The aortic pulse wave velocity (PWV) is a useful clinical index to assess the aortic compliance and cardiovascular risk in a noninvasive manner. In this research, our previously developed axial velocity profile method (Yu et al., [11]) was modified to be more user-friendly and applied to the study of PWV of diabetic patients for the first time, using phase-contrast magnetic resonance imaging (PC-MRI) technique to analyze the spatial and temporal profiles of the axial velocity along the descending aorta for measurement of the aortic PWV. The PWV results from healthy volunteers and diabetic patients were studied and compared. It is shown that the PWV of diabetic patients is much higher than that of health volunteers, the aortic compliance of diabetic patients is substantially worse than that of health volunteers. These results are in good agreement with early studies using different measurement techniques of PWV. The axial velocity profile method is again validated and proven to be a useful tool of long-term prognosis for patients with diabetes mellitus or hypertension.

The method of fundamental solutions (MFS) and domain decomposition method (DDM) are employed to solve the water-wave diffraction by a thin porous vertical breakwater of semi-infinite extent. Based on the linearized theory of water waves, the problem can be reduced to a boundary value problem with degenerate boundary. In contrast to other mesh dependent numerical method, the MFS is easier and more efficient to handle degenerate boundary value problems. Various incident wave angles and porous parameters are included to validate the power of the proposed numerical scheme. The present results demonstrate the MFS is sufficiently accurate and feasible to be used to predict water-wave diffraction by a thin permeable breakwater by comparing with literature.

This study uses a novel concept of capacity coupling of chiller-cooling tower system to investigate the system energy performance. System performance factor (SPF) of the chiller-cooling tower system is used in the analysis. A regression function is obtained for hourly reset of condensing water temperature so to achieve maximum SPF. The regression function includes parameters such as ambient wet bulb temperature, chiller load ratio, tower capacity ratio, and a dimensionless relative efficiency of chiller and cooling tower. The regression function has an R2 close to 1 compared to the computed results. It is found that for capacity coupling ratio of 1.1 ∼ 1.6, SPF would increase by about 3 ∼ 6% compared with a typical base control. The effect of wet air return is presented as an equivalent wet bulb temperature. It has been found that SPF would decrease significantly when higher equivalent wet bulb temperature occurs at the tower inlet.

The goal of the combustion research is to achieve optimum combustion mode. Reaction Front velocity is one of the most important parameter that is studied in this field. Most biomass consumed at the present time is burned in fixed or moving beds. Fixed-bed combustion systems are characterized by the slow combustion of large particles subjected to an oxidizing ambient. In this paper a model for propagation of a reaction front of wood particles in a fixed Bed is presented. Once the bed is ignited, an apparent flame zone is formed at the bed's top surface and the flame front moves downwards into the bed of fuel at a speed depending on fuel type and operating parameters. Effect of different parameters such as air flow rate through the bed, primary air temperature, moisture content, particle size and number density of fuel particles on the reaction front velocity has been studied. In order to compare the results of this model with the associated experimental data three species of wood fuels are studied and the agreement is found to be satisfactory.

Transient temperature field of laminated plate which considering radiation is analyzed by laying temperature lines in every layer in this paper. Finite element equations are established by using high-order displacement field which considering shear effect based on the temperature analysis. Then thermally induced vibration of laminated plate is investigated by solving the finite element equation with numerical method. Compared with numerical results of ANSYS by using 3-D coupled element (SOLID5), the methods presented in this paper have a satisfied precision and better efficiency. It can give reference to the thermally induced vibration analysis of thin-large flexible laminated appendages of spacecraft.