A bidirectional deployable parabolic cylindrical reflector for an L-band synthetic aperture radar is presented in this study, in which a self-deployed antenna with low weight was designed. The antenna consists of four curved surfaces formed from thin sheets of composite materials connected by hinges along the edges, and the reflective surface is provided by the front surface. The edge profiles of connecting lines were obtained through geometric analysis. A scaled model, including design and manufacture, was demonstrated to validate the process from the folded state to the fully deployed state. The non-contact synchronous vision measuring method was used to test the basic frequency of the scaled model, and the test results gave the verification of the analyses. Compared with the existing unidirectional deployable antenna, this new type of bidirectional deployable antenna can be applied to larger-size antennas and has better performance because the glass-woven tape connections were substituted with more reliable hinges. Static, modal, harmonic response, and transient response analyses of the full-sized reflector structure were modeled with the commercial finite element (FE) package ABAQUS. The modeling techniques were developed to predict the structural dynamic behavior of the reflector and the results showed that the first natural frequency was 0.865 Hz, and the reflector structure had good stiffness in three directions. This proposed structure has very high stiffness-to-mass ratio because of its hollow solid construction. A preliminary simulation of radiation properties of the parabolic cylindrical antenna, fed by an off-set linear feed horn array, was conducted to obtain the radiation pattern of the feed and the reflector.

This paper presents a node shift method to find the optimal distribution of nodes in single-layer reticulated shells. The optimization process searches for the minimum strain energy configuration and this leads to reduced sensitivity in initial imperfections. Strain energy sensitivity numbers are derived for free shift and restricted shift where nodes can move freely in the 3D space or have to move within a predefined surface respectively. Numerical examples demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed approach. It was found that optimized structures achieve higher ultimate load and are less sensitive to imperfections than the initial structure. The configuration of the final structure is closely related to factors like the initial structural configuration, spatial conditions, etc. Based on different initial conditions, architects can be provided with diverse reasonable structures. Furthermore, by amending the defined shapes and nodal distributions, it is possible to improve the mechanical behavior of the structures.

The singularities and oscillatory performance of translating-pulsating source Green’s function in Bessho form were analyzed. Relative numerical integration methods such as Gaussian quadrature rule, variable substitution method (VSM), and steepest descent integration method (SDIM) were used to evaluate this type of Green’s function. For SDIM, the complex domain was restricted only on the θ-plane. Meanwhile, the integral along the real axis was computed by use of the VSM to avoid the complication of a numerical search of the steepest descent line. Furthermore, the steepest descent line was represented by the B-spline function. Based on this representation, a new self-compatible integration method corresponding to parametric t was established. The numerical method was validated through comparison with other existing results, and was shown to be efficient and reliable in the calculation of the velocity potentials for the 3D seakeeping and hydrodynamic performance of floating structures moving in waves.

Submarine hydrothermal vents occur over a wide depth range from a few meters to several thousands of meters. Most existing hydrothermal fluid samplers are focused on deep-sea environments and are not suited for collecting shallow-water fluids. In this study, a new gas-tight sampler which can be easily deployed by both submersibles and scuba divers to collect fluid samples from both deep-sea and shallow-water hydrothermal vents is presented. The proposed sampler uses an electric control sampling valve for fluid collection and a system to measure and display the temperature of the hydrothermal fluid while sampling. It is capable of working in manual mode to be controlled via external signals, or in automatic mode to collect a fluid sample according to the temperature. The master-slave architecture of the electronic system makes the sampler flexible in meeting many different deployment requirements. The performance of the sampler has been demonstrated by preliminary field tests at a shallow-water hydrothermal vent site.

To estimate the motion parameters of a moving target before its passing by the closest point of approach (CPA) point in a low frequency analyzing and recording (LOFAR) field, an error-free theoretical method based on the joint measurement of target radiated noise’s amplitude and frequency was presented. First, the error-free theoretical equations for target characteristic frequency, absolute velocity, the CPA, and amplitude of the radiation noise were derived by three equal interval measured values of the target amplitude and frequency. Then, the method to improve the calculation accuracy was given. Finally, the simulation and experiments were conducted in the air and showed the correctness of this method. By using one single piece of LOFAR, this method can calculate four target parameters and the relative error of each estimated parameter is less than 10%.

The fracture processes of concrete were described by a cohesive crack model based on initial toughness criterion. The corresponding analytical method to predict the instability state was proposed. In this model, the initial toughness was adopted as the crack propagation criterion and the weight function method was used to calculate the stress intensity factor and the crack opening displacement caused by the cohesive stress. The unstable toughness can be easily obtained using the proposed method without measuring parameters at the critical state that was necessary in traditional methods. The proposed method was verified by existing experimental data of wedge splitting specimens with different grades of concrete and the sensitivity of the results on the tensile softening curve was discussed. The results demonstrate that the proposed method can well predict the peak load, the critical effective crack length, and the unstable toughness of concrete specimens. Moreover, the calculated unstable toughness is not sensitive to the tensile softening curve.

Cu-12% Fe (in weight) composite was prepared by casting, pretreating, and cold drawing. The microstructure was observed and Vickers hardness was measured for the composite at various drawing strains. Cu and Fe grains could evolve into aligned filaments during the drawing process. X-ray diffraction (XRD) was used to analyze the orientation evolution during the drawing process. The axial direction of the filamentary structure has different preferred orientations from the radial directions. The strain of Fe grains linearly increases with an increase in the drawing strain up to 6.0, and deviates from the linear relation when the drawing strain is higher than 6.0. With an increase in the drawing strain, the microstructure scales of Fe filaments exponentially decrease. The density of the interface between Cu and Fe phases exponentially increases with an increase in the aspect ratio of Fe filaments. There is a similar Hall-Petch relationship between the hardness and Fe filament spacing. The refined microstructure from drawing deformation at drawing strains lower than 3.0 can induce a more significant hardening effect than that at drawing strains higher than 3.0.