In this paper a new method to determine the fracture properties and strain energy release rate for Carbon- Polyester composite has been introduced.  Fracture characteristics such as critical stress intensity factor and critical strain energy release rate for mode I, mode II and mixed mode loading were determined using Arcan type specimen. 130 layers of carbon fiber polyester woven composite wit...

This study numerically predicts the failure scenario of a cracked concrete gravity dam through a push-over nonlinear analysis. The mixed-mode Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics (LEFM) was employed using the extended finite element method (XFEM). The dam base was considered to be fully fixed without any foundation effects. The hydrostatic pressure on the dam's upstream face was increased incremen...

BACKGROUND Surveys of doctors are an important data collection method in health services research. Ways to improve response rates, minimise survey response bias and item non-response, within a given budget, have not previously been addressed in the same study. The aim of this paper is to compare the effects and costs of three different modes of survey administration in a national survey of doct...

Shared memory architectures are gradually becoming more prominent in the HPC market, as advances in technology have allowed larger numbers of CPUs to have access to a single memory space. In addition, manufacturers are increasingly clustering these SMP systems together to go beyond the limits of a single system. As clustered SMPs become more prominent, it becomes more important for applications...

fracture of mixed mode i/ii in beech wood and its wood polymers has been investigated experimentally in this study. hence, two crack systems of tl and rl were selected in which the crack planes extend along the wood fibers. this investigation has demonstrated that onset of mixed mode cracking can be predicted with a very simple fracture criterion in these crack systems. results indicated that f...

Querying XML documents typically involves both tree-based navigation and pattern matching similar to that used in structured information retrieval domains. In this paper, we show that for good performance, a native XML query processing system should support query plans that mix these two processing paradigms. We describe our prototype native XML system, and report on experiments demonstrating t...

This paper contains a theoretical formulation of multiple interface cracks in two bonded dissimilar half planes subjected to in-plane traction. The distributed dislocation technique is used to construct integral equations for a dissimilar mediums weakened by several interface cracks. These equations are of Cauchy singular type at the location of dislocation, which are solved numerically to obta...

Recent advances in development of semiconductor devices lead to more and more complex device structures. This concerns device geometry as well as tne combination of different materials. Due to the rapid reduction of device geometries, the models describing the device physics increase in complexity. 10 gain additional insight into the performance of devices under realistic dynamic boundary condi...