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Amphibious vehicles, as a new type of aquatic and terrestrial transport platform, are increasingly involved in the existing transportation system. Resistance is a key factor that affects the efficiency and energy consumption of vehicles in aquatic sailing. Resistance reduction optimization design is a focal point and challenge in the design process of amphibious vehicles. In this paper, a resistance performance optimization method has been proposed based on neural networks and genetic algorithms. First, key parameters for the shape design are extracted based on a thorough understanding of the vehicle's performance. These parameters are used to construct a parameterized design space. Second, a training set is obtained based on the Latin hypercube sampling method and numerical calculation methods, and a test set is randomly generated. To achieve better resistance prediction performance, a method based on the genetic algorithm-optimized backpropagation Neural Network is proposed. Next, the resistance performance of the two operating conditions is optimized through the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II, and optimized configuration parameters are obtained, which has a 22.71% energy-saving ratio at cruising speed. Finally, the optimized configuration is analyzed using numerical calculation methods to validate the resistance prediction and optimization methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Present paper numerically investigates the effect of injection strategy and start of injection (SOI) timing on in-cylinder flow, air–fuel mixing, fuel distribution near spark plug, engine performance, and exhaust emissions for highly stratified methanol-fueled, multi-injection, direct injection spark ignition engine having high compression ratio. SOI is kept constant at −23° crank angle (CA) after top dead center (ATDC) with a spark timing (ST) of −2° crank angle (CA) ATDC. Mass of fuel is divided into pilot and main injection ports having pilot to main fuel injection mass ratio of 1:1, 1:2, and 1:3 at 0° and 2° dwell times between main and pilot injections. As the quantity of fuel in main injection increases, pressure rise rate increases, which results in higher in-cylinder pressure and higher rate of burning that gives higher apparent heat release. Due to higher peak pressure rise rate and faster burning in the case of 2° crank angle (CA) dwell time, shorter combustion duration is achieved compared to 0° crank angle (CA) dwell time. In the case of multi-injection, faster burning rate enhanced in-cylinder temperature; therefore, nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions are higher. Pilot to main fuel mass ratio of 1:3 has resulted highest indicated thermal efficiency, lowest specific fuel consumption, lowest soot, and carbon monoxide (CO) emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In previous research on energy harvesting from vortex-induced vibrations (VIVs), the cross section of the structure commonly utilizes basic geometric shapes like circular, ellipse, square, and semicircle. Nevertheless, exploring optimized shapes for energy harvesting from VIV remains an understudied area. To address this gap, this paper employs adjoint-based unsteady shape optimization to increase the efficiency of energy harvesting from VIV of a circular cylinder at low Reynolds numbers. The goal of the optimization is to maximize the plunge-damping derivative of a single-degree-of-freedom transversely vibrating cylinder, which represents the rate of energy injected into the structure by the flow. To facilitate this process, an efficient method to evaluate the gradient of the objective function with respect to shape parameters is provided via the proposed unsteady discrete adjoint method. Results show that, through optimization, the low-pressure region behind the cylinder is significantly enlarged and the separation points move forward, resulting in the faster development of separation vortex and reduced stability of the fluid–structure coupling system. As a consequence, the intensity of VIV as well as the corresponding power generation efficiency is remarkably enhanced, accompanied by a notable expansion in the energy harvesting region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Salinity gradient power generation based on nanochannels has drawn much attention for its green and sustainable advantages. However, previous studies have tended to focus on regularly shaped nanochannels, while rough and irregular surfaces are naturally formed during the preparation of nanochannels (similar to sinusoidal nanochannels). In this paper, a model of salinity gradient energy conversion in sinusoidal nanochannels is established. The impacts of the geometrical parameter dimensions of the sinusoidal channel (including initial phase, channel length, average radius, amplitude, and angular frequency) on the power generation performance under different salinity gradients are systematically investigated. The results show that the sinusoidal nanochannel has better salinity gradient power generation performance than cylindrical