On September 14, 2015 at 09:50:45 UTC the two detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory simultaneously observed a transient gravitational-wave signal. The signal sweeps upwards in frequency from 35 to 250 Hz with a peak gravitational-wave strain of 1.0×10(-21). It matches the waveform predicted by general relativity for the inspiral and merger of a pair of black holes and the ringdown of the resulting single black hole. The signal was observed with a matched-filter signal-to-noise ratio of 24 and a false alarm rate estimated to be less than 1 event per 203,000 years, equivalent to a significance greater than 5.1σ. The source lies at a luminosity distance of 410(-180)(+160)  Mpc corresponding to a redshift z=0.09(-0.04)(+0.03). In the source frame, the initial black hole masses are 36(-4)(+5)M⊙ and 29(-4)(+4)M⊙, and the final black hole mass is 62(-4)(+4)M⊙, with 3.0(-0.5)(+0.5)M⊙c(2) radiated in gravitational waves. All uncertainties define 90% credible intervals. These observations demonstrate the existence of binary stellar-mass black hole systems. This is the first direct detection of gravitational waves and the first observation of a binary black hole merger.

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The Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger

Microfabricated integrated circuits revolutionized computation by vastly reducing the space, labor, and time required for calculations. Microfluidic systems hold similar promise for the large-scale automation of chemistry and biology, suggesting the possibility of numerous experiments performed rapidly and in parallel, while consuming little reagent. While it is too early to tell whether such a vision will be realized, significant progress has been achieved, and various applications of significant scientific and practical interest have been developed. Here a review of the physics of small volumes (nanoliters) of fluids is presented, as parametrized by a series of dimensionless numbers expressing the relative importance of various physical phenomena. Specifically, this review explores the Reynolds number Re, addressing inertial effects; the Peclet number Pe, which concerns convective and diffusive transport; the capillary number Ca expressing the importance of interfacial tension; the Deborah, Weissenberg, and elasticity numbers De, Wi, and El, describing elastic effects due to deformable microstructural elements like polymers; the Grashof and Rayleigh numbers Gr and Ra, describing density-driven flows; and the Knudsen number, describing the importance of noncontinuum molecular effects. Furthermore, the long-range nature of viscous flows and the small device dimensions inherent in microfluidics mean that the influence of boundaries is typically significant. A variety of strategies have been developed to manipulate fluids by exploiting boundary effects; among these are electrokinetic effects, acoustic streaming, and fluid-structure interactions. The goal is to describe the physics behind the rich variety of fluid phenomena occurring on the nanoliter scale using simple scaling arguments, with the hopes of developing an intuitive sense for this occasionally counterintuitive world.

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Microfluidics: Fluid physics at the nanoliter scale

I. the origin of species by means of natural selection

The boundary layer equations for plane, incompressible, and steady flow are 

$$\matrix{ {u{{\partial u} \over {\partial x}} + v{{\partial u} \over {\partial y}} = - {1 \over \varrho }{{\partial p} \over {\partial x}} + v{{{\partial ^2}u} \over {\partial {y^2}}},} \cr {0 = {{\partial p} \over {\partial y}},} \cr {{{\partial u} \over {\partial x}} + {{\partial v} \over {\partial y}} = 0.} \cr }$$

Boundary Layer Theory

We survey progress over the past 25 years in the development of microscale devices for pumping fluids. We attempt to provide both a reference for micropump researchers and a resource for those outside the field who wish to identify the best micropump for a particular application. Reciprocating displacement micropumps have been the subject of extensive research in both academia and the private sector and have been produced with a wide range of actuators, valve configurations and materials. Aperiodic displacement micropumps based on mechanisms such as localized phase change have been shown to be suitable for specialized applications. Electroosmotic micropumps exhibit favorable scaling and are promising for a variety of applications requiring high flow rates and pressures. Dynamic micropumps based on electrohydrodynamic and magnetohydrodynamic effects have also been developed. Much progress has been made, but with micropumps suitable for important applications still not available, this remains a fertile area for future research.

https://microfluidics.stanford.edu/Publications/Micropumps_Cooling/Laser%20Review%20of%20Micropumps%20in%20JMM.pdf

A review of micropumps

While the air–water interface over superhydrophobic surfaces decorated with hierarchical micro- or nanosized geometrical features have shown improved stability under elevated pressures, their underwater longevity—-the time that it takes for the surface to transition to the Wenzel state—-has not been studied. The current work is devised to study the effects of such hierarchical features on the longevity of superhydrophobic surfaces. For the sake of simplicity, our study is limited to superhydrophobic surfaces composed of parallel grooves with side fins. The effects of fins on the critical pressure—-the pressure at which the surface starts transitioning to the Wenzel state—-and longevity are predicted using a mathematical approach based on the balance of forces across the air–water interface. Our results quantitatively demonstrate that the addition of hierarchical fins significantly improves the mechanical stability of the air–water interface, due to the high advancing contact angles that can be achieved when an interface comes in contact with the fins sharp corners. For longevity on the contrary, the hierarchical fins were only effective at hydrostatic pressures below the critical pressure of the original smooth-walled groove. Our results indicate that increasing the length of the fins decreases the critical pressure of a submerged superhydrophobic groove but increases its longevity. Increasing the thickness of the fins can improve both the critical pressure and longevity of a submerged groove. The mathematical framework presented in this paper can be used to custom-design superhydrophobic surfaces for different applications.

