Transient performance analysis of a novel design of portable magnetic refrigeration system.

The widely used ice chamber-based cold storage for the transportation and storage of vaccines has several disadvantages, including uncontrolled overall temperature, water accumulation, and frequent ice pack renewal. Therefore, in this work, we numerically studied a novel vaccine storage system by coupling magnetic refrigeration and ice packs developed by conserving the advantages of an ice-based system. A two-dimensional numerical model is developed to analyze the magnetohydrodynamic natural convection in the storage chamber.

Study of the interactions of sneezing droplets with particulate matter in a polluted environment.

We have performed a three-dimensional numerical simulation to determine the effect of local atmospheric pollution level on the spreading characteristics of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus through ejected droplets during sneezing and coughing in an open space. Utilizing a finite volume-based numerical method, we have performed computations for various ranges of droplet diameters and sneezing speeds. The interactions between the droplets and the suspended particles are considered by taking both hydrophobic and hydrophilic wettability characteristics into account.

Surface Nanostructure-Wettability Coupling Leads to Unique Topological Evolution Dictating Water Transport over Nanometer Scales.

Surface nanostructure, either designed or generated as an artifact of the fabrication procedure, is known to influence interfacial phenomena intriguingly. While surface roughness-wettability coupling over nanometer scales has been addressed to some extent, the explicit interplay of hydrodynamics and confinement toward dictating the underlying characteristics for practically relevant material interfaces remains unexplored. Here, we bring out unique roles of surface nanostructures toward altering flow of water in a copper nanochannel, by capturing an exclusive interplay of confinement, roughness, wettability and flow dynamics.

Study of hot stress dynamic IR thermography for detecting surface cancerous tissue.

The early diagnosis of cancer at any location of the human body can help in enhancing the survival rate and in reducing the cost of the treatment. Among the several techniques, the conventional infra-red (IR) thermography suffers from several limitations, including higher patient discomfort and longer time for tumour detection based on the temperature difference between tumour and adjacent healthy tissues. Hence, in this work, a novel non-invasive hot stress dynamic IR thermography system is proposed to detect surface tumour without severe discomfort to the patient.

Polar Switching and Cybotactic Nematic Ordering in 1,3,4-Thiadiazole-Based Short-Core Hockey Stick-Shaped Fluorescent Liquid Crystals.

We report here the synthesis and thermotropic properties of novel short-core hockey stick-shaped liquid crystalline molecules based on the 1,3,4-thiadiazole core. Polar switching behavior is observed in the cybotactic nematic and smectic mesophases for the bent-core thiadiazole derivatives. The presence of the lateral methoxy moiety in the outer phenyl ring of the four-ring molecules facilitates the formation of spontaneous ordering in the nematic phase observed via X-ray diffraction measurements.