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Description
The atomization of a liquid jet by a high speed cross-flowing gas has many applications such as gas turbines and augmentors. The mechanisms by which the liquid jet initially breaks up, however, are not well understood. Experimental studies suggest the dependence of spray properties on operating conditions and nozzle geom-

The atomization of a liquid jet by a high speed cross-flowing gas has many applications such as gas turbines and augmentors. The mechanisms by which the liquid jet initially breaks up, however, are not well understood. Experimental studies suggest the dependence of spray properties on operating conditions and nozzle geom- etry. Detailed numerical simulations can offer better understanding of the underlying physical mechanisms that lead to the breakup of the injected liquid jet. In this work, detailed numerical simulation results of turbulent liquid jets injected into turbulent gaseous cross flows for different density ratios is presented. A finite volume, balanced force fractional step flow solver to solve the Navier-Stokes equations is employed and coupled to a Refined Level Set Grid method to follow the phase interface. To enable the simulation of atomization of high density ratio fluids, we ensure discrete consistency between the solution of the conservative momentum equation and the level set based continuity equation by employing the Consistent Rescaled Momentum Transport (CRMT) method. The impact of different inflow jet boundary conditions on different jet properties including jet penetration is analyzed and results are compared to those obtained experimentally by Brown & McDonell(2006). In addition, instability analysis is performed to find the most dominant insta- bility mechanism that causes the liquid jet to breakup. Linear instability analysis is achieved using linear theories for Rayleigh-Taylor and Kelvin- Helmholtz instabilities and non-linear analysis is performed using our flow solver with different inflow jet boundary conditions.
ContributorsGhods, Sina (Author) / Herrmann, Marcus (Thesis advisor) / Squires, Kyle (Committee member) / Chen, Kangping (Committee member) / Huang, Huei-Ping (Committee member) / Tang, Wenbo (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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Description
The implications of a changing climate have a profound impact on human life, society, and policy making. The need for accurate climate prediction becomes increasingly important as we better understand these implications. Currently, the most widely used climate prediction relies on the synthesis of climate model simulations organized by the

The implications of a changing climate have a profound impact on human life, society, and policy making. The need for accurate climate prediction becomes increasingly important as we better understand these implications. Currently, the most widely used climate prediction relies on the synthesis of climate model simulations organized by the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP); these simulations are ensemble-averaged to construct projections for the 21st century climate. However, a significant degree of bias and variability in the model simulations for the 20th century climate is well-known at both global and regional scales. Based on that insight, this study provides an alternative approach for constructing climate projections that incorporates knowledge of model bias. This approach is demonstrated to be a viable alternative which can be easily implemented by water resource managers for potentially more accurate projections. Tests of the new approach are provided on a global scale with an emphasis on semiarid regional studies for their particular vulnerability to water resource changes, using both the former CMIP Phase 3 (CMIP3) and current Phase 5 (CMIP5) model archives. This investigation is accompanied by a detailed analysis of the dynamical processes and water budget to understand the behaviors and sources of model biases. Sensitivity studies of selected CMIP5 models are also performed with an atmospheric component model by testing the relationship between climate change forcings and model simulated response. The information derived from each study is used to determine the progressive quality of coupled climate models in simulating the global water cycle by rigorously investigating sources of model bias related to the moisture budget. As such, the conclusions of this project are highly relevant to model development and potentially may be used to further improve climate projections.
ContributorsBaker, Noel C (Author) / Huang, Huei-Ping (Thesis advisor) / Trimble, Steve (Committee member) / Anderson, James (Committee member) / Clarke, Amanda (Committee member) / Calhoun, Ronald (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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Description
The numerical climate models have provided scientists, policy makers and the general public, crucial information for climate projections since mid-20th century. An international effort to compare and validate the simulations of all major climate models is organized by the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP), which has gone through several phases

