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The purpose of this paper is to assess the suitability of various methods for the reduction of a large finite element model (FEM) of satellites to produce models to be used for correlation of the FEM with test results. The robustness of the cross‐orthogonality checks (COC) for the correlation process carried out utilizing the reduced model is investigated, showing its dependence on the number of mode shapes used in the reduction process. Finally the paper investigates the improvement in the robustness of the COC that can be achieved utilizing optimality criteria for the selection of the degrees of freedom (DOF) used for the correlation process.

A Monte Carlo approach has been used to simulate inaccuracies in the mode shapes (analysis and experimental) of a satellite FEM that are compared during the COC. The sensitivity of the COC to the parameters utilized during the reduction process, i.e. mode shapes and DOFs, is then assessed for different levels of inaccuracy in the mode shapes.

The System Equivalent Expansion Reduction Process (SEREP) has been identified as a particularly suitable method, with the advantage that a SEREP reduced model has the same eigenvalues and eigenvector of the whole system therefore automatically meeting the criteria on the quality of the reduced model. The inclusion of a high number of mode shapes in the reduction process makes the check very sensitive to minor experimental or modelling inaccuracies. Finally it was shown that utilizing optimality criteria in the selection of the DOFs to carry out the correlation can significantly improve the probability of meeting the COC criteria.

This work is based on the FEM of the satellite Aeolus, and therefore the numerical values obtained in this study are specific for this application. However, this model represents a typical satellite FEM and therefore the trends identified in this work are expected to be generally valid for this type of structure.

The correlation of satellite FEM with test results involves a substantial effort, and it is crucial to avoid failures of the COC due to numerical issues rather than real model inaccuracies. This work shows also how an inappropriate choice of reduction parameters can lead to failure of the COC in cases when there are only very minor differences (e.g. due to minor amount of noise in the results) between analytical and test results. Vice versa, the work also shows how the robustness of the reduced model can be improved.

The paper shows how the robustness of the correlation process for a satellite FEM carried out utilising a SEREP reduced model needed to be investigated, to demonstrate the suitability of this method to reduce large FEM of satellites.

Because of the compact structure, short flexspline (FS) harmonic drive (HD) is increasingly used. The stress calculation of FS is very important in design and optimization of HD system. This paper aims to study the stress calculation methods for short FS, based on mechanics analysis and finite element method (FEM).

A rapid stress calculation method, based on mechanics analysis, is proposed for the short FS of HD. To verify the stress calculation precision of short FS, a complete finite element model of HD is established. The results of stress and deformation of short FS in different lengths are solved by FEM.

Through the rapid calculation method, the analytical relationship between circumferential stress and length of cylinder was obtained. And the circumferential stress has proportional relation with the reciprocal of squared length. The FEM results verified that the rapid stress calculation method could obtain accurate results.

The rapid mechanics analysis method is practiced to evaluate the strength of FS at the design stage of HD. And the complete model of HD could contribute to improving the accuracy of FEM results.

The rapid calculation method is developed based on mechanics analysis method of cylinder and equivalent additional bending moment model, through which the analytical relationship between circumferential stress and length of cylinder was obtained. The complete three-dimensional finite element model of HD takes the stiffness of bearing into consideration, which can be used in the numerical simulation in the future work to improve the accuracy.

This paper presents the optimization of the design of a railway wheel in terms of the wheel's sound power levels emission, with respect to its geometrical properties. To this end, a simplified finite element method (FEM) model of the wheel was employed, that did not include the interaction of the wheel and rail or the influence of the braking system that is assembled on the wheel. The objective of the optimization method was to find a design of the selected railway wheel, which without the use of damping or tuning devices, emits less vibration/noise compared to the original design. The optimization method used, was based on genetic algorithms (GAs). GAs are a robust optimization method that performs regardless of the optimization problem. The GA‐based optimization method that is presented in this paper, utilized ANSYS running in batch mode for the calculation of the objective function values of the population of each generation.

The aim of the paper is to explain and clarify the pre-processing for a finite element based wound rotor induction machine model.

The paper presents two algorithms. The first one speeds up the FE-simulations by changing the input parameter permutation scheme only. The second algorithm speeds up the quint-cubic spline parameter calculation by utilizing the continuity conditions between adjacent segments.

The paper provides comparisons of the calculation cost to show the advantages of the presented algorithms.

The algorithms explained in this paper allow a practical application of the finite element based model approach for a wound rotor induction machine. Therefore, this work completes the development of the finite element based wound rotor induction machine model.

