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Traitedness has been described as the “the degree to which a particular trait structure is approximated in a given person” (Tellegen, p. 28, 1991) and has been hypothesized as one explanation for findings of weak trait-behavior relationships. That is, if traits are differentially applicable to different individuals, then trait-behavior relationships may be moderated based on the strength with which an individual fits with a given trait model. This study used moderated multiple regression to test the moderating effects of four different traitedness indicators to increase the prediction of diagnostic consistency in four personality disorders, and also tested the main effects of traitedness estimates to predict cross-situational consistency of functional impairment. Traitedness estimates performed better in the prediction of increased diagnostic consistency, though there were some isolated findings of traitedness increasing crosssituational consistency of functional impairment. orientation of the clay in the nanocomposite and the simple shear process. It is found that the modulus, strength, and heat distortion temperature of the nanocomposites decrease as the clay aspect ratio and degree of orientation are reduced. The micromechanics-based models accurately describe the relationship between clay structural parameters and the corresponding moduli for exfoliated nanocomposites. The impact fracture mechanisms of polypropylene (PP)-calcium carbonate (CaCO3) nanoparticles have been investigated. A detailed investigation reveals that the CaCO3 nanoparticles act as stress concentrators to initiate massive crazes, followed by shear banding in the PP matrix.

published_or_final_version / Mechanical Engineering / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Nanofluids are two-phase mixtures of base fluids and nanoparticles. They possess unique thermal, magnetic, electronic, optical and wetting properties, and thus have tremendous applications in many fields. For practical applications of nanofluids in heat-transfer systems, we often try to achieve a global aim such as optimization of system highest temperature and optimization of system overall thermal resistance. To improve energy efficiency, attention should focus on designing nanofluids for the best global performance. As indicated by constructal theory, flow structures emerge from the evolutionary tendency to generate faster flow access in time and easier flow access in configurations that are free to morph. Constructal theory can not only predict natural flow architectures but also guide design of flow systems. In this thesis, constructal design is applied to study nanofluid heat conduction such that the system (global) performance can be constantly improved. An examination of the variation of preferred heat-transfer modes for different matter states concludes that the preferred heat-transfer modes for solid, liquid and gas are conduction, convection and radiation, respectively. After an analogy analysis of plasma heat conduction and nanofluid heat conduction, it is proposed that forming continuous particle structures inside base fluids may enhance the heat conduction in nanofluids. Staring from the conventional nanofluids with particles dispersed in base fluids (dispersed configuration of nanofluids), we first perform a constructal design of particle volume fraction distribution of four types of nanofluids used for heat conduction in eight systems. The constructal volume fraction distributions are obtained to minimize system overall temperature differences and overall thermal resistances. The constructal overall thermal resistance is found to be an overall property fixed only by the system global geometry and the average thermal conductivity of nanofluids. The constructal nanofluids that maximize the system performance under dispersed configuration are the ones with higher particle volume fraction in region of higher heat flux density. Based on the proposal of forming continuous particle structures inside base fluids, blade configurations of nanofluids are analyzed analytically and numerically for both heat-transferring systems and heat-insulating systems. Comparisons are made with dispersed configurations of nanofluids with constructal particle volume fraction distributions or thermal conductivities of upper or lower bounds. The superiority of blade configuration is always very obvious even with rather simple particle structures. As the blade structures are more sophisticatedly designed, system performance of blade configuration will become even better. To improve the particle structure design, efforts are put on optimizing crosssectional shape of particle blade to achieve better system performance. The triangular-prism-shaped blade is shown to perform the best. Since heat conduction and fluid flow inside trees follow the same linear transport mechanism, the prevalent leaf structures in nature are expected to provide some guidelines for the design of blade-configured heat-conduction system. Analytical and numerical studies are thus done on the quasi-rhombus-shaped and quasi-sector-shaped systems up to the one branching level. More sophisticated blade shapes are verified to lead to better system performance. The advantage of quasi-rhombusshaped system compared to quasi-sector-shaped system is also shown. / published_or_final_version / Mechanical Engineering / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Intermediate filaments, microtubules and microfilaments are the major components of the cytoskeleton. Though it is known that intermediate filaments play an important role in the mechanical behaviour of cells, it is surprising that their mechanical properties are far from being fully understood. The morphology and assembly process of the vimentin intermediate filaments (IFs) were studied using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and atomic force spectroscopy (AFM). The width of the vimentin was found to change as the assembly proceeded. This finding agrees with the literature about the compaction process of vimentin IFs. The width of the IFs decreased gradually, while the range of width increased within the first few minutes after assembly initiation, and then decreased at last and became stable at 12.80±2.20nm. The average length of the IFs increased with decreasing rate. The length attained 485.60±162.23nm at 120 minutes. The range of length increased which revealed the assembly process was randomly occurring between filaments in the solution. The height of the IFs obtained with AFM did not show the periodicity in contrary to the literature. It may be due to the flattening of IFs on the functionalized mica(AP-mica) surface, or the periodicity was not prominent to be observed morphologically. In the force spectroscopy study, the nanomechanical properties of individual vimentin intermediate filaments were studied using AFM. Fresh vimentin intermediate filaments and samples fixed with glutaraldehydewere examined, and force-displacement curves with nano-scale resolutions of different vimentin intermediate filament samples were analysed. The use of glutaraldehydefixative provided cross-linking of the IF, and the structural change will result in differences in their force-displacement curves which helped to provide comparison with the non-fixed samples in order to identify the structure-mechanical property relationship. Statistical studies of these curves revealed that tearing off of protofilaments from the mature intermediate filaments (with and without glutaraldehyde) occurred inthe low force regime below 100pN, and successive tearing off events were observed readily below 25 nm separations, which were comparable with the lengths of domains of around 20 nm. Different features of sawtooth indicated the possibility of sliding mechanism in vimentin IF, and the sliding was found to occur at 30.44±13.41pN. Helical domain unfoldings were observed only in the non-fixed samples to start at 10.19±5.63pN on average witha mean increase of 42.12±26.74nm. This force agreed with the prediction of the extended Bell model described in the literature and the length increase was around double of the domain length, which indicated the uncoiling of the coiled-coils. The force-displacement curves also reveal different modes of failure of the vimentin intermediate filaments including protofilaments slippage/sliding and entropic elasticity. A new tearing off model was hence proposed based on different modes of failure and a previous model developed for desmin filaments reported in literature. / published_or_final_version / Orthopaedics and Traumatology / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

