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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 199 records · Page 11

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NASA NTRS1993

Computations of spray, fuel-air mixing, and combustion in a lean-premixed-prevaporized combustor

A code was developed for computing the multidimensional flow, spray, combustion, and pollutant formation inside gas turbine combustors. The code developed is based on a Lagrangian-Eulerian formulation and utilizes an implicit finite-volume method. The focus of this paper is on the spray part of the code (both formulation and algorithm), and a number of issues related to the computation of sprays and fuel-air mixing in a lean-premixed-prevaporized combustor. The issues addressed include: (1) how grid spacings affect the diffusion of evaporated fuel, and (2) how spurious modes can arise through modelling of the spray in the Lagrangian computations. An upwind interpolation scheme is proposed to account for some effects of grid spacing on the artificial diffusion of the evaporated fuel. Also, some guidelines are presented to minimize errors associated with the spurious modes.

Dasgupta, A.↗

NASA NTRS1994

Development of advanced Navier-Stokes solver

The objective of research was to develop and validate new computational algorithms for solving the steady and unsteady Euler and Navier-Stokes equations. The end-products are new three-dimensional Euler and Navier-Stokes codes that are faster, more reliable, more accurate, and easier to use. The three-dimensional Euler and full/thin-layer Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations for compressible/incompressible flows are solved on structured hexahedral grids. The Baldwin-Lomax algebraic turbulence model is used for closure. The space discretization is based on a cell-centered finite-volume method augmented by a variety of numerical dissipation models with optional total variation diminishing limiters. The governing equations are integrated in time by an implicit method based on lower-upper factorization and symmetric Gauss-Seidel relaxation. The algorithm is vectorized on diagonal planes of sweep using two-dimensional indices in three dimensions. Convergence rates and the robustness of the codes are enhanced by the use of an implicit full approximation storage multigrid method.

Yoon, Seokkwan↗

NASA NTRS1995

Transitional flow in thin tubes for space station freedom radiator

A two dimensional finite volume method is used to predict the film coefficients in the transitional flow region (laminar or turbulent) for the radiator panel tubes. The code used to perform this analysis is CAST (Computer Aided Simulation of Turbulent Flows). The information gathered from this code is then used to augment a Sinda85 model that predicts overall performance of the radiator. A final comparison is drawn between the results generated with a Sinda85 model using the Sinda85 provided transition region heat transfer correlations and the Sinda85 model using the CAST generated data.

Loney, Patrick↗

NASA NTRS1995

Numerical thermal analyses of heat exchangers for the stirling engine application

The Regenerator, Cooler and Heater for the NASA Space Power Research Engine (SPRE) have been analyzed in detail for laminar, incompressible and oscillatory flow conditions. Each component has been analyzed independently and in detail with the regenerator being modeled as two-parallel-plates channel with a solid wall. The ends of the channel are exposed to two reservoir maintained at different temperature thus providing an axial temperature gradient along the channel. The cooler and heater components have been modeled as circular pipes with isothermal walls. Two different types of thermal boundary conditions have been investigated for the cooler and heater, namely, symmetric and asymmetric temperature inflow. In symmetric temperature inflow the flow enters the channel with the same temperature in throughout the velocity cycle whereas, in asymmetric temperature inflow the flow enters with a different temperature in each half cycle. The study was conducted over a wide range of Maximum Reynolds number (RE(max) varying from 75 to 60000, Valensi number (Va) from 2.5 to 800, and relative amplitude of fluid displacement (A(sub r) from 0.357 to 1.34. A two dimensional Finite volume method based on the SIMPLE algorithm was used to solve the governing partial differential equations. Post processing programs were developed to effectively describe the heat transfer mechanism under oscillatory flows. The computer code was validated by comparing with existing analytical solutions for oscillating flows. The thermal field have been studied with the help of temperature contour and three dimensional plots. The instantaneous friction factor, wall heat flux and heat transfer coefficient have been examined. It has been concluded that in general, the frictional factor and heat transfer coefficient are higher under oscillatory flow conditions when the Valensi number is high. Also, the thermal efficiency decreases for lower A(r) values. Further, the usual steady state definition for the heat transfer coefficient does not seem to be valid.