For the electromagnetic simulation of electrical machines, models with different ranges of values, levels of detail and accuracies are used. In this paper, numerical and two analytical models of an induction machine (IM) are analysed with respect to these aspects. The purpose of the paper is to use these analyses to discuss the suitability of the models for the simulation of various physical quantities of an IM.

An exemplary IM is simulated using the two-dimensional numerical finite element method, an analytical harmonic wave model (HWM) and an extended HWM. The simulation results are analyzed among themselves in terms of their level of detail and accuracy. Furthermore, the results of operating map simulations are compared with measured operating maps of the exemplary machine, and the accuracy of the simulation approaches is discussed in the context of measurement deviations and uncertainties.

The difference in the accuracy of the machine models depends on the physical quantity of interest. Therefore, the choice of the simulation method depends on the nature of the problem and the expected range of results. For modeling global machine quantities, such as mean torque or losses, analytical methods such as the HWM s are sufficient in many applications because the simulation results are within the range of measurement accuracy of current measurement systems. Analytical methods are also suitable for local flux density curves under certain conditions. However, for the simulation of the influence of local physical effects on the machine behavior and of temporally highly resolved quantities in saturated operating points, the accuracy of the analytical models decreases and the use of the finite element method becomes necessary.

In this paper, an extension of the HWM is used to calculate the IM, which, in contrast to the HWM, models the saturation. Furthermore, the simulation results of the different electromagnetic IM models are put into the context of the uncertainty of a measurement of several identical IMs.

The purpose of this paper is to implement the Anderson acceleration for different formulations of eletromagnetic nonlinear problems and analyze the method efficiency and strategies to obtain a fast convergence.

The paper is structured as follows: the general class of fixed point nonlinear problems is shown at first, highlighting the requirements for convergence. The acceleration method is then shown with the associated pseudo-code. Finally, the algorithm is tested on different formulations (finite element, finite element/boundary element) and material properties (nonlinear iron, hysteresis models for laminates). The results in terms of convergence and iterations required are compared to the non-accelerated case.

The Anderson acceleration provides accelerations up to 75 per cent in the test cases that have been analyzed. For the hysteresis test case, a restart technique is proven to be helpful in analogy to the restarted GMRES technique.

The acceleration that has been suggested in this paper is rarely adopted for the electromagnetic case (it is normally adopted in the electronic simulation case). The procedure is general and works with different magneto-quasi static formulations as shown in the paper. The obtained accelerations allow to reduce the number of iterations required up to 75 per cent in the benchmark cases. The method is also a good candidate in the hysteresis case, where normally the fixed point schemes are preferred to the Newton ones.

This paper aims to conduct an empirical investigation of how financial inclusion impacts women empowerment. Then, it examines the overall effect of various dimensions of financial inclusion on women empowerment in developing countries using the panel data for the time period of 2004–2019.

To overcome the problem of endogeneity, the study has used a fixed-effect model, two-stage least square GMM estimation techniques. Secondary data was collected from various websites such as WDI, UNICEF and UNESCO.

The results show that generally, the influence of financial inclusion on women empowerment is positive, confirming previous empirical literature results. The study found evidence that if there is more financial inclusion in the country, it will benefit women by enabling them to see their qualities and skills, which make them strong and dominant. Proper development and enhancement of those skills are only possible if proper education, awareness and space are given to express oneself. According to the results, financial development, gender parity index and women's employment positively affects women empowerment, while gender discrimination has a negative impact on women empowerment. The study highlights that to encourage women empowerment in developing countries. Governments and policymakers have to carefully check and reconsider that what are the most optimal financial inclusion programs that will help to improve the women empowerment in the country.

The study highlights that to encourage women empowerment in developing countries, governments and policymakers have to carefully check and reconsider what are the most optimal financial inclusion programs that will help to improve women empowerment in the country.

The literature does not clearly show the impact of financial inclusion dimensions on women empowerment in developing countries. Therefore, there is a need to use all the dimensions of financial inclusion to check the overall impact on women empowerment in developing countries. For this purpose, the financial inclusion index is developed. A new dimension of non-life insurance is introduced, which has not been used previously by any researcher to check financial inclusion impact.

The purpose of this study is to present a multi-scale analysis methodology for calculating the effective stiffnesses and the micro stresses of helically wound structures efficiently and accurately. The helically wound structure is widely applied in ocean and civil engineering as load-bearing structures with high flexibility, such as wire ropes, umbilical cables and flexible risers. Their structures are usually composed of a number of twisted subcomponents with relatively large slender ratio and have the one-dimensional periodic characteristic in the axial direction. As the huge difference between the axial length and the cross-section size of this type of structures, the finite element modeling and theoretical analysis based on some assumption are usually unavailable leading to the reduction of computability; even the optimization design becomes infeasible.

