A 2D-Planar Dielectrophoretic Model with Electro-Thermally Induced Fluid Motion and the Stability of Trapping Zones

Dielectrophoresis (DEP) is an electrokinetics-based phenomenon that involves the motion of a particle due to the interaction between an applied nonuniform electric field and an induced dipole moment. This technique is very effective in particle manipulation and separation. Earlier studies on control-amenable models to describe the motion of a neutrally buoyant, neutrally charged particle in a chamber with a parallel electrode array have restricted the motion of the particle to one dimension. Here, incorporating the electro-thermal fluid motion as well, we present a 2D-planar DEP model and study the effect of electro-thermal fluid motion on particle trapping.     

A vortex method for fluid-particle systems

We consider a two-dimensional, dilute fluid-particle system with low Reynolds number for the flow around the particles and high Reynolds number for the bulk flow. We use a vortex method to calculate numerically the incompressible fluid phase. For the compressible particle phase we use a particle method and Voronoi diagrams to calculate the particle density. We use the Stokes-Oseen formula to represent approximately the force of the fluid on the particles. We give the results of a numerical experiment that show the effect of fluid particle interaction on the bulk flow.     

Unit-cell simulations of damage and failure in PRMMCs

The purpose of this work is damage and failure modeling in multiphase metallic materials via unit-cell simulations and homogenization methods. To this end, we investigate such behaviour in particle-reinforced metal matrix composites (PRMMCs). Taking into account the processes of void nucleation (due, e.g., to particle debonding and/or cracking) and growth, we examine the effect of phase composition, particle sizes and distributions, as well as the nature of the particle/matrix interface, on damage and failure in the unit cell. (© 2006 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

A Lagrangian stochastic model for nonpassive particle diffusion in turbulent flows

In this paper, we present a Lagrangian stochastic model for heavy particle dispersion in turbulence. The model includes the equation of motion for a heavy particle and a stochastic approach to predicting the velocity of fluid elements along the heavy particle trajectory. The trajectory crossing effect of heavy particles is described by using an Ito type stochastic differential equation combined with a fractional Langevin equation. The comparison of the predicted dispersion of four heavy particles with the observations shows that the model is potentially useful but requires further development.     

在两相粘性跨音速喷管流动中簿层方程的一种隐式求解方法*

本文略去沿流动方向的粘性,将任意曲线坐标系中无量纲化的N-S方程简化为薄层方程.采用隐式近似因子分解法求解气相控制方程,采用特征线法跟踪颗粒,然后获得两相跨音速湍流充分耦合的数值方法.其中,颗粒尺寸是分级的,用参考平面中的拟特征线法处理喷管的粘性亚音速进口边界条件,湍流采用代数模型.该计算方法应用于火箭喷管两相粘流计算,并预估了固体火箭发动机的推力和比冲,计算与试验结果吻合很好.文中还讨论了不同颗粒尺寸、不同颗粒质量百分数和颗粒尺寸分级等对流场的影响,分析了颗粒、二维径向分速和粘性对发动机比冲的影响.本文的方法具有节省机时的优点,尤其是对颗粒尺寸分级的计算,效果更为显着.     

Twistability of Spin Particle Trajectories

Using the geometric optics approximation, we establish the existence of the additional twisting effect for trajectories of spin particles, i.e., the analogue of the Magnus optical effect. The effect is determined by the polarization (chirality) and the curvature of the particle trajectory. We investigate the proton scattering in the Coulomb field of a nucleus and the mirror reflection law breaking for ultracold neutrons.     

A numerical model for magnetic chromatography

In this paper, we present details of a mathematical model for magnetic chromatography (MC) systems where strong distorted magnetic fields are used to separate particles from a colloidal mixture. The model simulates the effect of magnetic field gradients on particle motion, and includes calculation of the fluid flow, magnetic field, and particle concentration field. It is based on the finite-volume method (FVM) and uses an expanding-grid technique to handle domains with large aspect ratios. The model has been validated against the results from an analytical model. The numerical model has been used to simulate the performance of a real MC system under various operating conditions.     

柱状固粒两相边界层流场稳定性研究

从运动方程和本构方程出发,推导得到了含柱状粒子两相流场的修正Orr-Sommerfeld方程,然后在边界层流场中,采用数值计算方法,得到了含柱状粒子流场的稳定性中性曲线,给出了流场失稳的临界雷诺数.结果表明在所述情况下,柱状粒子对流场起着抑制失稳的作用,而且抑制的程度随着柱状粒子体积分数和长径比的增加而提高.     

