Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumococcus) is an opportunistic bacterial pathogen responsible for causing several human diseases including pneumonia, meningitis, and otitis media. Pneumococcus is also a major cause of human ocular infections and is commonly isolated in cases of bacterial keratitis, an infection of the cornea. The ocular pathology that occurs during pneumococcal keratitis is partly...

Thin-ply composites are gaining significant attention owing to their high damage resistance and ability enhance design flexibility in a composite structure. Herein we proposed mechanics model considering diffuse discrete ply damages thin-ply laminates for mesoscale simulation. To investigate the effects of thickness on evolution, loading unloading tests were conducted using cross-ply, angle-ply...

Fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) laminates are being used as external reinforcement for strengthening concrete members. The performance of unidirectional FRP laminates is highly dependent on fiber orientation with respect to applied load direction. In the case of fabrication by manual lay-up, it is possible to have fiber plies installed with improper orientation. In this project, the degradation ...

The microcracking process in laminates which have outer-ply 90◦ plies (e.g. [90m/0n]s) has some important differences from the microcracking process in laminates which lack outer-ply 90◦ plies (e.g. [0n/90m]s). Foremost among the differences is the characteristic damage state. [90m/0n]s laminates form antisymmetric or staggered microcracks while [0n/90m]s laminates form symmetric microcracks. T...

The contemporary Formula 1 racing car makes extensive use of advanced composite materials in its construction. The design, manufacture, and ultimate performance under compression of composite suspension push-rods that typically could be used in a Grand Prix racing car are described in this present paper. An aerofoil cross section has been used based on different lay-ups of carbon/epoxy composit...

In this study, the rate dependency of transverse cracking evolution in cross-ply laminates is investigated for several 90° plies thicknesses. The crack detection methodology based on a recently proposed protocol relying use infrared thermography. A new analysis to make it more robust and directly link spatial localization with stress level at which occurs. Based methodology, results obtained va...

We study the transverse cracking of the 90◦ ply in [0/90]S cross-ply laminates by means of a discrete element method. To model the 90◦ ply a two-dimensional triangular lattice of springs is constructed where nodes of the lattice model fibers, and springs with random breaking thresholds represent the disordered matrix material in between. The spring-lattice is coupled by interface springs to two...