Numerical study of soil-rock mixture:Generation of random aggregate structure

The soil-rock mixture(SRM) is highly heterogeneous. Before carrying out numerical analysis,a structure model should be generated. A reliable way to obtain such structure is by generating random aggregate structure based on random sequential addition(RSA). The classical RSA is neither efficient nor robust since valid positions to place new inclusions are formulated by trial, which involves repetitive overlapping tests. In this paper, the algorithm of Entrance block between block A and B(EAB)is synergized with background mesh to redesign RSA so that permissible positions to place new inclusions can be predicted,resulting in dramatic improvement in efficiency and robustness.

Turing/Turing-like patterns:Products of random aggregation of spatial components

Turing patterns are typical spatiotemporal ordered structures in various systems driven far from thermodynamic equilibrium.Turing’s reaction-diffusion theory,containing a long-range inhibiting agent and a local catalytic agent,has provided an explanation for the formation of some patterns in nature.Numerical,experimental and theoretical studies about Turing/Turing-like patterns have been generally focused on systems driven far from thermodynamic equilibrium.The local dynamics of these systems are commonly very complex,which brings great difficulties to understanding of formation of patterns.Here,we investigate a type of Turing-like patterns in a near-equilibrium thermodynamic system experimentally and theoretically,and put forward a new formation mechanism and a quantitative method for Turing/Turing-like patterns.Specifically,we observe a type of Turing-like patterns in starch solutions,and study the effect of concentration on the structure of patterns.The experimental results show that,with the increase of concentration,patterns change from spots to inverse spots,and labyrinthine stripe patterns appear in the region of intermediate concentration.We analyze and model the formation mechanism of these patterns observed in experiments,and the simulation results agree with the experimental results.Our conclusion indicates that the random aggregation of spatial components leads to formation of these patterns,and the proportion of spatial components determines the structures.Our findings shed light on the formation mechanism for Turing/Turing-like patterns.

Parallel computation of seismic analysis of high arch dam

Parallel computation programs are developed for three-dimensional meso-mechanics analysis of fully-graded dam concrete and seismic response analysis of high arch dams （ADs）, based on the Parallel Finite Element Program Generator （PFEPG）. The computational algorithms of the numerical simulation of the meso-structure of concrete specimens were studied. Taking into account damage evolution, static preload, strain rate effect, and the heterogeneity of the meso-structure of dam concrete, the fracture processes of damage evolution and configuration of the cracks can be directly simulated. In the seismic response analysis of ADs, all the following factors are involved, such as the nonlinear contact due to the opening and slipping of the contraction joints, energy dispersion of the far-field foundation, dynamic interactions of the dam-foundation- reservoir system, and the combining effects of seismic action with all static loads. The correctness, reliability and efficiency of the two parallel computational programs are verified with practical illustrations.

Numerical simulation of mesoscopic cracking of cement-treated base material based on random polygon aggregate model

Cracking failure of cement-treated base(CTB)has always been the concern of highway constructors.Mesoscale cracking analysis is an important means to study the damage degradation mechanism,which is difficult to be characterized by experimental techniques alone.The objective of this paper is to develop a random aggregate modelling method to simulate the mesoscopic cracking of CTB material.A minimum rectangle area method was proposed to calculate the polygon aggregate size,which is closer to the sieving analysis than the average radius method.A buffer zone method was proposed to determine the distance between randomly generated polygon aggregates.Based on the proposed random algorithm,finite element method(FEM)was adopted to build the mesoscopic model of CTB including aggregate,mortar,interfacial transition zone(ITZ)and air voids.Laboratory tests were conducted to validate the numerical model.Then the sensitivity analyses were conducted to study the influencing factors on cracking behavior.The simulation results indicate that the higher aggregate content and the finer gradation lead to the increase of ITZ,thus reducing the cracking resistance of the CTB material.Low porosity content is able to significantly reduce the stress concentration and thus improves the cracking resistance.The research results of this paper could be used to guide the crack resistant design of CTB material.

Krigings over space and time based on latent low-dimensional structures

We propose a new nonparametric approach to represent the linear dependence structure of a spatiotemporal process in terms of latent common factors.Though it is formally similar to the existing reduced rank approximation methods,the fundamental difference is that the low-dimensional structure is completely unknown in our setting,which is learned from the data collected irregularly over space but regularly in time.Furthermore,a graph Laplacian is incorporated in the learning in order to take the advantage of the continuity over space,and a new aggregation method via randomly partitioning space is introduced to improve the efficiency.We do not impose any stationarity conditions over space either,as the learning is facilitated by the stationarity in time.Krigings over space and time are carried out based on the learned low-dimensional structure,which is scalable to the cases when the data are taken over a large number of locations and/or over a long time period.Asymptotic properties of the proposed methods are established.An illustration with both simulated and real data sets is also reported.