A rapid simulation of nano‐particle transport in a two‐dimensional human airway using POD/Galerkin reduced‐order models

An approach is proposed for the rapid prediction of nano‐particle transport and deposition in the human airway, which requires the solution of both the Navier–Stokes and advection–diffusion equations and for which computational efficiency is a challenge. The proposed method builds low‐order models that are representative of the fully coupled equations by means of the Galerkin projection and proper orthogonal decomposition technique. The obtained reduced‐order models (ROMs) are a set of ordinary differential equations for the temporal coefficients of the basis functions. The numerical results indicate that the ROMs are highly efficient for the computation (the speedup factor is approximately 3 × 10³) and have reasonable accuracy compared with the full model (relative error of ≈7 × 10^?3). Using ROMs, the deposition of particles is studied for 1≤d_n≤100 nm, where d_n is the diameter of a nano‐particle. The effectiveness of this approach is promising for applications of health risk assessment. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An extended finite element library

This paper presents and exercises a general structure for an object‐oriented‐enriched finite element code. The programming environment provides a robust tool for extended finite element (XFEM) computations and a modular and extensible system. The programme structure has been designed to meet all natural requirements for modularity, extensibility, and robustness. To facilitate mesh–geometry interactions with hundreds of enrichment items, a mesh generator and mesh database are included. The salient features of the programme are: flexibility in the integration schemes (subtriangles, subquadrilaterals, independent near‐tip, and discontinuous quadrature rules); domain integral methods for homogeneous and bi‐material interface cracks arbitrarily oriented with respect to the mesh; geometry is described and updated by level sets, vector level sets or a standard method; standard and enriched approximations are independent; enrichment detection schemes: topological, geometrical, narrow‐band, etc.; multi‐material problem with an arbitrary number of interfaces and slip‐interfaces; non‐linear material models such as J2 plasticity with linear, isotropic and kinematic hardening. To illustrate the possible applications of our paradigm, we present 2D linear elastic fracture mechanics for hundreds of cracks with local near‐tip refinement, and crack propagation in two dimensions as well as complex 3D industrial problems. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A One-Dimensional Nonlocal Damage-Plasticity Model for Ductile Materials

This paper presents a new 1-D non-local damage-plasticity deformation model for ductile materials. It uses the thermodynamic framework described in Houlsby and Puzrin (2000) and holds, nevertheless, some similarities with Lemaitre’s (1971) approach. A 1D finite element (FE) model of a bar fixed at one end and loaded in tension at the other end is introduced. This simple model demonstrates how the approach can be implemented within the finite element framework, and that it is capable of capturing both the pre-peak hardening and post-peak softening (generally responsible for models instability) due to damage-induced stiffness and strength reduction characteristic of ductile materials. It is also shown that the approach has further advantages of achieving some degree of mesh independence, and of being able to capture deformation size effects. Finally, it is illustrated how the model permits the calculation of essential work of rupture (EWR), i.e. the specific energy per unit cross-sectional area that is needed to cause tensile failure of a specimen.     

A Smoothed Finite Element Method for Mechanics Problems

In the finite element method (FEM), a necessary condition for a four-node isoparametric element is that no interior angle is greater than 180° and the positivity of Jacobian determinant should be ensured in numerical implementation. In this paper, we incorporate cell-wise strain smoothing operations into conventional finite elements and propose the smoothed finite element method (SFEM) for 2D elastic problems. It is found that a quadrilateral element divided into four smoothing cells can avoid spurious modes and gives stable results for integration over the element. Compared with original FEM, the SFEM achieves more accurate results and generally higher convergence rate in energy without increasing computational cost. More importantly, as no mapping or coordinate transformation is involved in the SFEM, its element is allowed to be of arbitrary shape. Hence the restriction on the shape bilinear isoparametric elements can be removed and problem domain can be discretized in more flexible ways, as demonstrated in the example problems.     

