Simulation of hydrogen auto-ignition in a turbulent co-flow of heated air with LES and CMC approach

Large-Eddy Simulations (LES) with the first order Conditional Moment Closure (CMC) approach of a nitrogen-diluted hydrogen jet, igniting in a turbulent co-flowing hot air stream, are discussed. A detailed mechanism (nine species, 19 reactions) is used to represent the chemistry. Our study covers the following aspects: CFD mesh resolution; CMC mesh resolution; inlet boundary conditions and conditional scalar dissipation rate modelling. The Amplitude Mapping Closure for the conditional scalar dissipation rate produces acceptable results. We also compare different options to calculate conditional quantities in CMC resolution. The trends in the experimental observations are in general well reproduced. The auto-ignition length decreases with an increase in co-flow temperature and increases with increase in co-flow velocity. The phenomena are not purely chemically controlled: the turbulence and mixing play also affect the location of auto-ignition. In order to explore the effect of turbulence, two options were applied: random noise and turbulence generator based on digital filter. It was found that stronger turbulence promotes ignition

Numerical simulations of hydrogen auto-ignition in a turbulent co-flow of heated air

Our research objective is the performance of Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) with the first order Conditional Moment Closure (CMC) of the test case experimentally studied by Markides and Mastorakos [1]. The experiment concerns auto-ignition of hydrogen, diluted with nitrogen, in a co-flow of heated air. A 19 step, nine species detailed mechanism is used for the reaction. Simulations reveal that the injected hydrogen mixes with co-flowing air and a diffusion flame is established. The configuration is sensitive to inlet boundary conditions, as all major turbulence effects are expected to be dominated by the inflow conditions. Preliminary LES results are presented. Stand-alone chemistry calculations are also presented to illustrate sensitivity on chemistry mechanisms

Advances on the Understanding of the Origins of Synaptic Pathology in AD

Although Alzheimer’s disease (AD) was first discovered a century ago, we are still facing a lack of definitive diagnosis during the patient’s lifetime and are unable to prescribe a curative treatment. However, the past 10 years have seen a “revamping” of the main hypothesis about AD pathogenesis and the hope to foresee possible treatment. AD is no longer considered an irreversible disease. A major refinement of the classic β-amyloid cascade describing amyloid fibrils as neurotoxins has been made to integrate the key scientific evidences demonstrating that the first pathological event occurring in AD early stages affects synaptic function and maintenance. A concept fully compatible with synapse loss being the best pathological correlate of AD rather than other described neuropathological hallmarks (amyloid plaques, neurofibrillary tangles or neuronal death). The notion that synaptic alterations might be reverted, thus offering a potential curability, was confirmed by immunotherapy experiments targeting β-amyloid protein in transgenic AD mice in which cognitive functions were improved despite no reduction in the amyloid plaques burden. The updated amyloid cascade now integrates the synapse failure triggered by soluble Aβ-oligomers. Still no consensus has been reached on the most toxic Aβ conformations, neither on their site of production nor on their extra- versus intra-cellular actions. Evidence shows that soluble Aβ oligomers or ADDLs bind selectively to neurons at their synaptic loci, and trigger major changes in synapse composition and morphology, which ultimately leads to dendritic spine loss. However, the exact mechanism is not yet fully understood but is suspected to involve some membrane receptor(s)

The relation between hemispheric lateralisation and measures of immune competence and adherence in Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 (HIV-1)

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited - Copyright © 2012 Sumner et al

Upscaling of bottom-generated turbulence in large-scale 3D models for sediment transport in estuaries and coastal zones

Currently used 3D numerical sediment transport models still fail to make good quantitative predictions. To a great extent, this can be attributed to the inadequate description of physical processes which occur at the subgrid scale level. From flume experiments it is known that particle-turbulence interactions near the bed significantly change the effective roughness experienced by the overlying water column. This results in different transport rates if not accounted for.From a theoretical perspective, bed load transport, sheet flow and fluid mud flow are all occurrences of supersaturated suspension flow in the inner near-bed layer comprising the viscous sublayer and the transient layer. Its thickness increases with sediment load, since particle-particle interactions (four-way coupling effects) consume considerable amounts of the available stream power. In order to know how much energy is left over to compute the transport capacity of the outer, fully-developed layer, it is necessary to quantify the energy budget in the inner layer.This is a difficult task. Every modelling approach has its draw-backs and limitations. Lagrangean particle tracking is hopeless, since the required number of particles to approach field conditions is much too high, and the volumes occupied by the particles cannot be neglected. Grain sizes are non-uniform in nature and concentrations near the bed very high, making it very difficult to give an accurate description of the momentum exchange between fluid and solid phase, which accounts for particle collisions. Therefore, in view of large-scale applications, a one-fluid approach is adopted. This implies that the momentum equation is solved for the suspension, together with a turbulence closure model and the sediment mass balance.Since the thickness of the supersaturated inner layer mostly is very small relative to the water depth and the vertical discretization in large scale applications, it is not possible to resolve this layer with a traditional low-Reynolds model approach, which requires a very fine grid. A new approach is proposed, where a modified Prandtl-mixing length (PML) model is used for the bed layer, and a new low-Reynolds model is applied in the outer layers. In this way it is possible to obtain a correct behaviour for tidal oscillating flow in estuaries, where low-Re effects enter high in the water column during slack water.The correction factor for the PML eddy viscosity and the damping functions for the low-Re k-epsilon turbulence model are constructed based on theoretical constraints, DNS and LES generated data, as well as experimental flume data. In parallel, LES and improved two-layer low-Re models are developed to simulate flow over rough bottoms without and with sediment, in order to generate data very close to the bed surface, where no measurements can be made. These additional data are used to help interpret experimental flume data, which always show relatively high experimental errors, and to extend the new damping functions for the cases with bottom roughness and suspended sediment.Preliminary results of the new coarse grid RANS model for open-channel flow with various roughness conditions without and with suspended sediment will be shown, compared to LES results for flow over a wavy bottom, low-Reynolds RANS results over rough bottom and experimental flume data

Leerwinst en toegevoegde waarde in het primair onderwijs: eindrapportage LTW-PO

In het actieplan 'Basis voor Presteren' heeft de toenmalige minister van OCW aangekondigd in het schooljaar 2011-2012 voor het primair onderwijs te starten met een pilot Leerwinst en Toegevoegde Waarde. Hierin worden de verschillende aspecten en werkwijzen voor het bepalen van leerwinst van leerlingen en toegevoegde waarde van scholen uitgewerkt en beproefd. De pilot bestaat uit een samenwerking tussen onderwijspraktijk, wetenschap, de Inspectie van het Onderwijs en het Ministerie van OCW. De belangstelling voor leerwinst en toegevoegde waarde komt mede voort uit de nodige onvrede over de wijze waarop de leerprestaties van basisscholen worden betrokken in de beoordeling van de kwaliteit van het onderwijs (zie bijv. De Wolf, 2012). De gangbare praktijk is dat vooral eindtoetsen, afgenomen in groep 8, de basis vormen voor het beoordelen van de opbrengsten. Scholen met veel zorgleerlingen en met veel leerlingen met taal- en ontwikkelingsachterstanden voelen zich benadeeld. Scholen met een meer bevoorrechte populatie scoren vaker hoger dan gelijkwaardige scholen met een minder bevoorrechte schoolbevolking (Raudenbusch, 2004; Koretz, 2008; Rothstein, 2009)