An experimental investigation into supercavity closure mechanisms

2016 ◽  
Vol 789 ◽  
pp. 259-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashish Karn ◽  
Roger E. A. Arndt ◽  
Jiarong Hong

Substantial discrepancy in the conditions for attainment of different closure modes of a ventilated supercavity has existed widely in the published literature. In this study, supercavity closure is investigated with an objective to understand the physical mechanisms determining closure formation and transition between different closure modes and to reconcile the observations from prior studies under various flow settings. The experiments are conducted in a closed-wall recirculating water tunnel to image ventilated supercavity closure using high speed and high-resolution photography and simultaneously measure pressure inside the cavity. The flow conditions are varied systematically to cover a broad range of water velocity, ventilation flow rate and cavitator size, which correspond to different Froude numbers, air entrainment coefficients and blockage ratios, respectively. In addition to the classical closure modes reported in the literature (e.g. re-entrant jet, twin vortex, quad vortex, etc.), the study has revealed a number of new closure modes that occur during the transition between classical modes, or under very specific flow conditions. Closure maps are constructed to depict the flow regimes, i.e. the range of Froude number and air entrainment coefficient, for various closure modes at different blockage ratios. From the closure map at each blockage ratio, a critical ventilation flow rate, below which the supercavity collapses into foamy cavity upon reduction of Froude number, is identified. The air entrainment coefficients corresponding to such critical ventilation rate are found to be independent of blockage ratio. It has been observed that in the process of generating a supercavity by increasing ventilation flow rate, the cavitation number gradually reduces to a minimum value and stays fixed upon further increments in the ventilation rate. Once a supercavity is formed, the ventilation rate can be decreased to a much lower value with no change in cavitation number while still maintaining a supercavity. This process is accompanied by a change in closure modes, which generally goes from twin vortex, to quad vortex, and then to re-entrant jet. In addition, the blockage effect is shown to play an important role in promoting the occurrence of twin-vortex closure modes. Subsequently, a physical framework governing the variation of different closure modes is proposed, and is used to explain mode transition upon the change of flow conditions, including the blockage effect. This framework is further extended to shed light on the occurrence of closure modes for ventilated supercavitation experiments across different types of flow facilities, the natural supercavity closure and the pulsating supercavity reported in the literature. Finally, in combination with a recent numerical study, our research discusses the role of the internal flow physics on the observed features during supercavity formation and closure-mode transition, paving the way for future investigations in this direction.

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 169-177
Author(s):  
WuGang Yang ◽  
ZhenCai Yang ◽  
KaiGe Wen ◽  
ZhaoHui Yang ◽  
YuWen Zhang

The supercavitation technique provides a means of significantly increasing the velocity of an underwater vehicle. This technique involves essentially the creation of stable supercavity shape. The method of artificial ventilation is most effective for generating and dominating the supercavity. This paper focuses on the numerical simulation of flow field around three-dimensional body. The method is based on the multiphase computational fluid dynamics model combined with the turbulence model and the full cavity model. The fundamental similarity parameters of ventilated supercavity flows that include cavitation number, Froude number Fr, entrainment rate CQ, and drag coefficient Cx are all investigated numerically in the case of steady flow and gravity field. We discuss the following simulations results in three parts: (1) the variations of the cavitation number and the supercavity’s relative diameter with entrainment rate; (2) the drag coefficient versus the cavitation number; and (3) deformation of supercavity axis caused by gravitational effect for three different fixed three Froude numbers. In the full paper, we give the comparison results of the drag reduction ratio among numerical simulation and experiment conducted in hydrodynamic tunnel and towing tank, respectively. We summarize our discussion of gravitational effect on the axis deformation of supercavity as follows: in the case of smaller Froude number, the inclination of the cavity axis increases monotonously with increasing horizontal length and reaches its maximal value at the end of supercavity; this deformation can be almost completely negligible when the Froude number Fr is larger than 7.0. The comparisons with the experimental data in the hydrodynamic tunnel and the towing tank indicate that the present method is effective for predicting the flows around ventilated supercavity; that the numerical results is in good agreement with the experimental ones and that the maximal value of the drag reduction ratio can be expected to reach the value of 90% compared with that of the condition of non-cavitation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 267
Author(s):  
Han-Tang Lin ◽  
Yunn-Horng Guu ◽  
Wei-Hsuan Hsu

