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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
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1991

Application of a new K-tau model to near wall turbulent flows

A recently developed K-tau model for near wall turbulent flows is applied to a variety of test cases. The turbulent flows considered include the incompressible flat plate boundary layer with adverse pressure gradients, incompressible flow past a backward facing step, and the supersonic flat plate boundary layer at zero pressure gradient. Calculations are performed for this two-equation model using an anisotropic as well as isotropic eddy-viscosity. The model predictions are shown to compare quite favorably with experimental data.

Abid, R.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Navier-Stokes analysis and experimental data comparison of compressible flow within ducts

Many aircraft employ ducts with centerline curvature or changing cross-sectional shape to join the engine with inlet and exhaust components. S-ducts convey air to the engine compressor from the intake and often decelerate the flow to achieve an acceptable Mach number at the engine compressor by increasing the cross-sectional area downstream. Circular-to-rectangular transition ducts are used on aircraft with rectangular exhaust nozzles to connect the engine and nozzle. To achieve maximum engine performance, the ducts should minimize flow total pressure loss and total pressure distortion at the duct exit. Changes in the curvature of the duct centerline or the duct cross-sectional shape give rise to streamline curvature which causes cross stream pressure gradients. Secondary flows can be caused by deflection of the transverse vorticity component of the boundary layer. This vortex tilting results in counter-rotating vortices. Additionally, the adverse streamwise pressure gradient caused by increasing cross-sectional area can lead to flow separation. Vortex pairs have been observed in the exit planes of both duct types. These vortices are due to secondary flows induced by pressure gradients resulting from streamline curvature. Regions of low total pressure are produced when the vortices convect boundary layer fluid into the main flow. The purpose of the present study is to predict the measured flow field in a diffusing S-duct and a circular-to-rectangular transition duct with a full Navier-Stokes computer program, PARC3D, and to compare the numerical predictions with new detailed experimental measurements. The work was undertaken to extend previous studies and to provide additional CFD validation data needed to help model flows with strong secondary flow and boundary layer separation. The S-duct computation extends the study of Smith et al, and Harloff et al, which concluded that the computation might be improved by using a finer grid and more advanced turbulence models. The present study compares results for both the Baldwin-Lomas and k-epsilon turbulence models and is conducted with a refined grid. For the transition duct, two inlet conditions were considered, the first with straight flow and the second with swirling flow. The first case permits examination of the effects of the geometric transition on the flow field, while the second case includes the rotational flow effect characteristic of a gas turbine engine.

Harloff, G. J.↗
NASA NTRS1981

The nature of melt process changes in microgravity

The effects on melt impurities of the lack of buoyancy-driven convection in melts and the gas phase are outlined. Probable effects noted are: retardation of convective flow by a thin adsorbed impurity layer because of surface tension gradients (Marangoni flow); changes in the transport of volatile impurities to the melt surface and the consequent reduction of evaporation; and the change in dependence of evaporation rates on pressure due to the absence of convective flow in the gas next to the melt.

Wilcox, W.↗
NASA NTRS2000

Generalized Wall Function for Complex Turbulent Flows

A generalized wall function was proposed by Shih et al., (1999). It accounts the effect of pressure gradients on the flow near the wall. Theory shows that the effect of pressure gradients on the flow in the inertial sublayer is very significant and the standard wall function should be replaced by a generalized wall function. Since the theory is also valid for boundary layer flows toward separation, the generalized wall function may be applied to complex turbulent flows with acceleration, deceleration, separation and recirculation. This paper is to verify the generalized wall function with numerical simulations for boundary layer flows with various adverse and favorable pressure gradients, including flows about to separate. Furthermore, a general procedure of implementation of the generalized wall function for National Combustion Code (NCC) is described, it can be applied to both structured and unstructured CFD codes.

