Turbulent thermal convection in a closed domain: viscous boundary layer and mean flow effects

In this paper the effects of viscous boundary layers and mean flow structures on the heat transfer of a flow in a slender cylindrical cell are analysed using the direct numerical simulation of the Navier-Stokes equations with the Boussinesq approximation. Ideal flows are produced by suppressing the viscous boundary layers and by artificially enforcing the flow axisymmetry with the aim of checking some proposed explanations for the Nusselt number dependence on the Rayleigh number. The emerging picture suggests that, in this slender geometry,the presence of the viscous boundary layers does not have appreciable impact on the slope of the Nu vs. Ra relation while a transition of the mean flow is most likely the reason for the slope increase observed around Ra=2 x 10⁹.Received: 7 March 2003, Published online: 22 September 2003PACS: 47.27.Te Convection turbulent flows - 47.32.-y Fluid flow buoyant - 44.25.+f Heat transfer convective     

Density viscous continuum traffic flow model

A new traffic flow model called density viscous continuum model is developed to describe traffic more reasonably. The two delay time scales are taken into consideration, differing from the model proposed by Xue and Dai [Phys. Rev. E 68 (2003) 066123]. Moreover the relative density is added to the motion equation from which the viscous term can be derived, so we obtain the macroscopic continuum model from microscopic car following model successfully. The condition for stable traffic flow is derived. Nonlinear analysis shows that the density fluctuation in traffic flow induces density waves. Near the onset of instability, a small disturbance could lead to solitons determined by the Korteweg-de-Vries (KdV) equation, and the soliton solution is derived. The results show that local cluster effects can be obtained from the new model and are consistent with the diverse nonlinear dynamical phenomena observed in the freeway traffic.     

Miscible displacement of non-Newtonian fluids in a vertical tube

The influence of rheology on the miscible displacement of a viscous fluid by a less viscous, Newtonian one in a vertical tube is studied experimentally as a function of the flow velocity. For Newtonian displaced fluids the transient residual film thickness is nearly of the tube radius at large viscosity ratios between the two fluids in agreement with experimental and numerical results from the literature. For shear-thinning fluids with a zero yield stress (mostly xanthan-water solutions), decreases down to of the radius for the most concentrated solutions. For fluids with a non-zero yield stess, further decreases down to 24-25% of the radius. The orders of magnitude of these values can be obtained through numerical simulations (commercial code) for the various types of fluids. Instabilities of the film at its boundary develop downstream and lead to a reduction of the final thickness of the film at longer times: this reduction is larger for lower viscosity ratios and larger velocities.Received: 15 February 2003, Published online: 8 July 2003PACS: 47.20.Gv Hydrodynamic stability: Viscous instability - 83.60.Wc Rheology: Flow instabilities     

Structural relaxation of spin-cast glassy polymer thin films as a possible factor in dewetting

Reiter [1] has recently reported a situation in which the dewetting of quasi-solid films is linked to plastic deformation - rather than viscous flow - resulting from capillary forces. Herein we propose that, in thin films of some glassy polymers - especially poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) - prepared by spin-casting from solvent, structural relaxation might impart sufficient stress to cause plastic deformation. We find that PMMA films decrease in thickness by several percent, which is sufficient to create significant stress in those cases in which the film is attached to a rigid substrate. The floating technique, which can take tens of minutes, might allow most of the structural relaxation to occur prior to dewetting experiments.Received: 1 August 2003PACS: 65.40.De Thermal expansion; thermomechanical effects - 82.60.Lf Thermodynamics of solutions - 61.41. + e Polymers, elastomers, and plasticsM. Sferrazza: Current address: Département de Physique, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Boulevard du Triomphe, CP223, 1050 Bruxelles, Belgium     

An Asymptotic Limit of a Navier–Stokes System with Capillary Effects

A combined incompressible and vanishing capillarity limit in the barotropic compressible Navier–Stokes equations for smooth solutions is proved. The equations are considered on the two-dimensional torus with well prepared initial data. The momentum equation contains a rotational term originating from a Coriolis force, a general Korteweg-type tensor modeling capillary effects, and a density-dependent viscosity. The limiting model is the viscous quasi-geostrophic equation for the “rotated” velocity potential. The proof of the singular limit is based on the modulated energy method with a careful choice of the correction terms.     

