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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 145 records · Page 8
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2018

Thermodynamic Functions and Electrical Resistivity of Fluid Lead in the Metal–Nonmetal Transition Range

A dynamic method is used to measure the thermodynamic functions and the electrical resistivity of fluid lead for a wide range of specific volume and pressure. The measurements errors have been reduced to a level comparable to those of stationary methods. It is found that the transition of the fluid from the metallic state to a nonmetallic state occurs when its specific volume increases 2.7 times relative to the normal value. In each individual experiment the transition occurred at almost a constant pressure, and was detected by the change in sign of the isochoric temperature coefficient of resistance determined for the entire series of the experiments. In the pressure range of 0.6–5 GPa, the specific volume at which the metal–nonmetal transition occurs is found to be independent of pressure, and therefore, the transition line is close to an isochore. For the whole range of states of fluid lead investigated here, the speed of sound and the Grüneisen coefficient have been determined.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2014

Improved Mobility Control for Carbon Dioxide (CO{sub 2}) Enhanced Oil Recovery Using Silica-Polymer-Initiator (SPI) Gels

SPI gels are multi-component silicate based gels for improving (areal and vertical) conformance in oilfield enhanced recovery operations, including water-floods and carbon dioxide (CO{sub 2}) floods, as well as other applications. SPI mixtures are like-water when pumped, but form light up to very thick, paste-like gels in contact with CO{sub 2}. When formed they are 3 to 10 times stronger than any gelled polyacrylamide gel now available, however, they are not as strong as cement or epoxy, allowing them to be washed / jetted out of the wellbore without drilling. This DOE funded project allowed 8 SPI field treatments to be performed in 6 wells (5 injection wells and 1 production well) in 2 different fields with different operators, in 2 different basins (Gulf Coast and Permian) and in 2 different rock types (sandstone and dolomite). Field A was in a central Mississippi sandstone that injected CO{sub 2} as an immiscible process. Field B was in the west Texas San Andres dolomite formation with a mature water-alternating-gas miscible CO{sub 2} flood. Field A treatments are now over 1 year old while Field B treatments have only 4 months data available under variable WAG conditions. Both fields had other operational events and well work occurring before/ during / after the treatments making definitive evaluation difficult. Laboratory static beaker and dynamic sand pack tests were performed with Ottawa sand and both fields’ core material, brines and crude oils to improve SPI chemistry, optimize SPI formulations, ensure SPI mix compatibility with field rocks and fluids, optimize SPI treatment field treatment volumes and methods, and ensure that strong gels set in the reservoir. Field quality control procedures were designed and utilized. Pre-treatment well (surface) injectivities ranged from 0.39 to 7.9 MMCF/psi. The SPI treatment volumes ranged from 20.7 cubic meters (m{sup 3}, 5460 gallons/ 130 bbls) to 691 m{sup 3} (182,658 gallons/ 4349 bbls). Various size and types of chemical/ water buffers before and after the SPI mix ensured that pre-gelled SPI mix got out into the formation before setting into a gel. SPI gels were found to be 3 to 10 times stronger than any commercially available cross-linked polyacrylamide gels based on Penetrometer and Bulk Gel Shear Testing. Because of SPI’s unique chemistry with CO{sub 2}, both laboratory and later field tests demonstrated that multiple, smaller volume SPI treatments maybe more effective than one single large SPI treatment. CO{sub 2} injectivities in injection well in both fields were reduced by 33 to 70% indicating that injected CO{sub 2} is now going into new zones. This reduction has lasted 1+ year in Field A. Oil production increased and CO{sub 2} production decreased in 5 Field A production wells, offsets to Well #1 injector, for a total of about 2,250 m{sup 3} (600,000 gallons/ 14,250 bbls) of incremental oil production- a $140 / SPI bbl return. Treated marginal production well, Field A Well #2, immediately began showing increased oil production totaling 238 m{sup 3} (63,000 gallons/ 1500 BBLs) over 1 year and an immediate 81% reduced gas-oil ratio.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗
NASA NTRS2011

Network Flow Simulation of Fluid Transients in Rocket Propulsion Systems

Fluid transients, also known as water hammer, can have a significant impact on the design and operation of both spacecraft and launch vehicle propulsion systems. These transients often occur at system activation and shutdown. The pressure rise due to sudden opening and closing of valves of propulsion feed lines can cause serious damage during activation and shutdown of propulsion systems. During activation (valve opening) and shutdown (valve closing), pressure surges must be predicted accurately to ensure structural integrity of the propulsion system fluid network. In the current work, a network flow simulation software (Generalized Fluid System Simulation Program) based on Finite Volume Method has been used to predict the pressure surges in the feed line due to both valve closing and valve opening using two separate geometrical configurations. The valve opening pressure surge results are compared with experimental data available in the literature and the numerical results compared very well within reasonable accuracy (< 5%) for a wide range of inlet-to-initial pressure ratios. A Fast Fourier Transform is preformed on the pressure oscillations to predict the various modal frequencies of the pressure wave. The shutdown problem, i.e. valve closing problem, the simulation results are compared with the results of Method of Characteristics. Most rocket engines experience a longitudinal acceleration, known as "pogo" during the later stage of engine burn. In the shutdown example problem, an accumulator has been used in the feed system to demonstrate the "pogo" mitigation effects in the feed system of propellant. The simulation results using GFSSP compared very well with the results of Method of Characteristics.

