The objectives of this research were to provide a better understanding of particle motion in cascading rotary dryers. This would lead to more soundly based design procedures. Experiments were performed, to check the validity of a proposed design method for dryers operating in the under-loaded and design loaded conditions developed by Matchett and Baker, on a pilot plant rig at Teesside Polytechnic using wheat and sand in the absence of airflow. The model considers the particles to move in two parallel phases, the airborne phase contains the material in flight and the dense phase contains the remaining material which is caught on the flights and on the bottom of the drum. There is continuous Interchange of material between the two phases. A dimensionless number, dense phase velocity number 'a', has been defined which is a measure of the axial velocity of the material in the dense phase of the drum. The 'a' values were found to be in agreement with existing data and were found to be dependent on material and not on dryer speed or slope. Photographic studies of the dryer internals suggested that the assumption of a constant 0 value (measure of flight loading) In the original model was not valid and that 4) varied with number of flights. A model was developed to predict 0 which worked extremely well for large number of flights. The existing design model was therefore modified to take account of the variation In 4). However, the paired t-test Indicated that at 5% level of significance there was no difference between the original and the modified model, even though the modified model is physically more realistic. It is, however, recommended that the models be tested on a large number of flights and also large equipment, because It is expected that with a large number of flights there will be differences between the two models and the 0 model will be superior. The 'a' and am (the am value is a modified form of the 'a' value which takes into account the variation in flight loading) values were found to be Independent of operating conditions, flight angle and also dryer size but were dependent on material. The 'a' and am values were proportional to 1/number of flights. Particle motion in the dense is by bouncing, rolling and sliding, but the high dense phase velocity numbers obtained with zero flights (ar) suggested ii that rolling and sliding are the important mechanisms of the dense phase motion and may be far more important than bouncing. A model has also been developed to study the over-loaded regime. In the over-loaded regime It was found that dryer speed, slope, material and number of flights affected the dense phase motion and a simple relationship between the over-loaded dense phase velocity number (ao) and number of flights could not be developed with the limited data. Particle motion In the over-loaded regime was found to be very complex. The ao values could be predicted to within ± 35%. Estimates have been made of the transition holdup, marking the change from under-loaded to over-loaded behaviour, but It was found that the prediction of the transition holdup is also complex and could be predicted to within ± 45%. The am values could be predicted to an accuracy of ± 10%. Thus suggesting that the ao and the transition holdup numbers are not so reliable. Future work has been recommended particularly in the over-loaded regime and also on the transition region since it was found that the particle motion in these regions was complex. It has also been suggested that the models be tested in large Industrial units with and without air flow.

No description available.

In 2009 Bañados, Silk and West described the possibility of principally unbounded collision energies in the centre-of-mass frame for the particle collisions in the vicinity of black holes. Their work attracted a big response. This thesis aims to summarise the results of a number of the articles about the topic and puts these results into a new, broader context. It also presents some generalisations of the existing results, especially for models of magnetised black holes. The main subject of interest is the question, whether the unbounded collision energies can be achieved in a single-scattering or multiple-scattering process which was first formulated by Grib, Pavlov and Zaslavskii. Variety of methods is summarised. A considerable attention is paid to the limiting near-horizon description, which is further developed in order to derive new links and relations among known results, particularly between the purely theoretical work dealing with the geometry of degenerate horizons and their vicinity and more astrophysical articles about magnetic fluxes. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Neurons are polarized cells with dendrites and an axon projecting from their cell body. Due to this polarized structure a major challenge for neurons is the transport of material to and from the cell body. The transport that occurs between the cell body and axons is called Axonal transport. Axonal transport has three major components: molecular motors which act as vehicles, microtubules which serve as tracks on which these motors move and microtubule associated proteins which regulate the transport of material. Axonal transport maintains the integrity of a neuron and its dysfunction is linked to neurodegenerative diseases such as, Alzheimer’s disease, Frontotemporal dementia linked to chromosome 17 and Pick’s disease. Therefore, understanding the process of axonal transport is extremely important. Single particle tracking is one method in which axonal transport is studied. This involves fluorescent labelling of molecular motors and microtubule associated proteins and tracking their position in time. Single particle tracking has shown that both, molecular motors and microtubule associated proteins exhibit motion with multiple components. These components are directed, where motion is in one direction, diffusive, where motion is random, and static, where there is no motion. Moreover, molecular motors and microtubule associated proteins also switch between these different components in a single instance of motion. We have developed a MATLAB program, called MixMAs, which specializes in analyzing the data provided by single particle tracking. MixMAs uses a sliding window approach to analyze trajectories of motion. It is capable of distinguishing between different components of motion that are exhibited by molecular motors and microtubule associated proteins. It also identifies transitions that take place between different components of motion. Most importantly, it is not limited by the number of transitions and the number of components present in a single trajectory. The analysis results provided by MixMAs include all the necessary parameters required for a complete characterization of a particle’s motion. These parameters are the number of different transitions that take place between different components of motion, the dwell times of different components of motion, velocity for directed component of motion and diffusion coefficient for diffusive component of motion. We have validated the working of MixMAs by simulating motion of particles which show all three components of motion with all the possible transitions that can take place between them. The simulations are performed for different values of error in localizing the position of a particle. The simulations confirm that MixMAs accurately calculates parameters of motion for a range of localization errors. Finally, we show an application of MixMAs on experimentally obtained single particle data of Kinesin-3 motor.

