Assessing the wall effects of packed concentric cylinders and angular walls on granular bed porosity

The effect of added wall support on granular bed porosity is systematically studied to elucidate performance enhancements in filtration processes achieved by using inserts, as demonstrated experimentally (Bandelt Riess et al. in Chem Eng Technol 2018, 2021). Packed beds of spheres are simulated through discrete element method in cylinders with different internal wall configurations. Three containing systems are generated: concentric cylinders, angular walls, and a combination of both. Variations of particle size and wall friction and thickness are also considered, and the resulting granular bed porosities are analyzed. The porosity increase is proportional to the incorporated wall support; the combination of cylindrical and angular inserts displays the greatest effect (up to 26% increase). The sinusoidal porosity values near the walls are exhibited to clarify the effects. The presented method can change and evaluate granular bed porosity increments, which could lead to filtration process improvements, and the obtained behaviors and profiles can be used to explore additional effects and further systems. Graphical abstract

Assessment of Abrasion-Induced Visual Defects in Twin Screw Wet Granulation Using Wall Friction Measurements

Starting point of the presented study were abrasion effects occurring during a twin screw wet granulation (TSG) process of a new chemical entity (NCE) formulation, resulting in gray spots on the final tablets. Several actions and systematic changes of equipment and process parameter settings of TSG process were conducted which reduced the visual defect rate of the tablets, i.e., gray spots on the surface, below the specification limit. To understand the rationale and mechanism behind these improvements, correlations of defect rates and wall friction measurements using a Schulze ring shear tester were evaluated. To check the suitability of the method, a broad range of wall materials as well as powder formulations at various moisture levels were investigated with regard to their wall friction angle. As differences in wall friction angle could be detected, further experiments were conducted using wall material samples made out of different screw materials for TSG. Evaluation of these screw wall material samples gave first hints, which screw materials should be preferred in regard of friction for TSG process. In the finally presented case study, wall friction measurements were performed using the above mentioned NCE formulation with known abrasion issues at TSG processing. The results confirmed that changes which led to a reduced visual defect rate of tablets correlated with a decreased wall friction angle. The results suggest wall friction measurements as a potent tool for equipment selection and establishment of a suitable process window prior to conducting TSG experiments. Graphical abstract

Particle motion in mixed flow dryers

Differences in flow rates of this nature have a significant effect on the unevenness of the moisture content of the dried material, since the material which remains in the drying chamber for an unnecessarily long time is over-dried and the under-drying is a problem for the material remaining in the dryer for too short a time. In this article, I analyzed the effect of increasing particle-wall friction on the unevenness of the particle flow velocity field. The research has shown that dead zones are formed in the vicinity of the rough walls, which reduce the uniformity of the flow. The results show that the tribological properties of the inner wall surfaces of the dryers can have a very significant effect on the efficient operation of the dryers.

Impact of nanoparticle shape on magnetohydrodynamic stagnation-point flow of Carreau nanoliquid: A comparative study

In this paper, a numerical computational work is carried out to investigate the significance of nanoparticle shape on magnetohydrodynamic stagnation-point flow of Carreau nanoliquid caused by a horizontally moving thin needle. The drive and thermal transport nature of Ti6Al4V+Ethylene glycol nanoliquid under the stimulus of space-dependent heat source and magnetized force is discussed numerically. The novelty of this work is to obtain the simultaneous solutions for three different shapes of nanoparticles namely spherical, cylindrical and laminar. The flow governing partial differential equations are transformed into ordinary differential equations with appropriate similarity variables and solved numerically by using Runge–Kutta and Newton's approach. Numerical outcomes of velocity and thermal distributions under the influence of different physical parameters are illustrated via graphical trends, wall friction and rate of heat transfer are interpreted using tabular values. It reveals from results that the thermal transfer performance of the Carreau nanoliquid is advanced when spherical shaped nanoparticles are used as compared with cylindrical and laminar-shaped nanoparticles. Also, it is witnessed that needle thickness parameter plays vital role in augmenting thermal transport rate of the nanoliquid.

Dust Eruptions

<p>We present a new model for the fragmentation of dust beds in laboratory shock tube experiments. The model successfully explains the formation of layers in the bed using mass and momentum conservation. Our model includes the effect of wall friction, inherent cohesion, and gravitational overburden. We find that the pressure changes caused by the expansion wave take time to penetrate into the bed, while simultaneously increasing in magnitude. By the time the pressure difference is large enough to overcome wall friction, the overburden and the intrinsic cohesion of the bed, it has penetrated ~8-15 bead diameters into the bed, thus causing a layer of dust to be lifted off. We have found the dependence of layer size upon bead diameter and found a good match to experiment. We have also predicted the dependence of layer size and fragmentation time on bead density.</p>

Dust Eruptions

<p>We present a new model for the fragmentation of dust beds in laboratory shock tube experiments. The model successfully explains the formation of layers in the bed using mass and momentum conservation. Our model includes the effect of wall friction, inherent cohesion, and gravitational overburden. We find that the pressure changes caused by the expansion wave take time to penetrate into the bed, while simultaneously increasing in magnitude. By the time the pressure difference is large enough to overcome wall friction, the overburden and the intrinsic cohesion of the bed, it has penetrated ~8-15 bead diameters into the bed, thus causing a layer of dust to be lifted off. We have found the dependence of layer size upon bead diameter and found a good match to experiment. We have also predicted the dependence of layer size and fragmentation time on bead density.</p>

A systematic approach for developing mechanistic models for realistic simulation of cancer cell motion and deformation

Understanding and predicting metastatic progression and developing novel diagnostic methods can highly benefit from accurate models of the deformability of cancer cells. Spring-based network models of cells can provide a versatile way of integrating deforming cancer cells with other physical and biochemical phenomena, but these models have parameters that need to be accurately identified. In this study we established a systematic method for identifying parameters of spring-network models of cancer cells. We developed a genetic algorithm and coupled it to the fluid–solid interaction model of the cell, immersed in blood plasma or other fluids, to minimize the difference between numerical and experimental data of cell motion and deformation. We used the method to create a validated model for the human lung cancer cell line (H1975), employing existing experimental data of its deformation in a narrow microchannel constriction considering cell-wall friction. Furthermore, using this validated model with accurately identified parameters, we studied the details of motion and deformation of the cancer cell in the microchannel constriction and the effects of flow rates on them. We found that ignoring the viscosity of the cell membrane and the friction between the cell and wall can introduce remarkable errors.

Impacts of Thermal Conductivity and Variable Viscosity on the Dissipative Heat and Species Transport of MHD Flow in Porous Media

The investigation of dissipative heat and species diffusion of a conducting liquid under the combined influence of buoyancy forces in a moving plate is examined in the existence of magnetic field. The flowing liquid heat conductivity and viscosity are taken to be linearly varied as a temperature function. The governing derivative equations of the problem are changed to anon-linear coupled ordinary derivative equations by applying similarity quantities. The dimensionless model is solved using shooting technique along with the Runge-Kutta method. The outcomes for the flow wall friction, heat gradient and species wall gradient are offered in table and qualitatively explained. The study revealed that the Newtonian fluid viscosity can be enhanced by increasing the fluid flow medium porosity and the magnetic field strength. Hence, the study will improve the industrial usage of Newtonian working fluid.