Kannapareddy, Mohan Raj↗

NASA NTRS1995

Simulating the interaction of the heliosphere with the local interstellar medium: MHD results from a finite volume approach, first bidimensional results

We have designed a full compressible MHD code working on unstructured meshes in order to be able to compute accurately sharp structures embedded in large scale simulations. The code is based on a finite volume method making use of a kinetic flux splitting. A bidimensional version of the code has been used to simulate the interaction of a moving interstellar medium, magnetized or unmagnetized with a rotating and magnetized heliopspheric plasma source. Being aware that these computations are not realistic due to the restriction to two dimensions, we present it to demonstrate the ability of this new code to handle this problem. An axisymetric version, now under development, will be operational in a few months. Ultimately we plan to run a full 3d version.

Chanteur, G.↗

NASA NTRS1996

A New Procedure for Simulating Unsteady Flows Through Turbomachinery Blade Passages

The development of two new unsteady wake-blade row aerodynamic interaction models and of a rotor-stator unsteady aerodynamic interaction model are outlined. The solutions of Adamczyk's average-passage flow model were used. The responses to the potential disturbances through a blade row were calculated using the MSUTC code. This code can run with and without the use of wall functions. The solver is an implicit finite volume method with flux Jacobians which are evaluated by the flux-vector splitting and the residual fluxes by the Roe's flux-difference splitting.

Chen, Jen Ping↗

NASA NTRS1996

Experimental and Computational Investigations of Phase Change Thermal Energy Storage Canisters

Two sets of experimental data are examined in this paper, ground and space experiments, for cylindrical canisters with thermal energy storage applications. A 2-D computational model was developed for unsteady heat transfer (conduction and radiation) with phase-change. The radiation heat transfer employed a finite volume method. The following was found in this study: (1) Ground Experiments: the convection heat transfer is equally important to that of the radiation heat transfer; radiation heat transfer in the liquid is found to be more significant than that in the void; including the radiation heat transfer in the liquid resulted in lower temperatures (about 15 K) and increased the melting time (about 10 min.); generally, most of the heat flow takes place in the radial direction. (2) Space Experiments: radiation heat transfer in the void is found to be more significant than that in the liquid (exactly the opposite to the Ground Experiments); accordingly, the location and size of the void affects the performance considerably; including the radiation heat transfer in the void resulted in lower temperatures (about 40 K).

Ibrahim, Mounir↗

NASA NTRS1996

Computation of Radiation Heat Transfer in Aeroengine Combustors

In this report the highlights of the research completed for the NASA are summarized. This research has been completed in the form of two Ph.D. theses by Chai (1994) and Parthasarathy (1996). Readers are referred to these theses for a complete details of the work and lists of references. In the following sections, first objectives of this research are introduced, then the finite-volume method for radiation heat transfer is described, and finally computations of radiative heat transfer in non-gray participating media is presented.

Patankar, S. V.↗

NASA NTRS1999

Adaptive Mesh Refinement for Microelectronic Device Design

Finite element and finite volume methods are used in a variety of design simulations when it is necessary to compute fields throughout regions that contain varying materials or geometry. Convergence of the simulation can be assessed by uniformly increasing the mesh density until an observable quantity stabilizes. Depending on the electrical size of the problem, uniform refinement of the mesh may be computationally infeasible due to memory limitations. Similarly, depending on the geometric complexity of the object being modeled, uniform refinement can be inefficient since regions that do not need refinement add to the computational expense. In either case, convergence to the correct (measured) solution is not guaranteed. Adaptive mesh refinement methods attempt to selectively refine the region of the mesh that is estimated to contain proportionally higher solution errors. The refinement may be obtained by decreasing the element size (h-refinement), by increasing the order of the element (p-refinement) or by a combination of the two (h-p refinement). A successful adaptive strategy refines the mesh to produce an accurate solution measured against the correct fields without undue computational expense. This is accomplished by the use of a) reliable a posteriori error estimates, b) hierarchal elements, and c) automatic adaptive mesh generation. Adaptive methods are also useful when problems with multi-scale field variations are encountered. These occur in active electronic devices that have thin doped layers and also when mixed physics is used in the calculation. The mesh needs to be fine at and near the thin layer to capture rapid field or charge variations, but can coarsen away from these layers where field variations smoothen and charge densities are uniform. This poster will present an adaptive mesh refinement package that runs on parallel computers and is applied to specific microelectronic device simulations. Passive sensors that operate in the infrared portion of the spectrum as well as active device simulations that model charge transport and Maxwell's equations will be presented.