Shih, Tsan-Hsing↗
NASA NTRS1988

Aircraft vortices - Juncture, wing, and wake

Many real aircraft flows contain regions of three-dimensional separation with vortices. This paper presents selected results for three representative flows: juncture vortex, lifting-wing vortex, and wake vortex. Due to the difficulty of studying vortices, flow visualization was used as a primary research tool. Vortices are found to depend in subtle ways on details of the configuration, Reynolds number, or the environment. Examples showing the effect of filleting on the juncture flow, Reynolds number on the wing flow, and density gradients on the wake flow are presented.

Greene, George C.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Simulations of bypass transition for spatially evolving disturbances

The spatial evolution of disturbances in plane Poiseuille flow and zero pressure gradient boundary layer flow is considered. For disturbances governed by the linearized equations, potential for significant transient growth of the amplitude is demonstrated. The maximum amplification occurs for disturbances with zero or near zero frequencies. Spatial numerical simulations of the transition scenario involving a pair of oblique waves has been conducted for both flows. A fully spectral solver using a simple but efficient fringe region technique allowed the flows to be computed with high resolution into the fully turbulent domain. A modal decomposition of the simulation results indicates that non-linear excitation of the transient growth is responsible for the rapid emergence of low-frequency structures. Physically, this corresponds to streaky flow structures, as seen from the results of a numerical amplitude expansion. Thus, this spatial transition scenario has been found to be similar to the corresponding temporal one. In the boundary layer simulations the streaks are seen to break down from what appears to be a secondary instability.

Lundbladh, A.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Hydrodynamics of Two-Phase Flows through Porous Media in Microgravity: Packed Bed Reactor Experiment onboard of the International Space Station

The objective of the Packed Bed Reactor Experiment was to develop a fundamental understanding of the hydrodynamics of two-phase flow with no phase transition through porous media in microgravity. This work describes two experimental campaigns flown on the International Space Station (ISS) that were designed to achieve the objective. This work presents the results on flow patterns observed, two-phase flow pressure drop in porous media, and the impact of capillary effects on pressure drop at various gas and liquid flow rates. This work is the first to present predictive correlations of the two-phase friction factor for the different regimes identified based on the superficial liquid and gas velocity in microgravity, the first to hypothesize the different regimes based on the change in slope of the pressure gradient versus flow rate plots, the first to address the effects of the capillarity on the pressure gradient and the first to measure column holdup and assess the effective porosity based on the packing and the trapped gas bubbles. Experimental data on pressure drop in gas (N2) – liquid (water) flow show the presence of four different flow regimes in microgravity. Dispersed bubble flow (DB) and pulse (P) flow regimes are detected at high liquid flow rates, whereas at low liquid flow rates “large bubble” or elongated bubble (LB) and “gas channeling” (GC) regimes are observed. For these different flow regimes, different two-phase flow friction factor and pressure gradient correlations are presented for the first time as a function of the gas and liquid modified Reynolds numbers and Suratman number. Within the viscous-capillary (V-C) regime, it is found that the capillary contribution is the dominant force that contributes to the pressure drop for the wetting case (glass). However, for the non-wetting packing (Teflon), the viscous contribution dominates. It was found that the gas hold-up and pressure drop are functions of bed history at low liquid and gas flow rates with the magnitude of the hysteresis decreasing with increasing flow rates. PBRE-2 results show that the capillary force is a strong function of the superficial liquid velocity but is a much weaker function of the superficial gas velocity and varies inversely with the particle diameter. Within the Viscous-Capillary (V-C) regime, over 90% of the pressure gradient is attributed to the capillary contribution in the gas continuous regime. However, in the large bubble regime, the viscous and capillary contributions were comparable. After the completion of PBRE-2 with glass spherical beads, another bed packed with alumina was installed. Pressure gradient data for the alumina packed bed (PBRE-Water Recovery) were transferred to the PI and were not analyzed by the authors of this work. The Packed Bed Reactor Experiment concluded its on-orbit operation after two successful campaigns of testing in 2017 and in 2021. The flight hardware was brought back from orbit and is being reconditioned for a series of future experiments referred to as PBRE-WRS in support of water recovery (WRS). The WRS series consists of testing different two-phase fluid system components and packed beds to assess their pressure gradient characteristics, which will be used for designing packed bed reactors for various applications relevant to life support. Although there is so much relevance of the experimental results obtained from the two PBRE campaign in microgravity to life support, these findings also apply to other applications that involve two phase flow in porous medium such as fuel cells, transport of nutrient to plants in space and other chemical and materials processing that involve two phase flows. These systems operate differently in microgravity because, due to the lack of buoyancy, the density difference between the phases becomes irrelevant and no longer leads to phase separation.

