An elastic model for bioinspired design of carbon nanotube bundles

Collagen fibers provide a good example of making strong micro-or mesoscale fibers from nanoscale tropocollagen molecules through a staggered and crosslinked organization in a bottom-up manner.Mimicking the architectural features of collagen fibers has been shown to be a promising approach to develop carbon nanotube（CNT）fibers of high performance.In the present work,an elastic model is developed to describe the load transfer and failure propagation within the bioinspired CNT bundles,and to establish the relations of the mechanical properties of the bundles with a number of geometrical and physical parameters such as the CNT aspect ratio and longitudinal gap,interface cross-link density,and the functionalizationinduced degradation in CNTs,etc.With the model,the stress distributions along the CNT-CNT interface as well as in every individual CNT are well captured,and the failure propagation along the interface and its effects on the mechanical properties of the CNT bundles are predicted.The work may provide useful guidelines for the design of novel CNT fibers in practice.

Numerical study on the wave pattern characteristic of air layer in cavity and the effects of multiple influence factors

Air-layer drag reduction (ALDR) technology for ship energy saving is getting more and more attention in recent years because of the outstanding drag reduction effect. In order to promote practical application, it is necessary to fully understand the two phase flow characteristics of the air layer. Recent experimental studies have shown that the surface of the air layer presents wave pattern, which has an important influence on its damage risk. However, it is difficult to measure the wave pattern quantificationally due to the interference of equipment. The main goal of the present paper is to investigate the wave pattern characteristic of air layer in cavity using numerical simulation method. On this basis, the effect of flow and geometric influence factors are discussed to understand the key control conditions. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) numerical method based on Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations and volume of fluid (VOF) interface capturing method is established, and has been successfully applied in the simulation of air layer wave pattern. Both 2-D and 3-D simulations are carried out, aiming at analyzing air-water interface flow and vortex flow directly. Based on the simulation results, several important conclusions about the mechanism of air layer wave pattern can be obtained. Firstly, it is found to be an inherent characteristic that the wave height of the upstream air layer is higher than that of the downstream. The extremely high wave peak is easy to contact with the flat plate, leading to the breakup of air layer and a “central blank area” phenomenon. With the help of flow analysis, it is found that this characteristic is mainly caused by the strong counterclockwise vortex behind the bow wedge block. Secondly, the air layer stability is reduced with the increase of water flow velocity by affecting the wave height. There is a saturation point of air flow rate to reach maximum thickness of air layer. Thirdly, cavity configuration has obvious influence on air layer stability by influencing vortex flow field. The increase of cavity depth and width can aggravate the unsteady and nonlinear characteristics of air layer. Finally, comprehensive design criteria are concluded from the view of geometrical configuration and flow conditions. A cavity with the moderate depth and width can avoid the upstream damage of air layer. Longitudinal position of air nozzles should be set within the low pressure zone behind the wedge block for stable air layer formation.

The essential aspect and regular pattern of ion transfer across the liquid-liquid interface

Three empirical rules of interfacial potential and Gibb's energy with the radius,charge number of transfer ions and dielectric constant of organic phase are obtained for the ion transfer across the liquid-liquid interface,which are verified by the transfer of simple anions,dye ions and metal ions facilitated by neutral ionophores across the interface between water and some organic solvents, and deduced theoretically based on the electrostatic interaction of ion and high-permittivity solvent. The rules are proved to be effective of choosing supporting electrolytes and searching for new transfer system which follows the rule that r/n of transfer ion should be larger than that of electrolytes ion in water phase and less than that in organic phase.A rule for judgement of the charge sign of transfer ion is suggested firstly based on the relationship between interfacial half-wave potential and dielectric constant of organic phase.