Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “flow efficiency”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 1,315 records · Page 73
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1976

Cold-air annular-cascade investigation of aerodynamic performance of core-engine-cooled turbine vanes. 2: Pressure surface trailing edge ejection and split trailing edge ejection

The aerodynamic performance of two trailing edge ejection cooling configurations of a core-engine stator vane were experimentally determined in an ambient inlet-air full-annular cascade where three-dimensional effects could be obtained. The tests were conducted at the design mean-radius ideal aftermixed critical velocity ratio of 0.778. Overall vane aftermixed thermodynamic and primary efficiencies were obtained over a range of coolant flows to about 10 percent of the primary flow at a primary to coolant total temperature ratio of 1.0. The radial variation in efficiency and the circumferential and radial variations in vane-exit total pressure were determined. Comparisons are made with the solid (uncooled) vane.

Mclallin, K. L.↗
DOE OSTI2017

Using the Multilayer Free-Surface Flow Model to Solve Wave Problems

A method is presented for changing over from a single-layer shallow-water model to a multilayer model with hydrostatic pressure profile and, then, to a multilayer model with nonhydrostatic pressure profile. The method does not require complex procedures for solving the discrete Poisson’s equation and features high computation efficiency. The results of validating the algorithm against experimental data critical for the numerical dissipation of the numerical scheme are presented. Examples are considered.

42 ENGINEERING↗
NASA NTRS1990

Transient analysis of chilldown in a cryogenic transfer line

A numerical model was developed, with the SINDA'85/FLUINT program, for calculating the thermal and hydrodynamic transients that occur during the chilldown of a cryogenic transfer line, using a well documented test case to validate the modeling process. Using this model, a total of ten cases were analyzed to evaluate the effects of variable inlet valve position, inlet pressures, and the use of an internal flow liner to promote nucleate boiling. It was found that an efficient transfer line cooldown can be achieved if the inlet flow is throttled, to reduce the flow rate and quality, and an internal flow liner such as Teflon is used.

Martin, T.↗
NASA NTRS1979

Effect of steam addition on cycle performance of simple and recuperated gas turbines

Results are presented for the cycle efficiency and specific power of simple and recuperated gas turbine cycles in which steam is generated and used to increase turbine flow. Calculations showed significant improvements in cycle efficiency and specific power by adding steam. The calculations were made using component efficiencies and loss assumptions typical of stationary powerplants. These results are presented for a range of operating temperatures and pressures. Relative heat exchanger size and the water use rate are also examined.

Boyle, R. J.↗
DOE OSTI2020

Evaluating the Effect of Vane Trailing Edge Flow on Turbine Rim Sealing

Abstract Modern gas turbine development continues to move toward increased overall efficiency, driven in part by higher firing temperatures that point to a need for more cooling air to prevent catastrophic component failure. However, using additional cooling flow bled from the upstream compressor causes a corresponding detriment to overall efficiency. A primary candidate for cooling flow optimization is purge flow, which contributes to sealing the stator–rotor cavity and prevents ingestion of hot main gas path (MGP) flow into the wheelspace. Previous research has identified that the external main gas path flow physics play a significant role in driving rim seal ingestion. However, the potential impact of other cooling flow features on ingestion behavior, such as vane trailing edge (VTE) flow, is absent in the open literature. This paper presents experimental measurements of rim cavity cooling effectiveness collected from a one-stage turbine operating at engine-representative Reynolds and Mach numbers. Carbon dioxide (CO2) was used as a tracer gas in both the purge flow and vane trailing edge flow to investigate flow migration into and out of the wheelspace. Results show that the vane trailing edge flow does in fact migrate into the rim seal and that there is a superposition relationship between individual cooling flow contributions. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations using unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (URANS) were used to confirm VTE flow ingestion into the rim seal cavity. Radial and circumferential traverse surveys were performed to quantify cooling flow radial migration through the main gas path with and without vane trailing edge flow. The surveys confirmed that vane trailing edge flow is entrained into the wheelspace as purge flow is reduced. Local CO2 measurements also confirmed the presence of VTE flow deep in the wheelspace cavity.

