A projection method for solving incompressible viscous flows on domains with moving boundaries

In this paper, a projection method is presented for solving the flow problems in domains with moving boundaries. In order to track the movement of the domain boundaries, arbitrary‐Lagrangian–Eulerian (ALE) co‐ordinates are used. The unsteady incompressible Navier–Stokes equations on the ALE co‐ordinates are solved by using a projection method developed in this paper. This projection method is based on the Bell's Godunov‐projection method. However, substantial changes are made so that this algorithm is capable of solving the ALE form of incompressible Navier–Stokes equations. Multi‐block structured grids are used to discretize the flow domains. The grid velocity is not explicitly computed; instead the volume change is used to account for the effect of grid movement. A new method is also proposed to compute the freestream capturing metrics so that the geometric conservation law (GCL) can be satisfied exactly in this algorithm. This projection method is also parallelized so that the state of the art high performance computers can be used to match the computation cost associated with the moving grid calculations. Several test cases are solved to verify the performance of this moving‐grid projection method. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.     

Interfacial dynamics‐based modelling of turbulent cavitating flows,Part‐2: Time‐dependent computations

The interfacial dynamics‐based cavitation model, developed in Part‐1, is further employed for unsteady flow computations. The pressure‐based operator‐splitting algorithm (PISO) is extended to handle the time‐dependent cavitating flows with particular focus on the coupling of the cavitation and turbulence models, and the large density ratio associated with cavitation. Furthermore, the compressibility effect is important for unsteady cavitating flows because in a water–vapour mixture, depending on the composition, the speed of sound inside the cavity can vary by an order of magnitude. The implications of the issue of the speed of the sound are assessed with alternative modelling approaches. Depending on the geometric confinement of the nozzle, compressibility model and cavitation numbers, either auto‐oscillation or quasi‐steady behaviour is observed. The adverse pressure gradient in the closure region is stronger at the maximum cavity size. One can also observe that the mass transfer process contributes to the cavitation dynamics. Compared to the steady flow computations, the velocity and vapour volume fraction distributions within the cavity are noticeably improved with time‐dependent computations. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Damage and fracture evaluation of granular composite materials by digital image correlation method

This paper presents the applications of digital image correlation technique to the mesoscopic damage and fracture study of some granular based composite materials including steelfiber reinforced concrete, sandstone and crystal-polymer composite. The deformation fields of the composite materials resulted from stress localization were obtained by the correlation computation of the surface images with loading steps and thus the related damage prediction and fracture parameters were evaluated. The correlation searching could be performed either directly based on the gray levels of the digital images or from the wavelet transform (WT) coefficients of the transform spectrum. The latter was developed by the authors and showed higher resolution and sensitivity to the singularity detection. Because the displacement components came from the rough surfaces of the composite materials without any coats of gratings or fringes of optical interferometry, both surface profiles and the deformation fields of the composites were visualized which was helpful to compare each other to analyze the damage of those heterogeneous materials. The project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (10125211 and 10072002), the Scientific Committee of Yunnan Province for the Program of Steel Fiber Reinforced Concrete, and the Institute of Chemical Materials, CAEP at Mianyang     

Crystallographic report: Crystal structure of a one‐dimensional zinc(II) coordination polymer containing 4,4′‐biphenyldicarboxylate hemihydrate

A one‐dimensional zinc(II) coordination polymer has been constructed from zinc(II), 4,4′‐biphenyldicarboxylate and pyridine in which each zinc(II) atom is coordinated by two pyridine ligands and two monodentate 4,4′‐biphenyldicarboxylate ligands that define a distorted tetrahedral geometry. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effects of the H-bond donor structure on the properties of supramolecular side chain liquid crystalline polymers based on poly(3-carboxypropylmethylsiloxane-co-dimethylsiloxane)s and stilbazoles