The numerical climate models have provided scientists, policy makers and the general public, crucial information for climate projections since mid-20th century. An international effort to compare and validate the simulations of all major climate models is organized by the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP), which has gone through several phases since 1995 with CMIP5 being the state of the art. In parallel, an organized effort to consolidate all observational data in the past century culminates in the creation of several "reanalysis" datasets that are considered the closest representation of the true observation. This study compared the climate variability and trend in the climate model simulations and observations on the timescales ranging from interannual to centennial. The analysis focused on the dynamic climate quantity of zonal-mean zonal wind and global atmospheric angular momentum (AAM), and incorporated multiple datasets from reanalysis and the most recent CMIP3 and CMIP5 archives. For the observation, the validation of AAM by the length-of-day (LOD) and the intercomparison of AAM revealed a good agreement among reanalyses on the interannual and the decadal-to-interdecadal timescales, respectively. But the most significant discrepancies among them are in the long-term mean and long-term trend. For the simulations, the CMIP5 models produced a significantly smaller bias and a narrower ensemble spread of the climatology and trend in the 20th century for AAM compared to CMIP3, while CMIP3 and CMIP5 simulations consistently produced a positive trend for the 20th and 21st century. Both CMIP3 and CMIP5 models produced a wide range of the magnitudes of decadal and interdecadal variability of wind component of AAM (MR) compared to observation. The ensemble means of CMIP3 and CMIP5 are not statistically distinguishable for either the 20th- or 21st-century runs. The in-house atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM) simulations forced by the sea surface temperature (SST) taken from the CMIP5 simulations as lower boundary conditions were carried out. The zonal wind and MR in the CMIP5 simulations are well simulated in the AGCM simulations. This confirmed SST as an important mediator in regulating the global atmospheric changes due to GHG effect.
ContributorsPaek, Houk (Author) / Huang, Huei-Ping (Thesis advisor) / Adrian, Ronald (Committee member) / Wang, Zhihua (Committee member) / Anderson, James (Committee member) / Herrmann, Marcus (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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Description
Ten regional climate models (RCMs) and atmosphere-ocean generalized model parings from the North America Regional Climate Change Assessment Program were used to estimate the shift of extreme precipitation due to climate change using present-day and future-day climate scenarios. RCMs emulate winter storms and one-day duration events at the sub-regional level.

Ten regional climate models (RCMs) and atmosphere-ocean generalized model parings from the North America Regional Climate Change Assessment Program were used to estimate the shift of extreme precipitation due to climate change using present-day and future-day climate scenarios. RCMs emulate winter storms and one-day duration events at the sub-regional level. Annual maximum series were derived for each model pairing, each modeling period; and for annual and winter seasons. The reliability ensemble average (REA) method was used to qualify each RCM annual maximum series to reproduce historical records and approximate average predictions, because there are no future records. These series determined (a) shifts in extreme precipitation frequencies and magnitudes, and (b) shifts in parameters during modeling periods. The REA method demonstrated that the winter season had lower REA factors than the annual season. For the winter season the RCM pairing of the Hadley regional Model 3 and the Geophysical Fluid-Dynamics Laboratory atmospheric-land generalized model had the lowest REA factors. However, in replicating present-day climate, the pairing of the Abdus Salam International Center for Theoretical Physics' Regional Climate Model Version 3 with the Geophysical Fluid-Dynamics Laboratory atmospheric-land generalized model was superior. Shifts of extreme precipitation in the 24-hour event were measured using precipitation magnitude for each frequency in the annual maximum series, and the difference frequency curve in the generalized extreme-value-function parameters. The average trend of all RCM pairings implied no significant shift in the winter annual maximum series, however the REA-selected models showed an increase in annual-season precipitation extremes: 0.37 inches for the 100-year return period and for the winter season suggested approximately 0.57 inches for the same return period. Shifts of extreme precipitation were estimated using predictions 70 years into the future based on RCMs. Although these models do not provide climate information for the intervening 70 year period, the models provide an assertion on the behavior of future climate. The shift in extreme precipitation may be significant in the frequency distribution function, and will vary depending on each model-pairing condition. The proposed methodology addresses the many uncertainties associated with the current methodologies dealing with extreme precipitation.
ContributorsRiaño, Alejandro (Author) / Mays, Larry W. (Thesis advisor) / Vivoni, Enrique (Committee member) / Huang, Huei-Ping (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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Description
Climate change has been one of the major issues of global economic and social concerns in the past decade. To quantitatively predict global climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of the United Nations have organized a multi-national effort to use global atmosphere-ocean models to project anthropogenically induced

Climate change has been one of the major issues of global economic and social concerns in the past decade. To quantitatively predict global climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of the United Nations have organized a multi-national effort to use global atmosphere-ocean models to project anthropogenically induced climate changes in the 21st century. The computer simulations performed with those models and archived by the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project - Phase 5 (CMIP5) form the most comprehensive quantitative basis for the prediction of global environmental changes on decadal-to-centennial time scales. While the CMIP5 archives have been widely used for policy making, the inherent biases in the models have not been systematically examined. The main objective of this study is to validate the CMIP5 simulations of the 20th century climate with observations to quantify the biases and uncertainties in state-of-the-art climate models. Specifically, this work focuses on three major features in the atmosphere: the jet streams over the North Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and the low level jet (LLJ) stream over central North America which affects the weather in the United States, and the near-surface wind field over North America which is relevant to energy applications. The errors in the model simulations of those features are systematically quantified and the uncertainties in future predictions are assessed for stakeholders to use in climate applications. Additional atmospheric model simulations are performed to determine the sources of the errors in climate models. The results reject a popular idea that the errors in the sea surface temperature due to an inaccurate ocean circulation contributes to the errors in major atmospheric jet streams.
ContributorsKulkarni, Sujay (Author) / Huang, Huei-Ping (Thesis advisor) / Calhoun, Ronald (Committee member) / Peet, Yulia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
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Description
Due to decrease in fossil fuel levels, the world is shifting focus towards renewable sources of energy. With an annual average growth rate of 25%, wind is one of the foremost source of harnessing cleaner energy for production of electricity. Wind turbines have been developed to tap power from wind.

