scholarly journals Importance of Body Stance in Fog Droplet Collection by the Namib Desert Beetle

Biomimetics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Unmeelan Chakrabarti ◽  
Roberto Paoli ◽  
Souvick Chatterjee ◽  
Constantine M. Megaridis

The fog-basking behavior of the Onymacris unguicularis, a beetle species living in the coastal regions of the Namibian desert, has recently caught the attention of the engineering community, as suggesting a viable biomimetic approach to address the problem of harvesting water in arid regions of the globe. Previous research has focused on observation and analysis of the beetle’s elytron properties and how these affect fog-collection rates. The head stance taken by the Onymacris unguicularis when fog basking is well documented. However, how this stance affects droplet collection has not been studied up to now. The present paper addresses this problem from a computational fluid dynamics perspective, where three-dimensional numerical simulations are used to characterize the fog flow properties around a simplified geometry mimicking the beetle’s body. The simulations employ two-way coupling between the gas flow and the dispersed fog phase to account for feedback effects of fog droplets on the carrier fluid (air), and assume that droplets are captured after hitting the elytron surface. The study considers several combinations of free-stream velocity and droplet volume fraction. The analysis reveals that there is a range of head-stance angles, corresponding to an inclination of the beetle between 35 deg and 45 deg with respect to the horizon, that maximizes water collection on the beetle’s back, in qualitative agreement with observations in nature and laboratory experiments. A rationale is proposed to explain this phenomenon, finding that the specific head stance corresponds to the maximum residence time of fluid particles above the beetle’s elytron surface. This, in turn, designates the maximum likelihood for water droplets to be captured in the boundary layer developing over the beetle and subsequently hit the surface where they get captured. The results reveal the importance of the fluid flow pattern around the beetle’s body in addition to the microphysical properties of the elytron when reliable predictions of the water droplet collection efficiency are sought.

2020 ◽  
Vol 245 ◽  
pp. 105123
Author(s):  
Danilo Carvajal ◽  
Luis Silva-Llanca ◽  
Dante Larraguibel ◽  
Bastián González

Volume 1 ◽  
2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. A. Williams ◽  
D. M. Snider ◽  
J. R. Torczynski ◽  
S. M. Trujillo ◽  
T. J. O’Hern

The commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code Arena-flow is used to simulate the transient, three-dimensional flow in a gas-solid riser at Sandia National Laboratories. Arena-flow uses a multiphase particle-in-cell (MP-PIC) numerical method. The gas flow is treated in an Eulerian manner, and the particle flow is represented in a Lagrangian manner by large numbers of discrete particle clouds with distributions of particle properties. Simulations are performed using the experimental values of the gas superficial velocity and the solids mass flux in the riser. Fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) particles are investigated. The experimental and computed pressure and solid-volume-fraction distributions are compared and found to be in reasonable agreement although the experimental results exhibit more variation along the height of the riser than the computational results do. An extensive study is performed to assess the sensitivity of the computational results to a wide range of physical and numerical parameters. The computational results are seen to be robust. Thus, the uncertainties in these parameters cannot account for the differences between the experimental and computational results.


Author(s):  
Fazia Aiche ◽  
Salah Belaadi ◽  
Adel Lalaoua ◽  
Abdallah Sofiane Berrouk ◽  
Abdelwahid Azzi

Fluidized beds are widely used in many industrial processes as they ensure the desirable high-intensity heat and mass transfers between gas and particles and offer the possibility to perform operations in a continuous mode and powders recycling. Some of these industrial processes use Geldart D type of powders and operate in the slugging mode. This paper presents a 3 D numerical model of gas-solid flows in a fluidized bed based on the Two-Fluid Model (TFM). Turbulence modeling (k- ε) was used to predict flow behavior in fluidized bed of Geldart D particles. The solid phase consists of Geldart D powders and the gas flow is in a slug regime. The numerical results are validated against the experimental work of Azzi et al. Model predictions on flow patterns, bed expansion, volume fraction time series and pressure drop fluctuations are presented and discussed in details in order to demonstrate the cyclic process of slug formation (onset, growth, rising and bursting of slugs) and its effects on the overall performance of beds fluidizing Geldart D type of powders.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Li ◽  
Ranjiangshang Ran ◽  
Haihuan Wang ◽  
Yuchen Wang ◽  
You Chen ◽  
...  

