Jinxiong Zhou's blog

It is widely acknowledged that fluidelastic instability (FEI), among other mechanisms, is of the greatest concern in the flow-induced vibration (FIV) of tube bundles in steam generators and heat exchangers. A range of theoretical models have been developed for FEI analysis, and, in addition to the earliest semi-empirical Connors’ model, the unsteady model, the quasi-steady model and the semi-analytical model are believed to be three advanced models predominant in the literature.

This paper presents an integrated experimental and numerical investigation of the dynamic deployment behavior of Composite thin-walled lenticular tube (CTLT) that wraps around a central hub, with emphasis on the effect of long-term storage. The deployment experiments were performed on the CTLT prototype both before and after it had been stowed for extended storage periods. The results indicate that after being stowed for 6 and 10.5 months the CTLT is deployed slower and the deployment time increases by 8.2% and 15.0%, respectively.

This paper describes the formulations for the viscoplasticity of metals based on the Chaboche and Delobelle model. The implementations of the viscoplastic models were detailed herein and then implemented via user subroutines for material models (UMAT) in ABAQUS. Two typical metals, i.e., 316 Stainless Steel and Zircaloy-4, were chosen as examples and their viscoplastic behaviors were captured. Numerical simulations are compared to reported experiments in order to validate the models and the UMAT codes.

Diverse science and engineering problems are governed by delay differential equations (DDE). Seeking periodic solutions of DDEs is crucial for many nonlinear dynamic systems. The incremental harmonic balance (IHB) method is an efficient semi-analytical ap- proach for periodic solutions of DDE.

The thermal-hydraulics as well as flow-induced vibration of wire-wrapped rod bundles calls for accurate and efficient liquid metal flow simulation and prediction, yet it remains a challenge due to the complex geometries and high Reynolds number flow in wire-wrapped rod channel. Previous efforts towards this goal exclusively adopts full-order modeling (FOM), which is prohibitively computation-intensive.

Design of mechanical metamaterials is typically realized by repeating microstructured building blocks or unit cells. Microstructures of these unit cells can be identical, whereas individual design of each cell and various combinations of unit cells definitely offer more freedoms and possibilities for combinatorial design of metamaterials. Unfortunately, this combinatorial design problem is prohibitively challenging, if not impossible, due mainly to its huge number of combinatorial cases.

Composite tape-spring hinge (CTSH) is a simple yet elegant mechanical component for various deployable space structures. This paper formulates and addresses cut-out shape optimization of a CTSH, which is seldom touched upon in literature. Both the maximum strain energy stored during the folding process as well as the maximum bending moment during deployment were maximized in a concurrent way, and the multi-objective optimization problem was realized by merging data-driven surrogate modeling and shape optimization.

Due to the inherent viscoelasticity of constituent matrix and the possibility of long-term storage, space deployable structures made of composites are likely to exhibit relaxation in the stored strain energy, which may degrade their deployment performance. This paper presents a bottom-up finite element based multiscale computational strategy that bridges the experimentally measurable properties of constituent fibers and matrix to numerical predictions of viscoelastic behavior of composite laminates and general shell structures.

 This paper describes a numerical scheme that implements reduced order modeling of transient heat transfer problems by enhancing a standard fifinite element code, ABAQUS, and integrating it with proper orthogonal decomposition (POD).

Electron beam melting (EBM) is a metal powder bed fusion additive manufacturing (AM) technology that is widely used for making three-dimensional (3D) objects by adding materials layer by layer. EBM is a very complex thermal process which involves several physical phenomena such as moving heat source, material state change, and material deposition. Conventionally, these phenomena are implemented using in-house codes or embedding some user subroutines in commonly used commercial software packages, like Abaqus, which generally requires considerable expertise.

This paper describes a data-driven approach to predict mechanical properties of auxetic kirigami metamaterials with randomly oriented cuts. The finite element method (FEM)was used to generate datasets, the convolutional neural network (CNN) was introduced to train these data, and an implicit mapping between the input orientations of cuts and the output Young’s modulus and Poisson’s ratio of the kirigami sheets was established. With this input–output relationship in hand, a quick estimation of auxetic behavior of kirigami metamaterials is straightforward.

The synergic combination of smart soft composites with kirigami/origami principles leads to self-deployable systems. To date, the development of soft deployable structures has largely been an empirical process. Focusing on the recently developed shape memory alloy (SMA)-based soft deployable structures, this paper describes an analytical model and a finite element (FE) numerical scheme to investigate deformation and deployment performance of this system.

We combine experiment and finite element simulation and come up with a design of a mechanical metamaterial which demonstrates snap-back induced hysteresis and energy dissipation. The resultant is an elastic system that can be used reversibly for many times. The underlying mechanism of existence of hysteresis and the physics of snap-back induced elastic instability is unveiled. Our results open an avenue for design and implementation of recoverable energy dissipation devices by harnessing mechanical instability.

A majority of dielectric elastomers (DE) developed so far have more or less viscoelastic properties. Understanding the dynamic behaviors of DE is crucial for devices where inertial effects can not be neglected. Through construction of a dissipation function, we applied the Lagrange’s method and theory of non-equilibrium thermodynamics of DE and formulated a physics-based approach for dynamics of viscoelastic DE.

Imitating origami principles in active or programmable materials opens the door for development
of origami-inspired self-folding structures for not only aesthetic but also functional purposes. A
variety of programmable materials enabled self-folding structures have been demonstrated across
various fields and scales. These folding structures have finite thickness and the mechanical
properties of the active materials dictate the folding process. Yet formalizing the use of origami