Engineering↗
DOE OSTI2019

A Thermodynamic Model Toward the Comprehension of Ferrous Burden Softening and Melting Using FactSage Macro-Processing

The softening and melting properties of iron-bearing materials play a decisive role in the formation of the cohesive zone, which greatly affects blast furnace gas flow distribution and heat-transfer efficiency. To improve the understanding regarding the evolution of condensed phases during reduction, softening, and melting, a thermodynamic model has been developed using FactSage™ thermodynamic software and macro-processing. The model was constructed using a series of equilibrium stages and splitters to determine flow directions of streams and to consider kinetic inhibitions. For all iron-bearing materials studied, the methodology proposed for modeling was capable of obtaining reduction degrees in very good agreement to its experimental data. The evolution of solid phases was qualitatively comparable to the available literature, with Fayalite, Kirschsteinite, Melilite, and FeO as the main solid phases in equilibrium before slag formation. The comparison between the profiles of the calculated slag mass fraction and the experimental pressure drop showed a close relation between these properties. Moreover, the level of heterogeneity of each raw material may play a significant role in the interpretation of its results.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
NASA NTRS1990

ENSAERO - A multidisciplinary program for fluid/structural interaction studies of aerospace vehicles

A computational procedure is developed that uses a moving zonal grid concept to model complex flexible aerospace vehicles. The Euler/Navier-Stokes equations are used to model the flow, and computations are made using efficient methods based on both central and upwind schemes. The structure is represented by a finite element method which can model general aerospace vehicles. Provisions are made to accommodate other disciplines such as controls and thermal loads. The code is capable of computing unsteady flows on flexible wings with vortical flows. Adaptation of this procedure for parallel processing and validation for complete aerospace configurations is in progress.

Guruswamy, G. P.↗
DOE OSTI2015

Measurement and simulation of thermoelectric efficiency for single leg

Thermoelectric efficiency measurements were carried out on n-type bismuth telluride legs with the hot-side temperature at 100 and 150°C. The electric power and heat flow were measured individually. Water coolant was utilized to maintain the cold-side temperature and to measure heat flow out of the cold side. Leg length and vacuum pressure were studied in terms of temperature difference across the leg, open-circuit voltage, internal resistance, and heat flow. Finite-element simulation on thermoelectric generation was performed in COMSOL Multiphysics, by inputting two-side temperatures and thermoelectric material properties. The open-circuit voltage and resistance were in good agreement between the measurement and simulation. Much larger heat flows were found in measurements, since they were comprised of conductive, convective, and radiative contributions. Parasitic heat flow was measured in the absence of bismuth telluride leg, and the conductive heat flow was then available. Finally, the maximum thermoelectric efficiency was derived in accordance with the electric power and the conductive heat flow.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2017

Evaluating the Performance Envelope of Axial Flow HEPA Filter Designs - 17466

Nuclear grade high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters are routinely employed as the final control element in confinement ventilation systems. Approximately 6000 nuclear grade HEPA filters are purchased each year for use in the Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE/NNSA) complex. The traditional HEPA filter utilizes a pleated filter medium of fibrous glass that has been produced in a manner analogous to manufacturing paper. Containment ventilation systems are designed to condition the air-stream (temperature, relative humidity, moisture, particle size distribution of aerosols, and aerosol concentration) to levels and conditions that fibrous glass HEPA filters can handle. Axial Flow filters can be purchased with physical separators or embossed medium to maintain proper pleat geometry. Separator-less designs use media embossed with a corrugation pattern to retain pleat geometry. At least some versions of the separator-less filter packs have demonstrated unexpected and rapid failure under slightly elevated temperature and humidity conditions. The effects of age on HEPA filter performance have been a concern for at least two decades. A combination of physical evaluation of aged filter media and a review of filter failure records resulted in Appendix C of the Nuclear Air Cleaning Handbook (NACH), Determination of HEPA Filter Life. Mississippi State University is conducting studies to more clearly identify the operating envelope of separator and separator-less designs of ASME AG-1 Section FC axial flow HEPA filters under a set of generic design basis conditions. A parallel study is also being conducted to evaluate the effects of age on fibrous glass HEPA filters. Activities described in this paper have been conducted under Institute for Clean Energy Technology (ICET's) NQA-1 nuclear quality assurance program approved by DOE-EM. Testing meets the requirements of EM Quality Assurance Program (QAP) EM-QA-001, Rev. 1, June 11, 2012 that includes the applicable requirements of NQA-1-2008/2009a and DOE Order 414.1D. (authors)

07 ISOTOPE AND RADIATION SOURCES↗
NASA NTRS1986

Computation of three-dimensional, rotational flow through turbomachinery blade rows for improved aerodynamic design studies

