Lowering the temperature of the contact zone during the interaction of homo- and heterogeneous metals not forming intermetallic compounds

A method based on the sequential contact of samples for experimental studies of the initial stage of the low-temperature joining of homogeneous and heterogeneous metals is proposed. Results showing that there is interaction between samples in a certain thermal and temporal range are presented. The mechanism of the observed temperature drop in the contact zone is validated.     

Characterization of stable hydrophobic carbon coating and its application in removing organic pollutants

Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) thin films were deposited on Ni particles with a mean size of ～1 μm using chemical vapor deposition method. The thin films consisting of these PDMS-covered Ni particles showed a water contact angle higher than 160°, corresponding to the superhydrophobicity. These superhydrophobic films were found to be resistant toward acidic and basic media. The PDMS-covered Ni particles showed high affinity toward non-polar organic solvent such as toluene. Together with an external magnetic field, the PDMS-covered Ni can be used for separating water and toluene from a water/toluene heterogeneous mixture.     

Numerical model of two-dimensional heterogeneous combustion in porous media under natural convection or forced filtration

A novel mathematical model and original numerical method for investigating the two-dimensional waves of heterogeneous combustion in porous media are proposed and described in detail. The mathematical model is constructed within the framework of the model of interacting interpenetrating continua and includes equations of state, continuity, momentum conservation and energy for solid and gas phases. Combustion, considered in the paper, is due to the exothermic reaction between fuel in the porous solid medium and oxidiser contained in the gas flowing through the porous object. The original numerical method is based on a combination of explicit and implicit finite-difference schemes. A distinctive feature of the proposed model is that the gas velocity at the open boundaries (inlet and outlet) of the porous object is unknown and has to be found from the solution of the problem, i.e. the flow rate of the gas regulates itself. This approach allows processes to be modelled not only under forced filtration, but also under free convection, when there is no forced gas input in porous objects, which is typical for many natural or anthropogenic disasters (burning of peatlands, coal dumps, landfills, grain elevators). Some two-dimensional time-dependent problems of heterogeneous combustion in porous objects have been solved using the proposed numerical method. It is shown that two-dimensional waves of heterogeneous combustion in porous media can propagate in two modes with different characteristics, as in the case of one-dimensional combustion, but the combustion front can move in a complex manner, and gas dynamics within the porous objects can be complicated. When natural convection takes place, self-sustaining combustion waves can go through the all parts of the object regardless of where an ignition zone was located, so the all combustible material in each part of the object is burned out, in contrast to forced filtration.     

Propagation of elastic waves in an anisotropic functionally graded hollow cylinder in vacuum

As a non-destructive, non-invasive and non-ionizing evaluation technique for heterogeneous media, the ultrasonic method is of major interest in industrial applications but especially in biomedical fields. Among the unidirectionally heterogeneous media, the continuously varying media are a particular but widespread case in natural materials. The first studies on laterally varying media were carried out by geophysicists on the Ocean, the atmosphere or the Earth, but the teeth, the bone, the shells and the insects wings are also functionally graded media. Some of them can be modeled as planar structures but a lot of them are curved media and need to be modeled as cylinders instead of plates. The present paper investigates the influence of the tubular geometry of a waveguide on the propagation of elastic waves. In this paper, the studied structure is an anisotropic hollow cylinder with elastic properties (stiffness coefficients c_ij and mass density ρ) functionally varying in the radial direction. An original method is proposed to find the eigenmodes of this waveguide without using a multilayered model for the cylinder. This method is based on the sextic Stroh’s formalism and an analytical solution, the matricant, explicitly expressed under the Peano series expansion form. This approach has already been validated for the study of an anisotropic laterally-graded plate (Baron et al., 2007; Baron and Naili, 2010) [6] and [5]. The dispersion curves obtained for the radially-graded cylinder are compared to the dispersion curves of a corresponding laterally-graded plate to evaluate the influence of the curvature.Preliminary results are presented for a tube of bone in vacuum modelling the in vitro conditions of bone strength evaluation.     

