A Nonlinear Drift - Diffusion System with Electric Convection Arising in Electrophoretic and Semiconductor Modeling

A multi-dimensional transient drift-diffusion model for (at most) three charged particles, consisting of the continuity equations for the concentrations of the species and the Poisson equation for the electric potential, is considered. The diffusion terms depend on the concentrations. Such a system arises in electrophoretic modeling of three species (neutrally, positively and negatively charged) and in semiconductor theory for two species (positively charged holes and negatively charged electrons). Diffusion terms of degenerate type are also possible in semiconductor modeling. For the initial boundary value problem with mixed Dirichlet - Neumann boundary conditions and general reaction rates, a global existence result is proved. Uniqueness of solutions follows in the Dirichlet boundary case if the diffusion terms are uniformly parabolic or if the initial and boundary densities are strictly positive. Finally, we prove that solutions exist which are positive uniformly in time and globally bounded if the reaction rates satisfy appropriate growth conditions.     

Intrinsic thermal stability and quenching recovery of thin-film superconductors with thermal boundary resistance

The stability behaviour of a thin-film superconductor under a localized release of thermal disturbance is investigated. Two-dimensional conjugate film/substrate conduction equation with anisotropic thermal conductivity of the film, and Joule heat are employed to investigate effects of substrate and thermal properties on the intrinsic stability and quenching recovery. To consider the thermal boundary resistance between film and substrate, an interfacial-layer model (ILM) with very low diffusivity and an acoustic mismatch model (AMM) are employed. Results show that the thermal boundary resistance influences strongly the intrinsic stability. Thermal boundary resistance increases intrinsic stability if the thermal conductivity of the substrate or the disturbance energy is large. Higher Biot numbers and thermal conductivity ratios of film to substrate in longitudinal direction influence stability favorably. We demonstrate also that operation of a film/substrate system, such as YBCO/MgO, is either intrinsically stable or irrecoverably unstable.The authors wish to express their sincere appreciation to Dr. R. C. Chen for his invaluable advice and suggestions during the course of this paper. This research was supported by the National Science Council of the R. O. C. through grant NSC 83-0401-E-009-006. The computations were performed on the IBM ES/9000 at the National Center For High-Performance Computing.     

Viscosity solution theory of a class of nonlinear degenerate parabolic equations II. Lipschitz continuity of free boundary

In [1] we construct a unique bounded Hölder continuous viscosity solution for the nonlinear PDEs with the evolutionp-Laplacian equation and its anisotropic version as typical examples. In this part, we investigate the Lipschitz continuity of the free boundary of viscosity solution and its asymptotic spherical symmetricity, however, this result does not include the anisotropic case.This research is supported by the National Natural Sciences Foundation of China.     

Cyclic reduction and FACR methods for piecewise hermite bicubic orthogonal spline collocation

Cyclic reduction and Fourier analysis-cyclic reduction (FACR) methods are presented for the solution of the linear systems which arise when orthogonal spline collocation with piecewise Hermite bicubics is applied to boundary value problems for certain separable partial differential equations on a rectangle. On anN×N uniform partition, the cyclic reduction and Fourier analysis-cyclic reduction methods requireO(N ²log₂ N) andO(N ²log₂log₂ N) arithmetic operations, respectively.     

Riabouchinsky flow with partially penetrable obstacle

An explicitly solvable Riabouchinsky model with a partially penetrable obstacle is introduced. This model applied to the estimation of the efficiency of free flow turbines allows us to take into account the pressure drop past the lamina.     

Trefftz,collocation, and other boundary methods—A comparison

In this article we survey the Trefftz method (TM), the collocation method (CM), and the collocation Trefftz method (CTM). We also review the coupling techniques for the interzonal conditions, which include the indirect Trefftz method, the original Trefftz method, the penalty plus hybrid Trefftz method, and the direct Trefftz method. Other boundary methods are also briefly described. Key issues in these algorithms, including the error analysis, are addressed. New numerical results are reported. Comparisons among TMs and other numerical methods are made. It is concluded that the CTM is the simplest algorithm and provides the most accurate solution with the best numerical stability. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2007     

A nodal coupling of finite and boundary elements

This article presents and analyzes a simple method for the exterior Laplace equation through the coupling of finite and boundary element methods. The main novelty is the use of a smooth parametric artificial boundary where boundary elements fit without effort together with a straight approximate triangulation in the bounded area, with the coupling done only in nodes. A numerically integrated version of the algorithm is also analyzed. Finally, an isoparametric variant with higher order is proposed. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 19: 555–570, 2003     

Molecular dynamics simulation of entropy and surface tension for grain boundary of α-Fe

The grain boundary is an interface and the surface tension is one of its important thermodynamic properties. In this paper, the surface tension of the ∑9 grain boundary for α-Fe at various temperatures and pressures is calculated by means of Computer Molecular Dynamics (CMD). The results agree satisfactorily with the experimental data. It is shown that the contribution of entropy to surface tension of grain boundary can be ignored. The project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Science Foundation of Chinese Academy of Sciences.     

On the properties of solutions to the Goursat-Darboux problem with boundary and distributed controls

We consider a control system described by the Goursat-Darboux equation. The system is controlled by distributed and boundary controls. The controls are subject to the constraints given as multivalued mappings with closed, possibly nonconvex, values depending on the phase variable. Alongside the initial constraints, we consider the convexified constraints and the constraints whose values are the extreme points of the convexified constraints. We study the questions of existence of solutions and establish connections between the solutions under various constraints.     

Front roughening in three-dimensional imbibition

We investigate the structure and dynamics of the interface between two immiscible liquids in a three-dimensional disordered porous medium. We apply a phase-field model that includes explicitly disorder and discuss both spontaneous and forced imbibition. The structure of the interface is dominated by a length scale ξ_× which arises from liquid conservation. We further show that disorder in the capillary and permeability act on different length scales and give rise to different scalings and structures of the interface properties. We conclude with a range of applications.