Ricerc@Sapienza

Mixed convection heat transfer of air in a 2-D microchannel is investigated numerically by using lattice Boltzmann method. The effects of buoyancy forces on slip velocity and temperature profiles are presented while the microchannel side walls are under a constant heat flux boundary condition. Three states are considered as no gravity, Gr = 100 and Gr = 500. At each state, the value of Knudsen number is chosen as Kn = 0.005, Kn = 0.01 and Kn = 0.02 respectively; while Reynolds number and Prandtl number are kept fixed at Re = 1 and Pr = 0.7.

We present the status of the art of the Archimedes experiment, devoted to measuring the debated interaction of quantum vacuum fluctuations and gravity. The method is essentially the weighing of the transition energy of a layered superconductor where the contribution of vacuum energy to the transition energy is expected to be relevant. The transition is obtained by modulating the temperature of the superconducting sample at a frequency of about 10 mHz and the expected change of weight is measured with a suitably designed high sensitivity cryogenic beam balance.