免掺杂、非对称异质接触晶体硅太阳电池的研究进展

免掺杂、非对称异质接触的新型太阳电池由于近几年的飞速发展,理论转化效率已达到28%,具有较大的发展空间,引起了人们的重视.由于传统晶硅太阳电池产业存在生产设备成本高、原材料易燃易爆等诸多限制,市场对太阳电池产业低成本、绿色无污染的期待越来越高,极大地增加了免掺杂、非对称异质接触的新型太阳电池研究和开发的必要性.为了进一步加快免掺杂、非对称异质接触晶体硅太阳电池的研究进度,本文对其发展现状进行了综述,着重讨论了过渡金属氧化物(TMO)载流子选择性运输的基本原理、制备技术以及空穴传输层、电子传输层和钝化层对基于TMO构建的免掺杂、非对称异质接触(DASH)太阳电池性能的影响,以期对电池的工作机理、材料选择有更深刻的认识,为新型高效的DASH太阳电池制备提供指导.     

Activation of Al2O3 by a long-ranged chemical bond mechanism

On the basis of density functional theory calculations, a novel bond mechanism with chemical strength but of long-ranged character is proposed. As compared to adsorption on a sole oxide or metal, the mechanism is found to enhance the bond strength between an adsorbate and an oxide in contact with a metal. As a model system, NO2 adsorption on alpha-Al2O3(0001) either in contact with Ag(111) or small Agn clusters is used. The observed phenomenon rests on charge transfer and modification of the oxide-metal interface. The mechanism is general in nature and the implication for heterogeneous catalysis is discussed.     

Are upwind techniques in multi-phase flow models necessary?

Two alternatives of primary variables are compared for two-phase flow in heterogeneous media by solving fully established benchmarks. The first combination utilizes pressure of the wetting fluid and saturation of the non-wetting fluid as primary variables, while the second employs capillary pressure of the wetting fluid and pressure of the non-wetting fluid. While the standard Galerkin finite element method (SGFEM) is known to fail in the physical reproduction of two-phase flow in heterogeneous media (unless employing a fully upwind correction), the second scheme with capillary pressure as a primary variable without applying an upwind technique produces correct physical fluid behaviour in heterogeneous media, as observed from experiments.     

Computation of effective propagation parameters in the optical domain with a finite difference time domain method

The study of optical scattering by heterogeneous media is a complex topic where homogenization is very helpful and rigorous methods are useful. Finite difference time domain (FDTD) method coupled with Monte Carlo process is used to compute the effective parameters of heterogeneous media. Effective parameters based on the coherent field propagation of a beam in the medium are determined in bidimensional geometry and for both polarizations. It is applied to media composed of small particles embedded in an host medium, for relevant ranges of particle sizes and optical constants for both binder and particles. The results are compared to the Maxwell–Garnett and Bruggeman mixing laws and the Foldy–Twersky and Keller perturbative approximations, leading to the assessment of their validity domain.     

多孔介质两相流的局部守恒有限元分析

用局部守恒有限元法研究多孔介质两相渗流问题.详细阐述局部守恒有限元法的基本原理,推导两相渗流问题的局部守恒有限元计算格式并编制相应的计算程序.通过一维Buckley-Leverett两相渗流算例验证该方法的正确性.应用局部守恒有限元法和混合有限元法分别对2个模型进行分析对比.计算结果表明局部守恒有限元法具有良好的鲁棒性及适用性,相较于混合有限元法,处理过程简单,计算时间缩短,为标准有限元法应用于复杂渗流问题提供了一种途径.     

Computation of effective resistivity in materials with microinclusions by a heterogeneous multiscale finite element method

In this paper, we propose a numerical method to obtain an effective electrical resistivity of heterogeneous media under the influence of a direct current. The heterogeneous multiscale finite element method is used to solve the direct problem of simulation of an electrostatic field. The computational experiments using the developed software complex showed that even the small inclusion concentrations define the effective resistivity of the media. In addition, the change in the localization, orientation, and geometrical shape of inclusions also leads to a significant change of the effective properties of the media.     

