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Previous studies have suggested that skilled athletes may show a specific muscle activation pattern with a lower antagonist coactivation level. Based on the point, we hypothesize that the coupling of antagonistic muscles may be different between badminton players and non-skilled individuals during exercises. The current work was designed to verify the hypothesis. Ten male college students and eight male badminton players performed three maximal voluntary isometric contractions (MVC) and a set of three maximal concentric ankle dorsiflexion and plantar flexions at an angular velocity of 30°, 60°, 120°, and 180°/s. Surface electromyography (EMG) was recorded from the tibialis anterior (TA) and lateral gastrocnemius (LG) muscles during the test. Normalized average EMG amplitude and phase synchronization index (PSI) between surface EMG of TA and LG were calculated. Antagonist muscle coactivation was significantly lower (from 22.1% ± 9.4 and 10.7% ± 3.7 at 30°/s to 22.4% ± 9.7 and 10.6% ± 2.5 at 180°/s for non-players and badminton players group, respectively), and PSI in beta frequency band was significantly higher (from 0.42 ± 0.06 and 0.47 ± 0.15 at 30°/s to 0.35 ± 0.12 and 0.49 ± 0.14 at 180°/s) in the badminton player group compared with the non-player group during isokinetic ankle dorsiflexion contraction. No significant difference was found in antagonist muscle coactivation and PSI between two group subjects during ankle plantar flexion. The decrease of antagonist coactivation may indicate an optimal motor control style to increase the contraction efficiency, while the increase coupling of antagonistic muscles may help to ensure joint stability to compensate for the decrease of antagonist coactivation. Graphical abstract Significant difference of observed indexes between non-players and badminton players. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The flame initiation process in dual-fuel spray assisted combustion is presently not fully understood. Here, diesel spray assisted combustion of premixed methane/oxidizer/EGR is explored in the post-ignition phase by scale-resolved simulations. The modified dual-fuel ECN Spray A forms the baseline configuration. An extensive local grid refinement (approaching DNS limit) around one of the first high-temperature ignition kernels is carried out in order to examine the validity of hypothesized flame initiation and deflagration. A high quality LES is used to solve the spray dynamics, while the embedded quasi-DNS (eq-DNS) region offers detailed information on the ignition kernel evolution. The finite-rate chemistry is directly integrated, utilizing 54 species and 269 reactions. Local combustion modes are investigated for the ignition kernel development toward spontaneous ignition and premixed flame propagation using various approaches, including the reaction front displacement speed, energy transport budget, and chemical explosive mode analysis. Furthermore, a new criterion based on reaction flux analysis is introduced, which is compatible with dual-fuel combustion. The spatial and temporal scales associated with the ambient methane consumption and consequent flame initiation are characterized. For the first time in dual-fuel spray assisted simulations, numerical evidence is provided on the initiation of premixed flames, and the corresponding timescale is reported. Particularly, there is a transient mixed-mode combustion phase of approximately 0.2 ms after the spray second stage ignition wherein extinction, ignition fronts, and quasi-deflagrative structures co-exist. After such a transient period, the combustion mode becomes essentially deflagrative. Finally, interactions between turbulence and premixed flame front are characterized mostly in the corrugated regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Ignition dynamics in turbulent DME/CH 4 -air under RCCI condition is studied via DNS. • Low-temperature ignition transits to cool flame in the stratified DME/ CH 4 -air mixture. • High-temperature autoignition is accelerated by the cool flame. • The four branches of typical tetrabranchial flames coexist in the field. A study of ignition dynamics in a turbulent dimethyl ether (DME)/methane-air mixture under reactivity controlled compression ignition (RCCI) conditions was conducted using direct numerical simulation. Initially, the directly-injected DME and in-cylinder premixed methane-air mixture are partially mixed to form a mixing layer in between. A reduced DME/CH 4 oxidization mechanism, consisting of 25 species and 147 reaction steps, is developed and validated. Ignition is found to occur as a two-stage process. Low-temperature autoignition is first initiated in the fuel-rich part of the mixture and then transits to a cool flame, propagating towards the even richer mixture through a balanced reaction-diffusion mechanism. Cool flames not only develop in the mixing layer, but also in the initially stratified DME/methane-air mixture. The formation of high-temperature autoignition kernels is earlier than that in the homogeneous mixture at the same mixture fraction, which is thought to be accelerated by the cool flame. The expanding flames from high-temperature kernels are connected with the neighboring flames before they engulf the stoichiometric mixture iso-lines. The four branches of typical tetrabranchial flames, i.e. cool flame, fuel-rich premixed flame, diffusion flame, fuel-lean premixed flame coexist in the field. The fuel-lean premixed flame branch finally triggers the premixed methane-air flame. The multi-stage and multi-mode nature of the ignition process highlights the intractable challenge to model the RCCI engine combustion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Bluff-body stabilized premixed flames have been a subject of significant technological interest in practical combustion devices. A collaborative computational-experimental effort is reported here, on simulating a series of bluff-body stabilized premixed propane flames near lean blowoff. An OpenFOAM-based large eddy simulation (LES) solver is coupled with an adaptive hybrid integration solver with sparse matrix technique, to enable efficient chemistry integration. A 31-species skeletal mechanism matching interested flame characteristics is systematically reduced from USC-Mech II, and is utilized to describe the finite-rate chemistry. A procedure to convert numerical mass fractions to pseudo Planar Laser Induced Fluorescence (PLIF) images is established to facilitate the comparison of flame topology and statistics with corresponding experiments. The study focuses on two stably burning conditions, and subsequently on a condition where global blowoff is observed. Velocity statistics, PLIF images of OH and CH 2 O, flame brush thickness, turbulent flame speed, and statistics of two dimensional strain rates are compared against experimental data, achieving reasonably good agreement under stably burning conditions. Approaching blowoff, the flame surfaces recede into the recirculation zone due to the reduced flame speed at lower equivalence ratios. Frequent flame-flame interaction in the narrowed necking region near the top boundary of the recirculation zone, asymmetric helical flame structure, and accumulated CH 2 O in the recirculation zone are observed near blowoff. Elevated levels of unburned fuel is observed in the recirculation zone, suggesting significant entrainment of fresh mixture near global blowoff. Analysis of the enstrophy transport indicates increasing strength of enstrophy approaching blowoff, which results from diminishing baroclinic torque and dilatation effects when density ratios in the anchoring region are reduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The Hybrid Chemistry (HyChem) approach has been proposed previously for combustion chemistry modeling of real, liquid fuels of a distillate origin. In this work, the applicability of the HyChem approach is tested for single-component fuels using JP10 as the model fuel. The method remains the same: an experimentally constrained, lumped single-fuel model describing the kinetics of fuel pyrolysis is combined with a detailed foundational fuel chemistry model. Due to the multi-ring molecular structure of JP10, the pyrolysis products were found to be somewhat different from those of conventional jet fuels. The lumped reactions were therefore modified to accommodate the fuel-specific pyrolysis products. The resulting model shows generally good agreement with experimental data, which suggests that the HyChem approach is also applicable for developing combustion reaction kinetic models for single-component fuels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract A Hybrid Chemistry (HyChem) approach has been recently developed for the modeling of real fuels; it incorporates a basic understanding about the combustion chemistry of multicomponent liquid fuels that overcomes some of the limitations of the conventional surrogate fuel approach. The present work extends this approach to modeling the combustion behaviors of a two-component bio-derived jet fuel (Gevo, designated as C1) and its blending with a conventional, petroleum-derived jet fuel (Jet A, designated as A2). The stringent tests and agreement between the HyChem models and experimental measurements for the combustion chemistry, including ignition delay and laminar flame speed, of C1 highlight the validity as well as potential wider applications of the HyChem concept in studying combustion chemistry of complex liquid hydrocarbon fuels. Another aspect of the present study aims at answering a central question of whether the HyChem models for neat fuels can be simply combined to model the combustion behaviors of fuel blends. The pyrolysis and oxidation of several blends of A2 and C1 were investigated. Flow reactor experiments were carried out at pressure of 1 atm, temperature of 1030 K, with equivalence ratios of 1.0 and 2.0. Shock tube measurements were performed for the blended fuel pyrolysis at 1 atm from 1025 to 1325 K. Ignition delay times were also measured using a shock-tube. Good agreement between measurements and model predictions was found showing that formation of the products as well as combustion properties of the blended fuels were predicted by a simple combination of the HyChem models for the two individual fuels, thus demonstrating that the HyChem models for two jet fuels of very different compositions are "additive." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A dynamic adaptive combustion modeling framework based on chemical explosive mode analysis (CEMA) is proposed to account for different flame features such as local auto-ignition, premixed and non-premixed flamelets in diesel spray flames. The proposed modeling strategy is achieved by assigning zone-dependent combustion models on-the-fly to different flame zones segmented using a CEMA-based approach. An approximate CEMA formulation is developed to approximate the eigenvalue of the chemical explosive mode with high computational efficiency in three-dimensional (3-D) turbulent flame simulations. The utility of the CEMA-based criterion for dynamic flame segmentation is first demonstrated using CEMA-based adaptive chemistry by applying different reduced chemistry to different flame zones. The capability of the dynamic adaptive combustion modeling strategy is then demonstrated in large eddy simulations (LES) of turbulent lifted n -dodecane spray flames. Specifically, inert mixing is used for chemically inactive zones, and the well-mixed combustion model with finite rate chemistry is applied in the pre-ignition zone to capture the two-stage ignition as well as premixed reaction fronts. Adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) is further adopted near the premixed reaction fronts to capture the local flame structure and flame propagation speed. For the post-ignition zone, a recently developed tabulated flamelet model (TFM) is applied and compared with the flamelet progress variable (FPV) method. It is shown that CEMA-based adaptive chemistry induces small errors to the statistically-averaged flame structures, as CEMA is an effective and robust approach for on-the-fly flame segmentation. It is further seen that the CEMA-based adaptive modeling strategy more accurately predicts the ignition delay time and flame lift-off length compared with the low-cost flamelet models such as TFM and FPV, while the computational cost is substantially lower compared with the well-mixed combustion model using finite rate chemistry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose and test an alternative approach to modeling high-temperature combustion chemistry of multicomponent real fuels. The hy brid chem istry (HyChem) approach decouples fuel pyrolysis from the oxidation of fuel pyrolysis products. The pyrolysis (or oxidative pyrolysis) process is modeled by seven lumped reaction steps in which the stoichiometric and reaction rate coefficients are derived from experiments. The oxidation process is described by detailed chemistry of foundational hydrocarbon fuels. We present results obtained for three conventional jet fuels and two rocket fuels as examples. Modeling results demonstrate that HyChem models are capable of predicting a wide range of combustion properties, including ignition delay times, laminar flame speeds, and non-premixed flame extinction strain rates of all five fuels. Sensitivity analysis shows that for conventional, petroleum-derived real fuels, the uncertainties in the experimental measurements of C 2 H 4 and CH 4 impact model predictions to an extent, but the largest influence of the model predictability stems from the uncertainties of the foundational fuel chemistry model used (USC Mech II). In addition, we introduce an approach in the realm of the HyChem approach to address the need to predict the negative-temperature coefficient (NTC) behaviors of jet fuels, in which the CH 2 O speciation history is proposed to be a viable NTC-activity marker for model development. Finally, the paper shows that the HyChem model can be reduced to about 30 species in size to enable turbulent combustion modeling of real fuels with a testable chemistry model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study reports cyclopentane ignition delay measurements over a wide range of conditions. The measurements were obtained using two shock tubes and a rapid compression machine, and were used to test a detailed low- and high-temperature mechanism of cyclopentane oxidation that was presented in part I of this study (Al Rashidi et al., 2017). The ignition delay times of cyclopentane/air mixtures were measured over the temperature range of 650–1350 K at pressures of 20 and 40 atm and equivalence ratios of 0.5, 1.0 and 2.0. The ignition delay times simulated using the detailed chemical kinetic model of cyclopentane oxidation show very good agreement with the experimental measurements, as well as with the cyclopentane ignition and flame speed data available in the literature. The agreement is significantly improved compared to previous models developed and investigated at higher temperatures. Reaction path and sensitivity analyses were performed to provide insights into the ignition-controlling chemistry at low, intermediate and high temperatures. The results obtained in this study confirm that cycloalkanes are less reactive than their