nanochannel. It obtains the best power generation performance when the initial phase is zero. Besides, increasing the nanochannel length facilitates ion selectivity and energy conversion efficiency. At high concentration difference, decreasing the average radius or increasing the amplitude help increase the maximum output power and enhance the energy conversion efficiency. The maximum output power of about 1.27 pW and energy conversion efficiency of about 32.8% were obtained by optimizing the sinusoidal channel amplitudes. It is also found that increasing the angular frequency is favorable to improving energy conversion performance at the high concentration difference. These results provide helpful information for designing and optimizing salinity gradient energy conversion systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cavity-assisted scramjet has been proven to be the most promising propulsion system for air-breathing hypersonic vehicles. In this paper, numerical simulations of a Mach 8 axisymmetric scramjet combustor are conducted and validated to investigate the effect of the cavity. The results indicate that the combustion state undergoes significant changes as the combustion heat release increases. Detailed analysis reveals that the role of the cavity in flame stabilization and combustion enhancement also changes with combustion heat release. Under weak heat release conditions, the high-speed environment results in reduced combustion efficiency, and the primary role of the cavity is to stabilize the flame. Increasing the cavity size does not yield significant gains but could bring redundant mass. As heat release intensifies, the combustion enhancement effect of the cavity becomes more prominent. The presence of the cavity dramatically improves fuel combustion efficiency. The distribution of supersonic and subsonic combustion modes, as well as that of premixed and diffusion combustion modes, is also affected by cavity size and combustion heat release. In the engineering development of scramjets, it is suggested that the design of the cavity flameholder should involve careful consideration of combustion heat release. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper concerns virus droplet simulations in a typical cruiser's cabin. Effects of ventilation rates and positions of the coughing person were investigated. The study also emphasizes the importance of including evaporation models to simulate the process accurately. A higher ventilation rate is not always the best strategy to avoid the spread of airborne diseases, as saliva droplets can spread further at high ventilation rates. Regardless of the ventilation strategy, they evaporate faster than the room's air renewal. One should aim for minimum droplet spreading inside the cabin and different ventilation strategies for occupied cabins. The authors propose using ventilation systems at medium flow rates of around 120 m3/h or three air changes per hour when a cabin is occupied. This value is also close to the recommended value of 108 m3/h from the latest standard by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers. The suggested value minimizes droplet spreading while maintaining good ventilation, comfort, and energy consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effervescent atomization is widely used in industrial, agricultural, and national defense fields because of its low energy consumption. Quality improvement to spray has been pursued for decades as an important goal without increasing energy consumption. To investigate the relationship between the internal flow and spray characteristic, a swirl effervescent atomizer coupled with a wire mesh was designed in this paper. The effect of wire mesh on spray characteristics and internal flow with different structural parameters was investigated. The experimental results showed that the spray quality (small droplet diameter and stable atomization) was improved by installing a wire mesh in the mixing chamber. The droplet diameter decreased first and then increased with the increase in the effective porosity of the wire mesh, and Sauter mean diameter decreased from 23.1 to 20 μm. Moreover, this study adopts the simulation to explore the influence of bubble size on the spray droplet in the mixing chamber. The simulation results showed that as the effective porosity of the wire mesh increases, the proportion of small-scale bubbles (the bubble diameter Db ≤ 1 mm) increased from 11.3% to 83.37%, resulting in reduced spray droplet diameter. Notably, the number of small-scale bubbles increases first and then decreases, and the mean pressure drops decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many fish propel themselves using wave-like lateral flexion of their body and tail in the water. The undulatory body is driven by the distributed muscles, and locomotion is achieved by internal muscular stimulation and the external action of the fluid. As one of the material properties, the stiffness of the body being propelled plays an important role in the deformation process, especially for the muscle power input and phase lag. In this paper, a