Outward melting of ice enhanced by Cu nanoparticles inside cylindrical horizontal annulus: Lattice Boltzmann approach

Heat transfer enhancement of water-(Ice) as a phase change material (PCM) through dispersion of Cu-nanoparticles is the centerpiece of this research study. The nanoparticle-enhanced phase change material (NEPCM) demonstrates increased thermal conductivity and decreased melting time in comparison with the conventional PCM. An enthalpy-based lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) with a double distribution function (DDF) model is implemented to trace phase change front in a cylindrical-horizontal annul. The subcooling case is neglected and Prandtl number, Stefan number and Rayleigh number are fixed to 6.2, 1 and 10⁵, respectively. In addition, the effects of varying the position of heated cylinder and nanoparticle volume fractions on the transient isotherms and liquid fractions are discussed.     

Modeling of nonlinear viscoelastic contact problems with large deformations

Contact problems are one of the most important engineering problems. These problems become much more tedious when one of the contacting bodies behaves nonlinear viscoelasticity and large deformations. This paper presents an incremental-iterative finite element model for the analysis of two dimensional quasistatic frictionless contact problems. Nonlinear viscoelastic behavior and large deformations are considered. The Schapery’s single-integral creep model with stress-dependent properties is used for nonlinear viscoelasticity. The constitutive equations are transformed into an incremental form resulting in a recursive relationship. Thereby, the need to store the entire strain histories is eliminated, except that from the previous time increment. The updated Lagrangian formulation is used to model the material and geometrical nonlinearities. Also, the Lagrange multiplier method is adopted to enforce the contact constraints. The converged solution is obtained using the Newton–Raphson iterative technique. The developed model has been verified with the previously published works and found a good agreement with them. To demonstrate the efficient capability of the developed computational model, three contact problems with different nature are analyzed.     

One-pot synthesis of disperse dyes under microwave irradiation: dyebath reuse in dyeing of polyester fabrics

A series of 4-hydroxyphenylazopyrazolopyrimidine disperse dyes were prepared via one-pot reactions of p-hydroxyphenylhydrazone, hydrazine hydrate, and acetylacetone or enaminones using microwave irradiation as an energy source. Structural assignments of the dyes were confirmed by X-ray crystallographic structure determination. Instead of discharging the dyebath after each dyeing cycle, the residual dyebath was spectrophotometrically analyzed and then pH readjusted for a repeat dyeing with longer time. Fastness of the dyed samples was measured after each recycle. Most of the dyed fabrics tested displayed good light fastness and excellent fastness to washing and perspiration. Finally, the biological activity of the synthesized dyes against Gram positive bacteria, Gram negative bacteria and yeast were evaluated.     

Electrochemical response of natural and induced passivation of high strength duplex stainless steels in alkaline media

The passivation of two high strength duplex stainless steels (HSSS) was investigated in alkaline solutions simulating the pore solution of concrete by the growth of natural and induced passive films. Induced passive films were generated both by cyclic voltammetry and by chronoamperometry. Natural passive films were spontaneously grown by the immersion of the steel in the alkaline electrolyte. These passive layers were characterised by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, corrosion current density (i _corr) and corrosion potential (E _corr) monitoring. The effect of significant parameters, such as the pH in the HSSS/alkaline solution interface, the composition of the duplex stainless steels and the ageing of the passive layer, on the electrochemical performance of both induced and spontaneously grown passive films has been analysed. The increase of alkalinity highly influences the electrochemical performance of the passive film by promoting the formation of a passive layer with a less resistant electrochemical response. The electrochemical behaviour of the passive layer is also affected by the alloying elements like Mo or Ni. Both natural and induced passive films show similar electrochemical trend with respect to significant parameters such as the pH and the composition of the steel. The ageing of the spontaneously grown passive layer promotes a higher resistive electrochemical response which might be related to the enrichment of the passive layer in non-conducting (or semi-conducting) oxides.     

