Motivated by the demand for energy-efficient communication solutions in the next generation cellular network, a mixed-ADC architecture for massive multiple input multiple output (MIMO) systems is proposed, which differs from previous works in that herein one-bit analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) partially replace the conventionally assumed high-resolution ADCs. The information-theoretic tool of generalized mutual information (GMI) is exploited to analyze the achievable data rates of the proposed system architecture and an array of analytical results of engineering interest are obtained. For fixed single input multiple output (SIMO) channels, a closed-form expression of the GMI is derived, based on which the linear combiner is optimized. The analysis is then extended to ergodic fading channels, for which tight lower and upper bounds of the GMI are obtained. Impacts of dithering and imperfect channel state information (CSI) are also investigated, and it is shown that dithering can remarkably improve the system performance while imperfect CSI only introduces a marginal rate loss. Finally, the analytical framework is applied to the multi-user access scenario. Numerical results demonstrate that the mixed-ADC architecture with a relatively small number of high-resolution ADCs is able to achieve a large fraction of the channel capacity of conventional architecture, while reduce the energy consumption considerably even compared with antenna selection, for both single-user and multi-user scenarios.Comment: double column, 15 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications Special Issue on Energy-Efficient Techniques for 5G Wireless Communication System

Concrete is usually described as a three-phase material, where matrix, aggregate and interface zones are distinguished. The beam lattice model has been applied widely by many investigators to simulate fracture processes in concrete. Due to the extremely large computational effort, however, the beam lattice model faces practical difficulties. In our investigation, a new lattice called generalized beam (GB) lattice is developed to reduce computational effort. Numerical experiments conducted on a panel subjected to uniaxial tension show that the GB lattice model can reproduce the load-displacement curves and crack patterns in agreement to what are observed in tests. Moreover, the effects of the particle overlay on the fracture process are discussed in detail.

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The present paper aims to develop a robust spherical indentation-based method to extract material plastic properties. For this purpose, a new consideration of piling-up effect is incorporated into the expanding cavity model; an extensive numerical study on the similarity solution has also been performed. As a consequence, two semi-theoretical relations between the indentation response and material plastic properties are derived, with which plastic properties of materials can be identified from a single instrumented spherical indentation curve, the advantage being that this approach no longer needs estimations of contact radius with given elastic modulus. Moreover, the inconvenience in using multiple indenters with different tip angles can be avoided. Comprehensive sensitivity analyses show that the present algorithm is reliable. Also, by experimental verification performed on three typical materials, good agreement of the material properties between those obtained from the reverse algorithm and experimental data is obtained.

The beam lattice-type models, such as the EulerBernoulli (or Timoshenko) beam lattice and the generalized beam (GB) lattice, have been proved very effective in simulating failure processes in concrete and rock due to its simplicity and easy implementation. However, these existing lattice models only take into account tensile failures, so it may be not applicable to simulation of failure behaviors under compressive states. The main aim in this paper is to incorporate Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion, which is widely used in many kinds of materials, into the GB lattice procedure. The improved GB lattice procedure has the capability of modeling both element failures and contact/separation of cracked elements. The numerical examples show its effectiveness in simulating compressive failures. Furthermore, the influences of lateral confinement, friction angle, stiffness of loading platen, inclusion of aggregates on failure processes are respectively analyzed in detail.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the recently developed mixed-ADC architecture for frequency-selective channels. Multi-carrier techniques such as orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) are employed to handle inter-symbol interference (ISI). A frequency-domain equalizer is designed for mitigating the inter-carrier interference (ICI) introduced by the nonlinearity of one-bit quantization. For static single-input-multiple-output (SIMO) channels, a closed-form expression of the generalized mutual information (GMI) is derived, and based on which the linear frequency-domain equalizer is optimized. The analysis is then extended to ergodic time-varying SIMO channels with estimated channel state information (CSI), where numerically tight lower and upper bounds of the GMI are derived. The analytical framework is naturally applicable to the multi-user scenario, for both static and time-varying channels. Extensive numerical studies reveal that the mixed-ADC architecture with a small proportion of high-resolution ADCs does achieve a dominant portion of the achievable rate of ideal conventional architecture, and that it remarkably improves the performance as compared with one-bit massive MIMO.Comment: 14 pages, 10 figures, to appear in IEEE Transactions on Communication

Concrete is heterogeneous and usually described as a three-phase material, where matrix, aggregate and interface are distinguished. To take this heterogeneity into consideration, the Generalized Beam (GB) lattice model is adopted. The GB lattice model is much more computationally efficient than the beam lattice model. Numerical procedures of both quasi-static method and dynamic method are developed to simulate fracture processes in uniaxial tensile tests conducted on a concrete panel. Cases of different loading rates are compared with the quasi-static case. It is found that the inertia effect due to load increasing becomes less important and can be ignored with the loading rate decreasing, but the inertia effect due to unstable crack propagation remains considerable no matter how low the loading rate is. Therefore, an unrealistic result will be obtained if a fracture process including unstable cracking is simulated by the quasi-static procedure.

Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) can be easily deformed to a new shape by applying a small external load at low temperature, and then recovers its original configuration upon heating. This unique shape memory phenomenon has inspired many novel designs. SMA based heat engine is one among them. SMA heat engine is an environment-friendly alternative to extract mechanical energy from low-grade energies, for instance, warm wastewater, geothermal energy, solar thermal energy, etc. The aim of this paper is to present an applicable theoretical model for simulation of SMA-based heat engines. First, a micro-mechanical constitutive model is derived for SMAs. The volume fractions of austenite and martensite variants are chosen as internal variables to describe the evolution of microstructure in SMA upon phase transition. Subsequently, the energy equation is derived based on the first thermodynamic law and the previous SMA model. From Fourier's law of heat conduction and Newton's law of cooling, both differential and integral forms of energy conversion equation are obtained.