The performance of a three dimensional computer code developed for predicting the flowfield in stationary and rotating turbomachinery blade rows is described in this study. The four stage Runge-Kutta numerical integration scheme is used for solving the governing flow equations and yields solution to the full, three dimensional, unsteady Euler equations in cylindrical coordinates. This method is fully explicit and uses the finite volume, time marching procedure. In order to demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of the code, steady solutions were obtained for several cascade geometries under widely varying flow conditions. Computed flowfield results are presented for a fully subsonic turbine stator and a low aspect ratio, transonic compressor rotor blade under maximum flow and peak efficiency design conditions. Comparisons with Laser Anemometer measurements and other numerical predictions are also provided to illustrate that the present method predicts important flow features with good accuracy and can be used for cost effective aerodynamic design studies.

Subramanian, S. V.↗
DOE OSTI2020

Time-Sequenced Flow Field Prediction in an Optima Spark-Ignition Direct-Injection Engine Using Bidirectional Recurrent Neural Network (bi-RNN) with Long Short-Term Memory

To further improve the energy conversion efficiency of internal combustion engine, the transient and complex air flow movement inside the cylinder needs to be better understood and controlled. Although the in-cylinder flow fields are highly stochastic with strong cycle-to-cycle fluctuations, machine learning can still provide an efficient way to learn and regress the complex flow movement process inside the cylinder. In this work, a bidirectional recurrent neural network (bi-RNN) model with long short-term memory was applied to predict the in-cylinder flow fields at different time steps using training data from mull-cycle particle image velocimetry (PIV) measurements. To evaluate the agreement between the true and predicted flow fields, structure and magnitude comparison indices are calculated both globally and locally. The comparison results show that the bi-RNN model can accurately predict the bulk flow and vortex motions from early intake stroke to compression stroke. This work demonstrates that the machine learning model has the potential to predict the underlying dynamics of the interaction between in-cylinder flows and provides a reliable way to improve temporal resolution in PIV flow data to better reveal transient in-cylinder flow features.

Bi-RNN model↗
DOE OSTI2018

Low-Dimensional Components of Flows With Large Free/Moving-Surface Motion

Flow systems with highly nonlinear free/moving surface motion are common in engineering applications, such as wave impact and fluid-structure interaction (FSI) problems. In order to reveal the dynamics of such flows, as well as provide a reduced-order modeling (ROM) for large-scale applications, we propose a proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) technique that couples the velocity flow field and the level-set function field, as well as a proper normalization for the snapshots data so that the low-dimensional components of the flow can be retrieved with a priori knowledge of equal distribution of the total variance between velocity and level-set function data. Through numerical examples of a sloshing problem and a water entry problem, we show that the low-dimensional components obtained provide an efficient and accurate approximation of the flow field. Moreover, we show that the velocity contour and orbits projected on the space of the reduced basis greatly facilitate understanding of the intrinsic dynamics of the flow systems.

Engineering↗
NASA NTRS1993

Multigrid methods for flow transition in three-dimensional boundary layers with surface roughness

The efficient multilevel adaptive method has been successfully applied to perform direct numerical simulations (DNS) of flow transition in 3-D channels and 3-D boundary layers with 2-D and 3-D isolated and distributed roughness in a curvilinear coordinate system. A fourth-order finite difference technique on stretched and staggered grids, a fully-implicit time marching scheme, a semi-coarsening multigrid method associated with line distributive relaxation scheme, and an improved outflow boundary-condition treatment, which needs only a very short buffer domain to damp all order-one wave reflections, are developed. These approaches make the multigrid DNS code very accurate and efficient. This allows us not only to be able to do spatial DNS for the 3-D channel and flat plate at low computational costs, but also to do spatial DNS for transition in the 3-D boundary layer with 3-D single and multiple roughness elements, which would have extremely high computational costs with conventional methods. Numerical results show good agreement with the linear stability theory, the secondary instability theory, and a number of laboratory experiments. The contribution of isolated and distributed roughness to transition is analyzed.

