As in the case of two-dimensional topology design optimization, numerical instability problems similar to the formation of two-dimensional checkerboard patterns occur if the standard eight-node conforming brick element is used. Motivated by the recent success of the two-dimensional non-conforming elements in completely eliminating checkerboard patterns, we aim at investigating the performance o...

An investigation focused on the transformation and distribution behaviors of trace elements and natural radionuclides around a coal gangue brick plant was conducted. Simultaneous sampling of coal gangue, brick, fly ash and flue gas were implemented. Soil, soybean and earthworm samples around the brick plant were also collected for comprehensive ecological assessment. During the firing process, ...

nowadays, textile and woven fabric composites are taken into consideration forapplications in high mechanical properties and every in-plane direction. however, developments inmodelling and characterisation of the fabric reinforced composite materials are considered more inthe effects of element types used in the mesh generation of the crack tip. the type of elementselected for the crack tip, a ...

The landscape of the human genome consists of millions of short islands of conservation that are 100% conserved across multiple vertebrate genomes (termed "bricks"), the majority of which are located in noncoding regions. Several hundred thousand bricks are deeply conserved reaching the genomes of amphibians and fish. Deep phylogenetic conservation of noncoding DNA has been reported to be stron...

This paper presents a novel interface element for the geometric and material nonlinear analysis of unreinforced brick-masonry structures. In the proposed modelling approach, the blocks are modelled using 3D continuum solid elements, while the mortar and brick-mortar interfaces are modelled by means of the 2D nonlinear interface element. This enables the representation of any 3D arrangement for ...

Unreinforced masonry (URM) walls comprise vertical piers and horizontal spandrels, which together form the lateral load resisting system. Whereas past research yielded significant advances in the understanding of the force–deformation characteristics of masonry piers, knowledge of the behaviour of masonry spandrels is lacking. This paper makes a contribution to our understanding of the seismic ...

Using elements of the structural theory of matchings and a recently proved conjecture concerning bricks, it is shown that every n-extendable brick (except K4, C6 and the Petersen graph) with p vertices and q edges contains at least q − p + (n − 1)!! perfect matchings. If the girth of such an n-extendable brick is at least five, then this graph has at least q − p + nn−1 perfect matchings. As a c...