微型燃料电池制备及其微通道摩擦性能的研究

阐述了微型燃料电池的制备过程,结合传统燃料电池数学理论和微流体力学,建立了微型质子交换膜燃料电池(μPEMFC)的数学模型,分析了微通道特性(如摩擦系数和水力直径等)对微型燃料电池性能的影响.结果表明:运用Fluent软件对模型进行计算的仿真结果与公开实验数据基本符合,验证了模型正确性;而传统模型的仿真结果小于真实值;当气道的水力直径Dh从348降至100时,电池性能有所上升;而当Dh值降至61.1时,其性能有所下降.     

Wave influence on turbulence length scales in free surface channel flows

In order to predict sediment movements in coastal environments, the interaction between these particles and turbulence should be better understood. Although previous studies have particularly shown the importance of the turbulence length scales on sediment transport for current flows, few measurements have been made on wave/current flows. The purpose of our experiments is to get a better knowledge on wave action on these characteristic length scales. For this study, in the context of a grid-generated turbulence, we aimed to describe evolution of turbulence macro and micro scales in two kinds of free surface flow. Indeed, current and wave/current flows are studied. Two data analysis techniques are used to estimate these characteristic length scales depending on flow conditions. Whereas a well-known energetic method is used for current flow, a specific analysis based on correlation measurements is lead to describe temporal evolution of turbulence length scale over the wave period. As a main result, we show that the free surface causes a vortex stretching for current flow and that turbulence length scales follow a periodic evolution with a frequency which is twice as the swell period. The turbulence length scales also depend on wave period and amplitude.     

Effect of source strength on dislocation pileups in the presence of stress gradients

The behaviour of a dislocation pileup with a finite-strength source is investigated in the presence of various stress gradients within a continuum model where a free-dislocation region exists around the source. Expressions for dislocation density and stress field within the pileup are derived for the situation where there are first and second spatial gradients in applied stress. For a pileup configuration under an applied stress, yielding occurs when the force acting on the leading dislocations at the pileup tips reaches the obstacle strength, and at the same time, it is required that the source be at the threshold stress for dislocation production. A numerical methodology is presented to solve the underlying equations that represent the yielding conditions. The yield stress calculated for a pileup configuration is found to depend on stress gradients, obstacle spacing and source/obstacle strengths. It increases with increasing the first stress gradient, yet dependent on the second stress gradient. Furthermore, while the dependency of yield stress on the obstacle spacing intensifies with increasing the first stress gradient, it diminishes with an increase of second stress gradient. Therefore, the second stress gradient, as a newly introduced parameter, can provide a new physical insight into the size-dependent plasticity phenomena at small length scales.     

Physical consequences of the mitochondrial targeting of single-walled carbon nanotubes probed computationally

Experiments by F. Zhou and coworkers (2010) [16] showed that mitochondria are the main target of the cellular accumulation of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs). Our in silico experiments, based on geometrical optimization of the system consisting of SWCNT+proton within Density Functional Theory, revealed that protons can bind to the outer side of SWCNT so generating a positive charge. Calculation results allow one to propose the following mechanism of SWCNTs mitochondrial targeting. SWCNTs enter the space between inner and outer membranes of mitochondria, where the excess of protons has been formed by diffusion. In this compartment SWCNTs are loaded with protons and acquire positive charges distributed over their surface. Protonation of hydrophobic SWCNTs can also be carried out within the mitochondrial membrane through interaction with the protonated ubiquinone. Such “charge loaded” particles can be transferred as “Sculachev ions” through the inner membrane of the mitochondria due to the potential difference generated by the inner membrane. Physiological consequences of the described mechanism are discussed.     

Modulating microstructure and optical properties of hydrogenated nanocrystalline silicon photovoltaic materials prepared under hydrogen diluted silane PECVD by various DC bias

Hydrogenated nanocrystalline silicon (nc-Si:H) thin films were fabricated by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition under the various negative substrate bias voltages with hydrogen as a diluent of silane. The microstructure and optical properties of nc-Si:H thin films were studied by Raman scattering spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy, and optical transmission spectroscopy. Raman spectra and XRD pattern reveal that applying negative bias voltages at the moderate level favors the enhancement of crystalline volume fraction, increase of crystallite sizes and decrease of residual stress. We also demonstrated that the negative direct current bias can be used to modulate the volume fraction of voids, refractive index, absorption coefficient, compactness and ordered degree of nc-Si:H films. It is found that the film deposited at −80 V shows not only high crystallinity, size of crystallite, and static index n₀ but also low residual stress and volume fraction of voids. Furthermore, the microstructural evolution mechanism of nc-Si:H thin films prepared at different bias voltages is tentatively explored.     