Diffusion in confinement: kinetic simulations of self- and collective diffusion behavior of adsorbed gases

The self- and collective-diffusion behaviors of adsorbed methane, helium, and isobutane in zeolite frameworks LTA, MFI, AFI, and SAS were examined at various concentrations using a range of molecular simulation techniques including Molecular Dynamics (MD), Monte Carlo (MC), Bennett-Chandler (BC), and kinetic Monte Carlo (kMC). This paper has three main results. (1) A novel model for the process of adsorbate movement between two large cages was created, allowing the formulation of a mixing rule for the re-crossing coefficient between two cages of unequal loading. The predictions from this mixing rule were found to agree quantitatively with explicit simulations. (2) A new approach to the dynamically corrected Transition State Theory method to analytically calculate self-diffusion properties was developed, explicitly accounting for nanoscale fluctuations in concentration. This approach was demonstrated to quantitatively agree with previous methods, but is uniquely suited to be adapted to a kMC simulation that can simulate the collective-diffusion behavior. (3) While at low and moderate loadings the self- and collective-diffusion behaviors in LTA are observed to coincide, at higher concentrations they diverge. A change in the adsorbate packing scheme was shown to cause this divergence, a trait which is replicated in a kMC simulation that explicitly models this behavior. These phenomena were further investigated for isobutane in zeolite MFI, where MD results showed a separation in self- and collective- diffusion behavior that was reproduced with kMC simulations.     

On four-point boundary value problems for differential inclusions and differential equations with and without multivalued moving constraints

We deal with the problems of four boundary points conditions for both differential inclusions and differential equations with and without moving constraints. Using a very recent result we prove existence of generalized solutions for some differential inclusions and some differential equations with moving constraints. The results obtained improve the recent results obtained by Papageorgiou and Ibrahim-Gomaa. Also by means of a rather different approach based on an existence theorem due to O. N. Ricceri and B. Ricceri we prove existence results improving earlier theorems by Gupta and Marano.     

The temporal evolution of the structure and luminescence properties of CdSe semiconductor quantum dots grown at low temperatures

Mono-dispersed CdSe quantum dots have been prepared by water based route using 2-mercaptoethanol at low temperatures. The structures of the CdSe nanocrystals were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM). The XRD pattern showed that the prepared CdSe has a cubic phase with zinc blende structure. The temporal evolution of the absorption and photoluminescence spectra was used to follow the reaction process and to characterize the optical properties of the prepared CdSe quantum dots. The results exhibited clear exciton peaks in the absorption spectra. The influence of the temperature and/or time of reaction on the properties of the CdSe nanocrystals were investigated. It is found that the size of CdSe nanoparticles increases, as the reaction temperature and/or time are increased. The results showed that the Stokes shift between photoluminescence emission peak and absorption peaks is increased with the increase of the reaction temperature.     

Synthesis, characterization, and sorption properties of silica gel-immobilized pyrimidine derivative

5-Benzylidene-2-thiobarbituric acid (BzTBA), a pyrimidine derivative, was used to modify the surface of silica gel-chloropropyltrimethoxysilane (Si-Cl) via chemical immobilization to produce a new pyrimidine silica phase (Si-BzTBA). Identification of the surface modification was characterized and performed on the basis of infrared as well as elemental analysis. Thermal desorption method was found to give 0.129-0.143 mmol g(-1) as surface coverage values. Metal sorption properties of Si-BzTBA were also studied and the evaluated results refer to the high metal sorption of Si-BzTBA for copper(II), mercury(II), cadmium(II), and lead(II) with the same order. These four Si-BzTBA-metal complexes were also synthesized and the stoichiometric ratios were identified as 1:1 except lead complex was found to give a 1:2 ratio. Electron impact-mass spectrometric analysis (EI-MS) with 70 eV ionization energy was used as a potential thermal method for the confirmation of surface modification of Si-BzTBA and its metal complexes based on fragmentation elucidation of thermally desorbed ion peaks. The EI-MS of Si-BzTBA was found to show several characteristic fragment ion peaks that are directly related to the chemical binding of BzTBA to SiCl phase. Differential scanning calorimetry study (DSC) was also performed to evaluate the various kinetic and thermodynamic parameters of thermal degradation processes and have been enumerated. The results of EI-MS and DSC are very similar in many respects.     

Large time behavior for nonlinear higher order convection–diffusion equations

We study the large time asymptotic behavior, in L^p (1p∞), of higher derivatives D^γu(t) of solutions of the nonlinear equation

(1)

where the integers n and θ are bigger than or equal to 1, a is a constant vector in with . The function ψ is a nonlinearity such that and ψ(0)=0, and is a higher order elliptic operator with nonsmooth bounded measurable coefficients on . We also establish faster decay when .