Based on the asymptotic homogenization theory, the one-dimensional periodic helically wound structure is equivalent to the one-dimensional homogeneous beam. A novel implementation of the homogenization is derived for the analysis of the effective mechanical properties of the helically wound structure, and the tensile, bending, torsional and coupling stiffness properties of the effective beam model are obtained. On this basis, a downscaling analysis formation for the micro-component stress in the one-dimensional periodic wound structure is constructed. The stress of micro-components in the specified geometry position of the helically wound structure is obtained basing on the asymptotic homogenization theory simultaneously.

By comparing with the result from finite element established accurately, the established multi-scale calculation method of the one-dimensional periodic helically wound structure is verified. The influence of size effects on the macro effective performance and the micro-component stress is discussed.

This paper will provide the theoretical basis for the efficient elastoplastic analysis of the helically wound structure, even the fatigue analysis. In addition, it is necessary to point out that the axial length of the helically wound structure in the general engineering problems that such as deep-sea risers and submarine cables.

This paper aims to present a novel scheme for imposing periodic boundary conditions with downscaled macroscopic strain measures of gradient Cosserat continuum on the representative volume element (RVE) of discrete particle assembly in the frame of the second-order computational homogenization methods for granular materials.

The proposed scheme is based on the generalized Hill’s lemma of gradient Cosserat continuum and the incremental non-linear constitutive relation condensed to the peripheral particles of the RVE of discrete particle assembly. The generalized Hill’s lemma conducts to downscale the macroscopic strain or stress measures and to impose the periodic boundary conditions on the RVE boundary so that the Hill-Mandel energy equivalence condition is ensured. Because of the incremental non-linear constitutive relation condensed to the peripheral particles of the RVE, the periodic boundary displacement and traction constraints together with the downscaled macroscopic strains and strain gradients, micro-rotations and curvatures are imposed in the point-wise sense without the need of introducing the Lagrange multipliers for enforcing the periodic boundary displacement and traction constraints in a weak sense.

Numerical results demonstrate that the applicability and effectiveness of the proposed scheme in imposing the periodic boundary conditions on the RVE. The results of the RVE subjected to the periodic boundary conditions together with the displacement boundary conditions in the second-order computational homogenization for granular materials provide the desired estimations, which lie between the upper and the lower bounds provided by the displacement and the traction boundary conditions imposed on the RVE respectively.

Each grain in the particulate system under consideration is assumed to be rigid and circular.

The proposed scheme for imposing periodic boundary conditions on the RVE can be adopted solely for estimating the effective mechanical properties of granular materials and/or integrated into the frame of the second-order computational homogenization method with a nested finite element method-discrete element method solution procedure for granular materials. It will tend to provide, at least theoretically, more reasonable results for effective material properties and solutions of a macroscopic boundary value problem simulated by the computational homogenization method.

This paper presents a novel scheme for imposing periodic boundary conditions with downscaled macroscopic strain measures of gradient Cosserat continuum on the RVE of discrete particle assembly for granular materials without need of introducing Lagrange multipliers for enforcing periodic boundary conditions in a weak (integration) sense.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a novel combined finite-discrete element method (FDEM), based on the cohesive zone model, for simulating rockslide problems at the laboratory scale.

The combined FDEM is realized using ABAQUS/Explicit. The rock mass is represented as a collection of elastic bulk elements glued by cohesive elements with zero thickness. To reproduce the tensile and shear micro-fractures in rock material, the Mohr-Coulomb model with tension cut-off is employed as the damage initiation criterion of cohesive elements. Three simulated laboratory tests are considered to verify the capability of combined FDEM in reproducing the mechanical behavior of rock masses. Three slope models with different joint inclinations are taken to illustrate the application of the combined FDEM to rockslide simulation.

The results show that the joint inclination is an important factor for inducing the progressive failure behavior. With a low joint inclination, the slope failure process is observed to be a collapse mode. As the joint inclination becomes higher, the failure mode changes to sliding and the steady time of rock blocks is shortened. Moreover, the runout distance and post-failure slope angle decrease as the joint inclination increases.

These studies indicate that the combined FDEM performed within ABAQUS can simulate slope stability problems for research purposes and is useful for studying the slope failure mechanism comprehensively.