Recent experimental studies showed that isotropic vocal fold models were often blown wide apart and thus not able to maintain adductory position, resulting in voice production with noticeable breathy quality. This study showed that the capability of the vocal fold to resist deformation against airflow and maintain adductory position can be improved by stiffening the body-layer stiffness or incr...

A hybrid BEM-p-y curves approach was developed for the single pile analysis with free/fixed head restraint conditions. The method considers the soil non-linear behaviour by means of p-y curves in series to a multi-layered elastic half-space. The non-linearity of reinforced concrete pile sections, also considering the influence of tension-stiffening, has been considered. The model reproduces the...

Synopsis: With long-term deflection being a critical design criterion, accurate deflection prediction is an important aspect of slab design. The many factors that influence long-term deflections and their interdependence as well as variability in material strengths and characteristics make this a challenging problem. Most building codes and standards provide methods and formulae to account for ...

A meshfree method for nonlinear analysis of two-dimensional reinforced concrete structures subjected to monotonic static loading is presented. The concrete model is implemented in the context of the smeared rotating crack approach. The stress-strain relationship for steel bars accounts for the surrounding concrete bonded to the bar (tension stiffening effect). The principle of virtual work (var...

Nanocomposites made of Carbon Nanotube (CNT) bundles have attracted researchers’ attention due to their unusual properties such as: light weight, flexibility and stiffness.  In this paper, the effects of straight and rope-shaped bundles on nanocomposite effective mechanical properties are investigated.  First, FEA models are created consisting of CNTs with different shapes of straight and rope-...

Biopolymer networks, such as those constituting the cytoskeleton of a cell or biological tissue, exhibit a nonlinear strain-stiffening behavior when subjected to large deformations. Interestingly, rheological experiments on various in vitro biopolymer networks have shown similar strain-stiffening trends regardless of the differences in their microstructure or constituents, suggesting a universa...

Localized pattern formations and "two-phase" deformations are studied theoretically in soft compressible cylinders subject to surface tension axial loading through several force-controlled scenarios. By drawing upon known results for separate yet mathematically similar elastic localization problems, a concise family of analytical bifurcation conditions localized bulging or necking derived terms...

Cellular membranes consist of a large variety lipids and proteins, with composition that generally differs between the two leaflets same bilayer. One consequence this asymmetry is thought to be emergence differential stress, i.e., mismatch in lateral tension leaflets. This can affect membrane’s mechanical properties; for instance, it increase bending rigidity once stress exceeds critical thresh...