Search

Adsorption-based thermochemical heat storage is a long-term thermal energy storage technology that can be used for seasonal solar energy storage and especially for space heating, which has received significant attention. Pure salt as the adsorbent, even though has huge water-adsorption capacity, takes the disadvantage of low thermal conductivity, deliquescence, and swallow problems during cyclic sorption operations, which could finally reduce both the thermal energy storage and the space heating performance. Composite adsorbent, integrating the salt with the porous matrix such as activated carbon and zeolite, could keep the high water-adsorption capacity (energy density) when the porous structure of the matrix providing a more stable form to hold the adsorbed/desorbed adsorbent and to prevent it from agglomeration. In this project, an efficient adsorption-integrated space heating system has been investigated with the seasonal solar energy storage (SSES) function using the composite adsorbent made by the salt and the zeolite. The water-adsorption space heating system using the composite which could take the advantage like that the water vapour widely spreads in the environment and the zeolite is a popular material for the concrete mixing in the sustainable architecture research. The composite adsorbent made by salt solutions (MgSO4, LiCl, and LiBr) with different concentrations and various zeolites have been investigated as these salts are easy to obtain and safe for the environment. Moreover, beside the single salt-zeolite composite of MgSO4-zeolite, LiCl and LiBr could form the complex salt(A)-salt(B)-zeolite as LiCl-LiBr-zeolite composite to potentially increase the water-adsorption capacity and thus enhance its space heating and energy storage performance. The manufacturing methodology has been developed according to the practical experimental experience by the author. The prepared composite adsorbent has been experimentally characterized in respect of the surface morphology, thermal-physical properties, porous properties, and adsorption-related characteristics. The involved investigations include Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) - Energy Dispersive Spectroscope (EDS), Nitrogen Adsorption, X-ray Diffractometer (XRD), and Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA) - Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC). Besides, the adsorption kinetics of the composite adsorbent has been tested by the climate chamber, which could control the adsorption environment of the temperature and the relative humidity. For MgSO4-zeolite, the maximum heat storage density found in the TGA-DSC desorption tests was 481.3 J/g by MgSO4(20%)-4A, while the maximum water adsorption capacity obtained was 0.1803 g/g by MgSO4(20%)-13X. For LiCl/LiBr-zeolite, the maximum heat storage density, 592.8 J/g, is found in 5%LiCl-5%LiBr-zeolite. The most water adsorption capacity observed in the climatic chamber adsorption experiment is 0.22 g/g (5%LiCl-25%LiBr-zeolite). As LiCl-LiBr-zeolite has proved its superior water-adsorption capacity as well as the energy density, they are selected as the adsorption composite to be used in the further space heating experiments. An adsorption pipeline reactor has been established to experimentally investigate the air heating effect by using the selected candidates. Moreover, a 1:22.5 scaled house model was printed by a 3D-printer to simulate the condition that the house model is heated by the adsorption heat provided by the tube reactor. The effects of air velocity and relative humidity on the adsorption performance has been examined. The outlet air and room temperature profiles are recorded for analysis. It is found that a flow rate of 15 m3/h and a relative humidity of 70% could lead to the maximum adsorption heat, 434.4 J/g, from the water-adsorption reaction by the composite material, and the highest energy discharge efficiency of 74.3%. Furthermore, the adsorption-integrated space heating system has been established using the software of TRNSYS. The novel space heating model could collect and store the solar energy under sufficient solar radiation and utilize it to heat the house in the cold seasons. Simulated houses are assumed to be one in Newcastle, UK, and one in Urumqi, China. The gross heat supply by the adsorption-integrated space heating system in Urumqi and in Newcastle is 8862.68 kWh and 6466.39 kWh for the whole space heating seasons, respectively. The results demonstrates that the required room temperature is well kept by the designed space heating system using the composite adsorbent. The system could store the solar thermal energy from 0% of its full storage capacity to 100% during the seasons that the space heating is not required. However, at the end of each space heating season, the heat storage remains 42.85% and 57.00% in Urumqi and Newcastle, respectively. Because after the heat storage capacity is less than 95% of the full capacity, the storage module starts to work simultaneously with the space heating module. When the heat consumption is larger than the heat storage, the storage capacity percentage decreases. After a time, when the heat consumption is less than the heat storage, the storage capacity percentage increases until the end of the space heating season. Thus, the heat storage remains rather than running out. The value of the storage capacity percentage is dependent on the heat consumption and storage relationships.The extra solar radiation after full storage may be utilized into other functions. Moreover, the COP of the adsorption-integrated space heating system in Newcastle is 20% higher than that in Urumqi. In a summary, using the composite adsorbent, the adsorption-integrated space heating system is promising to also achieve a high-efficiency and low-environmental impact seasonal solar thermal energy storage system.

