Wei Huang

In this study, we explored the evolution of mechanical properties in hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene (HTPB) propellants under fatigue loading by performing fatigue tests with varying maximum stresses and cycle numbers, followed by uniaxial tensile tests on post-fatigue specimens. Residual elongation was used as a key parameter to characterize mechanical behavior, while scanning electron microscopy (SEM) provided insights into the mesostructural morphological changes that occur under different loading conditions, revealing the mechanisms responsible for variations in mechanical properties. The results show that, as the number of loading cycles increases, residual elongation decreases, with three distinct phases of decline—slow change, gradual decline, and rapid deterioration—depending on the stress levels. SEM analysis identified damage mechanisms such as “dewetting” and particle fragmentation at the mesostructural level, which compromise the material’s structural integrity, leading to reduced residual elongation. A novel aspect of this study is the application of Williams–Landel–Ferry (WLF) theory to construct a master curve describing residual elongation decay. This approach enabled the development of a generalized model to predict the material’s degradation under fatigue loading, with experimental validation of the fitted evolution model, offering a new and effective method for assessing the long-term performance of HTPB propellants.

To investigate the flow mechanism of feather-like rough airfoils based on swift wings, computational simulations were employed to explore their overall aerodynamic characteristics in comparison to equivalent smooth airfoils. The study focused on angles of attack ranging from 0° to 20° at low Reynolds numbers. The results reveal that the rough airfoil exhibits higher lift and lower drag compared to the smooth airfoil at moderate angles of attack ranging from 6° to 10°, resulting in significantly improved aerodynamic efficiency. Notably, at an angle of attack of 8°, the aerodynamic efficiency is increased by 19%. However, at angles of attack smaller than 6°, the increase in drag outweighs the increase in lift, leading to lower aerodynamic efficiency for the rough airfoil. Conversely, when the angle of attack exceeds 16°, both airfoils experience separated flow-dominated flow fields, resulting in comparable effective aerodynamic shapes and similar aerodynamic efficiencies. Furthermore, the study found that increasing the Reynolds number results in greater pressure differences in the flow field, leading to higher aerodynamic efficiency. These preliminary conclusions are valuable for elucidating the flight mechanisms of bird-feather-like wings and can inform the design or morphing design of bio-inspired micro aerial vehicles in the near future.

The acoustic black hole (ABH) is a feature commonly found in thin-walled structures that is characterized by a diminishing thickness and damping layer with an efficient wave energy dissipation effect, which has been extensively studied. The additive manufacture of polymer ABH structures has shown promise as a low-cost method to manufacture ABHs with complex geometries, exhibiting even more effective dissipation. However, the commonly used elastic model with viscous damping for both the damping layer and polymer ignores the viscoelastic changes that occur due to variations in frequency. To address this, we used Prony exponential series expansion to describe the viscoelastic behavior of the material, where the modulus is represented by a summation of decaying exponential functions. The parameters of the Prony model were obtained through experimental dynamic mechanical analysis and applied to finite element models to simulate wave attenuation characteristics in polymer ABH structures. The numerical results were validated by experiments, where the out-of-plane displacement response under a tone burst excitation was measured by a scanning laser doppler vibrometer system. The experimental results illustrated good consistency with the simulations, demonstrating the effectiveness of the Prony series model in predicting wave attenuation in polymer ABH structures. Finally, the effect of loading frequency on wave attenuation was studied. The findings of this study have implications for the design of ABH structures with improved wave attenuation characteristics.

A previously proposed planar axisymmetric dynamic vibration absorber (DVA), with embedded acoustic black hole (ABH) features, has been shown to suffer from the very selective coupling with the host structure, thus compromising its vibration reduction performance. To tackle the problem, an eccentric ABH-based circular DVA whose thickness profile is tailored according to a circumferential gradient variation is proposed. This new configuration preserves the ABH profile in the radial direction and breaks the axisymmetric of the original DVA design at the same time. While the former permits the ABH features to fully play out in a continuous manner, the later entails a more effective coupling with the host structure. These salient properties have been demonstrated and confirmed both numerically and experimentally by examining a benchmark plate structure. For analyses, a coupling model embracing the host structure and the add-on DVAs is established which allows the calculation of the coupling coefficient, a vital quantity to guide the DVA design. Studies demonstrate the advantages of the proposed DVA over existing designs for the same given mass. The enriched structural coupling and the enhanced modal damping, arising from the eccentric and circumferentially graded ABH design, are shown to be the origin of such improvement. All in all, the physical process underpinning the dynamic absorber principle and waveguide absorber from the host structures is simultaneously consolidated, thus leading to superior broadband structural vibration suppression.