Liu, Chaoqun↗
DOE OSTI2025

Thermal Performance of Triply Periodic Minimal Surface Lattice Structures in Single-Phase Dielectric Fluid Cooling of Power Electronics

Additive manufacturing has transformed thermal management by enabling the production of complex, optimized geometries that conventional manufacturing methods cannot achieve. This study investigates the single-phase convective heat transfer performance of gyroid triply periodic minimal surface (TPMS) lattice structures with functional porosity. TPMS structures provide high surface area to volume ratios and are amenable to 3D printing. A gyroid numerical model was created and validated against an existing experimental study with a similar feature size to the investigated geometries. The TPMS structure has a periodic width of 1.6 mm, a length of 10 mm, and a height of 4 mm, with a functional porosity ranging from 0.5 to 0.8, decreasing with distance from the heated surface. Three different flow configurations were examined for an inlet fluid temperature of 70 °C. The inlet velocities range from 0.01 to 1.2 m/s, corresponding to a Reynolds number range of 10–900 with a heat flux of 50 W/cm 2 applied at the base. AmpCool ® AC-110 dielectric fluid (Prandtl number 59.5) was used as the coolant. Thermal performance and friction characteristics were studied for the three flow orientations. The parallel flow configuration was identified as the most efficient for heat removal. A detailed analysis of the numerical results highlights the underlying physics behind the thermal performance differences among the flow configurations.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗
NASA NTRS1989

Vortex-dominated conical-flow computations using unstructured adaptively-refined meshes

A conical Euler/Navier-Stokes algorithm is presented for the computation of vortex-dominated flows. The flow solver involves a multistage Runge-Kutta time stepping scheme which uses a finite-volume spatial discretization on an unstructured grid made up of triangles. The algorithm also employs an adaptive mesh refinement procedure which enriches the mesh locally to more accurately resolve the vortical flow features. Results are presented for several highly-swept delta wing and circular cone cases at high angles of attack and at supersonic freestream flow conditions. Accurate solutions were obtained more efficiently when adaptive mesh refinement was used in contrast with refining the grid globally. The paper presents descriptions of the conical Euler/Navier-Stokes flow solver and adaptive mesh refinement procedures along with results which demonstrate the capability.

Batina, John T.↗
DOE OSTI2020

Automotive fuel cell stack and system efficiency and fuel consumption based on vehicle testing on a chassis dynamometer at minus 18 °C to positive 35 °C temperatures

In this work we present an in-depth laboratory technology assessment of a 2016 Toyota Mirai Fuel Cell (FC) vehicle based on chassis dynamometer testing. The 114.6 kW FC stack has a high dynamic response, which makes this powertrain a FC-dominant hybrid electric vehicle. The measured peak efficiency is 66.0% FC stack and 63.7% FC system with an idle hydrogen flow rate of 4.39 g/hr. The high FC system efficiencies at low loads match typical vehicle power spectrums, resulting in a high average vehicle efficiency of 62% compared to 45% and 23% for a hybrid electric vehicle and a conventional vehicle, respectively. An energy breakdown accounts for the FC stack losses, FC system losses, air compressor loads, and heater loads for different drive cycles and different thermal conditions. The cold-start North American city drive cycle (UDDS) energy consumption values are, respectively, 758, 581, 226, and 321 Wh/km at ambient conditions of -18 degrees C, -7 degrees C, -25 degrees C and 35 degrees C with 850 W/m 2 of solar loading. The FC system shutdown and startup processes at temperatures below the freezing point contribute to the increased hydrogen consumption. Additionally, the raw test data files are available for download, thus providing the research community with a public reference data on a modern production automotive FC system.

08 HYDROGEN↗
NASA NTRS1972

Design and performance of an 0.8 hub-tip ratio axial flow pump rotor with a blade tip diffusion factor of 0.55

A 22.9-centimeter diameter axial flow rotor with a 0.8 hub-tip radius ratio, a design flow coefficient of 0.466, and a blade tip design diffusion factor of 0.55 was tested in cold water under both cavitating and noncavitating conditions. Radial surveys of the flow conditions at the rotor inlet and outlet were made. At design flow, the rotor produced an overall headrise coefficient of 0.360 with an overall efficiency of 95.0 percent. The efficiency remained greater than 88 percent over the entire flow coefficient range which varied from 0.350 to 0.615.

Urasek, D. C.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Three-dimensional simulation of a translating strut inlet

A three-dimensional Navier-Stokes code is used to numerically simulate the flow through a translating strut scramjet inlet. The inlet has variable geometry for efficient operation over a wide speed range. Overall flow-field features such as the corner flow, topwall separation, shockwave coalescence, cowl pressure increase, and flow distortion at the throat are investigated. Comparisons are made with experimental results to provide for the assessment of the present analysis. Effects of boundary-layer ingestion on the overall flow features are also investigated.

Singh, D. J.↗