Schottky junction solar cells were constructed by combining the monolayer graphene (MLG) films and the Si nanowire (SiNW) arrays. Pronounced photovoltaic characteristics were investigated for devices with both p-MLG/n-SiNWs and n-MLG/p-SiNWs structures. Due to the balance between light absorption and surface carrier recombination, devices made of SiNW arrays with a medium length showed better performance and could be further improved by enhancing the MLG conductivity via appropriate surface treatment or doping. Eventually, a photoconversion efficiency up to 2.15% is obtained by the means of filling the interspace of SiNW array with graphene suspension.
Fully nonlinear water-wave interactions with a floating structure are investigated through a numerical towing tank. A wave maker is installed on one end of the tank while a numerical beach based on a combination of damping zone and Sommerfeld condition is adopted on the other side of the tank. A floating body is placed at a location in the tank, where it will be set into motion by the waves generated by the wave maker. The simulation is based on the velocity potential theory together with the finite-element method. The mesh used follows the deformation of the free surface and the body motion. Its structure is adjusted and the distribution of elements is completely rearranged when the motion is big to avoid an over-distorted grid. Auxiliary functions are introduced to decouple the nonlinear mutual dependence between the hydrodynamic force and the body motion. Extensive numerical results are provided for vertical circular cylinders and a simplified floating production, storage and offloading, for which meshes are obtained through an efficient scheme based on a two-dimensional tri-tree method.
In the present work, the open source Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) package-Open Field Operation and Manipulation (OpenFoam®) is used to simulate wave-structure interactions and a new wave boundary condition is developed for extreme waves. The new wave boundary condition is implemented for simulation of interaction with a fixed/floating truncated cylinder and a simplified Floating Production Storage and Offloading platform (FPSO) and results are compared with physical experiment data obtained in the COAST laboratory at Plymouth University. Different approaches to mesh generation (i.e. block and split-hexahedra) are investigated and found to be suitable for cases considered here; grid and time convergence is also demonstrated. The validation work includes comparison with theoretical and experimental data. The cases performed demonstrate that OpenFoam® is capable of predicting these cases of wave-structure interaction with good accuracy (e.g. the value of maximum pressure on the FPSO is predicted within 2.4% of the experiment) and efficiency. The code is run in parallel using high performance computing and the simulations presented have shown that OpenFoam® is a suitable tool for coastal and offshore engineering applications, is able to simulate two-phase flow in 3D domains and to predict wave-structure interaction well.
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