Evaluation of adaptive mesh refinement and coarsening for the computation of compressible flows on unstructured meshes

The compressible gas flows of interest to aerospace applications often involve situations where shock and expansion waves are present. Decreasing the characteristic dimension of the computational cells in the vicinity of shock waves improves the quality of the computed flows. This reduction in size may be accomplished by the use of mesh adaption procedures. In this paper an analysis is presented of an adaptive mesh scheme developed for an unstructured mesh finite volume upwind computer code. This scheme is tailored to refine or coarsen the computational mesh where gradients of the flow properties are respectively high or low. The refinement and coarsening procedures are applied to the classical gas dynamic problems of the stabilization of shock waves by solid bodies. In particular, situations where oblique shock waves interact with an expansion fan and where bow shocks arise around solid bodies are considered. The effectiveness of the scheme in reducing the computational time, while increasing the solution accuracy, is assessed. It is shown that the refinement procedure alone leads to a number of computational cells which is 20% larger than when alternate passes of refinement and coarsening are used. Accordingly, a reduction of computational time of the same order of magnitude is obtained. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Microdeformation behavior in nanotemplated epoxy thermosets: A study with in situ tensile deformation technique in transmission electron microscopy

Microdeformation behavior in nanostructured block copolymer‐toughened epoxy resins, or templated epoxy thermosets, was studied using an in situ tensile deformation technique performed directly in a transmission electron microscope. The observed microdeformation modes were found to correlate well with the macroscopic mechanical properties of the materials. In the order of decreasing macroscopic fracture toughness, the microdeformation modes were observed to change from large uniform plastic deformation over an extensive area, to localized plastic deformation bands, to little plastic deformation observed in the most brittle material. A similar trend was also observed when samples of the same material were tested at different temperatures, reflecting changes in the deformation mechanism as a function of temperature. Structural defects were observed in nanotoughening phases when plastic deformation was observed. The implication of the observed microdeformation modes to the macroscopic toughening mechanisms is discussed in the context of the micromorphology of the nanometer sized toughening phases and parameters of the epoxy matrix chemistry such as bromination, molecular weight, and interfacial miscibility. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 47: 393–406, 2009     

Comparison of characteristics of an x-ray preionized XeCl laser, pumped by water transmission line and low inductance capacitor bank

With a high uniformity of x-ray preionization, a long pulse duration and a high specific energy (9 J l^-1), an XeCl excimer laser output has been obtained by using a compact low inductance capacitor bank as the laser excitation circuit. The superior features of the low inductance capacitor bank (LICB) compared to the water transmission line (WTL) are attractive for repetitively pulsed XeCl excimer lasers.     

Tunable All-Optical Microwave Filters Based on Fiber Loop and Chirped Fiber Bragg Gratings

All-optical microwave filters are important parts of fiber-optic microwave/millimeter wave processing systems. In this paper, two novel passive tunable all-optical microwave filters based on fiber loop and chirped fiber Bragg gratings (CFBGs) are demonstrated, where the frequency response of the both filters can be continuously tuned by adjusting the wavelength of the input light. The required free spectral range (FSR) of the filters can be obtained by carefully controlling the length of fiber loop and the positions of the CFBGs in the fiber loop. Experimental results prove the feasibility of the proposed filtering structures.     

Efficient inverse radiation analysis of temperature distribution in participating medium based on backward Monte Carlo method

An efficient numerical inverse radiation analysis based on the backward Monte Carlo (BMC) method is presented to determine the three-dimensional (3-D) temperature distribution in a large rectangular enclosure containing the participating medium, using radiative intensities in the visible range received by charge-coupled device (CCD) cameras. For large radiative sources and small detectors, when the radiation onto a small spot and onto a small direction cone is desired, the BMC method is more efficient than the forward Monte Carlo (FMC) method. Because the temperature reconstruction from the measured radiative intensities is an ill-posed inverse problem, least-square QR decomposition (LSQR) method is introduced to determine the meaningful temperature distribution. In order to gain insight into the effects on the accuracy of temperature distribution reconstruction, the detailed analyses are made using numerical simulations. The results show that the temperature distribution can be reconstructed accurately for the exact and noisy data.     

Portfolio Selection Problem with Minimax Type Risk Function

The investor's preference in risk estimation of portfolio selection problems is important as it influences investment strategies. In this paper a minimax risk criterion is considered. Specifically, the investor aims to restrict the standard deviation for each of the available stocks. The corresponding portfolio optimization problem is formulated as a linear program. Hence it can be implemented easily. A capital asset pricing model between the market portfolio and each individual return for this model is established using nonsmooth optimization methods. Some numerical examples are given to illustrate our approach for the risk estimation.     

Thermally degradable maleimides for reworkable adhesives

New thermosetting materials were developed for reworkable adhesive applications by introducing acetal ester groups as thermally degradable linkages into maleimide compounds. The synthesis of compounds containing maleimide functionality and acetal ester linkages was conducted by a one‐step neat reaction from commercially available materials. The polymerization process and thermal degradation of the synthesized materials were studied. It was found that the acetal ester linkage degraded rapidly above 225 °C, and introduction of this linkage into the adhesive formulation led to improved reworkability of adhesively bonded substrates. A mechanism for reworkability was proposed based on the insight provided by experimental and modeling work. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 47: 1073–1084, 2009     

One Step to Generate Cluster States Using Dipole-Induced Transparency in a Cavity-Waveguide System

We present a very simple scheme for generating four-qubit cluster states with one step using parity measurement based on dipole-induced transparency in a cavity-waveguide system. The scheme only uses the photon detectors to check the parity of the spatially separated dipole, which are the same （even parity） or different （odd parity） through measuring the light fields in the waveguide. The initial entangled states remain after nondetective identification and they can be used for successive tasks.     

High-power passive mode-locking of a diode pumped Yb:GdVO4 laser

Passive mode-locking of a diode pumped Yb-doped GdVO₄ crystal laser was demonstrated for the first time to our knowledge. The laser was mode-locked at the wavelength of 1019.1 nm and had an average output power of 1.01 W. The mode-locked pulse duration was 3.1 ps. The laser was end-pumped by a high-power fiber pigtailed laser diode bar and the mode-locking was enabled by a semiconductor saturable absorber mirror (SESAM).     

Delaminated zeolite‐catalysed synthesis of high‐molecular weight polycarbosilane as a low shrinkage SiC precursor

A polycarbosilane (PCS) with a higher number–average molecular weight (2710 vs. 1570), and hence with a higher ceramic yield (74 vs. 68%), compared to a commercial Nipusi type S PCS has been synthesized via the catalytic decomposition of polydimethylsilane at 400 °C using H‐ITQ‐2, a delaminated zeolite with a very high external surface area, as a solid acid. The silicon carbide film fabricated using this PCS was found to show a much lower level (16 vs. 39%) of shrinkage than the commercial PCS‐derived film, together with better mechanical properties, suggesting the potential of its preceramic polymer to produce robust ceramic coatings. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 46: 725–732, 2008