Matching Items (9)
Filtering by
- All Subjects: CFD
- Creators: Herrmann, Marcus
Description
Next generation gas turbines will be required to produce low concentrations of pollutants such as oxides of nitrogen (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO), and soot. In order to design gas turbines which produce lower emissions it is essential to have computational tools to help designers. Over the past few decades, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has played a key role in the design of turbomachinary and will be heavily relied upon for the design of future components. In order to design components with the least amount of experimental rig testing, the ensemble of submodels used in simulations must be known to accurately predict the component's performance. The present work aims to validate a CFD model used for a reverse flow, rich-burn, quick quench, lean-burn combustor being developed at Honeywell. Initially, simulations are performed to establish a baseline which will help to assess impact to combustor performance made by changing CFD models. Rig test data from Honeywell is compared to these baseline simulation results. Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) and Large Eddy Simulation (LES) turbulence models are both used with the presumption that the LES turbulence model will better predict combustor performance. One specific model, the fuel spray model, is evaluated next. Experimental data of the fuel spray in an isolated environment is used to evaluate models for the fuel spray and a new, simpler approach for inputting the spray boundary conditions (BC) in the combustor is developed. The combustor is simulated once more to evaluate changes from the new fuel spray boundary conditions. This CFD model is then used in a predictive simulation of eight other combustor configurations. All computer simulations in this work were preformed with the commercial CFD software ANSYS FLUENT. NOx pollutant emissions are predicted reasonably well across the range of configurations tested using the RANS turbulence model. However, in LES, significant under predictions are seen. Causes of the under prediction in NOx concentrations are investigated. Temperature metrics at the exit of the combustor, however, are seen to be better predicted with LES.
ContributorsSpencer, A. Jeffrey (Author) / Herrmann, Marcus (Thesis advisor) / Chen, Kangping (Committee member) / Adrian, Ronald (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
A novel CFD algorithm called LEAP is currently being developed by the Kasbaoui Research Group (KRG) using the Immersed Boundary Method (IBM) to describe complex geometries. To validate the algorithm, this research project focused on testing the algorithm in three dimensions by simulating a sphere placed in a moving fluid. The simulation results were compared against the experimentally derived Schiller-Naumann Correlation. Over the course of 36 trials, various spatial and temporal resolutions were tested at specific Reynolds numbers between 10 and 300. It was observed that numerical errors decreased with increasing spatial and temporal resolution. This result was expected as increased resolution should give results closer to experimental values. Having shown the accuracy and robustness of this method, KRG will continue to develop this algorithm to explore more complex geometries such as aircraft engines or human lungs.
ContributorsMadden, David Jackson (Author) / Kasbaoui, Mohamed Houssem (Thesis director) / Herrmann, Marcus (Committee member) / Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Program (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05
Description
In this paper, the effectiveness and practical applications of cooling a computer's CPU using mineral oil is investigated. A computer processor or CPU may be immersed along with other electronics in mineral oil and still be operational. The mineral oil acts as a dielectric and prevents shorts in the electronics while also being thermally conductive and cooling the CPU. A simple comparison of a flat plate immersed in air versus mineral oil is considered using analytical natural convection correlations. The result of this comparison indicates that the plate cooled by natural convection in air would operate at 98.41[°C] while the plate cooled by mineral oil would operate at 32.20 [°C]. Next, CFD in ANSYS Fluent was used to conduct simulation with forced convection representing a CPU fan driving fluid flow to cool the CPU. A comparison is made between cooling done with air and mineral oil. The results of the CFD simulation results indicate that using mineral oil as a substitute to air as the cooling fluid reduced the CPU operating temperature by sixty degrees Celsius. The use of mineral oil as a cooling fluid for a consumer computer has valid thermal benefits, but the practical challenges of the method will likely prevent widespread adoption.
