Volume 21 (2016): Edizione 2 (May 2016)

When the structure of reinforcement is in danger of chloride corrosion it is possible to prevent this disadvantageous phenomenon through exposing the cover to the influence of an electric field. The forces of an electric field considerably reduce chloride ions in pore liquid in concrete, which helps to rebuild a passive layer on the surface of the reinforcement and stops corrosion. The process of removing chlorides can be described with multi-component diffusion equations. However, an essential parameter of these equations, the diffusion coefficient, can be determined on the basis of an inverse task. Since the solution was achieved for one-dimension flow, the method applied can be confirmed by experimental results and the material parameters of the process can be determined theoretically. Some examples of numerical calculations of the effective electro-diffusion coefficient of chloride ions confirmed the usefulness of the theoretical solution for generalizing experimental results. Moreover, the calculation process of the numerical example provides some practical clues for future experimental research, which could be carried out in close connection with the theoretical solution.

The flow of a ferrofluid due to a rotating disk in the presence of a non-uniform magnetic field in the axial direction is studied through mathematical modeling of the problem. Contour and surface plots in the presence of 10 kilo-ampere/meter, 100 kilo-ampere/meter magnetization force are presented here for radial, tangential and axial velocity profiles, and results are also drawn for the magnetic field intensity. These results are compared with the ordinary case where magnetization force is absent.

The paper is concerned with the propagation of plane waves in a transversely isotropic two temperature generalized thermoelastic solid half-space with voids and rotation. The governing equations are modified in the context of Lord and Shulman theory of generalized thermoelasticity and solved to show the existence of four plane waves in the x – z plane. Reflection of these plane waves from thermally insulated stress free surface is also studied to obtain a system of four non-homogeneous equations. For numerical computations of speed and reflection coefficients, a particular material is modelled as transversely isotropic generalized thermoelastic solid half-space. The speeds of plane waves are computed against the angle of propagation to observe the effects of two temperature and rotation. Reflection coefficients of various reflected waves are also computed against the angle of incidence to observe the effects of various parameters.

In this paper, the problem of interface wave scattering by bottom undulations in the presence of a thin submerged vertical wall with a gap is investigated. The thin vertical wall with a gap is submerged in a lower fluid of finite depth with bottom undulations and the upper fluid is of infinite height separated by a common interface. In the method of solution, we use a simplified perturbation analysis and suitable applications of Green’s integral theorem in the two fluid regions produce first-order reflection and transmission coefficients in terms of integrals involving the shape function describing the bottom undulations and solution of the scattering problem involving a submerged vertical wall present in the lower fluid of uniform finite depth. For sinusoidal bottom undulations, the first-order transmission coefficient vanishes identically. The corresponding first-order reflection coefficient is computed numerically by solving the zero-order reflection coefficient and a suitable application of multi-term Galerkin approximations. The numerical results of the zero-order and first-order reflection coefficients are depicted graphically against the wave number in a number of figures. An oscillatory nature is observed of first-order reflection coefficient due to multiple interactions of the incident wave with bottom undulations, the edges of the submerged wall and the interface. The first-order reflection coefficient has a peak value for some particular value of the ratio of the incident wavelength and the bottom wavelength. The presence of the upper fluid has some significant effect on the reflection coefficients.

A theoretical study is carried out to obtain an analytical solution of free convective heat transfer for the flow of a polar fluid through a porous medium with variable permeability bounded by a semi-infinite vertical plate in a slip flow regime. A uniform magnetic field acts perpendicular to the porous surface. The free stream velocity follows an exponentially decreasing small perturbation law. Using the approximate method the expressions for the velocity, microrotation, and temperature are obtained. Further, the results of the skin friction coefficient, the couple stress coefficient and the rate of heat transfer at the wall are presented with various values of fluid properties and flow conditions.

