This work represents one of the first comprehensive attempts to seamlessly integrate two highly active interdisciplinary domains in soft matter science - microfluidics and liquid crystals (LCs). Motivated by the lack of fundamental experiments, Dr. Sengupta initiated systematic investigation of LC flows at micro scales, gaining new insights that are also suggestive of novel applications. By tailoring the surface anchoring of the LC molecules and the channel dimensions, different topological constraints were controllably introduced within the microfluidic devices. These topological constraints were further manipulated using a flow field, paving the way for Topological Microfluidics. Harnessing topology on a microfluidic platform, as described in this thesis, opens up capabilities beyond the conventional viscous-dominated microfluidics, promising potential applications in targeted delivery and sorting systems, self-assembled motifs, and novel metamaterial fabrications.

This work investigates gravitational wave production in the early universe and identifies potentially observable features, thereby paving the way for future gravitational wave experiments. It focuses on gravitational wave production in two scenarios: inflation in a model inspired by loop quantum gravity, and preheating at the end of inflation. In the first part, it is demonstrated that gravitational waves' spectrum differs from the result obtained using ordinary general relativity, with potentially observable consequences that could yield insights into quantum gravity. In the second part, it is shown that the cosmic gravitational wave background is anisotropic at a level that could be detected by future experiments. Gravitational waves promise to be an rich source of information on the early universe. To them, the universe has been transparent from its earliest moments, so they can give us an unobstructed view of the Big Bang and a means to probe the fundamental laws of nature at very high energies.

This book deals in a modern manner with a family of named problems from an old and mature subject, classical elasticity. These problems are formulated over either a half or the whole of a linearly elastic and isotropic two- or three-dimensional space, subject to loads concentrated at points or lines. The discussion of each problem begins with a careful examination of the prevailing symmetries, and proceeds with inverting the canonical order, in that it moves from a search for balanced stress fields to the associated strain and displacement fields. The book, although slim, is fairly well self-contained; the only prerequisite is a reasonable familiarity with linear algebra (in particular, manipulation of vectors and tensors) and with the usual differential operators of mathematical physics (gradient, divergence, curl, and Laplacian); the few nonstandard notions are introduced with care. Support material for all parts of the book is found in the final Appendix.

This book focuses on the phenomenon of sediment erosion and resuspension in the Yellow River delta, China, which is a vital issue involved in understanding the sediment transport processes in estuarine and coastal environments, and how these contribute to the nature and distribution of geohazards in the subaqueous Yellow River delta and Bohai Sea. The most important sections of this book will be the detailed physical mechanisms and theoretical models of sediment erosion and resuspension problem fully considering the wave-induced seabed dynamic response to waves, which are particularly useful for postgraduate students and junior researchers entering the discipline of estuary and coastal sedimentation, marine geotechnical engineering, estuary and coastal engineering, harbor and waterway engineering and coastal environmental protection. This book can also serve as a textbook for advanced graduate students of Marine Engineering Geology and Estuarine Sediment Dynamics.

This book presents two reviews from the cutting-edge of Russian plasma physics research. The first review is devoted to the mechanisms of transverse conductivity and generation of self-consistent electric fields in strongly ionized magnetized plasma. The second review considers numerous aspects of turbulent transport in plasma and fluids. This second review is focused on scaling arguments for describing anomalous diffusion in the presence of complex structures.

This book develops a modern presentation of Continuum Mechanics, oriented towards numerical applications in the ?elds of nonlinear analysis of solids, structures and ?uids. Kinematics of the continuum deformation, including pull-back/push-forward transformations between di erent con?gurations; stress and strain measures; objective stress rate and strain rate measures; balance principles; constitutive relations, with emphasis on elasto-plasticity of metals and variational prin- ples are developed using general curvilinear coordinates. Being tensor analysis the indispensable tool for the development of the continuum theory in general coordinates, in the appendix an overview of t- soranalysisisalsopresented. Embedded in the theoretical presentation, application examples are dev- oped to deepen the understanding of the discussed concepts. Even though the mathematical presentation of the di erent topics is quite rigorous; an e ort is made to link formal developments with engineering ph- ical intuition. This book is based on two graduate courses that the authors teach at the Engineering School of the University of Buenos Aires and it is intended for graduate engineering students majoring in mechanics and for researchers in the ?elds of applied mechanics and numerical methods. VIII Preface I am grateful to Klaus-Jurgen Bathe for introducing me to Computational Mechanics, for his enthusiasm, for his encouragement to undertake challenges and for his friendship."

This book contains contributions from the Spanish Relativity Meeting, ERE 2012, held in" "Guimaraes, Portugal, September 2012. It features more than 70 papers on a range of topics in general relativity and gravitation, from mathematical cosmology, numerical relativity and black holes to string theory and quantum gravity.