Exploring the applications of fractional calculus: Hierarchically built semiflexible polymers

In this article we study, through extensions of the generalized Gaussian scheme, the dynamics of semiflexible treelike polymers under the influence of external forces acting on particular (say, charged) monomers. Semiflexibility is introduced following our previous work (Dolgushev and Blumen, 2009 [15]), a procedure which allows one to study treelike structures with arbitrary stiffness and branching. Exemplarily, we illustrate the procedure using linear chains and hyperbranched polymers modeled through Vicsek fractals, and obtain in every case the monomer displacement averaged over the structure. Anomalous behavior manifests itself in the intermediate time region, where the different fractal architectures show distinct scaling behaviors. These behaviors are due to the power law behavior of the spectral density and lead, for arbitrary pulling forces, based on causality and the linear superposition principle, to fractional calculus expressions, in accordance to former phenomenological fractional laws in polymer physics.     

D-admissible hybrid control of a class of singular systems

This paper mainly studies the problem of designing a hybrid state feedback D-admissible controller for a class of linear and nonlinear singular systems. Based on the relationship between singular discrete systems and singular delta operator systems, several necessary and sufficient conditions for a linear singular delta operator system to be D-admissible (i.e. regular, causal and all finite poles lie in a prescribed circular region) with different representations are derived. Then, the existence conditions and explicit expressions of a desirable D-admissible controller are given by means of matrix inequalities and strict linear matrix inequalities, respectively. We further extend the obtained results to singular delta operator systems with Lipschitz nonlinear perturbations, and the design methods of hybrid controller are presented for the nonlinear case as well. Finally, numerical examples as well as simulations are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the theoretical outcomes obtained in the paper.     

Homoclinic bifurcation for a general state-dependent Kolmogorov type predator–prey model with harvesting

In this paper, a general Kolmogorov type predator–prey model is considered. Together with a constant-yield predator harvesting, the state dependent feedback control strategies which take into account the impulsive harvesting on predators as well as the impulsive stocking on the prey are incorporated in the process of population interactions. We firstly study the existence of an order-1 homoclinic cycle for the system. It is shown that an order-1 positive periodic solution bifurcates from the order-1 homoclinic cycle through a homoclinic bifurcation as the impulsive predator harvesting rate crosses some critical value. The uniqueness and stability of the order-1 positive periodic solution are derived by applying the geometry theory of differential equations and the method of successor function. Finally, some numerical examples are provided to illustrate the main results. These results indicate that careful management of resources and harvesting policies is required in the applied conservation and renewable resource contexts.     

Predicting Polymorphism of Electrospun Polyvinylidene Fluoride Membranes by Their Morphologies

Although electrospinning of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) has been studied for more than 10 years, the crystalline phase differentiation of the electrospun mats is still normally through the combination of different characterization techniques, and the relationship between polymorphism and morphology of the fibers in electrospun PVDF membranes has never been reported. Here, we show their close relationships by conducting room-temperature electrospinning experiments on various polymer/solvent systems. The electrospun membranes full of bead-free fibers have a very high fraction of β-phase, F(β), over 90%, and high orientation, whereas the membranes comprising beads and/or a large number of beaded fibers most often result in a low fraction of β-phase (F(β) normally below 50%) and low orientation. On the other hand, electrospun membranes consisting of both bead-free fibers and a very limited number of beaded fibers showed a medium high fraction of β-phase, F(β) more than 70% but less than 90%. These findings suggest the feasibility of intuitively predicting the crystalline phase of electrospun PVDF membranes directly by their morphologies, which is obviously simple, inexpensive and convenient for future investigations.     

Signal enhancement of a novel multi-address coding lidar backscatters based on a combined technique of demodulation and wavelet de-noising

Multi-address coding (MAC) lidar is a novel lidar system recently developed by our laboratory. By applying a new combined technique of multi-address encoding, multiplexing and decoding, range resolution is effectively improved. In data processing, a signal enhancement method involving laser signal demodulation and wavelet de-noising in the downlink is proposed to improve the signal to noise ratio (SNR) of raw signal and the capability of remote application. In this paper, the working mechanism of MAC lidar is introduced and the implementation of encoding and decoding is also illustrated. We focus on the signal enhancement method and provide the mathematical model and analysis of an algorithm on the basis of the combined method of demodulation and wavelet de-noising. The experimental results and analysis demonstrate that the signal enhancement approach improves the SNR of raw data. Overall, compared with conventional lidar system, MAC lidar achieves a higher resolution and better de-noising performance in long-range detection.