18,727 research outputs found
Numerical simulation of liquid sloshing in a partially filled container with inclusion of compressibility effects
A numerical scheme of study is developed to model compressible two-fluid flows simulating liquid sloshing in a partially filled tank. For a two-fluid system separated by an interface as in the case of sloshing, not only a Mach-uniform scheme is required, but also an effective way to eliminate unphysical numerical oscillations near the interface. By introducing a preconditioner, the governing equations expressed in terms of primitive variables are solved for both fluids (i.e. water, air, gas etc.) in a unified manner. In order to keep the interface sharp and to eliminate unphysical numerical oscillations in unsteady fluid flows, the non-conservative implicit Split Coefficient Matrix Method (SCMM) is modified to construct a flux difference splitting scheme in the dual time formulation. The proposed numerical model is evaluated by comparisons between numerical results and measured data for sloshing in an 80% filled rectangular tank excited at resonance frequency. Through similar comparisons, the investigation is further extended by examining sloshing flows excited by forced sway motions in two different rectangular tanks with 20% and 83% filling ratios. These examples demonstrate that the proposed method is suitable to capture induced free surface waves and to evaluate sloshing pressure loads acting on the tank walls and ceiling
Continuous-flow laboratory simulation of stream water quality changes downstream of an untreated wastewater discharge.
In regions of the world with poor provision of wastewater treatment, raw sewage
is often discharged directly into surface waters. This paper describes an
experimental evaluation of the fate of two organic chemicals under these
conditions using an artificial channel cascade fed with a mix of settled sewage
and river water at its upstream end and operated under continuous steady-state
conditions. The experiments underpin an environmental risk assessment
methodology based on the idea of an “impact zone” (IZ) – the zone downstream of
wastewater emission in which water quality is severely impaired by high
concentrations of unionised ammonia, nitrite and biochemical oxygen demand
(BOD). Radiolabelled dodecane-6-benzene sulphonate (DOBS) and aniline
hydrochloride were used as the model chemical and reference compound
respectively. Rapid changes in 14C counts were observed with flow-time for both
these materials. These changes were most likely to be due to complete
mineralisation. A dissipation half-life of approximately 7.1 h was observed for
the 14C label with DOBS. The end of the IZ was defined as the point at which the
concentration of both unionised ammonia and nitrite fell below their respective
predicted no-effect concentrations for salmonids. At these points in the
cascade, approximately 83 and 90% of the initial concentration of 14C had been
removed from the water column, respectively. A simple model of mineral nitrogen
transformations based on Michaelis–Menten kinetics was fitted to observed
concentrations of NH4, NO2 and NO3. The cascade is intended to provide a
confirmatory methodology for assessing the ecological risks of chemicals under
direct discharge co
On the detection of nearly optimal solutions in the context of single-objective space mission design problems
When making decisions, having multiple options available for a possible realization of the same project can be advantageous. One way to increase the number of interesting choices is to consider, in addition to the optimal solution x*, also nearly optimal or approximate solutions; these alternative solutions differ from x* and can be in different regions – in the design space – but fulfil certain proximity to its function value f(x*). The scope of this article is the efficient computation and discretization of the set E of e–approximate solutions for scalar optimization problems. To accomplish this task, two strategies to archive and update the data of the search procedure will be suggested and investigated. To make emphasis on data storage efficiency, a way to manage significant and insignificant parameters is also presented. Further on, differential evolution will be used together with the new archivers for the computation of E. Finally, the behaviour of the archiver, as well as the efficiency of the resulting search procedure, will be demonstrated on some academic functions as well as on three models related to space mission design
Evidence for a circumplanetary disk around protoplanet PDS 70 b
We present the first observational evidence for a circumplanetary disk around
the protoplanet PDS~70~b, based on a new spectrum in the band acquired with
VLT/SINFONI. We tested three hypotheses to explain the spectrum: Atmospheric
emission from the planet with either (1) a single value of extinction or (2)
variable extinction, and (3) a combined atmospheric and circumplanetary disk
model. Goodness-of-fit indicators favour the third option, suggesting
circumplanetary material contributing excess thermal emission --- most
prominent at m. Inferred accretion rates (-- yr) are compatible with observational
constraints based on the H and Br lines. For the planet, we
derive an effective temperature of 1500--1600 K, surface gravity , radius , mass , and possible thick clouds.
Models with variable extinction lead to slightly worse fits. However, the
amplitude (mag) and timescale of variation
(~years) required for the extinction would also suggest
circumplanetary material.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, 1 table. This is a pre-copyedited,
author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in ApJL on 2019
May 1
Analysis of some global optimization algorithms for space trajectory design
In this paper, we analyze the performance of some global search algorithms on a number of space trajectory design problems. A rigorous testing procedure is introduced to measure the ability of an algorithm to identify the set of ²-optimal solutions. From the analysis of the test results, a novel algorithm is derived. The development of the novel algorithm starts from the redefinition of some evolutionary heuristics in the form of a discrete dynamical system. The convergence properties of this discrete dynamical system are used to derive a hybrid evolutionary algorithm that displays very good performance on the particular class of problems presented in this paper
Toward Automated Factchecking
In an effort to assist factcheckers in the process of factchecking, we tackle the claim detection task, one of the necessary stages prior to determining the veracity of a claim. It consists of identifying the set of sentences, out of a long text, deemed capable of being factchecked. This article is a collaborative work between Full Fact, an independent factchecking charity, and academic partners. Leveraging the expertise of professional factcheckers, we develop an annotation schema and a benchmark for automated claim detection that is more consistent across time, topics, and annotators than are previous approaches. Our annotation schema has been used to crowdsource the annotation of a dataset with sentences from UK political TV shows. We introduce an approach based on universal sentence representations to perform the classification, achieving an F1 score of 0.83, with over 5% relative improvement over the state-of-the-art methods ClaimBuster and ClaimRank. The system was deployed in production and received positive user feedback
The generalization of the Regge-Wheeler equation for self-gravitating matter fields
It is shown that the dynamical evolution of perturbations on a static
spacetime is governed by a standard pulsation equation for the extrinsic
curvature tensor. The centerpiece of the pulsation equation is a wave operator
whose spatial part is manifestly self-adjoint. In contrast to metric
formulations, the curvature-based approach to gravitational perturbation theory
generalizes in a natural way to self-gravitating matter fields. For a certain
relevant subspace of perturbations the pulsation operator is symmetric with
respect to a positive inner product and therefore allows spectral theory to be
applied. In particular, this is the case for odd-parity perturbations of
spherically symmetric background configurations. As an example, the pulsation
equations for self-gravitating, non-Abelian gauge fields are explicitly shown
to be symmetric in the gravitational, the Yang Mills, and the off-diagonal
sector.Comment: 4 pages, revtex, no figure
Thermodynamics of a mixed quantum-classical Heisenberg model in two dimensions
We study the planar antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model on a decorated
hexagonal lattice, involving both classical spins (occupying the vertices) and
quantum spins (occupying the middle of the links). This study is motivated by
the description of a recently synthesized molecular magnetic compound. First,
we trace out the spin 1/2 degrees of freedom to obtain a fully classical model
with an effective ferromagnetic interaction. Then, using high temperature
expansions and Monte Carlo simulations, we analyse its thermal and magnetic
properties. We show that it provides a good quantitative description of the
magnetic susceptibility of the molecular magnet in its paramagnetic phase.Comment: Revtex, 6 pages, 4 included postscript figures, fig.1 upon request to
[email protected] . To appear in J. of Physic C (condensed matter
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