Pipe jacking is a trenchless construction technique for the installation of underground pipelines. Although pipe jacking is widely used, fundamental research is still needed to understand fully the factors affecting the process and to prevent unexpected failure. With the time and financial limitation, it is difficult to explore all aspects of these factors with experiments; and it is also difficult to study them by analytical methods because of the complexity of the problem. This thesis describes the use of the finite element technique to study the pipe performance under different environments and the laboratory tests of several different joint designs. The emphasis of the current research is on the performance of the concrete pipes during jacking under working conditions and to seek possible improvements in the design of pipes and pipe joints by numerical modelling. In the finite element modelling, a simplified two-dimensional model is used for a preliminary study, then the analyses are carried out with three-dimensional models A, B and C representing a complete pipe, a pipe with surrounding soil and a symmetric three-pipe system respectively. Several factors affecting the pipe performance have been examined, for example, the properties of the packing material, the stiffness of the surrounding soil, the misalignment angle at the pipe joint, and the interaction between the pipe and surrounding soil. The numerical results show that the misalignment of the pipe is the dominating factor inducing both tensile stresses and localized compressive stresses in the concrete pipe, especially with a high misalignment angle which results in separation between packing material and the pipe. The packing materials with high Poisson's ratio and high stiffness also induce higher tensile stresses in the pipe, and the influence of Poisson's ratio is significant. Under 'diagonal' loading, both the stiffness of the surrounding soil and the interaction between the pipe and the surrounding soil have a significant effect on the stresses within the concrete pipe. Under 'edge' loading, the greatest potential damage is at the pipe joint due to the tensile stresses in the hoop direction; while under 'diagonal' loading, the damage is most likely the cracking on the external surface of the pipe along a line connecting the two diagonal loaded corners. The results show that the Australian model gives somewhat good prediction about the maximum normal stress and the diametrical contact width at pipe joint. Based on the numerical results, several different joint designs for improving the pipe strength have been proposed and tested in the laboratory. Both the laboratory tests and the back analyses suggest that the local reinforcement and the local prestressed band at the pipe joint will improve the pipe strength.

Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) hollow fibres have been spun by a dry-jet wet spinning technique, using a commercial PAN polymer (Courtelle) redissolved in dimethylformamide (DMF). After failure to produce satisfactory porous hollow fibres from PAN/DMF solutions, a series of studies on the porous substructure of PAN cast films prepared with a variety of additives in the casting solution and at varying temperatures of the coagulation bath were carried out. A porous and flexible PAN cast film was produced when it was precipitated in water at 55 °C with CuSO4 present in the casting solution. Hollow fibres produced from a spinning solution composed of 25wt% PAN, 70wt% DMF and 5wt% CuSO4 were more porous and flexible than those produced from 25wt% PAN and 75wt% DMF spinning solution, and appeared to be more suitable for gas separation studies. The permeability of the PAN hollow fibre membranes to single gases was studied. The experimental results showed that the calculated pore radius on the surface of the fibre was in the range of 4- 32 nm. After coating with silicone rubber, the membranes showed very poor gas permeability and selectivity. Since PAN has a low intrinsic gas permeability, the low permeability observed is ascribed to a thick skin layer. The low selectivity of the membranes is related to their high surface porosity (> 10-4), or to the large pores present which are imperfectly blocked. With such fibres, little or no gas will pass through the membranes by solution-diffusion in the PAN. In order to reduce the surface porosity on the skin layer of the hollow fibres, a dualbath coagulation spinning system was used. The gas permeability of H2 in these membranes is lower than that obtained by the single bath coagulation system, while the gas permeability of the other gases, such as CO2 and CH4, were too low to measure. These results indicate that a high selectivity can be obtained by the dual bath coagulation spinning system although the selectivity is accompanied by too low a permeability, which is itself caused by too thick a skin layer. Surface modifications of PAN hollow fibre were carried out in order to modify the surface porosity of the fibres. After the treatments, the hollow fibre membranes did not give significant improvement in gas permeability and selectivity. But, when PAN hollow fibres were treated with cuprammonium hydroxide solution at room temperature, the fibres became coloured and no longer soluble in the usual solvents. The insolubility of the fibres is presumed to be due to a newly-formed crosslinked structure. The crosslinking of the fibres is reversed when the fibres are treated with EDTA solution. It has been observed that the presence of the copper in the fibres increases the tensile strength and decreases the elongation of the hollow fibres. The interaction of the PAN fibre with the cuprammonium hydroxide gave no improvement in gas separation performance but might be the basis for general acrylic fibre modification.

Data storage is one of the important and often critical parts of the computing system in terms of performance, cost, reliability, and energy. Numerous new memory technologies, such as NAND flash, phase change memory (PCM), magnetic RAM (STT-RAM) and Memristor, have emerged recently. Many of them have already entered the production system. Traditional storage optimization and caching algorithms are far from optimal because storage I/Os do not show simple locality. To provide optimal storage we need accurate predictions of I/O behavior. However, the workloads are increasingly dynamic and diverse, making the long and short time I/O prediction challenge. Because of the evolution of the storage technologies and the increasing diversity of workloads, the storage software is becoming more and more complex. For example, Flash Translation Layer (FTL) is added for NAND-flash based Solid State Disks (NAND-SSDs). However, it introduces overhead such as address translation delay and garbage collection costs. There are many recent studies aim to address the overhead. Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all solution due to the variety of workloads. Despite rapidly evolving in storage technologies, the increasing heterogeneity and diversity in machines and workloads coupled with the continued data explosion exacerbate the gap between computing and storage speeds. In this dissertation, we improve the data storage performance from both top-down and bottom-up approach. First, we will investigate exposing the storage level parallelism so that applications can avoid I/O contentions and workloads skew when scheduling the jobs. Second, we will study how architecture aware task scheduling can improve the performance of the application when PCM based NVRAM are equipped. Third, we will develop an I/O correlation aware flash translation layer for NAND-flash based Solid State Disks. Fourth, we will build a DRAM-based correlation aware FTL emulator and study the performance in various filesystems.

