Magnetic quantification of urban pollution sources in atmospheric particulate matter

A new method is presented for fast quantification of urban pollution sources in atmospheric particulate matter (PM). The remanent magnetization of PM samples collected in Switzerland at sites with different exposures to pollution sources is analysed. The coercivity distribution of each sample is calculated from detailed demagnetization curves of anhysteretic remanent magnetization (ARM) and is modelled using a linear combination of appropriate functions which represent the contribution of different sources of magnetic minerals to the total magnetization. Two magnetic components, C1 and C2, are identified in all samples. The low-coercivity component C1 predominates in less polluted sites, whereas the concentration of the higher-coercivity component C2 is large in urban areas. The same sites were monitored independently by Hüglin using detailed chemical analysis and a quantitative source attribution of the PM. His results are compared with the magnetic component analysis. The absolute and relative magnetic contributions of component C2 correlate very well with absolute and relative mass contributions of exhaust emissions, respectively. Traffic is the most important PM pollution source in Switzerland: it includes exhaust emissions and abrasion products released by vehicle brakes. Component C2 and traffic-related PM sources correlate well, which is encouraging for the implementation of non-destructive magnetic methods as an economic alternative to chemical analysis when mapping urban dust pollutio

Direct Numerical Simulation of Boiling Multiphase Flows: State-of-the-Art, Modeling, Algorithmic and Computer Needs

The state-of-the-art for Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) of boiling multiphase flows is reviewed, focussing on potential of available computational techniques, the level of current success for their applications to model several basic flow regimes (film, pool-nucleate and wall-nucleate boiling -- FB, PNB and WNB, respectively). Then, we discuss multiphysics and multiscale nature of practical boiling flows in LWR reactors, requiring high-fidelity treatment of interfacial dynamics, phase-change, hydrodynamics, compressibility, heat transfer, and non-equilibrium thermodynamics and chemistry of liquid/vapor and fluid/solid-wall interfaces. Finally, we outline the framework for the {\sf Fervent} code, being developed at INL for DNS of reactor-relevant boiling multiphase flows, with the purpose of gaining insight into the physics of multiphase flow regimes, and generating a basis for effective-field modeling in terms of its formulation and closure laws

A Comparative Study of the Harmonic and Arithmetic Averaging of Diffusion Coefficients for Non-linear Heat Conduction Problems

We perform a comparative study for the harmonic versus arithmetic averaging of the heat conduction coefficient when solving non-linear heat transfer problems. In literature, the harmonic average is the method of choice, because it is widely believed that the harmonic average is more accurate model. However, our analysis reveals that this is not necessarily true. For instance, we show a case in which the harmonic average is less accurate when a coarser mesh is used. More importantly, we demonstrated that if the boundary layers are finely resolved, then the harmonic and arithmetic averaging techniques are identical in the truncation error sense. Our analysis further reveals that the accuracy of these two techniques depends on how the physical problem is modeled

Magnetic quantification of urban pollution sources in atmospheric particulate matter

A new method is presented for fast quantification of urban pollution sources in atmospheric particulate matter (PM). The remanent magnetization of PM samples collected in Switzerland at sites with different exposures to pollution sources is analysed. The coercivity distribution of each sample is calculated from detailed demagnetization curves of anhysteretic remanent magnetization (ARM) and is modelled using a linear combination of appropriate functions which represent the contribution of different sources of magnetic minerals to the total magnetization. Two magnetic components, C1 and C2, are identified in all samples. The low-coercivity component C1 predominates in less polluted sites, whereas the concentration of the higher-coercivity component C2 is large in urban areas. The same sites were monitored independently by Hüglin using detailed chemical analysis and a quantitative source attribution of the PM. His results are compared with the magnetic component analysis. The absolute and relative magnetic contributions of component C2 correlate very well with absolute and relative mass contributions of exhaust emissions, respectively. Traffic is the most important PM pollution source in Switzerland: it includes exhaust emissions and abrasion products released by vehicle brakes. Component C2 and traffic-related PM sources correlate well, which is encouraging for the implementation of non-destructive magnetic methods as an economic alternative to chemical analysis when mapping urban dust pollution. © 2004 RAS

Jacobian Free-Newton Krylov Discontinuous Galerkin Method and Physics-Based Preconditioning for Nuclear Reactor Simulations

