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At least 343 records · Page 19

Smart Proxy Modeling Application of Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning in Computational Fluid Dynamics

Smart proxy technology leverages the art of artificial intelligence and machine learning in order to build accurate and very fast proxy models for highly complex numerical simulation models. In this project, smart proxy technology is used to replicate the results of a highly complex single phase CFD simulation with reasonable degree of accuracy while reducing the computational cost associated with such CFD simulations. The CFD model under study simulates the combustion of natural gas under various conditions such as varying natural gas composition and flow rate, inlet air flow rate and temperature, and outlet pressure in a High-Pressure Combustion Facility (B6 Combustor) with more than 4 million simulation cells. Only eight CFD simulation runs were used to create a smart proxy model that replicates the detail distribution of Pressure, Temperature, Nitrogen, Oxygen and Carbon-dioxide concentration in the CFD simulation model in seconds with less than 10% error.

03 NATURAL GAS↗

Eliminating Wind Tunnel Flow Breakdown

Undesirable vortexes near floor in small wind tunnels suppressed by simple device that alters flow pattern there. Air is injected along floor and interacts with backflow from wind-tunnel model. Results in smoother, more correct air-flow and to more-reliable wind-tunnel data.

Hackett, J. E.↗

Application of superplastically formed and diffusion bonded aluminum to a laminar flow control leading edge

NASA sponsored the Aircraft Energy Efficiency (ACEE) program in 1976 to develop technologies to improve fuel efficiency. Laminar flow control was one such technology. Two approaches for achieving laminar flow were designed and manufactured under NASA sponsored programs: the perforated skin concept used at McDonnell Douglas and the slotted design used at Lockheed-Georgia. Both achieved laminar flow, with the slotted design to a lesser degree (JetStar flight test program). The latter design had several fabrication problems concerning springback and adhesive flow clogging the air flow passages. The Lockheed-Georgia Company accomplishments is documented in designing and fabricating a small section of a leading edge article addressing a simpler fabrication method to overcome the previous program's manufacturing problems, i.e., design and fabrication using advanced technologies such as diffusion bonding of aluminum, which has not been used on aerospace structures to date, and the superplastic forming of aluminum.

Goodyear, M. D.↗

Method of measuring cross-flow vortices by use of an array of hot-film sensors

The invention is a method for measuring the wavelength of cross-flow vortices of air flow having streamlines of flow traveling across a swept airfoil. The method comprises providing a plurality of hot-film sensors. Each hot-film sensor provides a signal which can be processed, and each hot-film sensor is spaced in a straight-line array such that the distance between successive hot-film sensors is less than the wavelength of the cross-flow vortices being measured. The method further comprises determining the direction of travel of the streamlines across the airfoil and positioning the straight-line array of hot film sensors perpendicular to the direction of travel of the streamlines, such that each sensor has a spanwise location. The method further comprises processing the signals provided by the sensors to provide root-mean-square values for each signal, plotting each root-mean-square value as a function of its spanwise location, and determining the wavelength of the cross-flow vortices by noting the distance between two maxima or two minima of root-mean-square values.

Agarwal, Aval K.↗

Notes on propeller design III

The air flow and the air force created by all elements of the propeller blades lying in a ring located between two concentric circles around the propeller axis are independent of what happens in other rings.

Munk, Max M↗

Correlation of the Characteristics of Single-Cylinder and Flight Engines in Tests of High-Performance Fuels in an Air-Cooled Engine I : Cooling Characteristics

Variable charge-air flow, cooling-air pressure drop, and fuel-air ration investigations were conducted to determine the cooling characteristics of a full-scale air-cooled single cylinder on a CUE setup. The data are compared with similar data that were available for the same model multicylinder engine tested in flight in a four-engine airplane. The cylinder-head cooling correlations were the same for both the single-cylinder and the flight engine. The cooling correlations for the barrels differed slightly in that the barrel of the single-cylinder engine runs cooler than the barrel of te flight engine for the same head temperatures and engine conditions.