Induced seismicity is a common phenomenon that occurs as soon as the stress state in the subsurface is externally altered in a way that faults are destabilized. It is especially problematic in stable tectonic regions where the area is not used to earthquakes; the infrastructure is not built to withstand ground movement and thus when the induced seismicity occurs damage can follow. In this thesis, mining-induced seismicity has been studied at the Dannemora mine, located in central Sweden, with the aim to locate the seismicity and gain understanding of its occurrence and behavior. The mining company, Dannemora Mineral AB, provided with blasting locations and times, as well as maps over the mine's orebodies and stopes. Seismic data acquired between 01 July 2014 - 25 March 2015 from 4 temporary seismic stations, deployed in the summer of 2014 surrounding the mine, along with 8 SNSN stations was analyzed. The project encompassed field work and processing of the data, which involved different methods to investigate the characteristics of the mine's seismicity: Statistics were kept to record the activity rate of the seismicity over time; spectral analysis was used to study the frequency content of the seismicity; particle motion plots were constructed to identify body-phases in the seismicity; Local Earthquake Tomography was used to upgrade the velocity model of the mine and to relocate the induced seismicity with more accuracy; cross-correlation was used to find events originating from similar sources; and finally, magnitude analysis was used to compare the different types of seismicity within the mine. Three main types of induced events were observed in the mine: low-frequency events with clear first arrivals, emergent events with long duration, and high-frequency events that could either have clear first arrivals or emergent-like with long durations. Through the analysis of their characteristics, they were linked to different types of rockbursts. The low-frequency events were linked to both reactivation of fault zones triggered by the mine activity, and rockbursts within the mine directly related to the mining. The emergent and high-frequency events were also linked to rockbursts directly related to the mine activity, e.g. ejection of rock from the tunnel walls or arch collapses in stopes.

This work evaluates the relative significance of forces determining the motion of a pulverized coal particle under conditions representative of a pressurized oxy-coal combustor. The gravity force and surface forces of drag, fluid stress, added mass, and Basset history are discussed and appropriate forms of these force equations are chosen, with a consideration of spherical and non-spherical drag and the Basset history kernel. Studies from the literature that emphasize specific forces are used to validate the implementation of the force equations and correlations. Modeling is based on time-averaged, one-dimensional motion of a single non-reacting particle along the centerline of a round, turbulent jet. The numerical methodology employed for solving the particle equation of motion is described in detail, and simulated particle motion is compared to experimental and high-fidelity simulations from the literature. Comparisons show the numerical methodology performs adequately relative to higher fidelity simulations and experimental test cases for one-dimensional, time-invariant conditions. To assess the effect of pressure on particle forces and motion under different conditions, simulation cases are run for particle diameters of 20 μm, 50 μm, 125 μm, gas temperatures of 300 K and 1500 K, and gas pressures of 1.01325 bar, 2 bar, 5 bar, 10 bar, 20 bar, 40 bar. Simulations are conducted over a 0.75-m length in a simplified environment representative of the pressurized oxy-coal (POC) combustor at Brigham Young University. Results show that all surface forces examined can be locally significant at high gas pressures when particle and gas velocity differences, i.e., particle Reynolds numbers, are greatest. The following trends are found for the behavior of surface forces in simplified, POC combustor simulations: 1) The quasi-steady drag force is always significant, though it's relative contribution to particle motion decreases as particles traverse regions with significant fluid velocity gradients or significant values for the substantial derivative of fluid velocity. Furthermore, quasi-steady drag is the only surface force that is significant throughout the entirety of a particle's trajectory. The relative contribution of the drag force decreases with increasing gas pressure. 