The effect of diffusion in a new viscous continuum traffic model

In this Letter, we propose a new continuum traffic model with a viscous term. The linear stability condition for viscous shock waves is derived. We derive the Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) equation near the neutral stability line. Then we investigate the effect of the viscous term by numerical simulations. The results show that viscosity may induce oscillations and the amplitude of the oscillation increases as the viscosity coefficient increases. This agrees with the linear stability condition. The local clusters are compressed by increasing the viscosity coefficient in the cluster study.     

Interacting New Agegraphic Viscous Dark Energy with Varying <Emphasis Type="Italic">G</Emphasis>

We consider the new agegraphic model of dark energy with a varying gravitational constant, G, in a non-flat universe. We obtain the equation of state and the deceleration parameters for both interacting and noninteracting new agegraphic dark energy. We also present the equation of motion determining the evolution behavior of the dark energy density with a time variable gravitational constant. Finally, we generalize our study to the case of viscous new agegraphic dark energy in the presence of an interaction term between both dark components.     

Casimir effects near the big rip singularity in viscous cosmology

Analytical properties of the scalar expansion in the cosmic fluid are investigated, especially near the future singularity, when the fluid possesses a constant bulk viscosity ζ. In addition, we assume that there is a Casimir-induced term in the fluid’s energy-momentum tensor, in such a way that the Casimir contributions to the energy density and pressure are both proportional to 1/a ⁴, a being the scale factor. A series expansion is worked out for the scalar expansion under the condition that the Casimir influence is small. Close to the Big Rip singularity the Casimir term has however to fade away and we obtain the same singular behavior for the scalar expansion, the scale factor, and the energy density, as in the Casimir-free viscous case.     

Analysis of Melting Heat Transport in a Cross Flow Direction: A Comparative Study

An incompressible three-dimensional laminar flow in a cross flow direction is described in this work. The term of melting and viscous dissipation is incorporated in the mathematical modeling of present flow problem. The flow expressions are converted into dimensionless equations, which are solved with help of Runge-Kutta scheme. Impact of the emerging parameters on the non-dimensional velocities and temperature and friction-factors and local Nusselt number are examined. The convergence analysis is found for ∈ < 0 and 0 < ∈ ≤ 2. Comparative analysis is made between the obtained results and published data for limiting case. It is explored at the surface that the melting parameter retards the liquid temperature while it enhances the fluid velocity.     

The turbulent/nonturbulent interface in penetrative convection

The effect of buoyancy on the turbulent/nonturbulent interface (TNTI) and viscous superlayer are studied by performing direct numerical simulation of penetrative convection. In this flow, rising turbulent thermals alternate with unmixed fluid entrained from above, forming a TNTI between the turbulent and irrotational flow regions. We detect the TNTI using a broad range of enstrophy iso-levels, from the very low levels of the outer fringes of the turbulent flow region to high levels located in the turbulent flow region. We study the local entrainment velocity v_n by which the TNTI propagates outwards relative to the fluid flow while entraining unmixed fluid into the turbulent region. The relative entrainment velocity is decomposed into a viscous, an inertial and a baroclinic torque term, respectively. For low enstrophy levels we find a viscous superlayer (VSL) where viscous diffusion dominates, while inertial and baroclinic torque terms are small. It is only for higher iso-levels in the buffer region of the TNTI, which extends from the edge of the VSL to the threshold for which v_n = 0, that the inertial enstrophy production term plays a significant role. Penetrative convection does not feature a turbulent core where v_n > 0 (i.e. inward moving enstrophy isosurfaces) that has been previously identified in other entraining flows such as jets or gravity currents. Surprisingly, the baroclinic torque remains inactive throughout the whole range of enstrophy iso-levels. The smallness of the baroclinic torque against viscous effects in the TNTI is supported by a dimensional argument which predicts that at high Reynolds number the baroclinic torque term will be negligible.     

