Aerodynamic Characteristics of Transonic and Supersonic Flow over Rectangular Cavities

An experimental and computational investigation has been performed to investigate flow characteristics and flow-field structures for three types of rectangular cavities. The data presented herein was obtained with cavity length to depth ratio of 6, 10 and 15 at 0° of attack, yawing and rolling angles of 0° over free-stream Mach numbers of 0.6, 0.8, 1.2 and 1.5 at Reynolds numbers of 1.23 ×10⁷, 1.55 ×10⁷, 2.01 ×10⁷ and 2.26 ×10⁷ per meter. The results indicate that the shear-layer expands over the cavity leading edge and impinges on the cavity floor for closed cavity flow, whereas it bridges the open cavity. The static pressure distributions are relatively uniform with the exception of a small adverse gradient occurring ahead of the rear face inside open cavity. Cavity length to depth ratio is a key geometrical parameter to define cavity flow types and influent pressure distributions inside cavities, and its decrease induces a decrease in pressure gradient. Increase in free-stream Mach numbers results in the trend that cavity flow types transform from closed to transitional cavity flow and from transitional to open cavity flow.     

Evaluation of two RANS turbulence models in predicting developing mixed convection within a heated horizontal pipe

The developing weakly turbulent regime of mixed convection in a uniformly heated horizontal pipe was first studied experimentally, by means of heat transfer measurements in the following ranges of dimensionless numbers: 3.19 < Re × 10^? 3 < 6.39, 1.80 < Gr _h  × 10^? 8 < 4.20. The working fluid was FC-72?, with Pr = 12.4.

In order to gain a better insight into the thermo-fluid dynamics involved in the phenomenon and obtain the velocity and temperature fields at every point of the fluid domain, numerical simulations were performed by means of commercial software. Turbulence was modelled by using the Reynolds averaged Navier–Stokes equations (RANS) approach. Two closures of the governing equations were evaluated: realizable κ–? (RKE) model and renormalization-group κ–? (RNG) model.

Both models were capable of reproducing the observed physical trends. However, deviations from the experimental data lower than 20% were obtained only in the entry-zone with the RKE model, while the RNG model gave fair predictions only in developed or quasi-developed flow.     

Finite volume multigrid prediction of laminar natural convection: Bench-mark solutions

A finite volume multigrid procedure for the prediction of laminar natural convection flows is presented, enabling efficient and accurate calculations on very fine grids. The method is fully conservative and uses second-order central differencing for convection and diffusion fluxes. The calculations start on a coarse (typically 10 × 10 control volumes) grid and proceed to finer grids until the desired accuracy or maximum affordable storage is reached. The computing times increase thereby linearly with the number of control volumes. Solutions are presented for the flow in a closed cavity with side walls at different temperatures and insulated top and bottom walls. Rayleigh numbers of 10⁴, 10⁵ and 10⁶ are considered. Grids as fine as 640 × 640 control volumes are used and the results are believed to be accurate to within 0–01%. Second-order monotonic convergence to grid-independent values is observed for all predicted quantities.     

Mixed boundary elements for laminar flows

This paper presents a mixed boundary element formulation of the boundary domain integral method (BDIM) for solving diffusion–convective transport problems. The basic idea of mixed elements is the use of a continuous interpolation polynomial for conservative field function approximation and a discontinuous interpolation polynomial for its normal derivative along the boundary element. In this way, the advantages of continuous field function approximation are retained and its conservation is preserved while the normal flux values are approximated by interpolation nodal points with a uniquely defined normal direction. Due to the use of mixed boundary elements, the final discretized matrix system is overdetermined and a special solver based on the least squares method is applied. Driven cavity, natural and forced convection in a closed cavity are studied. Driven cavity results at Re=100, 400 and 1000 agree better with the benchmark solution than Finite Element Method or Finite Volume Method results for the same grid density with 21×21 degrees of freedom. The average Nusselt number values for natural convection 10³≤Ra≤10⁶ agree better than 0.1% with benchmark solutions for maximal calculated grid densities 61×61 degrees of freedom. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Combined radiation and natural convection in a rectangular cavity with a transparent wall and containing a non-participating fluid

This paper describes a numerical method for the study of combined natural convection and radiation in a rectangular, two-dimensional cavity containing a non-participating (i.e. transparent) fluid. One wall of the cavity is isothermal, being heated either by solar radiation or independently. The opposite wall is partially transparent, permitting radiation exchanges between the cavity and its surroundings and/or the Sun; that wall also exchanges heat by convection from its external surface to the surroundings. The other two walls are adiabatic: convection and radiation there are balanced, so that there is no heat transfer through those walls. The equations of motion and energy are solved by finite difference methods. Coupled to these equations are the radiative flux boundary conditions which are used to determine the temperature distribution along the non-isothermal walls. A two-band radiation model has been employed. Results are presented for a square cavity with a vertical hot wall at 150 °C, the ambient at 20 °C and 10⁴ ? Ra ? 3 × 10⁵, in the absence of direct insolation. The effects on the flow and heat transfer in the cavity of radiation and external convection have been examined. More extensive results will be presented in subsequent papers.     