Some theoretical aspects of elastic wave modeling with a recently developed spectral element method

A spectral element method has been recently developed for solving elastodynamic problems. The numerical solutions are obtained by using the weak formulation of the elastodynamic equation for heterogeneous media, based on the Galerkin approach applied to a partition, in small subdomains, of the original physical domain. In this work, some mathematical aspects of the method and the associated algorithm implementation are systematically investigated. Two kinds of orthogonal basis functions, constructed with Legendre and Chebyshev polynomials, and their related Gauss-Lobatto collocation points are introduced. The related integration formulas are obtained. The standard error estimations and expansion convergence are discussed. An element-by-element pre-conditioned conjugate gradient linear solver in the space domain and a staggered predictor/multi-corrector algorithm in the time integration are used for strong heterogeneous elastic media. As a consequence, neither the global matrices nor the effective force vector is assembled. When analytical formulas are used for the element quadrature, there is even no need for forming element matrix in order to further save memory without losing much in computational efficiency. The element-by-element algorithm uses an optimal tensor product scheme which makes this method much more efficient than finite-element methods from the point of view of both memory storage and computational time requirements. This work is divided into two parts. The first part mainly focuses on theoretical studies with a simple numerical result for the Che-byshev spectral element, and the second part, mainly with the Legendre spectral element, will give the algorithm implementation, numerical accuracy and efficiency analyses, and then the detailed modeling example comparisons of the proposed spectral element method with a pseudo-spectral method, which will be seen in another work by Lin, Wang and Zhang.     

The debate on the dependence of apparent contact angles on drop contact area or three-phase contact line: A review

A sessile drop is an isolated drop which has been deposited on a solid substrate where the wetted area is limited by the three-phase contact line and characterized by contact angle, contact radius and drop height. Although, wetting has been studied using contact angles of drops on solids for more than 200 years, the question remains unanswered: Is wetting of a rough and chemically heterogeneous surface controlled by the interactions within the solid/liquid contact area beneath the droplet or only at the three-phase contact line? After the publications of Pease in 1945, Extrand in 1997, 2003 and Gao and McCarthy in 2007 and 2009, it was proposed that advancing, receding contact angles, and contact angle hysteresis of rough and chemically heterogeneous surfaces are determined by interactions of the liquid and the solid at the three-phase contact line alone and the interfacial area within the contact perimeter is irrelevant. As a consequence of this statement, the well-known Wenzel (1934) and Cassie (1945) equations which were derived using the contact area approach are proposed to be invalid and should be abandoned. A hot debate started in the field of surface science after 2007, between the three-phase contact line and interfacial contact area approach defenders. This paper presents a review of the published articles on contact angles and summarizes the views of the both sides. After presenting a brief history of the contact angles and their measurement methods, we discussed the basic contact angle theory and applications of contact angles on the characterization of flat, rough and micropatterned superhydrophobic surfaces. The weak and strong sides of both three-phase contact line and contact area approaches were discussed in detail and some practical conclusions were drawn.     

裂缝性介质多尺度深度学习模型

结合人工神经网络建立裂缝介质多尺度深度学习流动模型.基于一套粗网格和一套细网格,通过在粗网格上训练数据,多尺度神经网络能够以较少的自由度训练出准确的神经网络.并在粗网格上通过求解局部流动问题获得多尺度基函数,结合神经网络进一步得到精细网格的解.基于离散裂缝的流动方程可视为多层网络,网络层数依赖于求解时间步数.阐述裂缝介质多尺度机器学习数值计算格式的建立,介绍如何使用多尺度算法构建离散裂缝模型的多尺度基函数,并采用超样本技术进一步提高计算准确性.数值结果表明,多尺度有限元算法与机器学习结合是一种有效的流体流动模拟算法.     

Nonlinear resonances of contact photoionization in heterogeneous nanostructures

A theory of nonlinear interference effects is constructed for a heterogeneous charge transfer between atoms in polycrystalline films or heterogeneous nanostructures of the semiconductor-insulator type, which interact with resonance radiation, and a metallic contact surface. The probability of resonance contact photoionization in heterogeneous solid nanostructures is determined, which makes it possible to use this process in nanotechnologies and nonlinear information systems. Nonlinear resonances of contact photoionization are asymmetric due to interference of a radiative transition to an excited state and a transition to the continuum induced by the metal surface. The probability of resonance contact photoionization abruptly decreases with increasing distance between an atom in the semiconductor and the metal.     

