Preliminary study on CAD-based method of characteristics for neutron transport calculation

Our new method makes use of a CAD-based automatic modeling tool, MCAM, for geometry modeling and ray tracing of particle transport in method of characteristics （MOC）. It was found that it could considerably enhance the capability of MOC to deal with more complicated models for neutron transport calculation. In our study, the diamond-difference scheme was applied to MOC to reduce the spatial discretization errors of the fiat flux approximation. Based on MCAM and MOC, a new 2D MOC code was developed and integrated into the SuperMC system, which is a Super Multi-function Computational system for neutronics and radiation simulation. The numerical results demonstrated the feasibility and effectiveness of the new method for neutron transport calculation in MOC.     

Integrating 1D and 2D hydrodynamic,sediment transport model for dam-break flow using finite volume method

The purpose of this study is to set up a dynamically linked 1D and 2D hydrodynamic and sediment transport models for dam break flow.The 1D-2D coupling model solves the generalized shallow water equations,the non-equilibrium sediment transport and bed change equations in a coupled fashion using an explicit finite volume method.It considers interactions among transient flow,strong sediment transport and rapid bed change by including bed change and variable flow density in the flow continuity and momentum equations.An unstructured Quadtree rectangular grid with local refinement is used in the 2D model.The intercell flux is computed by the HLL approximate Riemann solver with shock captured capability for computing the dry-to-wet interface for all models.The effects of pressure and gravity are included in source term in this coupling model which can simplify the computation and eliminate numerical imbalance between source and flux terms.The developed model has been tested against experimental and real-life case of dam-break flow over fix bed and movable bed.The results are compared with analytical solution and measured data with good agreement.The simulation results demonstrate that the coupling model is capable of calculating the flow,erosion and deposition for dam break flows in complicated natural domains.     

Electron transport in dye-sensitized solar cells based on TiO2 nanowires

Anatase titanium dioxide nanowire arrays were prepared by hydrothermally oxidizing titanium foils in aqueous alkali and transferred onto fluorinated tin oxide(FTO)glass for use as the photoanodes of front side illuminated dye-sensitized solar cells(DSCs).Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy(EIS)measurement was applied to compare the electron transport and recombination properties of DSCs using TiO2nanowire films and TiO2nanoparticle films as photoanodes.It was found that the nanowire array films possess smaller electron transport resistance(Rt)and larger electron diffusion length(Le)in the photoanodes,suggesting that the nanowire arrays can enhance the electron transport rate and have a potential to improve the charge collection efficiency of DSCs.     

Electrical and thermal transport properties of CdO ceramics

High temperature electrical and thermal transport properties, that is, electrical conductivity, Seebeck coefficient and thermal conductivity, of CdO ceramics have been investigated. Because of the good electrical properties and low thermal conductivity, the dimensionless figure-of-merit ZT of the CdO ceramics reaches 0.34 at 1023 K. This value is comparable to the best reported ZT for the n-type oxide ceramic thermoelectric materials and remains as potential to be further improved by porosity controlling or nanostructuring.     

First-principles investigation on transport properties of NiO monowire-based molecular device

The electronic transport properties of novel NiO monowire connected to the gold electrodes are investigated using density functional theory combined with nonequilibrium Green's functions formalism. The densities of states of the monowire under various bias conditions are discussed. The transport properties are discussed in terms of the transmission spectrum and current–voltage characteristics of NiO monowire. The transmission pathways provide the insight to the transmission of electrons along the monowire. With different bias voltages, current in the order of few microampere flows across the monowire. The applied voltage controls the flow of current through the monowire, which can be used to control the current efficiently in the low order of magnitude in the molecular device.     

Pierre Turq,an inspirational scientist in charge and at interfaces

Pierre Turq has made decisive contributions to the theory and to the multiscale simulation of charged systems, such as molten salts, electrolyte solutions and colloidal suspensions, in the bulk, at interfaces and under confinement. His research line focussed on dynamical properties and was characterised by constant efforts to connect his theoretical work to both experiments and practical applications. In this article, his colleagues and former students pay a tribute to his past and current research interests by illustrating some recent developments accomplished in his laboratory.     

A resource-saving decoding scheme of the orthogonally concatenated codes for optical transport networks in FPGA

A decoding scheme of the orthogonally concatenated codes with low resource utilizations is proposed. In the optical transport networks (OTN), forward error-correction (FEC) techniques are used to reduce the errors which occur in transmissions. Two-orthogonal-concatenated (TOC) codes are widely used in FEC techniques for their powerful error-correction capabilities based on the iterative decoding procedure. However, the framing structure is complex so the decoding procedure is more difficult than the decoding of in–out concatenated codes. And the powerful error-correction capability relies on the multi-iterative decoding processing, thus how to effectively utilize the hardware resources is a very important problem. Especially when the decoding procedure is implemented in the field programmable gate array (FPGA) devices, effective optimizations are required for the limited resources. In this paper we present an iterative decoding scheme in FPGA with low resource utilizations. As an example, an actual engineering application under the G.975.1 recommendation is given to show the efficiency of the proposed design.     

Preliminary design of a laser accelerator beam line

A compact laser plasma accelerator(CLAPA) is being built at Peking University, which is based on an RPA-PSA mechanism or other acceleration mechanisms. The beam produced by this laser accelerator has the characteristics of short duration, high pulse current, large divergence angle, and wide energy spectrum. The beam cannot be produced by a normal ion source and accelerator. The space charge field in the initial is very strong.According to the beam parameters from preparatory experiments and theoretical simulations, a compact beam line is preliminarily designed. The beam line mainly consists of common transport elements to deliver proton beam with the energy of 1–50 MeV, energy spread of 0–±1% and current of 0–108 proton per pulse to satisfy the requirement of different experiments. The simulation result of a 15 MeV proton beam with an energy spread of ±1%, current of 400 m A, and final spot radius of 9 mm is presented in this paper.     

Preliminary study on CAD-based method of characteristics for neutron transport calculation

Our new method makes use of a CAD-based automatic modeling tool, MCAM, for geometry modeling and ray tracing of particle transport in method of characteristics (MOC). It was found that it could considerably enhance the capability of MOC to deal with more complicated models for neutron transport calculation. In our study, the diamond-difference scheme was applied to MOC to reduce the spatial discretization errors of the flat flux approximation. Based on MCAM and MOC, a new 2D MOC code was developed and integrated into the SuperMC system, which is a Super Multi-function Computational system for neutronics and radiation simulation. The numerical results demonstrated the feasibility and effectiveness of the new method for neutron transport calculation in MOC.     

Ballistic thermoelectric properties in double-bend graphene nanoribbons

Ballistic thermoelectric properties in double-bend graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) are investigated by using the nonequilibrium Green's function. We find that due to the elastic scattering caused by the interface mismatching, the thermal conductance contributed by phonons is greatly reduced, while ballistic transport behaviors for electrons are dramatically demolished, and even some gaps can be opened at antiresonance energies. Near these antiresonance gaps, the maximum value of ZT   (Z_Tmax$Z{T}_{\mathit{max}}$) can be observed, much larger than that for straight GNRs. Moreover, this Z_Tmax$Z{T}_{\mathit{max}}$ can be effectively tuned by modulating the length or width of double-bend GNRs.