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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 109 records · Page 6

A phase-field method for boiling heat transfer

Here we present a phase field method for heat transfer in two-phase flow with boiling. The vapor/liquid interface evolution is modeled by the Cahn-Hilliard equation. The phase change rate is determined by accounting for the heat conduction balance on either vapor or liquid side of the interfacial area, depending on which side the temperature is assumed to be maintained at the saturation temperature during boiling. The velocity correction scheme proposed by Dong & Shen [27] is extended to solve the Navier-Stokes equations for a non-solenoidal velocity field, and the entropy viscosity method is employed for stabilization. The phase change model is verified by two-dimensional simulations of a vapor bubble growing in super-heated liquid and in film boiling. In both cases, mesh independence of the results is systematically performed. Subsequently, the method is applied to predict the growth of three-dimensional vapor bubble in a rectangular microchannel with boiling flow, achieving good agreement with experimental measurements and available simulation results using the level-set method. The numerical experiments demonstrate that the required mesh resolution for the phase field method is comparable with that of volume of fluid (VoF) and level-set methods.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Openpronghorn

OpenPronghorn is a simulation tool specifically tailored for modeling thermal-hydraulic phenomena in advanced nuclear reactors. It is built on the Multiphysics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE), an open-source platform that facilitates the development of high-performance scientific computing applications. OpenPronghorn solves the Navier-Stokes equations, which describe the conservation of mass, momentum, and energy in fluid flows, using the finite volume numerical method. The code supports a wide range of fluid flow conditions that are applicable to nuclear reactors, including incompressible and weakly compressible flows, as well as single-phase and multiphase flows. It is capable of modeling diverse flow regimes, including laminar and turbulent flows, using various turbulence models such as the standard k-epsilon models, the v2f model, and the mixing length model. For multiphase flows, OpenPronghorn employs a mixture a Eulerian modeling approach with mixture, drift-flux, and full Eulerian models, and includes open-sourced interfacial transfer correlations for drag, exchange, and heat transfer coming from the scientific literature. OpenPronghorn's modular design allows it to handle multiscale simulations, ranging from detailed Reynolds-Averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) simulations to coarse-mesh and lumped parameter models. This flexibility enables users to perform high-fidelity simulations of specific reactor components as well as system-level analyses of entire reactor circuits. The code can be coupled with other MOOSE-based tools using the MultiApp system, allowing for the transfer of coupling quantities such as mass flow rates, heat fluxes, and boundary conditions between different simulation scales. One of the main features of OpenPronghorn is the it includes built-in validation cases from the open-source scientific literature and supports the implementation of user-defined models and correlations through MOOSE's FunctorMaterial system. OpenPronghorn is designed to be computationally efficient, leveraging the SIMPLE projection method for large-scale problems, and can be run on high-performance computing systems to handle the extensive computational demands of detailed reactor simulations. Overall, OpenPronghorn is a versatile and robust tool that provides critical insights into the thermal-hydraulic behavior of advanced nuclear reactors, supporting the design, safety, and optimization of next-generation nuclear energy systems.

Retamales, Mauricio Eduardo Tano [Idaho National L↗

Validation of the Pulmonary Function System for Use on the International Space Station