Single ventricle physiology can result from various congenital heart defects in which the patient has only one functional ventricle. Hypoplastic left heart syndrome refers to patients born with an underdeveloped left ventricle. A three stage palliation strategy is applied over the first several years of life to establish a viable circulation path using the one functioning ventricle. Results of the first stage Norwood procedure on neonates with hypoplastic left heart syndrome are unsatisfactory with high morbidities and mortalities primarily due to high ventricle load and other complications. An early second stage Bidirectional Glenn (BDG) procedure is not a suitable option for neonates due to their high pulmonary vascular resistance (PVR), which limits pulmonary blood flow. Realistic experimental models of these circulations are not well established and would be useful for studying the physiological response to surgical decisions on the distribution of flows to the various territories, so as to predict clinical hemodynamics and guide clinical planning. These would serve well to study novel intervention strategies and the effects of known complications at the local and systems-level. This study proved the hypothesis that it is possible to model accurately the first and second stage palliation circulations using multi-scale in vitro circulation models and to use these models to test novel surgical strategies while including the effects of possible complications. A multi-scale mock circulatory system (MCS), which couples a lumped parameter network model (LPN) of the neonatal circulation with an anatomically accurate three-dimensional model of the surgical anastomosis site, was built to simulate the hemodynamic performance of both the Stage 1 and Stage 2 circulations. A pediatric ventricular assist device was used as the single ventricle and a respiration model was applied to the Stage 2 circulation system. Resulting parameters measured were pressure and flow rates within the various territories, and systemic oxygen delivery (OD) were calculated. The Stage 1 and Stage 2 systems were validated by direct comparisons of time-based and mean pressures and flow rates between the experimental measurements, available clinical recordings and/or CFD simulations. Regression and correlation analyses and unpaired t-tests showed that there was excellent agreement between the clinical and experimental time-based results as measured throughout the circulations (0.60 < R^2 < 0.99; p > 0.05, r.m.s error< 5%). A novel, potentially alternative surgical strategy for the initial palliation, was proposed and was tested, called the assisted bidirectional Glenn (ABG) procedure. The approach taps the higher potential energy of the systemic circulation through a systemic to caval shunt with nozzle to increase pulmonary blood flow and oxygen delivery within a superior cavopulmonary connection. Experimental model was validated against a numerical model (0.65 < sigma < 0.97; p > 0.05). The tested results demonstrated the ABG had two main advantages over the Norwood circulation. First, the flow through the ABG shunt is a fraction of the pulmonary flow, reducing the volume overload on the single ventricle and improving systemic and coronary perfusion. Second, the ABG should provide a more stable source of pulmonary flow, which should reduce thrombotic risk or intimal thickening over an mBT shunt. A study to examine the ejector pump effect was conducted. Two parameters were investigated: (1) the superior vena cava (SVC) and pulmonary artery (PA) pressure difference; and (2) the SVC and PA pressure difference relative to PA flow rate. Results validated the hypothesis that an ejector pump advantage can be adopted in a superior cavo-pulmonary circulation, where the low-energy pulmonary blood flow can be assisted by an additional source of high energy flow from the systemic circulation. But the ejector pump effect produced by the current nozzle designs was not strong. Parametric study includes nozzle size, placement, and nozzle shape was conducted. Results shown that nozzle to shunt diameter ratio had the most important effects on the ABG performance. As β increased, pulmonary artery flow rate and systemic oxygen delivery increased. A suggested β value falls between 0.48 and 0.72. The study showed that a bigger β produced a smaller resistance value. The shape of the nozzle did not change the resistance value. The effects of shunt angle, nozzle placement and nozzle shape on the ABG circulation were not statistical significant. The aortic coarctation study showed that the aortic coarctation could have an effect on the ABG circulation. The coarctation index (CoI) around 0.5 was found to be the transition point between no effects (CoI > 0.5) and discernible effects on the ABG circulation. These effects include changes in pulmonary to systemic flow distribution. In summary, this research verified and validated an in vitro mock circulatory system (MCS) for Stage 1 and Stage 2 circulations. The system was used to assess a novel conceptual surgery option named the ABG. Parametric studies were conducted to give guidance on designing the important element for the ABG: the shunt (nozzle) connecting the SVC and systemic circulation. The performance of the ABG under one unhealthy condition, namely, aortic coarctation was assessed.