AbstractTo address the global water shortage crisis, one of the promising solutions is to collect freshwater from the environmental resources such as fog. However, the efficiency of conventional fog collectors remains low due to the viscous drag of fog-laden wind deflected around the collecting surface. Here, we show that the three-dimensional and centimetric kirigami structures can control the wind flow, forming quasi-stable counter-rotating vortices. The vortices regulate the trajectories of incoming fog clusters and eject extensive droplets to the substrate. As the characteristic structural length is increased to the size of vortices, we greatly reduce the dependence of fog collection on the structural delicacy. Together with gravity-directed gathering by the folds, the kirigami fog collector yields a collection efficiency of 16.1% at a low wind speed of 0.8 m/s and is robust against surface characteristics. The collection efficiency is maintained even on a 1 m2 collector in an outdoor setting.


Author(s):  
B. Ralph ◽  
A.R. Jones

In all fields of microscopy there is an increasing interest in the quantification of microstructure. This interest may stem from a desire to establish quality control parameters or may have a more fundamental requirement involving the derivation of parameters which partially or completely define the three dimensional nature of the microstructure. This latter categorey of study may arise from an interest in the evolution of microstructure or from a desire to generate detailed property/microstructure relationships. In the more fundamental studies some convolution of two-dimensional data into the third dimension (stereological analysis) will be necessary.In some cases the two-dimensional data may be acquired relatively easily without recourse to automatic data collection and further, it may prove possible to perform the data reduction and analysis relatively easily. In such cases the only recourse to machines may well be in establishing the statistical confidence of the resultant data. Such relatively straightforward studies tend to result from acquiring data on the whole assemblage of features making up the microstructure. In this field data mode, when parameters such as phase volume fraction, mean size etc. are sought, the main case for resorting to automation is in order to perform repetitive analyses since each analysis is relatively easily performed.


1983 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. BALAKRISHNAN ◽  
C. LOMBARD ◽  
W.C. DAVY

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chenyi Su ◽  
Xingqi Xu ◽  
Jinghua Huang ◽  
Bailiang Pan

Abstract Considering the thermodynamical fluid mechanics in the gain medium and laser kinetic processes, a three-dimensional theoretical model of an exciplex-pumped Cs vapor laser with longitudinal and transverse gas flow is established. The slope efficiency of laser calculated by the model shows good agreement with the experimental data. The comprehensive three-dimensional distribution of temperature and particle density of Cs is depicted. The influence of pump intensity, wall temperature, and fluid velocity on the laser output performance is also simulated and analyzed in detail, suggesting that a higher wall temperature can guarantee a higher output laser power while causing a more significant heat accumulation in the cell. Compared with longitudinal gas flow, the transverse flow can improve the output laser power by effectively removing the generated heat accumulation and alleviating the temperature gradient in the cell.


1997 ◽  
Vol 3 (S2) ◽  
pp. 305-306
Author(s):  
David W. Piston

Two-photon excitation microscopy (TPEM) provides attractive advantages over confocal microscopy for three-dimensionally resolved fluorescence imaging and photochemistry. It provides three-dimensional resolution and eliminates background equivalent to an ideal confocal microscope without requiring a confocal spatial filter, whose absence enhances fluorescence collection efficiency. This results in inherent submicron optical sectioning by excitation alone. In practice, TPEM is made possible by the very high local instantaneous intensity provided by a combination of diffraction-limited focusing of a single laser beam in the microscope and the temporal concentration of 100 femtosecond pulses generated by a mode-locked laser. Resultant peak excitation intensities are 106 times greater than the CW intensities used in confocal microscopy, but the pulse duty cycle of 10−5 limits the average input power to less than 10 mW, only slightly greater than the power normally used in confocal microscopy. Because of the intensity-squared dependence of the two-photon absorption, the excitation is limited to the focal volume.


2021 ◽  
pp. 152808372110013
Author(s):  
Vivek R Jayan ◽  
Lekhani Tripathi ◽  
Promoda Kumar Behera ◽  
Michal Petru ◽  
BK Behera

The internal geometry of composite material is one of the most important factors that influence its performance and service life. A new approach is proposed for the prediction of internal geometry and tensile behavior of the 3 D (three dimensional) woven fabrics by creating the unit cell using mathematical coding. In many technical applications, textile materials are subjected to rates of loading or straining that may be much greater in magnitude than the regular household applications of these materials. The main aim of this study is to provide a generalized method for all the structures. By mathematical coding, unit cells of 3 D woven orthogonal, warp interlock and angle interlock structures have been created. The study then focuses on developing code to analyze the geometrical parameters of the fabric like fabric thickness, areal density, and fiber volume fraction. Then, the tensile behavior of the coded 3 D structures is studied in Ansys platform and the results are compared with experimental values for authentication of geometrical parameters as well as for tensile behavior. The results show that the mathematical coding approach is a more efficient modeling technique with an acceptable error percentage.


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