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The propeller cavitation not only affects the propulsive efficiency of a ship but also can cause vibration and noise. Accurate predictions of propeller cavitation are crucial at the design stage. This paper investigates the feasibility of the Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) method in predicting propeller cavitation in behind-hull conditions, focusing on four aspects: (i) grid sensitivity; (ii) the time step effect; (iii) the turbulence model effect; and (iv) ability to rank two slightly different propellers. The Schnerr-Sauer model is adopted as the cavitation model. A model test is conducted to validate the numerical results. Good agreement on the cavitation pattern is obtained between the model test and computational fluid dynamics. Two propellers are computed, which have similar geometry but slightly different pitch ratios. The results show that RANS is capable of correctly differentiating the cavitation patterns between the two propellers in terms of the occurrence of face cavitation and the extent of sheet cavitation; moreover, time step size is found to slightly affect sheet cavitation and has a significant impact on the survival of the tip vortex cavitation. It is also observed that grid refinement is crucial for capturing tip vortex cavitation and the two-equation turbulence models used – realizable k-ε and shear stress transport (SST) k-ω – yield similar cavitation results.

The characteristic of hull wake for a ship operating in oblique flow significantly affects the ship performance at off-design conditions. This paper presents a numerical study on the hull wakes under oblique flow conditions and analyzes the scale effect. RANS method combined with SST k-ω turbulence model is adopted and an international benchmark ship, Japan Bulk Carrier (JBC), is computed. Drift angles ranging from 0° to 20° with an interval of 5° are considered. Results show that the oblique flow considerably changes the hull wake field. Unlike a left-right symmetric pattern at zero drift angle, the nominal wake in oblique flow conditions shows a strong asymmetry since the flow at the windward side is close to the incoming flow whereas the flow at the leeward side is featured by the vortices detached from the hull. It is also revealed that the mean wake fraction decreases as the drift angle increases. Both model and full scales are simulated and the comparison between them shows significant differences in the wake pattern on the leeward side and the magnitude of the mean wake fraction. Compared with the model scale, the full scale has a stronger aft-body vortex and a smaller mean wake fraction.

Reduction and coalescence for carboxylate-capped Ag nanoparticles can be achieved in several minutes by soaking the nanoparticle deposits in ascorbic acid aqueous solution. The reduced deposits exhibit a low electrical resistivity in the same order as with bulk Ag. The effect of the chain length of the carboxylates and the kinetics of particle coalescence were explored in this study. Bendable conductive films can be fabricated on a PDMS substrate using this low temperature chemical reduction method.

Eletrochemical corrosion properties of Cu and Ag in the aqueous solutions of reducing agents of formic acid, glycol and ascorbic acid with various concentrations were examined respectively. Experimental results show that there exists no passivation stage on the polarization curves of Cu and Ag in those reductive solutions. Ascorbic acid corrodes Ag faster than the otherss, while formic acid is most corrosive for Cu. Ethylene glycol doesn't cause serious corrosion for Ag and Cu.