Fluids — Open Access Journal

Liquid penetration analysis in porous media is of great importance in a wide range of applications such as ink jet printing technology, painting and textile design. This article presents an investigation of droplet impingement onto metallic meshes, aiming to provide insights by identifying and quantifying impact characteristics that are difficult to measure experimentally. For this purpose, an enhanced Volume-Of-Fluid (VOF) numerical simulation framework is utilised, previously developed in the general context of the OpenFOAM CFD Toolbox. Droplet impacts on metallic meshes are performed both experimentally and numerically with satisfactory degree of agreement. From the experimental investigation three main outcomes are observed—deposition, partial imbibition, and penetration. The penetration into suspended meshes leads to spectacular multiple jetting below the mesh. A higher amount of liquid penetration is linked to higher impact velocity, lower viscosity and larger pore size dimension. An estimation of the liquid penetration is given in order to evaluate the impregnation properties of the meshes. From the parametric analysis it is shown that liquid viscosity affects the adhesion characteristics of the drops significantly, whereas droplet break-up after the impact is mostly controlled by surface tension. Additionally, wettability characteristics are found to play an important role in both liquid penetration and droplet break-up below the mesh. Full article

Despite ample evidence of micro- and small-scale (i.e., millimeter- to meter-scale) phytoplankton and zooplankton patchiness in the ocean, direct observations of nutrient distributions and the ecological importance of this phenomenon are still relatively scarce. In this context, we first describe a simple procedure to continuously sample nutrients in surface waters, and subsequently provide evidence of the existence of microscale distribution of ammonium in the ocean. We further show that ammonium is never homogeneously distributed, even under very high conditions of turbulence. Instead, turbulence intensity appears to control nutrient patchiness, with a more homogeneous or a more heterogeneous distribution observed under high and low turbulence intensities, respectively, under the same concentration in nutrient. Based on a modelling procedure taking into account the stochastic properties of intermittent nutrient distributions and observations carried out on natural phytoplankton communities, we introduce and verify the hypothesis that under nutrient limitation, the “turbulent history” of phytoplankton cells, i.e., the turbulent conditions they experienced in their natural environments, conditions their efficiency to uptake ephemeral inorganic nitrogen patches of different concentrations. Specifically, phytoplankton cells exposed to high turbulence intensities (i.e., more homogeneous nutrient distribution) were more efficient to uptake high concentration nitrogen pulses (2 µM). In contrast, under low turbulence conditions (i.e., more heterogeneous nutrient distribution), uptake rates were higher for low concentration nitrogen pulses (0.5 µM). These results suggest that under nutrient limitation, natural phytoplankton populations respond to high turbulence intensities through a decrease in affinity for nutrients and an increase in their transport rate, and vice versa. Full article

Transport in porous media is critical for many applications in the environment and in the chemical process industry. A key parameter for modeling this transport is the hydrodynamic dispersion coefficient for particles and scalars in a porous medium, which has been found to depend on properties of the medium structure, on the dispersing compound, and on the flow field characteristics. Previous studies have resulted in suggestions of different equation forms, showing the relationship between the hydrodynamic dispersion coefficient for various types of porous media in various flow regimes and the Peclet number. The Peclet number is calculated based on a Eulerian length scale, such as the diameter of the spheres in packed beds, or the pore diameter. However, the nature of hydrodynamic dispersion is Lagrangian, and it should take the molecular diffusion effects, as well as the convection effects, into account. This work shifts attention to the Lagrangian time and length scales for the definition of the Peclet number. It is focused on the dependence of the longitudinal hydrodynamic dispersion coefficient on the effective Lagrangian Peclet number by using a Lagrangian length scale and the effective molecular diffusivity. The lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) was employed to simulate flow in porous media that were constituted by packed spheres, and Lagrangian particle tracking (LPT) was used to track the movement of individual dispersing particles. It was found that the hydrodynamic dispersion coefficient linearly depends on the effective Lagrangian Peclet number for packed beds with different types of packing. This linear equation describing the dependence of the dispersion coefficient on the effective Lagrangian Peclet number is both simpler and more accurate than the one formed using the effective Eulerian Peclet number. In addition, the slope of the line is a characteristic coefficient for a given medium. Full article

