Biomedical subjects

Harry L Swinney

Publications and source records attributed to Harry L Swinney.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Signatures of glass formation in a fluidized bed of hard spheres.

We demonstrate that a fluidized bed of hard spheres during defluidization displays properties associated with formation of a glass. The final state is rate dependent, and as this state is approached, the bed exhibits heterogeneity with increasing time and length scales. The formation of a glass results in the arrest of macroscopic particle motion and thus the loss of fluidization. Microscopic motion persists in this state, but the bed can be jammed by application of a small increase in flow rate. Thus a fluidized bed can serve as a test system for studies of glass formation and jamming.

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PubMed2005

From time series to superstatistics.

Complex nonequilibrium systems are often effectively described by a "statistics of a statistics", in short, a "superstatistics". We describe how to proceed from a given experimental time series to a superstatistical description. We argue that many experimental data fall into three different universality classes: Chi2 superstatistics (Tsallis statistics), Chi2 inverse superstatistics, and log-normal superstatistics. We discuss how to extract the two relevant well separated superstatistical time scales tau and T, the probability density of the superstatistical parameter beta, and the correlation function for beta from the experimental data. We illustrate our approach by applying it to velocity time series measured in turbulent Taylor-Couette flow, which is well described by log-normal superstatistics and exhibits clear time scale separation.

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PubMed2005

Velocity difference statistics in turbulence.

We unify two approaches that have been taken to explain the non-Gaussian probability distribution functions (PDFs) obtained in measurements of longitudinal velocity differences in turbulence, and we apply our approach to Couette-Taylor turbulence data. The first approach we consider was developed by Castaing and co-workers, who obtained the non-Gaussian velocity difference PDF from a superposition of Gaussian distributions for subsystems that have a particular energy dissipation rate at a fixed length scale [Castaing, Physica D 46, 177 (1990)]. Another approach was proposed by Beck and Cohen, who showed that the observed PDFs can be obtained from a superposition of Gaussian velocity difference PDFs in subsystems conditioned on the value of an intensive variable (inverse "effective temperature") in each subsystem [Beck and Cohen, Physica A 322, 267 (2003)]. The intensive variable was defined for subsystems assuming local thermodynamic equilibrium, but no method was proposed for determining the size of a subsystem. We show that the Castaing and Beck-Cohen methods are related, and we present a way to determine subsystem size in the Beck-Cohen method. The application of our approach to Couette-Taylor turbulence (Reynolds number 540,000) yields a log-normal distribution of the intensive parameter, and the resultant velocity difference PDF agrees well the observed non-Gaussian velocity difference PDFs.

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PubMed2005

Extraction of coherent structures in a rotating turbulent flow experiment.

The discrete wavelet transform (DWT) and discrete wavelet packet transform (DWPT) are used to extract and study the dynamics of coherent structures in a turbulent rotating fluid. Three-dimensional turbulence is generated by strong pumping through tubes at the bottom of a rotating tank (48.4 cm high, 39.4 cm diameter). This flow evolves toward two-dimensional (2D) turbulence with increasing height in the tank. Particle image velocimetry measurements on the quasi-2D flow reveal many long-lived coherent vortices with a wide range of sizes. The vorticity field exhibits vortex creation, merger, scattering, and destruction. We separate the flow into a low-entropy "coherent" and a high-entropy "incoherent" component by thresholding the coefficients of the DWT and DWPT of the vorticity field. Similar thresholdings using the Fourier transform and JPEG compression together with the Okubo-Weiss criterion are also tested for comparison. We find that the DWT and DWPT yield similar results and are much more efficient at representing the total flow than a Fourier-based method. Only about 3% of the large-amplitude coefficients of the DWT and DWPT are necessary to represent the coherent component and preserve the vorticity probability distribution function (PDF), transport properties, and spatial and temporal correlations. The remaining small-amplitude coefficients represent the incoherent component, which has near Gaussian vorticity PDF, contains no coherent structures, rapidly loses correlation in time, and does not contribute significantly to the transport properties of the flow. This suggests that one can describe and simulate such turbulent flow using a relatively small number of wavelet or wavelet packet modes.

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PubMed2005

Fractal dimension and unscreened angles measured for radial viscous fingering.

We have examined fractal patterns formed by the injection of air into oil in a thin (0.127 mm) layer contained between two cylindrical glass plates of 288 mm diameter (a Hele-Shaw cell), for pressure differences in the range 0.25 < or = DeltaP < or = 1.75 atm. We find that an asymptotic structure is reached at large values of the ratio r/b, where r is the pattern radius and b the gap between the plates. Both the driving force and the size of the pattern, which reaches r/b = 900, are far larger than in past experiments. The fractal dimension D0 of the pattern for large r/b is 1.70 +/- 0.02. Further, the generalized dimensions D(q) of the pattern are independent of q , D(q) approximately 1.70 for the range examined, -11 < q < 17; thus the pattern is self-similar within the experimental uncertainty. The results for D(q) agree well with recent calculations for diffusion-limited aggregation (DLA) clusters. We have also measured the probability distribution of unscreened angles. At late times, the distribution approaches a universal (i.e., forcing and size-independent) asymptotic form that has mean 145 degrees Celsius and standard deviation 36 degrees Celsius. These results indicate that the distribution function for the unscreened angle is an invariant property of the growth process.

