Interfacial deflection and jetting of a paramagnetic particle-laden fluid: theory and experiment

We describe the results of experiments and mathematical analysis of the deformation of a free surface by an aggregate of magnetic particles. The system we study is differentiated from ferrofluid systems because it contains regions rich with magnetic material as well as regions of negligible magnetic content. In our experiments, the magnetic force from a spherical permanent magnet collects magnetic particles to a liquid–air interface, and deforms the free surface to form a hump. The hump is composed of magnetic and non-magnetic regions due to the particle collection. When the magnet distance falls below a threshold value, we observe the transition of the hump to a jet. The mathematical model we develop, which consists of a numerical solution and an asymptotic approximation, captures the shape of the liquid–air interface during the deformation stage and a scaling prediction for the critical magnet distance for the hump to become a jet

Improved rotor position estimation by signal injection in brushless AC motors, accounting for cross-coupling magnetic saturation

The paper presents an improved signal injection- based sensorless control method for permanent magnet brushless AC (BLAC) motors, accounting for the influence of cross-coupling magnetic saturation between the d- and q-axes. The d- and q-axis incremental self-inductances, the incremental mutual-inductance between the (d-axis and q-axis, and the cross-coupling factor are determined by finite element analysis. A method is also proposed for measuring the cross-coupling factor which can be used directly in the sensorless control scheme. Both measurements and predictions show that a significant improvement in the accuracy of the rotor position estimation can be achieved under both dynamic and steady-state operation, compared with that which is obtained with the conventional signal injection method

Computational prediction of the refinement of oxide agglomerates in a physical conditioning process for molten aluminium alloy

Physically conditioning molten scrap aluminium alloys using high shear processing (HSP) was recently found to be a promising technology for purification of contaminated alloys. HSP refines the solid oxide agglomerates in molten alloys, so that they can act as sites for the nucleation of Fe-rich intermetallic phases which can subsequently be removed by the downstream de-drossing process. In this paper, a computational modelling for predicting the evolution of size of oxide clusters during HSP is presented. We used CFD to predict the macroscopic flow features of the melt, and the resultant field predictions of temperature and melt shear rate were transferred to a population balance model (PBM) as its key inputs. The PBM is a macroscopic model that formulates the microscopic agglomeration and breakage of a population of a dispersed phase. Although it has been widely used to study conventional deoxidation of liquid metal, this is the first time that PBM has been used to simulate the melt conditioning process within a rotor/stator HSP device. We employed a method which discretizes the continuous profile of size of the dispersed phase into a collection of discrete bins of size, to solve the governing population balance equation for the size of agglomerates. A finite volume method was used to solve the continuity equation, the energy equation and the momentum equation. The overall computation was implemented mainly using the FLUENT module of ANSYS. The simulations showed that there is a relatively high melt shear rate between the stator and sweeping tips of the rotor blades. This high shear rate leads directly to significant fragmentation of the initially large oxide aggregates. Because the process of agglomeration is significantly slower than the breakage processes at the beginning of HSP, the mean size of oxide clusters decreases very rapidly. As the process of agglomeration gradually balances the process of breakage, the mean size of oxide clusters converges to a steady value. The model enables formulation of the quantitative relationship between the macroscopic flow features of liquid metal and the change of size of dispersed oxide clusters, during HSP. It predicted the variation in size of the dispersed phased with operational parameters (including the geometry and, particularly, the speed of the rotor), which is of direct use to experimentalists optimising the design of the HSP device and its implementation.This research is financially supported by the EC FP7 project “High Shear Processing of Recycled Aluminium Scrap for Manufacturing High Performance Aluminium Alloys” (Grant No. 603577)

X-Ray Tomography To Measure Size Of Fragments From Penetration Of High-Velocity Tungsten Rods

Behind-armor debris that results from tungsten rods penetrating armor steel at 2 km/s was studied by analysis of recovered fragments. Fragment recovery was by means of particle board. Individual fragments were analyzed by x-ray tomography, which provides information for fragment identification, mass, shape, and penetration down to masses of a few milligrams. The experiments were complemented by AUTODYN and EPIC calculations. Fragments were steel or tungsten generated from the channel or from the breakout through the target rear surface. Channel fragment motions were well described by Tate theory. Breakout fragments had velocities from the projectile remnant to the channel velocity, apparently depending on where in the projectile a fragment originated. The fragment size distribution was extremely broad and did not correlate well with simple uniform-fragment-size models.Mechanical Engineerin

Improved rotor-position estimation by signal injection in brushless AC motors, accounting for cross-coupling magnetic saturation

This paper presents an improved signal-injection- based sensorless-control method for permanent-magnet brushless ac (BLAC) motors, accounting for the influence of cross-coupling magnetic saturation between the d- and q-axes. The d- and q-axis incremental self-inductances, the incremental mutual inductance between the d-axis and q-axis, and the cross-coupling factor are determined by finite-element analysis. An experimental method is proposed for measuring the cross-coupling factor which can be used directly in the sensorless-control scheme. Both measurements and predictions show that a significant improvement in the accu- racy of the rotor-position estimation can be achieved under both dynamic and steady-state operation compared with that which is obtained with the conventional signal-injection method

Influence of machine topology and cross-coupling magnetic saturation on rotor position estimation accuracy in extended back-EMF based sensorless PM brushless AC drives