Cwik, Tom↗

NASA NTRS2000

A Technique of Treating Negative Weights in WENO Schemes

High order accurate weighted essentially non-oscillatory (WENO) schemes have recently been developed for finite difference and finite volume methods both in structural and in unstructured meshes. A key idea in WENO scheme is a linear combination of lower order fluxes or reconstructions to obtain a high order approximation. The combination coefficients, also called linear weights, are determined by local geometry of the mesh and order of accuracy and may become negative. WENO procedures cannot be applied directly to obtain a stable scheme if negative linear weights are present. Previous strategy for handling this difficulty is by either regrouping of stencils or reducing the order of accuracy to get rid of the negative linear weights. In this paper we present a simple and effective technique for handling negative linear weights without a need to get rid of them.

Shi, Jing↗

NASA NTRS1995

Supersonic Transport Analysis on the IBM Parallel System SP2

Several studies of supersonic transport (SST) configurations have been undertaken by members of the High Speed Aerodynamics branch at NASA Ames. These computational investigations involved the analysis of shapes to study the sonic boom signatures, aerodynamic performance characteristics, as well as studies of nacelle/airframe integration. A variety of different computer codes were employed including both structured and unstructured codes. The AIRPLANE code has been used extensively in these investigations. This computer code solves the Euler equations for inviscid flow by exploiting an explicit finite volume method on a mesh of tetrahedral cells. AIRPLANE is capable of handling complete aircraft configurations including nacelles and diverters. An example of a generic SST configuration is shown and a comparison of computed and experimental force coefficients is presented. Most of the computations in support of the SST investigations have been run on the YMP and C-90 computers currently installed at NASA Ames. Additional information is contained in the original extended abstract.

Jameson, Antony↗

NASA NTRS2004

Computation of Tone Noises Generated in Viscous Flows

Three benchmark problems from the current and previous CAA workshops involving tone noise generated in viscous flows are investigated using the CE/SE finite volume method. The CE/SE method is first briefly reviewed. Then, the benchmark problems, namely, flow past a single cylinder (CAA Workshop II problem), flow past twin cylinders (from the current CAA Workshop IV, Category 5, Problem 1) and flow past a deep cavity with overhang (CAA Workshop III problem) are investigated. Generally good results are obtained in comparison with the experimental data.

Loh, Ching Y.↗

NASA NTRS2004

Computation of Tone Noises Generated in Viscous Flows

Loh, Ching Y.↗

NASA NTRS2004

Computational Analysis of Gravitational Effects in Low-Density Gas Jets

This study deals with the computational analysis of buoyancy-induced instability in the nearfield of an isothermal helium jet injected into quiescent ambient air environment. Laminar, axisymmetric, unsteady flow conditions were considered for the analysis. The transport equations of helium mass fraction coupled with the conservation equations of mixture mass and momentum were solved using a staggered grid finite volume method. The jet Richardson numbers of 1.5 and 0.018 were considered to encompass both buoyant and inertial jet flow regimes. Buoyancy effects were isolated by initiating computations in Earth gravity and subsequently, reducing gravity to simulate the microgravity conditions. Computed results concur with experimental observations that the periodic flow oscillations observed in Earth gravity subside in microgravity.

Satti, Rajani P.↗

NASA NTRS2004

Numerical Simulations of Buoyancy Effects in low Density Gas Jets

This paper deals with the computational analysis of buoyancy effects in the near field of an isothermal helium jet injected into quiescent ambient air environment. The transport equations of helium mass fraction coupled with the conservation equations of mixture mass and momentum were solved using a staggered grid finite volume method. Laminar, axisymmetric, unsteady flow conditions were considered for the analysis. An orthogonal system with non-uniform grids was used to capture the instability phenomena. Computations were performed for Earth gravity and during transition from Earth to different gravitational levels. The flow physics was described by simultaneous visualizations of velocity and concentration fields at Earth and microgravity conditions. Computed results were validated by comparing with experimental data substantiating that buoyancy induced global flow oscillations present in Earth gravity are absent in microgravity. The dependence of oscillation frequency and amplitude on gravitational forcing was presented to further quantify the buoyancy effects.