Time-dependent natural convection in a square cavity: Application of a new finite volume method

A new finite volume (FV) approach with adaptive upwind convection is used to predict the two-dimensional unsteady flow in a square cavity. The fluid is air and natural convection is induced by differentially heated vertical walls. The formulation is made in terms of the vorticity and the integral velocity (induction) law. Biquadratic interpolation formulae are used to approximate the temperature and vorticity fields over the finite volumes, to which the conservation laws are applied in integral form. Image vorticity is used to enforce the zero-penetration condition at the cavity walls. Unsteady predictions are carried sufficiently forward in time to reach a steady state. Results are presented for a Prandtl number (Pr) of 0-71 and Rayleigh numbers equal to 10³, 10⁴ and 10⁵. Both 11 × 11 and 21 × 21 meshes are used. The steady state predictions are compared with published results obtained using a finite difference (FD) scheme for the same values of Pr and Ra and the same meshes, as well as a numerical bench-mark solution. For the most part the FV predictions are closer to the bench-mark solution than are the FD predictions.     

Transient natural convection of low-Prandtl-number fluids in a differentially heated cavity

The transient convective motion in a two-dimensional square cavity driven by a temperature gradient is analysed. The cavity is filled with a low-Prandtl-number fluid and the vertical walls are maintained at constant but different temperatures, while the horizontal boundaries are adiabatic. A control volume approach with a staggered grid is employed to formulate the finite difference equations. Numerically accurate solutions are obtained for Prandtl numbers of 0·001, 0·005 and 0·01 and for Grashof numbers up to 1 × 10⁷. It was found that the flow field exhibits periodic oscillation at the critical Grashof numbers, which are dependent on the Prandtl number. As the Prandtl number is decreased, the critical Grashof number and the frequency of oscillation decrease. Prior to the oscillatory flow, steady state solutions with an oscillatory transient period were predicted. In addition to the main circulation, four weak circulations were predicted at the corners of the cavity.     

Numerical solutions of 2‐D steady incompressible driven cavity flow at high Reynolds numbers

Numerical calculations of the 2‐D steady incompressible driven cavity flow are presented. The Navier–Stokes equations in streamfunction and vorticity formulation are solved numerically using a fine uniform grid mesh of 601 × 601. The steady driven cavity flow solutions are computed for Re ? 21 000 with a maximum absolute residuals of the governing equations that were less than 10^?10. A new quaternary vortex at the bottom left corner and a new tertiary vortex at the top left corner of the cavity are observed in the flow field as the Reynolds number increases. Detailed results are presented and comparisons are made with benchmark solutions found in the literature. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

High speed PIV applied to aerodynamic noise investigation

In this paper, we study the acoustic emissions of the flow over a rectangular cavity. Especially, we investigate the possibility of estimating the acoustic emission by analysis of PIV data. Such a possibility is appealing, since it would allow to directly relate the flow behavior to the aerodynamic noise production. This will help considerably in understanding the noise production mechanisms and to investigate the possible ways of reducing it. In this study, we consider an open cavity with an aspect ratio between its length and depth of 2 at a Reynolds number of 2.4 × 10⁴ and 3.0 × 10⁴ based on the cavity length. The study is carried out combining high speed two-dimensional PIV, wall pressure measurements and sound measurements. The pressure field is computed from the PIV data. Curle’s analogy is applied to obtain the acoustic pressure field. The pressure measurements on the wall of the cavity and the sound measurements are then used to validate the results obtained from PIV and check the range of validity of this approach. This study demonstrated that the technique is able to quantify the acoustic emissions from the cavity and is promising especially for capturing the tonal components on the sound emission.     