Dielectric dispersion of three-and four-component matrix media

The dielectric dispersion of heterogeneous matrices containing dissimilar cylindrical inclusions is studied. Conditions for the dispersion in multicomponent media are found and explained from the physical standpoint. It is shown that the effective loss factor may have several maxima with their number depending on the number of dissimilar inclusions in the composite. Effective permittivity diagrams in the complex plane are constructed. For media with a low inclusion concentration, an approximate method for finding the frequency of the maxima is suggested.     

二维非均匀多孔介质中不可压两相驱替的有限分析算法

为提高油藏数值模拟算法的计算效率,在求解单向稳态渗流的有限分析算法基础上,构建二维非均匀多孔介质中不可压两相渗流的有限分析算法.算法中,网格界面上的平均渗透率不是简单地取为相邻网格渗透率的调和平均值,而是通过奇点邻域解析解积分求得.相比于传统的数值算法,有限分析算法随着网格的加密,能够很快地收敛(仅需将原始网格细分至2×2或3×3),并且其计算精度和收敛性不依赖于介质的非均匀强度,从而计算效率得到提高.     

考虑渗透率张量的非均质油藏有限元数值模拟方法

针对具有混合边界的非均质油藏,考虑全张量形式的渗透率,建立弹性微可压缩单相流体不稳定渗流问题的数学模型.根据变分原理,将压力微分方程的边值问题转化为泛函的极值问题,建立渗流模型的有限元方程.针对典型的均质和非均质渗流问题进行模拟计算,得到油藏内压力动态分布曲线,并分析曲线特征.研究表明,有限元法计算精度很高,适用于求解利用渗透率张量表征的非均质油藏渗流问题.为非均质油藏的开发和精细油藏数值模拟提供了理论依据.     

Split-step finite-difference time-domain method with perfectly matched layers for efficient analysis of two-dimensional photonic crystals with anisotropic media

This Letter presents a split-step (SS) finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method for the efficient analysis of two-dimensional (2-D) photonic crystals (PhCs) with anisotropic media. The proposed SS FDTD method is formulated with perfectly matched layer boundary conditions and caters for inhomogeneous anisotropic media. Furthermore, the proposed method is derived using the efficient SS1 splitting formulas with simpler right-hand sides that are more efficient and easier to implement. A 2-D PhC cavity with anisotropic media is used as an example to validate the efficiency of the proposed method.     

Cell membrane voltage during electrical cell fusion calculated by re-expansion method

In electrical cell fusion, two cells are first brought into contact by dielectrophoresis, and then a pulsed voltage is applied to induce reversible membrane breakdown at the contact point, by which the membranes of the two cells are reconnected to form a fusant cell. The prediction of the membrane voltage is a crucial issue for high fusion yield, however, its mathematical expression is known only for the case of an isolated cell in a uniform external field. In this paper, we employ the re-expansion method for the transient field analysis of such a multiple cell system. Each cell is modeled by an infinitesimally thin spherical insulating membrane in conducting media, on which accumulation of free charge occurs when an external field is applied. It is shown that the system has two time constants: (a) that governed by the conductivity and the permittivity of the media and (b) that of charging the membrane capacitance through the conducting media, and that the former is far shorter than the latter. Hence, the time variation due to the former is neglected to obtain a simplified expression for the membrane voltage. By expanding the potential into Legendre harmonic components and relating the coefficients for each cell based on the re-expansion method, a differential equation governing the membrane voltage buildup is obtained. The numerical calculation is performed for the axisymmetric case of two cells in contact, to which a step-wise voltage is applied. It is found that the maximum membrane voltage occurs initially at the contact point, but when the steady state is reached, it moves to the ends of the cell pair, and might lead to unsuccessful fusion. The analysis suggests that high-yield fusion may be achieved by an application of shorter pulse, or of a non-uniform field to concentrate the voltage drop at the contact point.