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PubMed2005

Stationary state volume fluctuations in a granular medium.

A statistical description of static granular material requires ergodic sampling of the phase space spanned by the different configurations of the particles. We periodically fluidize a column of glass beads and find that the sequence of volume fractions phi of postfluidized states is history independent and Gaussian distributed about a stationary state. The standard deviation of phi exhibits, as a function of phi, a minimum corresponding to a maximum in the number of statistically independent regions. Measurements of the fluctuations enable us to determine the compactivity X , a temperaturelike state variable introduced in the statistical theory of Edwards and Oakeshott [Physica A 157, 1080 (1989)].

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PubMed2005

Onset of patterns in an oscillated granular layer: continuum and molecular dynamics simulations.

We study the onset of patterns in vertically oscillated layers of frictionless dissipative particles. Using both numerical solutions of continuum equations to Navier-Stokes order and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, we find that standing waves form stripe patterns above a critical acceleration of the cell. Changing the frequency of oscillation of the cell changes the wavelength of the resulting pattern; MD and continuum simulations both yield wavelengths in accord with previous experimental results. The value of the critical acceleration for ordered standing waves is approximately 10% higher in molecular dynamics simulations than in the continuum simulations, and the amplitude of the waves differs significantly between the models. The delay in the onset of order in molecular dynamics simulations and the amplitude of noise below this onset are consistent with the presence of fluctuations which are absent in the continuum theory. The strength of the noise obtained by fit to Swift-Hohenberg theory is orders of magnitude larger than the thermal noise in fluid convection experiments, and is comparable to the noise found in experiments with oscillated granular layers and in recent fluid experiments on fluids near the critical point. Good agreement is found between the mean field value of onset from the Swift-Hohenberg fit and the onset in continuum simulations. Patterns are compared in cells oscillated at two different frequencies in MD; the layer with larger wavelength patterns has less noise than the layer with smaller wavelength patterns.

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PubMed2004

Mach cone in a shallow granular fluid.

We study the V -shaped wake (Mach cone) formed by a cylindrical rod moving through a thin, vertically vibrated granular layer. The wake, analogous to a shock (hydraulic jump) in shallow water, appears for rod velocities vR greater than a critical velocity c . We measure the half angle theta; of the wake as a function of vR and layer depth h . The angle satisfies the Mach relation, sin theta=c/vR , where c= square root of gh , even for h as small as one-particle diameter.

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PubMed2004

Crucial role of sidewalls in velocity distributions in quasi-two-dimensional granular gases.

Our experiments and three-dimensional molecular dynamics simulations of particles confined to a vertical monolayer by closely spaced frictional walls (sidewalls) yield velocity distributions with non-Gaussian tails and a peak near zero velocity. Simulations with frictionless sidewalls are not peaked. Thus interactions between particles and their containers are an important determinant of the shape of the distribution and should be considered when evaluating experiments on a constrained monolayer of particles.

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PubMed2004

Resonance tongues and patterns in periodically forced reaction-diffusion systems.

Various resonant and near-resonant patterns form in a light-sensitive Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) reaction in response to a spatially homogeneous time-periodic perturbation with light. The regions (tongues) in the forcing frequency and forcing amplitude parameter plane where resonant patterns form are identified through analysis of the temporal response of the patterns. Resonant and near-resonant responses are distinguished. The unforced BZ reaction shows both spatially uniform oscillations and rotating spiral waves, while the forced system shows patterns such as standing-wave labyrinths and rotating spiral waves. The patterns depend on the amplitude and frequency of the perturbation, and also on whether the system responds to the forcing near the uniform oscillation frequency or the spiral wave frequency. Numerical simulations of a forced FitzHugh-Nagumo reaction-diffusion model show both resonant and near-resonant patterns similar to the BZ chemical system.

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PubMed2004

Dynamics of drag and force distributions for projectile impact in a granular medium.

Our experiments and molecular dynamics simulations on a projectile penetrating a two-dimensional granular medium reveal that the mean deceleration of the projectile is constant and proportional to the impact velocity. Thus, the time taken for a projectile to decelerate to a stop is independent of its impact velocity. The simulations show that the probability distribution function of forces on grains is time independent during a projectile's deceleration in the medium. At all times the force distribution function decreases exponentially for large forces.

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PubMed2004

Persistent holes in a fluid.

We observe stable holes in a vertically oscillated 0.5 cm deep aqueous suspension of cornstarch. Holes appear only if a finite perturbation is applied to the layer for accelerations a above 10g. Holes are circular and approximately 0.5 cm wide, and can persist for more than 10(6) cycles. Above a approximately equal to 17g the rim of the hole becomes unstable, producing fingerlike protrusions or hole division. At higher acceleration, the hole delocalizes, growing to cover the entire surface with erratic undulations. We find similar behavior in an aqueous suspension of glass microspheres.