three-dimensional self-propelled elongated body model is employed to numerically investigate the effects of stiffness on the propulsion performance, including the forward speed, energy consumption, and energy-utilization ratio. According to various deformation characteristics and energy-utilization ratios, three deformation modes corresponding to high, medium, and low stiffness are identified. Our results indicate that a deforming body with medium stiffness has the highest efficiency, and its corresponding deformation is closest to that of fish in nature. When the stiffness of the fish body is higher than the normal level, more muscle energy is needed to sustain the tail beating of the same amplitude. A lower level of stiffness produces a more obvious phase lag in the fish body, which might lead to slow control responses. We also show that the stiffness of the fish body affects the scaling relationship between the swimming speed and the tail beating velocity. The upper and lower limits of the scaling exponent correspond to high and low levels of stiffness, respectively, and are also affected by the wavelength of the muscle contraction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article continues our cycle devoted to comprehensive investigation of the diatomic molecule collision process. In this paper, we focus particularly on the in-depth study of the rotational–translational (R–T) energy exchange process and Borgnakke–Larsen (BL) energy exchange model used in the direct simulation Monte Carlo method. The present study, which was performed on several levels of description (molecular, microscopic, and macroscopic), is based mainly on the highly detailed dataset (around 1011 configurations) of binary N2–N2 collisions, obtained via the classical trajectory calculation (CTC) method. This dataset, along with the explicit mathematical representation of the Borgnakke–Larsen model derived in the present paper, allowed us to obtain new results regarding the R–T energy exchange process: (1) we present an ab initio method to derive physically accurate expressions for inelastic collision probability pr in the BL model directly from CTC data; (2) we present a new two-parametric model for pr and compared it to the previously known models, including the recent nonequilibrium-direction-dependent model of Zhang et al. ["Nonequilibrium-direction-dependent rotational energy model for use in continuum and stochastic molecular simulation," AIAA J. 52(3), 604 (2014)]; (3) it showed that apart from the well-known dependence of the rotational relaxation rate on "direction to equilibrium" (ratio between translational and rotational temperatures), on molecular scale, rotationally over-excited molecule pairs demonstrate almost zero energy transfer to the translational energy mode (even in the case of very significant discrepancies between translational and rotational energies); (4) it was also shown that the Borgnakke–Larsen approach itself may require reassessment since it fails to give a proper description of distribution of post-collision energies. Throughout this paper, we also tried to put together and analyze the existing works studying the rotational relaxation process and estimating the rotational collision number Zrot by performing reviews and assessment of (1) numerical approaches to simulate non-equilibrium problems, (2) models for inelastic collision probabilities pr, (3) approaches to estimate Zrot, and (4) intermolecular potentials used for molecular dynamics and CTC simulations. The corresponding conclusions are given in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coalescence-induced droplet jumping on superhydrophobic surfaces has attracted significant attention in recent years. In this paper, by using a three-dimensional multiphase lattice Boltzmann model, we numerically investigated the droplet jumping on V-shaped groove superhydrophobic surfaces induced by the coalescence between two droplets located in the asymmetric V-shaped groove. First, it is found that the self-jumping process gradually becomes inefficient when the groove angle decreased, which is caused by the increasing viscous dissipation with the decrease in the groove angle. In order to overcome the weakness of the V-shaped superhydrophobic surface and enhance the droplet jumping performance, an improved V-shaped superhydrophobic surface with a triangular prism was conceived. Numerical results showed that the normalized jumping velocity and the energy conversion efficiency of the V-shaped superhydrophobic surface with a triangular prism can be increased by up to 80% and 210%, respectively, in comparison with those of the surface without the triangular prism. The jumping enhancement mainly arises from the combined effect of the redirection of the expanding liquid bridge by the V-shaped sidewalls, as well as the earlier and sufficient impact of the liquid bridge on the triangular prism in the groove. Moreover, using the improved V-shaped superhydrophobic surface, a guided jumping can be achieved due to the reaction forces exerted by the V-shaped sidewalls and the triangular prism, and the jumping angle can be more accurately