Additional Curvature of Spinning-Particle Trajectories Proportional to the Trajectory Torsion

In the geometric optics approximation, we predict the effect of an additional curvature of the trajectories of particles (an analogue of the inverse Magnus optical effect). The effect is determined by the polarization (chirality) and torsion of particle trajectories. We find that the considered effect is linked to the Berry phase. The effect is a consequence of the conservation law for the angular momentum of the particles. We show that the effect must result in ultracold neutrons deviating from the mirror reflection law.__________Translated from Teoreticheskaya i Matematicheskaya Fizika, Vol. 144, No. 3, pp. 555–563, September, 2005.     

Sub-sample swapping for sequential Monte Carlo approximation of high-dimensional densities in the context of complex object tracking

In this paper, we address the problem of complex object tracking using the particle filter framework, which essentially amounts to estimate high-dimensional distributions by a sequential Monte Carlo algorithm. For this purpose, we first exploit Dynamic Bayesian Networks to determine conditionally independent subspaces of the object’s state space, which allows us to independently perform the particle filter’s propagations and corrections over small spaces. Second, we propose a swapping process to transform the weighted particle set provided by the update step of the particle filter into a “new particle set” better focusing on high peaks of the posterior distribution. This new methodology, called Swapping-Based Partitioned Sampling, is proved to be mathematically sound and is successfully tested and validated on synthetic video sequences for single or multiple articulated object tracking.     

三维矩形槽道中颗粒沉降的数值模拟

采用三维格子Boltzmann方法对矩形通道中的颗粒沉降进行了模拟研究．单颗粒沉降的模拟结果表明,颗粒最终的稳定沉降位置沿槽道中心线,不受颗粒初始位置和直径的影响．颗粒和壁面之间的两体相互效应可以用无因次沉降速度定量描述,无因次沉降速度的模拟结果和实验结果定量上吻合一致．模拟分析了双颗粒沉降的DKT（drafting, kissing and tumbling）过程,探讨了颗粒直径比以及壁面效应对DKT过程的影响．模拟发现当颗粒直径相同时,双颗粒的沉降过程为周期性的DKT过程,从而形成双螺旋形式的沉降轨迹,此螺旋沉降轨迹的频率和振幅受颗粒初始位置影响．从模拟结果中还得到颗粒群的最终稳定构型,并进行了构型对比分析．最后对包含49个颗粒的颗粒群沉降行为进行了模拟,说明多体相互作用在对称性的情况下可以简化．     

Temporal decays and asymptotic behaviors for a Vlasov equation with a flocking term coupled to incompressible fluid flow

We are concerned with large-time behaviors of solutions for Vlasov–Navier–Stokes equations in two dimensions and Vlasov–Stokes system in three dimensions including the effect of velocity alignment/misalignment. We first revisit the large-time behavior estimate for our main system and refine assumptions on the dimensions and a communication weight function. In particular, this allows us to take into account the effect of the misalignment interactions between particles. We then use a sharp heat kernel estimate to obtain the exponential time decay of fluid velocity to its average in $L^{\infty }$-norm. For the kinetic part, by employing a certain type of Sobolev norm weighted by modulations of averaged particle velocity, we prove the exponential time decay of the particle distribution, provided that local particle distribution function is uniformly bounded. Moreover, we show that the support of particle distribution function in velocity shrinks to a point, which is the mean of averaged initial particle and fluid velocities, exponentially fast as time goes to infinity. This also provides that for any $p\in [1,\infty ]$, the $p$-Wasserstein distance between the particle distribution function and the tensor product of the local particle distributions and Dirac measure at that point in velocity converges exponentially fast to zero as time goes to infinity.     

Projective dynamics and classical gravitation

We show that there exists a projective dynamics of a particle. It underlies intrinsically the classical particle dynamics as projective geometry underlies Euclidean geometry. In classical particle dynamics a particle moves in the Euclidean space subjected to a potential. In projective dynamics the position space has only the local structure of the real projective space. The particle is subjected to a field of projective forces. A projective force is not an element of the tangent bundle to the position space, but of some fibre bundle isomorphic to the tangent bundle. These statements are direct consequences of Appell’s remarks on the homography in mechanics, and are compatible with similar statements due to Tabachnikov concerning projective billiards. When we study Euclidean geometry we meet some particular properties that we recognize as projective properties. The same is true for the dynamics of a particle. We show that two properties in classical particle dynamics are projective properties. The fact that the Keplerian orbits close after one turn is a consequence of a more general projective statement. The fact that the fields of gravitational forces are divergence free is a projective property of these fields.      