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PubMed2004

Noise, coherent fluctuations, and the onset of order in an oscillated granular fluid.

We study fluctuations in a vertically oscillated layer of grains below the critical acceleration for the onset of ordered standing waves. As onset is approached, transient disordered waves with a characteristic length scale emerge and increase in power and coherence. The scaling behavior and the shift in the onset of order agrees with the Swift-Hohenberg theory for convection in fluids. However, the noise in the granular system is an order of magnitude larger than the thermal noise in the most sensitive convecting fluid experiments to date; the effect of the granular noise is observable 20% below the onset of order.

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PubMed2004

Role of friction in pattern formation in oscillated granular layers.

Particles in granular flows are often modeled as frictionless (smooth) inelastic spheres; however, there exist no frictionless grains, just as there are no elastic grains. Our molecular dynamics simulations reveal that friction is essential for realistic modeling of vertically oscillated granular layers: simulations of frictionless particles yield patterns with an onset at a container acceleration about 30% smaller than that observed in experiments and simulations with friction. More importantly, even though square and hexagonal patterns form for a wide range of the oscillation parameters in experiments and in our simulations of frictional inelastic particles, only stripe patterns form in the simulations without friction, even if the inelasticity is increased to obtain as much dissipation as in frictional particles. We also consider the effect of particle friction on the shock wave that forms each time the granular layer strikes the container. While a shock wave still forms for frictionless particles, the spatial and temporal dependence of the hydrodynamic fields differ for the cases with and without friction.

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PubMed2004

Steady-state velocity distributions of an oscillated granular gas.

We use a three-dimensional molecular dynamics simulation to study the single particle distribution function of a dilute granular gas driven by a vertically oscillating plate at high accelerations (15g-90g). We find that the density and the temperature fields are essentially time-invariant above a height of about 40 particle diameters, where typically 20% of the grains are contained. These grains form the nonequilibrium steady-state granular gas with a Knudsen number unity or greater. In the steady-state region, the probability distribution function of the horizontal velocity c(x) (scaled by the local horizontal temperature) is found to be nearly independent of height, even though the hydrodynamic fields vary with height. We find that the high energy tails of the distribution function are described by a stretched exponential approximately exp(-Bcalphax), where alpha depends on the restitution coefficient e and falls in the range 1.2<alpha<1.6. However, alpha does not vary significantly for a wide range of friction coefficient values. We find that the distribution function of a frictionless inelastic hard sphere model can be made similar to that of a frictional model by adjusting e. However, there is no single value of e that mimics the frictional model over a range of heights.

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PubMed2004

Localization and extinction of bacterial populations under inhomogeneous growth conditions.

The transition from localized to systemic spreading of bacteria, viruses, and other agents is a fundamental problem that spans medicine, ecology, biology, and agriculture science. We have conducted experiments and simulations in a simple one-dimensional system to determine the spreading of bacterial populations that occurs for an inhomogeneous environment under the influence of external convection. Our system consists of a long channel with growth inhibited by uniform ultraviolet (UV) illumination except in a small "oasis", which is shielded from the UV light. To mimic blood flow or other flow past a localized infection, the oasis is moved with a constant velocity through the UV-illuminated "desert". The experiments are modeled with a convective reaction-diffusion equation. In both the experiment and model, localized or extinct populations are found to develop, depending on conditions, from an initially localized population. The model also yields states where the population grows everywhere. Further, the model reveals that the transitions between localized, extended, and extinct states are continuous and nonhysteretic. However, it does not capture the oscillations of the localized population that are observed in the experiment.

Computer Simulation↗

PubMed2003

Coarsening of fractal viscous fingering patterns.

We have measured the coarsening due to surface tension of radially grown fractal viscous fingering patterns. The patterns at late times depend on the structural form at the onset of coarsening, providing information on the age of the fractal. The coarsening process is not dynamically scale invariant, exhibiting two dynamic length scales that grow as L1(t) approximately t(0.22+/-0.02) and L2(t) approximately t(0.31+/-0.02). The measured exponents are in agreement with the results of recent numerical studies of diffusion-controlled coarsening of a diffusion-limited aggregation fractal [Phys. Rev. E 65, 050501 (2002)]].

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PubMed2003

Kink-induced transport and segregation in oscillated granular layers.

We use experiments and molecular dynamics simulations of vertically oscillated granular layers to study horizontal particle segregation induced by a kink (a boundary between domains oscillating out of phase). Counterrotating convection rolls carry the larger particles in a bidisperse layer along the granular surface to a kink, where they become trapped. The convection originates from avalanches that occur inside the layer, along the interface between solidified and fluidized grains. The position of a kink can be controlled by modulation of the container frequency, making possible systematic harvesting of the larger particles.

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