Numerical Simulation of Microflows with Moment Method

This paper was presented at the 4th Micro and Nano Flows Conference (MNF2014), which was held at University College, London, UK. The conference was organised by Brunel University and supported by the Italian Union of Thermofluiddynamics, IPEM, the Process Intensification Network, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the Heat Transfer Society, HEXAG - the Heat Exchange Action Group, and the Energy Institute, ASME Press, LCN London Centre for Nanotechnology, UCL University College London, UCL Engineering, the International NanoScience Community, www.nanopaprika.eu.A series of hyperbolic moment equations is derived for the Boltzmann equation with ES-BGK collision term. These systems can be obtained through a slight modification in the deduction of Grad’s moment equations, and such a method is suitable for deriving systems with moments up to any order. The systems are equipped with proper wall boundary conditions so that the number of equations in the boundary conditions is consistent with the hyperbolic structure of the moment system. Our numerical scheme for solving the hyperbolic moment systems is of second order, and a special mapping method is introduced so that the numerical efficiency is highly enhanced. Our numerical results are validated by comparison with the DSMC results. Through the numerical solutions of systems with increasing number of moments, the convergence of the moment method is clearly observed

A hybrid keyboard-guitar interface using capacitive touch sensing and physical modeling

This paper was presented at the 9th Sound and Music Computing Conference, Copenhagen, Denmark.This paper presents a hybrid interface based on a touch- sensing keyboard which gives detailed expressive control over a physically-modeled guitar. Physical modeling al- lows realistic guitar synthesis incorporating many expres- sive dimensions commonly employed by guitarists, includ- ing pluck strength and location, plectrum type, hand damp- ing and string bending. Often, when a physical model is used in performance, most control dimensions go unused when the interface fails to provide a way to intuitively con- trol them. Techniques as foundational as strumming lack a natural analog on the MIDI keyboard, and few digital controllers provide the independent control of pitch, vol- ume and timbre that even novice guitarists achieve. Our interface combines gestural aspects of keyboard and guitar playing. Most dimensions of guitar technique are control- lable polyphonically, some of them continuously within each note. Mappings are evaluated in a user study of key- boardists and guitarists, and the results demonstrate its playa- bility by performers of both instruments

A magistrate's view on achieving compliance

This conference presentation was given as part of the Achieving Compliance with Road Traffic Law: What can enforcement, prosecution and sentencing contribute? Conference by Chris Hunt Cooke, Magistrate and Chairman of the Magistrates' Association Road Traffic Committee. The conference, jointly organised by PACTS and the Criminal Justice Research Centre with Brunel Law School, was hosted at Brunel University on the 13th June 2012, and was the first opportunity to review the evidence about how to improve compliance with road traffic law. Its aim was to set out the challenges facing the government over the next few years and the steps that need to be taken to improve levels of compliance on our roads. It took a wide look at the process of compliance from initial choices about enforcement through to the effectiveness of the court system

The actors that shape the knowledge, attitudes and behaviour of Maltese youth

Not much is known about the environmental knowledge, attitudes and actions of young people in the Maltese islands. The main actors that are responsible for the acquisition and development of environmental perspectives in young people in Malta are also not well known. There is as yet, little understanding of the extent to which these actors are fostering a sense of environmental responsibility and a greater commitment towards sustainable development. A mixed method research methodology was employed to address this knowledge gap that included an extended questionnaire distributed to students in the post secondary age range and a number of focus groups to provide a more in-depth study of some of the issues arising from the questionnaire analyses. The focus groups allowed young people to frame their responses in their own words. This paper focuses on the results of the quantitative study. The data from the quantitative analyses indicates that students are more knowledgeable about the Global Environment than about the Local Environment, and that students receive most information from School, Television and the Internet. The sources of environmental information which were perceived by young people as being the most reliable included School, Books and the Internet. The overall attitude of students towards the environment appears to be strongly positive, however students seem to perform little positive actions towards the environment. Year group, Age and Gender were found to have a statistically significant effect on knowledge; Father’s work was found to have a statistically significant effect on attitude and Age was found to have a significant effect on behavior.peer-reviewe

