The numerical solution of the thin film flow surrounding a horizontal cylinder resulting from a vertical cylindrical jet

The numerical solution of the thin film flow surrounding a horizontal cylinder resulting from a single vertical cylindrical jet is obtained. This is effected by transforming the domain of the flow, which contains a free surface, onto a rectangular parallelepiped and using a marching strategy to solve the ensuing parabolic equations. The flow terminates at a finite distance along the cylinder, its position depending on the velocity and mass flux of the jet. A comparison with the usual two-dimensional model in which the jet is replaced by a vertical sheet shows that such a representation is valid provided the overall width of the flow is not too large. In particular, the differences in heat transfer characteristics amount to a few per cent, thus validating the use of the two-dimensional model when applied to heat exchanger tubes. A comparison with the more usual multicolumn case is also considered.     

A multigrid method with unstructured adaptive grids for steady Euler equations

The multigrid method based on multi-stage Jacobi relaxation, earlier developed by the authors for structured grid calculations with Euler equations, is extended to unstructured grid applications. The meshes are generated with Delaunay triangulation algorithms and are adapted to the flow solution.     

A pair of stream functions for three-dimensional vortex flows

Introducing a vector potential, that is based on a pair of stream functions, and a velocity potential, antisymmetric equations for the stream functions are derived with the help of a variational principle. It is found that the equations are in a suitable form to investigate flows with helical symmetry, and, for example, to connect upstream axisymmetric flows with downstream helical flows. The special case of a transition from an upstream solid-body vortex to a downstream helical flow is investigated in detail. Furthermore, the stream-function equations are particularly useful to investigate general small-amplitude inertia waves on vortex flows. Time-dependent helical flows that are time-independent in a suitably rotating frame of reference can also be discussed with the proposed method.     

Transport and sedimentation of solid particles in Bénard hexagonal cells

The motion of particles moving under gravity in the velocity field of a liquid in a Bénard hexagonal cell is studied experimentally and numerically for Stokes flow conditions. We then explain the settlement of particles in the centers of cells to form a regular quincunx. It is found that sedimentation also occurs preferentially along the lines connecting the centers of adjacent cells to form a triangle deposition tessellation. Finally, it is explained why particles occupy the central part of each convective cell while the peripheral part of the cell quickly becomes limpid. Numerical results are in agreement with the experimental observations of Bénard and those of the present study.     

Multiple coexistence states for a prey-predator system with cross-diffusion

We study the multiple existence of positive solutions for the following strongly coupled elliptic system:

     

Development of an optical trap for microparticle clouds in dilute gases

Long-duration experiments with clouds of microparticles are planned for the ICAPS facility on board the International Space Station ISS. The scientific objectives of such experiments are widespread and are ranging from the simulation of aerosol behaviour in Earths atmosphere to the formation of planets in the early solar system. It is, however, even under microgravity conditions, impossible to sustain a cloud of free-floating, microscopic particles for an extended period of time, due to thermal diffusion and due to unavoidable external accelerations. Therefore, a trap for dust clouds is required which prevents the diffusion of the particles, which provides a source of relative velocities between the dust grains and which can also concentrate the dust to higher number densities that are otherwise not achievable. We are planning to use the photophoretic effect for such a particle trap. First short-duration microgravity experiments on the photophoretic motion of microscopic particles show that such an optical particle-cloud trap is feasible. First tests of a two-dimensional trap were performed in the Bremen drop tower.     

Network synthesis under survivability constraints

Telecommunication networks are subject to link and equipment failures. Since failures cannot be entirely avoided, networks have to be designed so as to survive failure situations. In this paper, we are interested in designing low cost survivable networks. Given point-to-point traffic demands and a cost/capacity function for each link, we aim at finding the minimum cost capacities satisfying the given demands and survivability requirements. A survivability model that reroutes interrupted traffic using all the available capacities on the network is presented and studied. In the proposed model, capacity and flow assignments for each network operating state are jointly optimized. We prove the -hardness of the optimisation problem defined by dual constraints. Then, we propose a polynomial relaxation along with a fast heuristic to compute a feasible solution of the problem from its relaxed optimal solution. Our solution approaches are tested on a set of problem instances.Received: September 2002, Revised: July 2003, AMS classification: 90C05     

An Incremental Algorithm for the Maximum Flow Problem

An incremental algorithm may yield an enormous computational time saving to solve a network flow problem. It updates the solution to an instance of a problem for a unit change in the input. In this paper we have proposed an efficient incremental implementation of maximum flow problem after inserting an edge in the network G. The algorithm has the time complexity of O((n)² m), where n is the number of affected vertices and m is the number of edges in the network. We have also discussed the incremental algorithm for deletion of an edge in the network G.     

Noise correlations in shear flows

We consider the effects of a shear on velocity fluctuations in a flow. The shear gives rise to a transient amplification that not only influences the amplitude of perturbations but also their time correlations. We show that, in the presence of white noise, time correlations of transversal velocity components are exponential and that correlations of the longitudinal components are exponential with an algebraic prefactor. Cross correlations between transversal and downstream components are strongly asymmetric and provide a clear indication of non-normal amplification. We suggest experimental tests of our predictions. Received 26 February 2002 / Received in final form 11 March 2003 Published online 20 June 2003 RID="a" ID="a"e-mail: bruno.eckhardt@physik.uni-marburg.de RID="b" ID="b"Also at: Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore, India     

Pseudo-Anosov Flows and Incompressible Tori

We study incompressible tori in 3-manifolds supporting pseudo-Anosov flows and more generally ZZ subgroups of the fundamental group of such a manifold. If no element in this subgroup can be represented by a closed orbit of the pseudo-Anosov flow, we prove that the flow is topologically conjugate to a suspension of an Anosov diffeomorphism of the torus. In particular it is non singular and is an Anosov flow. It follows that either a pseudo-Anosov flow is topologically conjugate to a suspension Anosov flow, or any immersed incompressible torus can be realized as a free homotopy from a closed orbit of the flow to itself. The key tool is an analysis of group actions on non-Hausdorff trees, also known as R-order trees – we produce an invariant axis in the free action case. An application of these results is the following: suppose the manifold has an R-covered foliation transverse to a pseudo-Anosov flow. If the flow is not an R-covered Anosov flow, then it follows that the manifold is atoroidal.