predicted based on the groove angle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main aim of this paper is to analyze the effects of the heave motion of an elastically supported floating oscillating water column device (OWC) on wave energy harvesting efficiency through two-dimensional computational fluid dynamics simulations. After the numerical model is validated using experimental data, it is used to analyze the effect of the natural frequency ratio on the hydrodynamic efficiency of the OWC. The natural frequency ratio is the ratio of the natural frequency to the wave frequency. The numerical results prove that the natural frequency ratio must be greater than 3 for achieving the best hydrodynamic efficiency. The best hydrodynamic efficiency decreases with the decrease in the natural frequency ratio when the latter is 3. If the natural frequency ratio is smaller than 3, both the amplitudes of wave surface elevation and the displacement of the OWC chamber increase but the harvested energy reduces because the relative motion of the wave surface and the OWC device is small. The energy dissipation due to vortices does not have a strong contribution to the reduction of energy at small natural frequencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, a pair of sweeping jet actuators is installed underneath the endplate of a slanted-base cylinder at ReD = 200 000. The sweeping jets form a 30° inclined angle with the endplate and are placed at different streamwise locations, and their strength is varied with a momentum coefficient, Cμ, ranging from 3.8 × 10−3 to 6.0 × 10−2. For all the cases examined in this paper, it is found that while a higher Cμ produces a higher drag reduction, the flow control energy efficiency decreases rapidly as Cμ increases. A net energy saving is achieved when Cμ is less than 0.01, and the highest energy efficiency obtained in the present study is 2.8% when the actuator pair is placed at the most upstream location tested. The drag reduction is attributed to the reaction force and an increase in the surface pressure force acting on the endplate produced by the jet pair. The contribution from the former constitutes an increasing proportion of the total drag reduction as Cμ increases leading to lower energy efficiency in flow control. Depending on the relative positions between the trajectory of the sweeping jet and afterbody vortex, sweeping jets are not only capable of altering the surface pressure distributions via directly imposing a footprint of high pressure on the surface, but also affecting the roll-up of the afterbody vortex and/or reducing its strength via injecting turbulence into the afterbody vortex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural gas stored in source rocks has become a significant contributor to supply the energy demand. Source rocks are a special subclass of sedimentary rocks where the matrix serves as both the source and the reservoir at the same time. Attributed to their complex mineralogy and multi-scale pore systems, source rocks exhibit transport and storage processes that are not within the continuum framework. Significant portion of source rocks pores is of few nanometers in size. These nanopores offer large surface area to host hydrocarbons in the free and sorbed forms. Our ability to model the mechanisms by which hydrocarbons are stored and transported is, however, at infancy stages. In this paper, representative organic nanopores were formed from kerogen at different thermal maturation states. Free molecular diffusion was found to be the dominant mechanisms based on the calculated Knudsen number. Furthermore, diffusivity analysis was performed using molecular dynamics for some range of pressure that is typically encountered during the production span. The results revealed some deviation of the diffusivity coefficient from the value calculated theoretically. The deviation was even more pronounced for the post-mature case. The gap between the theoretically calculated and molecularly simulated diffusivity coefficients was found to reduce with increasing the pressure and the pore size. The sorption and diffusion data were coupled to redefine the mean free path for gas transport in organic nanopores. The reported values can serve as input for better description of the hydrocarbons transport in source rocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The energy conversion efficiency (the ratio of the maximum jumping kinetic energy to the maximum surface energy released from droplet coalescence) is an essential indicator of the self-propelled jumping of droplets, which determines its value for applications in various fields. In the practical condensation process, the initial states of the multidroplets with different sizes and distributions have a significant effect on the energy conversion efficiency, but the mechanism behind this effect remains unclear. This paper reveals the effect of the initial states of droplets on the energy conversion efficiency of multidroplet jumping (mainly three droplets) from the perspective of energy conversion and the internal flow of the merged droplets. Different initial