A linear stability analysis is performed for a horizontal layer of a binary liquid of which solely the solute evaporates into an inert gas, the latter being assumed to be insoluble in the liquid. In particular, a water-ethanol system in contact with air is considered, with the evaporation of water being neglected (which can be justified for a certain humidity of the air). External constraints on the system are introduced by imposing fixed "ambient" mass fraction and temperature values at a certain effective distance above the free liquid-gas interface. The temperature is the same as at the bottom of the liquid layer, where, besides, a fixed mass fraction of the solute is presumed to be maintained. Proceeding from a (quasi-)stationary reference solution, neutral (monotonic) stability curves are calculated in terms of solutal/thermal Marangoni/Rayleigh numbers as functions of the wavenumber for different values of the ratio of the gas and liquid layer thicknesses. The results are also presented in terms of the critical values of the liquid layer thickness as a function of the thickness of the gas layer. The solutal and thermal Rayleigh and Marangoni effects are compared to one another. For a water-ethanol mixture of 10 wt% ethanol, it appears that the solutal Marangoni effect is by far the most important instability mechanism. Furthermore, its global action can be described within a Pearson-like model, with an appropriately defined Biot number depending on the wavenumber. On the other hand, it is also shown that, if taken into account, water evaporation has only minor quantitative consequences upon the results for this predominant, solutal Marangoni mechanism.

A thermodynamic description of transient heat conduction at small length and timescales is proposed. It is based on extended irreversible thermodynamics and the main feature of this formalism is to elevate the heat flux vector to the status of independent variable at the same level as the classical variable, the temperature. The present model assumes the coexistence of two kinds of heat carriers: diffusive and ballistic phonons. The behaviour of the diffusive phonons is governed by a Cattaneo-type equation to take into account the high-frequency phenomena generally present at nanoscales. To include non-local effects that are dominant in nanostructures, it is assumed that the ballistic carriers are obeying a Guyer-Krumhansl relation. The model is applied to the problem of transient heat conduction through a thin nanofilm. The numerical results are compared with those provided by Fourier, Cattaneo and other recent models.

In order to contribute to the solution of controlling the auto-ignition in a Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) engine, parameters linked to External Gas Recirculation (EGR) seem to be of particular interest. Experiments performed with EGR present some difficulties in interpreting results using only the diluting and thermal aspect of EGR. Lately, the chemical aspect of EGR is taken more into consideration, because this aspect causes a complex interaction with the dilution and thermal aspects of EGR. This paper studies the influence of EGR on the auto-ignition process and particularly the chemical aspect of EGR.The diluents present in EGR are simulated by N 2 and CO 2 , with dilution factors going from 0 to 46 vol%. For the chemically active species that could be present in EGR, the species CO, The fuels used for the auto-ignition are n-heptane and PRF40. It appeared that CO, in the investigated domain, did not influence the ignition delays, while NO had two different effects.At concentrations up until 45 ppm, NO advanced the ignition delays for the PRF40 and at higher concentrations, the ignition delayed. The influence of NO on the auto-ignition of nheptane seemed to be insignificant, probably due to the higher burn rate of n-heptane. CH 2 O seemed to delay the ignition. The results suggested that especially the formation of OH radicals or their consumption by the chemical additives determine how the reactivity of the auto-ignition changed.

Abstract.A thermodynamic model for transient heat conduction in ceramic-polymer nanocomposites is proposed. The model takes into account particle's size, particle's volume fraction, and interface characteristics with emphasis on the effect of agglomeration of particles on the effective thermal conductivity of the nanocomposite.The originality of the present work is its basement on extended irreversible thermodynamics, combining nano-and continuum-scales without invoking molecular dynamics. The model is compared to experimental data using the examples of SiO2, AlN and MgO nanoparticles embedded in epoxy resin. The analysis is limited to spherical nanoparticles. The dependence of the degree of agglomeration with respect of the volume fraction of particles is also discussed and a power-law relation is established through a kinetic mechanism and experiments performed in our laboratory. This relation is used in 2 our theoretical model, resulting into a good agreement with experiments. It is shown that the effective thermal conductivity may either increase or decrease with the degree of agglomeration.

