Laibing Jia

Spraying modes in coaxial jet electrospray with outer driving liquid

Coaxial jet electrospray is a technique to generate microencapsules, which uses electric forces to create a coaxial microjet from two immiscible liquids. Compound droplets with narrow size distribution are produced after the jet breaks up. In this paper, the spraying modes are investigated experimentally with proper flow rates of the inner and outer liquids. Ethanol/glycerol/tween mixture (outer liquid) and cooking oil (inner liquid) are fed into the gap between outer and inner capillaries and the inner capillary, respectively. The spraying modes presented in our experiments are “dripping mode,” “dripping mode in spindle,” “cone-jet mode,” “pulse mode in cone,” and “multijets mode” sequentially, as the applied voltage increases. The region of stable cone-jet mode extends with decrease of the outer liquid flow rate and increase of the inner one. It is found that the spray phenomena are mainly determined by properties of the outer liquid, which is viscous and electric conductive enough. A rudimentary physical model is developed, in which both the viscosity and liquid interface tension are taken into account.Coaxial jet electrospray is a technique to generate microencapsules, which uses electric forces to create a coaxial microjet from two immiscible liquids. Compound droplets with narrow size distribution are produced after the jet breaks up. In this paper, the spraying modes are investigated experimentally with proper flow rates of the inner and outer liquids. Ethanol/glycerol/tween mixture (outer liquid) and cooking oil (inner liquid) are fed into the gap between outer and inner capillaries and the inner capillary, respectively. The spraying modes presented in our experiments are “dripping mode,” “dripping mode in spindle,” “cone-jet mode,” “pulse mode in cone,” and “multijets mode” sequentially, as the applied voltage increases. The region of stable cone-jet mode extends with decrease of the outer liquid flow rate and increase of the inner one. It is found that the spray phenomena are mainly determined by properties of the outer liquid, which is viscous and electric conductive enough. A rudimentary physic...

Coupling modes between two flapping filaments

The flapping coupling between two filaments is studied theoretically and experimentally in this paper. A temporal linear instability analysis is carried out based on a simplified hydrodynamic model. The dispersion relationship between the eigen-frequency ω and wavenumber k is expressed by a quartic equation. Two special cases of flapping coupling, i.e. two identical filaments having the same length and two filaments having different lengths, are studied in detail. In the case of two identical filaments, the theoretical analysis predicts four coupling modes, i.e. the stretched-straight mode, the antisymmetrical in-phase mode, the symmetrical out-of-phase mode and the indefinite mode. The theory also predicts the existence of an eigenfrequency jump during transition between the in-phase and out-of-phase modes, which has been observed in previous experiments and numerical simulations. In the case of two filaments having different lengths, four modes similar to those in the former case are identified theoretically. The distribution of coupling modes for both the cases is shown in two planes. One is a dimensionless plane of S vs. U , where S is the density ratio of solid filament to fluid and U 2 is the ratio of fluid kinetic energy to solid elastic potential energy. The other is a dimensional plane of the half-distance ( h ) between two filaments vs. the filament length ( L ). Relevant experiments are carried out in a soap-film tunnel and the stable and unstable modes are observed. Theory and experiment are compared in detail. It should be noted that the model used in our analysis is a very simplified one that can provide intuitional analytical results of the coupling modes as well as their qualitative distributions. The factors neglected in our model, such as vortex shedding, viscous and nonlinear effects, do not allow the model to predict results precisely consistent with the experiments. Moreover, the Strouhal numbers of the flapping filaments are found to be generally around a fixed value in the experiments for both cases, implying that the filaments try to maintain a lower potential energy state.

Computational Research on Modular Undulating Fin for Biorobotic Underwater Propulsor

Biomimetic design employs the principles of nature to solve engineering problems. Such designs which are hoped to be quick, efficient, robust, and versatile, have taken advantage of optimization via natural selection. In the present research, an environment-friendly propulsion system mimicking undulating fins of stingray was built. A non-conventional method was considered to model the flexibility of the fins of stingray. A two-degree-of-freedom mechanism comprised of several linkages was designed and constructed to mimic the actual flexible fin. The driving linkages were used to form a mechanical fin consisting of several fin segments, which are able to produce undulations, similar to those produced by the actual fins. Owing to the modularity of the design of the mechanical fin, various undulating patterns can be realized. Some qualitative observations, obtained by experiments, predicted that the thrusts produced by the mechanical fin are different among various undulating patterns. To fully understand this experimental phenomenon is very important for better performance and energy saving for our biorobotic underwater propulsion system. Here, four basic undulating patterns of the mechanical fin were performed using two-dimensional unsteady computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method. An unstructured, grid-based, unsteady Navier-Stokes solver with automatic adaptive re-meshing was used to compute the unsteady flow around the fin through twenty complete cycles. The pressure distribution on fin surface was computed and integrated to provide fin forces which were decomposed into lift and thrust. The pressure force and friction force were also computed throughout the swimming cycle. Finally, vortex contour maps of these four basic fin undulating patterns were displayed and compared.

