Influence of liquid bridge volume on the onset of oscillation in floating-zone convection .2. Numerical-simulation

The onset of oscillation in the floating zone convection driven by the gradient of surface tension was studied numerically for an unsteady and two-dimensional model, and studies were concentrated on the influence of liquid bridge volume on the onset of oscillation in comparison with the experimental results in the Paper I. The numerical results agree with the experimental ones presented in the previous paper, in which the distributions of critical applied temperature difference depending on the volume of liquid bridge and a gap range of liquid volume in marginal stability curve were obtained.

Influence of convections on dopant segregation in floating-zone crystal-growth system

The steady and axisymmetric crystal growth process of floating zone model was studied numerically to concern with the influence of convection and phase change on effective segregation. An iteration method of numerical simulation considering both thermocapillary and buoyancy effects for GaAs crystal growth gave the effective segregation coefficient, which was compared with the space experiment of GaAs on board the Chinese recoverable satellite. The calculated segregation coefficient of a two-dimensional model was found to be smaller than the one suggested by space experiment with the simplified assumption of an one-dimensional model.

Influence of buoyancy on floating-zone convection of small bond number

Gravity may influence the velocity and temperature distributions, bouyancy may induce Rayleigh instability and the instability may be excited due to the change of free surface shape associating with gravity in the thermocapillary convection. These effects have been studied in the present paper. The results show that gravity may have an important effect in thermocapillary oscillatory convection even for the cases of small Bond number experiments either on the ground or in space.

Influence of low-gravity level on crystal-growth in floating-zone

The influence of low gravity level on crystal growth in the floating zone, which involves thermocapillary convection, phase change convection, thermal and solutal diffusion, is investigated numerically by a finite element method for the silicon crystal growth process. The velocity, temperature, concentration fields and phase change interfaces depending on heating temperature and growth rates are analyzed. The influence of low gravity level on the concentration is studied especially. The results show that the non-uniformities of concentration are about 10(-3) for growth rate nu(p) = 5.12 x 10(-8) m/s, 10(-2) for nu(p) = 5.12 x 10(-7) m/s and relatively larger for larger growth rate in the gravity level g = 0-9.8 m/s2. The thermocapillary effect is strong in comparison with the Bridgman system, and the level of low gravity is relatively insensitive for lower growth rates.

Free surface vibration in oscillatory convection of half floating zone

Projecting an orthographical grating mask (20pl/mm) on the surface of a small liquid bridge and receiving the reflected distortion image, one can calculate out reversely the shape of free surface of a liquid bridge. In this way we measured the surface shape of a small floating zone and the two-dimensional deformation of its vibration. The mechanism of thermocapillary oscillatory convection and the three-dimensional variation of the free surface are revealed experimentally. The principle for space experiment has been studied in our laboratory.

Crystal-growth in floating zone with phase-change and thermosolutal convections

Floating zone crystal growth in microgravity environment is investigated numerically by a finite element method for semiconductor growth processing, which involves thermocapillary convection, phase change convection, thermal diffusion and solutal diffusion. The configurations of phase change interfaces and distributions of velocity, temperature and concentration fields are analyzed for typical conditions of pulling rates and segregation coefficients. The influence of phase change convection on the distribution of concentration is studied in detail. The results show that the thermocapillary convection plays an important role in mixing up the melt with dopant. The deformations of phase change interfaces by thermal convection-diffusion and pulling rods make larger variation of concentration field in comparison with the case of plane interfaces.

Domain decomposition hybrid method for numerical simulation of bluff body flows:theoretical model and application

The discrete vortex method is not capable of precisely predicting the bluff body flow separation and the fine structure of flow field in the vicinity of the body surface. In order to make a theoretical improvement over the method and to reduce the difficulty in finite-difference solution of N-S equations at high Reynolds number, in the present paper, we suggest a new numerical simulation model and a theoretical method for domain decomposition hybrid combination of finite-difference method and vortex method. Specifically, the full flow. field is decomposed into two domains. In the region of O(R) near the body surface (R is the characteristic dimension of body), we use the finite-difference method to solve the N-S equations and in the exterior domain, we take the Lagrange-Euler vortex method. The connection and coupling conditions for flow in the two domains are established. The specific numerical scheme of this theoretical model is given. As a preliminary application, some numerical simulations for flows at Re=100 and Re-1000 about a circular cylinder are made, and compared with the finite-difference solution of N-S equations for full flow field and experimental results, and the stability of the solution against the change of the interface between the two domains is examined. The results show that the method of the present paper has the advantage of finite-difference solution for N-S equations in precisely predicting the fine structure of flow field, as well as the advantage of vortex method in efficiently computing the global characteristics of the separated flow. It saves computer time and reduces the amount of computation, as compared with pure N-S equation solution. The present method can be used for numerical simulation of bluff body flow at high Reynolds number and would exhibit even greater merit in that case.

