A variety of cells are subject to mechanical stretch in vivo, which plays a critical role in the function and homeostasis of cells, tissues, and organs. Deviations from the physiologically relevant mechanical stretch are often associated with organ dysfunction and various diseases. Although mechanical stretch is provided in some in vitro cell culture models, the effects of stretch dimensionality on cells are often overlooked and it remains unclear whether and how stretch dimensionality affects cell behavior. Here we develop cell culture platforms that provide 1-D uniaxial, 2-D circumferential, or 3-D radial mechanical stretches, which recapitulate the three major types of mechanical stretches that cells experience in vivo. We investigate the behavior of human microvascular endothelial cells and human alveolar epithelial cells cultured on these platforms, showing that the mechanical stretch influences cell morphology and cell–cell and cell–substrate interactions in a stretch dimensionality-dependent manner. Furthermore, the endothelial and epithelial cells are sensitive to the physiologically relevant 2-D and 3-D stretches, respectively, which could promote the formation of endothelium and epithelium. This study underscores the importance of recreating the physiologically relevant mechanical stretch in the development of in vitro tissue/organ models.

Local and global flow structures as well as transfer and transport of a passive scalar from a circular colony of uniformly distributed cylindrical vegetation are investigated at Re = 2100. The number of cylinders in the colony is varied from 1 to 284 yielding solid fraction of 0.00 < ϕ < 0.65. Three flow regimes are identified: Co-shedding flow regime prevails at low solid fraction where wakes of individual cylinders have minimal interaction. Bleeding-wake flow regime is identified at intermediate solid fraction in which stream-wise bleeding flow delays the formation of colony-scale vortices yielding a steady wake between two separated shear layers. Single-body flow regime is observed at high solid fraction and is accompanied by the commencement of colony-scale vortex shedding. As the solid fraction increases, drag and Sherwood number increases linearly and at a reducing rate at low and intermediate solid fractions, respectively, while the net lift is negligible. At high solid fraction, the commencement of colony-scale vortex shedding is accompanied by a jump in lift force and base suction. Both pressure and friction lift/drag increase and decrease with increase in solid fraction, respectively, towards the value experienced by a solid cylinder. Sherwood number decays exponentially towards the value experienced by a solid cylinder at high solid fraction. Colonies at intermediate solid fraction exhibit the highest scalar transfer but weakest transport (diffusion) in their near field wake. Scalar transfer in colonies with high solid fraction deteriorates with increase in solid fraction yielding less scalar concentration in their downstream wake.

The noise generated by a quadrotor biplane unmanned aerial system (UAS) is studied computationally for various conditions in terms of the UAS pitch angle, propellers rotating velocity (RPM), and the UAS speed to understand the physics involved in its aeroacoustics and structure-borne noise. The k-ω SST turbulence model and Ffowcs Williams-Hawkings equations are used to solve the flow and acoustics fields, respectively. The sound pressure level is measured using a circular array of microphones positioned around the UAS, as well as at specific locations on its structure. The local flow is studied to detect the noise sources and evaluate the pressure fluctuation on the UAS surface. This study found that the UAS noise increases with pitch angle and the propellers’ rotating velocity, but it shows an irregular trend with the vehicle speed. The major source of the UAS noise is from its propellers and their interactions with each other at small pitch angle. The propeller and CRC-3 structure interaction contributes to the noise at large pitch angle. The results also showed that the propellers and structure of the UAS impose unsteadiness on each other through a two-way mechanism, resulting in structure-born noises which depend on the propeller RPM, velocity and pitch angle.

Conventional constitutive law-based fluid dynamic models solve the conservation equations of mass and momentum, while kinetic models, such as the well-known lattice Boltzmann method (LBM), solve the propagation and collision processes of the Boltzmann equation-governed particle distribution function (PDF). Such models can provide an a priori modeling platform on a more fundamental level while easily reconstructing macroscopic variables such as velocity and pressure from the PDF. While the LBM requires a rigid and uniform grid for spatial discretization, another similar unique kinetic model known as the finite volume discrete Boltzmann method (FVDBM) has the ability to solve the discrete Boltzmann equation (DBE) on unstructured grids. The FVDBM can easily and accurately capture curved and more complicated fluid flow boundaries (usually solid boundaries), which cannot be satisfactorily realized in the LBM framework. As a result, the FVDBM preserves the physical advantages of the LBM over the constitutive law-based model approach, but also incorporates a better boundary treatment. However, the FVDBM suffers larger diffusion errors compared to the LBM approach. Building on our previous work, the FVDBM is further developed by integrating the multi-relaxation-time (MRT) collision model into the existing framework. Compared to the existing FVDBM approach that uses the Bhatnagar–Gross–Krook (BGK) collision model, which is also known as the single-relaxation-time (SRT) model, the new model can significantly reduce diffusion error or numerical viscosity, which is essential in the simulation of viscous flows. After testing the new model, the MRT-FVDBM, and the old model, the BGK-FVDBM, on Taylor-Green vortex flow, which can quantify the diffusion error of the applied model, it is found that the MRT-FVDBM can reduce the diffusion error at a faster rate as the mesh resolution increases, which renders the MRT-FVDBM a higher-order model than the BGK-FVDBM. At the highest mesh resolution tested in this paper, the reduction of the diffusion error by the MRT-FVDBM can be up to 30%.

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