Proper orthogonal decomposition of oscillatory Marangoni flow in half-zone liquid bridges of low-Pr fluids

Proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) using method of snapshots was performed on three different types of oscillatory Marangoni flows in half-zone liquid bridges of low-Pr fluid (Pr = 0.01). For each oscillation type, a series of characteristic modes (eigenfunctions) have been extracted from the velocity and temperature disturbances, and the POD provided spatial structures of the eigenfunctions, their oscillation frequencies, amplitudes, and phase shifts between them. The present analyses revealed the common features of the characteristic modes for different oscillation modes: four major velocity eigenfunctions captured more than 99% of the velocity fluctuation energy form two pairs, one of which is the most energetic. Different from the velocity disturbance, one of the major temperature eigenfunctions makes the dominant contribution to the temperature fluctuation energy. On the other hand, within the most energetic velocity eigenfuction pair, the two eigenfunctions have similar spatial structures and were tightly coupled to oscillate with the same frequency, and it was determined that the spatial structures and phase shifts of the eigenfunctions produced the different oscillatory disturbances. The interaction of other major modes only enriches the secondary spatio-temporal structures of the oscillatory disturbances. Moreover, the present analyses imply that the oscillatory disturbance, which is hydrodynamic in nature, primarily originates from the interior of the liquid bridge. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Study on flow characteristics of solid/liquid system in lysozyme crystal growth

During the process of lysozyme protein crystallization with batch method, the macroscopic flow field of solid/liquid system was observed by particle image velocimetry (PIV). Furthermore, a normal growth rate of (110) face and local flow field around a single protein crystal were obtained by a long work distance microscope. The experimental results showed that the average velocity, the maximal velocity of macroscopic solid/liquid system and the velocity of local flow field around single protein crystal were fluctuant. The effective boundary layer thickness delta(eff), the concentration at the interface Q and the characteristic velocity V were calculated using a convection-diffusion model. The results showed that the growth of lysozyme crystal in this experiment was dominated by interfacial kinetics rather than bulk transport, and the function of buoyancy-driven flow in bulk transport was small, however, the effect of bulk transport in crystal growth had a tendency to increase with the increase of lysozyme concentration. The calculated results, also showed that the order of magnitude of shear force was about 10(-21) N, which was much less than the bond force between the lysozyme molecules. Therefore the shear force induced by buoyancy-driven flows cannot remove the protein molecules from the interface of crystal.

The characterization of plastic flow in three different bulk metallic glass systems

Plastic deformation behaviors of Zr52.5Al10Ni10Cu15Be12.5, Mg65Cu25Gd10 and Pd43Ni10Cu27P20 bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) are studied by using the depth-sensing nanoindentation, macroindentation and uniaxial compression. The significant difference in plastic deformation behavior cannot be correlated to the Poisson's ratio or the ratio of shear modulus to bulk modulus of the three BMGs, but can be explained by the free volume model. It is shown that the nucleation of local shear band is easy and multiple shear bands can be activated in the Zr52.5Al10Ni10Cu15Be12.5 alloy, which exhibits a distinct plastic strain during uniaxial compression and less serrated flow during nanoindentation. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Attractor crisis and bursting in a fluid flow with two no-slip directions

Characteristic burtsing behavior is observed in a driven, two-dimensional viscous flow, confined to a square domain and subject to no-slip boundaries. Passing a critical parameter value, an existing chaotic attractor undergoes a crisis, after which the flow initially enters a transient bursting regime. Bursting is caused by ejections from and return to a limited subdomain of the phase space, whereas the precrisis chaotic set forms the asymptotic attractor of the flow. For increasing values of the control parameter the length of the bursting regime increases progressively. Passing another critical parameter value, a second crisis leads to the appearance of a secondary type of bursting, of very large dynamical range. Within the bursting regime the flow then switches in irregular intervals from the primary to the secondary type of bursting. Peak enstrophy levels for both types of bursting are associated to the collapse of a primary vortex into a quadrupolar state.

Numerical modeling of 3-D turbulent two-phase flow and coal combustion in a pulverized-coal combustor

In the present paper, a multifluid model of two-phase flows with pulverized-coal combustion, based on a continuum-trajectory model with reacting particle phase, is developed and employed to simulate the 3-D turbulent two-phase hows and combustion in a new type of pulverized-coal combustor with one primary-air jet placed along the wall of the combustor. The results show that: (1) this continuum-trajectory model with reacting particle phase can be used in practical engineering to qualitatively predict the flame stability, concentrations of gas species, possibilities of slag formation and soot deposition, etc.; (2) large recirculation zones can be created in the combustor, which is favorable to the ignition and flame stabilization.

A coupled model for multiphase fluid flow and sedimentation deformation in oil reservoir and its numerical simulation

A mathematical model for coupled multiphase fluid flow and sedimentation deformation is developed based on fluid-solid interaction mechanism. A finite difference-finite element numerical approach is presented. The results of an example show that the fluid-solid coupled effect has great influence on multiphase fluid flow and reservoir recovery performances, and the coupled model has practical significance for oilfield development.

Wave pattern characteristics of a two-phase nozzle flow by shock propagation

In this paper, the wave pattern characteristics of shock-induced two-phase nozzle Hows with the quiescent or moving dusty gas ahead of the incident-shock front has been investigated by using high-resolution numerical method. As compared with the corresponding results in single-phase nozzle flows of the pure gas, obvious differences between these two kinds of flows can be obtained.

