Prediction of concrete performance at high temperatures is of great importance, in particular for safety evaluation of concrete structures in fires in tunnels and high buildings or in thermal hazard situations like hypothetical core disruptive nuclear accidents. High temperatures induce strong physical and chemical changes in the micro-structure of concrete that affect its mechanical behaviour....

A multi-scale approach is devoted to the analysis of hygro-elastic internal stresses in porous composite materials. Voids in composite materials are known to cause a significant reduction of mechanical properties. Moreover, in a humid environment they also affect the moisture absorption and the induced internal stresses. In this work, a self-consistent approach is used to estimate internal stre...

A coupled elastoplastic-damage constitutive model taking into account chemo-induced elastoplastic-damage effects for the modeling of coupled chemothermo-hygro-mechanical behavior of concretes at high temperature is proposed in this article. A three-step operator split algorithm for the integration of the rate coupled constitutive equations is developed. Consistent tangent modulus matrices for c...

Semi-structural bonded joints of steel components are exposed to long-term stresses in addition water diffusion, temperature changes and varying external forces during operation. These hygro-thermomechanical loadings lead successive degradation stiffness strength due damage resulting from chemical aging fatigue processes, causing failure the joint when its service life is reached. In following ...

Recombination occurs at high frequencies in all examined retroviruses. The previously determined homologous recombination rate in one retroviral replication cycle is 4% for markers 1.0 kb apart in spleen necrosis virus (SNV). This has often been used to suggest that approximately 30 to 40% of the replication-competent viruses with 7- to 10-kb genomes undergo recombination. These estimates were ...

In this paper we report on the mechanism of delamination in light-emitting diode (LED) packages and its effects on thermal characteristics of LEDs. The LED samples were subjected to moisture preconditioning treatments followed by heat block testing. Transient thermal measurements were performed for the investigation of the thermal behavior of the delaminated LEDs. Increase of thermal resistance...

In recent years paper-based microfluidic systems have emerged as versatile tools for developing sensors in different areas. In this work; we report a novel physical sensing principle for the characterization of liquids using a paper-based hygro-mechanical system (PB-HMS). The PB-HMS is formed by the interaction of liquid droplets and paper-based mini-structures such as cantilever beams. The pro...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper was to study the combined effect of hygro and thermo-mechanical behavior on a plastic encapsulated micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) package during the reflow process after exposed to a humid environment for a prolonged time. Plastic encapsulated electronic packages absorb moisture when they are subjected to humid ambient conditions. Design/methodology/...