Bandyopadhyay, Alak↗
NASA NTRS1991

Failure detection of liquid cooled electronics in sealed packages

The theory and experimental verification of a method of detecting fluid-mass loss, expansion-chamber pressure loss, or excessive vapor build-up in NASA's Airborne Information Management System (AIMS) are presented. The primary purpose of this leak-detection method is to detect the fluid-mass loss before the volume of vapor on the liquid side causes a temperature-critical part to be out of the liquid. The method detects the initial leak after the first 2.5 pct of the liquid mass has been lost, and it can be used for detecting subsequent situations including the leaking of air into the liquid chamber and the subsequent vapor build-up.

Hoadley, A. W.↗
DOE OSTI2021

Nuclear reactors including heat exchangers and heat pipes extending from a core of the nuclear reactor into the heat exchanger and related methods

A nuclear reactor including a reactor core comprising a plurality of fuel materials and a plurality of heat pipes. The nuclear reactor further includes a heat exchanger coupled to the reactor core defining a flow path in an open volume including at least two heat pipes of the plurality of heat pipes. Methods of operating a nuclear reactor include passing fluid through an open volume in a heat exchanger including at least two heat pipes extending from a reactor core.

McKellar, Michael G.↗
DOE OSTI2016

2016 KIVA-hpFE Development: A Robust and Accurate Engine Modeling Software

Los Alamos National Laboratory and its collaborators are facilitating engine modeling by improving accuracy and robustness of the modeling, and improving the robustness of software. We also continue to improve the physical modeling methods. We are developing and implementing new mathematical algorithms, those that represent the physics within an engine. We provide software that others may use directly or that they may alter with various models e.g., sophisticated chemical kinetics, different turbulent closure methods or other fuel injection and spray systems.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2013

Flow and axial dispersion in a sinusoidal-walled tube: Effects of inertial and unsteady flows

Dispersion in porous media flows has been the subject of much experimental, theoretical and numerical study. Here we consider a wavy-walled tube (a three-dimensional tube with sinusoidally-varying diameter) as a simplified conceptualization of flow in porous media, where constrictions represent pore throats and expansions pore bodies. A theoretical model for effective (macroscopic) longitudinal dispersion in this system has been developed by volume averaging the microscale velocity field. Direct numerical simulation using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods was used to compute velocity fields by solving the Navier-Stokes equations, and also to numerically solve the volume averaging closure problem, for a range of Reynolds numbers (Re) spanning the low-Re to inertial flow regimes, including one simulation at Re = 449 for which unsteady flow was observed. Dispersion values were computed using both the volume averaging solution and a random walk particle tracking method, and results of the two methods were shown to be consistent. Our results are compared to experimental measurements of dispersion in porous media and to previous theoretical results for the low-Re, Stokes flow regime. In the steady inertial regime we observe an power-law increase in effective longitudinal dispersion (DL) with Re, consistent with previous results. This rapid rate of increase is caused by trapping of solute in expansions due to flow separation (eddies). For the unsteady case (Re = 449), the rate of increase of DL with Re was smaller than that observed at lower Re. Velocity fluctuations in this regime lead to increased rates of solute mass transfer between the core flow and separated flow regions, thus diminishing the amount of tailing caused by solute trapping in eddies and thereby reducing longitudinal dispersion.

CFD↗
NASA NTRS2013

High-Order Methods for Computational Fluid Dynamics: A Brief Review of Compact Differential Formulations on Unstructured Grids

Popular high-order schemes with compact stencils for Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) include Discontinuous Galerkin (DG), Spectral Difference (SD), and Spectral Volume (SV) methods. The recently proposed Flux Reconstruction (FR) approach or Correction Procedure using Reconstruction (CPR) is based on a differential formulation and provides a unifying framework for these high-order schemes. Here we present a brief review of recent developments for the FR/CPR schemes as well as some pacing items.