states will lead to different flow directions of the liquid microclusters inside the merged droplets. The consistency between the flow direction and the jumping direction will affect the energy conversion efficiency. To characterize this effect quantitatively, we construct a machine learning model based on a convolutional neural network to predict the energy conversion efficiency of multidroplet jumping with different initial distribution angles and radius ratios. The input of the neural network is the images of the initial state of the droplets, and the output is the energy conversion efficiency. After training, the neural network can predict the energy conversion efficiency of multidroplet jumping with an arbitrary initial state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, the rotational diffusivity of the coronavirus particle in suspension was calculated, from first principles, using general rigid bead-rod theory [M. A. Kanso, Phys. Fluids 32, 113101 (2020)]. We did so by beading the capsid and then also by replacing each of its bulbous spikes with a single bead. However, each coronavirus spike is a glycoprotein trimer, and each spike bulb is triangular. In this work, we replace each bulbous coronavirus spike with a bead triplet, where each bead of the triplet is charged identically. This paper, thus, explores the role of bulb triangularity on the rotational diffusivity, an effect not previously considered. We thus use energy minimization for the spreading of triangular bulbs over the spherical capsid. The latter both translates and twists the coronavirus spikes relative to one another, and we then next arrive at the rotational diffusivity of the coronavirus particle in suspension, from first principles. We learn that the triangularity of the coronavirus spike bulb decreases its rotational diffusivity. For a typical peplomer population of 74, bulb triangularity decreases the rotational diffusivity by 39 %. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we systematically investigate the feasibility of different extremum-seeking (ES) control and optimization schemes to improve the conversion efficiency of wave energy converters (WECs). Continuous-time and model-free ES schemes based on the sliding mode, relay, least-squares gradient, self-driving, and perturbation-based methods are used to improve the mean extracted power of a heaving point absorber subject to regular and irregular waves. This objective is achieved by optimizing the resistive and reactive coefficients of the power take-off (PTO) mechanism using the ES approach. The optimization results are verified against analytical solutions and the extremum of reference-to-output maps. The numerical results demonstrate that except for the self-driving ES algorithm, the other four ES schemes reliably converge for the two-parameter optimization problem, whereas the former is more suitable for optimizing a single parameter. The results also show that for an irregular sea state, the sliding mode and perturbation-based ES schemes have better convergence to the optimum in comparison to other ES schemes considered here. The convergence of PTO coefficients toward the performance-optimal values is tested for widely different initial values in order to avoid bias toward the extremum. We also demonstrate the adaptive capability of ES control by considering a case in which the ES controller adapts to the new extremum automatically amid changes in the simulated wave conditions. Moreover, no explicit knowledge of (future) wave excitation forces is required in the algorithm, which implies that the model-free ES can be used as a causal controller for WECs. Our results demonstrate that the continuous-time and model-free ES method achieves the optimum within a single simulation, which is in contrast to evolution-based optimization strategies that typically require a large number of (possibly expensive) function evaluations. This makes ES control optimization schemes suitable for nonlinear computational fluid dynamics simulations, where typically evolutionary strategies are used for performing black-box optimization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a new model-free control approach applied to a dynamical fluidic system. The main objective is to evaluate the ability of this closed-loop control technique to control the bistability of a turbulent wake flow past to a square-back Ahmed body. This bistable behavior occurs for some configurations depending mainly on the ground clearance. Due to the unsteady position of the wake vortex cores, the bistable phenomenon is responsible of a strong variation of the lateral force (drift force) and of a slight drag increase. Consequently, mitigating the wake symmetry-breaking modes can induce a substantial drag reduction. The feedback controller controls the drift using its ultralocal approximation and the estimation of its dynamics. The control signal is then applied to lateral blower actuators to suppress the spanwise bistability. The drift force is used as feedback to sense the wake flow, and concomitant velocity, forces, and pressure measurements are performed at a nominal