ContributorsTichacek, Louis Joseph (Author) / Huang, Huei-Ping (Thesis director) / Herrmann, Marcus (Committee member) / Middleton, James (Committee member) / Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Program (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
This dissertation presents a volume filtering framework to solve particle-laden flows. Particle-laden flows are studied, employing the well-established Euler-Lagrange method, using the point-particle approximation. This approach requires the filter width to be much larger than the particle diameter. The method assumes that the particle is smaller than the Kolmogorov length scale. This thesis investigates how inertial particles at semi-dilute volume fractions modulate the flow characteristics for particles smaller than 1 in wall units, when dispersed within wall-bounded channel flows at friction Reynolds number of 180. The simulations are performed with 4 way coupling in order to account for high local concentration of particles, to capture mechanisms such as turbophoresis and preferential concentration. We show that drag attenuation or augmentation is determined by the particle inertia. As particle size is increased greater than 1 in wall units, the regime becomes finite-sized, requiring an interface-resolved description. To do this a novel Immersed Boundaries (IB) framework based on the concept of volume-filtering called the Volume-Filtered Immersed Boundary (VF-IB) method is presented. Transport equations are obtained by volume-filtering the Navier-Stokes equation and accounting for the stresses at the solid-fluid interface. Boundary conditions are transformed into bodyforces that appear as surface integrals on the right hand side of the filtered equation. The approach requires the filter width to be much smaller than the particle diameter in order to accurately resolve the interfacial dynamics. Several canonical tests are conducted for both stationary and moving immersed solids and report comparable results to the experimental and/or body-fitted simulations. Keep in mind, the VF-IB method reverts back to the Euler-Lagrange formulation if the filter width is significantly greater than the particle diameter. An artifact of volume-filtering is the emergence of unclosed terms we define as the sub-filter scale term. In order to characterize the contribution of this term on the solution, a more simpler case of a 2-D varying coefficient hyperbolic equation that has an exact solution is looked into. It is observed that the sub-filter scale term scales inversely with the square of the filter width. For fine interface resolution (i.e. small filter width), this value can be ignored with negligible effect to the accuracy of the numerical solution. However for coarse interface resolution (i.e. large filter width), including the sub-filter scale term significantly increases the accuracy of the numerical solution
ContributorsDave, Himanshu (Author) / Kasbaoui, Mohamed Houssem (Thesis advisor) / Herrmann, Marcus (Thesis advisor) / Dahm, Werner (Committee member) / Kim, Jeonglae (Committee member) / Lopez, Juan (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2024
Description
This dissertation investigates the complex dynamics of semi-dilute inertial particles suspended in vortices using the Eulerian-Lagrangian method. The study explores the modulation of flow induced by inertial particles, focusing on the characteristics of a single vortex, instability analysis within particle-laden flows, and the merging process of co-rotating vortices. Simulations reveal a preferential concentration mechanism, where inertial particles cluster around a void fraction bubble, accelerating the decay of the vortex tube. Small-scale clusters, arising from particle-trajectory crossings, induce significant gradients in the fluid vorticity field, contributing to rapid vortex breakdown. Within a specific Stokes number range, increased particle inertia results in faster vortex decay and stronger inhomogeneity in the particle phase. The instability mechanism in particle-laden flows is explored using a Rankine vortex model. Two-way coupling triggers azimuthal perturbations, leading to the breakdown of the vortex structure. Linear Stability Analysis and Two-Fluid modeling demonstrate that the dusty vortex flow exhibits unstable modes, with growth rates increasing with wavenumber. Eulerian-Lagrangian simulations validate these results, showing excellent agreement between computed and predicted growth rates. The dissertation also delves into the co-rotating vortex merger in a semi-dilute dusty flow. For weak inertial effects, merger experiences a delay compared to particle-free vortices. Under moderate inertial conditions, the merger process exhibits repulsion, increased separation, and eventual convective merger stages. Highly inertial particles stretch the vortex core, initiating a merger with an outcome of a particle-free vortex core surrounded by a halo of concentrated particles. In conclusion, the feedback force from the dispersed phase induces instability and significantly influences the dynamics of vortices in particle-laden flows. The findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the intricate interactions between inertial particles and vortical structures.
ContributorsShuai, Shuai (Author) / Kasbaoui, Mohamed Houssem (Thesis advisor) / Herrmann, Marcus (Committee member) / Peet, Yulia (Committee member) / Huang, Huei-Ping (Committee member) / Wang, Zhihua (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2024
Description
This thesis presents a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of fluid flow driven by the motion of cilia, a cellular appendage found in organisms used to either move the fluid around them or to move themselves by propelling the fluid. Originating from an initial investigation to the flow patterns inside the third ventricle of a rat’s brain, this project expanded to improve the inadequacies of existing models of ciliary motion in fluid. This model was developed using the actuator line model to include the cilia motion to get an accurate representation of the cilia motion and its effect on the flow. This model not only provides exciting potential in various fields including soft robotics, biomedical research, environmental engineering, but also holds promise for drug delivery systems, and enhancing microfluidic designs. This thesis investigates the effect of the phase difference, the spacing and the frequency of the cilia motion on the fluid flow and the formation of the metachronal waves.
