Vol 51, No 5 (2016)

We consider the problem of estimating the stress–strain state in underground hard mineral mines where long parallel underground galleries are formed. There are a number of papers dealing with local causes of gallery accidents due to variations in the medium stress–strain state occurring as the minerals are withdrawn. At the same time, the authors’ theory of hidden effects shows that gallery fracture can be caused both by local actions on the defect region and by some long-range factors that can affect these defects remotely by localizing the stress–strain state in the defect region. It should be noted that the stress in the gallery region is redistributed each time a new gallery is formed or the dimensions of the existing galleries are changed. In this paper, a theory for estimating the stress-strain state in underground mines with arbitrarily many parallel galleries of various dimensions is developed.

It is shown that the stresses due to remote factors can be monitored in all gallery regions. The study is based on factorization methods, the block element method, and the topological approach.

A multilayer plate with isotropic (or transversally isotropic) layers strongly differing in rigidity is considered. This plate is reduced to an equivalent homogeneous transversally isotropic Timoshenko–Reissner plate whose deflections and free transverse vibration frequencies are close to those of the multilayer plate. By comparison with the exact solution of test three-dimensional problems of elasticity, the error of the proposed method is estimated both for the static problem and for free vibrations. This comparison can readily be carried out for the hinged edges of the plate, and explicit approximate formulas are obtained for the vibration frequencies. The scope of the proposed model turned out to be rather wide (the Young moduli of soft and rigid layers can differ by a factor of 1000). In the case of boundary conditions other than hinged support, a closed-form solution cannot be constructed in general. For rigidly fixed edges, the asymptotic method proposed by V. V. Bolotin is generalized to the case of a Timoshenko–Reissner plate.

Experimental results of strain field measurement in polymer composite specimens by Bragg grating fiber optic strain sensors embedded in the material are considered. A rectangular plate and a rectangular plate with “butterfly” shaped cuts are used as specimens. The results of uniaxial strain experiments with rectangular plates show that fiber optic strain sensors can be used to measure the strains, and these results can be used to calculate the calibration coefficients for fiber optic strain sensors. A gradient strain field is attained in a plate with cuts, and the possibility of measuring this field by fiber optic strain sensors is the main goal of this paper. The results of measurements of gradient strain fields in the plate with cuts are compared with the results obtained by using the three-dimensional digital optic system Vix-3D and with the results of numerical computations based on finite element methods. It is shown that the difference between the strain values obtained by these three methods does not exceed 5%.

We consider the classical plane problem of elasticity about a crack in an isotropic elastic unbounded plane resulting in a singular solution for the stresses near the crack edge. Relations of generalized elasticity with a small parameter characterizing the medium microstructure are derived, and the higher order of these relations permits eliminating the singularity of the classical solution. An experimental method for determining the medium parameter is proposed, and the corresponding experimental results are given.

The Lamb wave propagation in elastic isotropic and orthotropic layers is studied by numerical and analytic methods. An analytic solution is obtained by using the Cauchy formalism for the entire frequency range. Numerical solutions are obtained in a neighborhood of the second limit velocity corresponding to very small frequencies. The influence of variations in the layer geometry on the dispersion curves is studied.

Asymptotic solutions of the problem of dynamics of an infinitely long string lying on an elastic base with prescribed damage under the action of finitely many periodic impacts are constructed in the two cases of small and large damage of the elastic base. The condition of resonance origination in the string is obtained in the case of small damage when the standing wave is localized in the region of damage. At the final stage of the damage growth in the elastic base, when its value is close to the critical one, the localized mode and the resonance are absent, and only a traveling wave exists in the string.

Mathematical models of carbon-carbon composites (CCC) intended for describing the processes of deformation of structures produced by using CCC under high-temperature loading are considered. A phenomenological theory of CCC inelastic deformation is proposed, where such materials are considered as homogeneous ones with effective characteristics and where their high anisotropy of mechanical characteristics and different ways of resistance to extension and compression are taken into account. Micromechanical models are proposed for spatially reinforced CCC, where the difference between mechanical characteristics of components and the reinforcement scheme are taken into account. Themodel parameters are determined from the results of experiments of composite macrospecimens in the directions typical of the material. A version of endochronictype theory with several internal times “launched” for each composite component and related to some damage accumulation mechanisms is proposed for describing the inelastic deformation. Some practical examples are considered.

The paper deals with experimental studies of inhomogeneous strain fields in the “neck” region in extension of plane and cylindrical specimens at the postcritical stage, which directly precedes the fracture, by using a video system and a digital image correlation method. We consider the problems of interpretation of extension diagrams obtained for specimens of various length with strain inhomogeneity in the working section of the specimen with a “neck.”We obtain experimental data about the distribution of longitudinal, transverse, and shear strain fields and the displacement fields in the region of the plane specimen localization by using the digital image correlation method.