Wilson, Robert W.↗

Thermal Performance Testing of EMU and OSS Liquid Cooling Garments

A test was conducted to evaluate three factors influencing the thermal performance of liquid cooling garments (LCG): (1) the comparable thermal performance of an Oceaneering developed engineering evaluation unit (EEU) prototype LDG, (2) the effect of the thermal comfort undergarment (TCU), and (3) the performance of a torso or upper body only LCG configuration. To evaluate the thermal performance of each configuration a metabolic test was conducted, utilizing suited subjects to generate the metabolic heat. For this study three (3) test subjects of similar health and weight produced a metabolic load on the LDG configuration by either resting (300-600 BTU/hr), walking at a slow pace (1200 BRU/hr), and walking at a brisk pace (2200 BTU/hr), as outlined in Figure 1, the metabolic profile. During the test, oxygen consumption, heart rate, relative humidity, air flow, inlet and outlet air pressure, inlet and outlet air temperature, delta air temperature, water flow (100 lb/hr), inlet water temperature (64 F), delta water temperature, water pressure, core body temperature, skin temperature, and sweat loss data was recorded. Four different test configurations were tested, with one configuration tested twice, as outlined in Table 1. The test was conducted with the suit subjects wearing the Demonstrator Suit, pressurized to vent pressure (approximately 0.5 psig). The demonstrator suit has an integrated ventilation duct system and was used to create a relevant environment with a captured ventilation return, an integrated vent tree, and thermal insulation from the environment.

Rhodes, Richard↗

Summary and Analysis of Horizontal-Tail Contribution to Longitudinal Stability of Swept-Wing Airplanes at Low Speeds

Air-flow characteristics behind wings and wing-body combinations are described and are related to the downwash at specific tall locations for unseparated and separated flow conditions. The effects of various parameters and control devices on the air-flow characteristics and tail contribution are analyzed and demonstrated. An attempt has been made to summarize certain data by empirical correlation or theoretical means in a form useful for design. The experimental data herein were obtained mostly at Reynolds numbers greater than 4 x 10(exp 6) and at Mach numbers less than 0.25.

Neely, Robert H.↗

An assessment of warm fog: Nucleation, control, and recommended research

A state-of-the-art survey is given of warm fog research which has been performed up to, and including, 1974. Topics covered are nucleation, growth, coalescence, fog structures and visibility, effects of surface films, drop size spectrum, optical properties, instrumentation, liquid water content, condensation nuclei. Included is a summary of all reported fog modification experiments. Additional data is provided on air flow, turbulence, a summary of recommendations on instruments to be developed for determining turbulence, air flow, etc., as well as recommendations of various fog research tasks which should be performed for a better understanding of fog microphysics.

Corrin, M. L.↗

Cooling charge determination for a local thermal management system

A system and method for estimating the state of charge, i.e., the amount of cooling remaining, in a latent heat thermal storage module of a local environmental control system. The local environmental control system stores cooling energy at night by freezing a latent heat phase change material (PCM), and then releasing the stored cooling energy by removing heat from room air flowing through the PCM during the day. Differential temperature sensors are used measure the air temperature drop across the latent thermals storage unit and the fan voltage, which is directly related to fan air flow rate, is sampled. A controller is programmed to determine the charging state from these measurements.

Khalifa, H. Ezzat↗

Flowfield visualization for SSME hot gas manifold

The objective of this research, as defined by NASA-Marshall Space Flight Center, was two-fold: (1) to numerically simulate viscous subsonic flow in a proposed elliptical two-duct version of the fuel side Hot Gas Manifold (HGM) for the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME), and (2) to provide analytical support for SSME related numerical computational experiments, being performed by the Computational Fluid Dynamics staff in the Aerophysics Division of the Structures and Dynamics Laboratory at NASA-MSFC. Numerical results of HGM were calculations to complement both water flow visualization experiments and air flow visualization experiments and air experiments in two-duct geometries performed at NASA-MSFC and Rocketdyne. In addition, code modification and improvement efforts were to strengthen the CFD capabilities of NASA-MSFC for producing reliable predictions of flow environments within the SSME.

Roger, Robert P.↗

THERMS Technology Commercialization Fund Final Report

The technology commercialization fund assisted with the design and development of an intermediate scale packed be thermal energy storage system. Presented in this final report is the design, testing, and modeling of a 100 kWh th radial packed-bed. Air is used as a heat transfer fluid and 3/8” pea gravel is used as the storage medium. Testing has demonstrated the formation of a thermocline within the packed-bed. An air charging temperature of 450 °C was achieved resulting in a charging power of 26.5 kWh th . The radial packed-bed was charged for 5 hours and discharged for 5 hours. Minimal temperature variation was observed at the bottom, middle, and top axial locations of the radial packed-bed which suggests that buoyancy and hydrodynamics in the injection well had a minimal effect on the uniformity of air flow through the bed during charging and discharging. This indicates that the forced convection in a radial direction is dominating the flow regime compared to the buoyancy. The findings of this study suggest an increased air duct diameter through the air heater will increase the charging temperature and increase air mass flow through the system. Increased mass flow through the packed-bed is hypothesized to shorten the thermocline length. Modeled and measured results are compared, and it is here determined that a more comprehensive CFD model will aid in the understanding of air flow and thermocline evolution within the packed-bed.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

