STUDIES ON THE PORE FORMATION MECHANISM OF β-CRYSTALLINE POLYPROPYLENE UNDER STRETCHING

The pore formation mechanism of β-crystalline polypropylene under stretching was investigated. The porosity of the samples increases rapidly with stretching, having a maximum at draw ratios around 2 and then decreases monotonically.An abrupt formation process of initial micropores at very low draw ratios was evidenced by in situ SAXS measurements. At the same time the phase transition from β-crystal to a-crystal proceeds slowly in the whole deformation process up to large draw ratios around 5. Comparative studies of a- and β-crystalline polypropylene samples before stretching indicate that in addition to difference in crystal forms the a- and β-crystalline polypropylene samples exhibit quite different morphological features. There are a lot of interfaces in β-crystalline polypropylene samples, which may have a lower density value and can be easily etched by argon ions and penetrated by small molecules. It was concluded from these experimental facts that the pore formation and crystal transition are two independent phenomena during the deformation of β-crystalline polypropylene samples, and phase transition from β-crystal to a-crystal could hardly be the origin of pore formation. A defect initiation mechanism was proposed to understand the pore formation behavior of β-crystalline polypropylenes.     

Existence and a priori bounds for steady stagnation flow toward a stretching cylinder

We investigate the nonlinear boundary value problem (BVP) that is derived from a similarity transformation of the Navier-Stokes equations governing fluid flow toward a stretching permeable cylinder. Existence of a solution is proven for all values of the Reynolds number and for both suction and injection, and uniqueness results are obtained in the case of a monotonic solution. A priori bounds on the skin friction coefficient are also obtained. These bounds achieve any desired order of accuracy as the injection parameter tends to negative infinity.     

Effects of metal ion on the water structure studied by the Raman O?H stretching spectrum

Raman spectra in the O H stretching region of aqueous salt solutions were measured and compared, and the effects of metal ions on water structure deduced. The effects of alkali ions, alkaline ions or the first‐row transition metals on water structure were found to be similar. Differences of metal ionic effects on water structure exist among Na⁺, Mg²⁺ and Al³⁺, and between Ca²⁺ and Mn²⁺ and Al³⁺ and Fe³⁺. The factors that influence the metal ionic effects on the water structure are the ionic charge, the outmost electronic structure and ionic size, the ionic charge being the most important. With a five‐component Gaussian deconvolution of the Raman spectra of the aqueous solutions of NaCl, MgCl₂, AlCl₃ and FeCl₃ with concentrations of 0 to ∼1mol/l, the ionic effects were found to be similar on the bands at 3233, 3393, 3511 and 3628 cm⁻¹, but different on the band at 3051 cm⁻¹. With increasing polarization of the metal ion, the band at 3051 cm⁻¹, due to strong hydrogen bonding, increases. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Flow structure of the entrance of a T-junction duct without/with a circular cylinder

The flow characteristics of the trailing edge of vertical vanes installed at the intersection of a T-junction duct were experimentally investigated using particle image velocimetry. The measured velocity field in the branch duct with/without single circular cylinder was studied under different cross velocities and velocity ratios. Additionally, the effect of the locations of cylinder on the flow field was discussed. The positive velocity region, the unsteady flow region and the trailing edge flow region of the vane, have been observed. The positive velocity region existed in almost one half of the measured area. As for the unsteady flow region, the unstable double-vortex structure transformed into a single-vortex structure as the velocity ratio increased. As for the trailing edge flow region of the vanes, the vortex streets could be visualised. Furthermore, the location of cylinder has revealed significant influence on the flow distributions in the trailing edge flow regions of the vanes. The flow structure without cylinder in the measured area is dependent on combinations of the cross velocity and velocity ratio, whereas that with cylinder is dependent on the velocity ratio. The vorticity fields were analysed in each region, and the velocity components revealed the cause of airflow trajectory.     

Effective electroelastic constants for three-phase confocal elliptical cylinder model in piezoelectric quasicrystal composites

A three-phase confocal elliptical cylinder model is proposed to analyze micromechanics of one-dimensional hexagonal piezoelectric quasicrystal (PQC) composites. Exact solutions of the phonon, phason, and electric fields are obtained by using the conformal mapping combined with the Laurent expansion technique when the model is subject to far-field anti-plane mechanical and in-plane electric loadings. The effective electroelastic constants of several different composites made up of PQC, quasicrystal (QC), and piezoelectric (PE) materials are predicted by the generalized self-consistent method. Numerical examples are conducted to show the effects of the volume fraction and the cross-sectional shape of inclusion (or fiber) on the effective electroelastic constants of these composites. Compared with other micromechanical methods, the generalized selfconsistent and Mori-Tanaka methods can predict the effective electroelastic constants of the composites consistently.     