Under the title "Progress in Mathematical Relativity, Gravitation and Cosmology," ERE 2012 was attended by an exceptional international list of over a hundred participants from the five continents and over forty countries. ERE is organized every year by one of the Spanish or Portuguese groups working in this area and is supported by the Spanish Society of Gravitation and Relativity (SEGRE).

This book will be of interest to researchers in mathematics and physics.

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The need for properties is ever increasing to make processes more economical. A good survey of the viscosity data, its critical evaluation and correlation would help design engineers, scientists and technologists in their areas of interest. This type of work assumes more importance as the amount of experimental work in collection and correlation of properties such as viscosity, thermal conductivity, heat capacities, etc has reduced drastically both at the industry, universities, and national laboratories. One of the c o-authors, Professor Viswanath, co-authored a book jointly with Dr. Natarajan Data Book on the Viscosity of Liquids in 1989 which mainly presented collected and evaluated liquid viscosity data from the literature. Although it is one of its kinds in the field, Prof. Viswanath recognized that the design engineers, scientists and technologists should have a better understanding of theories, experimental procedures, and operational aspects of viscometers. Also, rarely the data are readily available at the conditions that are necessary for design of the equipment or for other calculations. Therefore, the data must be interpolated or extrapolated using the existing literature data and using appropriate correlations or models. We have tried to address these issues in this book."

The emphasis of this book is on engineering aspects of fluid turbulence. The book explains for example how to tackle turbulence in industrial applications. It is useful to several disciplines, such as, mechanical, civil, chemical, aerospace engineers and also to professors, researchers, beginners, under graduates and post graduates. The following issues are emphasized in the book: - Modeling and computations of engineering flows: The author discusses in detail the quantities of interest for engineering turbulent flows and how to select an appropriate turbulence model; Also, a treatment of the selection of appropriate boundary conditions for the CFD simulations is given. - Modeling of turbulent convective heat transfer: This is encountered in several practical situations. It basically needs discussion on issues of treatment of walls and turbulent heat fluxes. - Modeling of buoyancy driven flows, for example, smoke issuing from chimney, pollutant discharge into water bodies, etc

In 1998 the chairman of the Russian National Committee of TMM Professor Arcady Bessonov, recommended one of authors of this book to be come a member of the IFToMM Permanent Commission on the History of Mechanisms and Machines Sciences (PC HMMS). Willy-nilly from this time the history of technique, as hobby passed on to a serious the employment in the history of engineering science. Interest history of a subject is natural for Professor, a leading a course of Theory of Mechanisms and Machines in Bauman University. This interest is supported by the fact that Bauman University is one of the oldest technical universities in Russia, and the course "Applied Mechanics" - later "Theory of Mechanisms and Machines" was the first systematic course in Russia. The second author supervises a cycle of laboratory works on TMM. Models of mechanisms are placed in laboratory in show-windows of ancient cases quite possibly coevals of the first course. He became interested in contents of these cases: firstly in models, and then in their origin. Later he occupied himself with the creation of a web-site "The Collection of mechanisms in department TMM in Bauman University". Gradually both authors had the idea of cooperation, although several years previously, we could not imagine this happening. We took an active part in the work of PC HMMS from 2000. It was promoted by of chairman of the commission Professor Marco Ceccarelli.

The revised and enlarged third edition of this successful book presents a comprehensive and systematic treatment of linear and nonlinear partial differential equations and their varied and updated applications. In an effort to make the book more useful for a diverse readership, updated modern examples of applications are chosen from areas of fluid dynamics, gas dynamics, plasma physics, nonlinear dynamics, quantum mechanics, nonlinear optics, acoustics, and wave propagation.

"Nonlinear Partial Differential Equations for Scientists and Engineers, Third Edition, "improves onanalready highlycomplete and accessible resource for graduate students and professionals in mathematics, physics, science, and engineering. It may be used to great effect as a course textbook, research reference, or self-study guide."

Ando establishes a theory of subjective preference of the sound field in a concert hall, based on preference theory with a model of human auditory- brain system. The model uses the autocorrelation function and the interaural crosscorrelation function for signals arriving at two ear entrances and considers the specialization of human cerebral hemispheres. The theory may be applied to describe primary sensations such as pitch or missing fundamental, loudness, timbre, and duration. The theory may also be applied to visual sensations as well as subjective preference of visual environments. Remarkable findings in activities in both auditory-brain and visual-brain systems in relation to subjective preference as a primitive response are described.