Layered Transition Metal Chalcogenides (LTMCs) exhibit a wealth of physical properties. Structurally, they are characterized by strong intra-layer bonding and weak inter-layer interactions. This strong structural anisotropy enables exfoliation into thin layers, sometimes even down to single unit cell thickness. LTMCs have been studied for decades, but recent advances in nanoscale materials characterization and device fabrication have opened up new research opportunities. As the thickness of these materials go thinner and thinner, their properties may change significantly, which calls for re-exploring of their unique optical and electronic properties. During my PhD study, I have explored two categories of LTMCs: LTMC semiconductors and LTMC metals.LTMC semiconductors such as MoS2, MoSe2, WS2 and WSe2 have sizable bandgaps that change from indirect to direct in single layers, allowing applications such as transistors, photodetectors and electroluminescent devices. I have studied the optical properties of few layer WSe2, and found a thermally induced direct-indirect band gap transition. The ultrathin body of these LTMC monolayer semiconductors also makes them sensitive to both the ambient and external electric field. By combining these two unique properties, I discovered a strategy for dynamically modulating the photoluminescence intensity of MoS2 by orders of magnitude. The defect free, nanometer-thick LTMC layers are ideal tunneling media. Based on this, I proposed to use LTMC as the elastic tunneling medium to construct a non-impact nano-electro-mechanical switch, which shows 4 orders of magnitude modulation in the electrical resistance by applying a mechanical force.LTMC materials span a wide range of categories. Some LTMC show semiconducting properties, while others are metallic, or even superconducing. Bi2Te3, a metallic LTMC, commonly known as a high performance thermoelectric material, also attracts renewed attention because it is found to be topological insulator. The conduction on its surface is provided by topologically protected surface states, which has a massless Dirac like dispersion, with spin and momentum degree of freedom interlocked. It would be interesting to explore the possibility of engineering the geometry of these exotic conductive surfaces at nanoscale. During my PhD study, I introduced dense, nanosized antidot arrays into Bi2Te3 microflakes, and studied its magneto-transport properties. This modification completely altered the electrical properties of this material. I observed signature of Ahoronov-Bohm type oscillations in our device, indicating that charge carriers in topological insulators are indeed interacting with our antidot arrays, thus proved the possibility of creating new functionalities in this material via nano-structuring.

Cell sorting is essential in many biological and biomedical applications. One example is isolation of rare cells such as circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from blood, which are of great clinical significance as early indicator of cancer. Yet, isolation of CTCs is remarkably challenging, primarily due to their incredible rarity, and thus need for high separation selectivity, efficiency, and purity. Currently, the prevalent approach is based on immunodetection, which is effective but relies on availability and homogeneous expression of biomarkers. This work describes alternative approaches based on inertial microfluidics, which permits size-based, highly-selective separation of cells with high efficiency and purity. In these devices, cells experience inertial forces which are strongly size-dependent and cause them to migrate laterally to equilibrium positions within microchannel cross-section. The result is cell separation based on size only, leading to an effective high-throughput (104 cells per min) alternative to immunodetection. A new model of particle/cell migration was developed to explain lateral migration behavior and address limitations of the current understanding. Lift coefficients acting on neutrally-buoyant particles and cells were experimentally measured to confirm the new model, and to allow accurate prediction of particle/cell behavior. With guideline from the new model, three designs were developed to realize superior performance in cell separation and isolation. In the first design, highly-sensitive isolation (as low as 1 particle per mL) was demonstrated by suppression of wall induced lift force. This approach also showed very high selectivity (1:105) of separating different sized species. The second design modulated the shear force to achieve continuous filtration with extremely high efficiency (~100%) and capability of precise re-concentration. The third more advanced design, based on modulation of rotation induced forces, manipulated equilibrium positions of particles/cells for complete separation with ~100% efficiency and > purity. Blood spiked with human prostate cancer cells was used to characterize cell separation performance. A ~83% viability was achieved, with proliferation results showing preservation of functionality. All the three designs outperform the existing immunodetection-based and other separation platforms. The approaches demonstrated in this work offer promising alternatives to cell sorting, potentially including isolation of CTCs. Due to the planar structures and simple geometries, the devices should be easy to integrate with existing lab-on-a-chip systems.