Packed Bed↗
NASA NTRS1980

Effect of pressure gradients on Gortler instability

Gortler instability for boundary-layer flows over generally curved walls is considered. The full linearized disturbance equations are obtained in an orthogonal curvilinear coordinate system. A perturbation procedure to account for second-order effects is used to determine the effects of the displacement thickness and the variation of the streamline curvature on the neutral stability of the Blasius flow. The pressure gradient in the mean flow is accounted for by solving the nonsimilar boundary-layer equations. Growth rates are obtained for the actual mean flow and the Falkner-Skan flows. The results demonstrate the strong influence of the pressure gradient and the nonsimilarity of the basic flow on the stability characteristics.

Ragab, S. A.↗
NASA NTRS1991

The structure of a passive scalar field with a uniform mean gradient in rapidly sheared homogeneous turbulent flow

The effect of an arbitrarily oriented mean passive scalar gradient on one-point passive scalar statistics is studied in homogeneous turbulent shear flow in the limit of rapid shearing. By neglecting the nonlinear inertial transfer to small scales an analytical solution for individual Fourier modes is obtained for the case of unity Prandtl number. This solution is used to compute the development of one-point statistics for the velocity and scalar fields in the inviscid limit. Comparisons to direct numerical simulations of the full nonlinear equations for the same flow show that, in addition to describing the early time response to the imposed shear, the linear solution gives reasonable estimates of several correlation coefficients for the developed shear flow.

Rogers, Michael M.↗
NASA NTRS1993

The production of premixed flame surface area in turbulent shear flow

In the present work, we use three-dimensional Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) of premixed flames in turbulent shear flow to characterize the effect of a mean shear motion on flame surface production. The shear is uniform in the unburnt gas, and simulations are performed for different values of the mean shear rate, S. The data base is then used to estimate and compare the different terms appearing in the Sigma-equation as a function of S. The analysis gives in particular the relative weights f the turbulent flow and mean flow components, a(sub T) and A(sub T), of the flame surface production term. This comparison indicates whether the dominant effects of a mean flow velocity gradient on flame surface area are implicit and scale with the modified turbulent flow parameters, kappa and epsilon, or explicit and scale directly with the rate of deformation.

Trouve, A.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Simulations of a Turbulent Flow Subjected to Favorable and Adverse Pressure Gradients

This paper reports the results from a direct numerical simulation of an initially turbulent boundary layer passing over a wall-mounted “speed bump” geometry. The speed bump, represented in the form of a Gaussian distribution profile, generates a favorable pressure gradient region over the upstream half of the geometry, followed by an adverse pressure gradient over the downstream half. The boundary layer approaching the bump undergoes strong acceleration in the favorable pressure gradient region before experiencing incipient or very weak separation within the adverse pressure gradient region. These types of flows have proven to be particularly challenging to predict using lower-fidelity simulation tools based on various turbulence modeling approaches and warrant the use of the highest-fidelity simulation techniques. Simulation results are utilized to examine the key phenomena present in the flowfield, such as relaminarization/stabilization in the strong acceleration region succeeded by retransition to turbulence near the onset of adverse pressure gradient, incipient/weak separation, and development of internal layers where the sense of streamwise pressure gradient changes at the foot, apex and tail of the bump. The present direct numerical simulation is performed using a flow solver developed exclusively for graphics processing units, which is found to provide a significant speedup compared to an earlier solver optimized for central processing unit architectures.

