The Kirchhoff approximation is widely used to describe the scatter of elastodynamic waves. It simulates the scattered field as the convolution of the free-space Green’s tensor with the geometrical elastodynamics approximation to the total field on the scatterer surface and, therefore, cannot be used to describe nongeometrical phenomena, such as head waves. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that an alternative approximation, the convolution of the far-field asymptotics of the Lamb’s Green’s tensor with incident surface tractions, has no such limitation. This is done by simulating the scatter of a critical Gaussian beam of transverse motions from an infinite plane. The results are of interest in ultrasonic nondestructive testing.

We propose an implicit finite-difference method to study the time evolution of the director field of a nematic liquid crystal under the influence of an electric field with weak anchoring at the boundary. The scheme allows us to study the dynamics of transitions between different director equilibrium states under varying electric field and anchoring strength. In particular, we are able to simulate the transition to excited states of odd parity, which have previously been observed in experiments, but so far only analyzed in the static case.

Numerical simulations of unsteady gas flows are studied on the basis of Gas-Kinetic Unified Algorithm (GKUA) from rarefied transition to continuum flow regimes. Several typical examples are adopted. An unsteady flow solver is developed by solving the Boltzmann model equations, including the Shakhov model and the Rykov model etc. The Rykov kinetic equation involving the effect of rotational energy can be transformed into two kinetic governing equations with inelastic and elastic collisions by integrating the molecular velocity distribution function with the weight factor on the energy of rotational motion. Then, the reduced velocity distribution functions are devised to further simplify the governing equation for one- and two-dimensional flows. The simultaneous equations are numerically solved by the discrete velocity ordinate (DVO) method in velocity space and the finite-difference schemes in physical space. The time-explicit operator-splitting scheme is constructed, and numerical stability conditions to ascertain the time step are discussed. As the application of the newly developed GKUA, several unsteady varying processes of one- and two-dimensional flows with different Knudsen number are simulated, and the unsteady transport phenomena and rarefied effects are revealed and analyzed. It is validated that the GKUA solver is competent for simulations of unsteady gas dynamics covering various flow regimes.

In this paper, a finite element method is proposed to investigate multiple solutions of the Navier-Stokes equations for an unsteady, laminar, incompressible flow in a porous expanding channel. Dual or triple solutions for the fixed values of the wall suction Reynolds number R and the expansion ratio α are obtained numerically. The computed multiple solutions for the symmetric flow are validated by comparing them with approximate analytic solutions obtained by the similarity transformation and homotopy analysis method. Unlike previous works, our method deals with the Navier-Stokes equations directly and thus has no similarity and other restrictions as in previous works. Finally we use the method to study multiple solutions for three cases of the asymmetric flow (which has not been studied before using the similarity-type techniques).

We investigate connections between nonlocal continuum models and molecular dynamics. A continuous upscaling of molecular dynamics models of the form of the embedded-atom model is presented, providing means for simulating molecular dynamics systems at greatly reduced cost. Results are presented for structured and structureless material models, supported by computational experiments. The nonlocal continuum models are shown to be instances of the state-based peridynamics theory. Connections relating multibody peridynamic models and upscaled nonlocal continuum models are derived.

An infinite Bernoulli-Euler beam (representing the “combined rail” consisting of the rail and longitudinal sleeper) mounted on periodic flexible point supports (representing the railpads) has already proven to be a suitable mathematical model for the floating ladder track (FLT), to define its natural vibrations and its forced response due to a moving load. Adopting deliberately conservative parameters for the existing FLT design, we present further results for the response to a steadily (uniformly) moving load when the periodic supports are assumed to be elastic, and then introduce the mass and viscous damping of the periodic supports. Typical support damping significantly moderates the resulting steady deflexion at any load speed, and in particular substantially reduces the magnitude of the resonant response at the critical speed. The linear mathematical analysis is then extended to include the inertia of the load that otherwise moves uniformly along the beam, generating overstability at supercritical speeds – i.e. at load speeds notably above the critical speed predicted for the resonant response when the load inertia is neglected. Neither the resonance nor the overstability should prevent the safe implementation of the FLT design in modern high speed rail systems.

In this paper, a reliable algorithm based on an adaptation of the standard differential transform method is presented, which is the multi-step differential transform method (MSDTM). The solutions of non-linear oscillators were obtained by MSDTM. Figurative comparisons between the MSDTM and the classical fourth-order Runge-Kutta method (RK4) reveal that the proposed technique is a promising tool to solve non-linear oscillators.