Flammability Aspects of a Cotton-Fiberglass Fabric in Opposed and Concurrent Airflow in Microgravity

Microgravity combustion tests burning fabric samples were performed aboard the International Space Station. The cotton-fiberglass blend samples were mounted inside a small wind tunnel which could impose air flow speeds up to 40 cm/s. The wind tunnel was installed in the Microgravity Science Glovebox which supplied power, imaging, and a level of containment. The effects of air flow speed on flame appearance, flame growth, and spread rates were determined in both the opposed and concurrent flow configuration. For the opposed flow configuration, the flame quickly reached steady spread for each flow speed, and the spread rate was fastest at an intermediate value of flow speed. These tests show the enhanced flammability in microgravity for this geometry, since, in normal gravity air, a flame self-extinguishes in the opposed flow geometry (downward flame spread). In the concurrent flow configuration, flame size grew with time during the tests. A limiting length and steady spread rate were obtained only in low flow speeds ( 10 cm/s) for the short-length samples that fit in the small wind tunnel. For these conditions, flame spread rate increased linearly with increasing flow. This is the first time that detailed transient flame growth data was obtained in purely forced flows in microgravity. In addition, by decreasing flow speed to a very low value (around 1 cm/s), quenching extinction was observed. The valuable results from these long-duration experiments validate a number of theoretical predictions and also provide the data for a transient flame growth model under development.

Ferkul, Paul V.↗

Natural laminar flow hits smoother air

Natural laminar flow (NLF) may be attained in aircraft with lower cost, weight, and maintenance penalties than active flow laminarization by means of a slot suction system. A high performance general aviation jet aircraft possessing a moderate degree of NLF over wing, fuselage, empennage and engine nacelles will accrue a 24 percent reduction in total aircraft drag in the cruise regime. NASA-Langley has conducted NLF research centered on the use of novel airfoil profiles as well as composite and milled aluminum alloy construction methods which minimize three-dimensional aerodynamic surface roughness and waviness. It is noted that higher flight altitudes intrinsically reduce unit Reynolds numbers, thereby minimizing turbulence for a given cruise speed.

Holmes, B. J.↗

Analysis of opposed-jet hydrogen-air counter flow diffusion flame

An opposed-jet counterflow diffusion-flame configuration is considered for the analysis of a nitrogen-diluted hydrogen-air diffusion flame. A boundary-layer similarity solution is employed in order to reduce the governing equations to a set of equations in one independent variable. The equation set is written in the time-dependent form and solved by the finite-volume time-marching technique. This model uses detailed chemistry and accounts for the variations of Prandtl number and Lewis number as well as the effect of thermal diffusion on the flame. It is noted that a one-step model can predict several features of the flame, while the detailed-chemistry model can be used for fine-tuning the results. The present results indicate that thermal diffusion has negligible effect on the characteristics of the flame.

Ho, Y. H.↗

Buoyancy Effects upon Vapor Flame and Explosion Processes

The objective of this microgravity project is to develop an experimental and theoretical analyses critical to the understanding of the coupling of buoyancy and turbulence generation and its effect on fuel-air mixing, flame intensity and flame propagation in jet diffusion flames. The experiment is designed to examine certain effects of buoyancy acting on a diffusion flame in which the flame is directed either upward or downward. This change from negative to positive g is observed to significantly alter the flame shape although all other operating conditions are the same for both configurations. However, to perform this experiment a significant coaxial secondary air flow is needed in order to prevent flow reversal when the flame is inverted. The theoretical analysis that has been developed handles the secondary air flow and the extreme change in gravity vector direction. Thus the data will provide a measure of credibility of the analysis which will then be used to assist in the design of the actual zero-g experiment.

Edelman, R. B.↗

Experimental Investigation of a Five-stage Axial-flow Research Compressor with Transonic Rotors in All Stages III : Interstage Data and Individual Stage Performance Characteristics

For use in computing the detailed performance parameters of individual blade rows of a multistage compressor, radial distributions of total pressure, total temperature, static pressure and air-flow angle are tabulated. The data cover a range of air flow from choke to the approximate surge limit for equivalent rotor speeds from 70 to 100 percent of design. Equivalent stage performance curves determined from the radial survey measurements indicate both the individual performance and the matching of the stages at the speeds investigated.

Sandercock, Donald M↗