Aerobic deconditioning occurs during long duration space flight despite the use of exercise countermeasures (Convertino, 1996). As a part of International Space Station (ISS) medical operations, periodic tests designed to estimate aerobic capacity are performed to track changes in aerobic fitness and to determine the effectiveness of exercise countermeasures. These tests are performed prior to, during, and after missions of greater than 30 days in duration. Crewmembers selected for missions aboard the ISS perform a graded exercise test on a cycle ergometer approximately 270 days prior to their scheduled launch date in order to measure peak oxygen consumption (VO2PK) and peak heart rate (HRpk). Approximately 30 to 45 days prior to launch, crewmembers perform a submaximal cycle ergometer test at work rates set to elicit 25, 50 and 75% of their pre-flight VO2PK. This test, known as the Periodic Fitness Evaluation (PFE), serves as a baseline measure to which subsequent in-and post-flight exercise tests are compared. While onboard the ISS, crewmembers are normally scheduled to perform the PFE beginning with flight day (FD) 14 and every 30 days thereafter. The PFE is also conducted 5 and 30 days following flight. Using PFE data, aerobic fitness is estimated by quantifying the VO2 vs. HR relationship using linear regression and calculating the VO2 that would occur at the crewmember s previously measured HRpk. Currently, for data collected during flight, this technique assumes that the pre- vs. in-flight oxygen consumption per given cycle workload is similar. However, the validity of this assumption is based upon a sparse amount of data collected during the Skylab era (Michel, et al. 1977). The method of using heart rate and cycle ergometer work rates has been used to estimate aerobic fitness in normal gravity (Astrand and Ryhming, 1954; Lee, 1993). Due to spaceflight induced physiological alterations, such as shifts in extracellular fluid (e.g. plasma) volume, this method may not be valid during space flight. In addition, the ergometer onboard ISS is vibration-isolated and moves with the astronaut s application of force into the pedals. The effect of this movement on the VO2 of cycle exercise on ISS has not been quantified.

McCleary, Frank A.↗

Non-Diffusive Volume Advection with A High Order Interface Reconstruction Method

We show that non-diffusive volume advection in two-dimensions is achieved with several benchmark problems using a newly developed high-order volume of fluids (VOF) interface reconstruction method. (1) A new VOF interface reconstruction method using circular/corner facets (linear facets are a degenerate case of arcs). We create a circular interface facet in each mixed zone by matching neighbor volume with a hybrid Newton’s-bisection method and the local solution is final. In the general case, the new VOF interface reconstruction has 3rd order accuracy and can be easily made seamless. The new method addresses intrinsic issues with Young’s method such as gaps between interface facets in the case of a curved interface, and inability to define curvature nor identify corners. (2) A non-diffusive volume advection scheme. In an ALE advection step, a well-defined interface can be carried over through a Lagrange step and used to compute volume distribution into a relaxed mesh. Then, an interface reconstruction step is performed to redefine the interface in the relaxed mesh. We must point out that the interface carried over is also a solution of interface reconstruction because all the volume fractions in the relaxed mesh are naturally matched. We provide an interface tracking method compatible with our reconstruction scheme, where it is granted to use the prior info as an initial guess to capture sub-mesh resolution features. As a result, we are able to treat multiple facets inside a single mixed cell and obtain highly accurate, non-diffusive solution for advection problems with rather coarse meshes. We show our solutions for two-dimensional incompressible flows with two materials with a) the X + O diagonal translation; b) the Zalesak rotational test; and c) the single vortex spiral test.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Body Fluids Monitor

Method and apparatus are described for determining volumes of body fluids in a subject using bioelectrical response spectroscopy. The human body is represented using an electrical circuit. Intra-cellular water is represented by a resistor in series with a capacitor; extra-cellular water is represented by a resistor in series with two parallel inductors. The parallel inductors represent the resistance due to vascular fluids. An alternating, low amperage, multifrequency signal is applied to determine a subject's impedance and resistance. From these data, statistical regression is used to determine a 1% impedance where the subject's impedance changes by no more than 1% over a 25 kHz interval. Circuit component, of the human body circuit are determined based on the 1% impedance. Equations for calculating total body water, extra-cellular water, total blood volume, and plasma volume are developed based on the circuit components.

Siconolfi, Steven F.↗

CFD simulations of electric motor end ring cooling for improved thermal management

