Simulation of flows with moving contact lines on a dual-resolution Cartesian grid using a diffuse-interface immersed-boundary method

In this paper, we investigate flows with moving contact lines on curved solid walls on a dual-resolution grid using a diffuse-interface immersed-boundary（DIIB） method. The dual-resolution grid, on which the flows are solved on a coarse mesh while the interface is resolved on a fine mesh, was shown to significantly improve the computational efficiency when simulating multiphase flows. On the other hand, the DIIB method is able to resolve dynamic wetting on curved substrates on a Cartesian grid, but it usually requires a mesh of high resolution in the vicinity of a moving contact line to resolve the local flow. In the present study, we couple the DIIB method with the dual-resolution grid, to improve the interface resolution for flows with moving contact lines on curved solid walls at an affordable cost. The dynamic behavior of moving contact lines is validated by studying drop spreading, and the numerical results suggest that the effective slip length λ_n can be approximated by 1.9Cn, where Cn is a dimensionless measure of the thickness of the diffuse interface. We also apply the method to drop impact onto a convex substrate, and the results on the dual-resolution grid are in good agreement with those on a single-resolution grid. It shows that the axisymmetric simulations using the DIIB method on the dual-resolution grid saves nearly 60% of the computational time compared with that on a single-resolution grid.

In-situ TEM study of the dynamic behavior of the graphene-metal interface evolution under Joule heating

The dynamic behavior of the interface between few layer graphene(FLG) and tungsten metal tips under Joule heating has been studied by in-situ transmission electron microscopy(TEM) method. High-resolution and real-time observations show the tungsten tip ‘swallow' carbon atoms of the FLG and ‘spit' graphite shells at its surface. The tip was carbonized to tungsten carbide(WC, W_2 C and WC_x) after this process. A carbon diffusion mechanism has been proposed based on the diffusion of carbon atoms through the tungsten tip and separation from the surface of the tip. After Joule heating, the initial FLG-metal mechanical contact was transformed to FLG-WCx-W contact, which results in significant improvement on electrical conductivity at the interface.