Lattice gas simulations of two-dimensional liquid foams

Liquid foam is a dense random packing of gas bubbles in a small amount of immiscible liquid containing surfactants. The liquid within the Plateau borders, although small in volume, causes considerable difficulties to investigations of the physical properties of foams, and the situation becomes even more complicated if the flow of the liquid through the foam is considered too. Here we propose a fresh approach to tackling these issues by introducing a discrete two-dimensional hybrid lattice gas model of liquid foams. While lattice gas models have been used to model two-phase liquids in the past, their application to the study of liquid foams is novel and proves promising. We represent bubble surfaces by a finite number of nodes, and model the surrounding liquid as a lattice gas (with a finite number of liquid particles). The gas in the bubbles is treated as an ideal gas at constant temperature. The model is tested by choosing an arbitrarily shaped bubble that evolves into a circular shape in agreement with Laplaces law. The model is then employed to simulate periodic ordered and disordered dry and wet foams. Since our model is specifically designed to handle wet foams up to a critical liquid fraction of 0.16 (void fraction of random packing of disks), we are able to compute the variation in coordination number (average number of neighbours of a bubble) over the whole range of liquid fractions, and we find it to be a linear function of the shear modulus.This paper was presented at the first Annual European Rheology Conference (AERC) held in Guimarães, Portugal, 11–13 September 2003.     

Interaction of a high-speed combustion front with a closely packed bed of spheres

The head-on collision of a combustion front with a closely packed bed of ceramic-oxide spheres was investigated in a vertical 76.2 mm diameter tube containing a nitrogen diluted stoichiometric ethylene–oxygen mixture. A layer of spherical beads in the diameter range of 3–12.7 mm was placed at the bottom of the tube and a flame was ignited at the top endplate. Four orifice plates spaced at one tube diameter were placed at the ignition end of the tube in order to accelerate the flame to either a “fast-flame” or a detonation wave before the bead layer face. The mixture reactivity was adjusted by varying the initial mixture pressure between 10 and 100 kPa absolute. The pressure before and within the bead layer was measured by flush wall-mounted pressure transducers. For initial pressures where a fast-flame interacts with the bead layer peak pressures recorded at the bead layer face were as high as five times the reflected Chapman–Jouget detonation pressure. The explosion resulting from the interaction developed by two distinct mechanisms; one due to the shock reflection off the bead layer face, and the other due to shock transmission and mixing of burned and unburned gas inside the bead layer. The measured explosion delay time (time after shock reflection from the bead layer face) was found to be independent of the incident shock velocity. As a result, the explosion initiation is not the direct result of the shock reflection process but instead is more likely due to the interaction of the reflected shock wave and the trailing flame. The bead layer was found to be very effective in attenuating the explosion front transmitted through the bead layer and thus isolating the tube endplate. This paper is based on work that was presented at the 21th International Colloquium on the Dynamics of Explosions and Reactive Systems, Poitiers, France, July 23–27, 2007.     

On the use of homogeneous polynomials to develop anisotropic yield functions with applications to sheet forming

This paper investigates the capabilities of several non-quadratic polynomial yield functions to model the plastic anisotropy of orthotropic sheet metal (plane stress). Fourth, sixth and eighth-order homogeneous polynomials are considered. For the computation of the coefficients of the fourth-order polynomial an improved set of analytic formulas is proposed. For sixth and eighth-order polynomials the identification uses optimization. Simple constraints on the optimization process are shown to lead to real-valued convex functions. A general method to extend the above plane stress criteria to full 3D stress states is also suggested. Besides their simplicity in formulation, it is found that polynomial yield functions are capable to model a wide range of anisotropic plastic properties (e.g., the Numisheet’93 mild steel, AA2008-T4, AA2090-T3). The yield functions have then been implemented into a commercial finite element code as constitutive subroutines. The deep drawing of square (Numisheet’93) and cylindrical (AA2090-T3) cups have been simulated. In both cases excellent agreement with experimental data is obtained. In particular, it is shown that non-quadratic polynomial yield functions can simulate cylindrical cups with six or eight ears. We close with a discussion on earing and further examples.     

