Aeroelastic simulations of stores in weapon bays using Detached-Eddy simulation

Detached-Eddy Simulations of flows in weapon bays with a generic store at different positions in the cavity and with flexible fins are presented in this paper. Simulations were carried out to better understand the fluid–structure interactions of the unsteady, turbulent flow and the store. Mach and Reynolds numbers (based on the missile diameter) were 0.85 and 326.000 respectively. Spectral analysis showed few differences in the frequency content in the cavity between the store with rigid and flexible fins. However, a large effect of the store position was seen. When the store was placed inside the cavity, the noise reduction reached 7 dB close to the cavity ceiling. The closer the store to the carriage position, the more coherent and quieter was the cavity. To perform a more realistic simulation, a gap of 0.3% of the store diameter was introduced between the fin root and the body of the store. Store loads showed little differences between the rigid and flexible fins when the store was inside and outside the cavity. With the store at the shear layer, the flexible fins were seen to have a reduction in loads with large fluctuations in position about a mean. Fin-tip displacements of the store inside the cavity were of the range of 0.2% of the store diameter, and in the range of 1–2% of store diameter when at the shear layer

Store release trajectory variability from weapon bays using scale-adaptive simulations

In this paper, scale-adaptive simulation is used to study store trajectory variability for releases from transonic weapon bays. The scale-adaptive simulation captures the essential physics of the flow in the weapon bay, and its speed of computation allows for several trajectories to be computed within reasonable time. The results of the simulations are treated as a statistical set and a metric is put forward to decide the minimum number of simulations necessary to establish the mean and the standard deviation of the releases. Averaging the results of all trajectories was useful in developing an overall understanding of the bay pressure field role on the store trajectories. Filtering the obtained trajectories provided insight in the flow frequencies affecting the forces acting on the store and the coordinates of its center of gravity during releases. For the store employed in this study, less than one month of CPU time is needed for the complete set of simulations to be obtained, making this method promising as a further test before flight testing

Cavity flow over a transonic weapon bay during door operation

This paper considers a transonic, idealized, weapons bay. The doors are either fixed or opened in a dynamic way. The flow evolves in three stages during door opening, corresponding to closed-cavity flow, transitional flow, and (finally) open-cavity flow. The transition needs to be taken into account to design structures, as the bay wall loads are amplified, as well as the noise. The flow fluctuations are also larger than for the fully established flow. The doors limit the development of the shear layer at the early stage of the door opening

Organic Digital Logic and Analog Circuits Fabricated in a Roll-to-Roll Compatible Vacuum-Evaporation Process

We report the fabrication of a range of organic circuits produced by a high-yielding, vacuum-based process compatible with roll-to-roll production. The circuits include inverters, NAND and NOR logic gates, a simple memory element (set-reset latch), and a modified Wilson current mirror circuit. The measured circuit responses are presented together with simulated responses based on a previously reported transistor model of organic transistors produced using our fabrication process. Circuit simulations replicated all the key features of the experimentally observed circuit performance. The logic gates were capable of operating at frequencies in excess of 1 kHz while the current mirror circuit produced currents up to 18 μA

Opportunities and challenges for biofortification of cassava to address iron and zinc deficiency in Nigeria

Open Access Article; Published online: 24 Jan 2021Nigeria is the world's largest producer of cassava (Manihot esculenta), and its production is important to the country's economy. Cassava's edible storage roots act as a critical staple food for over 180 million Nigerians. Micronutrient deficiency presents a major public health issue in Nigeria and correlates with cassava consumption level across six-agro-ecological zones within the country. Though high in caloric value, cassava roots are deficient in minerals, placing populations that rely on this crop at risk of hidden hunger. Micronutrient deficiencies, especially iron and zinc, affect an estimated 6 million children in Nigeria under five years of age. Supplementation, fortification and food-based diversification are being employed to tackle micronutrient deficiencies. However, in order to achieve wider impact and sustainability, biofortification of staple foods such as cassava is also being explored. Conventional breeding of cassava is unlikely to achieve elevated storage root mineral content at nutritionally significant levels due to lack of genetic diversity for these traits within the existing germplasm. Biofortification by genetic modification provides a potential solution to this challenge. Proof of concept has demonstrated that transgenic biofortification is a reality and can produce foodstuffs with increased mineral content that could beneficially impact the health of consumers in Nigeria and elsewhere. This review is targeted towards understanding the dynamics of micronutrient deficiency across Nigeria and addresses opportunities and challenges for deploying iron and zinc biofortified cassava