In this thesis, an efficient rotation-free (RF) triangle is proposed and applied to drape/cloth simulations in which the cloth often under large displacements and rotations. The RF model is a class of thin plate/shell computational models possessing only 3 translational degrees of freedom per director whilst their domains of influence are larger than their domains of integration. An important advantage of RF models is that they do not use rotational degrees of freedom and, thus, are not plagued by the complication in finite rotations. Among the quadrilateral and triangular RF models, the latter possesses no practical restriction on the nodal distribution and appears to be a good candidate for drape/cloth simulations. The geometrical linear formulation of the RF model is firstly considered. For straight beams and plates, the curvature is directly obtained through a complete quadratic interpolation of the transverse deflection. For linear curved beams and shells, the curvature change is again derived by the interpolation and the transverse deflection is through projection. The linear RF model is then extended to the geometrical nonlinear analyses by using the corotational framework as well as the small strain and small curvature assumptions. For the RF straight beam and plate, constant tangential bending stiffness matrices which do not need to be updated during the iterative solution process are derived. For the RF curved beam and shell, the bending energies and bending internal forces become a bit complicated. However, the tangential bending stiffness matrices can still be approximated by using the constant matrices as if they are initially straight/flat. The constant approximation exhibits negligible adverse effect on the convergence. Comparing with other exiting RF models, the present RF triangle is simple and physical yet its accuracy is competitive. In its application to static drape simulations, realistic drape configurations with obvious folds are predicted. The RF beam is extended to consider static and dynamic analyses of cable structures. Under the same nodal distributions, the present RF model can tolerate larger load increment and time step in static and explicit dynamic analyses, respectively, with respect to the two-node C0beam finite element model. For virtual sewing and dynamic cloth simulations, an integrated system is developed by synergizing the RF triangle, explicit time integration, adaptive remeshing, collision handling, human body modeling, sewing forces and a supplementary bending energy to suppress the non-physical sharp fold formation. The predicted steady-state configurations of the garments after sewing appear to be realistic and agree with our daily perception. The predictions for cloth dynamic deformations on human body model also look realistic and natural. This thesis proposes a simple and efficient rotation-free triangle which is especially suitable for the problems involving large displacements and rotations. Its application in drape/cloth simulations and integration of various techniques in cloth simulations are explored. The present study is of significance in cloth simulations. / published_or_final_version / Mechanical Engineering / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

abstract / Mechanical Engineering / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Mechanical Engineering / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Mechanical Engineering / Master / Master of Philosophy

No description available.