Describing failure in geomaterials using second-order work approach

Geomaterials are known to be non-associated materials. Granular soils therefore exhibit a variety of failure modes, with diffuse or localized kinematical patterns. In fact, the notion of failure itself can be confusing with regard to granular soils, because it is not associated with an obvious phenomenology. In this study, we built a proper framework, using the second-order work theory, to describe some failure modes in geomaterials based on energy conservation. The occurrence of failure is defined by an abrupt increase in kinetic energy. The increase in kinetic energy from an equilibrium state, under incremental loading, is shown to be equal to the difference between the external second-order work,involving the external loading parameters, and the internal second-order work, involving the constitutive properties of the material. When a stress limit state is reached, a certain stress component passes through a maximum value and then may decrease. Under such a condition, if a certain additional external loading is applied, the system fails, sharply increasing the strain rate. The internal stress is no longer able to balance the external stress, leading to a dynamic response of the specimen. As an illustration, the theoretical framework was applied to the well-known undrained triaxial test for loose soils. The influence of the loading control mode was clearly highlighted. It is shown that the plastic limit theory appears to be a particular case of this more general second-order work theory. When the plastic limit condition is met, the internal second-order work is nil. A class of incremental external loadings causes the kinetic energy to increase dramatically, leading to the sudden collapse of the specimen, as observed in laboratory.

A Fault Tolerance Scheme for Reliable Transfer in Delay Tolerant Networks

Delay Tolerant Network （DTN） is a class of networks that experience frequent and long-duration partitions due to sparse distribution of nodes. It has a broad prospect to new network applications for a better sealability, fault-tolerant, and high performance. In DTNs, path failure occurs frequently, so message transfer is not reliable. Sometimes it is required to change routing even in a very short period, resulting in transmission delay and reception delay. However, some well-known assumptions of traditional networks are no longer true in DTNs. In this paper, we study the problem of path failures in DTNs. The path failure process in DTNs is described when the path appears completely normal, completely failed and partially failed. Traditional approaches based on using precisely known network dynamics have not accounted for message losses. A new fault tolerant scheme to generate redundancy is to use erasure coding and full replication. This can greatly decrease the path failure rate. At last, a traffic DTN model is analyzed. Results reveal the superiority of our scheme in comparison to other present schemes.

Seismic failure mode improvement of RC frame structure based on multiple lateral load patterns of pushover analyses

The structural failure under severe ground motions is primarily caused by their unreasonable seismic failure mode (SFM). This paper provides a methodology aiming at the SFM improvement of reinforced concrete frame structure. An RC frame is modeled and three types of failure criterion are defined as the premise of SFM. Static pushover analysis is adopted to identify the SFM. The dominant failure modes and failure paths of the structure are obtained in three lateral load patterns (inverted trian- gular distribution, uniform distribution and adaptive distribution). Based on the pushover analysis, the sequential failure of components and the probability of the occurrence of plastic hinges are determined. By this, weak components of the structure are detected and herein are strengthened. The project cost of the proposed strengthening strategy increases by 2.4%. Capacity spectrum method is used to study the performance of the strengthening structure. Pushover analysis is conducted again to present the improvement of strength and ductility. Lateral drift and local response through IDA are also studied to indicate that the strengthening of some columns and beams can improve the SFM to enhance the seismic capacity of structure.