This book is comprehensive in its classical mathematical physics presentation, providing the reader with detailed instructions for obtaining Green's functions from scratch. Green's functions is an instrument easily accessible to practitioners who are engaged in design and exploitation of machines and structures in modern engineering practice. To date, there are no books available on the market that are devoted to the Green's function formalism for equations covered in this volume. The reader, with an undergraduate background in applied mathematics, can become an active user of the Green's function approach. For the first time, Green's functions are discussed for a specific class of problems dealing with potential fields induced in thin-wall structures and therefore, the reader will have first-hand access to a novel issue. This Work is accessible to researchers in applied mathematics, mechanics, and relevant disciplines such as engineering, as well as to upper level undergraduates and graduate students.

The major developments in the field of fluid and solid mechanics are scattered throughout an array of scientific journals, making it often difficult to find what the real advances are, especially for a researcher new to the field. The Advances in Applied Mechanics book series draws together the recent significant advances in various topics in applied mechanics.
Published since 1948, Advances in Applied Mechanics aims to provide authoritative review articles on topics in the mechanical sciences, primarily of interest to scientists and engineers working in the various branches of mechanics, but also of interest to the many who use the results of investigation in mechanics and various application areas.
Advances in Applied Mechanics continues to be a publication of high impact. Review articles are provided by leading scientists in the field on an invitation only basis. Many of the articles published have become classics within their fields.
Volume 39 in the Mechanics series contains articles on vortex dynamics, the numerical simulation of two-phase flows, environmental problems in China, and piezoelectrics.

This volume will contain selected papers from the lectures held at the BAIL 2010 Conference, which took place from July 5th to 9th, 2010 in Zaragoza (Spain). The papers present significant advances in the modeling, analysis and construction of efficient numerical methods to solve boundary and interior layers appearing in singular perturbation problems. Special emphasis is put on the mathematical foundations of such methods and their application to physical models. Topics in scientific fields such as fluid dynamics, quantum mechanics, semiconductor modeling, control theory, elasticity, chemical reactor theory, and porous media are examined in detail.

This book gives a detailed, up-to-date account of the Lense-Thirring effect and its implications for physics and astrophysics. Starting from a profound intuition of Lense and Thirring in 1918, based on a simple solution to the linearized Einstein field equations, this has emerged in the past four decades as a phenomenon of extraordinary importance in cosmology, radio jets in quasars, and the physics of neutron stars and black holes, besides leading to some of the most sophisticated experiments ever performed in the space surrounding our planet. The book contains the contributions presented at the "Third William Fairbank Meeting," which have been expanded by adding a complete set of classical and prominent contemporary papers on this subject and a general introduction by R Ruffini.

This thesis presents valuable contributions to several aspects of the rapidly growing field of gravitational wave astrophysics. The potential sources of gravitational waves in globular clusters are analyzed using sophisticated dynamics simulations involving intermediate mass black holes and including, for the first time, high-order post-Newtonian corrections to the equations of motion. The thesis further demonstrates our ability to accurately measure the parameters of the sources involved in intermediate-mass-ratio inspirals of stellar-mass compact objects into hundred-solar-mass black holes. Lastly, it proposes new techniques for the computationally efficient inference on gravitational waves. On 14 September 2015, the LIGO observatory reported the first direct detection of gravitational waves from the merger of a pair of black holes. For a brief fraction of a second, the power emitted by this merger exceeded the combined output of all stars in the visible universe. This has since been followed by another confirmed detection and a third candidate binary black hole merger. These detections heralded the birth of an exciting new field: gravitational-wave astrophysics.

This volume contains the papers of a German Symposium dealing with research and project work in numerical and experimental aerodynamics and fluidmechanics for aerospace and other applications. Results are reported from universities, research-establishments and industry. It therefore gives a broad overview over the ongoing work in this field in Germany.

As mentioned in the Introduction to Volume I, the present monograph is intended both for mathematicians interested in applications of the theory of linear operators and operator-functions to problems of hydrodynamics, and for researchers of applied hydrodynamic problems, who want to study these problems by means of the most recent achievements in operator theory. The second volume considers nonself-adjoint problems describing motions and normal oscillations of a homogeneous viscous incompressible fluid. These ini tial boundary value problems of mathematical physics include, as a rule, derivatives in time of the unknown functions not only in the equation, but in the boundary conditions, too. Therefore, the spectral problems corresponding to such boundary value problems include the spectral parameter in the equation and in the bound ary conditions, and are nonself-adjoint. In their study, we widely used the theory of nonself-adjoint operators acting in a Hilbert space and also the theory of operator pencils. In particular, the methods of operator pencil factorization and methods of operator theory in a space with indefinite metric find here a wide application. We note also that this volume presents both the now classical problems on oscillations of a homogeneous viscous fluid in an open container (in an ordinary state and in weightlessness) and a new set of problems on oscillations of partially dissipative hydrodynamic systems, and problems on oscillations of a visco-elastic or relaxing fluid. Some of these problems need a more careful additional investigation and are rather complicated."