/pdf/effects-of-hierarchical-features-on-longevity-of-submerged-2tt4hlt621.pdf

Effects of hierarchical features on longevity of submerged superhydrophobic surfaces with parallel grooves

Turbulent boundary layers approaching separation are a common flow situation in many technical applications. Numerous theoretical, experimental, and numerical attempts have been made to find the proper scaling for the mean-velocity profile of this type of wall-bounded flow. However, none of these approaches seems to be completely satisfactory. New water-tunnel experiments of adverse-pressure-gradient turbulent boundary layers are presented that clearly show the breakdown of the logarithmic law. With these data and experimental results from several independent research groups, the classical scaling for zero-pressure-gradient turbulent boundary layers, the scaling by Castillo and George (Castillo, L., and George, W. K., "Similarity Analysis for Turbulent Boundary Layer with Pressure Gradient: Outer Flow," AIAA Journal, Vol. 39, No. 1, 2001, pp. 41-47), and the scaling by Zagarola and Smits (Zagarola, M. V., and Smits, A. J., "Mean-Flow Scaling of Turbulent Pipe Flow," Journal of Fluid Mechanics, Vol. 373,1998, pp. 33-79) are analyzed. Only the latter can be applied successfully for the outer region of the mean-velocity profile close to separation. It is shown that Zagarola and Smits's scaling is consistent with the classical two-layer approach and can be applied to collapse the different data. When the Reynolds shear stress is analyzed, George and Castillo's scaling shows a reasonably good collapse of the data in the outer region.

Mean-velocity Profile of Turbulent Boundary Layers Approaching Separation

http://www.math.chalmers.se/Math/Research/Preprints/2000/40.pdf

An analytical asymptotic solution to a conjugate heat transfer problem

Slippery surfaces have received great attention for more than a quarter-century. In particular, during the last decade, interest has increased exponentially, resulting in thousands of articles concerning three types of slippery surfaces: superhydrophobic, superoleophobic, and omniphobic. This review focuses on recent developments and significant findings in naturally inspired slippery surfaces. Superhydrophobicity can be characterized by water droplets beading on a surface at significantly high static contact angles and low contact-angle hystereses. Microscopically rough hydrophobic surfaces could entrap air in their pores, resulting in a portion of a submerged surface with an air–water interface, which is responsible for the slip effect and drag reduction. Suberhydrophobicity enhances the mobility of droplets on lotus leaves for self-cleaning purposes, the so-called lotus effect. Surface hydrophobicity can be advanced to repel low-surface-tension liquids, i.e., become superoleophobic. Another kind of slippery coating is the slippery liquid-infused porous surfaces (SLIPS), which are omniphobic coatings. Certain plants such as the carnivorous Nepenthes pitcher inspired SLIPS. Their interior surfaces have microstructural roughness, which can lock in place an infused lubricating liquid. The lubricant is then utilized as a repellent surface for other liquids or substances such as water, blood, crude oil, ice, insects, and bio-fouling. In this review, we discuss different slippery mechanisms in nature. We also cover recent advances in manufacturing, texturing, and controlling slippery surface at the micro- and nanoscales. We further discuss the performance, sustainability, and longevity of such surfaces under different environmental conditions. Very-recent techniques used to characterize the surfaces are also detailed.

Slippery surfaces: A decade of progress

Understanding turbulent wall-bounded flows remains an elusive goal. Most turbulent phenomena are non-linear, complex and have broad range of scales that are difficult to completely resolve. Progress is made only in minute steps and enlightening models are rare. Herein, we undertake the effort to bundle several experimental and numerical databases to overcome some of these difficulties and to learn more about the kinematics of turbulent wall-bounded flows. The general scope of the present work is to quantify the characteristics of wall-normal and spanwise Reynolds stresses, which might be different for confined (e.g., pipe) and semi-confined (e.g., boundary layer) flows. In particular, the peak position of wall-normal stress and a shoulder in spanwise stress never described in detail before are investigated using select experimental and direct numerical simulation databases available in the open literature. It is found that the positions of the $$ \left\langle {v'{^2} } \right\rangle^{ + } $$
 -peak in confined and semi-confined flow differ significantly above δ
 + ≈ 600. A similar behavior is found for the position of the $$ \left\langle {u'v'} \right\rangle^{ + } $$
 -peak. The upper end of the logarithmic region seems to be closely related to the position of the $$ \left\langle {v'{^2} } \right\rangle^{ + } $$
 -peak. The $$ \left\langle {w'{^2} } \right\rangle^{ + } $$
 -shoulder is found to be twice as far from the wall than the $$ \left\langle {v'{^2} } \right\rangle^{ + } $$
 -peak. It covers a significantly large portion of the typical zero-pressure-gradient turbulent boundary layer.

Mohamed Gad-el-Hak

Papers

Effects of hierarchical features on longevity of submerged superhydrophobic surfaces with parallel grooves

Mean-velocity Profile of Turbulent Boundary Layers Approaching Separation

An analytical asymptotic solution to a conjugate heat transfer problem

Slippery surfaces: A decade of progress

Normal and cross-flow Reynolds stresses: differences between confined and semi-confined flows