Multidimensional, higher-order (2nd and higher) numerical methods have come to the forefront in recent years due to significant advances of computer technology and numerical algorithms, and have shown great potential as viable design tools for realistic applications. To achieve this goal, implicit high-order accurate coupling of the multiphysics simulations is a critical component. One of the issues that arise from multiphysics simulation is the necessity to resolve multiple time scales. For example, the dynamical time scales of neutron kinetics, fluid dynamics and heat conduction significantly differ (typically >1010 magnitude), with the dominant (fastest) physical mode also changing during the course of transient [Pope and Mousseau, 2007]. This leads to the severe time step restriction for stability in traditional multiphysics (i.e. operator split, semi-implicit discretization) simulations. The lower order methods suffer from an undesirable numerical dissipation. Thus implicit, higher order accurate scheme is necessary to perform seamlessly-coupled multiphysics simulations that can be used to analyze the “what-if” regulatory accident scenarios, or to design and optimize engineering systems

Magnetic hysteresis parameters and Day plot analysis to characterize diagenetic alteration in gas hydrate-bearing sediments

The J meter coercivity spectrometer is a machine capable of rapid and simple measurement of magnetic hysteresis, isothermal remanence acquisition and magnetic viscosity of rocks and sediments. The J meter was used to study a suite of samples collected from strata in the gas hydrate-bearing JAPEX/JNOC/GSC Mallik 5L-38 well (69.5°N, 134.6°W) in the Mackenzie Delta of the northwestern Canadian Arctic. The Day plot of magnetic hysteresis ratios for these samples is exotic in that the points do not plot along a hyperbola as is usually observed. Rather, they plot as a scatter which is shown to contour into vertical slices using coercivity field (HC) or saturation magnetization (JS), and horizontal slices using the relative quantity of superparamagnetism (JSPM/JS). Optical microscopy reveals that the magnetic minerals are detrital magnetite and authigenic greigite. Greigite is dominant in sands which in situ had >70% gas hydrate saturation and in silts in which gas hydrate growth was blocked by insufficient porosity. We infer that the silts were the accumulation sites for solutes which had been excluded from the pore waters in neighboring coarser-grained sediments during the course of gas hydrate formation. Consequently, we conclude that magnetic properties are related to gas hydrate-related processes, and as such, may have potential as a method of remote sensing for gas hydrate deposits. Copyright 2007 by the American Geophysical Union

A projection method for multiphase flows

An Eulerian projection approach for incompressible variable-density two-phase flows is presented. The Navier-Stokes equations governing these flows are reformulated to take the form of the corresponding equations for the lighter phase with a constant density, which can be efficiently solved using standard numerical methods. The effect of the additional mass in the heavier phase is accounted for by a forcing term, which is determined from the solution of an artificial velocity field. This artificial field is subjected solely to inertial and gravity forces as well as the force coupling the flow field and the artificial field. The phase interface in this purely Eulerian approach is described using the level-set method. Results for two-dimensional simulations of the Rayleigh-Taylor instability are presented to validate the new method

Features of coupling between rheological properties of oil and natural bitumen and the self-diffusion data obtained by NMR method

This paper describes the features of translational characteristics of oil molecules by using nuclear magnetic resonance method with pulsed magnetic field gradient (gradient NMR). It is shown that the rheological properties of heavy oil samples (viscosity) do not completely correlate with the measurement of self-diffusion coefficient. It is caused by distribution of oil samples according to their molecular composition and molecular weight as well as their complex supramolecular organization. It is noted that the best agreement with the viscosity characteristics is achieved via the introduction of a new average coefficient, which is a weighted sum of the inverse of the partial self-diffusion coefficients

Electromagnetic shield characteristics investigation for the calibration the NMR logging tool

The problem of electromagnetic shielding is relevant due to increasing number of electronic devices that interact with each other. It is known that shield, which is made of high conductivity materials, is widely used for controlling electromagnetic noise. Due to development of NMR logging tool two shielding Faraday cages have been made. The aim of the work was determination the frequency transmittance dependence of shielding in range from 100 kHz to 100 MHz. Transmitting and receiving devices were developed for an experiment. As a result, constructed shields are suitable for tuning and calibration NMR logging tools