不同剪切率来流作用下柔性圆柱涡激振动数值模拟

采用浸入边界法对细长柔性圆柱在线性剪切流条件下的涡激振动进行三维数值模拟。细长柔性圆柱振动采用三维索模型模拟,其两端铰接,质量比为6,长细比为50,无量纲顶张力为496。来流为线性剪切流,剪切率从0到0.024变化,最大雷诺数为250。研究发现:剪切流作用下柔性立管横流向振动表现为驻波模式,而顺流向振动表现为行波-驻波混合模式。随着剪切率增大,振动频谱呈现多频响应,振动能量逐渐向低频转移。阻力系数平均值随着展向变化,脉动阻力系数和升力系数的均方根值均表现为“双峰”模式。流固能量传递系数沿立管轴向的分布表明,振动激励区集中于高流速区,而振动阻尼区多位于低流速区。剪切率较小时,圆柱的泻涡为平行交叉模式;剪切率较大时,圆柱的泻涡为倾斜泻涡模式,且由于泻涡频率沿立管轴向变化,尾流发生涡裂现象,形成泻涡频率不同的胞格结构。      

Adaptive mesh refinement method-based large eddy simulation for the flow over circular cylinder at ReD = 3900

With the development of computational power, large eddy simulation (LES) method is increasingly used in simulating complex flow. However, there still exist many factors affecting the LES quality and appropriate mesh resolution is among one of them. This work aims to develop an automatic procedure to refine the LES mesh by combining adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) and LES quality criteria. An LES refinement criterion is developed by estimating the proper grid length scale which meets the accuracy requirement of LES method. With this criterion, the baseline mesh is automatically refined with the AMR method. In this work, an efficient one-shot refinement strategy is also proposed to reduce the overall simulation time. Current AMR-based LES method is verified with the typical LES test case about the flow past circular cylinder at Re _D = 3900. Results show that the automatically refined mesh provides systematically better agreement with experimental results and with current method the balance between accuracy and computational expense for LES can be obtained.     

Modeling and simulation of a compact push–pull rubber actuator energized by an outer coil of shape memory wire

This paper introduces the concept and develops the theory for a push–pull actuator made by winding a thin shape memory wire on a solid rubber cylinder. The incompressibility of the rubber converts the thermomechanical contraction of the heated wire in twice as much axial strain available in the rubber core. The intrinsic elastic backup provided by the core allows push–pull action of the device. Based on the assumption of both material and geometric linearity, a simple theoretical model is developed, which culminates in a simple closed-form equation for the output stroke of the actuator. The theoretical predictions closely agree with refined finite element simulations, anticipating a net stroke of about 5–6% of the overall actuator length, depending on the outer load applied. The working principle of the actuator and the accuracy of the model are validated by tests on a proof-of-concept prototype.     

Wake-boundary layer interaction behind an elliptic cylinder at different Reynolds numbers

In this paper, hot-wire anemometry (HWA) is used to experimentally investigate interactions between a fully developed turbulent boundary layer and wake of an elliptic cylinder where axis ratio (AR) of the cylinder is 2. The elliptic cylinder was located inside and outside a turbulent boundary layer with a thickness (δ) of 0.38B. Furthermore, experiments were conducted at different Reynolds numbers (13,250 and 26,500) based upon the smallest cylinder diameter (B). Mean velocity, turbulence intensity and higher-order central moments of velocity signals (i.e. skewness and flatness) measurements were performed using HWA upon wake-boundary layer interactions on a flat plate. Results showed that profiles of stream-wise mean velocity and turbulence intensity were greatly dependent on gap ratio (G/B) and Reynolds number (Re) in near-wake region. It was also observed that, except for G/B = 0.1, the wake-boundary layer interactions were faster at Reynolds number of 26,500 rather than 13,250. The interactions occurred earlier upon fluctuating the velocity rather than the case where a fixed mean velocity was considered. The results further show that an increase in the gap ratio increases Strouhal number almost independent of δ/B. Behind the cylinder, relatively smaller wake region was obtained at Re = 26,500 rather than Re = 13,250, where the velocity profiles quickly converged to the flat plate boundary layer velocity profiles.