• Elastomers and Composites
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.79-85
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• 2002

Ethyl-branched polyethylene [PE(2)] containing 2mole% ethyl branch and three ethylene-propylene rubbers (EPR's) having the same ethylene(E)-propylene(P) molar ratio(E/P=50/50) with different stereoregularity, that is, random EPR (r-EPR), alternating-EPR (alt-EPR) and isotactic-alternating-EPR (iso-alt-EPR) were mixed for the investigation or their properties depending on the stereoregularity. Crystallinity of the prepared blends decreased with increasing content of amorphous EPR because of a decrease in both the degree of annealing and kinetics of diffusion of the crystallizable polymer content. With blend composition, crystallinity was reduced with the stereoregularity in EPR. The thermodynamic interaction parameter(x) for the three blend systems approximately equals to zero near the melting point. These systems were determined to be miscible on a molecular scale near or above the crystalline melting point or the crystalline PE(2). From the measurement of $T_m$ vs. $T_c$, the behavior of PE(2) is mainly due to a diluent effect of EPR component. The spherulite size measured by small angle light scattering (SALS) technique depended upon blend composition, and stereoregularity of EPR. The size of spherulite was enlarged with the content of rubbery EPR and the decrease of stereoregularity in EPR.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.73-83
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• 2019

Concrete reinforced with fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) bars (FRP-RC) has attracted a significant amount of research attention in the last three decades. A limited number of studies, however, have investigated the effect of bond slip on the performance of FRP-RC columns under eccentric loading. Based on previous experimental study, a finite-element model of eccentrically loaded FRP-RC columns was established in this study. The bondslip behavior was modeled by inserting spring elements between FRP bars and concrete. The improved Bertero-Popov-Eligehausen (BPE) bond slip model with the results of existing FRP-RC pullout tests was introduced. The effect of bond slip on the entire compression-bending process of FRP-RC columns was investigated parametrically. The results show that the initial stiffness of bond slip is the most sensitive parameter affecting the compression-bending performance of columns. The peak bond stress and the corresponding peak slip produce a small effect on the maximum loading capacity of columns. The bondslip softening has little effect on the compression-bending performance of columns. The sectional analysis revealed that, as the load eccentricity and the FRP bar diameter increase, the reducing effect of bond slip on the flexural capacity becomes more obvious. With regard to bond slip, the axial-force-bending-moment (P-M) interaction diagrams of columns with different FRP bar diameters show consistent trends. It can be concluded from this study that for columns reinforced with large diameter FRP bars, the flexural capacity of columns at low axial load levels will be seriously overestimated if the bond slip is not considered.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.57 no.4
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• pp.717-731
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• 2016

In orthopedic surgery and more especially in total arthroplastie of hip, the fixing of the implants generally takes place essentially by means of constituted surgical polymer cement. The damage of this materiel led to the fatal rupture and thus loosening of the prosthesis in total hip, the effect of over loading as the case of tripping of the patient during walking is one of the parameters that led to the damage of this binder. From this phenomenon we supposed that a remain of bone is included in the cement implantation. The object of this work is to study the effect of this bony inclusion in the zones where the outside conditions (loads and geometric shapes) can provoke the fracture of the cement and therefore the aseptic lousing of the prosthesis. In this study it was assumed the presence of two bones -type inclusions in this material, one after we analyzed the effect of interaction between these two inclusions damage of damage to this material. One have modeled the damage in the cement around this bone inclusion and estimate the crack length from the damaged cement zone in the acetabulum using the finite element method, for every position of the implant under the extreme effort undergone by the prosthesis. We noted that the most intense stress position is around the sharp corner of the bone fragment and the higher level of damage leads directly the fracture of the total prosthesis of the hip.

• Macromolecular Research
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.408-415
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• 2006

Temperature-dependent, wide-angle, x-ray diffraction (WAXD) patterns and infrared (IR) spectra were measured for biodegradable poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) (PHB) and its copolymers, poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyhexanoate) P(HB-co-HHx) (HHx=2.5, 3.4, 10.5, and 12 mol%), in order to explore their crystal and lamellar structure and their pattern of C-H...O=C hydrogen bonding. The WAXD patterns showed that the P(HB-co-HHx) copolymers have the same orthorhombic system as PHB. It was found from the temperature-dependent WAXD measurements of PHB and P(HB-co-HHx) that the a lattice parameter is more enlarged than the b lattice parameter during heating and that only the a lattice parameter shows reversibility during both heating and cooling processes. These observations suggest that an interaction occurs along the a axis in PHB and P(HB-co-HHx). This interaction seems to be due to an intermolecular C-H...O=C hydrogen bonding between the C=O group in one helical structure and the $CH_3$ group in the other helical structure. The x-ray crystallographic data of PHB showed that the distance between the O atom of the C=O group in one helical structure and the H atom of one of the three C-H bonds of the $CH_3$ group in the other helix structure is $2.63{\AA}$, which is significantly shorter than the sum of the van der Waals separation ($2.72{\AA}$). This result and the appearance of the $CH_3$ asymmetric stretching band at $3009 cm^{-1}$ suggest that there is a C-H...O=C hydrogen bond between the C=O group and the $CH_3$ group in PHB and P(HB-co-HHx). The temperature-dependent WAXD and IR measurements revealed that the crystallinity of P(HB-co-HHx) (HHx =10.5 and 12 mol%) decreases gradually from a fairly low temperature, while that of PHB and P(HB-co-HHx) (HHx = 2.5 and 3.5 mol%) remains almost unchanged until just below their melting temperatures. It was also shown from our studies that the weakening of the C-H...O = C interaction starts from just above room temperature and proceeds gradually increasing temperature. It seems that the C-H...O=C hydrogen bonding stabilizes the chain holding in the lamellar structure and affects the thermal behaviour of PHB and its copolymers.