Copepods are agile microcrustaceans that are capable of maneuvering freely in water. However, the physical mechanisms driving their rotational motion are not entirely clear in small larvae (nauplii). Here we report high-speed video observations of copepod nauplii performing acrobatic feats with three pairs of appendages. Our results show rotations about three principal axes of the body: yaw, roll, and pitch. The yaw rotation turns the body to one side and results in a circular swimming path. The roll rotation consists of the body spiraling around a nearly linear path, similar to an aileron roll of an airplane. We interpret the yaw and roll rotations to be facilitated by appendage pronation or supination. The pitch rotation consists of flipping on the spot in a maneuver that resembles a backflip somersault. The pitch rotation involved tail bending and was not observed in the earliest stages of nauplii. The maneuvering strategies adopted by plankton may inspire the design of microscopic robots, equipped with suitable controls for reorienting autonomously in three dimensions. Full article

Bulk kinematic properties of mixtures such as velocity are known to be the density weighed averages of the constituent velocities. No such paradigm exists for the heat flux of mixtures when the constituents have different temperatures. Using standard principles such as frame indifference, we address this topic by developing linear constitutive equations for the constituent heat fluxes, the interaction force between constituents, and the stresses for a mixture of two fluids. Although these equations contain 18 phenomenological coefficients, we are able to use the Clausius-Duhem inequality to obtain inequalities involving the principal and cross flux coefficients. The theory is applied to some special cases and shown to reduce to standard results when the constituents have the same temperature. Full article

Multidrug resistant bacteria are one of the most serious public health threats nowadays. How bacteria, as a population, react to the presence of antibiotics is of major importance to the outcome of the chosen treatment. In this study we addressed the impact of oxacillin, a β-lactam, the most clinically relevant class of antibiotics, in the viscosity profile of the methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) strain COL. In the first approach, the antibiotic was added, at concentrations under the minimum inhibitory concentration (sub-MIC), to the culture of S. aureus and steady-state shear flow curves were obtained for discrete time points during the bacterial growth, with and without the presence of the antibiotic, showing distinct viscosity progress over time. The different behaviors obtained led us to test the impact of the sub-inhibitory concentration and a concentration that inhibited growth. In the second approach, the viscosity growth curves were measured at a constant shear rate of 10 s⁻¹, over time. The obtained rheological behaviors revealed distinctive characteristics associated to the presence of each concentration of the tested antibiotic. These results bring new insights to the bacteria response to a well-known bacteriolytic antibiotic. Full article

The main objective of this study is to develop a semi-analytical formulation for the radiation problem of a fully immersed spheroid in a liquid field of infinite depth. The term “spheroid” refers herein to the oblate geometry of arbitrary eccentricity and to the axisymmetric case, where the axis of symmetry is normal to the free surface. The proposed numerical approach is based on the method of image singularities, and it enables the accurate and fast calculation of the hydrodynamic coefficients for the translational degrees of freedom of the oblate spheroid. The excellent agreement of the results, with those of other investigators for the limiting case of the sphere and with those obtained using a respected boundary integral equation code, demonstrates the accuracy of the proposed methodology. Finally, extensive calculations are presented, illustrating the direct impact of the immersion depth and the slenderness of the spheroid on the hydrodynamic coefficients. Full article

The structure formation influence on various macroscopic properties of fluid–fluid disperse systems is poorly investigated. The present work deals with the experimental study of the charge transfer in emulsions whose dispersed phase droplets are arranged into chainlike structures under the action of an external force field. The emulsions studied are the fluid system in which water droplets are dispersed in a hydrocarbon-based magnetic fluid. Under the effect of an external uniform magnetic field, anisotropic aggregates form from the emulsion dispersed phase drops. The low-frequency electrical conductivity of emulsions has been measured. It is demonstrated that the emulsions’ conductivity grows several times under the effect of magnetic field parallel to the measuring electrical field. The anisotropic character of the emulsion electrical conductivity in the presence of magnetic field has been demonstrated. It is revealed that the maximal response of conductivity on the magnetic field action takes place at the dispersed phase volume fraction of about 20%. The dynamics of the conductivity variation is analyzed in dependence on the magnetic field strength and the dispersed phase volume fraction. The obtained results may be of interest in the development of potential applications of disperse systems with magnetic-field-controllable properties. Full article

