Non-Darcian effects on forced convection heat transfer over a flat plate in a highly porous medium

Summary The effects of inertia forces and the distance from the leading edge of the plate on the velocity and temperature fields as well as on the skin friction and heat transfer coefficients in the boundary layer flow over a semi-infinite flat plate embedded in a saturated porous medium of high porosity are studied. It is shown that the inertia forces have a significant influence on the flow characteristics in this problem.     

Gas-liquid flow through coils

Experimental investigations have been carried out to evaluate the two-phase pressure drop and the holdup for flow through helical coils. The coils were made of thick wall transparent PVC tube of diameter 0.01 m and 0.013 m. 24 coils were made at different coil diameter and different helix angles (0° to 12°). Three different liquids were used for the experimental studies and air was the gas. Empirical correlations have been developed to predict the two-phase friction factor and the liquid holdup as functions of the physical and dynamic variables of the system. Statistical analyses of the correlations suggest that they are of acceptable accuracy.     

Epidural spinal cord stimulation for treatment of chronic pain--some predictors of success. A 15-year experience

BACKGROUND: We have used epidural spinal cord stimulation (SCS) for pain control for the past 15 years. An analysis of our series of 235 patients has clarified the value of specific prognostic parameters in the prediction of successful SCS. METHODS: Patients were followed up for periods ranging from 6 months to 15 years with a mean follow-up of 66 months. The mean age of the 150 men and 85 women in the study was 51.4 years. Indications for SCS included failed back syndrome (114 patients), peripheral vascular disease (39 patients), peripheral neuropathy (30 patients), multiple sclerosis (13 patients), reflex sympathetic dystrophy (13 patients), and other etiologies of chronic intractable pain (26 patients). RESULTS: One hundred and eighty-nine patients received permanent devices; 111 (59%) of these patients continue to receive satisfactory pain relief. Pain attributable to failed back syndrome, reflex sympathetic dystrophy, peripheral vascular disease of lower limbs, multiple sclerosis, and peripheral neuropathy responded favorably to spinal cord stimulation. In contrast, paraplegic pain, cauda equina syndrome, stump pain, phantom limb pain, and primary bone and joint disease pain did not respond as well. Cases of cauda equina injury had promising initial pain relief, but gradually declined after a few years. After long-term follow-up, 47 of the 111 successfully implanted patients were gainfully employed, compared with 22 patients before implantation. The successful patients reported improvements in daily living as well as a decrease in analgesic usage. Multipolar stimulation systems were significantly more reliable (p < 0.001) than unipolar systems. Complications included hardware malfunction, electrode displacement, infection, and tolerance. CONCLUSION: Aside from etiologies of pain syndromes as a prognostic factor, we have identified other parameters of success. In patients who have undergone previous surgical procedures, the shorter the duration of time to implantation, the greater the rate of success (p < 0.001). The diagnosis of failed back syndrome must be considered a confounding factor in our analysis. Those patients whose pain did not follow a surgical procedure had better responses to SCS than patients who had multiple surgical procedures prior to their first implant. The advent of multipolar systems has significantly improved clinical reliability over unipolar systems. Age, sex, and laterality of pain did not prove to be of significance.     

Structural characterization of natural and vulcanized rubber by ozonolysis

A quantitative characterization of natural rubber, both as the raw polymer, and unaccelerated vulcanized samples containing different proportions of sulfur and ranging from soft to hard rubber, is reported. A value of 86% of the chains of natural rubber could be accounted for against 37% as reported by Harries assuming that levulinic acid is the sole degradation product. About 5% of the chain is present as a 3,4 structure which gives rise to formic acid in the degraded product. A small amount of sulfuric acid is present in the degradation product from the vulcanized samples, which decreases with the increases in the percentage of sulfur in the stock as well as the cure time. A chromatographic technique for the separation of levulinic, acetic, and formic acid in the presence of sulfuric acid is reported. It is observed that the total amount of carbon main chain escaping sulfuration decreases and the amount of insoluble fraction increases with increasing proportion of sulfur in the stock.     

Unsteady mixed convection flow at the stagnation point

The unsteady mixed convection flow of an electrically conducting fluid at the stagnation point of a two-dimensional body and an axisymmetric body in the presence of an applied magnetic field has been studied. The effect of induced magnetic field has been included in the analysis. Both prescribed wall temperature and prescribed heat flux conditions have been considered. It is found that if the free stream velocity, applied magnetic field and square root of the wall temperature vary inversely as a linear function of time, i.e. as (1 − λt′)⁻¹, the governing boundary layer equations admit a locally self-similar solution. If surface heat flux is prescribed, it should vary as (1 − λt^*)^−5/2 for the existence of a local self-similar solution. The resulting ordinary differential equations have been solved using a finite element method as well as a shooting method with Newton's corrections for missing initial conditions. The skin friction and heat transfer coefficients and x-component of the induced magnetic field on the surface increase with the applied magnetic field or buoyancy force. Also they are found to change more for decelerating free stream velocity than for accelerating free stream velocity. Furthermore, they change little with the reciprocal of the magnetic Prandtl number. The buoyancy parameter causes overshoot in the velocity profile. For a given Prandtl number, beyond a certain critical value of the dissipation parameter, the hot wall ceases to be cooled due to the “heat cushion” provided by frictional heat.     

Copolymer characterization by surface tension

The use of surface tension measurements is proposed as a simple method for the determination of copolymerization ratios. The procedure depends on the parachor of the copolymer in the liquid state (∏), which is defined by ∏ = ∏_s + ∏₀(w_p/w_s)(M_s/M₀) for solutions and ∏ = [DP]∏₀ for liquid or molten polymers, where ∏_s is the parachor of the solvent of molecular weight M_s; w_p and w_s are the weights of the polymer and solvent in solution; while ∏₀ and M₀ are the parachor and molecular weight of the repeating unit of the copolymer, respectively. The validity of this relationship is demonstrated by analysis of the surface tension properties of liquid silicone polymers, polystyrene–Decalin solutions, and molten polymers as well as by the calculation of the composition of some characterized tetrahydrofuran–propylene oxide copolymers. The application of surface tension measurement is also suggested as a means of estimating the degree of chain branching in a polymer.     

Gas lasers

The important gas lasers which find wide applications in material processing are the CO₂ laser, the argon-ion laser and the excimer lasers. This paper briefly describes the basic concepts and the technology of these lasers.