Response modes of a flexible filament in the wake of a cylinder in a flowing soap film

Flow induced vibrations are observed in many engineering applications. A flexible body located in the wake of an obstacle is usually forced to vibrate by the periodic vortices shedding from the obstacle. Here we focus on the response of the flexible body in the wake. Soap film tunnels are used to provide two-dimensional flow. Cylinders and flexible filaments are employed as obstacles and flexible bodies, respectively. The filaments exhibit lock-in behavior to the wake. Three response modes are found by changing the distance between the filaments and cylinders. The observations are illuminated in terms of waving plate theory.

A colour preference technique to evaluate acrylamide-induced toxicity in zebrafish

The zebrafish has become a commonly used vertebrate model for toxicity assessment, of particular relevance to the study of toxic effects on the visual system because of the structural similarities shared by zebrafish and human retinae. In this article we present a colour preference-based technique that, by assessing the functionality of photoreceptors, can be used to evaluate the effects of toxicity on behaviour. A digital camera was used to record the locomotor behaviour of individual zebrafish swimming in a water tank consisting of two compartments separated by an opaque perforated wall through which the fish could pass. The colour of the lighting in each compartment could be altered independently (producing distinct but connected environments of white, red or blue) to allow association of the zebrafishs swimming behaviour with its colour preference. The functionality of the photoreceptors was evaluated based on the ability of the zebrafish to sense the different colours and to swim between the compartments. The zebrafish tracking was carried out using our algorithm developed with MATLAB. We found that zebrafish preferred blue illumination to white, and white illumination to red. Acute treatment with acrylamide (2mM for 36h) resulted in a marked reduction in locomotion and a concomitant loss of colour-preferential swimming behaviour. Histopathological examination of acrylamide-treated zebrafish eyes showed that acrylamide exposure had caused retinal damage. The colour preference tracking technique has applications in the assessment of neurodegenerative disorders, as a method for preclinical appraisal of drug efficacy and for behavioural evaluation of toxicity.

Flutter instability of rectangle and trapezoid flags in uniform flow

An experiment on the flutter instability of rectangle and trapezoid flags is conducted in a low speed wind tunnel and a physical model is proposed to predict the critical velocity of flutter instability of the flags. The nondimensional second moment of area is used to depict the effect of the flag shape on the flutter. The result shows that the method presented in this paper can be used to predict the lower-critical velocity. The change of the flutter envelope and critical velocity is found to be related to the dominant mode.

Experimental Study of a Starting Vortex Ring Generated by a Thin Circular Disk

The formation process of vortex ring generated by a thin circular disk was studied experimentally in this paper. A thin circular disk installed a linear motion stage was used to generate the vortex rings. Digital Particle Image Velocimetry (DPIV) was used to measure the velocity and vorticity fields. The finite-time Lyapunov exponent field corresponding to the vortex flow was computed to identify Lagrangian coherent structures of the starting vortex. The results reveal the existence of a flux window between repelling Lagrangian Coherent Structures (rLCS) and attracting Lagrangian Coherent Structures (aLCS), through which the shear flow is entrained into the vortex. The flux window is closed gradually during the starting process. Once the flux window shut down, the formation process of the vortex ring finishes, as the shear flow with vorticity cannot be entrained in the vortex ring.

Response of a flexible filament in a flowing soap film subject to a forced vibration

The interactions between flexible plates and fluids are important physical phenomena. A flag in wind is one of the most simplified and classical models for studying the problem. In this paper, we investigated the response of a flag in flow with an externally forced vibration by using flexible filaments and soap film. Experiments show that for a filament that is either in oscillation or stationary, the external forced vibration leads to its oscillation. A synchronization phenomenon occurs in the experiments. A small perturbation leads to a large response of flapping amplitude in response. The insight provided here is helpful to the applications in the flow control, energy harvesting, and bionic propulsion areas.

Modal Characteristics of Self-Excited Oscillations in Collapsible Tube With Low Elastic Modulus

The flow through a flexible tube and the interactions between fluid- and wall-motion have been researched in recent forty years because they are involved in many physiological phenomena, such as clinically useful “Korotkoff sounds”, audible murmurs induced by the collapsed external jugular vein in the neck of upright subject (Grotberg and Jenson, 2004).Copyright

Wall Effect on Separated Flow Around an Inclined Flat Plate at High Incidence

The flow around bluff bodies has received a great deal of attention due to its practical importance in engineering and scientific relevance in fluid mechanics. The largely separated turbulent flow can be triggered by an inclined flat plate with sharp leading and trailing edge and the presence of wall can alternate the flow structures greatly. This paper applied the Unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS) model to simulate the vortex shedding phenomenon over the inclined flat plate for a Reynolds number Re = 20 000 with different angle of attack α and gap ratio D/L, the ratio of the distance from the plate to the wall (D) to the plate length (L). Vortex generation from the leading and trailing edge was captured clearly and the transportation and development of vortex structures were shown for different parameters. The smaller the gap ratio is, the more the flow characteristics are affected by the wall presence. The integral quantities, such as lift and drag coefficients show different peak values for different angle of attack.Copyright