern matching, after that, the characters are extracted from the plate by means of horizontal and vertical projections. Finally, a...

This paper is about experimental results for partial reduction of vortex at vertical pipe intakes. One of the easiest and practical ways of reducing vortex effect is to use anti-vortex plates or baffles. These plates can be used to avoid the vortex completely or partially. This paper will concentrate on the latter case. Rectangular plates with different dimensions have been placed at different ...

In this paper, a scaling analysis using a simple three-region structure was conducted for the unsteady natural convection boundary layer (NCBL) of a homogeneous Newtonian fluid with Pr > 1 adjacent to a vertical plate evenly heated with a time-dependent sinusoidal temperature. A series of scalings were developed for the thermal boundary thickness, the viscous boundary thicknesses, the maximum v...

We study a nonlinear nonlocal evolution equation describing the hydrodynamics of thin films in the presence of normal electric fields. The liquid film is assumed to be perfectly conducting and to completely wet the upper or lower surface of a horizontal flat plate. The flat plate is held at constant voltage, and a vertical electric field is generated by a second parallel electrode kept at a dif...

BACKGROUND Clinically there are different fixation methods used for fixation of the posterior malleolar fractures (PMF), but the best treatment modality is still not clear. Few studies have concentrated on this issue, least of all using a biomechanical comparison. The purpose of this study was to carry out a computational comparative biomechanics of three different commonly used fixation constr...

Modern electronics allow for the unobtrusive measurement of accelerations outside the laboratory using wireless sensor nodes. The ability to accurately measure joint accelerations under unrestricted conditions, and to correlate them with jump height and landing force, could provide important data to better understand joint mechanics subject to real-life conditions. This study investigates the c...