Ali Uzun↗
NASA NTRS2002

Molecular Probe Fluorescence Monitoring of Polymerization

This project investigated the feasibility of using fluorescence spectroscopy to determine viscosity of polymer/monomer in support of Transient Interfacial Phenomena in Miscible Polymer Systems (TIPMPS). This project will attempt to measure gradient induced flow at a miscible interface during and / or after in-flight polymerization of dodecyl acrylate (lauryl acrylate). Concentration and temperature gradients will be intentionally introduced during polymerization and the resultant fluid flow determined by Particle Imaging Velocimetry (PIV). This report describes an investigation of the feasibility of using fluorescence of a probe molecule to monitor viscosity and/or concentration during and after polymerization. The probe used was pyrene which has been shown to be sensitive to its local environment in methyl methacrylate.

Patrick Bunton↗
NASA NTRS2000

Thermocapillary Flow and Aggregation of Bubbles on a Solid Wall

During the electrolytic evolution of oxygen bubbles forming on a vertically oriented transparent tin oxide electrode, bubbles were found to be mutually attractive. The mechanism of the aggregation had never been explained satisfactorily until Guelcher et al. attributed it to thermocapillary flow. The gradient of surface tension of the liquid at the bubble's surface, which was established because of reaction heat and ohmic heat loss at the electrode wall, drives flow of the liquid adjacent to each bubble; the bubble "pumps" fluid along its surface away from the wall. Fluid flows toward the bubble to conserve mass and entrains nearby bubbles in the flow pattern. The same logic would apply when two bubbles of equal size are adjacent to each other on a warm wall. Each bubble drives thermocapillary flow and hence entrains the other in its flow pattern, which drives the aggregation. Our objective here is to perform experiments where the temperature gradient at the wall is well known and controlled. The theory can be quantitatively tested by studying aggregation of bubble pairs of equal size, and by varying system parameters such as temperature gradient, bubble size and fluid viscosity. The results are then compared with the theory in a quantitatively rigorous manner. We demonstrate that the theory without adjustable parameters is capable of quantitatively modeling the rate of aggregation of two bubbles. The equations governing the thermocapillary flow around a single stationary bubble on a heated or cooled wall in a semi-infinite domain were solved. Both Reynolds number and Marangoni number were much less than unity. The critical result is that liquid in the vicinity of a warm wall flows toward a stationary collector bubble. Consequently the thermocapillary flow around the stationary bubble entrains another bubble toward itself. The bubbles undergo hindered translation parallel to the wall with velocity U while the fluid flow field is described with u. Two velocities were equated by using a wall hindrance parameter q: U = qu [1] which shows the velocity of bubble is proportional to the entraining velocity. The hindrance parameter q can experimentally be measured independently. q can also be calculated by solving the equations of motion for a bubble translating parallel to a solid wall. The experimental cell is cylindrical with an ID of 10 cm and consists of a 1 cm deep main cell filled with silicone oil and flanked by two thermal reservoirs. The upper thermal reservoir was heated and the lower thermal reservoir was cooled so that the bubbles aggregate. Two types of silicone oil (eta = 0.02 and 0.50 Pa s) were used. Two equal sized air bubbles were injected into the cell with a syringe. The center-to-center distance of bubbles was observed through a microscope. Bubble radius ranged from 0.40 mm to 0.65 mm and the temperature gradients along with the cell ranged from 1400 to 5000 K/m. The bubbles aggregated when heat flows from the wall to the fluid. The velocities of bubbles were in the range of 1 - 10 microns/s. The separation r decreased more quickly when the temperature gradient was higher, bubble size was larger, and the oil viscosity was lower. r decreased more rapidly as the bubbles approached each other. Dimensionless time was arbitrarily set to be zero when the dimensionless center-to-center distance between the bubbles was 4. All the bubble trajectories fall onto one line, especially in the range of dimensionless distance from 4 to 3. This means the relative movement of the bubble pair is proportional to the temperature gradient and bubble size and it is inversely proportional to the viscosity of the oil. This result strongly suggests that the thermocapillary flow-based aggregation mechanism is correct. A value of q can be estimated by fitting the scaled data to Eq. [1]. A best fit value of q was obtained as q = 0.26 with a standard deviation of 0.03. Independent experimental results for q for a 0.5 mm radius bubble, give values of q in the range 0.11 to 0.23. The value of q obtained from solving the equations of motion reveals q has values in the range 0.23 - 0.30. Since the full scale of possible values of q is zero to one, the maximum deviation of independently determined values of q from the best fit value was 15% of this full scale. Thus reasonable quantitative agreement between theory and experiment has been obtained.