50th Anniversary Article: Seeing Stresses through the Thermoelastic Lens—A Retrospective and Prospective from an Australian Viewpoint

Thermoelastic stress analysis (TSA) has been around for the past 30 years, but to date, it is still a very much underrated and under‐utilised experimental technique. Although there are devoted groups of practitioners in some industries, this technology is not well known within the aerospace sector. In contrast, the Aerospace Division of the Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) in Australia has been in the forefront of this technology for some time, achieving many pioneering feats. This paper gives a brief introduction to the development of this technology from a historical perspective, then focuses on a number of innovations that have stemmed from DSTO, including the development and application of the world's first focal plane array based TSA system and, more recently, the development of small and robust microbolometer based systems. For the latter, it is shown that despite nominally poorer temperature sensitivities, they make ideal TSA devices and can in some cases outperform their much more expensive photon detector counterparts. Because of this, together with the enormous practical advantages of microbolometers, the future of TSA is shown to be brighter than ever. Specifically, it is argued that such TSA systems can play a major role in the pervasive and persistent surveillance of full scale fatigue testing of aircraft structures. By detecting both design and developing faults early, it can effectively relieve cost and schedule penalties that are often associated with unanticipated failures. To realise this capability, integration of this technology with autonomous systems will be important, and some preliminary but promising results from a technology demonstrator program are presented.     

Biodegradable Nanocapsules as siRNA Carriers for Mutant K‐Ras Gene Silencing of Human Pancreatic Carcinoma Cells

The application of small interfering RNA (siRNA)‐based RNA interference (RNAi) for cancer gene therapy has attracted great attention. Gene therapy is a promising strategy for cancer treatment because it is relatively non‐invasive and has a higher therapeutic specificity than chemotherapy. However, without the use of safe and efficient carriers, siRNAs cannot effectively penetrate the cell membranes and RNAi is impeded. In this work, cationic poly(lactic acid) (CPLA)‐based degradable nanocapsules (NCs) are utilized as novel carriers of siRNA for effective gene silencing of pancreatic cancer cells. These CPLA‐NCs can readily form nanoplexes with K‐Ras siRNA and over 90% transfection efficiency is achieved using the nanoplexes. Cell viability studies show that the nanoparticles are highly biocompatible and non‐toxic, indicating that CPLA‐NC is a promising potential candidate for gene therapy in a clinical setting.     

The emergence of spin electronics in data storage

Electrons have a charge and a spin, but until recently these were considered separately. In classical electronics, charges are moved by electric fields to transmit information and are stored in a capacitor to save it. In magnetic recording, magnetic fields have been used to read or write the information stored on the magnetization, which 'measures' the local orientation of spins in ferromagnets. The picture started to change in 1988, when the discovery of giant magnetoresistance opened the way to efficient control of charge transport through magnetization. The recent expansion of hard-disk recording owes much to this development. We are starting to see a new paradigm where magnetization dynamics and charge currents act on each other in nanostructured artificial materials. Ultimately, 'spin currents' could even replace charge currents for the transfer and treatment of information, allowing faster, low-energy operations: spin electronics is on its way.     

Enhanced protein affinity and selectivity of clustered-charge anion-exchange adsorbents

In this work, we examined the possibility of improving ion-exchange adsorbent performance by nanoscale structuring of ligands into clusters of fixed size rather than a random distribution of individual charges. The calcium-depleted form of the protein alpha-lactalbumin, which displays a cluster of acidic amino acid residues, showed enhanced adsorption affinity and capacity on clustered-charge pentalysinamide and pentaargininamide adsorbents as compared to single-charge lysinamide and argininamide adsorbents of matched total charge. Two differently charge-clustered mutants of rat microsomal cytochrome b(5), E11Q and E44Q, with the same total charge also were well differentiated by clustered-charge adsorbents. Thus, an organized rather than random distribution of charges may produce adsorbents with higher capacity and selectivity, especially for biomolecules with inherent charge clustering.     

Integrated label-free protein detection and separation in real time using confined surface plasmon resonance imaging

We demonstrate a label-free protein detection and separation technology for real-time monitoring of proteins in micro/nanofluidic channels, confined surface plasmon resonance imaging (confined-SPRi). This was achieved by fabricating ultrathin fluidic channels (500 nm high, 500 microm wide) directly on top of a specialized SPRi sensor surface. In this way, SPRi is uniquely used to detect proteins deep into the fluidic channel while maintaining high lateral accuracy of separated products. The channel fluid and proteins were driven electrokinetically under an external electric field. For this to occur, the metallic SPR sensor (46 nm of Au on 2 nm of Cr) was segmented into an array of squares (each 200 microm x 200 microm in size and spaced 8 microm apart) and coated with 30 nm of CYTOP polymer. In this work, we track label-free protein separation in real time through a simple cross-junction fluidic device with an 8-mm separation channel length under 30 V/cm electric field strength.