Flexural rigidity

About: Flexural rigidity is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 3829 publications have been published within this topic receiving 56780 citations.

Influence of rigidity on laterally loaded pile groups in marine clay

Abstract: Pile-supported marine structures are designed for significant amounts of lateral load. In this paper, the influence of parameters like flexural rigidity of pile material, embedment length of pile, and arrangement of piles with respect to the direction of loading on the behavior of laterally loaded pile groups has been studied through an experimental program. The results obtained from lateral load tests carried out on model pile groups arranged at different spacings and embedded in a marine clayey bed are presented and discussed. The results indicate that the lateral load capacity of the pile group depends mainly on the rigidity of pile soil system for different arrangements of piles within a group. This is further substantiated by a simplified finite element analysis bringing in the differences in passive resistance. The group efficiencies under lateral loading obtained from the present investigation are found to be in good agreement with the predictions of earlier researchers.

Superflexibility of graphene oxide

Abstract: Graphene oxide (GO), the main precursor of graphene-based materials made by solution processing, is known to be very stiff. Indeed, it has a Young's modulus comparable to steel, on the order of 300 GPa. Despite its very high stiffness, we show here that GO is superflexible. We quantitatively measure the GO bending rigidity by characterizing the flattening of thermal undulations in response to shear forces in solution. Characterizations are performed by the combination of synchrotron X-ray diffraction at small angles and in situ rheology (rheo-SAXS) experiments using the high X-ray flux of a synchrotron source. The bending modulus is found to be 1 kT, which is about two orders of magnitude lower than the bending rigidity of neat graphene. This superflexibility compares with the fluidity of self-assembled liquid bilayers. This behavior is discussed by considering the mechanisms at play in bending and stretching deformations of atomic monolayers. The superflexibility of GO is a unique feature to develop bendable electronics after reduction, films, coatings, and fibers. This unique combination of properties of GO allows for flexibility in processing and fabrication coupled with a robustness in the fabricated structure.