non-cyclic counterparts. Moreover, cyclopentane, a high octane number and high octane sensitivity fuel, exhibits minimal low-temperature chemistry and is considerably less reactive than cyclohexane. This study presents the first experimental low-temperature ignition delay data of cyclopentane, a potential fuel-blending component of particular interest due to its desirable antiknock characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-fidelity simulations of ignition, extinction and oscillatory combustion processes are of practical interest in a broad range of combustion applications. Splitting schemes, widely employed in reactive flow simulations, could fail for stiff reaction–diffusion systems exhibiting near-limit flame phenomena. The present work first employs a model perfectly stirred reactor (PSR) problem with an Arrhenius reaction term and a linear mixing term to study the effects of splitting errors on the near-limit combustion phenomena. Analysis shows that the errors induced by decoupling of the fractional steps may result in unphysical extinction or ignition. The analysis is then extended to the prediction of ignition, extinction and oscillatory combustion in unsteady PSRs of various fuel/air mixtures with a 9-species detailed mechanism for hydrogen oxidation and an 88-species skeletal mechanism for n -heptane oxidation, together with a Jacobian-based analysis for the time scales. The tested schemes include the Strang splitting, the balanced splitting, and a newly developed semi-implicit midpoint method. Results show that the semi-implicit midpoint method can accurately reproduce the dynamics of the near-limit flame phenomena and it is second-order accurate over a wide range of time step size. For the extinction and ignition processes, both the balanced splitting and midpoint method can yield accurate predictions, whereas the Strang splitting can lead to significant shifts on the ignition/extinction processes or even unphysical results. With an enriched H radical source in the inflow stream, a delay of the ignition process and the deviation on the equilibrium temperature are observed for the Strang splitting. On the contrary, the midpoint method that solves reaction and diffusion together matches the fully implicit accurate solution. The balanced splitting predicts the temperature rise correctly but with an over-predicted peak. For the sustainable and decaying oscillatory combustion from cool flames, both the Strang splitting and the midpoint method can successfully capture the dynamic behavior, whereas the balanced splitting scheme results in significant errors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Iso-Octane (2,2,4-trimethylpentane) is a primary reference fuel and an important component of gasoline fuels. Moreover, it is a key component used in surrogates to study the ignition and burning characteristics of gasoline fuels. This paper presents an updated chemical kinetic model for iso-octane combustion. Specifically, the thermodynamic data and reaction kinetics of iso-octane have been re-assessed based on new thermodynamic group values and recently evaluated rate coefficients from the literature. The adopted rate coefficients were either experimentally measured or determined by analogy to theoretically calculated values. Furthermore, new alternative isomerization pathways for peroxy-alkyl hydroperoxide (ȮOQOOH) radicals were added to the reaction mechanism. The updated kinetic model was compared against new ignition delay data measured in rapid compression machines (RCM) and a high-pressure shock tube. These experiments were conducted at pressures of 20 and 40 atm, at equivalence ratios of 0.4 and 1.0, and at temperatures in the range of 632–1060 K. The updated model was further compared against shock tube ignition delay times, jet-stirred reactor oxidation speciation data, premixed laminar flame speeds, counterflow diffusion flame ignition, and shock tube pyrolysis speciation data available in the literature. Finally, the updated model was used to investigate the importance of alternative isomerization pathways in the low temperature oxidation of highly branched alkanes. When compared to available models in the literature, the present model represents the current state-of-the-art in fundamental thermochemistry and reaction kinetics of iso-octane; and thus provides the best prediction of wide ranging experimental data and fundamental insights into iso-octane combustion chemistry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transported probability density function (TPDF) methods are an attractive modeling approach for turbulent flames as chemical reactions appear in closed form. However, molecular micro-mixing needs to be modeled and this modeling is considered a primary challenge for TPDF methods. In the present study, a new algebraic mixing rate model for TPDF simulations of turbulent premixed flames is proposed, which is a key ingredient in commonly used molecular mixing models. The new model aims to properly account for the transition in reactive scalar mixing rate behavior from the limit of turbulence-dominated mixing to molecular mixing behavior in flamelets. An a priori assessment of the new model is performed using direct numerical simulation (DNS) data of a lean premixed hydrogen–air jet flame. The new model accurately captures the mixing timescale behavior in the DNS and is found to be a significant improvement over the commonly used constant mechanical-to-scalar mixing timescale ratio model. An a posteriori TPDF study is then performed using the same DNS data as a numerical test bed. The DNS provides the initial conditions and time-varying input quantities, including the mean velocity, turbulent diffusion coefficient, and modeled scalar mixing rate for the TPDF simulations, thus allowing an exclusive focus on the mixing model. The new mixing timescale model is compared with the constant mechanical-to-scalar mixing timescale ratio coupled with the Euclidean Minimum Spanning Tree (EMST) mixing model, as well as a laminar flamelet closure by Pope and Anand (1984). It is found that the laminar flamelet closure is unable to properly capture the mixing behavior in the thin reaction zones regime while the constant mechanical-to-scalar mixing timescale model under-predicts the flame speed. The EMST model coupled with the new mixing timescale model provides the best prediction of the flame structure and flame propagation among the models tested, as the dynamics of reactive scalar mixing across different flame regimes are appropriately accounted for. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A skeletal mechanism with 54 species and 269 reactions was developed to predict pyrolysis and oxidation of n -dodecane as a diesel fuel surrogate involving both high-temperature (high-T) and low-temperature (low-T) conditions. The skeletal mechanism was developed from a semi-detailed mechanism developed at the University of Southern California (USC). Species and reactions for high-T pyrolysis and oxidation of C 5 -C 12 were reduced by using reaction flow analysis (RFA), isomer lumping, and then merged into a skeletal C 0 -C 4 core to form a high-T sub-mechanism. Species and lumped semi-global reactions for low-T chemistry were then added to the high-T sub-mechanism and a 54-species skeletal mechanism is obtained. The rate parameters of the low-T reactions were tuned against a detailed mechanism by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), as well as the Spray A flame experimental data, to improve the prediction of ignition delay at low-T conditions, while the high-T chemistry remained unchanged. The skeletal mechanism was validated for auto-ignition, perfectly stirred reactors (PSR), flow reactors and laminar premixed flames over a wide range of flame conditions. The skeletal mechanism was then employed to simulate three-dimensional turbulent spray flames at compression ignition engine conditions and validated against experimental data from the Engine Combustion Network (ECN). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern spark ignition internal combustion (IC) engines rely on highly diluted fuel-air mixtures to achieve high brake thermal efficiencies. To support this, new engine designs have introduced high stroke-to-bore ratios and cylinder head designs that promote high tumble flow and turbulence intensities. However, mixture dilution through exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) is limited by combustion instabilities manifested in the form of cycle-to-cycle variability. Propane has been observed to have superior EGR dilution tolerance than gasoline, which makes it a very competitive low-carbon fuel for the new IC engines without sacrificing efficiency. Two-dimensional direct numerical simulations (DNS) are performed with detailed chemistry to study and contrast the effect of turbulence intensity and dilution on propane and iso-octane premixed flames at high pressure conditions similar to those in-cylinder. A new reduced mechanism for propane consisting of 53 transported species and 17 quasi-steady state species is developed based on a previously published mechanism and used in these simulations. Three levels of turbulence intensity and two levels of exhaust gas dilution are chosen based on conditions relevant to IC engine operation. The DNS results are analyzed based on the evolution of the flame surface area and the statistics of its driving terms, which are found to be similar for both fuels when there is no dilution but considerably different under high dilution. The analysis of the DNS data provides fundamental insights into the underlying mechanisms for improved stability under dilution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A sparse stiff chemistry solver based on dynamic adaptive hybrid integration (AHI-S) is developed and demonstrated for efficient combustion simulations. In a previous study, a dynamic adaptive method for hybrid integration (AHI) was developed to speed up the time integration of chemically reacting flows with detailed chemistry. The AHI method solves the fast subcomponent of chemistry implicitly and the slow subcomponent of chemistry and transport explicitly, and it was shown that AHI is more accurate and efficient than the operator-splitting schemes when there are significant radical sources from the transport term. In the present study, the AHI method is first improved to minimize the number of nontrivial entries in the Jacobian. Sparse matrix techniques are further integrated into AHI to achieve high computational efficiency. The performance of the new AHI-S solver is investigated in constant-pressure auto-ignition systems using different mechanisms that consist of 9–2878 species. It is shown that the computational cost of the AHI-S solver is overall linearly proportional to the mechanism size and is comparable to that of evaluating reaction rates using CHEMKIN-II subroutines. The AHI-S solver achieves speed-up factors ranging from approximately 10, for the 9-species hydrogen mechanism, to approximately 3000, for the 2878-species biodiesel mechanism, compared with the fully implicit VODE solver with Jacobian evaluated through numerical perturbations and factorized with dense matrix operations. It is further found that for mechanisms with less than approximately 100 species, the time saving of AHI-S is primarily attributed to the reduced size of the implicit core of the governing equations, while for mechanisms with more than 100 species, the computational cost of VODE is dominated by the dense LU factorization, such that the time saving of AHI-S is mostly attributed to the sparse LU factorization. The AHI-S solver is then applied to unsteady perfectly stirred reactors involving extinction and re-ignition. Speed-up factors from 50 to 30,000 are achieved compared with the Strang splitting scheme with the chemistry substeps implicitly integrated with VODE, while speed-up factors of 10–100 are achieved compared with the Strang splitting scheme implemented with the sparse stiff LSODES solver. In the end, the performance of AHI-S is investigated in one-dimensional (1-D) unsteady freely propagating laminar premixed flames for a methane/air mixture, for which the time step size in AHI-S is limited by the fastest transport process. A speed-up factor of approximately 200 is achieved compared with the Strang splitting scheme for fixed time step sizes between 10 − 8 s and 10 − 6 s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A systematic approach to developing compact reduced reaction models is proposed for liquid hydrocarbon fuels using n -dodecane and n -butane as the model fuels. The approach has three elements. Fast fuel cracking reactions are treated by the quasi-steady state approximation (QSSA) and lumped into semi-global reactions to yield key cracking products that are C 1 –C 4 in size. Directed relation graph (DRG) and sensitivity analysis reduce the foundational fuel chemistry model to a skeletal model describing the oxidation of the C 1 –C 4 compounds. Timescale-based reduction using, e.g., QSSA, is then employed to produce the final reduced model. For n -dodecane, a 24-species reduced model is derived from JetSurF and tested against the detailed model for auto-ignition, perfectly stirred reactors (PSR), premixed flame propagation, and extinction of premixed and non-premixed counterflow flames. It is shown that the QSSA of fuel cracking reactions is valid and robust under high-temperature conditions from laminar flames, where mixing is controlled by molecular diffusion, to perfectly stirred reactors, which correspond to the limit of fast turbulent mixing. Bifurcation analysis identifies the controlling processes of ignition and extinction and shows that these phenomena are insensitive to the details of fuel cracking. To verify the applicability of the above finding to turbulent flames, 2-D direct numerical simulation (DNS) of a lean turbulent premixed flame of n -butane/air with Karlovitz number of 250 was carried out using a reduced model developed from USC-Mech II. The results show that QSSA for fuel cracking remains valid even under intense turbulence conditions. Statistical analysis of the DNS data shows that fuel cracking is complete before the flame zone, and for the conditions tested, turbulent transport does not bring any significant fuel molecules into the flame zones, thus further substantiating the validity of the approach proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An updated reduced gas-phase kinetic mechanism was developed and integrated with aerosol models to predict soot formation characteristics in ethylene nonpremixed and premixed flames. A primary objective is to investigate the sensitivity of the soot formation to various chemical pathways for large polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH). The gas-phase chemical mechanism adopted the KAUST-Aramco PAH Mech 1.0, which utilized the AramcoMech 1.3 for gas-phase reactions validated for up to C2 fuels. In addition, PAH species up to coronene (C 24 H 12 or A7) were included to describe the detailed formation pathways of soot precursors. In this study, the detailed chemical mechanism was reduced from 397 to 99 species using directed relation graph with expert knowledge (DRG-X) and sensitivity analysis. The method of moments with interpolative closure (MOMIC) was employed for the soot aerosol