On the shear-thinning and viscoelastic effects of blood flow under various flow rates

The aim of this paper is to describe and discuss the results of numerical comparative study performed in order to demonstrate and quantify some of the most relevant non-Newtonian characteristics of blood flow in medium-sized blood vessels, namely its shear-thinning and viscoelastic behavior.The models studied in this work are the classical Newtonian and Oldroyd-B models, as well as their generalized (shear-thinning) modifications. Numerical tests are performed on three-dimensional geometries, namely an idealized axisymmetric stenosis and a realistic stenosed carotid bifurcation reconstructed from medical images. The numerical solution of the system of governing equations is obtained by a finite-volume method on a structured grid. Model sensitivity tests are achieved with respect to the characteristic flow rate to evaluate its impact on the observed non-Newtonian effects.     

Frictionless elliptical contact of thin viscoelastic layers bonded to rigid substrates

A three-dimensional unilateral contact problem for thin viscoelastic layers bonded to rigid substrates shaped like elliptic paraboloids is considered. Two cases are studied: (a) Poisson’s ratios of the layer materials are not very close to 0.5 and (b) the layer materials are incompressible with Poisson’s ratio of 0.5. Poisson’s ratios are assumed to be time independent. In the present paper we derive the general solutions to the problems of elliptical contact between thin compressible or incompressible layers of arbitrary viscoelastic materials. The approach is based on the analytical method developed by the authors for the elliptical contact of thin biphasic cartilage layers. The obtained analytical solution is valid for monotonically increasing loading conditions.     

k-ε双方程湍流模型对制退机内流场计算的适用性分析

为研究不同双方程湍流模型对制退机内复杂流场计算的适用性,以某火炮制退机为研究对象,建立了实际结构下的三维计算模型,利用动网格与滑移网格技术,实现了火炮实际后坐速度下的制退机内部三维运动流场的数值计算。分别采用标准k-ε模型、RNGk-ε模型和Realizable k-ε模型计算制退机内部各腔室压力,与实验曲线对比,结果表明,应用标准k-ε模型对后坐冲击过程的制退机内部压力计算的误差最小,与实验结果吻合最好。     

Comparison of experimental data with the numerical simulation of planar entry flow: Role of the constitutive equation

The goal of this research was to determine whether there is any interaction between the type of constitutive equation used and the degree of mesh refinement, as well as how the type of constitutive equation might affect the convergence and quality of the solution, for a planar 4:1 contraction in the finite eiement method. Five constitutive equations were used in this work: the Phan-Thien–Tanner (PTT), Johnson–Segalman (JS), White–Metzner (WM), Leonov-like and upper convected Maxwell (UCM) models. A penalty Galerkin finite element technique was used to solve the system of non-linear differential equations. The constitutive equations were fitted to the steady shear viscosity and normal stress data for a polystyrene melt. In general it was found that the convergence limit based on the Deborah number De and the Weissenberg number We varied from model to model and from mesh to mesh. From a practical point of view it was observed that the wall shear stress in the downstream region should also be indicated at the point where convergence is lost, since this parameter reflects the throughput conditions. Because of the dependence of convergence on the combination of mesh size and constitutive equation, predictions of the computations were compared with birefringence data obtained for the same polystyrene melt flowing through a 4:1 planar contraction. Refinement in the mesh led to better agreement between the predictions using the PTT model and flow birefringence, but the oscillations became worse in the corner region as the mesh was further refined, eventually leading to the loss of convergence of the numerical algorithm. In comparing results using different models at the same wall shear stress conditions and on the same mesh, it was found that the PTT model gave less overshoot of the stresses at the re-entrant corner. Away from the corner there were very small differences between the quality of the solutions obtained using different models. All the models predicted solutions with oscillations. However, the values of the solutions oscillated around the experimental birefringence data, even when the numerical algorithm would not converge. Whereas the stresses are predicted to oscillate, the streamlines and velocity field remained smooth. Predictions for the existence of vortices as well as for the entrance pressure loss (ΔP_ent) varied from model to model. The UCM and WM models predicted negative values for ΔP_ent.     

Influence of nucleus motion on the fine structure of a hydrogen-like atom with unequal particle masses

Using a modified quasipotential perturbation theory, we study the value of the fine shift of the energy S levels of hydrogen-like atoms due to the two-photon Coulomb interactions and the dependence of this value on the particle mass ratio parameter. __________ Translated from Teoreticheskaya i Matematicheskaya Fizika, Vol. 149, No. 3, pp. 325–338, December, 2006.     

Finite element technique to solve the elastic strain for Leonov fluid flow

The finite element method is used to find the elastic strain (and thus the stress) for given velocity fields of the Leonov model fluid. With a simple linearization technique and the Galerkin formulation, the quasi-linear coupled first-order hyperbolic differential equations together with a non-linear equality constraint are solved over the entire domain based on a weighted residual scheme. The proposed numerical scheme has yielded efficient and accurate convective integrations for both the planar channel and the diverging radial flows for the Leonov model fluid. Only the strain in the inflow plane is required to be prescribed as the boundary conditions. In application, it can be conveniently incorporated in an existing finite element algorithm to simulate the Leonov viscoelastic fluid flow with more complex geometry in which the velocity field is not known a priori and an iterative procedure is needed.     

Parallel computation of the flow of integral viscoelastic fluids on a heterogeneous network of workstations

We consider the parallel computation of flows of integral viscoelastic fluids on a heterogeneous network of workstations. The proposed methodology is relevant to computational mechanics problems which involve a compute-intensive treatment of internal variables (e.g. fibre suspension flow and deformation of viscoplastic solids). The main parallel computing issue in such applications is that of load balancing. Both static and dynamic allocation of work to processors are considered in the present paper. The proposed parallel algorithms have been implemented in an experimental, parallel version of the commercial POLYFLOW package developed in Louvain-la-Neuve. The implementation uses the public domain PVM software library (Parallel Virtual Machine), which we have extended in order to ease porting to heterogeneous networks. We describe parallel efficiency results obtained with three PVM configurations, involving up to seven workstations with maximum relative processing speeds of five. The physical problems are the stick/slip and abrupt contraction flows of a K.B.K.Z. integral fluid. Using static allocation, parallel efficiencies in the range 67%–85% were obtained on a PVM network with four workstations having relative speeds of 2:1:1:1. Parallel efficiencies higher than 90% were obtained on the three PVM configurations using the dynamic load-balancing schemes.     

Hunting η-bound nuclei

The η meson can be bound to atomic nuclei.Experimental search is discussed in the form of final state interaction for the reactions dp → 3 Heη and dd → 4 Heη.For the latter case tensor polarized deuterons were used in order to extract the s-wave strength.For both reactions complex scattering lengths are deduced: a 3 Heη = ± 10.7±0.8 +0.1 -0.5 +i· 1.5±2.6 +1.0-0.9 fm and a 4 Heη = [±(3.1±0.5)+i·(0±0.5)] fm.In a two-nucleon transfer reaction under quasi-free conditions,p 27 Al → 3 HeX,was investigated.The system X can be the bound 25 Mg  η at rest.When a possible decay of an intermediate N  (1535) is required,a highly significant bump shows up in the missing mass spectrum.The data give for a bound state a binding energy of 13.3±1.6 MeV and a width of σ=4.4±1.3 MeV.     

Blow-up of positive-initial-energy solutions of a nonlinear viscoelastic hyperbolic equation

In this paper, we consider the nonlinear viscoelastic equation

with initial conditions and Dirichlet boundary conditions. For nonincreasing positive functions g and for p>m, we prove that there are solutions with positive initial energy that blow up in finite time.