Evaluation of pozzolanic activity of natural and artificial pozzolans by thermal analysis

In this research, the pozzolanic activity of natural and artificial pozzolan used for preparation of restoration mortars was evaluated. For this purpose, several pastes were prepared, by mixing two artificial pozzolans and a natural one with commercial hydrated lime, in different ratios. The pastes were cured in standard conditions (RH = 98%, T = 25 °C). The pozzolanic activity was evaluated by using simultaneous differential thermal and thermogravimetric analysis (DTA/TG) after curing for 3, 7, 14, 28 days. The obtained results revealed that the various lime/pozzolan pastes displayed different reaction kinetics and therefore the various pozzolans present different reactivity, in proportion to its mineralogical, physical and chemical characteristics.     

Flow Adjacent to a Stretching Permeable Sheet in a Darcy–Brinkman Porous Medium

In this article, we extend the work of Chakrabarti and Gupta (1979, Quart. Appl. Math., Vol. 37, pp. 73–78), and the work of Pop and Na (1998, Mechanics Research Communications, Vol. 25, pp. 263–269) to a Darcy–Brinkman porous medium.     

Correlation of Water Vapor Permeability with Microstructure Characteristics of Building Materials Using Robust Chemometrics

This paper studies various microstructure parameters of natural and artificial building materials and aims to their correlation to the water vapor permeability. Three categories of building materials were investigated: stones, bricks, and plasters. Mercury intrusion porosimetry was applied in order to obtain the materials microstructure characteristics, a variety of pore size distributions and pore structure measurements, such as total porosity. The water vapor permeability of materials was determined experimentally according to ASTM standard E96-00. A robust principal component regression approach, coupled with multiple outlier detection, was applied in order to correlate water vapor permeability values to pore size distributions. A good quality correlation model was found by utilizing relative specific pore volume and relative specific pore surface distributions, whereas using pore structure measurements, such as total porosity, the correlation results were very poor. From the results, specific ranges of pore size distribution, corresponding to pores radius sizes greater than $10\,\upmu \text{ m }$ 10 μ m and between 1.778 and $0.421\,\upmu \text{ m }$ 0.421 μ m , contribute to the water vapor permeability of the materials.     

Steady flow of a power-law non-Newtonian fluid across an unconfined square cylinder

A two-dimensional flow of a non-Newtonian power-law fluid directed normally to a horizontal cylinder with a square cross section is considered in the present paper. The problem is investigated numerically with a finite volume method by using the commercial code Ansys Fluent with a very large computational domain so that the flow could be considered unbounded. The investigation covers the power-law index from 0.1 to 2.0 and the Reynolds number range from 0.001 to 45.000. It is found that the drag coefficient for low Reynolds numbers and low power-law index (n ≤ 0.5) obeys the relationship C_D = A/Re. An equation for the quantity A as a function of the power-law index is derived. The drag coefficient becomes almost independent of the power-law index at high Reynolds numbers and the wake length changes nonlinearly with the Reynolds number and power-law index.     

Flow past a rotating sphere in a Bingham plastic fluid,up to a Reynolds number of 10,000

The flow induced by a sphere rotating inside a non-Newtonian, Bingham fluid has been investigated numerically. The rotating sphere is enclosed in a concentric cubic box with solid boundaries. The Bingham number varied between 0.01 and 100,000 and the Reynolds number varied between 0.01 and 10,000. The torque increases with the Bingham number and reaches an asymptotic state at large Bn. The torque is independent of the Reynolds number at high Bn. The yielded region around the sphere has been determined and an empirical equation is found for its extent.     

Comment on the paper “Magnetohydrodynamic effects on natural convection flow of a nanofluid in the presence of heat source due to solar energy,N. Anbuchezhian,K. Srinivasan,K. Chandrasekaran,R. Kandasamy,Meccanica (2013) 48:307–321”

In the above paper a theoretical investigation of MHD convective flow and heat transfer of an incompressible viscous nanofluid past a porous vertical stretching sheet in the presence of variable stream condition is presented. The governing boundary layer equations are transformed by a Lie symmetry group transformation and the ordinary differential equations are solved numerically using Runge–Kutta Gill method.     

Comment on the paper “Transient MHD free convective flow past an infinite vertical plate embedded in a porous medium with viscous dissipation,Siva Reddy Sheri,R. Srinivasa Raju,Meccanica, DOI 10.1007/s11012-015-0285-y”

A numerical investigation of transient magnetohydrodynamic free convection flow past an infinite vertical plate embedded in a porous medium with viscous dissipation is presented in the above paper. The governing differential equations are transformed into a set of non-linear coupled partial differential equations and are solved numerically using the finite element method. Numerical results for the velocity, temperature and concentration profiles within the boundary layer are presented and discussed.