Huynh, H. T.↗
DOE OSTI2019

A Forward Time Stepping Heat Conduction Model for Spot Melt Additive Manufacturing

Solidification dynamics are crucial for determining microstructure development in additively manufactured parts. Multiphysics models based on finite element or finite volume methods may help gain insight for complicated phenomena such as fluid flow, keyholing, and porosity but are too computationally expensive to use for simulating actual builds. Recent analytic and semi-analytic solutions for moving heat sources in a semi-infinite three-dimensional space provide a way to accurately estimate the solidification conditions for entire builds. The downside to these methods is that, unlike finite element or finite volume methods, they cannot use the temperature distribution of the previous timesteps to march the solution forward in time. This paper provides the mathematical formulation and implementation of a forward time stepping (FTS) approach to an existing semi-analytic solution. The speed and accuracy of the two methods are then compared for various scan patterns. The result is that, for spot melts, the forward time-stepping model provides improvements in both speed and accuracy. This is especially true for longer simulations, where the simulation can be orders of magnitude faster. Finally, the longest simulation analyzed in this paper was roughly 30× faster when using the forward time-stepping model versus the straightforward implementation of the semi-analytic solution.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
NASA NTRS1974

Unified method for serial study of body fluid compartments

Methods for the simultaneous determination of equilibrium space of I-125/RISA(radio-iodinated serum albumin) (plasma volume), Cr-51 red cell mass, Br-82 space (extracellular fluid volume), and tritiated water space (total body water) are described. Determinations were made on two occasions separated by a 1 week interval in 43 healthy young men who were on a strict metabolic diet. Hourly samples were taken for 6 hours after injection of the radionuclides. Correlation of these values to the inscribed exponential disappearance curve was high. In 15 subjects, earlier and more-frequent sampling led to no improvement in the accuracy of estimation of the I-125/RISA space. Use of this method gave results in 12 subjects for Br-82 space and in 11 subjects for tritiated water space which were not significantly different from those obtained by correction for urine loss.

Spears, C. P.↗
DOE OSTI2023

Revisiting the empirical particle-fluid coupling model used in DEM-CFD by high-resolution DEM-LBM-IMB simulations: A 2D perspective

The work investigates the applicability of the unresolved Computational Fluid Dynamics and Discrete Element Method (CFDDEM) technique based on empirical equations for fluid-particle coupling. We first carry out a series of representative volume element simulations using the high-resolution particle-resolved Lattice Boltzmann method and Discrete Element Method (LBMDEM) coupled by an Immersed Moving Boundary (IMB) scheme. Then, we compare the results obtained by both LBMDEM and empirical equations used in unresolved CFDDEM with analytical solutions. It is found that the existing empirical equations used in solving fluid-particle interactions in 2D CFDDEM fail to accurately calculate the hydrodynamic force applied to solid particles. The underlying reason is that the existing empirical models are obtained based on 3D experimental results and thus are not applicable to 2D problems. Based on the simulation results, a new drag coefficient model is then proposed. The estimated drag forces using the new model are compared favourably with the simulated ones, indicating the good performance of the proposed model.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2018

XMOF2D

XMOF2D is a library implementing the X-MOF (eXtended Moments of Fluid) interface reconstruction method on unstructured polygonal meshes with convex cells. Given a computational mesh with multi-material cells, for which volume fractions and centroids of contained materials are provided, piecewise linear material interfaces are constructed inside such cells using the Moment-of-Fluid (MOF) method. Additionally, a hierarchical mesh is created, where every multi-material cell of the computational mesh contains a local mesh with fully established local topology, as well as the parentage information to relate mesh entities from the local and the computational meshes.

Kikinzon, Eugene↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Numerical Analysis of Cavitation-Induced Two-Phase Fluid Transients in Cryogenic Feedlines Using Finite Volume Procedure

This article presents a numerical investigation of the cavitation induced fluid transient in cryogenic feedline due to sudden closure of the valve A one dimensional numerical model based on finite volume procedure consisting of nodes and branches using Generalized Fluid System Simulation Program ( has been employed for the prediction of pressure variations The unsteady friction formulation accurately determines wall shear stress, and a homogeneous mixture model is used for two phase flow modeling Numerical results obtained with the present formulation are compared with experimental results and Method of Characteristic ( based results It is observed that low residual in flow variable calculation improves the solution providing numerically stable results GFSSP is able to reproduce the fluid transient peak due to vapor collapse Subsequently, it can retain the shape of pressure wave for two phase fluid transients, but it is dampening faster compared to experiments Further investigation is required with set of experiments to validate the present numerical approach for different experimental data.

