Explore the vast range of titles available.

One-way slabs under concentrated loads may fail by one-way shear, two-way shear, flexure, or a combination of these modes. This paper reviews shear and punching shear-failure mechanisms of one-way slabs under concentrated loads tested from the literature and investigates the accuracy of different approaches to predict the ultimate capacity for such slabs using the ACI code expressions. A database with 160 test results was evaluated. Shear and concentrated loads measured at failure were reviewed according to parameters such as the load position, slab width, and reinforcement ratios. The load position and slab width play a marked influence on the failure mechanism and tested loads. The analyses improved the understanding of the main parameters influencing the behavior of one-way slabs under concentrated loads. Finally, the proposed effective shear width expression enables accurate shear capacity predictions using the ACI code expressions.

We propose a scheme to realize long-range quantum correlations of two separated ensembles of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers via asymmetric driving. Either of the ensembles of NV centers is dynamically driven by a strong applied microwave field, which causes the coupled energy levels to split into dressed states. A quantum electromechanical system (QEMS), as a quantum data bus, connects the two ensembles of NV centers. When a weak microwave field in QEMS couples the same energy level transitions of the two ensembles of NV centers, the beam-splitter-like interactions are realized. The collective mode of the mechanical resonators in the QEMS is near-resonant with the dressed energy level establishing the parametric down-conversion-like interaction. The Kerr nonlinearity produced by the parametric down-conversion-like interaction can be transferred by the beam-splitter-like interactions. We demonstrate the photon-phonon one-way Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen steering, and spin squeezing. Our scheme can thereafter support a potential application of the generalized storage of quantum information.

Polymer smart materials are a broad class of polymeric materials that can change their shapes, mechanical responses, light transmissions, controlled releases, and other functional properties under external stimuli. A good understanding of the aspects controlling various types of shape memory phenomena in shape memory polymers (SMPs), such as polymer structure, stimulus effect and many others, is not only important for the preparation of new SMPs with improved performance, but is also useful for the optimization of the current ones to expand their application field. In the present era, simple understanding of the activation mechanisms, the polymer structure, the effect of the modification of the polymer structure on the activation process using fillers or solvents to develop new reliable SMPs with improved properties, long lifetime, fast response, and the ability to apply them under hard conditions in any environment, is considered to be an important topic. Moreover, good understanding of the activation mechanism of the two-way shape memory effect in SMPs for semi-crystalline polymers and liquid crystalline elastomers is the main key required for future investigations. In this article, the principles of the three basic types of external stimuli (heat, chemicals, light) and their key parameters that affect the efficiency of the SMPs are reviewed in addition to several prospective applications.

Although 'quantum contextuality' is one of the most fundamental non-classical feature, its generic role in information processing and computation is an open quest. In this article, we present a family of distributed computing tasks pertaining to every logical proof of Kochen-Specker (KS) contextuality in two different one-way communication scenarios: (I) communication of bounded dimensional system, (II) communication of unbounded dimensional system while keeping certain information oblivious, namely, oblivious communication (OC). As the later remains largely unexplored, we introduce a general framework for OC tasks and provide a methodology for obtaining an upper bound on the success of OC tasks in classical communication. We show that quantum communication comprised of every KS set of vectors outperforms classical communication and perfectly accomplish the task in both the aforementioned scenarios. We explicitly discuss the communication tasks pertaining to the simplest state independent contextuality sets of dimension three and four. Our results establish an operational significance to single system contextuality and open up the possibility of semi-device independent quantum information processing based on that. Alongside, we identify any advantage in OC tasks as a witness of preparation contextuality.

Student's t test (t test), analysis of variance (ANOVA), and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) are statistical methods used in the testing of hypothesis for comparison of means between the groups. The Student's t test is used to compare the means between two groups, whereas ANOVA is used to compare the means among three or more groups. In ANOVA, first gets a common P value. A significant P value of the ANOVA test indicates for at least one pair, between which the mean difference was statistically significant. To identify that significant pair(s), we use multiple comparisons. In ANOVA, when using one categorical independent variable, it is called one-way ANOVA, whereas for two categorical independent variables, it is called two-way ANOVA. When using at least one covariate to adjust with dependent variable, ANOVA becomes ANCOVA. When the size of the sample is small, mean is very much affected by the outliers, so it is necessary to keep sufficient sample size while using these methods.