The time-resolved flow field of a spatially oscillating jet emitted by a sweeping jet (SWJ) actuator is investigated numerically using three-dimensional Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (3D-URANS) equations. Numerical simulations are performed for a range of mass flow rates providing flow conditions varying from incompressible to subsonic compressible flows. After a detailed mesh study, the computational domain is represented using two million hexagonal control volumes. The jet oscillation frequency is predicted by analyzing velocity time histories at the actuator exit, and a linear relationship between the jet oscillation frequency and time-averaged exit nozzle Mach number is found ( $f=511.22M+46.618$ , R² = 0.97). The results of our numerical model are compared with data from the literature, and a good agreement is found. In addition, we confirmed that the Strouhal number is almost constant with the Mach number for the subsonic oscillating jet and has an average value of St = 0.0131. The 3D-URANS model that we presented here provides a computationally inexpensive yet accurate alternative to the researchers to investigate jet oscillation characteristics. Full article

The present work deals with an analysis of the cooling system for a two-stroke aircraft engine with compression ignition. This analysis is carried out by means of a 3D finite-volume RANS equations solver with k- $ϵ$ closure. Three different cooling system geometries are critically compared with a discussion on the capabilities and limitations of each technical solution. A first configuration of such a system is considered and analyzed by evaluating the pressure loss across the system as a function of the inlet mass-flow rate. Moreover, the velocity and vorticity patterns are analyzed to highlight the features of the flow structure. Thermal effects on the engine structure are also taken into account and the cooling system performance is assessed as a function of both the inlet mass-flow rate and the cylinder jackets temperatures. Then, by considering the main thermo-fluid dynamics features obtained in the case of the first configuration, two geometrical modifications are proposed to improve the efficiency of the system. As regards the first modification, the fluid intake is split in two manifolds by keeping the same total mass-flow rate. As regards the second configuration, a new single-inlet geometry is designed by inserting restrictions and enlargements within the cooling system to constrain the coolant flow through the cylinder jackets and by moving downstream the outflow section. It is shown that the second geometry modification achieves the best performances by improving the overall transferred heat of about 20% with respect to the first one, while keeping the three cylinders only slightly unevenly cooled. However, an increase of the flow characteristic loads occurs due to the geometrical restrictions and enlargements of the cooling system. Full article

This study proposeda novel exact expression for step length (size) in gradient-based aerodynamic shape optimization for an airfoil in steady inviscid transonic flows. The airfoil surfaces were parameterized using Bezier curves. The Bezier curve control points were considered as design variables and the finite-difference method was used to compute the gradient of the objective function (drag-to-lift ratio) with respect to the design variables. An exact explicit expression was derived for the step length in gradient-based shape optimization problems. It was shown that the derived step length was independent of the method used for calculating the gradient (adjoint method, finite-difference method, etc). The obtained results reveal the accuracy of the derived step length. Full article

A fully coupled pressure-based algorithm and finite-volume framework for the simulation of the acoustic cavitation of bubbles in polytropic gas-liquid systems is proposed. The algorithm is based on a conservative finite-volume discretization with collocated variable arrangement, in which the discretized governing equations are solved in a single linear system of equations for pressure and velocity. Density is described by the polytropic Noble-Abel stiffened-gas model and the interface between the interacting bulk phases is captured by a state-of-the-art algebraic Volume-of-Fluid (VOF) method. The new numerical algorithm is validated using representative test-cases of the interaction of acoustic waves with the gas-liquid interface as well as pressure-driven bubble dynamics in infinite and confined domains, showing excellent agreement of the results obtained with the proposed algorithm compared to linear acoustic theory, the Gilmore model and high-fidelity experiments. Full article

