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Nanodiamonds (NDs) have unique optical and mechanical characteristics, surface chemistry, extensive surface area and biocompatibility, and they are nontoxic, rendering them suitable for a diverse range of applications. Recently, NDs have received significant attention in nano-biomedical engineering. This review discusses the recent advancement of NDs’ biomedical engineering, historical background, basic introduction to nanoparticles and development. We summarize NDs’ synthesis technique, properties and applications. Two methodologies are used in ND synthesis: bottom-up and top-down. We cover synthesis methods, including detonation, ball milling, laser ablation, chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and high pressure and high temperature (HPHT); discuss the properties of NDs, such as fluorescence and biocompatibility. Due to these properties, NDs have potential applications in biomedical engineering, including bioimaging, biosensing, drug delivery, tissue engineering and protein mimics. Further, it provides an outlook for future progress, development and application of NDs in biological and biomedical areas.

Numerical modelling of detonation using shock fitting is described in detail. A complete set of jump conditions that hold across the detonation front is presented in a simple form. Validity and accuracy of the model has been established by comparison with published results and results of another model utilizing the method of integral relations. A brief description of the later model is given to highlight its validity and limitations.

The detonation of carbon- or nitrogen-containing explosives not only produces powerful shock waves but also provides elemental building blocks and a unique high-pressure and high-temperature physical environment for the construction of various nanostructures. This review highlights the situation and key progresses in the detonation approach towards diamond nanoparticles, graphitic carbon nanotubes, fullerene molecules, and gallium nitride nanocrystals. Further extension of the peaceful-use detonation applications and rational reactor design are also proposed.

The aim of this paper is the numerical treatment of some convection systems with stiff relaxation source-terms. We will first define the notion of stiffness for such systems and will select some prototypical and physical problems. We will introduce a new numerical method in order to solve accurately this type of systems. Numerical comparisons will be performed on the evoked problems.

We consider the Riemann problem for a Chapman–Jouguet combustion model which comes from Majda's model with a modified, bump-type ignition function proposed in [G. Lyng and K. Zumbrun, Arch. Rational Mech. Anal. 173 (2004) 213–277; Physica D 194 (2004) 1–29]. The unique Riemann solutions are obtained constructively under the pointwise and global entropy conditions. Furthermore, we prove rigorously that these solutions are the limits of the Riemann solutions for the corresponding self-similar Zeldovich–von Neumann–Döring model as the reaction rate goes to infinity. Finally we analyze the ignition problem for this Chapman–Jouguet combustion model, and the solutions show that the unburnt state is stable (respectively unstable) when the binding energy is small (respectively large), which is the desired property for a combustion model. We can also observe the phenomenon of the transition from a weak deflagration to a strong detonation which cannot occur for the Chapman–Jouguet combustion model corresponding to Majda's model with a step-type ignition function.

Support-induced membrane action can enhance the resistance, while altering the failure pattern, of reinforced concrete (RC) members under static/dynamic loadings. Nevertheless, the membrane effect on the load-response is regarded as a safety factor in current design guides, hence, a thorough understanding of the resistance capability of RC members in the presence of membrane actions is considered essential. To quantitatively depict the membrane behavior and its influence on the blast-resistance and failure pattern of Hybrid Fiber Reinforced-Lightweight Aggregate Concrete (HFR-LWC) beams, a specially built end-constraint clamp is developed to provide membrane actions on the structural component subjected to the blast load simultaneously. A series of field tests are conducted to investigate the dynamic behaviors of the HFR-LWC beams under close-range detonations. Overpressure-time histories of shock waves induced by the close-range explosive charge are captured. Then the deflection-responses and failure modes of the HFR-LWC beams are further investigated. The responses of the clamped HFR-LWC beam under blast loadings can be well simulated, and the blast-resistances of the beam-type members with membrane action are evaluated reasonably. The results show that membrane action is beneficial for the bridging effects of hybrid fibers and the interlocking effects of coarse aggregate, thereby giving rise to the ductile failures of HFR-LWC beam. The maximum deflections of the clamped HFR-LWC beam decrease by about 60% compared with simply-supported HFR-LWC beam in this paper, illustrating that the blast-resistance may be seriously underestimated if the membrane effects are ignored in structural design.

Density-function-theory calculations were performed to find the performance of a series of 2,2’-(1,2,4,5-tetrazine-3,6diyl) dihydrazinecarboxamide-based nitrogen-rich macrocyclic compounds as an energetic plasticizer. Reliable methods have been used to predict energetic properties such as gas-phase and solid-phase heat of formation (HOF), density, detonation velocity, detonation pressure, explosive power, heat of combustion, heat of detonation, specific impulse, flame temperature, brisance, and sensitivity. All the designed macrocycles possess a nitrogen content of over 48%. The designed compounds show positive HOFs and high predicted densities ranging from 1.81g/cm³ to 1.86g/cm³. The predicted properties were compared with GAP, polyGLYN and their monomers which establish the designed macrocycles of interest for further investigations concerning their suitability as plasticizers in energetic formulations.

