Mathematical and Computational Applications — Open Access Journal

The vibration characteristics of a nonuniform, flexible and free-flying slender rocket experiencing constant thrust is investigated. The rocket is idealized as a classic nonuniform beam with a constant one-dimensional follower force and with free-free boundary conditions. The equations of motion are derived by applying the extended Hamilton’s principle for non-conservative systems. Natural frequencies and associated mode shapes of the rocket are determined using the relatively efficient and accurate Adomian modified decomposition method (AMDM) with the solutions obtained by solving a set of algebraic equations with only three unknown parameters. The method can easily be extended to obtain approximate solutions to vibration problems for any type of nonuniform beam. Full article

This book constitutes the printed edition of the Special Issue Numerical and Symbolic Computation: Developments and Applications—2019, published by Mathematical and Computational Applications (MCA) and comprises a collection of articles related to works presented at the 4th International Conference in Numerical and Symbolic Computation—SYMCOMP 2019—that took place in Porto, Portugal, from April 11th to April 12th 2019 [...] Full article

A number of practical problems in science and engineering can be converted into a system of nonlinear equations and therefore, it is imperative to develop efficient methods for solving such equations. Due to their nice convergence properties and low storage requirements, conjugate gradient methods are considered among the most efficient for solving large-scale nonlinear equations. In this paper, a modified conjugate gradient method is proposed based on a projection technique and a suitable line search strategy. The proposed method is matrix-free and its sequence of search directions satisfies sufficient descent condition. Under the assumption that the underlying function is monotone and Lipschitzian continuous, the global convergence of the proposed method is established. The method is applied to solve some benchmark monotone nonlinear equations and also extended to solve ${\ell }_1$ -norm regularized problems to reconstruct a sparse signal in compressive sensing. Numerical comparison with some existing methods shows that the proposed method is competitive, efficient and promising. Full article

The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) is arguably the most popular and factual approach for computing the weights of attributes in the multi-attribute decision-making environment. The Preference Ranking Organization Method for Enrichment of Evaluations (PROMETHEE) is an outranking family of multi-criteria decision-making techniques for evaluating a finite set of alternatives, that relies on multiple and inconsistent criteria. One of its main advantages is the variety of admissible preference functions that can measure the differences between alternatives, in response to the type and nature of the criteria. This research article studies a version of the PROMETHEE technique that encompasses multipolar assessments of the performance of each alternative (relative to the relevant criteria). As is standard practice, first we resort to the AHP technique in order to quantify the normalized weights of the attributes by the pairwise comparison of criteria. Afterwards the m-polar fuzzy PROMETHEE approach is used to rank the alternatives on the basis of conflicting criteria. Six types of generalized criteria preference functions are used to measure the differences or deviations of every pair of alternatives. A partial ranking of alternatives arises by computing the positive and negative outranking flows of alternatives, which is known as PROMETHEE I. Furthermore, a complete ranking of alternatives is achieved by the inspection of the net flow of alternatives, and this is known as PROMETHEE II. Two comparative analysis are performed. A first study checks the impact of different types of preference functions. It considers the usual criterion preference function for all criteria. In addition, we compare the technique that we develop with existing multi-attribute decision-making methods. Full article

The known multifunctional characteristic of porous graded materials makes them very attractive in a number of diversified application fields, which simultaneously poses the need to deepen research efforts in this broad field. The study of functionally graded porous materials is a research topic of interest, particularly concerning the modeling of porosity distributions and the corresponding estimations of their material properties—in both real situations and from a material modeling perspective. This work aims to assess the influence of different porosity distribution approaches on the shear correction factor, used in the context of the first-order shear deformation theory, which in turn may introduce significant effects in a structure’s behavior. To this purpose, we evaluated porous functionally graded plates with varying composition through their thickness. The bending behavior of these plates was studied using the finite element method with two quadrilateral plate element models. Verification studies were performed to assess the representativeness of the developed and implemented models, namely, considering an alternative higher-order model also employed for this specific purpose. Comparative analyses were developed to assess how porosity distributions influence the shear correction factor, and ultimately the static behavior, of the plates. Full article