The influence of the machine topology and dq-axis cross-coupling on the rotor position estimation error in an extended back-EMF based sensorless brushless AC drive is investigated by both finite element analysis and experimentally on four brushless AC machines having different rotor topologies, viz. interior circumferentially magnetized, interior radially magnetized, surface-mounted, and inset magnets. The d- and q- axis apparent self- and mutual-inductances, Ld, Lq, Ldq and Lqd, are predicted by finite element analysis for various d- and q-axis currents. The error in the estimated rotor position of the four machines is investigated and compared when (a) the influence of magnetic saturation is neglected, (b) only the influence of the dq-axis current on Lq is considered, but dq-axis cross-coupling magnetic saturation is neglected, and (c) the influence of dq-axis cross-coupling magnetic saturation is taken into account. It is shown that the error is more strongly influenced by the q-axis current/permeance than the dq-axis current/permeance, since the dq-axis current does not distort the symmetrical field distribution about the q-axis, and that dq-axis cross-coupling magnetic saturation can significantly affect the accuracy of the rotor position estimation. However, by introducing an apparent mutual winding inductance in the extended back-EMF based sensorless method, the error in all four machines under consideration is reduced significantly, to a similar level to that which results with surface-mounted magnet machines

Transmission eigenvalues and the bare conductance in the crossover to Anderson localization

We measure the field transmission matrix t for microwave radiation propagating through random waveguides in the crossover to Anderson localization. From these measurements, we determine the dimensionless conductance, g, and the individual eigenvalues $\tau_n$ of the transmission matrix $tt^\dagger$ whose sum equals g. In diffusive samples, the highest eigenvalue, $\tau_1$, is close to unity corresponding to a transmission of nearly 100%, while for localized waves, the average of $\tau_1$, is nearly equal to g. We find that the spacing between average values of $\ln\tau_n$ is constant and demonstrate that when surface interactions are taken into account it is equal to the inverse of the bare conductance.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Photovoltaic Oscillations Due to Edge-Magnetoplasmon Modes in a Very-High Mobility 2D Electron Gas

Using very-high mobility GaAs/AlGaAs 2D electron Hall bar samples, we have experimentally studied the photoresistance/photovoltaic oscillations induced by microwave irradiation in the regime where both 1/B and B-periodic oscillations can be observed. In the frequency range between 27 and 130 GHz we found that these two types of oscillations are decoupled from each other, consistent with the respective models that 1/B oscillations occur in bulk while the B-oscillations occur along the edges of the Hall bars. In contrast to the original report of this phenomenon (Ref. 1) the periodicity of the B-oscillations in our samples are found to be independent of L, the length of the Hall bar section between voltage measuring leads.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Kynurenine pathway inhibition reduces central nervous system inflammation in a model of human African trypanosomiasis

Human African trypanosomiasis, or sleeping sickness, is caused by the protozoan parasites <i>Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense</i> or <i>Trypanosoma brucei gambiense</i>, and is a major cause of systemic and neurological disability throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Following early-stage disease, the trypanosomes cross the blood-brain barrier to invade the central nervous system leading to the encephalitic, or late stage, infection. Treatment of human African trypanosomiasis currently relies on a limited number of highly toxic drugs, but untreated, is invariably fatal. Melarsoprol, a trivalent arsenical, is the only drug that can be used to cure both forms of the infection once the central nervous system has become involved, but unfortunately, this drug induces an extremely severe post-treatment reactive encephalopathy (PTRE) in up to 10% of treated patients, half of whom die from this complication. Since it is unlikely that any new and less toxic drug will be developed for treatment of human African trypanosomiasis in the near future, increasing attention is now being focussed on the potential use of existing compounds, either alone or in combination chemotherapy, for improved efficacy and safety. The kynurenine pathway is the major pathway in the metabolism of tryptophan. A number of the catabolites produced along this pathway show neurotoxic or neuroprotective activities, and their role in the generation of central nervous system inflammation is well documented. In the current study, Ro-61-8048, a high affinity kynurenine-3-monooxygenase inhibitor, was used to determine the effect of manipulating the kynurenine pathway in a highly reproducible mouse model of human African trypanosomiasis. It was found that Ro-61-8048 treatment had no significant effect (P = 0.4445) on the severity of the neuroinflammatory pathology in mice during the early central nervous system stage of the disease when only a low level of inflammation was present. However, a significant (P = 0.0284) reduction in the severity of the neuroinflammatory response was detected when the inhibitor was administered in animals exhibiting the more severe, late central nervous system stage, of the infection. <i>In vitro</i> assays showed that Ro-61-8048 had no direct effect on trypanosome proliferation suggesting that the anti-inflammatory action is due to a direct effect of the inhibitor on the host cells and not a secondary response to parasite destruction. These findings demonstrate that kynurenine pathway catabolites are involved in the generation of the more severe inflammatory reaction associated with the late central nervous system stages of the disease and suggest that Ro-61-8048 or a similar drug may prove to be beneficial in preventing or ameliorating the PTRE when administered as an adjunct to conventional trypanocidal chemotherap

Towards Exploratory Reformulation of Constraint Models

It is well established that formulating an effective constraint model of a problem of interest is crucial to the efficiency with which it can subsequently be solved. Following from the observation that it is difficult, if not impossible, to know a priori which of a set of candidate models will perform best in practice, we envisage a system that explores the space of models through a process of reformulation from an initial model, guided by performance on a set of training instances from the problem class under consideration. We plan to situate this system in a refinement-based approach, where a user writes a constraint specification describing a problem above the level of abstraction at which many modelling decisions are made. In this position paper we set out our plan for an exploratory reformulation system, and discuss progress made so far.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figure