Calibration of lubrication force measurements by lattice Boltzmann simulations

This paper was presented at the 2nd Micro and Nano Flows Conference (MNF2009), which was held at Brunel University, West London, UK. The conference was organised by Brunel University and supported by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, IPEM, the Italian Union of Thermofluid dynamics, the Process Intensification Network, HEXAG - the Heat Exchange Action Group and the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications.Many experiments explore the hydrodynamic boundary of a surface by approaching a colloidal sphere and measuring the occurring lubrication force. However, in this case many different parameters like wettability and surface roughness influence the result. In the experiment these cannot be separated easily. For a deeper understanding of such surface effects a tool is required that predicts the influence of different surface properties. Here computer simulations can help. In this paper we present lattice Boltzmann simulations of a sphere submerged in a Newtonian liquid and show that our method is able to reproduce the theoretical predictions. In order to provide high precision simulation results the influence of finite size effects has to be controlled. We study the influence of the required system size and resolution of the sphere and demonstrate that already moderate computing ressources allow to keep the error below 1%.This study is funded by DFG priority program SPP 1164

Variational approach to gas flows in microchannels on the basis of the Boltzmann equation for hard-sphere molecules

This paper was presented at the 2nd Micro and Nano Flows Conference (MNF2009), which was held at Brunel University, West London, UK. The conference was organised by Brunel University and supported by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, IPEM, the Italian Union of Thermofluid dynamics, the Process Intensification Network, HEXAG - the Heat Exchange Action Group and the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications.The objective of the present paper is to provide an analytic expression for the first- and second-order velocity slip coefficients. Therefore, gas flow rates in microchannels have been rigorously evaluated in the near-continuum limit by means of a variational technique which applies to the integrodifferential form of the Boltzmann equation based on the true linearized collision operator. The diffuse-specular reflection condition of Maxwell’s type has been considered in order to take into account the influence of the accommodation coefficient on the slip parameters. The polynomial form of Knudsen number obtained for the Poiseuille mass flow rate and the values of the second order velocity slip coefficients found on the basis of our variational solution of the linearized Boltzmann equation for hardsphere molecules are analyzed in the frame of potential applications of classical continuum numerical tools (as lattice Boltzmann methods) in simulations of microscale flows

The study of the influence of morphology anisotropy of clusters of superparamagnetic nanoparticle on magnetic hysteresis by Monte Carlo simulations

This paper was presented at the 4th Micro and Nano Flows Conference (MNF2014), which was held at University College, London, UK. The conference was organised by Brunel University and supported by the Italian Union of Thermofluiddynamics, IPEM, the Process Intensification Network, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the Heat Transfer Society, HEXAG - the Heat Exchange Action Group, and the Energy Institute, ASME Press, LCN London Centre for Nanotechnology, UCL University College London, UCL Engineering, the International NanoScience Community, www.nanopaprika.eu.Nowadays, extensive attentions have been focussed on the study of induction heating implanted magnetic nanoparticle under AC magnetic field for cancer hyperthermia treatment. Colloidal cluster composed of superparamagnetic nanoparticle has shown great potential for efficient hyperthermia heating. However, the relationship between cluster properties and heating efficiency is not clear. In this work, we investigate the influence of morphology anisotropy of cluster of superparamagnetic nanoparticle on magnetic hysteresis by Monte Carlo simulation. Five kinds of clusters with different shapes and structure are studied. We find that the morphology anisotropy of cluster changes the magnetic loss by affecting the tendency of cluster to remain magnetically aligned with the field orientation. A large aspect ratio of the length of cluster along the field orientation to the width perpendicular to the orientation can increase the amount of energy converted per cycle significantly. Lacking morphology anisotropy will make the magnetic hysteresis of cluster numb to the manipulation of cluster properties

