Engineering topics

Udaykumar, H. S.

Publications and source records attributed to Udaykumar, H. S..

3 records

NASA NTRS1999

Thermal Analysis of Magnetically-Coupled Pump for Cryogenic Applications

Magnetically-coupled pump is under evaluation at Kennedy Space Center for possible cryogenic applications. A major concern is the impact of low temperature fluid flows on the pump performance. As a first step toward addressing this and related issues, a computational fluid dynamics and heat transfer tool has been adopted in a pump geometry. The computational tool includes (i) a commercial grid generator to handle multiple grid blocks and complicated geometric definitions, and (ii) an in-house computational fluid dynamics and heat transfer software developed in the Principal Investigator's group at the University of Florida. Both pure-conduction and combined convection-conduction computations have been conducted. A pure-conduction analysis gives insufficient information about the overall thermal distribution. Combined convection-conduction analysis indicates the significant influence of the coolant over the entire flow path. Since 2-D simulation is of limited help, future work on full 3-D modeling of the pump using multi-materials is needed. A comprehensive and accurate model can be developed to take into account the effect of multi-phase flow in the cooling flow loop, and the magnetic interactions.

Senocak, Inanc↗

NASA NTRS1993

A high accuracy sequential solver for simulation and active control of a longitudinal combustion instability

A high accuracy convection scheme using a sequential solution technique has been developed and applied to simulate the longitudinal combustion instability and its active control. The scheme has been devised in the spirit of the Total Variation Diminishing (TVD) concept with special source term treatment. Due to the substantial heat release effect, a clear delineation of the key elements employed by the scheme, i.e., the adjustable damping factor and the source term treatment has been made. By comparing with the first-order upwind scheme previously utilized, the present results exhibit less damping and are free from spurious oscillations, offering improved quantitative accuracy while confirming the spectral analysis reported earlier. A simple feedback type of active control has been found to be capable of enhancing or attenuating the magnitude of the combustion instability.

Shyy, W.↗

NASA NTRS1992

An interface tracking method applied to morphological evolution during phase change

The focus of this work is the numerical simulation of interface motion during solidification of pure materials. First, the applicability of the oft-used quasi-stationary approximation for interface motion is assessed. It is seen that such an approximation results in poor accuracy for nontrivial Stefan numbers. Solution of the full set of equations including grid movement terms yields close agreement with analytical results. Next, a generic interface tracking procedure is designed, which overcomes restrictions of single-valuedness of the interface imposed by commonly used mapping methods. This method incorporates with ease interface phenomena involving curvature, which assume importance at the smaller scales of a deformed interface. The method is then applied to study the development of a morphologically unstable phase interface. The issue of appropriate scaling has been addressed. The Gibbs-Thomson effect for curved interfaces has been included. The evolution of the interface, with the competing mechanisms of undercooling and surface tension is found to culminate in tip-splitting, cusp formation and persistent cellular development.

Shyy, W.↗