Embryonic development involves a fundamental biomechanical process that constructs complicated three-dimensional tissue structures through massive cellular movements. During early gastrulation stages, polarized cell intercalation movements drive the dramatic extension of the Xenopus laevis frog embryo in the anterior-posterior direction. How those individual cellular protrusive forces integrate to produce the bulk force at the tissue level remains unknown. Furthermore, the embryo is shaped not only by active forces, but also by the mechanical properties such as the viscoelastic properties of the constituent tissues. Although rapid progresses have been made to identify the genes or proteins involved in this process, there is much less known about mechanical roles of the genes and proteins in the process. By investigating the contribution of subcellular-, cellular-, and tissue-level structures to the tissue mechanical properties, we found that, on the tissue-level, there were large temporal and spatial variation in tissue stiffness of dorsal isolates and the stiffness was largely dependent on paraxial mesoderm tissues, while notochord tissue, which has been proposed to support the early embryos, was not a major contributor to the tissue mechanics. On the cellular-level, the mechanical properties of dorsal isolates were mainly dependent on cells, but not their ECM. On the subcellular-level, the mechanical properties of the embryonic cells were determined by actin and myosin II contractility, while microtubules indirectly controlled the tissue stiffness by regulating actomyosin network through a Rho-GEF mediated signaling pathway. In order to measure the tissue extension forces, we developed a high throughput technique combining imaging techniques and finite element models. Using this technique, we identified two cases of mechanical adaptation. In the first case we found that dorsal axial tissues generated less force to compensate for their own lower mechanical resistance. In the second we found that dorsal axial tissues encountering a stiffer environment were capable of generating nearly 2-fold greater force. These cases of adaptation demonstrate that force production is quantitatively balanced during CE and that the mechanisms responsible for this adaptation are able to ensure robust morphogenesis against environmental and genetic variation in physical force production and tissue stiffness.

Rechargeable lithium batteries are promising power sources for portable electronic devices, implantable medical devices, and electric vehicles due to their high-energy density, low self-discharge rate, and environmentally benign materials of construction. However, the high reactivity of lithium metal limits the choice of electrolytes and impedes the commercialization of rechargeable lithium batteries. One way to tackle this problem is to develop electrolytes that are kinetically stable with lithium. Composite polymer electrolytes (CPEs) based on fumed oxides presented in this work are promising candidates for rechargeable lithium batteries. The effects of fumed oxides (SiO2, Al2O3, TiO2) and binary mixtures of oxides (SiO2/Al2O3) on ionic conductivity of CPEs based on poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) oligomers (Mw =250, 200, 1000, and 2000) + lithium bis(trifluromethylsulfonyl)imide [LiN(CF3SO2)2] (LiTFSI) (Li:O=1:20) are studied using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Fillers show similar effect on conductivity in all systems: no distinguishable effect is found with filler type, and addition of filler decreases conductivity at temperatures above the melting point (Tm) but increases conductivity at temperatures below. The insulating nature of fillers and stiffening of the polymer solvent (as evidenced by FTIR and DSC data) in the presence of fillers cause a decrease in conductivity at temperatures above Tm, which remains constant upon addition of fillers. The increase in conductivity at temperatures below Tm can be attributed to faster ion transport along the filler surface. Addition of fumed oxides increases electrolyte viscosity (and elasticity) and the extent of enhancement varies with filler type: fumed silica shows the strongest and titania the least. Elastic modulus, yield stress, and normalized viscosity of gel-type composite electrolytes decrease with increasing oligomer Mw when electrolytes are amorphous. The reduction in structure strength may be ascribed to the enhanced interactions between surface hydroxyl groups on fumed oxides and polyether oxygens. Thus, the number of accessible ?OH groups is reduced for interactions among fumed oxide particles, which dictates the strength of solid-like structure. The interfacial stability between electrolyte and lithium is enhanced in