Global warming, climate change, and ever-increasing energy demand are among the pressing challenges currently facing humanity. Particularly, indoor air conditioning, a major source of energy consumption, requires immediate improvement to prevent energy crises. In this study, various airfoil profiles were applied to create a window-type convection device that entrains air to improve convection between indoor and outdoor airflows and adjust the indoor temperature. How the geometric structure of the convection device affects its air entrainment performance was investigated on the basis of various airfoil profiles and outlet slit sizes of the airflow multiplier. The airfoil profiles were designed according to the 4-digit series developed by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. The results revealed that airfoil thickness, airfoil camber, and air outlet slit size affected the mass flow rate of the convection device. Overall, the mass flow rate at the outlet of the convection device was more than 10 times greater than at the inlet, demonstrating the potential of the device to improve air convection. To validate these simulated results, the wind-deflector plate was processed using the NACA4424 airfoil with a 1.2 mm slit, and various operating voltages were applied to the convection device to measure the resulting wind speeds and calculate the corresponding mass flow rates. The experimental and simulated results were similar, with a mean error of <7%, indicating that the airfoil-shaped wind-deflector plate substantially improved air entrainment of the convection device to the goal of reduced energy consumption and carbon emissions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-77
Author(s):  
Hamid Reza Jafari ◽  
Ali Davoodi ◽  
Saman Hosseinpour

In this work, the corrosion behavior and surface reactivity of as-cast and heat-treated nickel aluminum bronze casting alloy (UNS C95800) in 3.5 wt% NaCl solution is investigated under stagnant and flow conditions. Increasing flow rate conditions are simulated using a rotating disk electrode from 0 to 9000 revolutions per minute (rpm). Optical micrographs confirm the decrease in the phase fraction of corrosion-sensitive β phase in the microstructure of C95800 after annealing, which, in turn, enhances the corrosion resistance of the alloy. Electrochemical studies including open circuit potentiometry, potentiodynamic polarization, and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy are performed to assess the effect of flow rate and heat treatment on the corrosion of samples at 25 and 40 °C in 3.5 wt% NaCl solution. For both as-cast and heat-treated samples, increasing the flow rate (i.e., electrode rotating rate) linearly reduces the corrosion resistance, indicating that the metal dissolution rate is significantly affected by hydrodynamic flow. Increasing the solution temperature negatively impacts the corrosion behavior of the as-cast and heat-treated samples at all flow conditions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Blanke ◽  
Markus Hagenkamp ◽  
Bernd Döring ◽  
Joachim Göttsche ◽  
Vitali Reger ◽  
...  

AbstractPrevious studies optimized the dimensions of coaxial heat exchangers using constant mass flow rates as a boundary condition. They show a thermal optimal circular ring width of nearly zero. Hydraulically optimal is an inner to outer pipe radius ratio of 0.65 for turbulent and 0.68 for laminar flow types. In contrast, in this study, flow conditions in the circular ring are kept constant (a set of fixed Reynolds numbers) during optimization. This approach ensures fixed flow conditions and prevents inappropriately high or low mass flow rates. The optimization is carried out for three objectives: Maximum energy gain, minimum hydraulic effort and eventually optimum net-exergy balance. The optimization changes the inner pipe radius and mass flow rate but not the Reynolds number of the circular ring. The thermal calculations base on Hellström’s borehole resistance and the hydraulic optimization on individually calculated linear loss of head coefficients. Increasing the inner pipe radius results in decreased hydraulic losses in the inner pipe but increased losses in the circular ring. The net-exergy difference is a key performance indicator and combines thermal and hydraulic calculations. It is the difference between thermal exergy flux and hydraulic effort. The Reynolds number in the circular ring is instead of the mass flow rate constant during all optimizations. The result from a thermal perspective is an optimal width of the circular ring of nearly zero. The hydraulically optimal inner pipe radius is 54% of the outer pipe radius for laminar flow and 60% for turbulent flow scenarios. Net-exergetic optimization shows a predominant influence of hydraulic losses, especially for small temperature gains. The exact result depends on the earth’s thermal properties and the flow type. Conclusively, coaxial geothermal probes’ design should focus on the hydraulic optimum and take the thermal optimum as a secondary criterion due to the dominating hydraulics.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jia Wang ◽  
Fabian Nitschke ◽  
Maziar Gholami Korzani ◽  
Thomas Kohl