Regge and Okamoto symmetries

We will relate the surprising Regge symmetry of the Racah-Wigner 6j symbols to the surprising Okamoto symmetry of the Painleve VI differential equation. This then presents the opportunity to give a conceptual derivation of the Regge symmetry, as the representation theoretic analogue of the author's previous derivation of the Okamoto symmetry. [The resulting derivation is quite simple, so it would be surprising if it has not been previously observed. Any references would be appreciated!]Comment: 14 page

Novel 4, 8-benzobisthiazole copolymers and their field-effect transistor and photovoltaic applications

A series of copolymers containing the benzo[1,2-d:4,5-d′]bis(thiazole) (BBT) unit has been designed and synthesised with bisthienyl-diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP), dithienopyrrole (DTP), benzothiadiazole (BT), benzodithiophene (BDT) or 4,4′-dialkoxybithiazole (BTz) comonomers. The resulting polymers possess a conjugation pathway that is orthogonal to the more usual substitution pathway through the 2,6-positions of the BBT unit, facilitating intramolecular non-covalent interactions between strategically placed heteroatoms of neighbouring monomer units. Such interactions enable a control over the degree of planarity through altering their number and strength, in turn allowing for tuning of the band gap. The resulting 4,8-BBT materials gave enhanced mobility in p-type organic field-effect transistors of up to 2.16 × 10−2 cm2 V−1 s−1 for pDPP2ThBBT and good solar cell performance of up to 4.45% power conversion efficiency for pBT2ThBBT

Alternative substrates for cultivating oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus)

Wheat straw has generally been used as the main substrate for cultivating oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus); however, in South Africa it is becoming expensive for small-scale farmers to utilise. Therefore, the main objective of the study was to investigate the use of alternative, but suitable substrates for planting oyster mushrooms. Wheat straw (control), wood chips and thatch grass, selected on account of their year-round availability and low cost, were tested with two drainage treatments (drained or not drained) and replicated four times. Wheat straw showed no contamination, whereas there was contamination in thatch grass and wood chips from weeks 1 to 4. At harvest, a significantly higher cumulative number of flushes, caps and fresh mass of oyster mushrooms was observed in wheat straw and thatch grass compared with wood chips. The results demonstrated that thatch grass could be used as a viable alternative to the commonly used wheat straw.ARC–ITSC and AgriSETA.http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tjps202016-12-30hb201

Pinch Technique and the Batalin-Vilkovisky formalism

In this paper we take the first step towards a non-diagrammatic formulation of the Pinch Technique. In particular we proceed into a systematic identification of the parts of the one-loop and two-loop Feynman diagrams that are exchanged during the pinching process in terms of unphysical ghost Green's functions; the latter appear in the standard Slavnov-Taylor identity satisfied by the tree-level and one-loop three-gluon vertex. This identification allows for the consistent generalization of the intrinsic pinch technique to two loops, through the collective treatment of entire sets of diagrams, instead of the laborious algebraic manipulation of individual graphs, and sets up the stage for the generalization of the method to all orders. We show that the task of comparing the effective Green's functions obtained by the Pinch Technique with those computed in the background field method Feynman gauge is significantly facilitated when employing the powerful quantization framework of Batalin and Vilkovisky. This formalism allows for the derivation of a set of useful non-linear identities, which express the Background Field Method Green's functions in terms of the conventional (quantum) ones and auxiliary Green's functions involving the background source and the gluonic anti-field; these latter Green's functions are subsequently related by means of a Schwinger-Dyson type of equation to the ghost Green's functions appearing in the aforementioned Slavnov-Taylor identity.Comment: 45 pages, uses axodraw; typos corrected, one figure changed, final version to appear in Phys.Rev.

Flooding and Phytophthora cinnamomi : effects on photosynthesis and chlorophyll fluorescence in shoots of non-grafted Persea americana (Mill.) rootstocks differing in tolerance to Phytophthora root rot

Please read abstract in the article.The Hans-Merensky Foundation and the National Research Fund (NRF) through the THRIP programme (Department of Science and Technology, South Africa).http://www.elsevier.com/locate/sajbhj201