Due to decrease in fossil fuel levels, the world is shifting focus towards renewable sources of energy. With an annual average growth rate of 25%, wind is one of the foremost source of harnessing cleaner energy for production of electricity. Wind turbines have been developed to tap power from wind. As a single wind turbine is insufficient, multiple turbines are installed forming a wind farm. Generally, wind farms can have hundreds to thousands of turbines concentrated in a small region. There have been multiple studies centering the influence of weather on such wind farms, but no substantial research focused on how wind farms effect local climate. Technological advances have allowed development of commercial wind turbines with a power output greater than 7.58 MW. This has led to a reduction in required number of turbines and has optimized land usage. Hence, current research considers higher power density compared to previous works that relied on wind farm density of 2 to 4 W/m 2 . Simulations were performed using Weather Research and Forecasting software provided by NCAR. The region of simulation is Southern Oregon, with domains including both onshore and offshore wind farms. Unlike most previous works, where wind farms were considered to be on a flat ground, effects of topography have also been considered here. Study of seasonal effects over wind farms has provided better insight into changes in local wind direction. Analysis of mean velocity difference across wind farms at a height of 10m and 150m gives an understanding of wind velocity profiles. Results presented in this research tends to contradict earlier belief that velocity reduces throughout the farm. Large scale simulations have shown that sometimes, more than 50% of the farm can have an increased wind velocity of up to 1m/s

at an altitude of 10m.
ContributorsKadiyala, Yogesh Rao (Author) / Huang, Huei-Ping (Thesis advisor) / Rajagopalan, Jagannathan (Committee member) / Calhoun, Ronald (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
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Description
With a ground-based Doppler lidar on the upwind side of a wind farm in the Tehachapi Pass of California, radial wind velocity measurements were collected for repeating sector sweeps, scanning up to 10 kilometers away. This region consisted of complex terrain, with the scans made between mountains. The dataset was

With a ground-based Doppler lidar on the upwind side of a wind farm in the Tehachapi Pass of California, radial wind velocity measurements were collected for repeating sector sweeps, scanning up to 10 kilometers away. This region consisted of complex terrain, with the scans made between mountains. The dataset was utilized for techniques being studied for short-term forecasting of wind power by correlating changes in energy content and of turbulence intensity by tracking spatial variance, in the wind ahead of a wind farm. A ramp event was also captured and its propagation was tracked.

Orthogonal horizontal wind vectors were retrieved from the radial velocity using a sector Velocity Azimuth Display method. Streamlines were plotted to determine the potential sites for a correlation of upstream wind speed with wind speed at downstream locations near the wind farm. A "virtual wind turbine" was "placed" in locations along the streamline by using the time-series velocity data at the location as the input to a modeled wind turbine, to determine the extractable energy content at that location. The relationship between this time-dependent energy content upstream and near the wind farm was studied. By correlating the energy content with each upstream location based on a time shift estimated according to advection at the mean wind speed, several fits were evaluated. A prediction of the downstream energy content was produced by shifting the power output in time and applying the best-fit function. This method made predictions of the power near the wind farm several minutes in advance. Predictions were also made up to an hour in advance for a large ramp event. The Magnitude Absolute Error and Standard Deviation are presented for the predictions based on each selected upstream location.
ContributorsMagerman, Beth (Author) / Calhoun, Ronald (Thesis advisor) / Peet, Yulia (Committee member) / Huang, Huei-Ping (Committee member) / Krishnamurthy, Raghavendra (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
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Description
The evolution of single hairpin vortices and multiple interacting hairpin vortices are studied in direct numerical simulations of channel flow at Re-tau=395. The purpose of this study is to observe the effects of increased Reynolds number and varying initial conditions on the growth of hairpins and the conditions under which