Abstract Temperature logs have important applications in the geothermal industry such as the estimation of the static formation temperature (SFT) and the characterization of fluid loss from a borehole. However, the temperature distribution of the wellbore relies on various factors such as wellbore flow conditions, fluid losses, well layout, heat transfer mechanics within the fluid as well as between the wellbore and the surrounding rock formation, etc. In this context, the numerical approach presented in this paper is applied to investigate the influencing parameters/uncertainties in the interpretation of borehole logging data. To this end, synthetic temperature logs representing different well operation conditions were numerically generated using our newly developed wellbore simulator. Our models account for several complex operation scenarios resulting from the requirements of high-enthalpy wells where different flow conditions, such as mud injection with- and without fluid loss and shut-in, occur in the drill string and the annulus. The simulation results reveal that free convective heat transfer plays an important role in the earlier evolution of the shut-in-time temperature; high accuracy SFT estimation is only possible when long-term shut-in measurements are used. Two other simulation scenarios for a well under injection conditions show that applying simple temperature correction methods on the non-shut-in temperature data could lead to large errors for SFT estimation even at very low injection flow rates. Furthermore, the magnitude of the temperature gradient increase depends on the flow rate, the percentage of fluid loss and the lateral heat transfer between the fluid and the rock formation. As indicated by this study, under low fluid losses (< 30%) or relatively higher flow rates (> 20 L/s), the impact of flow rate and the lateral heat transfer on the temperature gradient increase can be ignored. These results provide insights on the key factors influencing the well temperature distribution, which are important for the choice of the drilling data to estimate SFT and the design of the inverse modeling scheme in future studies to determine an accurate SFT profile for the high-enthalpy geothermal environment.


Author(s):  
Raja Abou Ackl ◽  
Andreas Swienty ◽  
Flemming Lykholt-Ustrup ◽  
Paul Uwe Thamsen

In many places lifting systems represent central components of wastewater systems. Pumping stations with a circular wet-pit design are characterized by their relatively small footprint for a given sump volume as well as their relatively simple construction technique [1]. This kind of pumping stations is equipped with submersible pumps. These are located in this case directly in the wastewater collection pit. The waste water passes through the pump station untreated and loaded with all kind of solids. Thus, the role of the pump sump is to provide an optimal operating environment for the pumps in addition to the transportation of sewage solids. Understanding the effects of design criteria on pumping station performance is important to fulfil the wastewater transportation as maintenance-free and energy efficient as possible. The design of the pit may affect the overall performance of the station in terms of poor flow conditions inside the pit, non-uniform und disturbed inflow at the pump inlet, as well as air entrainment to the pump. The scope of this paper is to evaluate the impact of various design criteria and the operating conditions on the performance of pump stations concerning the air entrainment to the pump as well as the sedimentation inside the pit. This is done to provide documentation and recommendations of the design and operating of the station. The investigated criteria are: the inflow direction, and the operating submergence. In this context experiments were conducted on a physical model of duplex circular wet pit wastewater pumping station. Furthermore the same experiments were reproduced by numerical simulations. The physical model made of acrylic allowed to visualize the flow patterns inside the sump at various operating conditions. This model is equipped with five different inflow directions, two of them are tangential to the pit and the remaining three are radial in various positions relative to the pumps centerline. Particles were used to enable the investigation of the flow patterns inside the pit to determine the zones of high sedimentation risk. The air entrainment was evaluated on the model test rig by measuring the depth, the width and the length of the aerated region caused by the plunging water jet and by observing the air bubbles entering the pumps. The starting sump geometry called baseline geometry is simply a flat floor. The tests were done at all the possible combinations of inflow directions, submergence, working pump and operating flow. The ability of the numerical simulation to give a reliable prediction of air entrainment was assessed to be used in the future as a tool in scale series to define the scale effect as well as to analyze the flow conditions inside the sump and to understand the air entrainment phenomenon. These simulations were conducted using the geometries of the test setup after generating the mesh with tetrahedral elements. The VOF multiphase model was applied to simulate the interaction of the liquid water phase and the gaseous air phase. On the basis of the results constructive suggestions are derived for the design of the pit, as well as the operating conditions of the pumping station. At the end recommendations for the design and operating conditions are provided.


