Search

Wave Dispersion Characteristics of Continuous Mechanical Systems provides a mechanical engineering-based analysis of wave dispersion response in various structures created from different materials. Looking at materials including strengthened nanocomposites, functionally graded materials, metal foams, and anisotropic materials, it uses analytical solution methods to solve typical problems in the framework of a micromechanics approach.Nanocomposites are a novel type of composite materials, fabricated by dispersing nanosized reinforcements in a matrix to combine the material properties of the matrix with the improved properties of nanosized elements. This book enables readers to learn about the theory and practical applications of this rapidly evolving field. Practically minded, the book investigates the impact of employing various nanofillers and demonstrates how this augments stiffness within the nanocomposite. Topics covered include agglomeration and waviness of nanofillers, porosity, elastic mediums, fluid flow, and the impact of the thermal environment on a propagated wave. Using mathematical formulations to solve wave dispersion characteristics of structures including beams, plates, and shells, the book obtains equations of structures using first- and higher-order shear deformation theories.This book will be of interest to professional engineers working in material and mechanical engineering, nanocomposites, nanofillers, and micromechanics. It will also be of interest to students in these fields.

The book presents a state-of-the-art overview of current developments in the field in a way accessible to attendees coming from a variety of fields. Relevant examples are turbulence research, (environmental) fluid mechanics, lake hydrodynamics and atmospheric physics. Topics discussed range from the fundamentals of rotating and stratified flows, mixing and transport in stratified or rotating turbulence, transport in the atmospheric boundary layer, the dynamics of gravity and turbidity currents eventually with effects of background rotation or stratification, mixing in (stratified) lakes, and the Lagrangian approach in the analysis of transport processes in geophysical and environmental flows. The topics are discussed from fundamental, experimental and numerical points of view. Some contributions cover fundamental aspects including a number of the basic dynamical properties of rotating and or stratified (turbulent) flows, the mathematical description of these flows, some applications inthe natural environment, and the Lagrangian statistical analysis of turbulent transport processes and turbulent transport of material particles (including, for example, inertial and finite-size effects). Four papers are dedicated to specific topics such as transport in (stratified) lakes, transport and mixing in the atmospheric boundary layer, mixing in stratified fluids and dynamics of turbidity currents. The book is addressed to doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers, but also to academic and industrial researchers and practicing engineers, with a background in mechanical engineering, applied physics, civil engineering, applied mathematics, meteorology, physical oceanography or physical limnology.

This book provides an overview of several topics concerning the design, fabrication, and application of optical fibers, namely in the areas of communication systems, sensing, and photonic devices development. It consists of ten chapters. The first two chapters are concerned with different kinds of problems that can affect the performance of advanced optical fiber communication systems. Chapter One describes the polarization-mode dispersion (PMD) phenomenon and discusses PMD-induced pulse broadening, as well as different compensation techniques, including the case of soliton transmission systems. Chapter Two provides a review of the main limitations imposed by nonlinear effects on the performance of both single-channel and multi-channel optical fiber communication systems. Due to continued internet growth, the worldwide traffic demand for long-haul networks has nearly exhausted the capacity limits of conventional single-mode fiber. Space division multiplexing (SDM) technologies have become a promising approach to resolve this bandwidth crunch. Chapter Three presents an overview of the state-of-the-art SDM-based communications systems, considering both few-mode fibers (FMFs) and multicore fibers (MCFs). Chapter Four discusses several FMF-based nonlinear processes in the context of different optical communications and sensing applications. Optical fibers have been used during the last decades to realize various types of photonic devices. Chapter Five presents a study of the performance of several fiber-based devices used in the areas of optical communications and sensing. Chapter Six provides a review of the cavity ring-down technique, which looks like a very promising technique and has been vastly employed in several areas of research. Microstructured optical fibers (MOFs), also called photonic crystal fibers (PCFs), represent a new class of optical fibers that are characterized by the fact that fiber cladding presents an array of embedded air holes. They can offer different possibilities for the fiber optic sensing field, namely for the fabrication of fiber in-line modal interferometers (MIs). Chapter Seven describes the fabrication, operating principles and sensing applications of MOF-MIs. Chapter Eight discusses several phenomena concerning the ultrafast dynamics of femtosecond pulse propagation in gas-filled kagomé hollow-core PCFs, namely pulse compression, supercontinuum and UV light generation. Chapter Nine analyses the fundamentals of twisted clad guides, considering various forms of microstructured mediums. Finally, Chapter Ten provides a detailed review of the most recent developments in the field of nano-structured glass-based optical fibers fabrication. The application of such kinds of erbium and thulium doped phase-separated dielectric nano-particles-based fibers, as well as silicon nano-particles doped fibers towards the development of fiber lasers, optical amplifiers and broad band light sources is envisaged.