an analytical nonlinear stress-strain model and a microscopic damage index for confined and unconfined concretes together with a macroscopic damage index for reinforced concrete (rc) structures under cyclic loading are proposed. in order to eliminate the problem of scale effect, an adjustable finite element computer program was generated to simulate rc structures subjected to cyclic loading. by...

Molecular chirality leads to a wonderful variety of equilibrium structures, from the simple cholesteric phase to the twist-grain-boundary phases, and it is responsible for interesting and technologically important materials like ferroelectric liquid crystals. This paper will review some recent advances in our understanding of the connection between the chiral geometry of individual molecules an...

Several microscopic and scattering techniques at different observation scales (from atomic to macroscopic) were used to characterize both surface and bulk properties of four new flat-sheet polyethersulfone (PES) membranes (10, 30, 100 and 300 kDa) and new 100 kDa hollow fibers (PVDF). Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) with "in lens" detection was used to obtain information on the pore sizes of...

We directly probe the microscopic structure, connectivity, and elasticity of colloidal gels using confocal microscopy. We show that the gel is a random network of one-dimensional chains of particles. By measuring thermal fluctuations, we determine the effective spring constant between pairs of particles as a function of separation; this is in agreement with the theory for fractal chains. Long-r...

A single electron transistor is used as a local electrostatic probe to study the underlying spatial structure of the metal-insulator transition in two dimensions. The measurements show that as we approach the transition from the metallic side, a new phase emerges that consists of weakly coupled fragments of the two-dimensional system. These fragments consist of localized charge that coexists wi...

Article history: Received 29 March 2015 Received in revised form 12 May 2015 Accepted 12 May 2015 Available online 15 May 2015 Editor: J. Hisano We show that for 1 + 1 dimensional Causal Dynamical Triangulations (CDT) coupled to 4 massive scalar fields one can construct an effective transfer matrix if the masses squared are larger than or equal to 0.05. The properties of this transfer matrix ca...

When a solid is dissolved in a solvent, it might dissociate or remain intact. If the former, it becomes solvated. This means that solvent molecules will form a solvent shell or solvation shell around the solute species. The number of such nearest neighbor solvent molecules is called the coordination number. Some examples, shown as snapshots from computer simulations of solvation, illustrate the...

The microscopic structure of liquid methanol has been systematically investigated with Raman spectroscopy in a temperature range of 15-55 degrees C. The unbonded free -OH stretching vibrational band has been observed at approximately 3660 cm(-1) in pure liquid. With the aid of depolarization measurements and theoretical calculations, four featured spectral components have been unambiguously ide...