The priority research, Analysis, Modelling and Numerical Calculations ofMul tiphase Flows" was running for 6 years (from 1996 to 2002) and financially sup ported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). The main objective ofthe research programme was to provide a better understanding of the physical basis for multiphase gas-liquid flows as they are found in numerous chemical and bio chemical reactors. The research comprised steady and unsteady multiphase flows in three frequently found reactor configurations, namely bubble columns without interiors, loop reactors, and aerated stirred vessels. For this purpose, new and im proved measurement techniques should be developed. From the resulting knowl edge and data, new and refined models for describing the underlying physical processes should result, which can be used for the establishment and improvement of analytic as well as numerical methods for predicting multiphase reactors. Thereby, the development, lay-out and scale-up ofsuch processes should be pos sible on a more reliable basis. For achieving this objective three research areas were defined: development and improvement of experimental techniques which allow accu rate measurements in steady and unsteady multiphase flows elaboration of new modelling approaches in order to describe the basic trans port processes for mass, momentum, and heat in bubbly flows development of analytical and numerical methods supplemented by the new modelling strategies in order to support optimisation and lay-out of technical multiphase processes."

This book contains advanced-level research material in the area of lubrication theory and related aspects, presented by eminent researchers during the International Conference on Advances in Tribology and Engineering Systems (ICATES 2013) held at Gujarat Technological University, Ahmedabad, India during October 15 17, 2013. The material in this book represents the advanced field of tribology and reflects the work of many eminent researchers from both India and abroad. The treatment of the presentations is the result of the contributions of several professionals working in the industry and academia. This book will be useful for students, researchers, academicians, and professionals working in the area of tribology, in general, and bearing performance characteristics, in particular, especially from the point-of-view of design. This book will also appeal to researchers and professionals working in fluid-film lubrication and other practical applications of tribology. A wide range of topics has been included despite space and time constraints. Basic concepts and fundamentals techniques have been emphasized upon, while also including highly specialized topics and methods (such as nanotribology, bio-nanotribology). Care has been taken to generate interest for a wide range of readers, considering the interdisciplinary nature of the subject."

This book covers the basics of the hydrodynamics and vibration of structures subjected to environmental loads. It describes the interaction of hydrodynamics with the associated vibration of structures, giving simple explanations. Emphasis is placed on the applications of the theory to practical problems. Several case studies are provided to show how the theory outlined in the book is applied in the design of structures. Background material needed for understanding fluid-induced vibrations of structures is given to make the book reasonably self-sufficient. Examples are taken mainly from the novel structures that are of interest today, including ocean and offshore structures and components.Besides being a text for undergraduates, this book can serve as a handy reference for design engineers and consultants involved in the design of structures subjected to dynamics and vibration.

These proceedings collect the selected contributions of participants of the First Karl Schwarzschild Meeting on Gravitational Physics, held in Frankfurt, Germany to celebrate the 140th anniversary of Schwarzschild's birth. They are grouped into 4 main themes: I. The Life and Work of Karl Schwarzschild; II. Black Holes in Classical General Relativity, Numerical Relativity, Astrophysics, Cosmology, and Alternative Theories of Gravity; III. Black Holes in Quantum Gravity and String Theory; IV. Other Topics in Contemporary Gravitation. Inspired by the foundational principle ``By acknowledging the past, we open a route to the future", the week-long meeting, envisioned as a forum for exchange between scientists from all locations and levels of education, drew participants from 15 countries across 4 continents. In addition to plenary talks from leading researchers, a special focus on young talent was provided, a feature underlined by the Springer Prize for the best student and junior presentations.

This book details a systematic characteristics-based finite element procedure to investigate incompressible, free-surface and compressible flows. Several sections derive the Fluid Dynamics equations from first thermo-mechanics principles and develop this multi-dimensional and infinite-directional upstream procedure by combining a finite element discretization with an implicit non-linearly stable Runge-Kutta time integration for the numerical solution of the Euler and Navier Stokes equations.

The idea for this book came out of the EURESCO Conference on High Performance Fibers: Euroconference on Fiber Fracture in 2000. Many of the books that are currently available look at different aspects of fiber processing, properties, or applications, but none are focussed on the fracture behaviour of fibers. This book presents the mechancisms and models of fiber fracture currently available for both natural and synthetic fibers, and it is expected that increasingly there will be cross fertilization between the fields, opening new frontiers in academic research and more competitive products for industry. It covers the following areas of fiber fracture: ceramic fibers; glass fibers; carbon filters; metallic fibers and thin wires; polymeric fibers; and carbon nanotubes.