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Zhang, Meng

Publications and source records attributed to Zhang, Meng.

42 records · Page 3

Toward Understanding the Simulated Phase Partitioning of Arctic Single-Layer Mixed-Phase Clouds in E3SM

21 Mixed-phase clouds are widespread in the Arctic and have substantial impacts on the 22 surface energy budget, sea ice extent, and regional climate. Significant changes are found in the 23 modeled phase partitioning of Arctic mixed-phase clouds in the newly developed U.S. 24 Department of Energy (DOE) Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) Atmosphere Model 25 version 1 (EAMv1) compared to its predecessor (CAM5/EAMv0). The mixed-phase clouds 26 simulated by EAMv1 is overly dominated by super-cool liquid which is often underestimated by 27 CAM5. Compared to CAM5, EAMv1 has made several important changes in its cloud physical 28 parameterizations, including using CLUBB to unify shallow convection, PBL turbulence, and 29 cloud macrophysics, as well as updating the MG two-moment cloud microphysics scheme and 30 using the CNT heterogeneous ice nucleation scheme to replace the Meyers scheme for mixed- 31 phase clouds. To understand which of the newly-implemented physical parameterizations is 32 responsible for the change of modeled mixed-phase cloud phase partitioning in EAMv1, 33 sensitivity tests are conducted by utilizing the short-term hindcast approach and results are 34 compared to the observations from the ARM Mixed-Phase Arctic Cloud Experiment (M-PACE) 35 field campaign. 36 It is found that although each scheme contributes to the decrease of cloud ice water 37 content (IWC) and increase of cloud liquid water content (LWC), only the combined effect of 38 CLUBB and CNT can explain the significant underestimation of IWC. By examining the budgets 39 of cloud microphysical processes, CLUBB is found to play a dominant role due to the fact that 40 CLUBB does not diagnoses cloud ice phase water in its assumed joint PDF method and thus may 41 not provide sufficient cloud ice to initialize ice phase microphysical processes such as the growth 42 of ice crystals through vapor deposition. Although a more effective heterogeneous ice nucleation 43 may alleviate the underestimation of IWC, the ice phase process in CLUBB requires urgent 44 attention in the future model development.

Zhang, Meng↗

LoTToR: An Algorithm for Missing-Wedge Correction of the Low-Tilt Tomographic 3D Reconstruction of a Single-Molecule Structure

A single-molecule three-dimensional (3D) structure is essential for understanding the thermal vibrations and dynamics as well as the conformational changes during the chemical reaction of macromolecules. Individual-particle electron tomography (IPET) is an approach for obtaining a snap-shot 3D structure of an individual macromolecule particle by aligning the tilt series of electron tomographic (ET) images of a targeted particle through a focused iterative 3D reconstruction method. The method can reduce the influence on the 3D reconstruction from large-scale image distortion and deformation. Due to the mechanical tilt limitation, 3D reconstruction often contains missing-wedge artifacts, presented as elongation and an anisotropic resolution. Here, we report a post-processing method to correct the missing-wedge artifact. This low-tilt tomographic reconstruction (LoTToR) method contains a model-free iteration process under a set of constraints in real and reciprocal spaces. A proof of concept is conducted by using the LoTToR on a phantom, i.e., a simulated 3D reconstruction from a low-tilt series of images, including that within a tilt range of ±15°. The method is validated by using both negative-staining (NS) and cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) experimental data. A significantly reduced missing-wedge artifact verifies the capability of LoTToR, suggesting a new tool to support the future study of macromolecular dynamics, fluctuation and chemical activity from the viewpoint of single-molecule 3D structure determination.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Experimental Studies of the Interaction Between a Parallel Shear Flow and a Directionally-Solidifying Front

It has long been recognized that flow in the melt can have a profound influence on the dynamics of a solidifying interface and hence the quality of the solid material. In particular, flow affects the heat and mass transfer, and causes spatial and temporal variations in the flow and melt composition. This results in a crystal with nonuniform physical properties. Flow can be generated by buoyancy, expansion or contraction upon phase change, and thermo-soluto capillary effects. In general, these flows can not be avoided and can have an adverse effect on the stability of the crystal structures. This motivates crystal growth experiments in a microgravity environment, where buoyancy-driven convection is significantly suppressed. However, transient accelerations (g-jitter) caused by the acceleration of the spacecraft can affect the melt, while convection generated from the effects other than buoyancy remain important. Rather than bemoan the presence of convection as a source of interfacial instability, Hurle in the 1960s suggested that flow in the melt, either forced or natural convection, might be used to stabilize the interface. Delves considered the imposition of both a parabolic velocity profile and a Blasius boundary layer flow over the interface. He concluded that fast stirring could stabilize the interface to perturbations whose wave vector is in the direction of the fluid velocity. Forth and Wheeler considered the effect of the asymptotic suction boundary layer profile. They showed that the effect of the shear flow was to generate travelling waves parallel to the flow with a speed proportional to the Reynolds number. There have been few quantitative, experimental works reporting on the coupling effect of fluid flow and morphological instabilities. Huang studied plane Couette flow over cells and dendrites. It was found that this flow could greatly enhance the planar stability and even induce the cell-planar transition. A rotating impeller was buried inside the sample cell, driven by an outside rotating magnet, in order to generate the flow. However, it appears that this was not a well-controlled flow and may also have been unsteady. In the present experimental study, we want to study how a forced parallel shear flow in a Hele-Shaw cell interacts with the directionally solidifying crystal interface. The comparison of experimental data show that the parallel shear flow in a Hele-Shaw cell has a strong stabilizing effect on the planar interface by damping the existing initial perturbations. The flow also shows a stabilizing effect on the cellular interface by slightly reducing the exponential growth rate of cells. The left-right symmetry of cells is broken by the flow with cells tilting toward the incoming flow direction. The tilting angle increases with the velocity ratio. The experimental results are explained through the parallel flow effect on lateral solute transport. The phenomenon of cells tilting against the flow is consistent with the numerical result of Dantzig and Chao.

Zhang, Meng↗