An analysis is made on the three dimensional flow of a viscous incompressible fluid through a vertical channel in the presence of radiation in slip flow regime. The right plate is subjected to an uniform injection and the left plate to a periodic suction velocity distribution. The velocity and temperature fields have been derived using the perturbation technique. It is found that the velocity decreases with the increase of the slip parameter. It is also found that the velocity decreases with the increase of the radiation parameter but near the right plate it increases. For cooling of the plate, the velocity increases with the increase of the Grashoff number and decreases near the right plate but the reverse effect is observed for heating the plate.

This investigation analyses a three dimensional flow and mass transfer of a second grade fluid over a porous stretching wall in the presence of suction or injection. The equations governing the flow are attained in terms of partial differential equations. A similarity transformation has been utilized for the transformation of partial differential equations into the ordinary differential equations. The solutions of the nonlinear systems are given by the homotopy analysis method (HAM). A comparative study with the previous results of a viscous fluid has been made. The convergence of the series solution has also been considered explicitly. The influence of admissible parameters on the flows is delineated through graphs and appropriate results are presented. In addition, it is found that instantaneous suction and injection reduce viscous drag on the stretching sheet. It is also shown that suction or injection of a fluid through the surface is an example of mass transfer and it can change the flow field.

Heat transfer with natural convection and radiation effect on a fully wet porous radial fin is considered. The radial velocity of the buoyancy driven flow at any radial location is obtained by applying Darcy’s law. The obtained non-dimensionalized ordinary differential equation involving three highly nonlinear terms is solved numerically with the spectral collocation method. In this approach, the dimensionless temperature is approximated by Chebyshev polynomials and discretized by Chebyshev-Gausse-Lobatto collocation points. A particular algorithm is used to reduce the nonlinearity of the conservation of energy equation. The present analysis characterizes the effect of ambient temperature in different ways and it provides a better picture regarding the effect of ambient temperature on the thermal performance of the fin. The profiles for temperature distributions and dimensionless base heat flow are obtained for different parameters which influence the heat transfer rate.

An analysis is made to study a three dimensional MHD boundary layer flow and heat transfer due to a porous axisymmetric shrinking sheet. The governing partial differential equations of momentum and energy are transformed into self similar non-linear ordinary differential equations by using the suitable similarity transformations. These equations are, then solved by using the variational finite element method. The flow phenomena is characterised by the magnetic parameter M, suction parameter S, porosity parameter K_p, heat source/sink parameter Q, Prandtl number Pr, Eckert number Ec and radiation parameter Rd. The numerical results of the velocity and temperature profiles are obtained and displayed graphically.

An unsteady boundary layer free convective flow and heat transfer of a viscous incompressible, microploar fluid over a vertical stretching sheet is investigated. The stretching velocity is assumed to vary linearly with the distance along the sheet. Two equal and opposite forces are impulsively applied along the x-axis so that the sheet is stretched, keeping the origin fixed in the micropolar fluid. The transformed highly non-linear boundary layer equations are solved numerically by an implicit finite difference scheme for the transient, state from the initial to the final steady-state. To validate the numerical method, comparisons are made with the available results in the literature for some special cases and the results are found to be in good agreement. The obtained numerical results are analyzed graphically for the velocity, the microrotation, and the temperature distribution; whereas the skin friction, the couple stress coefficient and the Nusselt number are tabulated for different values of the pertinent parameters. Results exhibit a drag reduction and an increase in the surface heat transfer rate in the micropolar fluid flow compared to the Newtonian fluid flow.

