This paper deals with a procedure to calculate the elastic stress intensity factors for arbitrary-shaped cracks in plane stress and plane strain problems. An assumed displacement.hybrid finite element model is employed wherein the unknowns in the final algebraic system of equations are the nodal displacements and the elastic stress intensity factors. Special elements, which contain proper singu...

The stress field near the tip of a crack in a plate subjected to membrane and bending loads and undergoing large deflections, is investigated by performing an asymptotic analysis in the context of von Karman plate theory. It is demonstrated that the character of the near tip fields is identical to those of the linear plate theory. However, the determination of the crack tip stress intensity fac...

Tensile force within non-muscle tissue cells is generated in actomyosin stress fibers, which are composed of contractile units called sarcomeres. The number of sarcomeres and sarcomere lengths dynamically change in the cell but the mechanisms by which these processes occur are not understood. Using live cell imaging of labeled sarcomeres, we show that sarcomere lengths continually fluctuate, wi...

Objective. It is to assess the feasibility, effectiveness, and safety of transobturator tension-free vaginal mesh (Prolift) and concomitant tension-free vaginal tape-obturator (TVT-O) system as a treatment of female anterior vaginal wall prolapse associated with stress urinary incontinence (SUI). Patients and Methods. Between December 2006 and July 2007, 20 patients with anterior genital prolap...

36 subjects were included in a study on the efficacy of EMC biofeedback training in the management of anxiety neurosis. The outcome measures included a physiological stress profile and measures of anxiety symptoms, frontalis muscle tension, skin temperature and electrodermal activity. The data analysis indicated that the subjects were able to maintain reduced levels of frontalis muscle tension ...

A phenomenological macroscopic plasticity model is developed for steels that exhibit strain-induced austenite-to-martensite transformation. The model makes use of a stress-state dependent transformation kinetics law that accounts for both the effects of the stress triaxiality and the Lode angle on the rate of transformation. The macroscopic strain hardening is due to nonlinear kinematic hardeni...

The gravitational collapse of a magnetised medium is investigated by studying qualitatively the convergence of a timelike family of non-geodesic worldlines in the presence of a magnetic field. Focusing on the field’s tension we illustrate how the winding of the magnetic forcelines due to the fluid’s rotation assists the collapse, while shear-like distortions in the distribution of the field’s g...

A phenomenological theory is presented for describing the anisotropic plastic flow of orthotropic polycrystalline aluminum sheet metals under plane stress. The theory uses a stress exponent, a rate-dependent effective flow strength function, and five anisotropic material functions to specify a flowpotential, an associated flow rule of plastic strain rates, a flow rule of plastic spin, and an ev...