Solid transport measurements through image processing

The paper describes a novel technique which enables evaluation of sediment fluxes on the upper layer of a granular bed by means of separate measurements of concentration and velocity of the moving particles. Specific elaboration techniques based on digital image processing were applied to films of the solid fluxes, allowing for automatic measurement. Sediment concentration was measured via a technique based on image subtraction and following proper filtering procedures, while grain velocity was measured by Particle Image Velocimetry. The method was applied in laboratory experiments of one dimensional bed load; the solid discharges measured by the proposed image processing technique were compared to those obtained by manual count of the grains passing over a fixed plate used as a sight. After calibration of the automatic technique, dimensionless solid discharges ranging from 1.0 × 10⁻³ to 1.2 × 10⁻¹ were measured with a maximum error as large as 25%. The technique proposed also enables measurement of the time variation of the quantities and the two dimensional direction of sediment motion, for a complete characterization of grain kinematics in solid transport processes.     

Experimental analysis of thermal fields in horizontally eccentric cylindrical annuli

This paper presents new experimental results on thermal field and heat transfer in a two-dimensional annulus between horizontally eccentric cylinders. The study is conducted by means of optical techniques, for 1.07×10⁴≤Ra _L≤8.27×10⁴ and a wide eccentricity range. The horizontal eccentricity of the inner cylinder substantially alters the thermal field and the geometry of the plume, but, in analogy to the behaviour for vertical eccentricity, the average Nu is slightly affected in the investigated range of eccentricity. The concentric geometry is also considered mainly to validate the experimental technique and evaluate the accuracy of the adopted methodology by comparison with available results. Both shearing interferometer and reference beam interferometer are obtained by means of Wollaston prisms with appropriate splitting angles, so that the temperature and local Nu distributions may be evaluated quantitatively from the original pictures via digital image processing.     

The development and use of a torsional Hopkinson-bar apparatus

A technique is described by means of which torsional waves of large, essentially constant amplitude can be generated in an elastic bar. Waves with rise times of order 25 μs and maximum angular velocities of order 10³ rad.s^?1 have been achieved and used to test tubular specimens at shear-strain rates up to 15×10³ s^?1. Results are presented for mild steel tested at 2×10³ s^?1, and it is shown that the flow stress correlates well with the trend found at lower rates using conventional methods. The measured drop of stress at yield, however, was considerably smaller in the present tests than in earlier work; this is attributed to the generation of flexural waves which reach the specimen at the same time as the torsional wave.     

Transient natural convection cooling of a high Prandtl number fluid in a cubical cavity

This work presents a numerical analysis of the effects of thermal boundary conditions, fluid variable viscosity and wall conduction on transient laminar natural convection of a high Prandtl number (Pr=4×10⁴) fluid (Golden Syrup) in a cubical cavity. The simulations consider physical situations realizable at laboratory scale using a cavity with Plexiglas walls of 1 cm of thickness, and inside dimension of L=20 cm. The initial Rayleigh (Ra) number is 10⁶. The cavity is initially full of fluid at rest and at constant temperature (T _i =45°C) higher than the temperature of the walls (T _w =25°C). The time evolution of the flow patterns, the temperature contours, the mean temperature of the fluid and the Nusselt number (Nu) of eight different cases of cooling are presented and analyzed.     

Large Eddy Simulation of Turbulent Convective Cavity Flow

The large eddy simulation model with Smagorinsky subgrid-scale model was applied to two-dimensional turbulent convective cavity flow. The Reynolds number is lying from 1×10⁴ to 4×10⁵ and Archimedes number from 0 to 0.4. The simulation results were compared with the k?? model results and experimental results wherever possible. Flow results were in good agreement with experimental data across the mid-planes. Effects of Smagorinsky constant and grid resolution were investigated.     

Heat transfer characteristics of staggered wing-shaped tubes bundle at different angles of attack

An experimental and numerical study has been conducted to clarify heat transfer characteristics and effectiveness of a cross-flow heat exchanger employing staggered wing-shaped tubes at different angels of attack. The water-side Re_w and the air-side Re_a were at 5 × 10² and at from 1.8 × 10³ to 9.7 × 10³, respectively. The tubes arrangements were employed with various angles of attack θ_1,2,3 from 0° to 330° at the considered Re_a range. Correlation of Nu, St, as well as the heat transfer per unit pumping power (ε) in terms of Re_a and design parameters for the studied bundle were presented. The temperature fields around the staggered wing-shaped tubes bundle were predicted by using commercial CFD FLUENT 6.3.26 software package. Results indicated that the heat transfer increased with the angle of attack in the range from 0° to 45°, while the opposite was true for angles of attack from 135° to 180°. The best thermal performance and hence the efficiency η of studied bundle occurred at the lowest Re_a and/or zero angle of attack. Comparisons between the experimental and numerical results of the present study and those, previously, obtained for similar available studies showed good agreements.     

