scholarly journals Reopening modes of a collapsed elasto-rigid channel

2017 ◽  
Vol 819 ◽  
pp. 121-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucie Ducloué ◽  
Andrew L. Hazel ◽  
Alice B. Thompson ◽  
Anne Juel

Motivated by the reopening mechanics of strongly collapsed airways, we study the steady propagation of an air finger through a collapsed oil-filled channel with a single compliant wall. In a previous study using fully compliant elastic tubes, a ‘pointed’ air finger was found to propagate at high speed and low pressure, which, if clinically accessible, offers the potential for rapid reopening of highly collapsed airways with minimal tissue damage (Heap & Juel Phys. Fluids, vol. 20 (8), 2008, 081702). The mechanism underlying the selection of that pointed finger, however, remained unexplained. In this paper, we identify the required selection mechanism by conducting an experimental study in a simpler geometry: a rigid rectangular Hele-Shaw channel with an elastic top boundary. The constitutive behaviour of this elasto-rigid channel is nonlinear and broadly similar to that of an elastic tube, but unlike the tube, the channel’s cross-section adopts self-similar shapes from the undeformed state to the point of first near wall contact. The ensuing simplification of the vessel geometry enables the systematic investigation of the reopening dynamics in terms of increasing initial collapse. We find that for low levels of initial collapse, a single centred symmetric finger propagates in the channel and its shape is set by the tip curvature. As the level of collapse increases, the channel cross-section develops a central region of near opposite wall contact, and the finger shape evolves smoothly towards a ‘flat-tipped’ finger whose geometry is set by the strong depth gradient near the channel walls. We show that the flat-tipped mode of reopening is analogous to the pointed finger observed in tubes. Its propagation is sustained by the vessel’s extreme cross-sectional profile at high collapse, while vessel compliance is necessary to stabilise it. A simple scaling argument based on the dissipated power reveals that this reopening mode is preferred at higher propagation speeds when it becomes favourable to displace the elastic channel wall rather than the viscous fluid.

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jian Zhou ◽  
Zhangli Peng ◽  
Ian Papautsky

AbstractThe wide adoption of inertial microfluidics in biomedical research and clinical settings, such as rare cell isolation, has prompted the inquiry of its underlying mechanism. Although tremendous improvement has been made, the mechanism of inertial migration remains to be further elucidated. Contradicting observations are not fully reconciled by the existing theory, and details of the inertial migration within channel cross sections are missing in the literature. In this work, for the first time, we mapped the inertial migration pathways within channel cross section using high-speed imaging at the single-particle level. This is in contrast to the conventional method of particle streak velocimetry (PSV), which provides collective information. We also applied smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) to simulate the transient motion of particles in 3D and obtained cross-sectional migration trajectories that are in agreement with the high-speed imaging results. We found two opposing pathways that explain the contradicting observations in rectangular microchannels, and the force analysis of these pathways revealed two metastable positions near the short walls that can transition into stable positions depending on the flow condition and particle size. These new findings significantly improve our understanding of the inertial migration physics, and enhance our ability to precisely control particle and cell behaviors within microchannels for a broad range of applications.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 5597
Author(s):  
Hussein A. Z. AL-bonsrulah ◽  
Mohammed J. Alshukri ◽  
Ammar I. Alsabery ◽  
Ishak Hashim

Proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEM-FC) aggregation pressure causes extensive strains in cell segments. The compression of each segment takes place through the cell modeling method. In addition, a very heterogeneous compressive load is produced because of the recurrent channel rib design of the dipole plates, so that while high strains are provided below the rib, the domain continues in its initial uncompressed case under the ducts approximate to it. This leads to significant spatial variations in thermal and electrical connections and contact resistances (both in rib–GDL and membrane–GDL interfaces). Variations in heat, charge, and mass transfer rates within the GDL can affect the performance of the fuel cell (FC) and its lifetime. In this paper, two scenarios are considered to verify the performance and lifetime of the PEM-FC using different innovative channel geometries. The first scenario is conducted by adopting a constant channel height (H = 1 mm) for all the differently shaped channels studied. In contrast, the second scenario is conducted by taking a constant channel cross-sectional area (A = 1 mm2) for all the studied channels. Therefore, a computational fluid dynamics model (CFD) for a PEM fuel cell is formed through the assembly of FC to simulate the pressure variations inside it. The simulation results showed that a triangular cross-section channel provided the uniformity of the pressure distribution, with lower deformations and lower mechanical stresses. The analysis helped gain insights into the physical mechanisms that lead to the FC’s durability and identify important parameters under different conditions. The model shows that it can assume the intracellular pressure configuration toward durability and appearance containing limited experimental data. The results also proved that the better cell voltage occurs in the case of the rectangular channel cross-section, and therefore, higher power from the FC, although its durability is much lower compared to the durability of the triangular channel. The results also showed that the rectangular channel cross-section gave higher cell voltages, and therefore, higher power (0.63 W) from the fuel cell, although its durability is much lower compared to the durability of the triangular channel. Therefore, the triangular channel gives better performance compared to other innovative channels.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Joon Seng Goh ◽  
Yeong Shiong Chiew ◽  
Ji Jinn Foo

AbstractA net immersed in fractal-induced turbulence exhibit a transient time-varying deformation. The anisotropic, inhomogeneous square fractal grid (SFG) generated flow interacts with the flexible net to manifest as visible cross-sectional undulations. We hypothesize that the net’s response may provide a surrogate in expressing local turbulent strength. This is analysed as root-mean-squared velocity fluctuations in the net, displaying intensity patterns dependent on the grid conformation and grid-net separation. The net’s fluctuation strength is found to increase closer to the turbulator with higher thickness ratio while presenting stronger fluctuations compared to regular-square-grid (RSG) of equivalent blockage-ratio, σ. Our findings demonstrate a novel application where 3D-reconstruction of submerged nets is used to experimentally contrast the turbulence generated by RSG and multilength scale SFGs across the channel cross-section. The net’s response shows the unique turbulence developed from SFGs can induce 9 × higher average excitation to a net when compared against RSG of similar σ.


2015 ◽  
Vol 770 ◽  
pp. 156-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricio Winckler ◽  
Philip L.-F. Liu

A cross-sectionally averaged one-dimensional long-wave model is developed. Three-dimensional equations of motion for inviscid and incompressible fluid are first integrated over a channel cross-section. To express the resulting one-dimensional equations in terms of the cross-sectional-averaged longitudinal velocity and spanwise-averaged free-surface elevation, the characteristic depth and width of the channel cross-section are assumed to be smaller than the typical wavelength, resulting in Boussinesq-type equations. Viscous effects are also considered. The new model is, therefore, adequate for describing weakly nonlinear and weakly dispersive wave propagation along a non-uniform channel with arbitrary cross-section. More specifically, the new model has the following new properties: (i) the arbitrary channel cross-section can be asymmetric with respect to the direction of wave propagation, (ii) the channel cross-section can change appreciably within a wavelength, (iii) the effects of viscosity inside the bottom boundary layer can be considered, and (iv) the three-dimensional flow features can be recovered from the perturbation solutions. Analytical and numerical examples for uniform channels, channels where the cross-sectional geometry changes slowly and channels where the depth and width variation is appreciable within the wavelength scale are discussed to illustrate the validity and capability of the present model. With the consideration of viscous boundary layer effects, the present theory agrees reasonably well with experimental results presented by Chang et al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 95, 1979, pp. 401–414) for converging/diverging channels and those of Liu et al. (Coast. Engng, vol. 53, 2006, pp. 181–190) for a uniform channel with a sloping beach. The numerical results for a solitary wave propagating in a channel where the width variation is appreciable within a wavelength are discussed.


