Pool Boiling in Microgravity: Recent Results and Perspectives for the Project DEPA-SJ10

Two research projects on pool boiling in microgravity have been conducted aboard the Chinese recoverable satellites. Ground-based experiments have also been performed both in normal gravity and in short-term microgravity in the Drop Tower Beijing. Steady boiling of R113 on thin platinum wires was studied with a temperature-controlled heating method, while quasi-steady boiling of FC-72 on a plane plate was investigated with an exponentially increasing heating voltage. In the first case, slight enhancement of heat transfer is observed in microgravity, while diminution is evident for high heat flux in the second one. Lateral motions of bubbles on the heaters are observed before their departure in microgravity. The surface oscillation of the merged bubbles due to lateral coalescence between adjacent bubbles drives it to detach from the heaters. The Marangoni effect on the bubble behavior is also discussed. The perspectives for a new project DEPA-SJ10, which has been planned to be flown aboard the Chinese recoverable satellite SJ-10 in the future, are also presented.

Two-phase Flow in Fuel Cells in Short-term Microgravity Condition

A visual observation of liquid-gas two-phase flow in anode channels of a direct methanol proton exchange membrane fuel cells in microgravity has been carried out in a drop tower. The anode flow bed consisted of 2 manifolds and 11 parallel straight channels. The length, width and depth of single channel with rectangular cross section was 48.0 mm, 2.5 mm and 2.0 mm, respectively. The experimental results indicated that the size of bubbles in microgravity condition is bigger than that in normal gravity. The longer the time, the bigger the bubbles. The velocity of bubbles rising is slower than that in normal gravity because buoyancy lift is very weak in microgravity. The flow pattern in anode channels could change from bubbly flow in normal gravity to slug flow in microgravity. The gas slugs blocked supply of reactants from channels to anode catalyst layer through gas diffusion layer. When the weakened mass transfer causes concentration polarization, the output performance of fuel cells declines.

Description of a new species of the genus Tylopharynx (Nemata : Diplogasteroidea), T-clariamphida sp n., with a redescription of T-foetida (Butschli, 1874) Goffart, 1930

Tylopharynx clariamphida sp. n. is described from muddy sand collected in Anhui Province, China. It can be distinguished from T foetida (Butschli, 1874), the type and only species of the genus, by numerous characters: having 24 to 26 prominent and clearly separated longitudinal ridges, a higher lip region with no hint of a cephalic framework, more prominent amphidial foveae in lateral view, wider and more posteriorly located amphidial apertures, smaller basal knobs of stoma, longer metacorpus, more enlarged phasmids, shorter spicules with shorter digitate terminus, shorter reflexed part of testis, and thicker gubernaculum with more angular shape. For comparison, an expanded description is given for T foetida from Belgium, and SEM photographs of both species are provided.

Quantum tunneling through graphene nanorings

We investigate theoretically quantum transport through graphene nanorings in the presence of a perpendicular magnetic field. Our theoretical results demonstrate that the graphene nanorings behave like a resonant tunneling device, contrary to the Aharonov-Bohm oscillations found in conventional semiconductor rings. The resonant tunneling can be tuned by the Fermi energy, the size of the central part of the graphene nanorings and the external magnetic field.

Tuning of the two electron states in quantum rings through the spin-orbit interaction

The effect of the Coulomb interaction on the energy spectrum and anisotropic distribution of two electron states in a quantum ring in the presence of Rashba spin-orbit interaction (RSOI) and Dresselhaus SOI (DSOI) is investigated in the presence of a perpendicular magnetic field. We find that the interplay between the RSOI and DSOI makes the single quantum ring behaves like a laterally coupled quantum dot and the interdot coupling can be tuned by changing the strengths of the SOIs. The interplay can lead to singlet-triplet state mixing and anticrossing behavior when the singlet and triplet states meet with increasing magnetic field. The two electron ground state displays a bar-bell-like spatial anisotropic distribution in a quantum ring at a specific crystallographic direction, i.e., [110] or [1 (1) over bar0], which can be switched by reversing the direction of the perpendicular electric field. The ground state exhibits a singlet-triplet state transition with increasing magnetic field and strengths of RSOI and DSOI. An anisotropic electron distribution is predicted which can be detected through the measurement of its optical properties.

Resonant tunneling of holes in GaMnAs-related double- barrier structures

Using the multiband quantum transmitting boundary method (MQTBM), hole resonant tunneling through AlGaAs/GaMnAs junctions is investigated theoretically. Because of band-edge splitting in the DMS layer, the current for holes with different spins are tuned in resonance at different biases. The bound levels of the "light" hole in the quantum well region turned out to be dominant in the tunneling channel for both "heavy" and "light" holes. The resonant tunneling structure can be used as a spin filter for holes for adjusting the Fermi energy and the thickness of the junctions.

Electron effective mass and resonant polaron effect in CdTe/CdMgTe quantum wells

Cyclotron resonance in CdTe/CdMgTe quantum wells (QWs) was studied. Due to the polaron effect the zero-field effective mass is strongly influenced by the QW width. The experimental data have been described theoretically by taking into account electron-phonon coupling and the nonparabolicity of the conduction band. The subband structure was calculated self-consistently. The best fit was obtained for an electron-phonon coupling constant alpha = 0.3 and bare electron mass of m(b) = 0.092m(0).