An unsteady MHD two-layered fluid flow of electrically conducting fluids in a horizontal channel bounded by two parallel porous plates under the influence of a transversely applied uniform strong magnetic field in a rotating system is analyzed. The flow is driven by a common constant pressure gradient in a channel bounded by two parallel porous plates, one being stationary and the other oscillatory. The two fluids are assumed to be incompressible, electrically conducting with different viscosities and electrical conductivities. The governing partial differential equations are reduced to the linear ordinary differential equations using two-term series. The resulting equations are solved analytically to obtain exact solutions for the velocity distributions (primary and secondary) in the two regions respectively, by assuming their solutions as a combination of both the steady state and time dependent components of the solutions. Numerical values of the velocity distributions are computed for different sets of values of the governing parameters involved in the study and their corresponding profiles are also plotted. The details of the flow characteristics and their dependence on the governing parameters involved, such as the Hartmann number, Taylor number, porous parameter, ratio of the viscosities, electrical conductivities and heights are discussed. Also an observation is made how the velocity distributions vary with the rotating hydromagnetic interaction in the case of steady and unsteady flow motions. The primary velocity distributions in the two regions are seen to decrease with an increase in the Taylor number, but an increase in the Taylor number causes a rise in secondary velocity distributions. It is found that an increase in the porous parameter decreases both the primary and secondary velocity distributions in the two regions.

The present paper discusses the dispersion equation for SH waves in a non-homogeneous monoclinic layer over a semi infinite isotropic medium. The wave velocity equation has been obtained. In the isotropic case, when non-homogeneity is absent, the dispersion equation reduces to the standard SH wave equation. The dispersion curves are depicted by means of graphs for different values of non-homogeneity parameters for the layer and semi-infinite medium.

In this paper, the field equations of the generalized coupled thermoplasticity theory are derived using the postulates of classical thermodynamics of irreversible processses. Using the Legendre transformations two new thermodynamics potentials P and S depending upon internal thermodynamic forces Π are introduced. The most general form for all the thermodynamics potentials are assumed instead of the usually used additive form. Due to this assumption, it is possible to describe all the effects of thermomechanical couples and also the elastic-plastic coupling effects observed in such materials as rocks, soils, concretes and in some metalic materials. In this paper not only the usual postulate of existence of a dissipation qupotential (the Gyarmati postulate) is used to derive the velocity equation. The plastic flow constitutive equations have the character of non-associated flow laws even when the Gyarmati postulate is assumed. In general formulation, the plastic strain rate tensor is normal to the surface of the generalized function of plastic flow defined in the the space of internal thermodynamic forces Π but is not normal to the yield surface. However, in general formulation and after the use the Gyarmati postulate, the direction of the sum of the plastic strain rate tensor and the coupled elastic strain rate tensor is normal to the yield surface.

The main purpose is to present the stochastic perturbation-based Finite Element Method analysis of the stability in the issues related to the influence of high temperature resulting from a fire directly connected with the reliability analysis of such structures. The thin-walled beam structures with constant cross-sectional thickness are uploaded with typical constant loads, variable loads and, additionally, a temperature increase and we look for the first critical value equivalent to the global stability loss. Such an analysis is carried out in the probabilistic context to determine as precisely as possible the safety margins according to the civil engineering Eurocode statements. To achieve this goal we employ the additional design-oriented Finite Element Method program and computer algebra system to get the analytical polynomial functions relating the critical pressure (or force) and several random design parameters; all the models are state-dependent as we consider an additional reduction of the strength parameters due to the temperature increase. The first four probabilistic moments of the critical forces are computed assuming that the input random parameters have all Gaussian probability functions truncated to the positive values only. Finally, the reliability index is calculated according to the First Order Reliability Method (FORM) by an application of the limit function as a difference in-between critical pressure and maximum compression stress determined in the given structures to verify their durability according to the demands of EU engineering designing codes related to the fire situation.

An industrial process such as wheat processing generates significant noise which can cause adverse effects on workers and the general public. This study assessed the noise level at a wheat processing mill in Ilorin, Nigeria. A portable digital sound level meter HD600 manufactured by Extech Inc., USA was used to determine the noise level around various machines, sections and offices in the factory at pre-determined distances. Subjective assessment was also mode using a World Health Organization (WHO) standard questionnaire to obtain information regarding noise ratings, effect of noise on personnel and noise preventive measures. The result of the study shows that the highest noise of 99.4 dBA was recorded at a pressure blower when compared to other machines. WHO Class-4 hearing protector is recommended for workers on the shop floor and room acoustics should be upgraded to absorb some sounds transmitted to offices.