2) The impact of the fluid stress force on particle motion increases with increasing gas pressure and particle size. The fluid stress force can be locally important for all of the particles sizes when at a gas temperature of 300 K and elevated pressure, as particles traverse regions with significant substantial derivatives of fluid velocity. The local impact of the fluid stress force is largely negligible at 1500 K, except for the case of the largest particle at the greatest pressure. 3) The behavior of the added mass force largely mirrors that of the fluid stress force, though the added mass force is generally of lesser magnitude. Therefore, the added mass force can be locally important for all of the particles sizes when at a gas temperature of 300 K and elevated pressure, as particles traverse regions with significant substantial derivatives of fluid velocity. The added mass force is generally the least significant of the analyzed surface forces. 4) The Basset history force is locally significant for all cases where the particles are traversing regions with significant fluid velocity gradients. The impact of the Basset history force on particle motion increases with increasing gas pressure and particle size, while decreasing as gas temperature increases.

Les ions jouent un rôle majeur sur les processus biologiques affectant la molécule d'ADN que ce soit en termes d'activité de liaison de protéines à l'ADN ou d'encapsulation de l'ADN dans les capsides virales ou le noyau. L'activité de protéines sur l'ADN est, par ailleurs, fréquemment liée à une courbure locale de l'axe de la double hélice, que ce soit en raison d'une séquence intrinsèquement courbée, ou, via la capacité de protéines à courber la séquence sur laquelle elles se fixent. Être capable de caractériser et comprendre l'effet des ions présents en solution, de la courbure et de la dénaturation locale de la molécule d'ADN sur les conformations de cette dernière est donc crucial pour approfondir la compréhension de nombreux processus biologiques. Des travaux, tant expérimentaux que théoriques, ont déjà été menés sur ces questions mais celles-ci sont encore largement débattues. En effet, pour y répondre, doivent notamment être développées des méthodes expérimentales qui ne perturbent pas significativement la conformation de l'ADN ou le complexe ADN-protéine, ainsi que des modèles théoriques associés permettant une analyse précise des données expérimentales et leur compréhension physique. L'objectif de ce travail est de proposer des outils expérimentaux et théoriques permettant de décrire physiquement l'influence de défauts locaux présents sur la molécule d'ADN et de paramètres physico-chimiques de la solution environnante. A cette fin, des données expérimentales ont été acquises à l'échelle de la molécule unique grâce à la technique haut-débit de "Tethered Particle Motion" (HT-TPM). Le TPM consiste à enregistrer, au cours du temps, les positions d'une particule accrochée à l'extrémité d'une molécule d'ADN, immobilisée par son autre extrémité sur un support en verre. L'utilisation d'une biopuce permettant la parallélisation des complexes ADN/particule et l'acquisition "à haut débit" de données TPM a permis d'obtenir une grande accumulation de statistiques individuelles. Une procédure d'analyse efficace a été élaborée afin de déterminer les amplitudes du mouvement des assemblages ADN-particules valides. En parallèle, ont été effectuées des simulations basées sur un modèle de physique statistique mésoscopique dans lequel la molécule d'ADN est assimilée à une chaîne de billes de rayons variables dont les déplacements sont régis par la diffusion brownienne et une énergie potentielle d'interaction prenant en compte notamment l'énergie de courbure du polymère ADN. Une première étude a porté sur l'effet de la force ionique de la solution environnante sur la longueur de persistance Lp, qui traduit la rigidité du polymère d'ADN. Les valeurs de Lp extraites des données de HT-TPM ont fait apparaître une décroissance de la longueur de persistance de 55 à 30 nm, corrélée à l'augmentation de la force ionique, avec une décroissance plus forte observée pour les ions divalents Mg2+ que pour les ions monovalents Na+. Les valeurs de Lp déterminées sur une plage étendue de force ionique ont permis de valider l'approche théorique proposée par Manning en 2006 dans la cas Na+. Une deuxième étude a conduit à l'élaboration d'une méthode permettant de quantifier l'angle de courbure