Fluid Transient↗
NASA NTRS2007

Robustness of Modeling of Out-of-Service Gas Mechanical Face Seal

Gas lubricated mechanical face seal are ubiquitous in many high performance applications such as compressors and gas turbines. The literature contains various analyses of seals having orderly face patterns (radial taper, waves, spiral grooves, etc.). These are useful for design purposes and for performance predictions. However, seals returning from service (or from testing) inevitably contain wear tracks and warped faces that depart from the aforementioned orderly patterns. Questions then arise as to the heat generated at the interface, leakage rates, axial displacement and tilts, minimum film thickness, contact forces, etc. This work describes an analysis of seals that may inherit any (i.e., random) face pattern. A comprehensive computer code is developed, based upon the Newton- Raphson method, which solves for the equilibrium of the axial force and tilting moments that are generated by asperity contact and fluid film effects. A contact mechanics model is incorporated along with a finite volume method that solves the compressible Reynolds equation. Results are presented for a production seal that has sustained a testing cycle.

Green, Itzhak↗
DOE OSTI2024

Cost-efficient finite-volume high-order schemes for compressible magnetohydrodynamics

We present an efficient dimension-by-dimension finite-volume method which solves the adiabatic magnetohydrodynamics equations at high discretization order, using the constrained-transport approach on Cartesian grids. Results are presented up to tenth order of accuracy. The algorithmic architecture of this method is very close to that of commonly employed second-order schemes: it requires only one reconstructed value per face for each computational cell, independently of the scheme's order. This property is highly beneficial for the numerical efficiency. It results from reusing the required values already available in neighboring grid cells, in contrast to standard algorithms that require a number of reconstructions and evaluations which increases with the scheme's order of accuracy. At a given resolution, these high-order schemes present significantly less numerical dissipation than commonly employed lower-order approaches. Thus, results of comparable accuracy are achievable at a substantially coarser resolution, yielding overall performance gains. We also present a way to include physical dissipative terms: viscosity, magnetic diffusivity and cooling functions, respecting the finite-volume and constrained-transport frameworks. Benefits of this method are shown through applications in turbulent flows.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
NASA NTRS2013

A Non-Cut Cell Immersed Boundary Method for Use in Icing Simulations

This paper describes a computational fluid dynamic method used for modelling changes in aircraft geometry due to icing. While an aircraft undergoes icing, the accumulated ice results in a geometric alteration of the aerodynamic surfaces. In computational simulations for icing, it is necessary that the corresponding geometric change is taken into consideration. The method used, herein, for the representation of the geometric change due to icing is a non-cut cell Immersed Boundary Method (IBM). Computational cells that are in a body fitted grid of a clean aerodynamic geometry that are inside a predicted ice formation are identified. An IBM is then used to change these cells from being active computational cells to having properties of viscous solid bodies. This method has been implemented in the NASA developed node centered, finite volume computational fluid dynamics code, FUN3D. The presented capability is tested for two-dimensional airfoils including a clean airfoil, an iced airfoil, and an airfoil in harmonic pitching motion about its quarter chord. For these simulations velocity contours, pressure distributions, coefficients of lift, coefficients of drag, and coefficients of pitching moment about the airfoil's quarter chord are computed and used for comparison against experimental results, a higher order panel method code with viscous effects, XFOIL, and the results from FUN3D's original solution process. The results of the IBM simulations show that the accuracy of the IBM compares satisfactorily with the experimental results, XFOIL results, and the results from FUN3D's original solution process.

Sarofeen, Christian M.↗
NASA NTRS1982

Turbofan forced mixer-nozzle internal flowfield. Volume 2: Computational fluid dynamic predictions

A general program was conducted to develop and assess a computational method for predicting the flow properties in a turbofan forced mixed duct. The detail assessment of the resulting computer code is presented. It was found that the code provided excellent predictions of the kinematics of the mixing process throughout the entire length of the mixer nozzle. The thermal mixing process between the hot core and cold fan flows was found to be well represented in the low speed portion of the flowfield.

Werle, M. J.↗
NASA NTRS1995

TADS: A CFD-based turbomachinery and analysis design system with GUI. Volume 1: Method and results

The primary objective of this study was the development of a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) based turbomachinery airfoil analysis and design system, controlled by a graphical user interface (GUI). The computer codes resulting from this effort are referred to as the Turbomachinery Analysis and Design System (TADS). This document describes the theoretical basis and analytical results from the TADS system. TADS couples a throughflow solver (ADPAC) with a quasi-3D blade-to-blade solver (RVCQ3D) in an interactive package. Throughflow analysis capability was developed in ADPAC through the addition of blade force and blockage terms to the governing equations. A GUI was developed to simplify user input and automate the many tasks required to perform turbomachinery analysis and design. The coupling of various programs was done in a way that alternative solvers or grid generators could be easily incorporated into the TADS framework. Results of aerodynamic calculations using the TADS system are presented for a highly loaded fan, a compressor stator, a low-speed turbine blade, and a transonic turbine vane.

Topp, D. A.↗