model. Counterflow nonpremixed flames at low strain rate sooting conditions were considered, for which the sensitivity of soot formation characteristics to different nucleation pathways were investigated. Premixed flame experiment data at different equivalence ratios were also used for validation. The findings show that higher PAH concentrations result in a higher soot nucleation rate, and that the total soot volume and average size of the particles are predicted in good agreement with experimental results. Subsequently, the effects of different pathways, with respect to pyrene- or coronene-based nucleation models, on the net soot formation rate were analyzed. It was found that the nucleation processes (i.e., soot inception) are sensitive to the choice of PAH precursors, and consideration of higher PAH species beyond pyrene is critical for accurate prediction of the overall soot formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The binary fuel blend of H 2 /CH 4 is one of the most promising hydrogen-enriched hydrocarbon fuels in spark-ignition (SI) engines. Yet, the undesirable phenomenon of super-knock, which can severely and instantaneously damage an SI engine, limits its widespread adoption. Moreover, there is still a lack of consensus on the precise mechanism by which this phenomenon occurs i.e. via flame acceleration or spontaneous ignition, despite numerous previous investigations. At the same time, recent studies [M. P. Burke, S. J. Klippenstein, Nat. Chem. 9 (2017) 1078 - 1082, Y. Tao, A. W. Jasper, Y. Georgievskii, S. J. Klippenstein, R. Sivaramakrishnan, Proc. Combust. Inst. 38 (2021) 515–522] have demonstrated a high probability of occurrence of non-thermal reactions in premixed flames of such H 2 /CH 4 fuel blends with air due to the presence of non-trivial amounts of highly reactive radicals including H, O and OH apart from O 2. The present study focuses on the evolution of an initial deflagration front to a detonation wave in H 2 /CH 4 -air mixtures under SI engine relevant conditions through fully resolved, constant volume 1D simulations with and without non-thermal reactivity. Non-thermal reactions were included in the macroscopic kinetics model as chemically termolecular reactions facilitated by the H + CH 3 and H + OH radical-radical recombination and the H + O 2 radical-molecule association reactions. The nonthermal reactions result in a corresponding decrease in the reaction fluxes of the incipient recombination/association reactions. Therefore, an additional set of simulations were performed by applying corrections to the respective incipient recombination/association rate constants using the methodology demonstrated by Tao et al. [Y. Tao, A. W. Jasper, Y. Georgievskii, S. J. Klippenstein, R. Sivaramakrishnan, Proc. Combust. Inst. 38 (2021) 515–522]. Compared to the baseline case, the onset of spontaneous ignition in the end-gas region was observed to be delayed in the presence of non-thermal termolecular reactions. Concurrently, the developing detonation was observed to be significantly stronger. In contrast, applying corrections to the recombination/association rate constants resulted in a completely different behavior. Specifically, detonation was observed to occur due to self acceleration of the primary flame in the absence of spontaneous ignition in the end-gas region. Sensitivity analysis was performed to quantify the effects of non-thermal reactions on the duration of heat release rate and thereby the mechanism of detonation formation. In addition, chemical explosive mode analysis (CEMA) was performed to identify the dominant species/reactions responsible for the observed results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (URANS) and large-eddy simulations (LES) of an n-heptane spray flame have been performed with efficient chemistry calculation via dynamic adaptive chemistry and uniformly random distribution parallelization. Predictions for such key parameters as ignition delay time and flame lift-off length are validated against the experimental data from the engine combustion network. The transient, convection, diffusion and chemical reaction terms in species transport equations are analyzed to gain insight into flame stabilization mechanisms, showing the dominant effects from the auto-ignition process. The influence of the turbulence–chemistry interaction on the ignition and flame stabilization is studied for two cases with different initial ambient temperatures by reconstructing probability density function of mixture fraction. For the case with an initial ambient temperature of 1000 K, the analysis shows the fluctuation in mixture fraction is significant, but it has negligible influence on the ignition process. For the case with an initial ambient temperature of 850 K, the turbulence–chemistry interaction plays a significant role on ignition and consequently the stabilization process. In addition, large eddy simulations with a third-order Monotone Upstream-centered Schemes for Conservation Laws are performed for a series of cases with different oxygen concentrations. The results show that LES predict the instantaneous flame dynamics and flame lift-off lengths more accurately than URANS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An n -dodecane spray in temperature and pressure conditions typical of diesel engines, known as Spray A, is modelled by the transported probability density function (TPDF) method coupled with a time-dependent Reynolds-averaged k – ∊ turbulence model and a Lagrangian discrete phase model of the liquid spray. To establish a baseline for comparisons, non-reacting cases are first studied. Good results are obtained for the vapour penetration, the mean and variance of fuel mixture fraction, and velocity profiles, with variations in ambient density and injection pressure. These comparisons are more extensive than previous studies due to new experimental data being available. Reacting cases are then investigated for a number of ambient conditions and injection parameters, employing a reduced chemical kinetic model. The chemical mechanism incorporates an OH ∗ sub-mechanism (Hall and Petersen, 2006) which enables a direct comparison with experimental measurements of the lift-off length that are based on OH ∗ chemiluminescence. To assess the importance of interactions between turbulence and chemistry, the results from the PDF model are compared to the measurements and to those from a well-mixed model that ignores turbulent fluctuations. Variations of ambient temperature, ambient oxygen concentration, ambient density, and injection pressure are considered. In all cases the PDF model with the EMST mixing model and C ϕ = 1.5 shows an excellent agreement with the experimental lift-off length and presents improved results compared with the well-mixed model. Ignition delay is however over-predicted by both the PDF method and well-mixed models. Available shock tube data suggests that this may be due to the chemical kinetic model over-predicting ignition delay at higher pressures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The operator-splitting schemes for integration of stiff diffusion–reaction systems were found to fail in error control, i.e. incurring O (1) relative errors, with splitting time steps larger than that required for fully explicit integration, when significant non-chemical radical sources are present. It was shown that, by excluding the transport term from the chemistry integration, errors by orders of magnitude may occur in radical concentrations solved in the chemistry sub-step, resulting in significant errors in the major species. The failing scenario is demonstrated with a toy problem and an unsteady perfectly-stirred reactor (PSR) for hydrogen/air with significant H radical concentration at inlet. A dynamic adaptive method for hybrid integration (AHI) of stiff chemistry is then proposed as a substitute for the operator-splitting schemes in such cases. The AHI method can obtain accurate solutions by integrating the fast species and reactions implicitly and the non-stiff terms, including slow reactions and non-chemical source terms, explicitly. Specifically, fast species and reactions are identified on-the-fly based on their analytically derived timescales, the rates of slow variables are evaluated explicitly and those of fast species are evaluated partial-implicitly. As such, the number of variables to be implicitly solved at each integration time step is reduced to the number of the fast species, resulting in a smaller Jacobian matrix and consequently lower computational cost compared with the fully implicit solvers. The hybrid method is validated in auto-ignition for hydrogen/air with different equivalence ratios and initial temperatures, and compared with the Strang splitting scheme for the toy problem and the unsteady PSR. Results show significant improvement in accuracy using the AHI method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The diffusion models for multicomponent mixtures are investigated in planar premixed flames, counterflow diffusion flames, and ignition of droplet flames. Discernable discrepancies were observed in the simulated flames with the mixture-averaged and multicomponent diffusion models, respectively, while the computational cost of the multicomponent model is significantly higher than that of the mixture-averaged model. A systematic strategy is proposed to reduce the cost of the multicomponent diffusion model by accurately accounting for the species whose diffusivity is important to the global responses of the combustion systems, and approximating those of less importance. The important species in the reduced model are identified with sensitivity analysis, and are found to be typically among those in high concentrations with exception of a few radicals, e.g. H and OH, that are known to participate in critical reactions. The reduced model is validated in simulating the propagation of planar premixed flames, extinction of counterflow non-premixed flames and ignition of droplet flames. The reduced model was shown to feature similar accuracy to that of the multicomponent model while the computational cost was reduced by a factor of approximately 5 for an n -heptane mechanism with 88 species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS) of ethylene/air diffusion flame extinctions in decaying two-dimensional turbulence were performed. A Damköhler-number-based flame extinction criterion as provided by classical large activation energy asymptotic (AEA) theory is assessed for its validity in predicting flame extinction and compared to one based on Chemical Explosive Mode Analysis (CEMA) of the detailed chemistry. The DNS code solves compressible flow conservation equations using high order finite difference and explicit time integration schemes. The ethylene/air chemistry is simulated with a reduced mechanism that is generated based on the directed relation graph (DRG) based methods along with stiffness removal. The numerical configuration is an ethylene fuel strip embedded in ambient air and exposed to a prescribed decaying turbulent flow field. The emphasis of this study is on the several flame extinction events observed in contrived parametric simulations. A modified viscosity and changing pressure (MVCP) scheme was adopted in order to artificially manipulate the probability of flame extinction. Using MVCP, pressure was changed from the baseline case of 1 atm to 0.1 and 10 atm. In the high pressure MVCP case, the simulated flame is extinction-free, whereas in the low pressure MVCP case, the simulated flame features frequent extinction events and is close to global extinction. Results show that, despite its relative simplicity and provided that the global flame activation temperature is correctly calibrated, the AEA-based flame extinction criterion can accurately predict the simulated flame extinction events. It is also found that the AEA-based criterion provides predictions of flame extinction that are consistent with those provided by a CEMA-based criterion. This study supports the validity of a simple Damköhler-number-based criterion to predict flame extinction in engineering-level CFD models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Biofuels are considered as potentially attractive alternative fuels that can reduce greenhouse gas and pollutant emissions. iso-Pentanol is one of several next-generation biofuels that can be used as an alternative fuel in combustion engines. In the present study, new experimental data for iso-pentanol in shock tube, rapid compression machine, jet stirred reactor, and counterflow diffusion flame are presented. Shock tube ignition delay times were measured for iso-pentanol/air mixtures at three equivalence ratios, temperatures ranging from 819 to 1252K, and at nominal pressures near 40 and 60bar. Jet stirred reactor experiments are reported at 5atm and five equivalence ratios. Rapid compression machine ignition delay data was obtained near 40bar, for three equivalence ratios, and temperatures below 800K. Laminar flame speed data and non-premixed extinction strain rates were obtained using the counterflow configuration. A detailed chemical kinetic model for iso-pentanol oxidation was developed including high- and low-temperature chemistry for a better understanding of the combustion characteristics of higher alcohols. First, bond dissociation energies were calculated using ab initio methods, and the proposed rate constants were based on a previously presented model for butanol isomers and n-pentanol. The model was validated against new and existing experimental data at pressures of 1–60atm, temperatures of 650–1500K, equivalence ratios of 0.25–4.0, and covering both premixed and non-premixed environments. The method of direct relation graph (DRG) with expert knowledge (DRGX) was employed to eliminate unimportant species and reactions in the detailed mechanism, and the resulting skeletal mechanism was used to predict non-premixed flames. In addition, reaction path and temperature A-factor sensitivity analyses were conducted for identifying key reactions at various combustion conditions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In an era characterized by rapid economic growth and evolving lifestyles, college students encounter numerous challenges, encompassing academic pressures and professional competition. The respiratory muscle endurance capability is important for college students during prolonged aerobic exercise. Therefore, it is of great significance to explore an effective intervention to enhance the endurance level of college students. This study explores the transformative potential of inspiratory muscle training (IMT) to improve the physical functions of college students. This research comprised a group of 20 participants who underwent IMT integrated into their daily physical education classes or regular training sessions over an 8-week period, with 18 participants forming the control group. The IMT group adhered to the manufacturer's instructions for utilizing the PowerBreathe device. The findings indicated a significant positive effect on inspiratory muscle strength ( p < 0.001), showing improvements in pulmonary function, exercise tolerance, cardiac function, and overall athletic performance. These results revealed the substantial benefits of IMT in enhancing physical fitness and promoting health maintenance among college students.