the presence of fumed silica. The enhancement in interfacial stability is seen as a decrease in interfacial resistance and cell polarization, and an increase in lithium cycleability and cell capacity. The improved interfacial stability between CPE and lithium is attributed to less lithium corrosion (fillers scavenge water impurities that corrode lithium) and dendrite formation (electrolyte elasiticty inhibits dendrite formation). The extent of the enhancing effect of fumed silica depends on its surface chemistry, with the largest effect seen with hydrophilic fumed silica, which has the largest scavenging capacity and highest elasticity. The effect on cycle capacity is reported of cathode material (metal oxide, carbon, and current collector) in lithium/metal oxide cells cycled with fumed silica-based composite electrolytes. Cells with composite electrolytes show higher capacity and less cell polarization than those with filler-free electrolyte. Among the three active materials studied (LiCoO2, V6O13, and LixMnO2), V6O13 cathodes deliver the highest capacity and LixMnO2 cathodes render the best capacity retention. Discharge capacity of Li/LiCoO2 cells is affected greatly by cathode carbon type and discharge capacity increases with decreasing carbon particle size. Current collector materials also play a significant role in cell cycling performance: Li/V6O13 cells deliver increased capacity using Ni foil and carbon fiber current collectors in comparison to an Al foil. In summary, fumed oxide-based nanocomposite electrolytes are promising candidates for lithium battery applications with high room-temperature conductivity, good mechanical strength, stable interface between lithium metal and electrolytes, and reasonable capacity and capacity retention with optimized cathode compositions.

The lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) proposed about decades ago has been developed and applied to simulate various complex fluids. It has become an alternative powerful method for computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Although most research on the LBM focuses on the Navier-Stokes equations, the method has also been developed to solve other flow equations such as the shallow water equations. In this thesis, the lattice Boltzmann models for the shallow water equations and solute transport equation have been improved and applied to different flows and environmental problems, including solute transport and morphological evolution. In this work, both the single-relaxation-time and multiple-relaxation-time models are used for shallow water equations (named LABSWE and LABSWEMRT, respectively), and the large eddy simulation is incorporated into the LABSWE (named LABSWETM) for turbulent flow. The capability of the LABSWETM was firstly tested by applying it to simulate free surface flows in rectangular basins with different length -width ratios, in which the characteristics of the asymmetrical flows were studied in details. The LABSWEMRT was then used to simulate the one- and two-dimensional shallow water flows over discontinuous beds. The weighted centred scheme for force term, together with the bed height for a bed slope, was incorporated into the model to improve the simulation of water flows over a discontinuous bed. The resistance stress was also included to investigate the effect of the local head loss caused by flows over a step. Thirdly, the LABSWEMRT was extended to simulate a moving body in shallow water. In order to deal with the moving boundaries, three different schemes with second-order accuracy were tested and compared for treating curved boundaries. An additional momentum term was added to reflect the interaction between the following fluid and the solid, and a refilled method was proposed to treat the wetted nodes moving out from the solid nodes. Fourthly, both LABSWE and LABSWEMRT were used to investigate solute transport in shallow water. The flows are solved using LABSWE and LABSWEMRT, and the advection-diffusion equation for solute transport was solved with a LBM-BGK model based on the D2Q5 lattice. Three cases: open channel flow with a side discharge, shallow recirculation flow and flow in a harbour, were simulated to verify the methods. In addition, the performance of LABSWEMRT and LABSWE were compared, and the results showed that the LABSWMRT has better stability and can be used for flow with high Reynolds number. Finally, the lattice Boltzmann method was used with the Euler-WENO scheme to simulate morphological evolution in shallow water. The flow fields were solved by the LABSWEMRT with the improved scheme for the force term, and the fifth order Euler-WENO scheme was used to solve the morphological equation to predict the morphological evolution caused by the bed-load transport.