The heat sealability of laminated films with linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) and low density polyethylene (LDPE) as the sealant materials was investigated. A laboratory heat sealer was used to study the response of laminated films to temperature, time, and pressure. Platen temperature was confirmed as primary factor in controlling heat-seal strength. Dwell time must be sufficiently long to bring the interfacial temperature to a desired level. When the desired heat-seal strength has been achieved, further increase of dwell time did not improved heat-seal strength. Platen pressure had little effect above the level required to flatten the materials for good contact. Bar sealing process window for each sample were developed. The optimum combination of platen temperature and dwell time for each laminated film can be obtained in the respec-tive process windows. Strength of heat-seal and its failure modes are closely related. Plateau initiation temperature closely corresponds to the final melting point of sealant materials. Relatively higher platen temperature was required to seal laminated films with lower thermal conductance. Required dwell time corresponds closely to the heat flow rate of bar sealing process. Laminated films made from extrusion lamination process provided lower level of achievable heat seal strength when compared with the laminated films made from dry-bond lamination process.

The influence of transient flows on vehicle stability was investigated by large eddy simulation. To consider the dynamic response of a vehicle to real-life transient aerodynamics, a dimensionless parameter that quantifies the amount of aerodynamic damping for vehicle subjects to pitching oscillation is proposed. Two vehicle models with different stability characteristics were created to verify the parameter. For idealized notchback models, underbody has the highest contribution to the total aerodynamic damping, which was up to 69%. However, the difference between the aerodynamic damping of models with distinct A-and C-pillar configurations mainly depends on the trunk-deck contribution. Comparison between dynamically obtained phase-averaged pitching moment with quasisteady values shows totally different aerodynamic behaviors.

Conventionally, the pitching instability of road vehicles has been controlled mechanically through the application of suspension systems. The present study demonstrates how unsteady aerodynamics can be exploited for such control by properly configuring vehicle body shapes. To discern the effect of unsteady aerodynamics on road vehicle stability, large eddy simulation has been conducted to simulate the flow past simplified vehicle models. Forced-sinusoidal-pitching oscillation was imposed on the models during the simulation to probe their dynamic responses. Numerical results were compared with wind tunnel measurements for validation, and good agreement is attained. Unsteady flow structures above the rear section of the vehicles were found to significantly affect their pitching stability. Depending on the vehicle body shape configurations, the induced aerodynamic force tended to either enhance or restrain the vehicles' pitching instability.

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The main object of the present study is to investigate numerically the mechanism of aerodynamic damping of pitching oscillation in sedan-type vehicles. The transient numerical solver employed is based on the Large Eddy Simulation (LES) method. Whilst, the Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) method was used to realize the vehicle motion during dynamic pitching and fluid flow coupled simulations. Validation of the numerical method was done by comparing the flow structures obtained from the LES to the corresponding flow structures observed in the wind tunnel measurements. Two vehicle models with basic sedan-type automobile shape were created to study the influences of upper body geometry on the aerodynamic pitching stability of sedan-type vehicle. In addition, the credibility of modeling of automotive aerodynamics by simple bluff body models was verified. For the sedan-type models investigated, the trailing vortices that shed from the A-pillar and C-pillar edges were found to produce the opposite tendencies on how they affect the aerodynamic pitching stability of the models. In particular, the vortex shed from the A-pillar edge tended to enhance the pitching oscillation, while the vortex shed from the C-pillar edge tended to suppress it. Hence, the vehicle with rounded A-pillar and angular C-pillar exhibited a higher aerodynamic damping than the vehicle with the opposite A-and C-pillars configurations. The aerodynamic damping mechanism has been proposed based on the results of flow visualization on the phase-averaged flow properties.

A synthetic jet actuator is a fluidic device that produces a jet flow by the periodic ingestion of fluid into and expulsion of fluid out of a cavity across an orifice. Since such a mechanism transfers linear momentum to the fluid without introducing a net mass into the system over an actuation cycle, the synthesised jet is also termed a zero-net-mass-flux jet. Over the last two decades, synthetic jets have been the subject of intense research. It has been shown that the geometric parameters of a synthetic jet actuator can strongly influence the flow characteristics and performance of synthetic jets. The aim of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of the influence of the geometric parameters of a synthetic jet actuator on the characteristics

The present study investigates the effect of alteration in the building shape due to some common remodelling practice on the wind pressure differences ∆p for cross-ventilation of a semi-detached low-rise building using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). A commercial code ANSYS CFX was employed to solve the flow governing equations. The standard k-ε, renormalisation group (RNG) k-ε and Shear Stress Transport (SST) turbulent models were adopted for comparison and the computed velocity was validated against full-scale measurement data. Results computed with these three turbulent models were able to capture the trend of the measured wind speed at the chosen locations, but there were appreciable differences. Maximum wind pressure differences, ∆p, for cross-ventilation under the effect of building remodelling was calculated based on the CFD results. At the windward side, the highest ∆p was provided when expansion is made on the kitchen zone of the back neighbouring house. The house with fencing provided the lowest ∆p value. In general, for all types of building remodelling, ∆p value for houses on the windward side was higher by 447% (on the average ∆p value) compared to the houses on the leeward side.