Flow behavior and deposition study of pollen-shape carrier particles in an idealized inhalation path model

Pollen-shape (spiked sphere) hydroxyapatite (HA) particles for drug carrier application are studied. The particle shape and size effect on flow characteristics and deposition are assessed. The pollen-shape HA particles are synthesized to have comparable size as typical carrier particles with mean diameter of 30-50 m and effective density less than 0.3 g/cm 3 . The flow behaviors of HA and commonly used lactose (LA) carrier particles are characterized by the Carr's compressibility index (CI). The HA particle...     

A comparative study of particle swarm optimization and its variants for phase stability and equilibrium calculations in multicomponent reactive and non-reactive systems

Particle swarm optimization is a novel evolutionary stochastic global optimization method that has gained popularity in the chemical engineering community. This optimization strategy has been successfully used for several applications including thermodynamic calculations. To the best of our knowledge, the performance of PSO in phase stability and equilibrium calculations for both multicomponent reactive and non-reactive mixtures has not yet been reported. This study introduces the application of particle swarm optimization and several of its variants for solving phase stability and equilibrium problems in multicomponent systems with or without chemical equilibrium. The reliability and efficiency of a number of particle swarm optimization algorithms are tested and compared using multicomponent systems with vapor–liquid and liquid–liquid equilibrium. Our results indicate that the classical particle swarm optimization with constant cognitive and social parameters is a reliable method and offers the best performance for global minimization of the tangent plane distance function and the Gibbs energy function in both reactive and non-reactive systems.     

From micro-to nanosized particles:Selected characterization methods and measurable parameters

Airborne microand nanoparticles-aerosols-play an important role in many natural phenomena and in a variety of industrial processes,as well as the public health issue. They may be of natural or anthropogenic origin;their presence in an environment might be intentional or due to undesirable release. In any case,merely the particle detection and characterization,ideally in real-time,provide an insight into the potential burden allowing also controlling and abatement measures. Due to the broad size range it is ...     

New sorption and solvation measuring methods: Forced flow through liquids and solid state fluidised bed sorbents in high pressure gravimetry

A novel measuring method is presented here that allows sorption and solvation measurements near to different process conditions. Especially for the sorption kinetics it is important that the measuring conditions are similar to later applications. Particularly for high pressure sorption measurements this claim could not be fulfilled for most technical applications.The advantage of the measuring methods presented here is that solid bed samples in high pressure gravimetry can be measured under flow-through conditions in both directions and, for the first time in high pressure gravimetry, liquid samples can be measured under flow-through conditions. Especially for ionic liquids, of which a large variety of new substances with unknown sorption potentials have been synthesised in the last few years, this results in much shorter measuring times.The first measurements presented here show that the new system allows for measuring times around 26 times shorter for an ionic liquid.     

Characteristics and structure of turbulent 3D offset jets

Three-dimensional turbulent offset jets were investigated using a particle image velocimetry technique. The measurements were performed at three different exit Reynolds numbers and for four offset heights. The results in the early region of flow development clearly show significant effects of Reynolds number and offset height on the decay of maximum mean velocity and growth of the shear layer. On the contrary, the decay and spread rates were found to be nearly independent of offset height at larger downstream distances. The decay rates of 1.18 ± 0.03 as well as the spread rates of 0.055 ± 0.001 and 0.250 ± 0.005 obtained, respectively, in the wall-normal and lateral directions fall in the range of values reported in previous studies. The locations of the maximum mean velocities increased nearly linearly with streamwise distance in the self-similar region. Analysis from two-point velocity correlations revealed substantially larger structures in the outer layer and self-similar region than in the inner layer and developing region. It was also observed that the hairpin vortices in the inner regions of the wall jets are inclined at angles of 11.2° ± 0.6°, which are in good agreement with reported values in boundary layer studies.     

GPU accelerated simulations of 3D deterministic particle transport using discrete ordinates method

Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), originally developed for real-time, high-definition 3D graphics in computer games, now provides great faculty in solving scientific applications. The basis of particle transport simulation is the time-dependent, multi-group, inhomogeneous Boltzmann transport equation. The numerical solution to the Boltzmann equation involves the discrete ordinates (S_n) method and the procedure of source iteration. In this paper, we present a GPU accelerated simulation of one energy group time-independent deterministic discrete ordinates particle transport in 3D Cartesian geometry (Sweep3D). The performance of the GPU simulations are reported with the simulations of vacuum boundary condition. The discussion of the relative advantages and disadvantages of the GPU implementation, the simulation on multi GPUs, the programming effort and code portability are also reported. The results show that the overall performance speedup of one NVIDIA Tesla M2050 GPU ranges from 2.56 compared with one Intel Xeon X5670 chip to 8.14 compared with one Intel Core Q6600 chip for no flux fixup. The simulation with flux fixup on one M2050 is 1.23 times faster than on one X5670.     

Measuring powder flowability with a modified Warren Spring cohesion tester

The measurement of powder flowability is a major concern for most industrial processes that deal with the handling of bulk solids as raw materials,intermediates,or products.The development of devices that measure the flowability of non-aerated powders has not progressed as rapidly as might have been hoped since most research activities have been based on various types of shear testers intended to aid the design of hoppers.A new flowability indicator named as weighted cohesion (WS) is established using newly...     

Particle creation in a time-dependent electric field revisited

We adopt the general formalism for analyzing evolution of gaussian states of quantized fields in time-dependent backgrounds in the Schrodinger picture (presented in detail in Mahajan and Padmanabhan [G. Mahajan, T. Padmanabhan, Gen. Rel. Grav. 40 (2008) 661]) to study the example of a spatially uniform electric field background (in a time-dependent gauge) which is kept turned on for a finite duration of time. In particular, we study the time-dependent particle content, defined in terms of the concept of instantaneous eigenstates, and describe how it captures the time evolution of the quantized field modes. The actual particle creation process occurs over a relatively short interval in time, and the particle content saturates rather quickly. We also compare the power spectrum of the field modes, computed in the asymptotic limit, with the corresponding situation in a cosmological de Sitter background. Particle creation under the influence of a spiked electric field localized in time, as a particular limiting case of the above general model, is also considered.     

A numerical investigation of energy dissipation with a shallow depth sloshing absorber

A liquid sloshing absorber consists of a container, partially filled with liquid. The absorber is attached to the structure to be controlled, and relies on the structure’s motion to excite the liquid. Consequently, a sloshing wave is produced at the liquid free surface within the absorber, possessing energy dissipative qualities. The behaviour of liquid sloshing absorbers has been well documented, although their use in structural control applications has attracted considerably less attention.     

Characterization of high heating rate chars of biomass fuels

Data on biomass chars obtained under conditions similar to those of practical applications (high heating rate and low residence time) are required for co-combustion and gasification plants. A methodological procedure is developed and applied to two biomass fuels (cacao shells and olive cake) for producing high heating rate chars and characterizing their reactivity and morphology after the first steps of devolatilization. Different chars are produced in a drop tube reactor (rapid pyrolysis) by varying the nominal temperature and the residence time. Oxidation in air is performed to compare typical temperatures and kinetic parameters and evaluate the effect of the operating conditions on char reactivity. A detailed SEM analysis allows to assess the structural variations during the pyrolysis and detect the main phenomena (softening, swelling, melting, formation of bubbles). A quantitative morphological study is also performed to provide size and shape (important for biomasses) distributions of the parent fuel and the chars. These data are more significant than average values in advanced model to correctly simulate the fluid dynamic behaviour of each dimensional class of particles in large scale furnaces and gasifiers and predict a more reliable residence time of the particles.