1We investigate the effect of piezoelectric (PZT) material on the flutter speed, vibration mode and frequency, and energy harvesting power and efficiency of a flexible flag in various fluids. We develop a fully coupled fluid-solid-electric model by combining the inviscid vortex sheet model with a linear electro-mechanical coupling model. A resistance only circuit and a resonant resistance-inductance (RL) circuit are considered. For a purely resistive circuit, an increased electro-mechanical coupling factor results in an increased flutter speed, vibration frequency, averaged electric power and efficiency. A consistent optimal resistance is found that maximizes the flutter speed and the energy harvesting power. For a resonant RL circuit, by tuning the inductance to match the circuit frequency to the flag's vibration frequency, the flutter speed can be greatly decreased, and a larger averaged power and efficiency are obtained. We also consider a model scale set-up with several commonly used commercial materials for operating in air and water. Typical ranges of dimensionless parameters are obtained for four types of material that span a wide range of solid density and rigidity values. We find that the resistance only circuit is more effective when the flag is placed in a lighter fluid (e.g. air), while the RL circuit is able to reduce the flutter speed when the flag is placed in a heavier fluid (e.g. water).

Over the past few decades, oscillating flexible foils have been used to study the physics of organismal propulsion in different fluid environments. Here we extend this work to a study of flexible foils in a frictional environment. When the foil is oscillated by heaving at one end but not allowed to locomote freely, the dynamics change from periodic to non-periodic and chaotic as the heaving amplitude is increased or the bending rigidity is decreased. For friction coefficients lying in a certain range, the transition passes through a sequence of N -periodic and asymmetric states before reaching chaotic dynamics. Resonant peaks are damped and shifted by friction and large heaving amplitudes, leading to bistable states.When the foil is allowed to locomote freely, the horizontal motion smoothes the resonant behaviors. For moderate frictional coefficients, steady but slow locomotion is obtained. For large transverse friction and small tangential friction corresponding to wheeled snake robots, faster locomotion is obtained. Traveling wave motions arise spontaneously, and and move with horizontal speed that scales as transverse friction to the 1/4 power and input power that scales as transverse friction to the 5/12 power. These scalings are consistent with a boundary layer form of the solutions near the foil's leading edge. *

We develop a model to numerically study the dynamics of vortex streets in channel flows. Previous work has studied the vortex wakes of specific vortex generators. Here, we study a wide range of vortex wakes including regular and reverse von Kármán streets with various strengths, geometries, and Reynolds numbers (Re) by applying a smoothed von Kármán street as an inflow condition. We find that the spatial structure of the inflow vortex street is maintained for the reverse von Kármán street and altered for the regular street. For regular streets, we identify a transition to asymmetric dynamics which happens when Re increases, or vortices are stronger, or vortex streets are compressed horizontally or extended vertically. We also determine the effects of these parameters on vortex street inversion.

High performance high-temperature superconducting (HTS) filters have been designed and constructed for satellite application. The filters are actually a superconducting integration of an 8-pole band-pass filter with an adjustable band-stop filter onto a single piece of LaAlO 3 substrate (with dimension of 0.5×45×20 mm 3 ). Typical results of the filters, i.e., Filters A (made by YBCO) & B (made by TBCCO) will be reported. The measured responses of Filter A showed excellent specifications, e.g., an insertion loss less than 0.1 dB, a return loss better than −22.5 dB in pass-band, band-edge steepness greater than 12 dB/MHz and out-of-band rejection at a certain band deeper than −110 dB. To satisfy the requirement of rocket launch and space operation, three filters of the above design have undergone mechanical environmental simulation tests for space qualification. Detailed analysis of the response curves of Filter B measured before and after the tests showed that no noticeable change in the performance can be found. All the filters passed the rigorous ground simulation tests, which is the first time in China for HTS devices and provided a solid foundation for satellite applications of high-temperature superconductors in the near future.high temperature superconductor, filter, space qualification test One of the first applications of high temperature superconductors (HTS) was in high performance microwave devices, among which, that of satellite communications seemed very promising, both in terms of advanced technology and economic impact. Narrow-band filters made of HTS thin films showed so excellent performances of small insert loss, deep band rejection and steep skirt slope that it could improve the sensitivity and selectivity of microwave system. On the other hand, compared with conventional components, HTS devices had very obvious superiority in weight and volume.Efforts to use HTS devices in space have been made by many groups. There were some reports on HTS components space experiments. The most famous was "High Temperature Superconductivity Space Experiment" (HTSSE) [1] initiated by the Naval Research Laboratory of the United States. This program was divided into three phases. Even though the HTSSE-I phase (1989 to 1993) was intermitted because of the failure of the launch in 1993, it was still a success by demonstrating that HTS was a robust, radiation hard and survivable