ABSTRACT Computational modeling has been proven to be very useful in tissue engineering over the past years. Because the model is a simplification of the experimental system, the processes accounted for in the model should be analyzed carefully. However, new and complex models are usually proposed without a clear comparison with the basic ones. In this study, the contribution of oxygen to Contois growth kinetics and porosity variation with time due to polymer degradation was evaluated through a sensitivity analysis. The effect of initial glucose concentration, porosity and thickness of the scaffold on the cell volume fraction and substrate concentration was analyzed for three models. Even with the inclusion of oxygen concentration in the model, the output variables are more affected by the initial cell number, while the model with variable porosity is quite robust to variations in the input variables.

The inadequacy of strategies used for the heterogeneization of metallocene catalysts is pointed out as one of the main causes of the lack of industrial employability of such polymerization catalysts. The main problems are the necessity of large quantity of MAO (cocatalyst) and the inability to control molecular mass distribution of the polymers. Based on this background, the main strategies for the heterogeneization of metallocenes are here reviewed. The advantages and disadvantages of each strategy are presented and discussed on theoretical and practical perspective. Considering the results reported on the different researches, outcomes of heterogeneization strategies are pointed out.

The main topics related to the use of dual-site catalysts in the production of polymers with broad molecular weight distribution are reviewed. The polymerization using dual-site catalysts is more economical and allows to produce a higher quality product than other processes, such as polymer blend and multistage reactors. However, the formulation of these catalysts is quite complicated since the same catalyst must produce distinct polymer grades. In addition, the release of patents concerning the combination of metallocenes and new technologies for polymerization shows that polymerization processes using dual-site catalysts are of current industrial interest.

É proposta neste trabalho uma nova metodologia para resolução das equações governantes de fluidos viscoelásticos, baseada no método dos volumes finitos, usando o arranjo co-localizado para as variáveis e malhas estruturadas. São utilizadas aproximações de alta ordem para os fluxos lineares e não-lineares médios nas interfaces dos volumes, e para os termos não-lineares que surgem da discretização das equações constitutivas. Nesta metodologia, os valores médios das variáveis nos volumes são usados durante todo o procedimento de resolução, e os valores pontuais são obtidos ao final, através da deconvolução dos valores médios. O sistema de equações discretizadas é resolvido de forma simultânea, pelo método de Newton. A metodologia é exemplificada para um problema clássico em mecânica de fluidos computacional, o escoamento stick-slip, usando como equação constitutiva o modelo de Oldroyd-B. As soluções obtidas apresentaram boa precisão, sendo livres de oscilações mesmo em regiões de grandes gradientes das variáveis.

In this work, a new methodology to solve the governing equations of viscoelastic fluid flows is proposed. This methodology is based on the finite-volume method with co-located arrangement of the variables, using high-order approximations for the linear and nonlinear average fluxes in the interfaces and for the nonlinear terms resulting from the discretization of the constitutive equations. In this methodology, the average values of the variable in the volumes are used during the resolution, and the point values are recovered in the post-processing step by deconvolution of the average values. The nonlinear equations, resulting from the discretization technique, are solved simultaneously, using the Newton's method. The solutions obtained are oscillation-free and accurate, as can be seen in the solution of the stick-slip flow, used as an illustrative example.