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Full-Text Articles in Mechanical Engineering
Scaling Reversible Adhesion In Synthetic And Biological Systems, Michael David Bartlett
Scaling Reversible Adhesion In Synthetic And Biological Systems, Michael David Bartlett
Open Access Dissertations
Geckos and other insects have fascinated scientists and casual observers with their ability to effortlessly climb up walls and across ceilings. This capability has inspired high capacity, easy release synthetic adhesives, which have focused on mimicking the fibrillar features found on the foot pads of these climbing organisms. However, without a fundamental framework that connects biological and synthetic adhesives from nanoscopic to macroscopic features, synthetic mimics have failed to perform favorably at large contact areas. In this thesis, we present a scaling approach which leads to an understanding of reversible adhesion in both synthetic and biological systems over multiple length …
Background And Available Potential Energy In Numerical Simulations Of A Boussinesq Fluid, Shreyas S. Panse
Background And Available Potential Energy In Numerical Simulations Of A Boussinesq Fluid, Shreyas S. Panse
Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014
In flows with stable density stratification, a portion of the gravitational potential energy is available for conversion to kinetic energy. The remainder is not and is called “background potential energy”. The partition of potential energy is analogous to the classical division of energy due to motion into its kinetic and internal components. Computing background and available potential energies is important for understanding stratified flows. In many numerical simulations, though, the Boussinesq approximations to the Navier-Stokes equations are employed. These approximations are not consistent with conservation of energy. In this thesis we re-derive the governing equations for a buoyancy driven fluid …
Optimization Of Mixing In A Simulated Biomass Bed Reactor With A Center Feeding Tube, Michael T. Blatnik
Optimization Of Mixing In A Simulated Biomass Bed Reactor With A Center Feeding Tube, Michael T. Blatnik
Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014
Producing gasoline-type fuels from lignocellulosic biomass has two advantages over producing alcohol-type fuels from plant sugars: gasoline has superior fuel characteristics and plant lignin/cellulose does not compete with human food supplies. A promising technology for converting lignocellulose to fuel is catalytic fast pyrolysis (CFP). The process involves injecting finely ground biomass into a fluidized bed reactor (FBR) at high temperatures, which reduce the biomass to gases that react inside the catalyst particles. This entails complex hydrodynamics to efficiently mix a stream of biomass into a catalyst bed that is fluidized by a separate stream of inert gas. Understanding the hydrodynamics …