Proper thermal management of an electric motor for vehicle applications extends its operating range. One cooling approach is to impinge Automatic Transmission Fluid (ATF) onto the rotor end ring. Increased ATF coverage correlates to enhanced heat transfer. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analytical tools provide a mechanism to assess motor thermal management prior to hardware fabrication. The complexity of the fluid flow (e.g., jet atomization, interface tracking, wall impingement) and heat transfer makes these simulations challenging. Computational costs are high when solving these flows on high-speed rotating meshes. Typically, a Volume-of Fluid (VOF) technique (i.e., two-fluid system) is used to resolve ATF dynamics within this rotating framework. Suitable numerical resolution of the relevant physics for thin films under strong inertial forces at high rotor speeds is computationally expensive, further increasing the run times. In this work, a numerical study of rotor-ring cooling by ATF is presented using a patent automated Cartesian cut-cell based method coupled with Automatic Mesh Refinement (AMR). This approach automatically creates the Cartesian mesh on-the-fly and can effectively handle complex rotating geometries by adaptively refining the mesh based on local gradients in the flow field which results in better resolution of the air-ATF interface. A Single non-inertial Reference Frame (SRF) approach is used to account for the rotating geometry and to further improve the overall computational efficiency. Quasi-steady state conditions are targeted in the analysis of the results. Important physics such as ATF jet structure, velocity detail near the air-jet interface, ATF coverage/accumulation on the ring surface, and cooling capacity are presented for a low-resolution Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS), high-resolution RANS, and high-resolution Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) models. Computations are scaled over hundreds of cores on a supercomputer to maximize turnaround time. Each numerical approach is shown to capture the general trajectory of the oil jet prior to surface impingement. The high-resolution LES simulation, however, is superior in capturing small scale details and heat transfer between the free jet and surrounding air.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Portable Data-Parallel Surface Reconstruction on a Uniform Rectilinear Grid

With the increasing heterogeneity and on-node parallelism of high-performance computing hardware, a major challenge is to develop portable and efficient algorithms and software. In this work, we present our implementation of a portable code to perform surface reconstruction using NVIDIA's Thrust library. Surface reconstruction is a technique commonly used in volume tracking methods for simulations of multimaterial flow with interfaces. Here, we have designed a 3D mesh data structure that is easily mapped to the 1D vectors used by Thrust and at the same time is simple to use and uses familiar data structure terminology (such as cells, faces, vertices, and edges). With this new data structure in place, we have implemented a piecewise linear interface reconstruction algorithm in 3 dimensions that effectively exploits the symmetry present in a uniform rectilinear computational cell. Finally, we report performance results, which show that a single implementation of these algorithms can be compiled to multiple backends (specifically, multi-core CPUs, NVIDIA GPUs, and Intel Xeon Phi processors), making efficient use of the available parallelism on each. We also compare performance of our implementation to a legacy FORTRAN implementation in Message Passing Interface (MPI) and show performance parity on single and multi-core CPU and achieved good parallel speed-ups on GPU. In conclusion, our research demonstrates the advantage of performance portability of the underlying data-parallel programming model.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Identifying and tracking bubbles and drops in simulations: A toolbox for obtaining sizes, lineages, and breakup and coalescence statistics

Knowledge of bubble and drop size distributions in two-phase flows is important for characterizing a wide range of phenomena, including combustor ignition, sonar communication, and cloud formation. The physical mechanisms driving the background flow also drive the time evolution of these distributions. Accurate and robust identification and tracking algorithms for the dispersed phase are necessary to reliably measure this evolution and thereby quantify the underlying mechanisms in interface-resolving flow simulations. The identification of individual bubbles and drops traditionally relies on an algorithm used to identify connected regions. This traditional algorithm can be sensitive to the presence of spurious structures. A cost-effective refinement is proposed to maximize volume accuracy while minimizing the identification of spurious bubbles and drops. An accurate identification scheme is crucial for distinguishing bubble and drop pairs with large size ratios. The identified bubbles and drops need to be tracked in time to obtain breakup and coalescence statistics that characterize the evolution of the size distribution, including breakup and coalescence frequencies, and the probability distributions of parent and child bubble and drop sizes. An algorithm based on mass conservation is proposed to construct bubble and drop lineages using simulation snapshots that are not necessarily from consecutive time steps. These lineages are then used to detect breakup and coalescence events, and obtain the desired statistics. Accurate identification of large-size-ratio bubble and drop pairs enables accurate detection of breakup and coalescence events over a large size range. Accurate detection of successive breakup and coalescence events requires that the snapshot interval be an order of magnitude smaller than the characteristic breakup and coalescence times to capture these successive events while minimizing the identification of repeated confounding events. Together, these algorithms serve as a toolbox for detailed analysis of two-phase simulations, and enable insights into the mechanisms behind bubble and drop formation and evolution in flows of practical importance.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Performance-portable Binary Neutron Star Mergers with AthenaK

