Pressure Drop for Low Reynolds-Number Flows Through Regular and Random Screens

Creeping flow through both regular and irregular screens was simulated by the lattice-Boltzmann method, and the dependence on screen porosity and Reynolds number of the pressure drop across the screen was analyzed. Regular structures were planar arrays of straight fibers or woven one-layer structures. The irregular planar structures were composed of randomly located and oriented fibers of finite length. A simple function of screen porosity based on partly numerical scaling arguments was found to describe accurately the simulated pressure drop across all regular screens. Due to their bigger surface area, the flow resistance of woven screens was found to be about 15% larger than that of regular planar screens with the same porosity. The pressure drop across irregular planar screens was found to be described by the same screen-porosity function with a slightly different ‘scaling’ exponent which thus appears to be dependent on the structure of the screen. The flow resistance of irregular structures was found to be clearly smaller than that of regular structures because of channelling of the flow through very few largest pores.     

Shear Stress in a Couette Flow of Liquid-Particle Suspensions

The mechanisms of momentum transfer and shear stress of liquid-particle suspensions in two-dimensional Couette flow are studied using direct numerical simulation by lattice-Boltzmann techniques. The results obtained display complex flow phenomena that arise from the two-phase nature of the fluid including a nonlinear velocity profile, layering of particles, and apparent slip near the solid walls. The general rheological behaviour of the suspension is dilatant. A detailed study of the various momentum transfer mechanisms that contribute to the total shear stress indicates that the observed shear thickening is related to enhanced relative solid phase stress for increasing shear rates.     

KPZ equation with realistic short-range-correlated noise

We study a realistic simulation model for the propagation of slow-combustion fronts in paper. In the simulations the deterministic part of the dynamics is that of the KPZ equation. The stochastic part, including in particular the short-range noise correlations, is taken from images of the structure of real paper samples. The parameters of the simulations are determined by using an inverse method applied to the experimental front data and by comparing the simulated and the experimental effective-noise distributions. Our model predicts well the shape of the spatial and temporal correlation functions, including the location of the crossovers from short-range (SR) to long-range (LR) behavior. The values of the exponents , , and agree with the experimental ones. The apparent SR exponents are found to be the same for different types of quenched noise. The correlated noise is shown to have a major contribution to the effective, measured nonlinearity. We discuss in detail how to implement the noise so as to obtain a realistic simulation model.Received: 25 September 2003, Published online: 30 January 2004PACS: 05.40.-a Fluctuation phenomena, random processes, noise, and Brownian motion - 64.60.Ht Dynamic critical phenomena     

Random networks of fibres display maximal heterogeneity in the distribution of elastic energy

Above a small length scale, the distribution of local elastic energies in a material under an external load is typically Gaussian, and the dependence of the average elastic energy on strain defines the stiffness of the material. Some particular materials, such as granular packings, suspensions at the jamming transition, crumpled sheets and dense cellular aggregates, display under compression an exponential distribution of elastic energies, but also in this case the elastic properties are well defined. We demonstrate here that networks of fibres, which form uncorrelated non-fractal structures, have under external load a scale invariant distribution of elastic energy (epsilon) at the fibre-fibre contacts proportional to 1/epsilon. This distribution is much broader than any other distribution observed before for elastic energies in a material. We show that for small compressions it holds over 10 orders of magnitude in epsilon. In such a material a few 'hot spots' carry most of the elastic load. Consequently, these materials are highly susceptible to local irreversible deformations, and are thereby extremely efficient for damping vibrations.     

Quantum repulsive Nonlinear Schrödinger models and their ‘Superconductivity’

The fundamental role played by the quantum repulsive Nonlinear Schrödinger (NLS) equation in the evolution of our understanding of the phenomenon of superconductivity in appropriate metals at very low temperatures is surveyed. The first major work was that in 1947 by N. N. Bogoliubov, who studied the very physical 3-space-dimensions problem and super fluidity; and the survey takes the form of an actual dedication to that outstanding scientist who died four years ago. The 3-space-dimensions NLS equation is not integrable either classically or quantum mechanically. But a number of recently discovered closely related lattices in one space dimension (one space plus one time dimension) are integrable as both classical lattices and quantum lattices while their continuum limits are the now well-known fundamental and integrable system the quantum ‘Bose gas’. These models are all examined in this paper in a physical application of recent so-called ‘quantum groups’ theory, itself fundamental to integrability theory. The ‘superfluid’ phase transitions shown by these lattices, as well as by the bose gas, all at zero temperature in 1 + 1 dimensions, are analysed in terms of the behaviour of certain lattice correlation functions which are either quantum or, in the case of the so-called XY-model, classical correlation functions. Although the repulsive NLS models in 1 + 1 are integrable, they do not have actual soliton solutions. Nevertheless the material as surveyed here is a fundamental application of soliton-theory in the broader context of integrability or near-integrability which has had profound effects in the evolution of current understandings in all of modern theoretical physics.     

Crumpling of a stiff tethered membrane

A first-principles numerical model for crumpling of a stiff tethered membrane is introduced. This model displays wrinkles, ridge formation, ridge collapse, and initiation of stiffness divergence. The amplitude and wavelength of the wrinkles and the scaling exponent of the stiffness divergence are consistent with both theory and experiment. Close to the stiffness divergence further buckling is hindered by the nonzero thickness of the membrane, and its elastic behavior becomes similar to that of dry granular media. No change in the distribution of contact forces can be observed at the crossover, implying that the network of ridges is then simultaneously a granular force-chain network.     

Deterministic folding in stiff elastic membranes

Crumpled membranes have been found to be characterized by complex patterns of spatially seemingly random facets separated by narrow ridges of high elastic energy. We demonstrate by numerical simulations that compression of stiff elastic membranes with small randomness in their initial configurations leads to either random ridge configurations (high entropy) or nearly deterministic folds (low elastic energy). For folding with symmetric ridge configurations to appear in part of the crumpling processes, the crumpling rate must be slow enough. Folding stops when the thickness of the folded structure becomes important, and crumpling continues thereafter as a random process.