Validating the URANS shear stress transport γ −Reθ model for low‐Reynolds‐number external aerodynamics

A numerical investigation on low‐Reynolds‐number external aerodynamics was conducted using the transitional unsteady Reynolds‐averaged Navier–Stokes shear stress transport γ ?Re_θ model and the ANSYS‐CFX computational fluid dynamics suite. The NACA 0012 airfoil was exposed to chord‐based Reynolds numbers of 5.0 ×10⁴, 1.0 ×10⁵ and 2.5 ×10⁵ at 0°, 4°and 8°angles of attack. Time‐averaged and instantaneous flow features were extracted and compared with fully turbulent shear stress transport results, XFLR5 panel e ^N method results, and published higher order numerical and experimental studies. The current model was shown to reproduce the complex flow phenomena, including the laminar separation bubble dynamics and aerodynamic performance, with a very good degree of accuracy. The sensitivity of the model to domain size, grid resolution and quality, timestepping scheme, and free‐stream turbulence intensity was also presented. In view of the results obtained, the proposed model is deemed appropriate for modelling low‐Reynolds‐number external aerodynamics and provides a framework for future studies for the better understanding of this complex flow regime. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Application of differential quadrature method to simulate natural convection in a concentric annulus

In this paper, the Fourier expansion‐based differential quadrature (FDQ) and the polynomial‐based differential quadrature (PDQ) methods are applied to simulate the natural convection in a concentric annulus with a horizontal axis. The comparison and grid independence of PDQ and FDQ results are studied in detail. It was found that both PDQ and FDQ can obtain accurate numerical solutions using just a few grid points and requiring very small computational resources. It was demonstrated in the paper that the FDQ method can be applied to a periodic problem or a non‐periodic problem. When FDQ is applied to a non‐periodic problem (half of annulus), it can achieve the same order of accuracy as the PDQ method. And when FDQ is applied to the periodic problem (whole annulus), it is very efficient for low Rayleigh numbers. However, its efficiency is greatly reduced for the high Rayleigh numbers. The benchmark solution for Ra=10², 10³, 3×10³, 6×10³, 10⁴, 5×10⁴ are also presented in the paper. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fluid flow and heat transfer in transitional boundary layers: effects of surface curvature and free stream velocity

Velocity and wall temperature measurements, over flat plate, concave and convex walls, were experimentally investigated in a low-speed wind tunnel with inlet velocities of 4 and 12 m/s encompassing the transitional region with streamwise distance Reynolds numbers from 3.15×10⁵ to 1.04×10⁶. As the velocity profiles, recorded by a semi-circular pitot tube and a digital constant-temperature hot-wire anemometer, were compared to exact Blasius profile and (1/7)th power law, experimental local Stanton numbers to analytical flat plate solution and turbulent correlation formula. Intermittency factors, derived from velocities and local Stanton numbers, were presented both in streamwise and pitchwise directions. It was found that the convex curvature delayed transition up to Re _x =1.04×10⁶, with a mean intermittency value of 0.61 and a shape factor of 1.81, where the similar intermittency and shape factors were determined at Re _x of 8.33×10⁵ and 4.25×10⁵ for the flat plate and concave wall, indicating the enhancing role of concave curvature on the transition mechanism. The thinner boundary layers of the concave surface resulted in higher intermittency values, corresponding to higher skin friction and Stanton numbers; moreover the lowest gap between the measured and derived Stanton numbers were also obtained over the concave surface. Destabilising role of the concave wall caused Stanton numbers to increase up to 22%, whereas the convex wall, due to its stabilising character, produced lower Stanton numbers by 12% with respect to those of the flat plate.     

Characterization of shock accelerometers using Davies bar and laser interferometer

In this paper, we propose a novel method for evaluating the frequency response of shock accelerometers using Davies bar and interferometry. The method adopts elastic wave pulses propagating in a thin circular bar for the generation of high accelerations. The accelerometer to be examined is attached to one end of the bar and experiences high accelerations of the order of 10³∼10⁵ m/s². A laser interferometer system is newly designed for the absolute measurement of the bar end motion. It can measure the motion of a diffuse surface specimen at a speed of 10⁻³ ∼10⁰ m/s. Uncertainty of the velocity measurement is estimated to be±6×10⁻⁴ m/s, proving a high potential for use in the primary calibration of shock accelerometers. Frequency characteristics of the accelerometer are determined by comparing the accelerometer's output with velocity data of the interferometry in the frequency domain. Two piezoelectric-type accelerometers are tested in the experiment, and their frequency characteristics are obtained over a wide frequency range up to several ten kilohertz. It is also shown that the results obtained using strain gages are consistent with those by this new method. Paper was presented at the 1992 SEM Spring Conference on Experimental Mechanics held in Las Vegas, NV on June 8–11.