We introduce an extension to the AthenaK code for general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamics (GRMHD) in dynamical spacetimes using a 3+1 conservative Eulerian formulation. Like the fixed-spacetime GRMHD solver, we use standard finite-volume methods to evolve the fluid and a constrained-transport scheme to preserve the divergence-free constraint for the magnetic field. We also utilize a first-order flux correction (FOFC) scheme to reduce the need for an artificial atmosphere and optionally enforce a maximum principle to improve robustness. We demonstrate the accuracy of AthenaK using a set of standard tests in flat and curved spacetimes. Using a SANE accretion disk around a Kerr black hole, we compare the new solver to the existing solver for stationary spacetimes using the so-called "HARM-like" formulation. We find that both formulations converge to similar results. We also include the first published binary neutron star (BNS) mergers performed on graphical processing units (GPUs). Thanks to the FOFC scheme, our BNS mergers maintain a relative error of $\mathcal{O}$(10 –11 ) or better in baryon mass conservation up to collapse. Finally, we perform scaling tests of AthenaK on OLCF Frontier, where we show excellent weak scaling of ≥80% efficiency up to 32,768 GPUs and 74% up to 65,536 GPUs for a GRMHD problem in dynamical spacetimes with six levels of mesh refinement. AthenaK achieves an order-of-magnitude speedup using GPUs compared to CPUs, demonstrating that it is suitable for performing numerical relativity problems on modern exascale resources.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

A higher order approximate static condensation method for multi-material diffusion problems

The paper studies an approximate static condensation method for the diffusion problem with discontinuous diffusion coefficients. The method allows for a general polygonal mesh which is unfitted to the material interfaces. Moreover, the interfaces can be discontinuous across the mesh edges as typical for numerical reconstructions using the volume or moment-of-fluid methods. We apply a mimetic finite difference method to solve local diffusion problems and use P 1 (mortar) edge elements to couple local problems into the global system. The condensation process and the properties of the resulting algebraic system are discussed. It is demonstrated that the method is second order accurate on smooth solutions and performs well for problems with high contrast in diffusion coefficients. Experiments also show the robustness with respect to position of the material interfaces against the underlying mesh.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

A monotonicity preserving conservative sharp interface flow solver for high density ratio two-phase flows

This paper presents a novel approach for solving the conservative form of the incompressible two-phase Navier–Stokes equations. In order to overcome the numerical instability induced by the potentially large density ratio encountered across the interface, the proposed method includes a Volume-of-Fluid type integration of the convective momentum transport, a monotonicity preserving momentum rescaling, and a consistent and conservative Ghost Fluid projection that includes surface tension effects. The numerical dissipation inherent in the Volume-of-Fluid treatment of the convective transport is localized in the interface vicinity, enabling the use of a kinetic energy conserving discretization away from the singularity. Two- and three-dimensional tests are presented, and the solutions shown to remain accurate at arbitrary density ratios. The proposed method is then successfully used to perform the detailed simulation of a round water jet emerging in quiescent air, therefore suggesting the applicability of the proposed algorithm to the computation of realistic turbulent atomization.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Effects of fuel viscosity on the primary breakup dynamics of a high-speed liquid jet with comparison to X-ray radiography