locale induite par une séquence spécifique ou la liaison d'une protéine sur la molécule d'ADN. L'échantillon modèle a été obtenu en insérant de une à sept séquences CAAAAAACGG en phase. Une description théorique de la chaîne d'ADN appelée "kinked Worm-Like Chain" a été proposée. Elle conduit à une formule simple de la distance bout-à-bout de l'ADN qui permet d'extraire la valeur de l'angle de courbure à partir des mesures de HT-TPM. Ainsi, il a pu être montré que la séquence CAAAAAACGG induit un angle de 19° ± 4° en accord avec les données de la littérature. Une troisième étude concernant la mesure de l'impact de la dénaturation partielle de l'ADN, induite par la température, sur sa rigidité apparente globale a été menée. Des résultats préliminaires sont proposés. / Ions play an important role in many biological processes affecting the DNA molecule, both for binding activities of DNA-protein interaction, and the DNA packaging in viral capsids or in the cell nucleus. Proteins actions on DNA are also often associated to the double helix curvature, be it because of an intrinsic curved sequence, or of the ability of the proteins, to curve the sequence they are trying to bind. Being able to characterize and understand the effects on the DNA conformation of ions present in solution, DNA local curvature, and local denaturation bubble is essential and crucial for the thorough understanding of many biological processes. Many experimental, and theoretical studies have already been conducted to address these questions. However they remain highly debated. To answer then one must notably develop experimental approaches that minimize alteration of the conformation of the DNA molecule or the complex protein-DNA, as well as associated theoretical models that permit a precise analysis of experimental data as well as their physical understanding. The goal of this work is to develop and propose experimental and theoretical tools which would provide a physical description of the influence of DNA local defects on the DNA molecule as well as of physicochemical conditions of the DNA environmental solution. For this purpose, experimental data have been collected, at a single molecule level, using the High-Throughput Tethered Particle Motion" (HT-TPM) technique. TPM consists of recording the location of a particle grafted by one end of a single DNA molecule and immobilized, at the other end, to a glass surface. The use of a biochip that enables the parallelization of DNA/particle complexes and the ensuing high-throughput data acquisition permitted to obtain a large accumulation of individual statistics. A strong analysis procedure has been developed to extract and quantify the amplitude of motion of the valid DNA/particle complexes . Alongside that, simulations have been run, based on a mesoscopic statistical mechanics model in which the DNA molecule is related to a chain of monomers with varying radius and in which the amplitude of motion is governed by both the Brownian motion and by the interaction potential associated to stretching and bending energies of the polymer. A first study was conducted on the effect of the ionic strength induced by surrounding ions in solution on the DNA persistence length (Lp) which characterizes the DNA polymer rigidity. The extracted Lp values of HT-TPM measurement decrease from 55 to 30 nm when the ionic strength increases. A stronger decrease was observed in presence of divalent ions Mg2+ than with monovalent ions Na+. This quantification of Lp dependence, on a large and strongly prospected range of ionic strengthes, tends to validate the theoretical approach proposed in 2006 by Manning in presence of monovalent ions Na+. A second project allows us to develop a method of evaluation and quantification of local DNA bending angles, induced either by specific intrinsic sequence, or by the binding of proteins on DNA. Constructs made of 575 base-pair DNAs with in-phase assemblies of one to seven sequences CAAAAAACGG was used. A theoretical description of the polymer chain, named "kinked Worm-Like Chain" was proposed which leads to a simple formulation of the end-to-end distance of DNA molecules allowing to extract local bend angles from HT-TPM measurement. As a result, we find that the sequence CAAAAAACGG induces a bend angle of 19° ± 4° in agreement with other value from the literature. A third study concerning the influence of temperature-induced partial denaturation on the global apparent rigidity parameters of the polymer was conducted. Preliminary results are proposed.