ContributorsShameer, Waseem (Author) / Peet, Yulia (Thesis advisor) / Herrmann, Marcus (Committee member) / Ma, Leixin (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2024
Description
Many physical phenomena and industrial applications involve multiphase fluid flows and hence it is of high importance to be able to simulate various aspects of these flows accurately. The Dynamic Contact Angles (DCA) and the contact lines at the wall boundaries are a couple of such important aspects. In the past few decades, many mathematical models were developed for predicting the contact angles of the inter-face with the wall boundary under various flow conditions. These models are used to incorporate the physics of DCA and contact line motion in numerical simulations using various interface capturing/tracking techniques. In the current thesis, a simple approach to incorporate the static and dynamic contact angle boundary conditions using the level set method is developed and implemented in multiphase CFD codes, LIT (Level set Interface Tracking) (Herrmann (2008)) and NGA (flow solver) (Desjardins et al (2008)). Various DCA models and associated boundary conditions are reviewed. In addition, numerical aspects such as the occurrence of a stress singularity at the contact lines and grid convergence of macroscopic interface shape are dealt with in the context of the level set approach.
ContributorsPendota, Premchand (Author) / Herrmann, Marcus (Thesis advisor) / Rykaczewski, Konrad (Committee member) / Chen, Kangping (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
Computability of spray flows is an important issue, from both fundamental and practical perspectives. Spray flows have important applications in fuel injection, agriculture, medical devices, and industrial processes such as spray cooling. For this reason, many efforts have been devoted to experimental, computational and some theoretical aspects of spray flows. In particular, primary atomization, the process of bulk liquid transitioning to small droplets, is a central and probably the most difficult aspect of spray flows. This thesis discusses developed methods, results, and needed improvements in the modeling of primary atomization using a predictive Sauter Mean Diameter (SMD) formula. Primary atomization for round injectors and simplex atomizers is modeled using a three-step procedure. For each spray geometry, a volume-of-fluid simulation is run to resolve the trajectory of the intact liquid core. Atomization criterion is applied to the volume-of-fluid velocity field to determine atomization sites. Local droplet size is predicted at the atomization sites using the quadratic formula for Sauter Mean Diameter. Droplets with the computed drop size are injected from the atomization sites and are tracked as point-particles. A User Defined Memory (UDM) code is employed to compute steady-state Sauter Mean Diameter statistics at locations corresponding to experimental interrogation locations. The resulting Sauter Mean Diameter, droplet trajectory, and droplet velocity are compared against experimental data to validate the computational protocol. This protocol can be implemented on coarse-grid, time-averaged simulations of spray flows, and produces convincing results when compared with experimental data for pressure-atomized sprays with and without swirl. This approach is general and can be adapted in any spray geometry for complete and efficient computations of spray flows.
ContributorsGreenlee, Benjamin (Author) / Lee, Taewoo (Thesis advisor) / Herrmann, Marcus (Committee member) / Kasbaoui, Mohamed (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
Realistic engineering, physical and biological systems are very complex in nature, and their response and performance are governed by multitude of interacting processes. In computational modeling of these systems, the interactive response is most often ignored, and simplifications are made to model one or a few relevant phenomena as opposed to a complete set of interacting processes due to a complexity of integrative analysis. In this thesis, I will develop new high-order computational approaches that reduce the amount of simplifications and model the full response of a complex system by accounting for the interaction between different physical processes as required for an accurate description of the global system behavior. Specifically, I will develop multi-physics coupling techniques based on spectral-element methods for the simulations of such systems. I focus on three specific applications: fluid-structure interaction, conjugate heat transfer, and modeling of acoustic wave propagation in non-uniform media. Fluid-structure interaction illustrates a complex system between a fluid and a solid, where a movable and deformable structure is surrounded by fluid flow, and its deformation caused by fluid affects the fluid flow interactively. To simulate this system, two coupling schemes are developed: 1) iterative implicit coupling, and 2) explicit coupling based on Robin-Neumann boundary conditions. A comprehensive verification strategy of the developed methodology is presented, including a comparison with benchmark flow solutions, h-, p- and temporal refinement studies. Simulation of a turbulent flow in a channel interacting with a compliant wall is attempted as well. Another problem I consider is when a solid is stationary, but a heat transfer occurs on the fluid-solid interface. To model this problem, a conjugate heat transfer framework is introduced. Validation of the framework, as well as studies of an interior thermal environment in a building regulated by an HVAC system with an on/off control model with precooling and multi-zone precooling strategies are presented. The final part of this thesis is devoted to modeling an interaction of acoustic waves with the fluid flow. The development of a spectral-element methodology for solution of Lighthill’s equation, and its application to a problem of leak detection in water pipes is presented.
ContributorsXu, Yiqin (Author) / Peet, Yulia (Thesis advisor) / Huang, Huei-Ping (Committee member) / Herrmann, Marcus (Committee member) / Adrian, Ronald (Committee member) / Baer, Steven (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021