A discrete model for long time sintering

A discrete model for the sintering of polydisperse, inhomogeneous arrays of cylinders is presented with empirical contact force-laws, taking into account plastic deformations, cohesion, temperature dependence (melting), and long-time effects. Samples are prepared under constant isotropic load and are sintered for different sintering times. Increasing both external load and sintering time leads to a stronger, stiffer sample after cooling down. The material behavior is interpreted from both microscopic and macroscopic points of view.Among the interesting results is the observation that the coordination number, even though it has the tendency to increase, sometimes slightly decreases, whereas the density continuously increases during sintering—this is interpreted as an indicator of reorganization effects in the packing. Another result of this study is the finding that strongly attractive contacts occur during cool-down of the sample and leave a sintered block of material with almost equally strong attractive and repulsive contact forces.     

Falling cards and flapping flags: understanding fluid–solid interactions using an unsteady point vortex model

A reduced-order model for the two-dimensional interaction of a sharp-edged solid body and a high-Reynolds number flow is presented, based on the inviscid representation of the solid’s wake as point vortices with unsteady intensity. This model is applied to the fall of a rigid card in a fluid and to the flapping instability of a flexible membrane forced by a parallel flow.     

Theoretical considerations upon the MK model for limit strains prediction: The plane strain case,strain-rate effects,yield surface influence,and material heterogeneity

The paper presents a study of the Marciniak and Kuczynski (MK for short) model for the prediction of limit strains of orthotropic sheet metal under in-plane proportional biaxial stretching. In two particular cases analytical results can be obtained if the groove of the MK model is oriented along one of the in-plane symmetry axes. The first case is the plane strain loading mode. Necessary and sufficient conditions are derived for the MK-predicted plane strain limit strain to match exactly the experimentally measured limit strain. An example of material, the AA5182-O aluminum alloy, that does not satisfy these conditions is discussed. It is shown then that if a power-law strain rate sensitivity is included in the hardening law then the MK-model can match exactly any target plane strain limit strain. The second case is the non-hardening case for positive strain ratios. This case allows for an insight into the way the MK-predicted limit strains depend upon the yield function. Based on the theory developed for the plane strain case, material heterogeneity as a possible cause for unstable plastic flow is further discussed. It is shown that such heterogeneities can be modeled by perturbing the rate of deformation with an eigenstrain. This allows for an extension of the MK-model to sheets of uniform thickness.     

Necking in non-isothermal high-speed spinning as a problem of sensitivity to external disturbances

Necking in non-isothermal high-speed melt spinning is treated as a problem of sensitivity to external disturbances at both ends of the spin-line. Necessary conditions for existence of necking are formulated in terms of the corresponding increments of velocities, forces, viscosities, etc. It is shown that necking may be present in the high-inertia range for a rather small viscosity variation. Small inertia effects require higher values of the radial viscosity gradients.     

Near-wall damping in model predictions of separated flows

Different near-wall scalings are reviewed by the use of data from direct numerical simulations (DNS) of attached and separated adverse pressure gradient turbulent boundary layers. The turbulent boundary layer equation is analysed in order to extend the validity of existing wall damping functions to turbulent boundary layers under severe adverse pressure gradients. A proposed near-wall scaling is based on local quantities and the wall distance, which makes it applicable for general computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods. It was found to have a similar behaviour as the pressure-gradient corrected analytical y^* scaling and avoids the inconsistencies present in the y⁺ scaling. The performance of the model is illustrated by model computations using explicit algebraic Reynolds stress models with near-wall damping based on different scalings.     

An instrumented vehicle for offroad dynamics testing

The paper presents an instrumented vehicle that was equipped with measuring systems to perform complete dynamics tests, especially in off-road conditions. The equipment consists of four wheel dynamometers, a steering robot, and a differential GPS system together with an inertial platform, a non-contact vehicle speed sensor, and an on-board computer with software to control the devices and collect experimental data. The four wheel dynamometers measure six elements; based on strain gage force transducers, it measures three orthogonal forces and three moments. The steering robot can control the steering wheel of the vehicle at a variety of excitation modes; it can carry out typical vehicle dynamics tests (ISO 7401, ISO 4138, ISO/TR3888, etc.) as well as custom engineered tests at a wide range of setting parameters (steer angle rate up to 1600 deg/s). The differential GPS system gives true time vehicle kinematics data (velocities, accelerations, angles, etc.) at 10-ns sample rate and 20-mm accuracy. The base vehicle, a Suzuki Vitara 4 × 4, required no special modifications or changes to install the measuring equipment. The paper also describes typical tests performed with the use of the instrumented vehicle together with sample results.