The augmented Lagrange multiplier as an important concept in duality theory for optimization problems is extended in this paper to generalized augmented Lagrange multipliers by allowing a nonlinear support for the augmented perturbation function. The existence of generalized augmented Lagrange multipliers is established by perturbation analysis. Meanwhile, the relations among generalized augmented Lagrange multipliers, saddle points, and zero duality gap property are developed. Full article

Type-1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) is an autoimmune disease that has an impact on mortality due to the destruction of insulin-producing pancreatic $\beta$ -cells in the islets of Langerhans. Over the past few years, the interest in analyzing this type of disease, either in a biological or mathematical sense, has relied on the search for a treatment that guarantees full control of glucose levels. Mathematical models inspired by natural phenomena, are proposed under the prey–predator scheme. T1DM fits in this scheme due to the complicated relationship between pancreatic $\beta$ -cell population growth and leukocyte population growth via the immune response. In this scenario, $\beta$ -cells represent the prey, and leukocytes the predator. This paper studies the global dynamics of T1DM reported by Magombedze et al. in 2010. This model describes the interaction of resting macrophages, activated macrophages, antigen cells, autolytic T-cells, and $\beta$ -cells. Therefore, the localization of compact invariant sets is applied to provide a bounded positive invariant domain in which one can ensure that once the dynamics of the T1DM enter into this domain, they will remain bounded with a maximum and minimum value. Furthermore, we analyzed this model in a closed-loop scenario based on nonlinear control theory, and proposed bases for possible control inputs, complementing the model with them. These entries are based on the existing relationship between cell–cell interaction and the role that they play in the unchaining of a diabetic condition. The closed-loop analysis aims to give a deeper understanding of the impact of autolytic T-cells and the nature of the $\beta$ -cell population interaction with the innate immune system response. This analysis strengthens the proposal, providing a system free of this illness—that is, a condition wherein the pancreatic $\beta$ -cell population holds and there are no antigen cells labeled by the activated macrophages. Full article

Primary Objective: The interaction of cerebrospinal fluid with the brain parenchyma in an impact scenario is studied. Research Design: A computational fluid-structure interaction model is used to simulate the interaction of cerebrospinal fluid with a comprehensive brain model. Methods and Procedures: The method of smoothed particle hydrodynamics is used to simulate the fluid flow, induced by the impact, simultaneously with finite element analysis to solve the large deformations in the brain model. Main Outcomes and Results: Mechanism of injury resulting in concussion is demonstrated. The locations with the highest stress values on the brain parenchyma are shown. Conclusions: Our simulations found that the damage to the brain resulting from the contrecoup injury is more severe than that resulting from the coup injury. Additionally, we show that the contrecoup injury does not always appear on the side opposite from where impact occurs. Full article

Knowing the precise material properties of intracranial head organs is crucial for studying the biomechanics of head injury. It has been shown that these biological tissues are significantly rate-dependent; hence, their material properties should be determined with respect to the range of deformation rate they experience. In this paper, a validated finite element human head model is used to investigate the biomechanics of the head in impact and blast, leading to traumatic brain injuries (TBI). We simulate the head under various directions and velocities of impacts, as well as helmeted and unhelmeted head under blast shock waves. It is demonstrated that the strain rates for the brain are in the range of 36 to 241 s⁻¹, approximately 1.9 and 0.86 times the resulting head acceleration under impacts and blast scenarios, respectively. The skull was found to experience a rate in the range of 14 to 182 s⁻¹, approximately 0.7 and 0.43 times the head acceleration corresponding to impact and blast cases. The results of these incident simulations indicate that the strain rates for brainstem and dura mater are respectively in the range of 15 to 338 and 8 to 149 s⁻¹. These findings provide a good insight into characterizing the brain tissue, cranial bone, brainstem and dura mater, and also selecting material properties in advance for computational dynamical studies of the human head. Full article

