Physicochemical properties and structure of fluid at nano-/micro-interface:Progress in simulation and experimental study

In modern chemical engineering processes, the involvement of solid/fluid interface is the most important component of process intensification techniques, such as confined membrane separation and catalysis. In the review, we summarized the research progress of the latest theoretical and experimental works to elucidate the contribution of interface to the fluid properties and structures at nano-and micro-scale. We mainly focused on water, alcohol aqueous solution, and ionic liquids, because they are classical systems in interfacial science and/or widely involved in the industrialization process. Surface-induced fluids were observed in all reviewed systems and played a critical role in physicochemical properties and structures of outside fluid. It can even be regarded as a new interface, when the adsorption layer has a strong interaction with the solid surface. Finally, we proposed a perspective on scientific challenges in the modern chemical engineering processes and outlined future prospects.

Influence of Drilling Fluid Components on Shear Strength at Cement-aquifuge Interface in Coalbed Methane Wells

The hydraulic fracturing is still an effective technology for the exploitation of coalbed methane （CBM）. However, after the hydraulic fracturing operation, the high water cut or sudden water flooding of CBM well usually occurs due to upward migration of bottom water, which is called water channeling （water inrush）. This problem has been severely limiting the hydraulic fracturing effect of CBM wells. Some studies show that the aquifuge and cement paste themselves will not crush under hydraulic fracturing pressure. Water channeling often occurs at cement- aquifuge interface （CAI）.

Cauchy-Poisson Problem for a Two-layer Fluid with an Inertial Surface

This paper is concerned with the generation of waves due to initial disturbances at the upper surface of a two-layer fluid, as the upper layer is covered by an inertial surface and the lower layer extends infinitely downwards. The inertial surface is composed of thin but uniform distribution of non-interacting material. In the mathematical analysis, the Fourier and Laplace transform techniques have been utilized to obtain the depressions of the inertial surface and the interface in the form of infinite integrals. For initial disturbances concentrated at a point, the inertial surface depression and the interface depression are evaluated asymptotically for large time and distance by using the method of stationary phase. They are also depicted graphically for two types of initial disturbances and appropriate conclusions are made.

Effect of dimethyl carbonate on the behavior of water confined in carbon nanotube

The dehydration of water by dimethyl carbonate(DMC)is of great significance for its application in electrochemistry and oil industry.With the rapid development of nanomaterial,one-dimensional(e.g.carbon nanotube(CNT))and two-dimensional(e.g.lamellar graphene)materials have been widely used for molecular sieving.In this work,the molecular behavior of dimethyl carbonate/water mixture confined in CNT with varying diameters was studied based on molecular dynamics simulation.Due to different van der Waals interactions for the components in the mixtures with the solid surface,DMC molecules are preferentially adsorbed on the inner surface of the pore wall and formed an adsorption layer.Comparing with the pure water molecules confined in CNT,the adsorption DMC layer shows notable effect on the local compositions and microstructures of water molecules under nanoconfinement,which may result in different water mobility.Our analysis shows that the surface-induced DMC molecules can destroy the hydrogen bonding network of water molecules and result in an uniform and dispersed distribution of water molecules in the tube.These clear molecular understandings can be useful in material design for membrane separation.

Mathematical modeling and numerical computation of the effective interfacial conditions for Stokes flow on an arbitrarily rough solid surface

The present work is concerned with a two-dimensional(2D)Stokes flow through a channel bounded by two parallel solid walls.The distance between the walls may be arbitrary,and the surface of one of the walls can be arbitrarily rough.The main objective of this work consists in homogenizing the heterogeneous interface between the rough wall and fluid so as to obtain an equivalent smooth slippery fluid/solid interface characterized by an effective slip length.To solve the corresponding problem,two efficient numerical approaches are elaborated on the basis of the method of fundamental solution(MFS)and the boundary element methods(BEMs).They are applied to different cases where the fluid/solid interface is periodically or randomly rough.The results obtained by the proposed two methods are compared with those given by the finite element method and some relevant ones reported in the literature.This comparison shows that the two proposed methods are particularly efficient and accurate.

Particles dispersion on fluid-liquid interfaces

This paper is concerned with the dispersion of particles on the fluid-liquid interface. In a previous study we have shown that when small particles, e.g., flour, pollen, glass beads, etc., contact an air-liquid interface, they disperse rapidly as if they were in an explosion. The rapid dispersion is due to the fact that the capillary force pulls particles into the interface causing them to accelerate to a large velocity. In this paper we show that motion of particles normal to the interface is inertia dominated; they oscillate vertically about their equilibrium position before coming to rest under viscous drag. This vertical motion of a particle causes a radially-outward lateral （secondary） flow on the interface that causes nearby particles to move away. The dispersion on a liquid-liquid interface, which is the primary focus of this study, was relatively weaker than on an air-liquid interface, and occurred over a longer period of time. When falling through an upper liquid the particles have a slower velocity than when falling through air because the liquid has a greater viscosity. Another difference for the liquid-liquid interface is that the separation of particles begins in the upper liquid before the particles reach the interface. The rate of dispersion depended on the size of the particles, the densities of the particle and liquids, the viscosities of the liquids involved, and the contact angle. For small particles, partial pinning and hysteresis of the three-phase contact line on the surface of the particle during adsorption on liquid-liquid interfaces was also important. The frequency of oscillation of particles about their floating equilibrium increased with decreasing particle size on both air-water and liquid-liquid interfaces, and the time to reach equilibrium decreased with decreasing particle size. These results are in agreement with our analysis.

