2,507 research outputs found
Shear Thickening and Scaling of the Elastic Modulus in a Fractal Colloidal System with Attractive Interactions
Dilute oil dispersions of fractal carbon black particles with attractive Van
der Waals interactions display continuous shear thickening followed by shear
thinning at high shear rates. The shear thickening transition occurs at
and is driven by hydrodynamic
breakup of clusters. Pre-shearing dispersions at shear rates
produces enhanced-modulus gels where and is directly proportional to the residual stress
in the gel measured at a fixed sample age. The observed data can be accounted
for using a simple scaling model for the breakup of fractal clusters under
shear stress.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures; v2: treating low shear rate date separately;
edited title; reworked figure
Study of effects of fuel properties in turbine-powered business aircraft
Increased interest in research and technology concerning aviation turbine fuels and their properties was prompted by recent changes in the supply and demand situation of these fuels. The most obvious change is the rapid increase in fuel price. For commercial airplanes, fuel costs now approach 50 percent of the direct operating costs. In addition, there were occasional local supply disruptions and gradual shifts in delivered values of certain fuel properties. Dwindling petroleum reserves and the politically sensitive nature of the major world suppliers make the continuation of these trends likely. A summary of the principal findings, and conclusions are presented. Much of the material, especially the tables and graphs, is considered in greater detail later. The economic analysis and examination of operational considerations are described. Because some of the assumptions on which the economic analysis is founded are not easily verified, the sensitivity of the analysis to alternates for these assumptions is examined. The data base on which the analyses are founded is defined in a set of appendices
Grain Boundary Scars and Spherical Crystallography
We describe experimental investigations of the structure of two-dimensional
spherical crystals. The crystals, formed by beads self-assembled on water
droplets in oil, serve as model systems for exploring very general theories
about the minimum energy configurations of particles with arbitrary repulsive
interactions on curved surfaces. Above a critical system size we find that
crystals develop distinctive high-angle grain boundaries, or scars, not found
in planar crystals. The number of excess defects in a scar is shown to grow
linearly with the dimensionless system size. The observed slope is expected to
be universal, independent of the microscopic potential.Comment: 4 pages, 3 eps figs (high quality images available from Mark Bowick
Avalanche statistics and time-resolved grain dynamics for a driven heap
We probe the dynamics of intermittent avalanches caused by steady addition of
grains to a quasi-two dimensional heap. To characterize the time-dependent
average avalanche flow speed v(t), we image the top free surface. To
characterize the grain fluctuation speed dv(t), we use Speckle-Visibility
Spectroscopy. During an avalanche, we find that the fluctuation speed is
approximately one-tenth the average flow speed, and that these speeds are
largest near the beginning of an event. We also find that the distribution of
event durations is peaked, and that event sizes are correlated with the time
interval since the end of the previous event. At high rates of grain addition,
where successive avalanches merge into smooth continuous flow, the relationship
between average and fluctuation speeds changes to dv Sqrt[v]
Strain-Rate Frequency Superposition (SRFS) - A rheological probe of structural relaxation in soft materials
The rheological properties of soft materials often exhibit surprisingly
universal linear and non-linear features. Here we show that these properties
can be unified by considering the effect of the strain-rate amplitude on the
structural relaxation of the material. We present a new form of oscillatory
rheology, Strain-Rate Frequency Superposition (SRFS), where the strain-rate
amplitude is fixed as the frequency is varied. We show that SRFS can isolate
the response due to structural relaxation, even when it occurs at frequencies
too low to be accessible with standard techniques.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Properties of cage rearrangements observed near the colloidal glass transition
We use confocal microscopy to study the motions of particles in concentrated
colloidal systems. Near the glass transition, diffusive motion is inhibited, as
particles spend time trapped in transient ``cages'' formed by neighboring
particles. We measure the cage sizes and lifetimes, which respectively shrink
and grow as the glass transition approaches. Cage rearrangements are more
prevalent in regions with lower local concentrations and higher disorder.
Neighboring rearranging particles typically move in parallel directions,
although a nontrivial fraction move in anti-parallel directions, usually from
pairs of particles with initial separations corresponding to the local maxima
and minima of the pair correlation function , respectively.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures; text & figures revised in v
A multi-color fast-switching microfluidic droplet dye laser
We describe a multi-color microfluidic dye laser operating in whispering gallery mode based on a train of alternating droplets containing solutions of different dyes; this laser is capable of switching the wavelength of its emission between 580 nm and 680 nm at frequencies up to 3.6 kHz -— the fastest among all dye lasers reported; it has potential applications in on-chip spectroscopy and flow cytometry
Herschel-Bulkley rheology from lattice kinetic theory of soft-glassy materials
We provide a clear evidence that a two species mesoscopic Lattice Boltzmann
(LB) model with competing short-range attractive and mid-range repulsive
interactions supports emergent Herschel-Bulkley (HB) rheology, i.e. a power-law
dependence of the shear-stress as a function of the strain rate, beyond a given
yield-stress threshold. This kinetic formulation supports a seamless transition
from flowing to non-flowing behaviour, through a smooth tuning of the
parameters governing the mesoscopic interactions between the two species. The
present model may become a valuable computational tool for the investigation of
the rheology of soft-glassy materials on scales of experimental interest.Comment: 5 figure
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