No Arabic abstract
Cavitation in a liquid moving past a constraint is numerically investigated by means of a free-energy lattice Boltzmann simulation based on the van der Waals equation of state. The fluid is streamed past an obstacle and, depending on the pressure drop between inlet and outlet, vapor formation underneath the corner of the sack-wall is observed. The circumstances of cavitation formation are investigated and it is found that the local bulk pressure and mean stress are insufficient to explain the phenomenon. Results obtained in this study strongly suggest that the viscous stress, interfacial contributions to the local pressure, and the Laplace pressure are relevant to the opening of a vapor cavity. This can be described by a generalization of Josephs criterion that includes these contributions. A macroscopic investigation measuring mass flow rate behavior and discharge coefficient was also performed. As theoretically predicted, mass flow rate increases linearly with the square root of the pressure drop. However, when cavitation occurs, the mass flow growth rate is reduced and eventually it collapses into a choked flow state. In the cavitating regime, as theoretically predicted and experimentally verified, the discharge coefficient grows with the Nurick cavitation number.
The viscous drag on a slender rod by a wall is important to many biological and industrial systems. This drag critically depends on the separation between the rod and the wall and can be approximated asymptotically in specific regimes, namely far from, or very close to, the wall, but is typically determined numerically for general separations. In this note we determine an asymptotic representation of the local drag for a slender rod parallel to a wall which is valid for all separations. This is possible through matching the behaviour of a rod close to the wall and a rod far from the wall. We show that the leading order drag in both these regimes has been known since 1981 and that they can used to produce a composite representation of the drag which is valid for all separations. This is in contrast to a sphere above a wall, where no simple uniformly valid representation exists. We estimate the error on this composite representation as the separation increases, discuss how the results could be used as resistive-force theory and demonstrate their use on a two-hinged swimmer above a wall.
We consider the unsteady thin-film dynamics of a long bubble of negligible viscosity that advances at a uniform speed in a cylindrical capillary tube. The bubble displaces a viscous, nonwetting fluid, creating a thin film between its interface and the tube walls. The film is considered thin enough that intermolecular forces in the form of van der Waals attractions are significant and thin-film rupture is possible. In the case of negligible intermolecular forces, a steady-state solution exits where a film of uniform thickness is deposited in the annular region between the bubble interface and the tube walls. However, once intermolecular interactions are important, the interface is perturbed out of its steady state and either (i) the perturbation grows sufficiently before reaching the rear meniscus of the bubble such that rupture occurs; or (ii) the perturbation remains small due to weak intermolecular forces until it leaves the bubble interface through the rear meniscus. We obtain, both numerically and asymptotically, the time-scale over which rupture occurs, and thus, we find a critical capillary number, depending on the bubble length and the strength of the intermolecular forces, below which the film is predicted to rupture.
Hard particle erosion and cavitation damage are two main wear problems that can affect the internal components of hydraulic machinery such as hydraulic turbines or pumps. If both problems synergistically act together, the damage can be more severe and result in high maintenance costs. In this work, a study of the interaction of hard particles and cavitation bubbles is developed to understand their interactive behavior. Experimental tests and numerical simulations using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) were performed. Experimentally, a cavitation bubble was generated with an electric spark near a solid surface, and its interaction with hard particles of different sizes and materials was observed using a high-speed camera. A simplified analytical approach was developed to model the behavior of the particles near the bubble interface during its collapse. Computationally, we simulated an air bubble that grew and collapsed near a solid wall while interacting with one particle near the bubble interface. Several simulations with different conditions were made and validated with the experimental data. The experimental data obtained from particles above the bubble were consistent with the numerical results and analytical study. The particle size, density and position of the particle with respect to the bubble interface strongly affected the maximum velocity of the particles.
Large biomolecular systems, whose function may involve thousands of atoms, cannot easily be addressed with parameter-free density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Until recently a central problem was that such systems possess an inherent sparseness, that is, they are formed from components that are mutually separated by low-electron-density regions where dispersive forces contribute significantly to the cohesion and behavior. The introduction of, for example, the van der Waals density functional (vdW-DF) method [PRL 92, 246401 (2004)] has addressed part of this sparse-matter system challenge. However, while a vdW-DF study is often as computationally efficient as a study performed in the generalized gradient approximation, the scope of large-sparse-matter DFT is still limited by computer time and memory. It is costly to self-consistently determine the electron wavefunctions and hence the kinetic-energy repulsion. In this paper we propose and evaluate an adaption of the Harris scheme [PRB 31, 1770 (1985)]. This is done to speed up non-selfconsistent vdW-DF studies of molecular-system interaction energies. Also, the Harris-type analysis establishes a formal link between dispersion-interaction effects on the effective potential for electron dynamics and the impact of including selfconsistency in vdW-DF calculations [PRB 76, 125112 (2007)].
Spin and photonic systems are at the heart of modern information devices and emerging quantum technologies. An interplay between electron-hole pairs (excitons) in semiconductors and collective spin excitations (magnons) in magnetic crystals would bridge these heterogeneous systems, leveraging their individual assets in novel interconnected devices. Here, we report the magnon-exciton coupling at the interface between a magnetic thin film and an atomically-thin semiconductor. Our approach allies the long-lived magnons hosted in a film of yttrium iron garnet (YIG) to strongly-bound excitons in a flake of a transition metal dichalcogenide, MoSe$_2$. The magnons induce on the excitons a dynamical valley Zeeman effect ruled by interfacial exchange interactions. This nascent class of hybrid system suggests new opportunities for information transduction between microwave and optical regions.