Inversion of the phase sequence between the cubic and smectic C phases under pressure

The phase behaviour of a thermotropic cubic mesogen of 1,2-bis(4′-n-tetradecyloxybenzoyl)hydrazine BABH-14 was studied under hydrostatic pressure using a polarising optical microscope equipped with a high-pressure optical cell, and the P–T phase diagram was constructed. BABH-14 shows the Cr–Cub–I transition sequence under atmospheric and lower pressures, but the Cub phase is replaced completely by the high-pressure SmC, SmC(hp), phase under higher pressures. There is a narrow intermediate-pressure region between the low- and high-pressure regions, in which the Cr–SmC(hp)–Cub–I phase sequence is recognised. The SmC(hp)–Cub transition line has a positive slope with pressure and there are two triple points: one is for the Cr, Cub and SmC(hp) phases and the other is for the I, Cub and SmC(hp) phases. Comparing the phase sequence of BABH-14 with those for BABH-8 and -10, the pressure-induced inversion of the phase sequence between the cubic and SmC phases occurs in the BABH-n homologous compounds. Another new phenomenon is the formation of the monotropic cubic phase on cooling in the intermediate- and high-pressure regions, and an intriguing phenomenon of the cubic phase appearing twice, i.e. I–Cub–SmC(hp)– Cub–Cr phase transition, occurs in the intermediate-pressure region.     

ON THE STABILITY OF A FUNCTIONALLY GRADED RECTANGULAR MICRO-PLATE SUBJECTED TO HYDROSTATIC AND NONLINEAR ELECTROSTATIC PRESSURES

This article studies the stability of a functionally graded clamped-clamped micro-plate subjected to hydrostatic and electrostatic pressures. Equilibrium positions of the micro-plate are determined and shown in the state control space. To study the stability of the equilibrium positions, the motion trajectories are given for different initial conditions in the phase plane. Effects of the electrostatic and hydrostatic pressure changes on the deflection and stability of the micro-plate for some sample value of k are studied and values of the applied voltage and hydrostatic pressure leading system to unstable conditions by undergoing a saddle node and homoclinic bifurcations are determined.     

Non‐hydrostatic 3D free surface layer‐structured finite volume model for short wave propagation

In this paper a layer‐structured finite volume model for non‐hydrostatic 3D environmental free surface flow is presented and applied to several test cases, which involve the computation of gravity waves. The 3D unsteady momentum and mass conservation equations are solved in a collocated grid made of polyhedrons, which are built from a 2D horizontal unstructured mesh, by just adding several horizontal layers. The mesh built in such a way is unstructured in the horizontal plane, but structured in the vertical direction. This procedure simplifies the mesh generation and at the same time it produces a well‐oriented mesh for stratified flows, which are common in environmental problems. The model reduces to a 2D depth‐averaged shallow water model when one single layer is defined in the mesh. Pressure–velocity coupling is achieved by the Semi‐Implicit Method for Pressure‐Linked Equations algorithm, using Rhie–Chow interpolation to stabilize the pressure field. An attractive property of the model proposed is the ability to compute the propagation of short waves with a rather coarse vertical discretization. Several test cases are solved in order to show the capabilities and numerical stability of the model, including a rectangular free oscillating basin, a radially symmetric wave, short wave propagation over a 1D bar, solitary wave runup on a vertical wall, and short wave refraction over a 2D shoal. In all the cases the numerical results are compared either with analytical or with experimental data. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

High-order divergence-free velocity reconstruction for free surface flows on unstructured Voronoi meshes

In this paper, we present an efficient semi-implicit scheme for the solution of the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations for the simulation of hydrostatic and nonhydrostatic free surface flow problems. A staggered unstructured mesh composed by Voronoi polygons is used to pave the horizontal domain, whereas parallel layers are adopted along the vertical direction. Pressure, velocity, and vertical viscosity terms are taken implicitly, whereas the nonlinear convective terms as well as the horizontal viscous terms are discretized explicitly by using a semi-Lagrangian approach, which requires an interpolation of the three-dimensional velocity field to integrate the flow trajectories backward in time. To this purpose, a high-order reconstruction technique is proposed, which is based on a constrained least squares operator that guarantees a globally and pointwise divergence-free velocity field. A comparison with an analogous reconstruction, which is not divergence-free preserving, is also presented to give evidence of the new strategy. This allows the continuity equation to be satisfied up to machine precision even for high-order spatial discretizations. The reconstructed velocity field is then used for evaluating high-order terms of a Taylor method that is here adopted as ODE integrator for the flow trajectories. The proposed semi-implicit scheme is validated against a set of academic test problems, and proof of convergence up to fourth-order of accuracy in space is shown.     

