Ionization fronts in coupled MHD-gas simulations

Partially ionized plasmas are ubiquitous in both nature and the laboratory, and their behaviour is best described by models which take into account the interactions between the neutral and charged species. We present a new non-linear, 3-dimensional, finite difference Gas-MHD Interactions Code designed to solve simultaneously the time evolution of fluid equations of both species in the conservation form as well as collisional interactions between them via appropriate choices of source term; in particular, we present results from this code in simulating Alfvén ionization in a partially ionized plasma. In this fashion, larger changes in the ionization fraction than were addressable in the linear limit are possible. Alfvén ionization is shown to impart plasmas with an inherent resistance to rapid recombination, where the recombination itself is significant enough to drive relative motion between the ionised and neutral species at speeds in excess of the critical velocity

Semantic Web meets Web 2.0 (and vice versa): The Value of the Mundane for the Semantic Web

Web 2.0, not the Semantic Web, has become the face of “the next generation Web” among the tech-literate set, and even among many in the various research communities involved in the Web. Perceptions in these communities of what the Semantic Web is (and who is involved in it) are often misinformed if not misguided. In this paper we identify opportunities for Semantic Web activities to connect with the Web 2.0 community; we explore why this connection is of significant benefit to both groups, and identify how these connections open valuable research opportunities “in the real” for the Semantic Web effort

An Investigation of Void Fraction in the Stratified/Annular Flow Regions in Smooth, Horizontal Tubes

Refrigerants R134a and R410A have been used for void fraction measurements in smooth horizontal tubes with diameters between 4mm and 7mm. Quality and mass flux were varied from 5% to 90% and 75 kglm2-s to 700 kglm2-s, respectively. Two test loops, one for condensing flows at 35C and the other for evaporating flows at 5C, were used in the investigation. Results show that near the transition from annular to stratified flow void fraction changed from viscousinertial dependence to gravitational-inertial dominated dependence. An important feature observed is the annular flow region's relative insensitivity to mass flux while the border region between annular and stratified flows is characterized by strong mass flux dependence.Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Project 7

Radio Source Heating in the ICM: The Example of Cygnus A

One of the most promising solutions for the cooling flow problem involves energy injection from the central AGN. However it is still not clear how collimated jets can heat the ICM at large scale, and very little is known concerning the effect of radio lobe expansion as they enter into pressure equilibrium with the surrounding cluster gas. Cygnus A is one of the best examples of a nearby powerful radio galaxy for which the synchrotron emitting plasma and thermal emitting intra-cluster medium can be mapped in fine detail, and previous observations have inferred possible shock structure at the location of the cocoon. We use new XMM-Newton observations of Cygnus A, in combination with deep Chandra observations, to measure the temperature of the intra-cluster medium around the expanding radio cavities. We investigate how inflation of the cavities may relate to shock heating of the intra-cluster gas, and whether such a mechanism is sufficient to provide enough energy to offset cooling to the extent observed.Comment: To appear in the Proceedings of "Heating vs. Cooling in Galaxies and Clusters of Galaxies", August 2006, Garching (Germany), Eds. H. Boehringer, G.W. Pratt, A. Finoguenov, P. Schuecker, Springer-Verlag series "ESO Astrophysics Symposia", p.101, in press. 8 pages, 3 multiple figure

Active suspensions: a reduced-order H∞ control design study

This paper studies order reduction issues for a vehicle active suspension system throughout its modelling, H-infinity controller design and controller refinement. Computer simulations demonstrate that an H-infinity controller for a full active suspension can be significantly reduced to nearly one third of its full order, while the active suspension performance is only slightly degraded. As a by-product, this paper also provides an explicit algorithm for reduced H-infinity control for singular and non-singular continuous-time systems

Interdisciplinary research collegium in advanced maritime systems design

The education of naval architects, marine engineers and others who are the active contributors to the ship design processes is heavily focussed on engineering fundamentals, often aligned with traditional university course constraints. The concept of a research collegium is described whose aim is to provide an environment where young people in their formative postgraduate years can learn and work in a small, mixed discipline group drawn from the worldwide maritime community to develop their skills whilst completing a project in advanced ship design. The brief that initiates each project sets challenging user requirements which encourage each team to develop an imaginative solution, using their individual knowledge and experience, together with learning derived from teaching which form a common element of the early part of the collegiu

Insights on the local density approximation plasma polarization shift as provided by the optimum potential method

The plasma polarization shift computed with a Local Density Functional model of an ion-sphere model is compared with results calculated using an optimum central field effective exchange potential. Indications are that the bulk of the shift is an artifact of the approximate exchange functional describing the interaction between bound and continuum orbitals in the LDA