One of the major concerns in combustion engines is the sensitivity of engine performance to fuel prop- erties. Recent works have shown that even slight differences in fuel properties can cause significant changes in performance and emission of an engine. In order to design the combustion engines with multi-fuel flexi- bilities, the precise assessment of fuel sensitivity on liquid jet atomization process is a prerequisite since the resulting fuel/air mixture is critical to the subsequent combustion process. The present study is focusing on the effect of physical fuel properties, mostly viscosity difference, on the breakup process of the liquid jet injected into still air. Two different jet fuels, CAT-A2 and CAT-C3, are considered here as surrogates for a fossil-based fuel and a bio-derived high-viscosity alternative fuel. The simulations are performed using the volume-of-fluid (VoF) interface tracking method coupled to Lagrangian particle method in order to capture the breakup instabilities of jets and the resulting droplets. The investigations take the actual geometry of the injector into account to resolve the unsteady flow phenomena inside the nozzle that impact the turbu- lence transition and atomization. The simulation results are compared to the experimental measurement using X-ray radiography. Both simulation and X-ray measurements consistently describe the effects of different fuels on the fundamental properties of atomization including the breakup length, transverse liquid volume fraction and the droplet sauter-mean-diameter. The application of a Detailed Numerical Simulation approach complemented by unique X-ray diagnostics is novel and providing new understanding and research directions in engine spray dynamics

Breakup instability↗

Spray Combustion Modeling with VOF and Finite-Rate Chemistry

A spray atomization and combustion model is developed based on the volume-of-fluid (VOF) transport equation with finite-rate chemistry model. The gas-liquid interface mass, momentum and energy conservation laws are modeled by continuum surface force mechanisms. A new solution method is developed such that the present VOF model can be applied for all-speed range flows. The objectives of the present study are: (1) to develop and verify the fractional volume-of-fluid (VOF) cell partitioning approach into a predictor-corrector algorithm to deal with multiphase (gas-liquid) free surface flow problems; (2) to implement the developed unified algorithm in a general purpose computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code, Finite Difference Navier-Stokes (FDNS), with droplet dynamics and finite-rate chemistry models; and (3) to demonstrate the effectiveness of the present approach by simulating benchmark problems of jet breakup/spray atomization and combustion. Modeling multiphase fluid flows poses a significant challenge because a required boundary must be applied to a transient, irregular surface that is discontinuous, and the flow regimes considered can range from incompressible to highspeed compressible flows. The flow-process modeling is further complicated by surface tension, interfacial heat and mass transfer, spray formation and turbulence, and their interactions. The major contribution of the present method is to combine the novel feature of the Volume of Fluid (VOF) method and the Eulerian/Lagrangian method into a unified algorithm for efficient noniterative, time-accurate calculations of multiphase free surface flows valid at all speeds. The proposed method reformulated the VOF equation to strongly couple two distinct phases (liquid and gas), and tracks droplets on a Lagrangian frame when spray model is required, using a unified predictor-corrector technique to account for the non-linear linkages through the convective contributions of VOF. The discontinuities within the sharp interface will be modeled as a volume force to avoid stiffness. Formations of droplets, tracking of droplet dynamics and modeling of the droplet breakup/evaporation, are handled through the same unified predictor-corrector procedure. Thus the new algorithm is non-iterative and is flexible for general geometries with arbitrarily complex topology in free surfaces. The FDNS finite-difference Navier-Stokes code is employed as the baseline of the current development. Benchmark test cases of shear coaxial LOX/H2 liquid jet with atomization/combustion and impinging jet test cases are investigated in the present work. Preliminary data comparisons show good qualitative agreement between data and the present analysis. It is indicative from these results that the present method has great potential to become a general engineering design analysis and diagnostics tool for problems involving spray combustion.

Chen, Yen-Sen↗

Adaptive clipping‐and‐redistribution algorithms for bounded and conservative high‐order interpolations applied to discontinuous and reactive flows