Decrease in optical density as a results of germination of Alicyclobacillus acidoterrestris spores under high hydrostatic pressure

Alicyclobacillus acidoterrestris is a spore-forming bacterium, causing spoilage of juices. The spores of these bacteria have the ability to survive in the typical conditions used for thermal pasteurization. Therefore, the use of other techniques such as high hydrostatic pressure is considered for their inactivation. The effect of hydrostatic pressure of 200–500 MPa, at temperatures 4–50 °C for 15 min, on the dynamics of germination of A. acidoterrestris spores in apple juice and pH 4 buffer was studied. To estimate the share of germinated spores, the method of determining the optical density at a wavelength of 660 nm (OD₆₆₀) was used. Parameters of hydrostatic pressure treatment used in this work affected the dynamics of germination of A. acidoterrestris spores in apple juice, and the temperature had the greatest effect. The results indicate that nutrients present in apple juice can promote the germination of A. acidoterrestris spores.     

On free surfaces in hydrostatic flows

In the following note we investigate the occurrence of non-trivial free-surfaces for hydrostatic flows. We show that, for travelling-wave solutions of the full Euler equations where we invoke the hydrostatic approximation, no non-flat travelling wave flows occur unless the resulting flow is outside the domain of current local or global existence results for travelling water waves.     

Raman spectroscopy study of Na2MoO4·2H2O and Na2MoO4 under hydrostatic pressure

Raman spectroscopy measurements of polycrystalline Na₂MoO₄·2H₂O (NMHO) and Na₂MoO₄ (NM) under hydrostatic pressure (from 0 to 10 GPa) were performed. This study allowed us to monitor the stretching and bending vibrations of MoO₄ ions as well as the translational modes as a function of pressure. The pressure dependence of the wavenumbers of the modes indicates that the Na₂MoO₄·2H₂O undergoes two phase transitions at about ∼3 and ∼4 GPa. When releasing pressure, we have observed that the original spectrum is recovered, thereby pointing to a reversible process. The Na₂MoO₄ (NM) starting phase was found to be stable up to 10 GPa. The pressure‐dependent Raman data for NM did not reveal any structural modification. The influence of the pressure‐transmitting medium on the phase transitions is also discussed. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

静压下Znse／Zn_（1－x）Cd_xSe应变超晶格的光致发光研究

本文首次在室温和０—２．５ＧＰａ静压范围内研究了Ｚｎｓｅ／Ｚｎ０．２６Ｃｄ０．２６Ｓｅ应变超晶格的静压光致发光，观察到了室温条件下的超晶格阱层的重空穴激子跃迁随压力的亚线性变化的特性．经过计算机拟合实验数据得到了一阶和二阶压力系数．理论计算得到的一阶压力系数与实验得到的压力系数符合得较好。     

Comparing analytical and numerical solution of nonlinear two and three‐dimensional hydrostatic flows

New test cases for frictionless, three‐dimensional hydrostatic flows have been derived from some known analytical solutions of the two‐dimensional shallow water equations. The flow domain is a paraboloid of revolution and the flow is determined by the initial conditions, the nonlinear advective terms, the Coriolis acceleration and by the hydrostatic pressure. Wetting and drying is also included. Some specific properties of the exact solutions are discussed under different hypothesis and relative importance of the forcing terms. These solutions are proposed for testing the stability, the accuracy and the efficiency of numerical models to be used for simulating environmental hydrostatic flows. The computed solutions obtained with a semi‐implicit finite difference—finite volume algorithm on unstructured grid are compared with the corresponding analytical solutions in both two and three space dimension. Excellent agreement are obtained for the velocity and for the resulting water surface elevation. Comparison of the computed inundation area also shows a good agreement with the analytical solution with degrading accuracy observed when the inundation area becomes relatively large and for long simulation time. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Founding editor Dr Philip M. Gresho

A numerical technique is presented for the approximation of vertical gradient of the non‐hydrostatic pressure arising in the Reynolds‐averaged Navier–Stokes equations for simulating non‐hydrostatic free‐surface flows. It is based on the Keller‐box method that take into account the effect of non‐hydrostatic pressure with a very small number of vertical grid points. As a result, the proposed technique is capable of simulating relatively short wave propagation, where both frequency dispersion and non‐linear effects play an important role, in an accurate and efficient manner. Numerical examples are provided to illustrate this; accurate wave characteristics are already achieved with only two layers. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.