Kasumi, Hiroki↗
NASA NTRS1972

Calculation of turbulent boundary layers with heat transfer and pressure gradient utilizing a compressibility transformation. Part 2: Constant property turbulent boundary layer flow with simultaneous mass transfer and pressure gradient

An analysis of the incompressible turbulent boundary layer, developing under the combined effects of mass transfer and pressure gradient, is presented in this paper. A strip-integral method is employed whereby two of the three governing equations are obtained by integrating the combined momentum and continuity equation to 50 percent and 100 percent, respectively, of the boundary-layer height. The latter equation is the usual momentum-integral equation; the former equation requires specification of shear. Accordingly, Clauser's equilibrium eddy-viscosity law is assumed valid at this point. The third and final equation is obtained by specifying that Stevenson's velocity profiles apply throughout the domain of interest, from which a skin-friction law can be derived. Comparisons of the numerical results with the experiments of McQuaid, which include combined effects of variable pressure gradient and mass transfer, show good agreement.

Boccio, J.↗
NASA NTRS1995

Turbulance boundary conditions for shear flow analysis, using the DTNS flow solver

The effects of different turbulence boundary conditions were examined for two classical flows: a turbulent plane free shear layer and a flat plate turbulent boundary layer with zero pressure gradient. The flow solver used was DTNS, an incompressible Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes solver with k-epsilon turbulence modeling, developed at the U.S. Navy David Taylor Research Center. Six different combinations of turbulence boundary conditions at the inflow boundary were investigated: In case 1, 'exact' k and epsilon profiles were used; in case 2, the 'exact' k profile was used, and epsilon was extrapolated upstream; in case 3, both k and epsilon were extrapolated; in case 4, the turbulence intensity (I) was 1 percent, and the turbulent viscosity (mu(sub t)) was equal to the laminar viscosity; in case 5, the 'exact' k profile was used and mu(sub t) was equal to the laminar viscosity; in case 6, the I was 1 percent, and epsilon was extrapolated. Comparisons were made with experimental data, direct numerical simulation results, or theoretical predictions as applicable. Results obtained with DTNS showed that turbulence boundary conditions can have significant impacts on the solutions, especially for the free shear layer.

Mizukami, M.↗
NASA NTRS1981

Goertler instability

Goertler instability for boundary-layer flows over generally curved walls is considered. The full-linearized disturbance equations are obtained in an orthogonal curvilinear coordinate system. A perturbation procedure to account for second-order effects is used to determine the effects of the displacement thickness and the variation of the streamline curvature on the neutral stability of the Blasius flow. The streamwise pressure gradient in the mean flow is accounted for by solving the nonsimilar boundary-layer equations. Growth rates are obtained for the actual mean flow and compared with those for the Blasius flow and the Falkner-Skan flows. The results demonstrate the strong influence of the streamwise pressure gradient and the nonsimilarity of the basic flow on the stability characteristics.

Ragab, S. A.↗