A note on effective <Emphasis Type="Italic">N</Emphasis> = 1 super-Yang-Mills theoriesversus lattice results

We compare the glueball mass spectrum of an effective N = 1 pure super Yang-Mills theory formulated in terms of a three-form supermultiplet with the available lattice data. These confirm the presence of four scalars and two Majorana fermions but the detailed mass spectrum is difficult to reconcile with the effective supersymmetric theory. By imposing supersymmetry and using two of four bosonic masses we get a prediction for the remaining masses as well as the mixing angles. We find that the mass of the three-form dominates over the contribution of the Veneziano-Yankielowicz-Dijkgraaf-Vafa term. As a byproduct we introduce a Fayet-Iliopoulos term for the three-form multiplet and show that it generates a glueball condensate.Received: 15 August 2003, Published online: 10 October 2003Work supported by DFG - The German Science Foundation, European RTN Program HPRN-CT-2000-00148 and the DAAD - the German Academic Exchange Service     

A mechanism for hot-spot generation in a reactive two-dimensional sheared viscous layer

A two-dimensional model for the non-uniform melting of a thin sheared viscous layer is developed. An asymptotic solution is presented for both a non-reactive and a reactive material. It is shown that the melt front is linearly stable to small perturbations in the non-reactive case, but becomes linearly unstable upon introduction of an Arrhenius source term to model the chemical reaction. Results demonstrate that non-uniform melting acts as a mechanism to generate hot spots that are found to be sufficient to reduce the time to ignition when compared with the corresponding one-dimensional model of melting.     

Computation of the analysis error covariance in variational data assimilation problems with nonlinear dynamics

The problem of variational data assimilation for a nonlinear evolution model is formulated as an optimal control problem to find the initial condition function. The data contain errors (observation and background errors), hence there will be errors in the optimal solution. For mildly nonlinear dynamics, the covariance matrix of the optimal solution error can often be approximated by the inverse Hessian of the cost functional. Here we focus on highly nonlinear dynamics, in which case this approximation may not be valid. The equation relating the optimal solution error and the errors of the input data is used to construct an approximation of the optimal solution error covariance. Two new methods for computing this covariance are presented: the fully nonlinear ensemble method with sampling error compensation and the ‘effective inverse Hessian’ method. The second method relies on the efficient computation of the inverse Hessian by the quasi-Newton BFGS method with preconditioning. Numerical examples are presented for the model governed by Burgers equation with a nonlinear viscous term.     

On the effective lagrangian in spinor electrodynamics with added violation of Lorentz and <Emphasis Type="Italic">CPT</Emphasis>-symmetries

We consider quantum electrodynamics with additional coupling of spinor fields to the space-time independent axial vector violating both Lorentz and CPT-symmetries. The Fock-Schwinger proper-time method is used to calculate the one-loop effective action up to the second order in the axial vector and to all orders in the space-time independent electromagnetic field strength. We find that the Chern-Simons term is not radiatively induced and that the effective action is CPT-invariant in the given approximation. Received: 29 January 2003 / Published online: 24 March 2003 RID="a" ID="a" e-mail: sitenko@itp.unibe.ch RID="b" ID="b" e-mail: rulik@to.infn.it     

Topological evolution near the turbulent/non-turbulent interface in turbulent mixing layer

The topological evolution near the turbulent/non-turbulent interface (TNTI) in turbulent mixing layer is studied by means of statistical analysis of the invariants of velocity gradient tensor (VGT) based on direct numerical simulation data. The dynamics of topological evolution is investigated in terms of the source terms of the evolution equations for the invariants, including the pressure effect term, viscous effect term and interaction term among the invariants. It is found that the local topology of fluid particles at the TNTI evolves from non-focal region to focal region in the plane of the second (Q) and the third (R) invariants of the VGT. The topological evolution is mainly associated with the pressure effect term in the TNTI region. According to the analysis of the evolution of enstrophy and dissipation, the enstrophy increase and the dissipation decrease are revealed in the TNTI region, which are caused by viscous vorticity diffusion near the TNTI. A weak correlation between the strain rate and the rotation rate is found in the TNTI region which is related to the reduction of enstrophy production. The alignments between vorticity and strain near the TNTI are investigated and a strong alignment of the vorticity with the extensive eigenvector direction is identified in the TNTI region.     