We perturbed a family of exponential polynomial maps in order to show both analytically and numerically their unpredictable orbit behavior. Due to the analytical form of the iteration functions the family has numerically different behavior than its correspondent analytical one, which is a topic of paramount importance in computer mathematics. We discover an unexpected oscillatory parametrical behavior of the perturbed family. Full article

The microenvironment of the tumor is a key factor regulating tumor cell invasion and metastasis. The effects of physical factors in tumorigenesis is unclear. Shear stress, induced by liquid flow, plays a key role in proliferation, apoptosis, invasion, and metastasis of tumor cells. The mathematical models have the potential to elucidate the metastatic behavior of the cells’ membrane exposed to these microenvironment forces. Due to the shape configuration of the cancer cells, Non-uniform Rational B-splines (NURBS) lines are very adequate to define its geometric model. The Isogeometric Analysis allows a simplified transition of exact CAD models into the analysis avoiding the geometrical discontinuities of the traditional Galerkin traditional techniques. In this work, we use an isogeometric analysis to model the fluid-generated forces that tumor cells are exposed to in the vascular and tumor microenvironments, in the metastatic process. Using information provided by experimental tests in vitro, we present a suite of numerical experiments which indicate, for standard configurations, the metastatic behavior of cells exposed to such forces. The focus of this paper is strictly on geometrical sensitivities to the shear stress’ exhibition for the cell membrane, this being its innovation. Full article

In this paper, a prescribed performance adaptive backstepping control (PPABC) strategy is proposed to control the speed of a winding segmented permanent magnet linear synchronous motor (WS-PMLSM) with variable parameters and an unknown load disturbance. Firstly, a mathematical model of WS-PMLSM is provided. Then, the prescribed performance technique is introduced in the adaptive backstepping control to improve the transient performance and ensures the tracking error converges within a predetermined range. In addition, a constrained command filter is introduced to address the problem of differential expansion which exists in the traditional backstepping method, and a filter compensation signal is designed against the filter error. Moreover, the adaptive law is designed based on Lyapunov stability theory to estimate the uncertainties caused by parameter changes and load disturbances. The stability of the proposed control strategy is given and the simulation of the control system is carried out under the proposed PPABC in contrast with another backstepping control and traditional PI control. Finally, the experiment is conducted to further show the effectiveness of the proposed controller. Full article

One of the effective ways of reducing power system losses is local compensation of part of the reactive power consumption by deploying shunt capacitor banks. Since the capacitor’s impedance is frequency-dependent and it is possible to generate resonances at harmonic frequencies, it is important to provide an efficient method for the placement of capacitor banks in the presence of nonlinear loads which are the main cause of harmonic generation. This paper proposes a solution for a multi-objective optimization problem to address the optimal placement of capacitor banks in the presence of nonlinear loads, and it establishes a reasonable reconciliation between costs, along with improvement of harmonic distortion and a voltage index. In this paper, while using the harmonic power flow method to calculate the electrical quantities of the grid in terms of harmonic effects, the non-dominated sorting genetic (NSGA)-II multi-objective genetic optimization algorithm was used to obtain a set of solutions named the Pareto front for the problem. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method, the problem was tested for an IEEE 18-bus system. The results were compared with the methods used in eight other studies. The simulation results show the considerable efficiency and superiority of the proposed flexible method over other methods. Full article

Hyperchaotic systems have applications in multiple areas of science and engineering. The study and development of these type of systems helps to solve diverse problems related to encryption and decryption of information. In order to solve the chaos synchronization problem for a hyperchaotic Lorenz-type system, we propose an observer based synchronization under a master-slave configuration. The proposed methodology consists of designing a sliding-mode observer (SMO) for the hyperchaotic system. In contrast, this type of methodology exhibits high-frequency oscillations, commonly known as chattering. To solve this problem, a fuzzy-based SMO system was designed. Numerical simulations illustrate the effectiveness of the synchronization between the hyperchaotic system obtained and the proposed observer. Full article