The evolution of single hairpin vortices and multiple interacting hairpin vortices are studied in direct numerical simulations of channel flow at Re-tau=395. The purpose of this study is to observe the effects of increased Reynolds number and varying initial conditions on the growth of hairpins and the conditions under which single hairpins autogenerate hairpin packets. The hairpin vortices are believed to provide a unified picture of wall turbulence and play an important role in the production of Reynolds shear stress which is directly related to turbulent drag. The structures of the initial three-dimensional vortices are extracted from the two-point spatial correlation of the fully turbulent direct numerical simulation of the velocity field by linear stochastic estimation and embedded in a mean flow having the profile of the fully turbulent flow. The Reynolds number of the present simulation is more than twice that of the Re-tau=180 flow from earlier literature and the conditional events used to define the stochastically estimated single vortex initial conditions include a number of new types of events such as quasi-streamwise vorticity and Q4 events. The effects of parameters like strength, asymmetry and position are evaluated and compared with existing results in the literature. This study then attempts to answer questions concerning how vortex mergers produce larger scale structures, a process that may contribute to the growth of length scale with increasing distance from the wall in turbulent wall flows. Multiple vortex interactions are studied in detail.
ContributorsParthasarathy, Praveen Kumar (Author) / Adrian, Ronald (Thesis advisor) / Huang, Huei-Ping (Committee member) / Herrmann, Marcus (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
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Description
This research work uses the Weather Research and Forecasting Model to study the effect of large wind farms with an area of 900 square kilometers and a high power density of 7.58 W/m2 on regional climate. Simulations were performed with a wind farm parameterization scheme turned on in south Oregon.

This research work uses the Weather Research and Forecasting Model to study the effect of large wind farms with an area of 900 square kilometers and a high power density of 7.58 W/m2 on regional climate. Simulations were performed with a wind farm parameterization scheme turned on in south Oregon. Control cases were also run with the parameterization scheme turned off. The primary emphasis was on offshore wind farms. Some analysis on onshore wind farms was also performed. The effects of these wind farms were studied on the vertical profiles of temperature, wind speed, and moisture as well as on temperature and on wind speed near the surface and at hub height. The effects during the day and at night were compared. Seasonal variations were also studied by performing simulations in January and in July. It was seen that wind farms produce a reduction in wind speed at hub height and that the downward propagation of this reduction in wind speed lessens as the atmosphere becomes more stable. In all the cases studied, the wind farms produced a warming effect near the surface, with greater atmospheric stability leading to higher near-surface temperatures. It was also observed that wind farms caused a drying effect below the hub height and a moistening effect above it, because they had facilitated vertical transport of moisture in the air from the lower layers of the atmosphere to the layers of the atmosphere above the wind farm.
ContributorsGeorge, Sushant (Author) / Huang, Huei-Ping (Thesis advisor) / Wang, Zhihua (Committee member) / Calhoun, Ronald (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
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Description
Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) simulation is the industry standard for computing practical turbulent flows -- since large eddy simulation (LES) and direct numerical simulation (DNS) require comparatively massive computational power to simulate even relatively simple flows. RANS, like LES, requires that a user specify a “closure model” for the underlying

Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) simulation is the industry standard for computing practical turbulent flows -- since large eddy simulation (LES) and direct numerical simulation (DNS) require comparatively massive computational power to simulate even relatively simple flows. RANS, like LES, requires that a user specify a “closure model” for the underlying turbulence physics. However, despite more than 60 years of research into turbulence modeling, current models remain largely unable to accurately predict key aspects of the complex turbulent flows frequently encountered in practical engineering applications. Recently a new approach, termed “autonomic closure”, has been developed for LES that avoids the need to specify any prescribed turbulence model. Autonomic closure is a fully-adaptive, self-optimizing approach to the closure problem, in which the simulation itself determines the optimal local, instantaneous relation between any unclosed term and the simulation variables via solution of a nonlinear, nonparametric system identification problem. In principle, it should be possible to extend autonomic closure from LES to RANS simulations, and this thesis is the initial exploration of such an extension. A RANS implementation of autonomic closure would have far-reaching impacts on the ability to simulate practical engineering applications that involve turbulent flows. This thesis has developed the formal connection between autonomic closure for LES and its counterpart for RANS simulations, and provides a priori results from FLUENT simulations of the turbulent flow over a backward-facing step to evaluate the performance of an initial implementation of autonomic closure for RANS. Key aspects of these results lay the groundwork on which future efforts to extend autonomic closure to RANS simulations can be based.
ContributorsAhlf, Rick (Author) / Dahm, Werner J.A. (Thesis advisor) / Wells, Valana (Committee member) / Huang, Huei-Ping (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017