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Full-Text Articles in Mechanical Engineering

High-Frequency Instabilities Of Stationary Crossflow Vortices In A Hypersonic Boundary Layer, Fei Li, Meelan Choudhari, Pedro Paredes-Gonzalez, Lian Duan Sep 2016

High-Frequency Instabilities Of Stationary Crossflow Vortices In A Hypersonic Boundary Layer, Fei Li, Meelan Choudhari, Pedro Paredes-Gonzalez, Lian Duan

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Hypersonic boundary layer flows over a circular cone at moderate incidence angle can support strong crossflow instability in between the windward and leeward rays on the plane of symmetry. Due to more efficient excitation of stationary crossflow vortices by surface roughness, such boundary layer flows may transition to turbulence via rapid amplification of the high-frequency secondary instabilities of finite-amplitude stationary crossflow vortices. The amplification characteristics of these secondary instabilities are investigated for crossflow vortices generated by an azimuthally periodic array of roughness elements over a 7° half-angle circular cone in a Mach 6 free stream. The analysis is based on …


Geometric Consideration Of Nanostructures For Energy Storage Systems, Jonghyun Park, Jie Li, Wei Lu, Ann Marie Sastry Jan 2016

Geometric Consideration Of Nanostructures For Energy Storage Systems, Jonghyun Park, Jie Li, Wei Lu, Ann Marie Sastry

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Battery performance and its fade are determined by various aspects such as the transport of ions and electrons through heterogeneous internal structures; kinetic reactions at the interfaces; and the corresponding interplay between mechanical, chemical, and thermal responses. The fundamental factor determining this complex multiscale and multiphysical nature of a battery is the geometry of active materials. In this work, we systematically consider the tradeoffs among a selection of limiting geometries of media designed to store ions or other species via a diffusion process. Specifically, we begin the investigation by considering diffusion in spheres, rods, and plates at the particle level, …


Silicon-Wall Interfacial Free Energy Via Thermodynamics Integration, Wan Shou, Heng Pan Jan 2016

Silicon-Wall Interfacial Free Energy Via Thermodynamics Integration, Wan Shou, Heng Pan

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

We compute the interfacial free energy of a silicon system in contact with flat and structured walls by molecular dynamics simulation. The thermodynamics integration method, previously applied to Lennard-Jones potentials [R. Benjamin and J. Horbach, J. Chem. Phys. 137, 044707 (2012)], has been extended and implemented in Tersoff potentials with two-body and three-body interactions taken into consideration. The thermodynamic integration scheme includes two steps. In the first step, the bulk Tersoff system is reversibly transformed to a state where it interacts with a structureless flat wall, and in a second step, the flat structureless wall is reversibly transformed into an …


Ionic And Electronic Conductivities Of Atomic Layer Deposition Thin Film Coated Lithium Ion Battery Cathode Particles, Rajankumar L. Patel, Jonghyun Park, Xinhua Liang Jan 2016

Ionic And Electronic Conductivities Of Atomic Layer Deposition Thin Film Coated Lithium Ion Battery Cathode Particles, Rajankumar L. Patel, Jonghyun Park, Xinhua Liang

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

It is imperative to ascertain the ionic and electronic components of the total conductivity of an electrochemically active material. A blocking technique, called the “Hebb-Wagner method”, is normally used to explain the two components (ionic and electronic) of a mixed conductor, in combination with the complex ac impedance method and dc polarization measurements. CeO2 atomic layer deposition (ALD)-coated and uncoated, LiMn2O4 (LMO) and LiMn1.5Ni0.5O4 (LMNO) powders were pressed into pellets and then painted with silver to act as a blocking electrode. The electronic conductivities were derived from the currents obtained using …


Crystallization In Nano-Confinement Seeded By A Nanocrystal -- A Molecular Dynamics Study, Heng Pan, Costas Grigoropoulos Jan 2014

Crystallization In Nano-Confinement Seeded By A Nanocrystal -- A Molecular Dynamics Study, Heng Pan, Costas Grigoropoulos

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Seeded crystallization and solidification in nanoscale confinement volumes have become an important and complex topic. Due to the complexity and limitations in observing nanoscale crystallization, computer simulation can provide valuable details for supporting and interpreting experimental observations. In this article, seeded crystallization from nano-confined liquid, as represented by the crystallization of a suspended gold nano-droplet seeded by a pre-existing gold nanocrystal seed, was investigated using molecular dynamics simulations in canonical (NVT) ensemble. We found that the crystallization temperature depends on nano-confinement volume, crystal orientation, and seed size as explained by classical two-sphere model and Gibbs-Thomson effect.


Nonlinear Development And Secondary Instability Of Traveling Crossflow Vortices, Fei Li, Meelan M. Choudhari, Lian Duan, Chau-Lyan Chang Jan 2014

Nonlinear Development And Secondary Instability Of Traveling Crossflow Vortices, Fei Li, Meelan M. Choudhari, Lian Duan, Chau-Lyan Chang

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Building upon the prior research targeting the laminar breakdown mechanisms associated with stationary crossflow instability over a swept-wing configuration, this paper investigates the secondary instability of traveling crossflow modes as an alternate scenario for transition. For the parameter range investigated herein, this alternate scenario is shown to be viable unless the initial amplitudes of the traveling crossflow instability are lower than those of the stationary modes by considerably more than one order of magnitude. The linear growth predictions based on the secondary instability theory are found to agree well with both parabolized stability equations and direct numerical simulation, and the …