Large eddy simulation of hydrocyclone—prediction of air-core diameter and shape

Hydrocyclones are widely used in the mining and chemical industries. An attempt has been made in this study, to develop a CFD (computational fluid dynamics) model, which is capable of predicting the flow patterns inside the hydrocyclone, including accurate prediction of flow split as well as the size of the air-core. The flow velocities and air-core diameters are predicted by DRSM (differential Reynolds stress model) and LES (large eddy simulations) models were compared to experimental results. The predicted water splits and air-core diameter with LES and RSM turbulence models along with VOF (volume of fluid) model for the air phase, through the outlets for various inlet pressures were also analyzed. The LES turbulence model led to an improved turbulence field prediction and thereby to more accurate prediction of pressure and velocity fields. This improvement was distinctive for the axial profile of pressure, indicating that air-core development is principally a transport effect rather than a pressure effect.     

Mais comment s'écoule donc un glacier ? Aperçu historique

Ice and snow have often helped physicists understand the world. On the contrary it has taken them a very long time to understand the flow of the glaciers. Naturalists only began to take an interest in glaciers at the beginning of the 19th century during the last phase of glacier advances. When the glacier flow from the upslope direction became obvious, it was then necessary to understand how it flowed. It was only in 1840, the year of the Antarctica ice sheet discovery by Dumont d'Urville, that two books laid the basis for the future field of glaciology: one by Agassiz on the ice age and glaciers, the other one by canon Rendu on glacier theory. During the 19th century, ice flow theories, adopted by most of the leading scientists, were based on melting/refreezing processes. Even though the word ‘fluid’ was first used in 1773 to describe ice, more the 130 years would have to go by before the laws of fluid mechanics were applied to ice. Even now, the parameter of Glen's law, which is used by glaciologists to model ice deformation, can take a very wide range of values, so that no unique ice flow law has yet been defined. To cite this article: F. Rémy, L. Testut, C. R. Geoscience 338 (2006).     

The structure and dynamics of 2-dimensional fluids in swelling clays

The interlayer pores of swelling 2:1 clays provide an ideal 2-dimensional environment in which to study confined fluids. In this paper we discuss our understanding of the structure and dynamics of interlayer fluid species in expanded clays, based primarily on the outcome of recent molecular modelling and neutron scattering studies. Counterion solvation is compared with that measured in bulk solutions, and at a local level the cation-oxygen coordination is found to be remarkably similar in these two environments. However, for the monovalent ions the contribution to the first coordination shell from the clay surfaces increases with counterion radius. This gives rise to inner-sphere (surface) complexes in the case of potassium and caesium. In this context, the location of the negative clay surface charge (i.e. arising from octahedral or tetrahedral substitution) is also found to be of major importance. Divalent cations, such as calcium, eagerly solvate to form outer-sphere complexes. These complexes are able to pin adjacent clay layers together, and thereby prevent colloidal swelling. Confined water molecules form hydrogen bonds to each other and to the clays' surfaces. In this way their local environment relaxes to close to the bulk water structure within two molecular layers of the clay surface. Finally, we discuss the way in which the simple organic molecules methane, methanol and ethylene glycol behave in the interlayer region of hydrated clays. Quasi-elastic neutron scattering of isotopically labelled interlayer CH₃OD and (CH₂OD)₂ in deuterated clay allows us to measure the diffusion of the CH₃- and CH₂-groups in both clay and liquid environments. We find that in both the one-layer methanol solvates and the two-layer glycol solvates the diffusion of the most mobile organic molecules is close to that in the bulk solution.     

Spectral Simulation and Conditioning to Local Continuity Trends in Geologic Modeling

Spectral simulation has gained application in building geologic models due to the advantage of better honoring the spatial continuity of petrophysical properties, such as reservoir porosity and shale volume. Distinct from sequential simulation methods, spectral simulation is a global algorithm in the sense that a global density spectrum is calculated once and the inverse Fourier transform is performed on the Fourier coefficient also only once to generate a simulation realization. The generated realizations honor the spatial continuity structure globally over the whole field instead of only within a search neighborhood, as with sequential simulation algorithms. However, the disadvantage of global spectral simulation is that it traditionally cannot account for the local information such as the local continuity trends, which are often observed in reservoirs and hence are important to be accounted for in geologic models. This disadvantage has limited wider application of spectral simulation in building geologic models. In this paper, we present ways of conditioning geologic models to the relevant local information. To account for the local continuity trends, we first scale different frequency components of the original model with local-amplitude spectrum ratios that are specific to the local trend. The sum of these scaled frequency components renders a new model that displays the desired local continuity trend. The implementation details of this new method are discussed and examples are provided to illustrate the algorithm.     

地震快报系统

本文简述了开发地震快报系统的主要技术。     

泥石流汇流槽可靠度分析

汇流槽是泥石流治理工程中常用的工程措施之一。文章基于汇流槽的倾倒破坏、滑移破坏及地基破坏模式，通过对汇流槽设计影响强烈的岩土参数、几何特征、荷载因素等敏感因子的求解方法及分布特征分析，从汇流槽的抗倾稳定、抗滑稳定和基底应力要求三方面建立极限状态方程。对于每个极限状态方程，在泰勒级数对非线性极限状态方程线性化后，运用一次二阶矩的理论，先假定失效点P^＊，求解出相应的均值和方差。然后根据可靠的定义，得到相应的可靠度指标，通过迭代法求解真正失效点的可靠度指标βi。最后根据3个状态方程相互独立的假定，得出整个结构的可靠度指标β。该方法在平川泥石流防治工程中得到了成功的运用。这对于可靠度设计方法在泥石流防治工程中的运用进行了有益的探讨。     

含水矿物在真空下的释Ar机制:Ar-Ar热年代学面临的新问题

地质体的实际情况、激光显微探针束研究、XRD和SEM观测以及真空加热下Ar的释放特征都表明体积扩散不是含水矿物在真空加热中释放Ar的唯一机制。在低温下 ,Ar的释放主要受由缺陷引起的短程扩散和体积扩散共同作用的多途径扩散机制制约 ;而在高温下 ,由于含水矿物在真空中不够稳定 ,Ar的释放受到脱羟基、脱氢、氧化反应、分层作用等造成的晶体结构改变的强烈影响。含水矿物在高温下的氧化分解会导致矿物中原始Ar浓度梯度的均一化 ,因而无法得到真实的Ar分布剖面 ,也无法据此计算矿物的封闭温度 ,并进而可能影响到ArAr年龄坪的地质意义。