Calanoid copepods have two swimming gaits, namely cruise swimming that is propelled by the beating of the cephalic feeding appendages and short-lasting jumps that are propelled by the power strokes of the four or five pairs of thoracal swimming legs. The latter may be 100 times faster than the former, and the required forces and power production are consequently much larger. Here, we estimated the magnitude and size scaling of swimming speed, leg beat frequency, forces, power requirements, and energetics of these two propulsion modes. We used data from the literature together with new data to estimate forces by two different approaches in 37 species of calanoid copepods: the direct measurement of forces produced by copepods attached to a tensiometer and the indirect estimation of forces from swimming speed or acceleration in combination with experimentally estimated drag coefficients. Depending on the approach, we found that the propulsive forces, both for cruise swimming and escape jumps, scaled with prosome length (L) to a power between 2 and 3. We further found that power requirements scales for both type of swimming as L³. Finally, we found that the cost of transportation (i.e., calories per unit body mass and distance transported) was higher for swimming-by-jumping than for cruise swimming by a factor of 7 for large copepods but only a factor of 3 for small ones. This may explain why only small cyclopoid copepods can afford this hydrodynamically stealthy transportation mode as their routine, while large copepods are cruise swimmers. Full article

We investigate and compare soliton turbulence appearing as a result of modulational instability of the homogeneous wave train in three nonlinear models for surface gravity waves: the nonlinear Schrödinger equation, the super compact Zakharov equation, and the fully nonlinear equations written in conformal variables. We show that even at a low level of energy and average wave steepness, the wave dynamics in the nonlinear Schrödinger equation fundamentally differ from the dynamics in more accurate models. We study energy losses of wind waves due to their breaking for large values of total energy in the super compact Zakharov equation and in the exact equations and show that in both models, the wave system loses 50% of energy very slowly, during few days. Full article

The paper presents the long-time dynamics with multiple collisions of breathers in the super compact Zakharov equation for unidirectional deep water waves. Solutions in the form of breathers were found numerically by the Petviashvili method. In the terms of envelope and the assumption of the narrow spectral width the super compact equation turns into the well known exact integrable model—nonlinear Schrödinger equation, and the breather solution in this case turns into envelope soliton. The results of numerical simulations show that two main scenarios of long-time dynamics occur during numerous collisions of breathers. In the first case, one of the breathers regularly takes a number of particles from the other one at each collision and in the second one a structure resembling the bi-soliton solution of nonlinear Schrödinger equation arises during the collision. Despite these scenarios, it is shown that after numerous collisions the only one breather having initially a larger number of particles remains. Full article

The proposed research takes place in the framework of the analysis of the mechanical consequences of accidental scenarios for pressurized water reactors (PWR). It is particularly dedicated to the effects of the propagation of a transverse rarefaction wave through the assemblies of the nuclear core, consecutive to a pipe break in the primary circuit of the reactor. This paper focuses on the representation, with a reduced number of well-chosen variables, of a pressure wave propagating through a highly congested medium composed of rod bundles, with the primary objective of accurately evaluating the resulting pressure forces exerted on the rods. To achieve this goal, a description of the fluid domain as a homogenized or porous medium is introduced, yielding the need for a new filtering technique to be applied to the fluid fields. A new homogenized and multiscale representation of the fluid variables, based on continuous wavelet transform (CWT), is thus proposed. The capabilities of CWT to accurately approximate a reference representative unsteady pressure field, corresponding to a wave propagation at microscale, is assessed. The proposed technique is applied to a pressure field obtained numerically at local scale. The number of variables that shall be kept at macroscale to have a meaningful representation of the pressure field is fully evaluated through the comparison of the fluid force applied to the microstructure. Full article

The classic oceanographic problem of a 1.5-layer western boundary current evolving along a straight wall is considered. Here, building upon the previous work of Charney, Huang and Kamenkovich, we have derived, solved and validated a new numerical formulation for accounting for viscous effects in such systems. The numerical formulation is validated against rotating table experimental results. Full article