The alternative HCCI combustion mode presents a possible means for decreasing the pollution with respect to the conventional gasoline or diesel engines, while maintaining the efficiency of a diesel engine or even increasing it. This paper investigates the possibility of using gasoline in an HCCI engine and analyses the auto-ignition of gasoline in such an engine. The compression ratio that has been used is 13.5, keeping the inlet temperature at 70 °C, varying the equivalence ratio from 0.3 to 0.54 and the EGR (represented by N 2 ) ratio from 0 to 37 vol%. For comparison, a PRF95 and a surrogate containing 11 vol% n-heptane, 59vol% iso-octane and 30 vol% toluene are used. A previously validated kinetic surrogate mechanism is used to analyze the experiments and to yield possible explanations to kinetic phenomena. From this work, it seems quite possible to use the high octane-rated gasoline for auto-ignition purposes, even at lean inlet conditions. Furthermore, it appeared that gasoline and its surrogate, unlike PRF95, shows a three-stage auto-ignition. Since the PRF95 does not contain toluene, it is suggested by the kinetic mechanism that the benzyl radical, issued from toluene, causes this so-defined "obstructed pre-ignition" and delaying thereby the final ignition for gasoline and its surrogate. The results of the kinetic mechanism supporting this explanation are shown in this paper.

In order to understand better the auto-ignition process in an HCCI engine, the influence of some important parameters on the auto-ignition is investigated. The inlet temperature, the equivalence ratio and the compression ratio were varied and their influence on the pressure, the heat release and the ignition delays were measured. The inlet temperature was changed from 25 to 70 °C and the equivalence ratio from 0.18 to 0.41, while the compression ratio varied from 6 to 13.5. The fuels that were investigated were PRF40 and n-heptane. These three parameters appeared to decrease the ignition delays, with the inlet temperature having the least influence and the compression ratio the most. A previously experimentally validated reduced surrogate mechanism, for mixtures of n-heptane, iso-octane and toluene, has been used to explain observations of the auto-ignition process. The same kinetic mechanism is used to better understand the underlying chemical and physical phenomena that make the influence of a certain parameter change according to the operating conditions. This can be useful for the control of the auto-ignition process in an HCCI engine.

The interplay between evaporation and liquid-liquid phase separation (demixing) in binary sessile drops of partially miscible liquids is investigated. To determine the onset of the demixing phenomenon, a simple model is developed, which predicts a considerable temperature reduction (∼20°C) in the mixture due to evaporative cooling. Temperature reduction alongside with the change of composition lead to demixing in the mixtures. The model explains why a mixture at room temperature is able to demix, whilst the demixing upper critical temperature is at 6.3°C. Five stages of the process are identified and explained. For the cases studied here, once the demixing begins through nucleation, a growing fingering pattern is formed at the contact line. The length of the fingers and the final area of deposition increase with the initial concentration. Experimental tests were performed using a double telecentric setup.

For a future HCCI engine to operate under conditions that adhere to environmental restrictions, reducing fuel consumption and maintaining or increasing at the same time the engine efficiency, the choice of the fuel is crucial. For this purpose, this paper presents an auto-ignition investigation concerning the primary reference fuels, toluene reference fuels and diesel fuel, in order to study the effect of linear alkanes, branched alkanes and aromatics on the auto-ignition. The auto-ignition of these fuels has been studied at inlet temperatures from 25 to 120 °C, at equivalence ratios from 0.18 to 0.53 and at compression ratios from 6 to 13.5, in order to extend the range of investigation and to assess the usability of these parameters to control the auto-ignition. It appeared that both iso-octane and toluene delayed the ignition with respect to n-heptane, while toluene has the strongest effect. This means that aromatics have higher inhibiting effects than branched alkanes. In an increasing order, the inlet temperature, equivalence ratio and compression ratio had a promoting effect on the ignition delays. A previously experimentally validated reduced surrogate mechanism, for mixtures of n-heptane, iso-octane and toluene, has been used to explain observations of the auto-ignition process.