Control of convection by dfferent buoyancy forces

This paper was presented at the 3rd Micro and Nano Flows Conference (MNF2011), which was held at the Makedonia Palace Hotel, Thessaloniki in Greece. The conference was organised by Brunel University and supported by the Italian Union of Thermofluiddynamics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, University of Thessaly, IPEM, the Process Intensification Network, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the Heat Transfer Society, HEXAG - the Heat Exchange Action Group, and the Energy Institute.Thermal convection in vertical concentric cylinders under the influence of di erent buoyancy force fields is the focus of the experimental project ’CiC’(Convection in Cylinders). The objectives are to investigate thermal convective flow in natural gravity with axial buoyancy and in micro-gravity environment of a parabolic flight with radial buoyancy, and additionally also the superposition of both buoyancy force fields. The radial buoyancy is forced by the dielectrophoretic effect due to applying a high-voltage potential Vapp between the two cylinders. The experiment contains two separately fully automated experiment cells, which differ only in their radius ratio η = b/a. The convective flow is observed with tracer particles and laser light sheet illumination. For the case of natural convection, there exists a stable single convective cell over the whole Rayleigh number domain with Ra ~ ΔT with increasing the temperature difference between the inner and outer cylindrical boundaries. For the case of a pure dielectrophoretic driven convection in micro-gravity environment, stratification effects are described with RaE ~ Vapp with increasing the high voltage potential. The superposition of both buoyancy forces indicates the disturbance of the single convective cell and therewith the onset of instabilities at very low Ra for the smaller η. The presented results demonstrate that the dielectrophoretic effect can be used for flow control and enhancement of heat transfer applications in space as well as on Earth.The “Convection in Cylinders (CiC)” project is funded by the German Aerospace Center DLR within the “GeoFlow” project (grant no. 50 WM 0122 and 50 WM 0822). The authors would also like to thank ESA (grant no. AO-99-049) for funding “GeoFlow” and the “GeoFlow” Topical Team (grant no. 18950/05/NL/VJ)

Molecular dynamics simulation for microscope insight of liquid evaporation on a heated surface

This paper was presented at the 2nd Micro and Nano Flows Conference (MNF2009), which was held at Brunel University, West London, UK. The conference was organised by Brunel University and supported by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, IPEM, the Italian Union of Thermofluid dynamics, the Process Intensification Network, HEXAG - the Heat Exchange Action Group and the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications.Molecular dynamics (MD) simulation is a very effective tool that gives a microscopic insight into the mechanisms of complex physical phenomena. This paper uses MD simulation to study the evaporation of a liquid from a heated surface. As for the argon/platinum model, a group of simulations starts from a fixed lower wall with the temperature of 110K. In this system, argon molecule numbers of 784, 1200, 1440 are simulated respectively. Additional simulations for argon models are based on superheat conditions, which indicate that the variation of ultra-thin liquid film thickness is very small with the different numbers of argon molecules. Also, it shows that if the argon molecule numbers increase, the extra molecules accumulate near the cooling wall. In terms of the MD simulation for the water/magnesium model, water evaporates from a magnesium heating wall at different temperatures and an initial study has been carried out. Moreover, further and more accurate simulations will be improved in the near future

On the influence of tube row number for mixed convection around micro tubes

This paper was presented at the 3rd Micro and Nano Flows Conference (MNF2011), which was held at the Makedonia Palace Hotel, Thessaloniki in Greece. The conference was organised by Brunel University and supported by the Italian Union of Thermofluiddynamics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, University of Thessaly, IPEM, the Process Intensification Network, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the Heat Transfer Society, HEXAG - the Heat Exchange Action Group, and the Energy Institute.A numerical simulation was performed on the heat transfer of mixed convection for fluid flowing across a micro-tube bundle by using Lattice Boltzmann Method. Firstly, the program code was validated by using a bench mark case of natural convection around a hot single tube inside a square enclosure. The local and averaged heat transfer coefficient of each tube in the bundle with various row numbers was calculated. Numerous cases have been simulated from a weak natural convection case (forced convection) to a pure natural convection case. The results indicate that the total averaged Nusselt number outside the tubes gradually decreases and becomes almost a constant with tube row number at low Reynolds number, which is different from the case of conventional scaled tube. The averaged Nusselt numbers and temperature fields for various situations were compared. The other influencing factors except of the tube row number on the heat transfer behavior of a tube bundle were also summarized and discussed.Tianjin Science and Technology Committee Key Project fund, under Grant No. 08JCZDC20300 and NSF of China under grant No. 4097216