Satti, R. P.↗

NASA NTRS2002

Application of the generalized vertical coordinate ocean model for better representing satellite data

It is found that two adaptive parametric functions can be introduced into the basic ocean equations for utilizing the optimal or hybrid features of commonly used z-level, terrain- following, isopycnal, and pressure coordinates in numerical ocean models. The two parametric functions are formulated by combining three techniques: the arbitrary vertical coordinate system of Kasahara (1 974), the Jacobian pressure gradient formulation of Song (1 998), and a newly developed metric factor that permits both compressible (non-Boussinesq) and incompressible (Boussinesq) approximations. Based on the new formulation, an adaptive modeling strategy is proposed and a staggered finite volume method is designed to ensure conservation of important physical properties and numerical accuracy. Implementation of the combined techniques to SCRUM (Song and Haidvogel1994) shows that the adaptive modeling strategy can be applied to any existing ocean model without incurring computational expense or altering the original numerical schemes. Such a generalized coordinate model is expected to benefit diverse ocean modelers for easily choosing optimal vertical structures and sharing modeling resources based on a common model platform. Several representing oceanographic problems with different scales and characteristics, such as coastal canyons, basin-scale circulation, and global ocean circulation, are used to demonstrate the model's capability for multiple applications. New results show that the model is capable of simultaneously resolving both Boussinesq and non-Boussinesq, and both small- and large-scale processes well. This talk will focus on its applications of multiple satellite sensing data in eddy-resolving simulations of Asian Marginal Sea and Kurosio. Attention will be given to how Topex/Poseidon SSH, TRMM SST; and GRACE ocean bottom pressure can be correctly represented in a non- Boussinesq model.

numerical ocean model generalized coordinate syste↗

NASA NTRS2007

URANS Application with CFL3D

This case was run using CFL3D, a multi-zone Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes code developed at NASA Langley [1]. It solves the thin-layer form of the Navier-Stokes equations in each of the (selected) coordinate directions. It can use 1-to-1, patched, or overset grids, and employs local time step scaling, grid sequencing, and multigrid to accelerate convergence to steady state. In time-accurate mode, CFL3D has the option to employ dual-time stepping with subiterations and multigrid, and it achieves second order temporal accuracy. CFL3D is a finite volume method. It uses third-order upwind-biased spatial differencing on the convective and pressure terms, and second-order differencing on the viscous terms; it is globally second-order spatially accurate. The flux difference-splitting (FDS) method of Roe is employed to obtain fluxes at the cell faces. It is advanced in time with an implicit three-factor approximate factorization method.

Rumsey, C. L.↗

NASA NTRS2007

Simulation of a Periodic Jet in a Crossflow with a RANS Solver Using an Unstructured Grid

A second-order unstructured-grid code, developed and used primarily for steady aerodynamic simulations, is applied to the synthetic jet in a cross flow. The code, FUN3D, is a vertex-centered finite-volume method originally developed by Anderson[1, 2], and is currently supported by members of the Fast Adaptive Aerospace Tools team at NASA Langley. Used primarily for design[3] and analysis[4] of steady aerodynamic configurations, FUN3D incorporates a discrete adjoint capability, and supports parallel computations using MPI. A detailed description of the FUN3D code can be found in the references given above. The code is under continuous development and contains a variety of flux splitting algorithms for the inviscid terms, two methods for computing gradients, several turbulence models, and several solution methodologies; all in varying states of development. Only the most robust and reliable components, based on experiences with steady aerodynamic simulations, were employed in this work. As applied in this work, FUN3D solves the Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes equations using the one equation turbulence model of Spalart and Allmaras[5]. The spatial discretization is formed on unstructured meshes using a vertex-centered approach. The inviscid terms are evaluated by a flux-difference splitting formulation using least-squares reconstruction and Roe-type approximate Riemann fluxes. Green-Gauss gradient evaluations are used for viscous and turbulence modeling terms. The discrete spatial operator is combined with a backward time operator which is then solved iteratively using point or line Gauss-Seidel and local time stepping in a pseudo time. For steady flows, the physical time step is set to infinity and the pseudo time step is ramped up with the iteration count. A second-order backward in time operator is used for time accurate flows with 20 to 50 steps in the pseudo time applied at each physical time step. For this effort, FUN3D was modified to support spatially varying boundary and initial conditions, and unsteady boundary conditions. Also, a specialized in/out flow boundary condition was implemented to model the action of the diaphragm. This boundary condition is described below in more detail. The grids were generated using the internally developed codes GridEX[6] for meshing the surfaces and inviscid regions of the domain, and for CAD access; and MesherX[7] for meshing the viscous regions. Grid spacing in on the surfaces and in the inviscid regions are indirectly controlled by specifying sources. The viscous layers are generated using an advancing layer technique. MeshersX allows the user to control the spatial variation of the first step off the surface, growth rates, and the termination criterion by providing small problem dependent subroutines.

Atkins, H. L.↗