Computational Fluid-Structure Interaction: Methods and Applicationstakes the reader from the fundamentals of computational fluid and solid mechanics to the state-of-the-art in computational FSI ...methods, special FSI techniques, and solution of real-world problems. Leading experts in the field present the material using a unique approach that combines advanced methods, special techniques, and challenging applications.This book begins with the differential equations governing the fluid and solid mechanics, coupling conditions at the fluid–solid interface, and the basics of the finite element method. It continues with the ALE and space–time FSI methods, spatial discretization and time integration strategies for the coupled FSI equations, solution techniques for the fully-discretized coupled equations, and advanced FSI and space–time methods. It ends with special FSI techniques targeting cardiovascular FSI, parachute FSI, and wind-turbine aerodynamics and FSI.Key features:First book to address the state-of-the-art in computational FSICombines the fundamentals of computational fluid and solid mechanics, the state-of-the-art in FSI methods, and special FSI techniques targeting challenging classes of real-world problemsCovers modern computational mechanics techniques, including stabilized, variational multiscale, and space–time methods, isogeometric analysis, and advanced FSI coupling methodsIs in full color, with diagrams illustrating the fundamental concepts and advanced methods and with insightful visualization illustrating the complexities of the problems that can be solved with the FSI methods covered in the book.Authors are award winning, leading global experts in computational FSI, who are known forsolving some of the most challenging FSI problemsComputational Fluid-Structure Interaction: Methods and Applicationsis a comprehensive reference for researchers and practicing engineers who would like to advance their existing knowledge on these subjects. It is also an ideal text for graduate and senior-level undergraduate courses in computational fluid mechanics and computational FSI.
Lithium sulfur batteries have brought significant advancement to the current state-of-art battery technologies because of their high theoretical specific energy, but their wide-scale implementation ...has been impeded by a series of challenges, especially the dissolution of intermediate polysulfides species into the electrolyte. Conductive polymers in combination with nanostructured sulfur have attracted great interest as promising matrices for the confinement of lithium polysulfides. However, the roles of different conductive polymers on the electrochemical performances of sulfur electrode remain elusive and poorly understood due to the vastly different structural configurations of conductive polymer-sulfur composites employed in previous studies. In this work, we systematically investigate the influence of different conductive polymers on the sulfur cathode based on conductive polymer-coated hollow sulfur nanospheres with high uniformity. Three of the most well-known conductive polymers, polyaniline (PANI), polypyrrole (PPY), and poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT), were coated, respectively, onto monodisperse hollow sulfur nanopsheres through a facile, versatile, and scalable polymerization process. The sulfur cathodes made from these well-defined sulfur nanoparticles act as ideal platforms to study and compare how coating thickness, chemical bonding, and the conductivity of the polymers affected the sulfur cathode performances from both experimental observations and theoretical simulations. We found that the capability of these three polymers in improving long-term cycling stability and high-rate performance of the sulfur cathode decreased in the order of PEDOT > PPY > PANI. High specific capacities and excellent cycle life were demonstrated for sulfur cathodes made from these conductive polymer-coated hollow sulfur nanospheres.
We discovered for the first time that light can twist metal to control the chirality of metal nanostructures (hereafter, chiral metal nanoneedles). The helicity of optical vortices is transferred to ...the constituent elements of the irradiated material (mostly melted material), resulting in the formation of chiral metal nanoneedles. The chirality of these nanoneedles could be controlled by just changing the sign of the helicity of the optical vortex. The tip curvature of these chiral nanoneedles was measured to be <40 nm, which is less than 1/25th of the laser wavelength (1064 nm). Such chiral metal nanoneedles will enable us to selectively distinguish the chirality and optical activity of molecules and chemical composites on a nanoscale and they will provide chiral selectivity for nanoscale imaging systems (e.g., atomic force microscopes), chemical reactions on plasmonic nanostructures, and planar metamaterials.
Doping is a widely applied technological process in materials science that involves incorporating atoms or ions of appropriate elements into host lattices to yield hybrid materials with desirable ...properties and functions. For nanocrystalline materials, doping is of fundamental importance in stabilizing a specific crystallographic phase, modifying electronic properties, modulating magnetism as well as tuning emission properties. Here we describe a material system in which doping influences the growth process to give simultaneous control over the crystallographic phase, size and optical emission properties of the resulting nanocrystals. We show that NaYF4 nanocrystals can be rationally tuned in size (down to ten nanometres), phase (cubic or hexagonal) and upconversion emission colour (green to blue) through use of trivalent lanthanide dopant ions introduced at precisely defined concentrations. We use first-principles calculations to confirm that the influence of lanthanide doping on crystal phase and size arises from a strong dependence on the size and dipole polarizability of the substitutional dopant ion. Our results suggest that the doping-induced structural and size transition, demonstrated here in NaYF4 upconversion nanocrystals, could be extended to other lanthanide-doped nanocrystal systems for applications ranging from luminescent biological labels to volumetric three-dimensional displays.
•The most recent advances in catalysts and support materials for fuel cell application are extensively reviewed.•The nanoarchitectured metal nanoparticles (metal alloys and core–shell and hollow ...structures), carbons (carbon blacks, CNTs, CNFs, and graphenes), and metal oxides are intensively explored.•The physical and electrochemical meanings of the catalysts and support materials according to their structures are mainly discussed in fuel cell application.•Based on technical progress in recent decades, we suggest promising future research topics for PEMFC commercialization.
Recent advances in multistructured nanocatalysts and support materials for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) are reviewed. Discussions focus on the materials’ structures and compositions, which significantly affect the electronic structures and catalytic activities of fuel cell catalysts. The nanocatalyst category includes metal alloys (including shape-controlled alloy nanoparticles), and core–shell and hollow structures. Various carbons (carbon blacks, carbon nanotubes, carbon nanofibers, and graphenes) and metal oxides are extensively explored as support materials. We describe the physical and electrochemical meanings of the nanoarchitectured catalysts and support materials mainly for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), because high ORR activity is one of the most important factors in enhancing PEMFC efficiency. Based on progress in catalysis and fuel cell technologies in recent decades, we suggest promising future research topics for PEMFC commercialization.
In this work, we propose a nanoscale three-dimensional (3D) Si phononic crystal (PnC) with spherical pores, which can reduce the thermal conductivity of bulk Si by a factor up to 10,000 times at room ...temperature. Thermal conductivity of Si PnCs depends on the porosity, for example, the thermal conductivity of Si PnCs with porosity 50% is 300 times smaller than that of bulk Si. The phonon participation ratio spectra demonstrate that more phonons are localized as the porosity increases. The thermal conductivity is insensitive to the temperature changes from room temperature to 1100 K. The extreme-low thermal conductivity could lead to a larger value of ZT than unity as the periodic structure affects very little the electric conductivity.