Renormalizing the Lippmann-Schwinger equation for the one-pion exchange potential

We address the question whether the cut-off dependence, which has to be introduced in order to properly define the Lippmann-Schwinger equation for the one-pion exchange potential plus local (δ-function) potentials, can be removed (up to inverse powers of it) by a suitable tuning of the various (bare) coupling constants. We prove that this is indeed so both for the spin singlet and for the spin triplet channels. However, the latter requires, in the limit when the cut-off is taken to infinity, such a strong cut-off dependence of the coupling constant associated to the non-local term which breaks orbital angular momentum conservation, that the renormalized amplitude lacks from partial-wave mixing. We argue that this is an indication that this term must be treated perturbatively. Received: 7 October 2002 / Accepted: 15 January 2003 / Published online: 5 May 2003     

Solution of the Boltzmann equation by expanding the distribution function with several time and coordinate scales in the enskog series in knudsen parameter

A method to solve the Boltzmann equation is analyzed in the case when the distribution function depends on slow and fast time and coordinate scales. Basic relationships for calculating the nonequilibrium multiscale distribution function are shown to differ substantially from those found in the framework of the Chapman-Enskog method: the transfer equations are complemented by the contributions of relaxation processes. The heat and momentum transfer equations derived from the general solution to the Boltzmann equation involve additional terms accounting for relaxation effects. The relaxation effects included in the energy equation result in both a hyperbolic heat conduction equation and a finite rate of heat transfer. In the viscous stress tensor, the Newtonian term of the transfer equation turns out to be supplemented by relaxation terms.     

Lateral shaping and stability of a stretching viscous sheet

We investigate the changes of shape of a stretching viscous sheet by controlling the forcing at the lateral edges, which we refer to as lateral shaping. We propose a one-dimensional model to study the dynamics of the viscous sheet and systematically address stability with respect to draw resonance. Two class of lateral forcing are considered: (i) for the case that the stress at the edges is specified, we show that a pure outward normal stress S_n is usually unfavorable to the draw resonance instability as compared to the case of stress-free lateral boundaries. Alternatively, a pure streamwise tangential stress S_t is stabilizing; (ii) for the case that the lateral velocity at the edges is specified, we show that the stability properties are problem specific but can be rationalized based on the induced stress components (S_n,S_t).     

Ultraviolet Finite Quantum Field Theory on Quantum Spacetime

 We discuss a formulation of quantum field theory on quantum space time where the perturbation expansion of the S-matrix is term by term ultraviolet finite. The characteristic feature of our approach is a quantum version of the Wick product at coinciding points: the differences of coordinates q _j −q _k are not set equal to zero, which would violate the commutation relation between their components. We show that the optimal degree of approximate coincidence can be defined by the evaluation of a conditional expectation which replaces each function of q _j −q _k by its expectation value in optimally localized states, while leaving the mean coordinates invariant. The resulting procedure is to a large extent unique, and is invariant under translations and rotations, but violates Lorentz invariance. Indeed, optimal localization refers to a specific Lorentz frame, where the electric and magnetic parts of the commutator of the coordinates have to coincide [11]. Employing an adiabatic switching, we show that the S-matrix is term by term finite. The matrix elements of the transfer matrix are determined, at each order in the perturbative expansion, by kernels with Gaussian decay in the Planck scale. The adiabatic limit and the large scale limit of this theory will be studied elsewhere. Received: 15 January 2003 / Accepted: 20 March 2003 Published online: 5 May 2003 RID="*" ID="*" Research supported by MIUR and GNAMPA-INDAM RID="*" ID="*" Research supported by MIUR and GNAMPA-INDAM Communicated by H. Araki and D. Buchholz     

Dewetting of thin polymer films at temperatures close to the glass transition

We present detailed studies on dewetting of thin polystyrene (PS) films which were deposited onto silicon wafers coated with a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) monolayer. Experiments were performed at temperatures close to the glass transition temperature of PS. Several significant deviations from the dewetting behaviour of Newtonian liquids were observed. The length of the PS molecules, and thus the viscosity, turned out to be of minor importance in determining the dewetting velocity, in particular for the later regimes. In stark contrast, the geometry of the drying spot had a striking influence on the dewetting velocity. Initially, dewetting from straight contact lines proceeded faster than the opening of circular holes. At later stages, the process slowed down significantly in both cases. Under the conditions at which our experiments were performed, PS cannot flow like a simple liquid. Thus, the observed dewetting has to be the consequence of plastic deformation induced by capillary forces. Our results indicate that under such conditions the energy dissipation process is strongly affected by geometry, which is not the case for viscous liquids.Received: 1 January 2003, Published online: 14 October 2003PACS: 68.60.-p Physical properties of thin films, nonelectronic - 61.41. + e Polymers, elastomers, and plastics - 68.55.-a Thin film structure and morphology - 83.50.-v Deformation and flow