Time-reversal symmetry for elastic wave propagation breaks down in a resonant mass-in-mass lattice whose inner-stiffness is weakly modulated in space and in time in a wave-like fashion. Specifically, one-way wave transmission, conversion and amplification as well as unidirectional wave blocking are demonstrated analytically through an asymptotic analysis based on coupled mode theory and numerically thanks to a series of simulations in harmonic and transient regimes. High-amplitude modulations are then explored in the homogenization limit where a non-standard effective mass operator is recovered and shown to take negative values over unusually large frequency bands. These modulated metamaterials, which exhibit either non-reciprocal behaviours or non-standard effective mass operators, offer promise for applications in the field of elastic wave control in general and in one-way conversion/amplification in particular.

Rotating machinery such as centrifugal fans is often exposed to unsteady aerodynamic loads that can induce fatigue damage during prolonged industrial operation. This study investigates the fatigue life of a centrifugal fan (FN280) used in a cement plant through a one-way fluid–structure interaction (FSI) approach. Transient aerodynamic loads were computed using ANSYS Fluent and subsequently transferred to ANSYS Mechanical for structural fatigue analysis. Since the original fan geometry was unavailable, a detailed three-dimensional model was reconstructed via reverse engineering to ensure accurate aerodynamic representation. The unsteady numerical simulations were performed under four operating conditions and validated against experimental performance data. The comparison shows a satisfactory level of agreement, confirming the reliability of the adopted modelling approach. Simulation results indicate that most regions of the fan exhibit fatigue safety factors between 1 and 15, suggesting generally safe operation. However, localized stress concentrations near the blade root and shaft–disc junction display safety factors slightly below unity, indicating potential sites for early fatigue crack initiation. The estimated fatigue life is approximately 2.8 × 10⁶ cycles, emphasizing the significance of accounting for aerodynamic loading effects in fatigue assessment. Overall, the study demonstrates the capability of FSI-based numerical simulations for predictive maintenance and reliability evaluation, while further experimental validation is recommended.

Recent explorations of topology in physical systems have led to a new paradigm of condensed matters characterized by topologically protected states and phase transition, for example, topologically protected photonic crystals enabled by magneto-optical effects. However, in other wave systems such as acoustics, topological states cannot be simply reproduced due to the absence of similar magnetics-related sound-matter interactions in naturally available materials. Here, we propose an acoustic topological structure by creating an effective gauge magnetic field for sound using circularly flowing air in the designed acoustic ring resonators. The created gauge magnetic field breaks the time-reversal symmetry, and therefore topological properties can be designed to be nontrivial with non-zero Chern numbers and thus to enable a topological sonic crystal, in which the topologically protected acoustic edge-state transport is observed, featuring robust one-way propagation characteristics against a variety of topological defects and impurities. Our results open a new venue to non-magnetic topological structures and promise a unique approach to effective manipulation of acoustic interfacial transport at will.

Quantum conference key agreement (CKA) enables key sharing among multiple trusted users with information-theoretic security. Currently, the key rates of most quantum CKA protocols suffer from the limit of the total efficiency among quantum channels. Inspired by the coherent one-way and twin-field quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols, we propose a quantum CKA protocol of three users. Exploiting coherent states with intensity 0 and μ to encode logic bits, our protocol can break the limit. Additionally, the requirements of phase randomization and multiple intensity modulation are removed in our protocol, making its experimental demonstration simple.

Carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) laminates are widely used in aircraft skins due to their advantages of high strength and lightweight properties. However, their laminate structure and energy-absorbing characteristics result in low-energy impact damage, such as delamination, that is often invisible but can lead to catastrophic failure. Consequently, early detection of delamination in CFRP laminates is necessary. Nonlinear ultrasonic guided waves exhibit high sensitivity to delamination, and second harmonics are widely employed. Compared to second harmonics, one-way mixing of ultrasonic guided waves can excite and receive signals simultaneously at the same location, thereby precisely localizing delamination. This capability has the potential for inspecting buried structures. However, existing literature has not yet fully addressed the generation mechanism of one-way mixing in CFRP laminates nor its interaction with delamination. Based on finite element simulation, this study investigates one-way mixing of A0 modes and S0 modes in CFRP laminates. Utilizing pulse-inversion techniques and two-dimensional fast Fourier transforms, the modes and propagation directions of difference-frequency components and sum-frequency components are determined. Furthermore, by utilizing the normalized acoustic nonlinearity parameter χ’ and adjusting the position of the mixing zone through different time delays, delamination in the CFRP laminate is successfully localized.