A high order accurate difference scheme for complex flow fields

A high order accurate finite difference method for direct numerical simulation of coherent structure in the mixing layers is presented. The reason for oscillation production in numerical solutions is analyzed, It is caused by a nonuniform group velocity of wavepackets. A method of group velocity control for the improvement of the shock resolution is presented. In numerical simulation the fifth-order accurate upwind compact difference relation is used to approximate the derivatives in the convection terms of the compressible N-S equations, a sixth-order accurate symmetric compact difference relation is used to approximate the viscous terms, and a three-stage R-K method is used to advance in time. In order to improve the shock resolution the scheme is reconstructed with the method of diffusion analogy which is used to control the group velocity of wavepackets. (C) 1997 Academic Press.

Effect of nonlinear wave-current interaction on flow fields and hydrodynamic forces

A fifth-order theory for solving the problem of interaction between Stokes waves and exponential profile currents is proposed. The calculated flow fields are compared with measurements. Then the errors caused by the linear superposition method and approximate theory are discussed. It is found that the total wave-current field consists of pure wave, pure current and interaction components. The shear current not only directly changes the flow field, but also indirectly does sx, by changing the wave parameters due to wave-current interaction. The present theory can predict the wave kinematics on shear currents satisfactorily. The linear superposition method may give rise to more than 40% loading error in extreme conditions. When the apparent wave period is used and the Wheeler stretching method is adopted to extrapolate the current, application of the approximate theory is the best.

Drag on an ellipsoid particle in free-molecular plasma flow

Based on the analysis of molecular gas dynamics, the drag and moment acting on an ellipsoid particle of revolution X-2/a(2) + Y-2/a(2) + Z(2)/c(2) = 1, as an example of nonspherical particles, are studied under the condition of free-molecular plasma flow with thin plasma sheaths. A nonzero moment which causes nonspherical particle self-oscillation and self-rotation around its own axis in the plasma flow-similar to the pitching moment in aerodynamics-is discovered for the first time. When the ratio of axis length c/a is unity, the moment is zero and the drag formula are reduced to the well-known results of spherical particles. The effects of the particle-plasma relative velocity, the plasma temperature, and the particle materials on the drag and moment are also investigated.

Numerical study of bifurcation solutions of spherical Taylor-Couette flow

The steady bifurcation flows in a spherical gap (gap ratio sigma=0.18) with rotating inner and stationary outer spheres are simulated numerically for Re(c1)less than or equal to Re less than or equal to 1 500 by solving steady axisymmetric incompressible Navier-Stokes equations using a finite difference method. The simulation shows that there exist two steady stable flows with 1 or 2 vortices per hemisphere for 775 less than or equal to Re less than or equal to 1 220 and three steady stable flows with 0, 1, or 2 vortices for 1 220flows at the same Reynolds number is related with different initial conditions which on be generated by different accelerations of the inner sphere. Generation of zero-or two-vortex flow depends mainly on the acceleratio n, but that of one-vortex flow also depends on the perturbation breaking the equatorial symmetry. The mechanism of development of a saddle point in the meridional plane at higher Re number and its role in the formation of two-vortex flow are analyzed.

Sidewall flow stability in the MHD channel flows

The velocity distribution between two sidewalls is; M-shaped for the MHD channel flows with rectangular cross section and thin conducting walls in a strong transverse magnetic field. Assume that the dimensionless numbers R(m) much less than 1, M, N much greater than 1, and sigma

An optimal theory for an expansion of flow quantities to capture the flow structures

An optimal theory on how database analysis to capture the flow structures has been developed in this paper, which include the POD method as its special case. By means of the remainder minimization method in the Sobolev space, for more general optimal conditions the new theory has the potential to overcome an inherent limitation of the POD method, i.e., it cannot be used to the situations in which the optimal condition is other than the inner product global one. As an example, using the new theory, the database of a two-dimensional flow over a backward-facing step is analyzed in detail, with velocity and vorticity bases.

Numerical simulation of axisymmetric unsteady incompressible flow by a vorticity-velocity method

A new numerical method for solving the axisymmetric unsteady incompressible Navier-Stokes equations using vorticity-velocity variables and a staggered grid is presented. The solution is advanced in time with an explicit two-stage Runge-Kutta method. At each stage a vector Poisson equation for velocity is solved. Some important aspects of staggering of the variable location, divergence-free correction to the velocity held by means of a suitably chosen scalar potential and numerical treatment of the vorticity boundary condition are examined. The axisymmetric spherical Couette flow between two concentric differentially rotating spheres is computed as an initial value problem. Comparison of the computational results using a staggered grid with those using a non-staggered grid shows that the staggered grid is superior to the non-staggered grid. The computed scenario of the transition from zero-vortex to two-vortex flow at moderate Reynolds number agrees with that simulated using a pseudospectral method, thus validating the temporal accuracy of our method.

Triple-region structure for turbulent-flow in a square duct - a finite-element approach

The Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations for describing the turbulent flow in a straight square duct are formulated with two different turbulence models. The governing equations are then expanded as a multi-deck structure in a plane perpendicular to the streamwise direction, with each deck characterized by its dominant physical forces as commonly carried out in analytical work using triple-deck expansion. The resulting equations are numerically integrated using higher polynomial (H-P) finite element technique for each cross-sectional plane to be followed by finite difference representation in the streamwise direction until a fully developed state is reached. The computed results using the two different turbulence models show fair agreement with each other, and concur with the vast body of available experimental data. There is also general agreement between our results and the recent numerical works anisotropic k-epsilon turbulence model.