The Drosophila tracheal system is a favorable model for investigating the program of tubular morphogenesis. This system is established in the embryo by post-mitotic cells, but also undergoes remodeling by adult stem cells. Here, we provide a comprehensive cell atlas of Drosophila trachea using the single-cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) technique. The atlas documents transcriptional profiles of tracheoblasts within the Drosophila airway, delineating 9 major subtypes. Further evidence gained from in silico as well as genetic investigations highlight a set of transcription factors characterized by their capacity to switch cell fate. Notably, the transcription factors Pebbled, Blistered, Knirps, Spalt and Cut are influenced by Notch signaling and determine tracheal cell identity. Moreover, Notch signaling orchestrates transcriptional activities essential for tracheoblast differentiation and responds to protein glycosylation that is induced by high sugar diet. Therefore, our study yields a single-cell transcriptomic atlas of tracheal development and regeneration, and suggests a glycosylation-responsive Notch signaling in cell fate determination., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Objective: This longitudinal study aimed to investigate the effects of Qigong on the anxiety state, heart rate variability (HRV), and breathing of anxious college students., Methods: A total of 37 individuals (18-25 years old) were randomly allocated to the control (n = 19) and intervention (n = 18) groups. Qigong interventions were conducted five times weekly for 12 weeks, with each session lasting 60 min. Hamilton Anxiety Scale, Fatigue Scale 14, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, and 36-item Short Form Survey, HRV, and respiration data were collected before and after the 3-month intervention., Results: Individuals who participated in the three-month Qigong exercise intervention showed a significant reduction in anxiety, particularly mental anxiety (p < 0.05). Subjects in the intervention group presented a decrease in skin temperature (p < 0.05) and an increase in blood volume pulsation (p < 0.05). Meanwhile, HRV exhibited a significant increase in the standard deviation of interbeat interval before and after comparisons (p < 0.05) and between the two groups (p = 0.039) and a reduction in the normalized low-frequency power after the intervention. Moreover, the intervention group experienced increased abdominal breathing depth and abdominal breathing per minute (p < 0.05)., Conclusion: These findings indicate that Qigong is an effective mind-body exercise strategy for relieving anxiety. HRV and breathing were improved accordingly among college students after the completion of the 3-month Qigong program., (© 2023 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Shot is one of the fundamental unit in the content structure of a film, which can provide insights into the film-director's ideas. By analyzing the properties and types of shots, we can gain a better understanding of a film's visual language. In this paper, we delve deeply into the task of shot type classification, proposing that utilizing multimodal video inputs can effectively improve the accuracy of the task, and that shot type classification is closely related to low-level spatiotemporal semantic features. To this end, we propose a Lightweight Weak Semantic Relevance Framework (LWSRNet) for classifying cinematographic shot types. Our framework comprises two modules: a Linear Modalities Fusion module (LMF Module) capable of fusing an arbitrary number of video modalities, and a Weak Semantic 3D-CNN based Feature Extraction Backbone (WSFE Module) for classifying shot movement and scale, respectively. Moreover, to support practical cinematographic analysis, we collect FullShots, a large film shot dataset containing 27K shots from 19 movies with professionally annotations for movement and scale information. Following experimental results validate the correctness of our proposed hypotheses, while our framework also outperforms previous methods in terms of accuracy with fewer parameters and computations, on both FullShots and MovieShots datasets. Our code is available at ( https://github.com/litchiar/ShotClassification )., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

The possible role of fatty acid translocase (CD36) in the treatment of obesity has gained increasing research interest since researchers recognized its coordinated function in fatty acid uptake and oxidation. However, the effect of CD36 deficiency on intracellular insulin signaling is complex and its impact may depend on different nutritional stresses. Therefore, we investigated the various effects of CD36 deletion on insulin signaling in C2C12 myotubes with or without palmitic acid (PA) overload. In the present work, we reported the upregulated expression levels of CD36 in the skeletal muscle tissues of obese humans and mice as well as in C2C12 myotubes with PA stimulation. CD36 knockdown using RNA interference showed that insulin signaling was impaired in CD36-deficient C2C12 cells in the absence of PA loading, suggesting that CD36 is essential for the maintenance of insulin action, possibly resulting from increased mitochondrial dysfunction and endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress; however, CD36 deletion improved insulin signaling in the presence of PA overload due to a reduction in lipid overaccumulation. In conclusion, we identified differential roles of CD36 in regulating muscle insulin response under conditions with and without PA overload, which provides supportive evidence for further research into therapeutic approaches to diabetes.

Resveratrol (Res) is a plant extract with strong anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and anti-aging biological activities. However, Res is limited by its disadvantages, such as poor solubility, rapid metabolism and low bioavailability. In this study, the Resveratrol-loaded TEMPO-oxidized cellulose aerogel (RLTA) drug delivery system was prepared by the method of "dissolution-freeze-drying" and characterized by a series of analysis. Then the blood biochemical indexes and HE staining were measured and analyzed in animal experiments. The in vivo results showed that RLTA can decrease the levels of TNF-α and IL-6 inflammatory factors in the synovial fluid. Furthermore, the molecular mechanism was investigated through the analysis of silent information regulator 2 homolog 1 (Sirt1) protein expression, which suggested that RLTA could upregulate the expression of Sirt1 and mediate the P38 signaling pathway, thereby inhibiting the expression of COX-2 and MMP13 which can suppress the levels of IL-6 and TNF-α inflammatory factor. These results reveal that cellulose aerogel is a promising candidate for drug delivery and RLTA has great potential application for the treatment of sports osteoarthritis.