The present paper deals with nonlinear, non-monotonic data regression. This paper introduces an efficient algorithm to perform data transformation from non-monotonic to monotonic to be paired with a statistical bivariate regression method. The proposed algorithm is applied to a number of synthetic and real-world non-monotonic data sets to test its effectiveness. The proposed novel non-isotonic regression algorithm is also applied to a collection of data about strontium isotope stratigraphy and compared to a LOWESS regression tool. Full article

This paper investigates the permanent-magnet (PM) eddy-current losses in multi-phase PM synchronous machines (PMSM) with concentric winding and surface-mounted PMs. A hybrid multi-layer model, combining a two-dimensional (2-D) generic magnetic equivalent circuit (MEC) with a 2-D analytical model based on the Maxwell–Fourier method (i.e., the formal resolution of Maxwell’s equations by using the separation of variables method and the Fourier’s series), performs the eddy-current loss calculations. First, the magnetic flux density was obtained from the 2-D generic MEC and then subjected to the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). The semi-analytical model includes the automatic mesh of static/moving zones, the saturation effect and zones connection in accordance with rotor motion based on a new approach called “Air-gap sliding line technic”. The results of the hybrid multi-layer model were compared with those obtained by three-dimensional (3-D) nonlinear finite-element analysis (FEA). The PM eddy-current losses were estimated on different paths for different segmentations as follow: (i) one segment (no segmentation), (ii) five axial segments, and (iii) two circumferential segments, where the non-uniformity loss distribution is shown. The top of PMs presents a higher quantity of losses compared to the bottom. Full article

This study presents the design of a hybrid active disturbance rejection controller (H-ADRC) which regulates the gait cycle of a worm bio-inspired robotic device (WBRD). The WBRD is designed as a full actuated six rigid link robotic manipulator. The controller considers the state restrictions in the device articulations; this means the maximum and minimum angular ranges, to avoid any possible damage to the structure. The controller uses an active compensation method to estimate the unknown dynamics of the WBRD by means of an extended state observer. The sequence of movements for the gait cycle of a WBRD is represented as a class of hybrid system by alternative reference frameworks placed at the first and the last link. The stability analysis employs a class of Hybrid Barrier Lyapunov Function to ensure the fulfillment of the angular restrictions in the robotic device. The proposed controller is evaluated using a numerical simulation system based on the virtual version of the WBRD. Moreover, experimental results confirmed that the H-ADRC may endorse the realization of the proposed gait cycle despite the presence of perturbations and modeling uncertainties. The H-ADRC is compared against a proportional derivative (PD) controller and a proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller. The H-ADRC shows a superior performance as a consequence of the estimation provided by the homogeneous extended state observer. Full article

Every year, thousands of people die in the European Union as a direct result of road accidents. Helmets are one of the most important types of personal safety gear. The ECE R22.05 standard, adopted in 2000, is responsible for the certification of motorcycle helmets in the European Union and in many other countries. Two decades later, it is still being used with the same requirements, without any update. The aim of this work is to evaluate the efficacy of a motorcycle helmet certified by such standard, using computational models as an assessment tool. First, a finite element model of a motorcycle helmet available on the market was developed and validated by simulating the same impacts required by the standard. Then, a finite element model of the human head is used as an injury prediction tool to assess its safety performance. Results indicate a significant risk of brain injury, which is in accordance with previous studies available in the literature. Therefore, this work underlines and emphasizes the need of improving the requirements of ECE R22.05. Full article

For three-phase induction machines supplied by sinusoidal current, it is usual to model the n-bar squirrel-cage by an equivalent two-phase circuit. For a multiphase induction machine which can be supplied with different harmonics of current, the reduced-order model of the rotor must be more carefully chosen in order to predict the pulsations of torque. The proposed analysis allows to avoid a wrong design with non-sinusoidal magnetomotive forces. An analytical approach is proposed and confirmed by Finite-Element modelling at first for a three-phase induction machine and secondly for a five-phase induction machine. Full article