Fundamental processes in long air gap discharges

The development of atmospheric lightning is initiated and sustained by the formation in virgin air of ‘streamer corona’ and ‘leader’ discharges, very similar to those observed in laboratory long sparks. Therefore, the experimental and theoretical investigations of these laboratory discharges have become of large interest to improve the physical knowledge of the lightning process and to develop self-consistent models that could be applied to new protection concepts.In the present paper the fundamental processes of the subsequent phases of long air gap discharges are analyzed, from the first corona inception and development to the leader channel formation and propagation. For all these processes simulations models are discussed that have been essentially derived and simplified by the authors, in order to develop sequential time-dependent simulation of the laboratory breakdown, with both positive and negative voltages. The possibility of extending these models to the case of natural lightning is discussed in the companion paper, presented in this same volume. To cite this article: I. Gallimberti et al., C. R. Physique 3 (2002) 1335–1359.     

Modélisation du champ des vitesses de l'urine dans un bolus urétéralModelling of urine flow in an ureteral bolus

Urine transport is made from the kidney to the bladder through the ureter by isolated pockets called bolus. To determine the urine flow in a bolus, we use an adherence condition on the interface urine/wall. It gives us an infinite linear system verified by a set of parameters. An iterative and convergent algorithm allows us to solve this system and to determine analytically the components of the velocity vector in the bolus. To cite this article: A. Vogel et al., C. R. Mecanique 332 (2004).     

MODELISATION DE MACROCYCLES BICY CLOPHOSPHORANIQUES

Abstract

La modélisation de 14 macrocycles bicyclophosphoraniques des types I, II et III a été réussie à l'aide du programme Biosym. V95 basé sur le champ de forces ESFF et utilisant les deux modules Insight II et Discover 3.

Molecular modeling of 14 bicyclophosphoranic macrocycles I, II and III has been carried out using Biosym V95 program based on the ESFF forcefield and including the modules Insight II and Discover 3.     

Model equations for the Eiffel Tower profile: historical perspective and new results

Model equations for the shape of the Eiffel Tower are investigated. One model purported to be based on Eiffel's writing does not give a tower with the correct curvature. A second popular model not connected with Eiffel's writings provides a fair approximation to the tower's skyline profile of 29 contiguous panels. Reported here is a third model derived from Eiffel's concern about wind loads on the tower, as documented in his communication to the French Civil Engineering Society on 30 March 1885. The result is a nonlinear, integro-differential equation which is solved to yield an exponential tower profile. It is further verified that, as Eiffel wrote, “in reality the curve exterior of the tower reproduces, at a determined scale, the same curve of the moments produced by the wind”. An analysis of the actual tower profile shows that it is composed of two piecewise continuous exponentials with different growth rates. This is explained by specific safety factors for wind loading that Eiffel & Company incorporated in the design of the free-standing tower. To cite this article: P. Weidman, I. Pinelis, C. R. Mecanique 332 (2004).     

Transient gas flow simulation using an Adaptive Method of LinesSimulation d'écoulements dans un gazoduc par la méthode adaptative de lignes

Designing natural gas pipelines to safely and efficiently handle unsteady flows, requires knowledge of pressure drop, flowrate and temperature distribution throughout the system. The accurate prediction of these parameters is essential in order to achieve optimum cumulative deliverability, and safe and reliable operation. An Adaptive Method of Lines algorithm is formulated for the solution of Euler system of equations, which fully simulates slow and fast transients. Two test cases present the improvement of the numerical solution from grid adaptation. Good results are obtained both for slow and fast transients simulations proving that the suggested numerical procedure is appropriate for such predictions. To cite this article: E. Tentis et al., C. R. Mecanique 331 (2003).     

Volumic method for the variational sum of a 2D discrete model

The geometric complexity of some heterogeneous materials (for example, fibers distributed randomly or deterministically with high conductivity [5], [2]) can make it difficult to model their macroscopic behavior. In some cases, it is convenient to simplify the geometry by cutting it into “simple” elements, so that the first study is performed only on these items. The difficulties arise from the reconstruction of the material. In such study, we describe a method for reconstructing a material cut into thin plates having undergone a size reduction (see [6] and [5], for example). The method used is of variational summation limit.     

Simplified pregnant woman models for the fetus exposure assessment

In this paper, we introduce a study that we carried out in order to validate the use of a simplified pregnant woman model for the assessment of the fetus exposure to radio frequency waves. This simplified model, based on the use of a homogeneous tissue to replace most of the inner organs of the virtual mother, would allow us to deal with many issues that are raised because of the lack of pregnant woman models for numerical dosimetry. Using specific absorption rate comparisons, we show that this model could be used to estimate the fetus exposure to plane waves.     

Parallelization of the algorithm of asymptotic partial domain decomposition in thin tube structures

The method of asymptotic partial domain decomposition for thin tube structures (finite unions of thin cylinders) is revisited. Its application to the Newtonian and non-Newtonian flows in great systems of vessels is considered. The possibility of a parallelization of its algorithm is discussed for linear and non-linear models.     

A dissipation-based control method for the multi-scale modelling of quasi-brittle materials

Multi-scale models based on computational homogenisation are nowadays developed for the simulation of complex material behaviour. The use of homogenisation techniques on finite-sized representative volume elements in the presence of quasi-brittle damage may lead to the presence of snap-backs in the macroscopic material response. A methodology to simulate this type of response in the multi-scale technique is proposed, based on the control of the dissipation at the mesoscopic scale. To cite this article: T.J. Massart et al., C. R. Mecanique 333 (2005).     

Multiple-scale modelling of acoustic sources in low Mach-number flow

The main difficulty in the calculation of sound generated by fluid flow at low Mach numbers is the occurrence of different scales. The fluid flow is characterized by small spatial structures containing a large amount of energy that may propagate with a small convective velocity, such as small vortices in a turbulent flow. The radiated acoustic waves have small amplitudes and carry a small amount of energy, but have a long wavelength due to their fast propagation velocity. In this paper a perturbation method is used to calculate noise generation and propagation in combination with fluid flow based on the incompressible equations. The idea for the numerical modelling is to introduce a fine grid for the resolution of the fluid flow that is embedded into a larger acoustical domain with a coarse grid adapted to the long wavelength acoustics. To get an appropriate restriction of the acoustic source terms from the fine CFD-grid to the coarse CAA-grid, a multi-scale expansion with one time and two space scales is introduced. To cite this article: C.-D. Munz et al., C. R. Mecanique 333 (2005).