The biological patterning of the drosophila retina in vivo has striking resemblance to liquid bubbles, in which the surface mechanics due to N-cadherin within a sub-group of retina cells can be mimicked by surface tension. In this work, the aggregating patterns were reasonably simplified into 2D clusters consisting of 2—6 identical bubbles confined within a shrinking boundary. By using a hybrid fluid dy-namics model proposed for liquid foams, the aggregating process of 2―6 retina cells was studied. Assuming the minimal perimeter for patterning cells to be the condition of stability patterns, the stable converged patterns we simulated in this work are the same as the experimental observations. More importantly, a new pattern of 6 cells was obtained which was found physically more stable than the other two reported by Hayashi and Carthew[1]. Aggregating perimeters of cells, i.e. the surface energy, showed a good linear fit with the cell numbers.
SUN QiCheng Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100080, China
The multi-scale structures of complex flows have been great challenges to both theoretical and engineer-ing researches, and multi-scale modeling is the natural way in response. Particle methods (PMs) are ideal constitutors and powerful probes of multi-scale models, owing to their physical insight and computational simplicity. In this paper, the role of different PMs for multi-scale modeling of complex flows is critically reviewed and possible development of PMs in this background is prospected, with the emphasis on pseudo-particle modeling (PPM). The performances of some different PMs are compared in simulations and new devel-opment in the fundamentals and applications of PPM is also reported, demonstrating PPM as a unique PM for multi-scale modeling.
The behavior of a single polyethylene polymer in aqueous solution confined between two hydrophilic walls is studied with molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. The thickness of the nano-slit ranges from 1.26 to 3.15 nm, which is comparative to the polymer dimension. A monotonic transition from 3D- to 2D-like configurations is observed as the distance between the two walls narrows. Monomers are compressed into several layers and the preferred bond orientations alternate between parallel and normal to the walls accordingly. The diffusivity in the direction parallel to the wall is always larger than the one perpendicular to it. Calculation of the entropy and enthalpy changes during the folding of the polymer chain alone cannot explain the spontaneous process. The corresponding increase in water entropy due to volume expansion may be large enough to result in the overall free energy decrease.
The velocity profiles and temperature distributions of gas flow in microchannels, for Knudsen numbers ranging from 0.01 to 0.20, are investigated with pseudo-particle modeling (PPM). It has been found that the velocity profiles are mainly affected by Knudsen number and the external force fields applied. When Knudsen number was increased, the slip velocities on the walls increased at the beginning, and then decreased. The temperature distributions were also significantly affected by the external force. The Darcy friction factor increased with increasing Knudsen number, and its variation with Mach number under increased Knudsen number was similar to the so-called premature laminar-turbulent transition observed in experiments.
Progress in natural gas conversion in China is presented in this paper, including processes of natural gas to synthesis gas （syngas）, syngas to liquid hydrocarbons, oxygenates synthesis, methanol to olefins （MTO）, methane to aromatics and oxidative coupling of methane （OCM）.
Minimum spouting velocity （Ums） is one of the most important flow characteristics for proper design and operation of spouted bed reactors. Many correlations for Ums have been published since spouted bed technology was initiated in 1955. In this paper, a new correlation is developed for Ums based on 767 published experimental data covering both high pressure and high temperature conditions. The calculated and the measured results of Ums are in better agreement than other published correlations.
