Jianliang Xu

Period-Adding Bifurcation with Chaos in the Interspike Intervals Generated by an Experimental Neural Pacemaker

The dynamics of the generation of the various spike trains in neural pacemakers is of fundamental importance to the understanding of neural coding. Recent studies have demonstrated, theoretically and experimentally, that neural pacemakers produce chaotic oscillations. Deeper analyses in several neuronal models have revealed many nonlinear phenomena including period-adding bifurcations whose existence has not been experimentally confirmed. In this letter, we reported that the period-adding bifurcation with chaos was observed in the interspike interval (ISI) series generated by an experimental neural pacemaker when the extracellular calcium concentration was changed or a potassium channel blocker was administered at the site of the pacemaker. We also simulated our experimental discoveries by computing a generalized model of excitable cells. The chaotic phenomenon in the experiment and that in the model were demonstrated and compared using the nonlinear forecasting and surrogate data methods.

Morphological classification of low viscosity drop bag breakup in a continuous air jet stream

To investigate the effect of Rayleigh–Taylor wave number in the region of maximum cross stream dimension (NRT) on drop breakup morphology, the breakup properties of accelerating low viscosity liquid drops (water and ethanol drops, diameter=1.2–6.6 mm, Weber number=10–80) were investigated using high-speed digital photography. The results of morphological analysis show a good correlation of the observed breakup type with NRT; bag breakup occurred when NRT was 1/3−1, bag-stamen breakup at 1–2, and dual-bag breakup at 2–3. The number of nodes in bag breakup, bag-stamen breakup, and dual-bag breakup all increased with Weber number. The experimental results are consistent with the model estimates and in good agreement with those reported in the literature.

Temporal properties of secondary drop breakup in the bag-stamen breakup regime

The situation of liquid drop bag-stamen breakup in a continuous air jet flow is investigated by a high speed camera. Test liquids include water, ethanol, and various glycerol mixtures. First, the morphology of bag-stamen breakup is observed and analyzed. The bag-stamen breakup range is found to be in good agreement with the model obtained by Rayleigh-Taylor instability. Then the disk and stamen deformation properties, the fragment average size, and size distribution of ring and stamen are researched in detail, respectively.

Secondary breakup of coal water slurry drops

To investigate secondary atomization of coal water slurry (CWS), deformation and breakup of eight kinds of CWS drops are presented using high speed digital camera. Based on morphology, deformation and breakup regimes of CWS drops can be termed some different modes: deformation, multimode breakup (including two sub-modes: hole breakup and tensile breakup), and shear breakup. Correlations on the ranges of breakup modes are also obtained. The conventional Weber number and Ohnesorge number are found to be insufficient to classify all breakup modes of CWS drops, so two other non-dimensional numbers based on rheology of CWS are suggested to use in the deformation and breakup regime map. Finally, total breakup time is studied and correlated, which increases with Ohnesorge number.

Experimental study on fragmental behavior of coals and biomasses during rapid pyrolysis

In order to study the primary fragmentation behavior of coals and biomasses, experiments of rapid pyrolysis were carried out. This work focused on the devolatilization and fragmentation characteristics including the solid/gas yield, particle density/morphology, particle size and fragmental probability (Sf). The effects of temperature, time and solid property were investigated. The viscous flow model was employed to characterize the pressure difference (ΔP), which was considered as the driving force of diffusion and fragmentation. The Ohm principle was used to establish the linear relation of devolatilization rate and fragmentation rate. The result showed that temperature and time have positive contribution to the fragmentation. The occurrence of fragmentation was observed more apparently with the decreasing of the ash content in the biomass. The pressure difference has a positive correlation with the fragmental rate, which shows the validity of application Ohm principle in the prediction of fragmenting process.

Estimating the largest Lyapunov exponent and noise level from chaotic time series

A novel method for estimating simultaneously the largest Lyapunov exponent (LLE) and noise level (NL) from a noisy chaotic time series is presented in this paper. We research the influence of noise on the average distance of different pairs of points in an embedding phase space and provide a rescaled formula for calculating the LLE when the time series is contaminated with noise. Our algorithm is proposed based on this formula and the invariant of the LLE in different dimensional embedding phase spaces. With numerical simulation, we find that the proposed method provides a reasonable estimate of the LLE and NL when the NL is less than 10% of the signal content. The comparison with Kantz algorithm shows that our method gives more accurate results of the LLE for the noisy time series. Furthermore, our method is not sensitive to the distribution of the noise.

Inhomogeneity in breakup of suspensions

During pinch-off of a non-Brownian suspension or a slurry, the particle concentration in the pinch-off zone is found to decrease as its minimal diameter decreases, resulting in a pure liquid interstitial fluid. Snapshot images feature three successive stages during suspension pinch-off, referred to as suspension, transition, and liquid stages. We focus on the characteristics of the final liquid stage. Particles are jammed above and below the pinch-off zone when the minimal diameter of the thread created in pinch-off approaches the particle size. The volume of pure liquid is found to be proportional to the particle size and increases with decreasing particle concentration. The particle size and concentration also influence strongly the length of the thread in the liquid stage, the properties of which are quantified and analyzed.

Influence of surfactant on the drop bag breakup in a continuous air jet stream

The deformation and breakup of surfactant-laden drops is a common phenomenon in nature and numerous practical applications. We investigate influence of surfactant on the drop bag breakup in a continuous air jet stream. The airflow would induce the advection diffusion of surfactant between interface and bulk of drop. Experiments indicate that the convective motions of deforming drop would induce the non-equilibrium distribution of surfactant, which leads to the change of surface tension. When the surfactant concentration is smaller than critical micelle concentration (CMC), with the increase of surface area of drop, the surface tension of liquid-airinterface and the critical Weber number will increase. When the surfactant concentration is bigger than CMC, the micelle can be considered as the source term, which can supply the monomers. So in the presence of surfactant, there would be the significant nonlinear variation on the critical Weber number of bag breakup. We build the dynamic non-monotonic relationship between concentrations of surfactant and critical Weber number theoretically. In the range of parameters studied, the experimental results are consistent with the model estimates.

Simultaneous heat integration and economic optimization of the coal-to-SNG process

Abstract The area of the heat recovery network has a significant impact on the economic performance of the coal-to-SNG process. This paper proposes a superstructure of the methanation unit, and the number of the methanator, recycle gas extraction position (RGEXP), as well as the operating conditions, are optimized. Simultaneous optimization and heat integration are performed along with the area targeting to weigh against the operating cost and capital cost of the coal-to-SNG process. Area cost is evaluated by assuming vertical heat transfer between cold and hot composite curves. A sequential method is used to provide initial values for the simultaneous model. Results show that Case7 (2) has the best economic performance, which has 7 methanators and recycled gas is extracted from the 2nd methanator. The total annual cost of Case7 (2) can be reduced by 10.36 MM

The deterministic chaos and random noise in turbulent jet

·a−1, and exergy efficiency can be also improved by 0.77% compared with an industrial plant.