Influence of vacuoles with gas–liquid inclusions on the thermobaric destruction conditions of natural quartz under dynamic heating in an RF-TICP torch system

In the present work,the turbulent mixing process of a polydisperse quartz particle flow with a plasma stream generated by a radio-frequency(RF)inductively coupled plasma torch was numerically studied.The thermobaric stress in the quartz particles under dynamic heating in a heterogeneous plasma flow was determined by a two-stage approximation approach.The effect of the presence of vacuoles in natural quartz on the particle thermobaric destruction conditions was studied.It was found that the equivalent thermal and baric stresses in quartz particles may significantly increase in the presence of vacuoles within a small gas volume fraction.The influence of the regime and energetic working conditions of an RF inductively coupled plasma torch system on the particle thermobaric destruction conditions was examined,and a recommendation was given to promote the degree of thermobaric destruction of quartz particles,which is of substantial importance for improving the overall enrichment efficiency of quartz concentrates.

Mechanical effects of circular liquid inclusions inside soft matrix:role of internal pressure change and surface tension

The mechanical effects of dilute liquid inclusions on the solid-liquid composite are explored,based on an analytical circular inclusion model incorporating the internal pressure change of the liquid and the surface tension of the interface.Several simple explicit dependences of the stress field and effective stiffness on the bulk modulus and the size of the liquid,the surface tension,and Poisson’s ratio of the matrix are derived.The results show that the stresses in the matrix are reduced,and the stiffness of the solid-liquid composite is enhanced with the consideration of either the surface tension or the internal pressure change.Particularly,the effective Young’s modulus predicted by the present model for either soft or stiff matrices agrees well with the known experimental data.In addition,according to the theoretical results,it is possible to stiffen a soft solid by pressured gas with the presence of the surface tension of the solid-gas interface.

A theory of mechanobiological sensation:strain amplification/attenuation of coated liquid inclusion with surface tension

Cells are compressible and can be regarded as a kind of coated liquid inclusion embedded in a three-dimensional elastic matrix.In the presence of far-field loading,how the coating influences the mechanical response(e.g.,volume change)of the liquid inclusion remains elusive,especially when surface tension effects become significant at cell size level.We developed a theoretical model to characterize the mechanical amplification or attenuation role of coating on spherical liquid inclusions,with surface tension and liquid compressibility accounted for.We found that surface tension could increase the volumetric strain of the inclusion through decreasing its effective bulk modulus.We further found that,when there is a monotonic stiffness variation(either decreasing or increasing)from matrix via coating to inclusion,the presence of coating amplified the volumetric strain compared with the case without coating;in the opposite,when there is a non-monotonic stiffness change from matrix via coating to inclusion,the volumetric strain is attenuated by the coating.The results are useful for understanding and exploring the mechanobiological sensation of certain types of cell,e.g.,osteocytes and cancer cells.