A new test method has been developed to measure the resistance of dynamic fracture initiation in brittle materials under combined mode I/I loadings. The Brazilian disks with center-cracks have been fractured under oblique impact loadings in diarnetral-compression. The dynamic stress intensity factors of mode I and H are evaluated from the superposition integrals of the step response functions f...

Mental toughness has been explored predominantly within sport contexts. Nevertheless, it is difficult to conceive mental toughness as only applicable to athletes. This study examines whether mentally tough participants exhibit resilience against stress. This is a cross-sectional study based on two different samples: Sample 1 consisted of 284 high school students (99 males, 185 females, M = 18.3...

An impact fatigue study has been made for the first time on 63⋅5% glass fibre reinforced vinylester resin notched composites. The study was conducted in a pendulum type repeated impact apparatus especially designed and fabricated for determining single and repeated impact strengths. A well-defined impact fatigue (S–N) behaviour, having a progressive endurance below the threshold single cycle im...

Abstract: During the last decade, the demand for natural gas has steadily increased for the prevention of environmental pollution. For this reason, many liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers have been manufactured. Since one of the most important issues in the design of LNG carriers is to guarantee structural safety, the use of low-temperature materials is increasing. Among commonly employed low...

In 1995, Brouwer proved that the toughness of a connected k-regular graph G is at least k/λ − 2, where λ is the maximum absolute value of the non-trivial eigenvalues of G. Brouwer conjectured that one can improve this lower bound to k/λ − 1 and that many graphs (especially graphs attaining equality in the Hoffman ratio bound for the independence number) have toughness equal to k/λ. In this pape...

In order to optimize the strength-toughness matching of auto body components. Taking B1500HS steel as research object. The influence die temperature on microstructure and properties was studied by hot stamping tests flat die, mechanical observation tests. study shows that is not sensitive below 250°C. When 20–250°C, tensile strength above 1400 MPa, while plastic-toughness poor; 300°C, begins ge...

Polylactide (PLA) and poly[(butylene succinate)-co-adipate] (PBSA) were reacted by being blended in a batch mixer in the presence of a chain extender, triphenyl phosphite (TPP), and two different types of organically modified clays—a montmorillonite clay (C20A) and a synthetic mica (MEE)—to enhance the thermal stability, impact toughness, and barrier properties of the PLA. An accelerated increa...

Despite its rising prominence in the academic literature, the underlying inputs, processes and outputs of mental toughness remain relatively unexplored (Hardy, Bell, & Beattie, 2014). As such, the purpose of the study is to present a systems-approach model of mental toughness that classifies attributes of mental toughness within the aggregated system of inputs, processes and outputs. To this en...

We propose a versatile approach to computing the effective toughness of heterogeneous media. This approach focusses on the material property independent of the details of the boundary condition. The key idea is what we call a surfing boundary condition, where a steadily propagating crack opening displacement is applied as a boundary condition to a large domain while the crack set is allowed to ...