Numerical research of characteristic mixing times of isothermal three-component steam-gas systems

Multicomponent diffusion in gases is characterized by a number of effects that are not observed in binary diffusion. Analysis of existing works shows that convective instability may occur in some systems with significantly different diffusion coefficients with certain geometric and thermophysical characteristics. Stability analysis allows determining the spectrum of parameters at which a transition from a diffusive state to a convective is possible. However, this approach does not allow the researchers to investigate the dynamics of the process. Therefore, this work aims to describe emergence and evolution of convective flows in threecomponent systems and assess the influence of the initial composition on the occurrence of concentration gravitational convection. The main part of the work presents a mathematical model describing the occurrence of convective flows based on the splitting scheme according to physical parameters. Numerical data on the concentration fields of the gas with the highest molecular weight at various time points is obtained. It is established that curvature of the isoconcentration lines of the diffusing components can be associated with instability of the mechanical equilibrium of the system. Degree of curvature is determined by the initial concentration of components of the mixture. The obtained data can be used to determine the main characteristics of mass transfer used in calculations related to combined heat and mass transfer in a wide range of thermophysical parameters

Comparative study of evolution of structured flows at boundary of the regime change “diffusion — concentration convection” in isothermal multicomponent mixing in gases by techniques of visual and numerical analysis

During isothermal multicomponent diffusion process, the number of effects appear that are not observed visually when mixed in binary mixtures. These include occurrence of convective instability with subsequent formation of structured flows. The feature of this type of mixing is that convection is realized under conditions of decrease in density of mixture with height. Flow visualization method allows to fix information about distribution of medium parameters by dynamics of structures in convective flows. Application of computer processing methods, as well as techniques of identifying images of thermophysical fields, allows to obtain quantitative information about convective flows. For an isothermal ternary gas mixture heliumargonnitrogen, shadow images of structural formations formed in convective flows due to the instability of mechanical equilibrium are represented in this work. To carry out digital analysis of experimental shadow images, a simplified virtual model of the lower chamber of the diffusion cell was created. Based on digital analysis of visual images, quantitative characteristics related to estimation of the size of convective formations, period of their formation, and linear velocity of convection cells when moving through diffusion channel are presented. It has been established that the growing convective disturbances arising in the system cause a change in the characteristic scale of convective cells. The analysis of shadow images also showed that a vortex is formed in convective flows, which consists mainly of a component with the highest molecular weight. Comparison of visual images of experimental fields with simulation flows is implemented, on the basis of which composition of mixture components in convective structures is estimated. It is shown that the obtained value of the concentration of the heavy component in the vortex filament can be taken as the minimum

Geometry and physics of the Geant4 toolkit for high and medium energy application

International audienceThe current status of the Geant4 toolkit and the recent developments for the geometry, electromagnetic and hadronic physics for medium and high energy are presented. The focus of many recent improvements of the toolkit are key applications including the simulation of large Hadron collider (LHC) experiments at CERN. These developments and physics model extensions provide new capabilities and improvements for other applications of the toolkit for radiation studies in high energy physics (HEP), space and medical research