Xie Wen-Jun

Rapid Growth of Ice Dendrite in Acoustically Levitated and Highly Undercooled Water

Water drops with diameters ranging from 2.5 to 4 mm are highly undercooled by up to 24 K with the acoustic levitation technique. Compared to the case of water contained in a tube, acoustic levitation has efficiently avoided the heterogeneous nucleation from container walls and consequently increased the undercooling level. However, the cavitation effect induced by ultrasound may prematurely catalyse nucleation, which hinders the further achievement of bulk undercooling. The growth velocity of ice dendrite determined experimentally in highly undercooled water is characteristic of rapid dendritic growth, which reaches 0.17 m/s at the undercooling of 24 K. The Lipton-Kurz-Trivedi dendritic growth model is used to predict the kinetic characteristics of rapid growth of ice dendrite under high undercooling conditions, which shows good agreement with the experimental results.

The liquid phase separation of Bi-Ga hypermonotectic alloy under acoustic levitation condition

Containerless treatment of Bi-58.5at%Ga hypermonotectic alloy is successfully performed with acoustic levitation technique. Under acoustic levitation condition, the second phase (Ga) distributes almost homogeneously in solidification sample, opposite to macrosegregation in solidification sample under conventional condition. Stokes motion of the second liquid droplet (Ga) is significantly restrained under acoustic levitation condition. The analyses indicate that the melt vibration in the gravity direction forced by acoustic field can induce steady flow around the second liquid droplet, which influences droplet shape during its moving upward and consequently restrains Stokes motion velocity of the second liquid droplet.

Resonance Shift of Single-Axis Acoustic Levitation

The resonance shift due to the presence and movement of a rigid spherical sample in a single-axis acoustic levitator is studied with the boundary element method on the basis of a two-cylinder model of the levitator. The introduction of a sample into the sound pressure nodes, where it is usually levitated, reduces the resonant interval Hn (n is the mode number) between the reflector and emitter. The larger the sample radius, the greater the resonance shift. When the sample moves along the symmetric axis, the resonance interval Hn varies in an approximately periodical manner, which reaches the minima near the pressure nodes and the maxima near the pressure antinodes. This suggests a resonance interval oscillation around its minimum if the stably levitated sample is slightly perturbed. The dependence of the resonance shift on the sample radius R and position h for the single-axis acoustic levitator is compared with Leungs theory for a closed rectangular chamber, which shows a good agreement.

Ultrasonic Vibration Suspends Large Pendant Drops

A stationary substrate can suspend only small pendant drops even with excellent wetting ability because of gravity. We report the suspension of large pendant water drops by a copper substrate that vibrates ultrasonically with a frequency of 22 kHz. The mass of the largest pendant drop suspended by the vibrating substrate reaches 1.1 g, which is 9 times that by the same stationary substrate. The pendant drop deforms drastically and quickly at both the beginning and the end of the vibration procedure. As the vibration power increases, the contact area between the drop and substrate expands and the drop height shrinks accordingly. Theoretical analysis indicates that the Bernoulli pressure induced by ultrasonic vibration may contribute strongly to enhancing the suspensibility of pendant drops.

Heterogeneous Nucleation Induced by Capillary Wave During Acoustic Levitation

The rapid solidification of acoustically levitated drops of Pb-61.9 wt.%Sn eutectic alloy is accomplished. A surface morphology of spreading ripples is observed on a sample undercooled by 15 K. The ripples originate from the centre of sample surface, which is also the heterogeneous nucleation site for eutectic growth. The Faraday instability excited by forced surface vibration has brought about these ripples. They are retained in the solidified sample if the sound pressure level exceeds the threshold pressure required for the appearance of capillary waves. Theoretical calculations indicate that both the pressure and displacement maxima exist in the central part of a levitated drop. The pressure near the sample centre can promote heterogeneous nucleation, which is in agreement qualitatively with the experimental results.

Physical characteristics of electromagnetic levitation processing

Electromagnetic levitation has developed from a pure physical phenomenon into a practical containerless processing technique in the fields of both applied physics and materials science. In order to obtain a better understanding of this processing technique, two typical levitation coils were designed and the physical characteristics in levitation droplets suspended in these two coils, such as electromangetic field, levitation force field, total levitation force, and power absorption, were analyzed numerically and calculated in this paper. It was found that the eddy current density, together with the magnetic flux density and levitation force density, increases rapidly with radius as it approaches sample surface. The maximum levitation force produced by coil A is larger than that of coil B, whereas the levitated sample can obtain less power absorption at the equilibrium position in the former coil than that in the latter one. Moreover, the calculated results also demonstrated that the levitation ability decreases as the atomic number increases. The larger the material’s electrical resistivity, the easier the samples can obtain more power absorption. PACC: 4110F; 1220; 6470D; 0260

Vibration Characteristics of Acoustically Levitated Object with Rigid and Elastic Reflectors

Levitation stability is a crucial factor that influences acoustic levitation capability. We present two sample-including models for a single-axis acoustic levitator with either a rigid or elastic reflector. Numerical analysis shows that, with the rigid reflector, both the decay time from initial disturbance and the vibration amplitude increase with sample density, which is unfavorable for levitation stability. However, with the elastic reflector, the decay time and the vibration amplitude are greatly reduced by choosing appropriate parameters of the reflector. Experimental results agree well with theoretical predictions, indicating that levitation stability can be remarkably enhanced by replacing the rigid reflector with an elastic reflector.

Non-Axisymmetric Oscillation of Acoustically Levitated Water Drops at Specific Frequencies

A category of non-axisymmetric oscillations of acoustically levitated water drops was observed. These oscillations can be qualitatively described by superposing a sectorial oscillating term upon the initial oblate shape resulting from the effect of acoustic radiation pressure. The oscillation frequencies are around 25 Hz for the 2-lobed mode and exactly 50 Hz for the 3- and 4-lobed modes. These oscillations were excited by the disturbance from the power supply. For the same water drop, higher mode oscillations were observed with more oblate initial shape, indicating that the eigenfrequencies of these non-axisymmetric oscillations decrease with increasing initial distortion. The maximum velocity and acceleration within the oscillating drop can attain 0.3ms−1 and 98.7ms−2 respectively, resulting in strong fluid convection and enhanced heat and mass transfer.