Geometrical Properties and Turbulent Flame Speed Measurements in Stationary Premixed V-flames Using Direct Numerical Simulation

Three dimensional, fully compressible direct numerical simulations (DNS) of premixed turbulent flames are carried out in a V-flame configuration. The governing equations and the numerical implementation are described in detail, including modifications made to the Navier?CStokes Characteristic Boundary Conditions (NSCBC) to accommodate the steep transverse velocity and composition gradients generated when the flame crosses the boundary. Three cases, at turbulence intensities, u??/s _L , of 1, 2, and 6 are considered. The influence of the flame holder on downstream flame properties is assessed through the distributions of the surface-conditioned displacement speed, curvature and tangential strain rates, and compared to data from similarly processed planar flames. The distributions are found to be indistinguishable from planar flames for distances greater than about 17?? _th downstream of the flame holder, where ?? _th is the laminar flame thermal thickness. Favre mean fields are constructed, and the growth of the mean flame brush is found to be well described by simple Taylor type diffusion. The turbulent flame speed, s _T is evaluated from an expression describing the propagation speed of an isosurface of the mean reaction progress variable $\tilde{c}$ in terms of the imbalance between the mean reactive, diffusive, and turbulent fluxes within the flame brush. The results are compared to the consumption speed, s _C , calculated from the integral of the mean reaction rate, and to the predictions of a recently developed flame speed model (Kolla et al., Combust Sci Technol 181(3):518?C535, 2009). The model predictions are improved in all cases by including the effects of mean molecular diffusion, and the overall agreement is good for the higher turbulence intensity cases once the tangential convective flux of $\tilde{c}$ is taken into account.     

Effect of UV Irradiation on Gas Permeability in Heterophasic Ethylene-Propylene Copolymer Films

Abstract

The permeability variations of carbon dioxide, oxygen, and nitrogen through isotactic polypropylene, heterophasic ethylene-propylene (E-P) copolymers, and polyethylene films were measured during photo-oxidation using polychromatic light at 60°C in air. For polypropylenebased samples the permeability decreases with increasing photooxidation, whereas for polyethylene and an elastomeric fraction from a heterophasic E-P copolymer an increase in permeability with photooxidation is observed.     

A Convenient One Pot Synthesis of Esters of Carboxylic Acids from Alkyl or Aryl Halides

Esters of carboxylic acids were readily synthesized from alkyl or aryl halides by reacting the corresponding Grignard reagents with dimethyl, diphenyl or ethylene carbonates.     

Robustness and surgery of frames

We characterize frames in Rⁿ that are robust to k erasures. The characterization is given in terms of the support of the null space of the synthesis operator of the frame. A necessary and sufficient condition is given for when an (r, k)-surgery on unit-norm tight frames in R² are possible. Also a generalization of a known characterization of the existence of tight frames with prescribed norms is given.     

Numerical study of transient evolution of lifted jet flames: partially premixed flame propagation and influence of physical dimensions

Three-dimensional (3D) unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes simulations of a spark-ignited turbulent methane/air jet flame evolving from ignition to stabilisation are conducted for different jet velocities. A partially premixed combustion model is used involving a correlated joint probability density function and both premixed and non-premixed combustion mode contributions. The 3D simulation results for the temporal evolution of the flame's leading edge are compared with previous two-dimensional (2D) results and experimental data. The comparison shows that the final stabilised flame lift-off height is well predicted by both 2D and 3D computations. However, the transient evolution of the flame's leading edge computed from 3D simulation agrees reasonably well with experiment, whereas evident discrepancies were found in the previous 2D study. This difference suggests that the third physical dimension plays an important role during the flame transient evolution process. The flame brush's leading edge displacement speed resulting from reaction, normal and tangential diffusion processes are studied at different typical stages after ignition in order to understand the effect of the third physical dimension further. Substantial differences are found for the reaction and normal diffusion components between 2D and 3D simulations especially in the initial propagation stage. The evolution of reaction progress variable scalar gradients and its interaction with the flow and mixing field in the 3D physical space have an important effect on the flame's leading edge propagation.     

Thioflavin T Displays Enhanced Fluorescence Selectively Inside Anionic Micelles and Mammalian Cells

Thioflavin T (ThT) has been widely employed to detect amyloid fibrils in tissues and recently in presence of SDS micelles. However, the contribution of membranes or micelles to ThT fluorescence has never been investigated. In this paper, we show for the first time that the anionic micellar microenvironment of SDS has a profound impact on the absorption and fluorescence spectra of ThT in sharp contrast to cationic (CTAB) and neutral micelles (Triton X-100 & Tween 20). Unlike CTAB or Triton X-100 or Tween 20 micelles, formation of SDS micelles shifts the λ_max for ThT absorption from 412 nm in buffer to 428 nm inside the micelle, with a 28% increase in the peak molar absorptivity and a ∼13 fold increase in ThT fluorescence (λ_max = 489 nm). Extending these observations to cell plasma membranes, we show that ThT can quickly enter and appear selectively fluorescent inside mammalian cells like BHK21 and HT29, against a dark background owing to negligible fluorescence from free ThT in aqueous medium. The above results suggest that ThT can be a useful probe for live cell imaging and for selectively labeling micelles on the basis of the charge in the polar headgroup. Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

Solvent effects on the gain of rhodamine 6G

The effect of solvents on the gain and the peaks of gain spectra is investigated for rhodamine 6G (R6G) under nitrogen laser pumping. The non-specific solute-solvent interaction for R6G is found to be mainly dispersive. Additional shifts produced for R6G in certain solvents are explained as due to hydrogen bonding. The gain characteristics are interpreted on the basis of the position and overlap of absorption and fluorescence spectra, the quantum yield, the absorption at the pumping wavelength and the refractive index of the solvent. For the solvents studied it is found that R6G has high gain in solvents with low refractive index and high polarity. Amongst the solvents studied the alcohols displayed the highest gain with methanol being the most suitable solvent. The lowest gain amongst the alcohols was with capryllic alcohol which gave a gain that was 69% of that obtained with methanol. Amongst all the solvents studied the lowest gain was with chloroform, being only 34% of the gain in methanol.