Adult progenitor cells in the trachea of Drosophila larvae are activated and migrate out of niches when metamorphosis induces tracheal remodeling. Here we show that in response to metabolic deficiency in decaying tracheal branches, signaling by the insulin pathway controls the progenitor cells by regulating Yorkie (Yki)-dependent proliferation and migration. Yki, a transcription coactivator that is regulated by Hippo signaling, promotes transcriptional activation of cell cycle regulators and components of the extracellular matrix in tracheal progenitor cells. These findings reveal that regulation of Yki signaling by the insulin pathway governs proliferation and migration of tracheal progenitor cells, thereby identifying the regulatory mechanism by which metabolic depression drives progenitor cell activation and cell division that underlies tracheal remodeling., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

The 30-second all-out sprint cycling exercise is a classical sport capacity evaluation method, which may cause severe lower limb muscle fatigue. However, the relationship between lower limb muscle fatigue and the decline in exercise performance during 30-second sprint cycling remains unclear. In this study, ten cyclists volunteered to participate in a 30-second all-out sprint cycling while power, cadence, and surface electromyographic (EMG) signals of eight lower limb muscles were recorded during the exercise. EMG mean frequency (MNF) of each lower limb muscle group was computed for every 3-second epoch based on wavelet packet transformation. Grey relational grades between pedalling performance and the EMG MNF of each lower limb muscle group during the whole process were calculated. The results demonstrated that EMG MNF of the rectus femoris (RF), vastus (VAS), gastrocnemius (GAS), and tibialis anterior (TA) progressively tired during a 30-second all-out sprint cycling exercise. Of the muscles evaluated, the degree of fatigue of TA showed the greatest association with exercise performance decline, whereas the muscle fatigue of RF, VAS, and GAS also significantly impacted exercise performance during a 30-second all-out sprint cycling exercise., Competing Interests: The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this study., (Copyright © 2021 Lejun Wang et al.)

A novel bandwidth-enhanced bidirectional phase chaotic secure communication system with time-delay signature (TDS) concealment is proposed and analyzed by numerical simulation. This bidirectional system based on two mutually coupled electro-optic (MCEO) phase feedback loops is driven by a common all-optical (AO) chaotic source. The AO driving source makes the amplitude and phase terms in the Ikeda-based MCEO equation chaotic. Two mutually coupled optoelectronic delayed feedback loops also greatly increase the complexity of the chaotic carrier. By replacing the semiconductor laser in the existing bidirectional communication scheme with an electro-optic feedback loop, the problems of narrow carrier bandwidth and poor synchronization performance can be compensated. Compared to the single MCEO system, the permutation entropy of the AO-MCEO cascaded system with a bit rate of 10 Gbit/s is improved by 0.13 to 0.98. The TDS of the AO-MCEO system is suppressed 35 times to less than 0.01 to be completely hidden when the EO gain is reduced by half to 2.75. The chaos effective bandwidth is increased by 5 GHz to 32.05 GHz, and the spectrum flatness is reduced by 0.33 dB/Hz to 0.82 dB/Hz. Meanwhile, the security is further enhanced by reducing the cross-correlation coefficient to 0.001 between the AO driving source and the electro-optical chaotic carrier. The results show that the proposed model has potential applications in bandwidth-enhanced bidirectional secure chaotic systems.

Objective: During muscle fatigue, acute changes in the interaction between the sensorimotor cortex and peripheral neurons have been widely studied. However, it is still unclear about the effect of antagonist muscle prefatigue on corticomuscular coupling and central modulation. The purpose of this study was to investigate the changes in the magnitude of electroencephalogram-electromyography (EEG-EMG) coherence and phase synchronization index (PSI) induced by antagonistic muscle prefatigue., Methods: Twelve young male volunteers conducted a 30-s long, nonfatiguing isometric elbow extension with a target force level of 20% maximum voluntary contraction (MVC) before and after a fatiguing sustained elbow flexion contraction at 20% MVC until task failure. Coherence and PSI between the EEG recorded over the sensorimotor cortex and the surface EMG of the triceps brachii (TB) muscle were quantified for the pre- and post-fatigue elbow extension contractions., Results: Coherence and PSI in the gamma frequency band (35-60 Hz) were found significantly decreased in the postfatigue elbow extension contraction than the prefatigue contraction. The power of the EEG in the beta and gamma band were significantly increased, while the EMG power showed no significant changes when the antagonistic muscle was prefatigued. PSI in the gamma frequency band between the EMG of the TB muscle and the EEG were found significantly decreased during postfatigue elbow extension contraction compared with prefatigue contraction., Conclusion: Antagonistic muscle prefatigue led to significantly lower gamma band corticomuscular coherence and phase coupling during an isometric elbow extension position task. The lower corticomuscular coupling may indicate a central modulation mechanism of antagonist muscle prefatigue that related to decreased descending common drive or joint instability compensation modulation mechanism.

A systematic approach was developed to obtain analytic solutions for the concentrations of the quasi steady state (QSS) species in reduced mechanisms. The nonlinear algebraic equations for the QSS species concentrations were first approximated by a set of linear equations, and the linearized quasi steady state approximations (LQSSA) were then analytically solved with a directed graph, namely a QSSG, which was abstracted from the inter-dependence of QSS species. To obtain analytic solutions of high computational efficiency, the groups of strongly connected QSS species were first identified in the QSSG. The inter group couplings were then resolved by a topological sort, and the inner group couplings were solved with variable elimination by substitution. An efficient algorithm was developed to identify a near-optimal sequence for the variable elimination process. The proposed LQSSA-QSSG method was applied to generate a 16-step reduced mechanism for ethylene/air, and good accuracy and high efficiency were observed in simulations of auto-ignition and perfectly stirred reactors with the reduced mechanism.