In this paper we are concerned with modelling the reliability of a system subject to external shocks. In a run shock model, the system fails when a sequence of shocks above a threshold arrive in succession. Nevertheless, using a single threshold to measure the severity of a shock is too critical in real practice. To this end, we develop a generalized run shock model with two thresholds. We employ a phase-type distribution to model the damage size and the inter-arrival time of shocks, which is highly versatile and may be used to model many quantitative features of random phenomenon. Furthermore, we use the Markovian property to construct a multi-state system which degrades with the arrival of shocks. We also provide a numerical example to illustrate our results.

Multi-field coupling simulation method based on the physical principles is used to simulate the discharge characteristics of nanosecond pulsed plasma synthetic jet actuator. Considering the effect of the energy transferring for air, the flow characteristics of nanosecond pulsed plasma synthetic jet actuator are simulated. The elastic heating sources and ion joule heating sources are the two main sources of energy. Through the collisions, the energy of ions is transferred to the neutral gas quickly. The flow characteristics of a series of blast waves and the synthetic jet which erupt from the plasma synthetic jet (PSJ) actuator are simulated. The blast wave not only promotes outward, but also accelerates the gas mixing the inhaled gas from the outside cavity with the residual gas inside the cavity. The performances of PSJ actuator fluctuate in the first three incentive cycles and become stable after that.

We propose a class of random scale-free spatial networks with nested community structures called SHEM and analyze Reed–Frost epidemics with community related independent transmissions. We show that in a specific example of the SHEM the epidemic threshold may be trivial or not as a function of the relation among community sizes, distribution of the number of communities, and transmission rates.

We model diffusion-controlled crystal growth as an interference problem. The crystal layers grow by nucleation (initiation of crystallization centers) followed by attachment of molecules to the nucleus. A forming crystal layer completes by either spreading across the length of the crystal or by colliding with another spreading crystal layer. This model differs from the classical Johnson-Mehl-Kolmogorov model in that nucleation happens only on boundaries of a ‘seed’ crystal as opposed to nucleation from random points in a given region. Our results also differ from the limiting results found for this classical model. We use the invariant measure of an embedded Markov process to find the growth rate of the crystal in terms of the nucleation rates. Ergodic theorems are then used to derive explicit formulae for some stationary probabilities.

We consider two independent homogeneous Poisson processes Π0 and Π1 in the plane with intensities λ0 and λ1, respectively. We study additive functionals of the set of Π0-particles within a typical Voronoi Π1-cell. We find the first and the second moments of these variables as well as upper and lower bounds on their distribution functions, implying an exponential asymptotic behavior of their tails. Explicit formulae are given for the number and the sum of distances from Π0-particles to the nucleus within a typical Voronoi Π1-cell.

Properties of the funnel boundary are investigated for multivalued dynamical systems defined axiomatically in terms of attainability set mappings on complete, locally compact metric state spaces. The set of regular boundary events is shown to be dense in the funnel boundary and theorems of Fukuhara and Zaremba on peripheral attainability are generalized to the systems considered here.