<p>Thermonuclear fusion is a promising energy source for the future. If an economically efficient thermonuclear reactor would be built it has to be a cheap, safe, and highly productive electric power plant, or, a heating plant.</p><p>The emphasis of this thesis is on the single cell mirror trap with a marginally stable minimum B vacuum magnetic field, the straight field line mirror field, which provides MHD stability of the system, absence of the radial drift even to the first order in plasma β , and a reduced magnetic flux tube ellipticity. Strong density depletion at the mirrors is proposed as a mean to build up a strong potential barrier for the electrons and thereby increase the electron temperature. Conditions to obtain an energy gain factor Q>10 are briefly analyzed. Current coils which could generate the derived magnetic field are proposed. A sloshing ion distribution function is constructed for the three dimensional ‘straight line mirror field’. The gyro centre Clebsch coordinates are found to be a new pair of motional invariants for this magnetic field. The gyro centre Clebsch coordinate invariants can be used to obtain complete solutions of the Vlasov equation, including the diamagnetic drift. These solutions show that the equilibria satisfy the locally omniginuity criterion to the first order in β .</p><p>Contributions of the plasma diamagnetism to the magnetic flux tube ellipticity are studied for the straight field line mirror vacuum magnetic field and a sloshing ion distribution. Computations employing ray tracing have shown that there is a modest increase in the ellipticity, but the effect is small if β <0.2 .</p><p>Adiabatic charged particle motion in general field geometry has been studied. A set of four independent stationary invariants, the energy, the magnetic moment, the radial drift invariant, and the bounce average parallel velocity is proposed to describe adiabatic equilibria. </p>

Thermonuclear fusion is a promising energy source for the future. If an economically efficient thermonuclear reactor would be built it has to be a cheap, safe, and highly productive electric power plant, or, a heating plant. The emphasis of this thesis is on the single cell mirror trap with a marginally stable minimum B vacuum magnetic field, the straight field line mirror field, which provides MHD stability of the system, absence of the radial drift even to the first order in plasma β , and a reduced magnetic flux tube ellipticity. Strong density depletion at the mirrors is proposed as a mean to build up a strong potential barrier for the electrons and thereby increase the electron temperature. Conditions to obtain an energy gain factor Q&gt;10 are briefly analyzed. Current coils which could generate the derived magnetic field are proposed. A sloshing ion distribution function is constructed for the three dimensional ‘straight line mirror field’. The gyro centre Clebsch coordinates are found to be a new pair of motional invariants for this magnetic field. The gyro centre Clebsch coordinate invariants can be used to obtain complete solutions of the Vlasov equation, including the diamagnetic drift. These solutions show that the equilibria satisfy the locally omniginuity criterion to the first order in β . Contributions of the plasma diamagnetism to the magnetic flux tube ellipticity are studied for the straight field line mirror vacuum magnetic field and a sloshing ion distribution. Computations employing ray tracing have shown that there is a modest increase in the ellipticity, but the effect is small if β &lt;0.2 . Adiabatic charged particle motion in general field geometry has been studied. A set of four independent stationary invariants, the energy, the magnetic moment, the radial drift invariant, and the bounce average parallel velocity is proposed to describe adiabatic equilibria.

No trabalho desenvolvido estudaram-se as forças que atuam em uma partícula quando esta se movimenta em escoamentos, com intuito de obter uma metodologia capaz de representar o movimento de uma partícula em um escoamento. A equação do movimento da partícula foi integrada numericamente considerando os termos de massa aparente, arrasto estacionário, arrasto não estacionário (forças de Boussinesq/Basset) e forças de sustentação; efeito Magnus e efeito Saffman. O método dos volumes finitos foi utilizado para simulação do escoamento. Na análise das forças utilizamos tanto experimentos quanto simulações numéricas (FLUENT) para avaliar e aumentar a validade dos modelos apresentados na revisão bibliográfica. O FLUENT foi validado para obtenção do coeficiente de arrasto estacionário e sustentação devido ao efeito Magnus. Palavras-chaves: Efeito Magnus, efeito Saffman, força de Bousinesq/Basset, movimento de partículas e solução numérica. / In the developed work was studied the forces which act on a particle when these is a moving inside of a flow, in order to find out a methodology which is able to represent the particle dynamics on a flow. The equation of particle motion was integrated with a numerical approach taking in account the apparent mass, static drag, dynamic drag (history term; Boussinesq/Basset force) and lift force; Magnus effect and Saffman effect. The finite volume method was used to simulate the flow. In the force analyses we used experimental and numerical simulation (FLUENT) to evaluate and extend the models shown on the review. FLUENT was validated to determine the static drag coefficient and lift coefficient due to Magnus effect.