Heating of Nanosized Liquid Water in High-Intensity Terahertz Pulses

Non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations of liquid water in picosecond high-power terahertz pulses are performed by using a non-polarizable potential model. Numerical results show that the energy absorption of water molecules exhibits a pronounced resonance with THz pulses in the frequency range of 14-17 THz. With the THz pulse at resonant frequencies, the maximum temperature is about 562 K by heating the water at room temperature. Further investigation indicates that the results are independent of the size of the nanoscale water box. The efficiency of energy transfer by resonant absorption is more than seven times of microwave heating. These studies show promising applications of ultrashort THz pulses.

Investigation of the Laser Powder Bed Fusion Process of Ti-6.5Al-3.5Mo-1.5Zr-0.3Si Alloy

Laser powder bed fusion(LPBF)is an advanced manufacturing technology;however,inappropriate LPBF process parameters may cause printing defects in materials.In the present work,the LPBF process of Ti-6.5Al-3.5Mo-1.5Zr-0.3Si alloy was investigated by a two-step optimization approach.Subsequently,heat transfer and liquid flow behaviors during LPBF were simulated by a well-tested phenomenological model,and the defect formation mechanisms in the as-fabricated alloy were discussed.The optimized process parameters for LPBF were detected as laser power changed from 195 W to 210 W,with scanning speed of 1250 mm/s.The LPBF process was divided into a laser irradiation stage,a spreading flow stage,and a solidification stage.The morphologies and defects of deposited tracks were affected by liquid flow behavior caused by rapid cooling rates.The findings of this research can provide valuable support for printing defect-free metal components.

Fluctuating specific heat in two-band superconductors

Theory of thermal fluctuations in two-band superconductors under an essentially homogeneous magnetic field is developed within the framework of the two-band Ginzburg-Landau theory. The fluctuating specific heat is calculated by using the optimized self-consistent perturbation approach and the results are applied to analyze the thermodynamic data of the iron-based superconductors Ba（1-x）KxFe2As2 with x -0.4, which have been suggested to have a two-band structure by recent experiments. We estimate the fluctuation strength in this material and find that the specific heat is described well with the Ginzburg number Gi = 4 · 10^-4. The influence of interband coupling strength is investigated and the result of the two-band Gaussian approximation approach is compared.

Local heat transfer properties in co- and counter-current G-L-S magnetically stabilized fluidized beds

Heat transfer coefficients were measured by immersed probes in co- and counter-current G-L-S magnetically stabilized fluidized beds （MSFBs） using air, water and nickel-alloy particles as the gas, liquid and solid phases. Influences of major factors, including magnetic field intensity, superficial gas and liquid velocities, liquid viscosity and surface tension, on heat-transfer properties were studied experimentally, indicating that both co- and counter-current G-L-S MSFB can provide relatively uniform radial distribution of heat transfer coefficients under appropriate operation conditions, thus controlling operation temperature for highly exothermic multi-phase reaction systems. Two correlations were provided to estimate accurately heat transfer properties in both co- and counter-current G-L-S MSFB systems, with an average error of less than 10%.