Reynolds number of Reh = 2.86 × 105 to quantify and demonstrate the effectiveness of the present closed-loop control. Results show that for various actuation velocity ratios, the bistability suppression can lead to a drag reduction up to 2.5% with an energy consumption evaluated to be less than 0.6% of the aerodynamic power saving for the worst investigated case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The inertia plays a significant role in the response of a system undergoing flowinduced vibrations, which has been extensively investigated by previous researchers. However, the inertial effects of an energy harvester employing the mechanism of flow-induced vibrations have attracted little attention. This paper concentrates on a semi-passive energy extraction system considering its inertial effects. The incompressible Navier-Stokes equations are solved using a finite-volume based numerical solver with a moving grid technique. A partitioned method is used to couple the fluid and structure motions with the sub-iteration technique and an Aitken relaxation, which guarantees a strong fluid-structure coupling. In addition, a fictitious mass is added to resolve the numerical instability aroused by low density ratios. First, at a fixed mass ratio of r = 1, we identify an optimal set of parameters, at which a maximum efficiency of η = 34% is achieved. Further studies with r ranging from 0.125 to 100 are performed around the optimal parameters. The results show that for the semi-passive flapping energy harvester, the energy harvesting efficiency decreases monotonically with increasing mass ratio. We also notice that the total power extraction stays at a high level with little variation for r < 10; therefore, if we concern more about the amount of power extraction rather than its efficiency, the inertial effects can be neglectable for r < 10. Moreover, since one degree of freedom is released for the semi-passive system, it is possible for the system to automatically determine its optimal operational parameters. We note that the optimal phase difference ɸ = 82° has been well determined, which leads to a good timing of vortex-foil interactions. We note two different trends on phase difference for the effects of reduced frequency and mass ratio, respectively. By varying the reduced frequency ƒ *, an optimal ƒ* is identified, at which the minimum phase difference is achieved. While the relationship between phase difference and mass ratio is monotonic, a maximum phase difference is achieved at the nearly zero mass ratio. Nevertheless, both trends point to the same optimal phase difference, i.e., ɸ = 82° at θ0 = 75°. Furthermore, the relationship between the leading edge vortex and the phase difference is systematically investigated, accounting for the physical reason of existence of the optimal phase difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present a numerical study on the thermocapillary migration of drops. The Navier–Stokes equations coupled with the energy conservation equation are solved by the finite-difference front-tracking scheme. The axisymmetric model is adopted in our simulations, and the drops are assumed to be perfectly spherical and nondeformable. The benchmark simulation starts from the classical initial condition with a uniform temperature gradient. The detailed discussions and physical explanations of migration phenomena are presented for the different values of (1) the Marangoni numbers and Reynolds numbers of continuous phases and drops and (2) the ratios of drop densities and specific heats to those of continuous phases. It is found that fairly large Marangoni numbers may lead to fluctuations in drop velocities at the beginning part of simulations. Finally, we also discuss the influence of initial conditions on the thermocapillary migrations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The deformability of insect wings is associated with the embedded skeleton (venation). In this paper, the aerodynamic performance of wings with nonuniform flexibility is computationally investigated. By using a two-dimensional rendition, the underlying veins are modeled as springs, and the membrane is modeled as a flexible plate. The focus is on the effects of the detailed distribution of vein flexibility upon the performance of such a wing in the generation of lift force. Specifically, we are interested in finding the importance of leading edge strengthening. Towards this end, the aerodynamic performances of three wings, a rigid wing, a flexible wing with identical veins, and a flexible wing with strengthened leading edge, are studied and compared against each other. It is shown that the flexible wing with leading edge strengthening is capable of producing significantly higher lift force without consuming more energy. This is found to be related to the stabilizing and cambering effects at the leading edge, which enhances the leading edge vortices. In addition, in contrast to the other two wings, which show sensitivity to kinematic parameters, the wing with strengthened leading edge perform well over a wide range of parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]