In this paper, we have used numerical simulation to study failure of adhesive joints in composite plates. To determine the failure load, adhesive joints are subjected to different types of loading and gradual failure of the joint is studied using the finite element method. The composite material failure theory is implemented into the FEM software. Also different geometries for the joint edge ar...

Streptococcus pneumoniae accounts for more deaths worldwide than any other single pathogen through diverse disease manifestations including pneumonia, sepsis and meningitis. Life-threatening acute cardiac complications are more common in pneumococcal infection compared to other bacterial infections. Distinctively, these arise despite effective antibiotic therapy. Here, we describe a novel mecha...

An analytical approach with the help of numerical simulations based on the equivalent constraint model (ECM) was proposed to investigate the progressive failure behavior of symmetric fiber-reinforced composite laminates damaged by transverse ply cracking. A fracture criterion was developed to describe the initiation and propagation of the transverse ply cracking. This work was also concerned wi...

Two themes form the basis of this study on fibre reinforced laminated composites: namely 'thermal residual stress' and 'transverse cracking'. Thermal residual stresses are inherent to any composite structure and are internal stress within the structure that form during manufacture. Their formation arises from the difference in coefficient of thermal expansion of the fibre and the matrix. These ...

Streptococcus pneumoniae is the causative agent of multiple diseases, including otitis media, pneumonia, bacteremia, and meningitis. Pneumolysin (Ply), a member of the cholesterol-dependent cytolytic pore-forming toxins, is produced by virtually all clinical isolates of S. pneumoniae, and strains in which the Ply gene has been deleted are severely attenuated in mouse models of infection. In con...

This work aims at developing a genetic algorithm (GA) to pursue the optimization of hybrid laminated composite structures. Fiber orientation (predefined ply angles), material (glass-epoxy or carbon-epoxy layer) and total number of plies are considered as design variables. The GA is chosen as an optimization tool because of its ability to deal with nonconvex, multimodal and discrete optimization...

A challenge in numerical simulation of crashworthiness study is to be able to predict the crush damage modes, their evolution during crushing and the energy absorption in any composite structure from elementary material characterisation data. Therefore, it is important to know the behavior of one ply subjected to crushing load, and especially to determine the mean crushing stress that could be ...

Streptococcus pneumoniae adherence to human epithelial cells (HECs) is the first step in pathogenesis leading to infections. We sought to determine the role of human antibodies against S. pneumoniae protein vaccine candidates PhtD, PcpA, and Ply in preventing adherence to lung HECs in vitro and mouse nasopharyngeal (NP) colonization in vivo. Human anti-PhtD, -PcpA, and -Ply antibodies were puri...

This paper presents a hybrid meta-heuristic algorithm called multiple start guided neighbourhood search (MSGNS) algorithm for combinatorial optimisation which combines the good features of popular guided local search algorithms like simulated annealing and tabu search. It has been organized as a multiple start algorithm to maintain a good balance between intensification and diversification. The...

The cholesterol-dependent cytolysin (CDC) pneumolysin (Ply) is a key virulence factor of Streptococcus pneumoniae. Membrane cholesterol is required for the cytolytic activity of this toxin, but it is not clear whether cholesterol is the only cellular receptor. Analysis of Ply binding to a glycan microarray revealed that Ply has lectin activity and binds glycans, including the Lewis histo-blood ...