2002 ◽  
Vol 470 ◽  
pp. 91-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANDREW L. HAZEL ◽  
MATTHIAS HEIL

This paper investigates the propagation of an air finger into a fluid-filled, axially uniform tube of elliptical or rectangular cross-section with transverse length scale a and aspect ratio α. Gravity is assumed to act parallel to the tube's axis. The problem is studied numerically by a finite-element-based direct solution of the free-surface Stokes equations.In rectangular tubes, our results for the pressure drop across the bubble tip, Δp, are in good agreement with the asymptotic predictions of Wong et al. (1995b) at low values of the capillary number, Ca (ratio of viscous to surface-tension forces). At larger Ca, Wong et al.'s (1995b) predictions are found to underestimate Δp. In both elliptical and rectangular tubes, the ratio Δp(α)/Δp(α = 1) is approximately independent of Ca and thus equal to the ratio of the static meniscus curvatures.In non-axisymmetric tubes, the air-liquid interface develops a noticeable asymmetry near the bubble tip at all values of the capillary number. The tip asymmetry decays with increasing distance from the bubble tip, but the decay rate becomes very small as Ca increases. For example, in a rectangular tube with α = 1.5, when Ca = 10, the maximum and minimum finger radii still differ by more than 10% at a distance 100a behind the finger tip. At large Ca the air finger ultimately becomes axisymmetric with radius r∞. In this regime, we find that r∞ in elliptical and rectangular tubes is related to r∞ in circular and square tubes, respectively, by a simple, empirical scaling law. The scaling has the physical interpretation that for rectangular and elliptical tubes of a given cross-sectional area, the propagation speed of an air finger, which is driven by the injection of air at a constant volumetric rate, is independent of the tube's aspect ratio.For smaller Ca (Ca < Ca), the air finger is always non-axisymmetric and the persisting draining flows in the thin film regions far behind the bubble tip ultimately lead to dry regions on the tube wall. Ca increases with increasing α and for α > αˆ dry spots will develop on the tube walls at all values of Ca.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Van Hirtum

Several engineering problems are confronted with elastic tubes. In the current work, homothetic quasi-analytical geometrical ring models, ellipse, stadium, and peanut, are formulated allowing a computationally low cost ring shape estimation as a function of a single parameter, that is, the pinching degree. The dynamics of main geometrical parameters due to the model choice is discussed. Next, the ring models are applied to each cross section of a circular elastic tube compressed between two parallel bars for pinching efforts between 40% and 95%. The characteristic error yields less than 4% of the tubes diameter when the stadium model was used.


1982 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 379-382
Author(s):  
D. Summers

A coronal hole is a region of the solar corona characterised by diverging magnetic fields of single polarity and lower-than-average densities (and probably temperatures). It is now generally accepted that coronal holes are the source of high-speed streams in the solar wind (Munro and Withbroe 1972, Kopp and Holzer 1976, Steinolfson and Tandberg-Hanssen 1977, Munro and Jackson 1977; see Pneuman 1980 for references to most of the theoretical and observational papers on coronal holes since their recognition in 1968). We consider an infinitesimal field-aligned flow tube with cross-sectional area A(r) where r is the heliocentric radius (Figure 1), and we adopt the functional formA(r)/A(r ) = (r/r0)8where r is the coronal base radius, and 5 is a parameter which measures the divergence of the flow. If s = 2 then the flow is purely spherically symmetric, while if s > 2 the flow is more strongly divergent as is expected to be the case for a coronal hole. The cross-section of a typical coronal hole is shown schematically in Figure 2.


2010 ◽  
Vol 2010 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isam Janajreh ◽  
Ilham Talab ◽  
Jill Macpherson

Downwind wind turbines have lower upwind rotor misalignment, and thus lower turning moment and self-steered advantage over the upwind configuration. In this paper, numerical simulation to the downwind turbine is conducted to investigate the interaction between the tower and the blade during the intrinsic passage of the rotor in the wake of the tower. The moving rotor has been accounted for via ALE formulation of the incompressible, unsteady, turbulent Navier-Stokes equations. The localizedCP,CL, andCDare computed and compared to undisturbed flow evaluated by Panel method. The time history of theCP, aerodynamic forces (CLandCD), as well as moments were evaluated for three cross-sectional tower; asymmetrical airfoil (NACA0012) having four times the rotor's chord length, and two circular cross-sections having four and two chords lengths of the rotor's chord. 5%, 17%, and 57% reductions of the aerodynamic lift forces during the blade passage in the wake of the symmetrical airfoil tower, small circular cross-section tower and large circular cross-section tower were observed, respectively. The pronounced reduction, however, is confined to a short time/distance of three rotor chords. A net forward impulsive force is also observed on the tower due to the high speed rotor motion.


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