In numerical simulation of gaseous detonation, due to the complexity of the computational domain, negative density and pressure often emerge in high resolution numerical computing, which leads to blow-ups. The paper provides high order discontinuous Galerkin (DG) positivity-preserving scheme for two-dimensional (2D) Euler equations with two-step chemical reaction which preserve positivity of density, pressure and chemical reaction process. A positivity-preserving limiter is added in high order DG scheme without influencing conservation, accuracy and stability. The method is verified by parallel numerical simulations and is approved to be well applied to numerical simulation of gaseous detonation propagation with complicated geometry boundary.

The aim of the present study is to calculate the process of detonation combustion of gas mixtures in engines. Development and verification of 3D transient mathematical model of chemically reacting gas mixture flows incorporating hydrogen was performed. Development of a computational model based on the mathematical one for parallel computing on supercomputers incorporating CPU and GPU units was carried out. Investigation of the influence of computational grid size on simulation precision and computational speed was performed. Investigation of calculation runtime acceleration was carried out subject to variable number of parallel threads on different architectures and implying different strategies of parallel computation.

The numerical study of detonation of high explosives has been the interest of researchers over decades. Due to its special advantages in tracking free surface and dealing with large deformation, smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) has been a powerful tool to investigate detonation phenomenon. SPH is a Lagrangian mesh-free method with extensive applications in fluid mechanics and solid mechanics. In the early development of SPH method, artificial viscosity is introduced to suppress unphysical fluctuation. However, the parameters of artificial viscosity often need to be tuned for some simulation, which can be quite time-consuming. Herein, a Riemann solver is integrated in traditional SPH algorithm to eliminate artificial viscosity, which is known as Godunov SPH. First, shock tube problem is studied using the Godunov SPH. The simulation result is compared with that obtained by traditional SPH with artificial viscosity, finite volume method (FVM) and experiment. Then, the Godunov SPH is implemented to investigate the detonation of 1D and 2D polymer-bonded explosive PBX 9501. Various factors that may influence simulation are studied, such as particle density and smoothing length. It is demonstrated that the proposed method is accurate and reliable for the study of detonation of high explosives.

Detonation propagation in a confined circular arc configuration of an insensitive high explosive PBX9502 is investigated via numerical simulation in this paper. We introduce a steady detonation wave entering the explosive arc with confinements of stainless steel, and then it undergoes a transition phase and reaches a new steady state with a constant angular speed eventually. The influences of the inner and the outer confinements on the propagating detonation wave as well as the characteristics of the detonation driving zone (DDZ) in the steady state are discussed, respectively. Ignition and Growth (I&G) reaction rate and Jones–Wilkins–Lee (JWL) equations of state for the reactants and the products of PBX9502 are employed in the numerical simulations on the basis of a two-dimensional Eulerian code. The equation of state for stainless steel is in the Grüneisen form with a linear shock speed–particle speed Hugoniot relationship. Our results show that the inner confinement dominates the evolution of the detonation wave and the outer confinement only takes effect in a local region near the outer boundary within a limited initial stage during the transition phase. As for the steady state, the existence of the inner confinement makes the DDZ possess a certain width on the inner boundary. While as to the outer part of the detonation wave, the width of the DDZ decreases until the sonic locus intersects with the detonation front shock, which results in the detachment of the DDZ from the outer boundary and makes the detonation propagation fully independent of the outer confinement.

Numerical simulation based on the Euler equation and one-step reaction model is carried out to investigate the process of deflagration to detonation transition (DDT) occurring in a straight duct. The numerical method used includes a high resolution fifth-order weighted essentially nonoscillatory scheme for spatial discretization, coupled with a third order total variation diminishing Runge-Kutta time stepping method. In particular, effect of energy release on the DDT process is studied. The model parameters used are the heat release at q=50, 30, 25, 20, 15, 10 and 5, the specific heat ratio at 1.2, and the activation temperature at Ti=15, respectively. For all the cases, the initial energy in the spark is about the same compared to the detonation energy at the Chapman-Jouguet (CJ) state. It is found from the simulation that the DDT occurrence strongly depends on the magnitude of the energy release. The run-up distance of DDT occurrence decreases with the increase of the energy release for q=50~20, and increases with the increase of the energy release for q=50~20. It is concluded from the simulations that the interaction of the shock wave and the flame front is the main reason for leading to DDT.