Supramolecular side chain liquid crystalline polymers (SCLCPs) based on poly(3-carboxypropylmethylsiloxane-co-dimethylsiloxane) (PSIX, X=100, 76, 60, 41 or 23, denoting the mole percentage of 3-carboxypropylmethylsiloxane unit in the polymer) and stilbazole derivatives have been obtained through intermolecular hydrogen bonding (H-bonding) interactions between the carboxylic acid and the pyridyl moieties. The formation of H-bonding and self-assembly results in the formation of new mesogenic units, in which H-bonds function as molecular connectors. FTIR shows the existence of H-bonding in the complexes. The polymeric complexes behave as single component liquid crystalline polymers and exhibit stable and enantiotropic mesophases. The liquid crystalline properties of the supramolecular SCLCPs were studied using differential scanning calorimetry, polarizing optical microscopy and X-ray diffraction, and were found to exhibit smectic A phases with focal-conic textures. The thermal stability of the SCLCP increases on increasing the carboxylic acid content in the polysiloxane and the concentration of the stilbazole derivative in the complex. However, the thermal stability decreases on increasing the chain length of the stilbazole derivative. The crystal phase was not formed even on cooling to the glass transition temperature of the polymeric complex.     

Apparatus for High-Resolution Solid Hydrogen Matrix Isolation Spectroscopy and Its Application

Apparatus integrating a Fourier transform-infrared (FT-IR) spectrometer and a mid-infrared difference frequency generation (DFG) laser spectrometer was built for the study of the matrix isolation spectrum in solid molecular hydrogen. A 3-cm-long molecular hydrogen crystal was grown in a liquid-helium Dewar, and its infrared absorption spectrum in the 1-5 μm region was recorded to test the system. The W₀(0) (ν=0←0, J=6←0) line around 2410 cm⁻¹ of solid hydrogen was investigated with the DFG laser spectroscopy. High-resolution matrix isolation spectrum of CO² co-deposited with hydrogen on a BaF₂ cold plate at liquid-helium temperature was studied.     

Analysis and modeling for time-dependent behavior of polymers exhibited in nanoindentation tests

Through the arrangement of the applied load, experimental nanoindentation results of polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) and polyurethane (PU) employed to establish a mechanical model. The proposed model consists of irreversible delayed plastic (viscoplastic) deformation, irreversible viscous deformation, and reversible delayed elastic (viscoelastic) deformations. The phase lag exhibited between the responding depth and the oscillating load is found to be linear proportional to frequency in the range of 1-50 Hz. The residual cavity profile of the PMMA scanned by an atomic force microscope gives a validity of accommodation assumption applied in the present model. The effects of overshooting, which occurred in the dwelling process, are also discussed.     

A theory of coupled diffusion and large deformation in polymeric gels

A large quantity of small molecules may migrate into a network of long polymers, causing the network to swell, forming an aggregate known as a polymeric gel. This paper formulates a theory of the coupled mass transport and large deformation. The free energy of the gel results from two molecular processes: stretching the network and mixing the network with the small molecules. Both the small molecules and the long polymers are taken to be incompressible, a constraint that we enforce by using a Lagrange multiplier, which coincides with the osmosis pressure or the swelling stress. The gel can undergo large deformation of two modes. The first mode results from the fast process of local rearrangement of molecules, allowing the gel to change shape but not volume. The second mode results from the slow process of long-range migration of the small molecules, allowing the gel to change both shape and volume. We assume that the local rearrangement is instantaneous, and model the long-range migration by assuming that the small molecules diffuse inside the gel. The theory is illustrated with a layer of a gel constrained in its plane and subject to a weight in the normal direction. We also predict the scaling behavior of a gel under a conical indenter.     

Synthesis of some chiral liquid crystals and study of the effect of intramolecular hydrogen bonding on the phase behaviour

The synthesis of three new series of chiral Schiff's bases containing benzilideneaniline and 2-hydroxybenzilideneaniline moieties as mesogenic cores is presented. Differential scanning calorimetry, optical polarizing microscopy and X-ray diffraction measurements were used to study the phase transition temperatures and behaviour. The results reveal that most of these materials show chiral smectic mesomorphism.