The Alive Particle Filter and Its Use in Particle Markov Chain Monte Carlo

In the following article, we investigate a particle filter for approximating Feynman–Kac models with indicator potentials and we use this algorithm within Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) to learn static parameters of the model. Examples of such models include approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) posteriors associated with hidden Markov models (HMMs) or rare-event problems. Such models require the use of advanced particle filter or MCMC algorithms to perform estimation. One of the drawbacks of existing particle filters is that they may “collapse,” in that the algorithm may terminate early, due to the indicator potentials. In this article, using a newly developed special case of the locally adaptive particle filter, we use an algorithm that can deal with this latter problem, while introducing a random cost per-time step. In particular, we show how this algorithm can be used within MCMC, using particle MCMC. It is established that, when not taking into account computational time, when the new MCMC algorithm is applied to a simplified model it has a lower asymptotic variance in comparison to a standard particle MCMC algorithm. Numerical examples are presented for ABC approximations of HMMs.     

Particle trajectories beneath small amplitude shallow water waves in constant vorticity flows

We investigate the particle trajectories in a constant vorticity shallow water flow over a flat bed as periodic waves propagate on the water’s free surface. Within the framework of small amplitude waves, we find the solutions of the nonlinear differential equations system which describes the particle motion in the considered case, and we describe the possible particle trajectories. Depending on the relation between the initial data and the constant vorticity, some particle trajectories are undulating curves to the right, or to the left, others are loops with forward drift, or with backward drift, others can follow some peculiar shapes.     

A charged composite particle in a constant electric field

We consider the motion of a composite charged particle in a constant electric field. Using the billiard formalism, we establish exact laws of motion for such a particle with a small number of internal degrees of freedom and propose using a generalized Schwarz principle to straighten trajectories in the field presence. Within the billiard formalism, we obtain regimes of motion of a composite particle with two internal degrees of freedom in a constant field.     

Numerical computations of conductivity over agglomerated continuum percolation models

In order to clarify how the percolation theory governs the conductivities in real materials which consist of small conductive particles, e.g., nanoparticles, with random configurations in an insulator, we numerically investigate the conductivities of continuum percolation models consisting of overlapped particles using the finite difference method as a sequel of our previous article [S. Matsutani, Y. Shimosako, Y. Wang, Int. J. Mod. Phys. C 21 (2010) 709–729]. As the previous article showed the shape effect of each particle by handling different aspect ratios of spheroids, in this article we numerically show influences of the agglomeration of the particles on conductivities after we model the agglomerated configuration by employing a simple numerical algorithm which simulate an agglomerated configuration of particles by a natural parameter. We conclude that the dominant agglomeration effect on the conductivities can be interpreted as the size effect of an analyzed region. We also discuss an effect of shape of the agglomerated clusters on its universal property.     

Some remarks on the deterministic particle swarm optimization algorithm

In this paper, we give a simple proof for the convergence of the deterministic particle swarm optimization algorithm under the weak chaotic assumption and remark that the weak chaotic assumption does not relax the stagnation assumption in essence. Under the spectral radius assumption, we propose a convergence criterion for the deterministic particle swarm optimization algorithm in terms of the personal best and neighborhood best position of the particle that incorporates the stagnation assumption or the weak chaotic assumption as a special case.     

Direct particle motion and interaction modeling method applied to simulate propellant burn

A direct particle motion and particle interaction modeling method was developed to provide an alternative means of capturing the fundamental phenomena occurring during the burning of propellant grains. Individual propellant grains and other moving components are directly incorporated into the computational domain, removing the need for correlations for particle drag and interaction effects. The motion of the individual particles is calculated from the locally acting fluid induced and collision effect forces and moments. Particle/object interactions are handled through a soft particle collision algorithm. Localized mass and energy sources, accompanied by a shrinking particle size, simulate the effects of the combustion process.     

Hydrodynamic Capture and Release of Passively Driven Particles by Active Particles Under Hele-Shaw Flows

The transport of active and passive particles plays central roles in diverse biological phenomena and engineering applications. In this paper, we present a theoretical investigation of a system consisting of an active particle and a passive particle in a confined micro-fluidic flow. The introduction of an external flow is found to induce the capture of the passive particle by the active particle via long-range hydrodynamic interactions among the particles. This hydrodynamic capture mechanism relies on an attracting stable equilibrium configuration formed by the particles, which occurs when the external flow intensity exceeds a certain threshold. We evaluate this threshold by studying the stability of the equilibrium configurations analytically and numerically. Furthermore, we study the dynamics of typical capture and non-capture events and characterize the basins of attraction of the equilibrium configurations. Our findings reveal a critical dependence of the hydrodynamic capture mechanism on the external flow intensity. Through adjusting the external flow intensity across the stability threshold, we demonstrate that the active particle can capture and release the passive particle in a controllable manner. Such a capture-and-release mechanism is desirable for biomedical applications such as the capture and release of therapeutic payloads by synthetic micro-swimmers in targeted drug delivery.