2014 ◽  
Vol 758 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Karimpour Ghannadi ◽  
Vincent H. Chu

AbstractNumerical simulations of the transverse dam-break waves (TDWs) produced by the sudden removal of a gate on the side of a waterway are conducted based on the shallow-water equations to find solutions to a family of water-diversion problems. The Froude numbers in the main flow identify the members of the family. The depth and discharge profiles are analysed in terms of Ritter’s similarity variable. For subcritical main flow, the waves are comprised of a supercritical flow expansion followed by a subcritical outflow. For supercritical main flow, on the other hand, the waves are analogous to the Prandtl–Meyer expansion in gas dynamics. The diversion flow rate of two-dimensional TDWs on a flat bed is 55 % greater than the one-dimensional flow rate of Ritter in the limiting case of zero main flow, and approaches the rate of Ritter in the other limit when the value of the Froude number in the main flow approaches infinity. The diversion flow rate over a weir is generally higher than the rate over a flat bed depending on the Froude number of the main flow. These numerical simulation results are consistent with laboratory observations.


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
B Vivekanandan ◽  
K Jeyannathann ◽  
A. Seshagiri Rao

Abstract The quality of a treated effluent changes when there is a sudden variation in the influent flow to the wastewater treatment plant during dry, rain, and storm weather conditions. In this study, various influent flow conditions in an activated sludge process are considered that affect the sensitivity of effluent variables such as chemical oxygen demand (COD), biological oxygen demand (BOD), nitrate nitrogen (SNO), ammonical nitrogen (SNH), and total nitrogen (TN) with respect to varying internal recycle flow rate (Qa), sludge recycle flow rate (Qr), sludge wastage flow rate (Qw) and oxygen transfer rate co-efficient of aerobic tanks (KLa(3,4,5)). The analysis has been carried out based on benchmark simulation model no.1 (BSM 1) plant layout which comprises of two models namely activated sludge model no.1 (ASM 1) and simple one dimensional (Simple 1-D) Takacs model. Based on the present analysis, it is observed that the changes in influent flow rate have larger impact on the effluent variables. This variation can be subdued by introducing additional tanks to smoothen the perturbations or using internal recycle rate from the fifth tank in order to maintain the flow around the optimal influent flow rate. The sludge wastage rate has a greater impact on all effluent variables except nitrogenous variables during maximum flow conditions.


Author(s):  
Kevin Reid ◽  
John Denton ◽  
Graham Pullan ◽  
Eric Curtis ◽  
John Longley

An investigation into the effect of stator-rotor hub gap sealing flow on turbine performance is presented. Efficiency measurements and rotor exit area traverse data from a low speed research turbine are reported. Tests carried out over a range of sealing flow conditions show that the turbine efficiency decreases with increasing sealant flow rate but that this penalty is reduced by swirling the sealant flow. Results from time-accurate and steady-state simulations using a three-dimensional multi-block RANS solver are presented with particular emphasis paid to the mechanisms of loss production. The contributions toward entropy generation of the mixing of the sealant fluid with the mainstream flow and of the perturbed rotor secondary flows are assessed. The importance of unsteady stator wake/sealant flow interactions is also highlighted.


2013 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Jackson ◽  
B. Turnbull ◽  
R. Munro

Abstract. Lobe and cleft patterns are frequently observed at the leading edge of gravity currents, including non-Boussinesq particle-laden currents such as powder snow avalanches. Despite the importance of the instability in driving air entrainment, little is known about its origin or the mechanisms behind its development. In this paper we seek to gain a better understanding of these mechanisms from a laboratory scale model of powder snow avalanches using lightweight granular material. The instability mechanisms in these flows appear to be a combination of those found in both homogeneous Boussinesq gravity currents and unsuspended granular flows, with the size of the granular particles playing a central role in determining the wavelength of the lobe and cleft pattern. When scaled by particle diameter a relationship between the Froude number and the wavelength of the lobe and cleft pattern is found, where the wavelength increases monotonically with the Froude number.


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