High-field cyclotron resonance and electron-phonon interaction in modulation-doped multiple quantum well structures

A systematic study of electron cyclotron resonance (CR) in two sets of GaAs/Al0.3Ga0.7As modulation-doped quantum-well samples (well widths between 12 and 24 nm) has been carried out in magnetic fields up to 30 T. Polaron CR is the dominant transition in the region of GaAs optical phonons for the set of lightly doped samples, and the results are in good agreement with calculations that include the interaction with interface optical phonons. The results from the heavily doped set are markedly different. At low magnetic fields (below the GaAs reststrahlen region), all three samples exhibit almost identical CR which shows little effect of the polaron interaction due to screening and Pauli-principle effects. Above the GaAs LO-phonon region (B > similar to 23 T), the three samples behave very differently. For the most lightly doped sample (3 x 10(11) cm(-2)) only one transition minimum is observed, which can be explained as screened polaron CR. A sample of intermediate density (6 x 10(11) cm(-2)) shows two lines above 23 T; the higher frequency branch is indistinguishable from the positions of the single line of the low density sample. For the most heavily, doped sample (1.2 x 10(12) cm(-2)) there is no evidence of high frequency resonance, and the strong, single line observed is indistinguishable from the lower branch observed from sample with intermediate doping density. We suggest that the low frequency branch in our experiment is a magnetoplasmon resonance red-shifted by disorder, and the upper branch is single-particle-like screened polaron CR. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Resonant magnetopolaron effects in GaAs/AlGaAs multiple quantum well structures

A detailed experimental study of electron cyclotron resonance (CR) has been carried out at 4.2 K in three modulation-doped GaAs/Al0.3Ga0.7As multiple quantum well samples in fields up to 30 T. A strong avoided-level-crossing splitting of the CR energies due to resonant magnetopolaron effects is observed for all samples near the GaAs reststrahlen region. Resonant splittings in the region of AlAs-like interface phonon modes of the barriers are observed in two samples with narrower well width and smaller doping concentration. The interaction between electrons and the AlAs interface optical phonon modes has been calculated for our specific sample structures in the framework of the memory-function formalism. The calculated results are in good agreement with the experimental results, which confirms our assignment of the observed splitting near the AlAs-like phonon region is due to the resonant magnetopolaron interaction of electrons in the wells with AlAs-like interface phonons. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Catastrophic rupture of heterogeneous brittle materials under impact loading

The catastrophic failure of heterogeneous brittle materials under impact loading is not fully understood. To describe the catastrophic failure behavior of heterogeneous brittle materials under impact loading, an elasto-statistical-brittle (ESB) model is proposed in this paper. The ESB model characterizes the disordered inhomogeneity of material at mesoscopic scale with the statistical description of the shear strength of mesoscopic units. If the applied shear stress reaches the strength, the mesoscopic unit fails, which causes degradation in the shear modulus of the material. With a simplified ESB model, the failure wave in brittle material under uni-axial compression is analyzed. It is shown that the failure wave is a wave of strain or particle velocity resulted from the catastrophic fracture in an elastically stressed brittle media when the impact velocity reaches a critical value. In addition, the failure wave causes an increase in the rear surface velocity, which agrees well with experimental observations. The critical condition to generate failure wave and the speed of failure wave are also obtained.

Strain rate-dependent shear band behavior in bulk metallic glasses

In this article, we review our recent advances in understanding the deformation behavior of a typical tough Zr41.2Ti13.8Cu12.5Ni10Be22.5 (Vit 1) bulk metallic glass (BMG), as a model material, under various loading modes and strain rates, focusing particularly on the rate-dependence and formation mechanism of shear-banding. Dynamic and quasi-static mechanical experiments, including plate shear, shear punch and spherical indentation, and continuum as well as atomistic modeling on shear-banding are discussed. The results demonstrate that higher strain rate slows down the annihilation process of free volume, but promotes the free-volume coalescence, which is responsible for the rate-dependent shear banding. The physical origin of shear bands, that is the free volume softening underpinned by irreversible rearrangements of atoms, is unveiled. Finally, some concluding remarks are given.

Fracture behavior of a Zr-metallic glass under dynamic compression

Dynamic planar compressive experiments on a typical tough Zr-BMG (Bulk Metallic Glass) were carried out under impact velocity of 500-600 m/sec and strain rate of 10(6)/s. The fracture surface of samples exhibits different fracture patterns at different parts of the sample. At a corner close to the front loading boundary, fracture patterns from the free edge toward the centre changed from equiaxial veins in microscale to periodic corrugations in nanoscale; in the middle of the sample, the fracture surface contains glazed zones laid out orderly along the same boundary. FEM simulation was performed to investigate the stress distributions in the impacted sample under a short duration impact loading. It has revealed that the fracture patterns changing from the free edge toward the centre were resulted from the fracture modes' changing from the tensile dominant fracture to the shear dominant fracture. Whereas at the middle part of the sample, fracture initiated from several parallel shear bands propagating close to the same boundary is due to a large strain or much higher shear stress in this area.