Transport of solute and solvent driven by lubrication pressure through non-deformable permeable membranes

A discrete-forcing immersed boundary method with permeable membranes is developed to investigate the effect of lubrication on the permeations of solute and solvent through membrane. The permeation models are incorporated into the discretisation at the fluid cells including the membrane, and discretised equations for the pressure Poisson equation and convection–diffusion equation for the solute are represented with the discontinuities at the membrane. The validity of the proposed method is established by the convergence of the numerical results of the permeate fluxes (solute and solvent) to higher-order analytical models in a lubrication-dominated flow field. As a model of the mass exchange between inside and outside of a biological cell flowing in a capillary, a circular membrane is placed between parallel flat plates, and the effect of lubrication is investigated by varying the distance between the membrane and the walls. The pressure discontinuity near the wall is larger than that at the stagnation point, which is a highlighted effect of lubrication. In the case of a small gap, the solute transport is dominated by convection inside the circular membrane and by diffusion outside. Through the time variation of the concentration in the circular membrane, lubrication is shown to enhance mass transport from/to inside and outside the membrane.

Numerical Assessment of Fan-Ducting Coupling for Gas Turbine Ventilation Systems

Gas turbines enclosures entail a high number of auxiliary systems which must be preserved from heat, ensuring therefore the long term operation of the internal instrumentation and of the data acquisition system. A dedicated ventilation system is designed to keep the enclosure environment sufficiently cool and dilute any gas coming from potential internal leakage to limiting explosion risks. These systems are equipped with axial fans, usually fed with air coming from the filter house which provides air to the gas turbine combustion system, through dedicated filters. The axial fans are embedded in a ducting system which discharges fresh air inside the enclosure where the gas turbine is housed. As the operations of the gas turbine need to be guaranteed in the event of fan failure, a backup redundant system is located in a duct parallel to the main one. One of the main requirements of a ventilation fan is the reliability over the years as the gas turbine can be installed in remote areas or unmanned offshore platforms with limited accessibility for unplanned maintenance. For such reasons, the robustness of the ventilation system and a proper understanding of coupling phenomena with the axial fan is a key aspect to be addressed when designing a gas-turbine system. Here a numerical study of a ventilation system carried out with RANS and LES based methodologies will be presented where the presence of the fan is synthetized by means of static pressure discontinuity. Different operations of the fans are investigated by means of RANS in order to compare the different operating points, corresponding to 1) clean and 2) dirty filters operations, 3) minimum and 4) maximum pressure at the discharge section. Large Eddy Simulations of the same duct were carried out in the maximum loading condition for the fan to investigate the unsteady response of the system and validate its correct arrangement. All the simulations were carried out using OpenFOAM, a finite volume open source code for CFD analysis, treating the filters as a porous medium and the fan as a static pressure discontinuity according to the manufacturer’s characteristic curve. RANS modelling was based on the cubic k-ε model of Lien et al. while sub-grid scale modelling in LES was based on the 1 equation model of Davidson. Computations highlighted that the ventilation system was able to work in similarity for flow rates between 15 m3/s and 23.2 m3/s and that the flow conditions onto the fan suggest that the aerodynamic stress on the device could be reduced introducing in the duct flow straighteners or inlet guided vanes.

Impulsively started planar actuator surfaces in high-Reynolds-number steady flow

The characteristics of unbounded flow past an impulsively started planar energy extracting device, such as a wind or tidal turbine, are studied theoretically, numerically and experimentally. The initial thrust on an impulsively started device, which can be more than double the steady thrust, is an important consideration for design and safe operation. The energy sink is modelled here as an ‘actuator surface’ which imposes a uniform pressure discontinuity in the fluid proportional to the square of the fluid speed normal to the surface, the fluid density, and a dimensionless resistance coefficient. The flow past the actuator is studied theoretically for the case of weak resistance using an unsteady model which recovers steady linear momentum theory in the limit of long time. For the case of strong resistance the flow is studied numerically using the point vortex method. Experimental measurements of thrust on a mesh towed through static water are compared to the numerical results and show good agreement. The thrust on an impulsively started device is estimated, for a typical installation, to fall to within 10 % of the steady value within ∼1 min. The numerical model is also used to simulate the gradual startup of a device, yielding estimates of the time constant necessary in a control system in order to reduce peak thrusts in practice.