AN UNSPLIT LAGRANGIAN ADVECTION SCHEME FOR VOLUME OF FLUID METHOD

An Unsplit Lagrangian Advection （ULA） scheme for Volume Of Fluid （VOF） method is presented in this article. The ULA scheme is developed based on an algorithm of Piecewise Linear Interface Construction （PLIC）. The volume fluxes between cells are calculated through solving the new equation of the linear interfaces in cells in the ULA scheme. The fluxes flowing out from one cell is the inflow fluxes for another cell. In this way the whole fluid volume is conserved strictly without using any redistribution algorithms. The ULA scheme is based on two-dimensional structured rectangular mesh and may be extended to three-dimensional structured mesh with more geometrical efforts. The results from three widely-used benchmark tests show that the ULA scheme can achieve the accuracy higher than Split Lagaragian Advection （SLA） scheme and the Flux-Corrected Transport （FCT） algorithm.

SPECTRAL METHOD FOR CALCULATING MOVING INTERFACE BETWEEN FLUIDS IN POROUS MEDIUM

In the application of spectral method to the calculation of moving interface between fluids in porous medium there are two difficulties: the spectral calcula- tion of function defined by a singular integral and the numerical quadrature of highly oscillating function. This paper proposes a spectral method for calculating the problem and finds the way to overcome the two difficulties. Example calcula- tions show that the method can describe successfully interfacial motion and, with almost the same order of computational amount, is more accurate and stabler than the corresponding finite difference method.

A Front TrackingMethod for the Simulation of Compressible Multimedium Flows

A front trackingmethod combinedwith the real ghost fluidmethod(RGFM)is proposed for simulations of fluid interfaces in two-dimensional compressible flows.In this paper the Riemann problem is constructed along the normal direction of interface and the corresponding Riemann solutions are used to track fluid interfaces.The interface boundary conditions are defined by the RGFM,and the fluid interfaces are explicitly tracked by several connected marker points.The Riemann solutions are also used directly to update the flow states on both sides of the interface in the RGFM.In order to validate the accuracy and capacity of the new method,extensive numerical tests including the bubble advection,the Sod tube,the shock-bubble interaction,the Richtmyer-Meshkov instability and the gas-water interface,are simulated by using the Euler equations.The computational results are also compared with earlier computational studies and it shows good agreements including the compressible gas-water system with large density differences.

Evaluation and development of a predictive model for conjugate phase change heat transfer of energy storage system partially filled with porous media

The present study proposes a predictive model to explore the effect of partially filled porous media on the con-jugate heat transfer characteristic of phase change material(PCM)with interfacial coupling conditions between pure fluid region and porous region.The enthalpy-porosity method,local thermal non-equilibrium model and Darcy-Forchheimer law are comprehensively considered to describe the convective heat transfer process in porous media.The modified model is then validated by benchmark data provided by particle image velocimetry(PIV)ex-periments.The phase change behavior,heat transfer efficiency and energy storage performance are numerically investigated for different partial porous filling strategies in terms of filling content,position,height of porous foam and inclination angles of cavity.The results indicate that due to the resistance in porous region,the shear stress exerted by the main vortex(natural convection)in pure fluid region and the momentum transferred,a secondary vortex phenomenon appears in the porous region near the fluid/porous interface.Moreover,such dis-continuity of permeability and fluid-to-porous thermal conductivity results in the cusp of phase change interface at the horizontal fluid/porous boundary.Among four partial porous filling cases,the lower porous filling one has more desirable heat transfer performance,and the 3/4H lower porous filling configuration is the best solution for optimization of the latent heat thermal energy storage(LHTES)systems.For tilted cavity,the increase of inclination angle positively affects the heat transfer efficiency as well as the energy storage rate of the LHTES system,where the performance of 3/4H lower porous filling configuration is further highlighted.

Numerical study of air cavity characteristics of bow wave breaking of KCS ship under different speeds

Ship bow wave breaking contains complex flow mechanism,which is very important for ship performance.In this study,a practical numerical simulation scheme for bow wave breaking is proposed and the scheme is applied to the simulation of bow wave breaking of KCS ship model with Fr=0.26,0.30,0.35,0.40,analyzing the impact of speed on the bow wave breaking.The results indicate that an increase in speed leads to a significant rise in viscous pressure resistance and more pronounced bow wave breaking.Moreover,it is found that the traditional wave height function in OpenFOAM is not suitable for detailed studies of bow wave breaking.This study extracts different free surfaces through top and bottom views to further analyze the free surface overturning,droplet splashing,and cavity entrainment in bow wave breaking.Additionally,the spatial and temporal distribution of cavities at Fr=0.40 is analyzed,revealing that cavity distribution is closely related to vortex structures and exhibits a periodic pulsation characteristic of approximately 12 s.