Free surface oscillation of thermocapillary convection in liquid bridge of half-floating-zone

Free surface deformations of thermocapillary convection in a small liquid bridge of half floating-zone are studied in the present paper. The relative displacement and phase difference of free surface oscillation are experimentally studied, and the features of free surface oscillation for various applied temperature differences are obtained. It is discovered that there is a sort of surface waves having the character of small perturbation, and having a wave mode of unusually large amplitude in one corner region of the liquid bridge.

Coupling of melting-solidification phase-change convection with floating-zone convection under microgravity

A finite element algorithm is used to analyze the process of floating zone crystal growth under microgravity. The effect of phase change convection coupled with surface tension convection is considered. The results show that the rate of crystal growth is very important. The single-crystal-melt interface is steeper than the feed-melt interface during the process of crystal growth. When the rate exceeds a critical value, the Marangoni vortex near the feed-melt interface will become so large that a secondary vortex will exist.

Complex stress functions and plastic zone sizes for notch cracks subjected to various loading conditions

In this paper, the conformal mapping method is used to solve the plane problem of an infinite plate containing a central lip-shaped notch subjected to biaxial loading at a remote boundary or a surface uniform pressure on the notch. The stress intensity factors KI and KII are obtained by the derived complex stress functions. The simple analytical expressions can be applied to the situation of cracks originating from a circular or an elliptical notch. The plastic zone sizes for such notch cracks are subsequently evaluated in light of the Dugdale strip yield concept. The results are consistent with available numerical data.

Applying the Electrochemical Deposition Technology to Construct the Hybrid Devices

Nanowires functionalized by special molecules can be used to as the candidates for biological application in many areas. In this paper, nickel nanowires, which were fabricated by electrochemical deposition and functionalized by biotinylated peptide, were applied to constructing the hybrid device powered by F-1-ATPase motors.

Investigations of cohesive zone properties of the interface between metal film and ceramic substrate at nano- and micro-scales

Cohesive zone characterizations of the interface between metal film and ceramic substrate at micro- and nano-scales are performed in the present research. At the nano-scale, a special potential for special material interface (Ag/MgO) is adopted to investigate the interface separation mechanism by using MD simulation, and stress-separation relationship will be obtained. At the micro-scale, peeling experiment is performed for the Al film/Al2O3 substrate system with an adhesive layer at the interface. Adhesive is a mixture of epoxy and polyimide with mass ratio 1:1, by which a brittle cohesive property is obtained. The relationships between energy release rate, the film thickness and the adhesive layer thickness are measured during the steady-state peeling. The experimental result has a similar trend as modeling result for a weak adhesion interface case.

Two bifurcation processes for onset of oscillatory thermocapillary convection in a floating half zone

An overview on the onset of thermocapillary oscillatory convection in a floating half zone is provided, and it is a typical subject in the microgravity sciences related to the space materials science, especially the floating zone processing, and also to the microgravity fluid physics. The main interests are focused around the process for onset of oscillatory thermocapillary convection, which is known also as the bifurcation transition from quasi-steady convection to oscillatory convection. The onset of oscillation depends on a set of critical parameters, such as the Marangoni number, Prandtl number, geometrical parameters, and heat transfer parameters. Recent studies show that, there exists the bifurcation transition from steady and axial symmetric convection to the steady and axial non-symmetric convection before the onset of oscillation in cases of small Prandtl number fluids and in cases of larger Prandtl number fluids of fat liquid bridge with small aspect ratio. The transition process is a strong non-linear process because the velocity deviation has the same order of magnitude as that of an average flow after the onset of oscillation, and unsteady 3-D numerical simulation is suitable to do in depth analysis on strong non-linear process, and leads generally to a better comparison with the experimental results.

Floating zone convection

The microgravity research, as a branch of the advanced sciences and a spe- cialized field of high technology, has been made in China since the late 1980's. The research group investigating microgravity fluid physics consisted of our col- leagues and the authors in the Institute of Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and we pay special attention to the floating zone convection as our first research priority. Now, the research group has expanded and is a part of the National Microgravity Laboratory of the CAS, and the research fields have been extended to include more subjects related to microgravity science. Howev- er, the floating zone convection is still an important topic that greatly holds our research interests.

Hybrid Qm/Mm Simulation Of The Hydration Phenomena Of Dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine Headgroup

The polar headgroup of dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (DPPC) molecule both in gas phase and aqueous Solution is investigated by the hybrid quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical (QM/MM) method, in which the polar head of DPPC molecule and the bound water molecules are treated with density functional theory (DFT), while the apolar hydrocarbon chain of DPPC molecule is treated with MM method. It is demonstrated that the hybrid QM/MM method is both accurate and efficient to describe the conformations of DPPC headgroup. Folded structures of headgroup are found in gas phase calculations. In this work, both monohydration and polyhydration phenomena are investigated. In monohydration, different water association sites are studied. Both the hydration energy and the quantum properties of DPPC and water molecules are calculated at the DFT level of theory after geometry optimization. The binding force of monohydration is estimated by using the scan method. In polyhydration, more extended conformations are found and hydration energies in different polyhydration styles are estimated. (C) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.