Abstract A new adaptive clipping‐and‐redistribution method is presented which provides bounds‐preservation for multidimensional interpolation in the context of high‐order finite‐volume discretizations with adaptive mesh refinement (AMR). The underlying finite‐volume method (FVM) for the computational fluid dynamics applications is fourth‐order accurate for smooth solutions and utilizes AMR for computational efficiency in solving multiscale problems involving turbulence and combustion. High‐order interpolation between different AMR levels is required. However, this operation often leads to numerical issues because combustion species must have physical bounds preserved. The present study overcomes two major challenges in the development of the high‐order interpolation method. First, the method needs to be bound‐preserving near extrema or discontinuities to prevent the emergence of unphysical oscillations while maintaining fourth‐order accuracy in smooth flows. Second, the method needs to satisfy the conservation requirement in multiple dimensions, particularly in the context of curvilinear coordinate transformations. Additionally, the method is designed to be localized and computationally inexpensive. The new interpolation scheme is demonstrated by solving reacting flows, which are extremely sensitive to unphysical overshoots in conserved quantities. The test problems are shock‐induced ‐ combustion and a ‐air flame in a practical bluff‐body combustor. Results show the method prevents new extrema near discontinuities while maintaining high‐order accuracy in smooth regions. In particular, the method is extremely beneficial for combustion with stiff chemistry. With the proposed new method, even if flame fronts cross AMR interfaces or new grids are created in the vicinity of the flame, solution stability is retained.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Numerical comparison of bubbling in a waste glass melter

Radioactive tank waste is scheduled for vitrification at the Hanford Tank Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant, also known as the Vit Plant, being constructed at the Hanford Site. Testing of the pilot-scale, joule-heated DuraMelter 1200 at the Vitreous State Laboratory has shown that bubbling increases the melt rate, and as a result, melter throughput. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models of this pilot-scale waste glass melter were developed to improve our understanding of the processes that occur within the melter to aid in process optimization and troubleshooting of the Vit Plant melters. Unfortunately, model validation is complicated by the difficulty of obtaining suitable experimental data for operational melters attributed to the large-scale, radioactivity and high temperatures at which these melters are operated. This study focuses on confirming the fidelity of the CFD models to accurately reproduce the bubbling behavior. Because of the paucity of experimental data at the resolution required for CFD validation, a code-to-code comparison was used to evaluate two common approaches for simulating flows of immiscible fluids on numerical grids and resolving multiphase interfaces. Here, the volume of fluid and level set methods are used to track the dynamically evolving interfaces between the molten glass and the air bubbles. To aid in the verification of the results of these codes, a comparison of the bubble behavior, growth, and frequency of bubble generation are presented and a grid convergence study is performed for the two approaches. In addition to comparing the numerical results to available experimental data and observations from pilot-scale testing, the results are evaluated in relation to laboratory experiments with bubbles injected into viscous fluids, empirical correlations obtained from the published literature, and the basic laws of fluid dynamics. Furthermore, the results of this work can assist in validating waste glass melter models and provide a better understanding of the flow patterns within the WTP melters.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

Effects of edge-rounding on geodesic lenses

A method that eliminates the need for a mathematical model is described for measuring the absolute light intensity radiated from volume chemiluminescent and fluorescent sources. This technique applies to a uniform cylindrical luminous volume, which is the geometry most often practical for the study of flowing chemiluminescent and fluorescent fluids. In this method, the necessary integration over a luminous volume is carried out experimentally, using a calibrated piston source that has as its head a disk of uniform luminosity. The relatively small total error in absolute light intensity measurements with the piston source technique represents a significant improvement over competing comparison methods. The construction of a piston source to fit the cross section of a particular cylindrical volume is straightforward, and its calibration against a standard source can be readily made while exercising normal precautions.

Wood, V. E.↗

Development of monitoring system of helium leakage from canister

This paper presents a computational method for the helium leakage from a canister. The governing equations for compressible fluids consist of mass conservation equation in Eulerian description, momentum equations and energy equation. The numerical procedures are divided into three phases, advection, diffusion and acoustic phases, and the equations of compressible fluids are discretized with a finite volume method. Thus, the mass conservation law is sufficiently satisfied in the calculation region. In particular, our computational method enables us to predict the change of the temperature distributions around the canister boundaries by calculating the governing equations for the compressible gas flows, which are leaked out from a slight crack on the canister boundary. In order to confirm the validity of our method, it was applied to the basic problem, 2-dimensional natural convection flows in a rectangular cavity. As a result, it was shown that the naturally convected flows can be reasonably simulated by our method. Furthermore, numerical experiments were conducted for the helium leakage from canister and we derived a close relationship between the inner pressure and the boundary temperature distributions.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