3-D inviscid self-excited vibrations of a blade row in the last stage turbine

Presented here is a three-dimensional (3-D) nonlinear time-marching method for the aeroelastic behaviour of an oscillating turbine blade row. The approach has been based in the solution of a coupled fluid–structure problem where the aerodynamic and structural dynamic equations are integrated simultaneously in time. This provides the correct formulation of a coupled problem, as the interblade phase angle (IBPA) at which stability (instability) would occur is also a part of solution. The ideal gas flow around multiple interblade passages (with periodicity in the entire annulus) is described by the unsteady Euler equations in conservative form, which are integrated by using the explicit monotonic second-order accurate Godunov–Kolgan finite-volume scheme and a moving hybrid H–O (or H–H) grid. The fluid and the structural equations are solved using the modal superposition method. An aeroelasticity prediction of a turbine blade of 0.765 m is presented. The natural frequencies and modal shapes of the blade were calculated by using 3-D finite element models. The instability regions for five mode shapes and the distribution of the aerodamping coefficient along the blade length were shown for harmonic oscillations with an assumed IBPA. The coupled fluid–structure oscillations in which the IBPA is part of the solution are shown.     

Micromechanical consideration of tensile crack behavior based on virtual internal bond in contrast to cohesive stress

A modified version of the virtual internal bond model (VIB) is presented. This involves the introduction of a R-bond restricting the relative rotation freedom of pairwise mass particle. Such a modification allows the VIB model to consider arbitrary values of the Poisson ratio. A linear elastic cohesive law considering both the R-bond and L-bond are assumed. The constitutive relationship is derived using the Cauchy–Born rules. The derived constitutive associates the bond stiffness with the Young’s modulus and Poisson ratio of materials. This gives the bond stiffness in terms of the Young’s modulus and Poisson ratio of materials.The modified VIB model is then used to analyze the tensile crack behavior. In contrast to the cohesive stress method, the deformation-governed concept will be used. The local materials failure is assumed to coincide with the reduction of the bond density due to the local deformation rather than by the local cohesive stress. A phenomenological relationship between the bond density and the deformation is established. The criterion which is applied to determined crack initiation and propagation is built into the constitutive model. As an example, the method is used to study the crack initiation and propagation behavior under tensile loading.     

Energy dissipation and Ps bubble growth in liquids

Dissipative energy losses accompanying growth of the Ps bubble are calculated using the Navier–Stokes equation. This allows to demonstrate a fulfilling of the total energy balance in this process. It is in favor of the adopted approach.     

A Series Solution of the Unsteady Von Kármán Swirling Viscous Flows

A new analytic technique is applied to solve the unsteady viscous flow due to an infinite rotating disk, governed by a set of two fully coupled nonlinear partial differential equations deduced directly from the exact Navier-Stokes equations. The system of coupled nonlinear partial differential equations is replaced by a sequence of uncoupled systems of linear ordinary differential equations. Different from all other previous analytic results, our series solution is accurate and valid for all time in the whole spatial region. Accurate expressions for skin friction coefficients are given, which are valid for all time. Such kind of series solutions have not been reported, to the best of our knowledge.      

Block structured adaptive mesh and time refinement for hybrid,hyperbolic + N-body systems

We present a new numerical algorithm for the solution of coupled collisional and collisionless systems, based on the block structured adaptive mesh and time refinement strategy (AMR). We describe the issues associated with the discretization of the system equations and the synchronization of the numerical solution on the hierarchy of grid levels. We implement a code based on a higher order, conservative and directionally unsplit Godunov’s method for hydrodynamics; a symmetric, time centered modified symplectic scheme for collisionless component; and a multilevel, multigrid relaxation algorithm for the elliptic equation coupling the two components. Numerical results that illustrate the accuracy of the code and the relative merit of various implemented schemes are also presented.     

A two-stage hybrid optimization for honeycomb-type cellular structures under out-of-plane dynamic impact

Honeycomb structures with better balance between lightweight and crashworthiness have aroused growing attentions. However, structural parameters design by traditional optimization algorithm in small design space is not sufficient to significantly enhance the specific energy absorption (SEA) with the lower peak acceleration (a_max). In this paper, a two-stage hybrid optimization for honeycomb-type cellular parameters is proposed to achieve rapid positioning of design space and significantly increase crashworthiness in a larger variable domain under out-of-plane dynamic impact. In stage I, a Taguchi-based grey correlation discrete optimization, combining Taguchi analysis, grey relational analysis, analysis of variance (ANOVA) with grey entropy measurement, is performed to determine the initial optimal value with a higher robustness and the significant influence variables. In stage II, a multi-objective design technique, namely non-nominated sorting genetic algorithm II based on surrogated model, is adopted to maximize the SEA and minimize the a_max in a relatively small design domain. And it is found that the proposed two-stage hybrid method can broaden the optimal design space compared to that of traditional method attributable to its center point positioned by stage I. And the final optimization based on the proposed strategy is superior to the original structure, i.e., the SEA is increased by 47.55% and the a_max is decreased by 80.8%. Therefore, the proposed algorithm can also be used to solve other more complicated engineering problems in a large design space with insightful design data.     

Thin film flow over a non-linear stretching sheet in presence of uniform transverse magnetic field

A thin viscous liquid film flow is developed over a stretching sheet under different non-linear stretching velocities in presence of uniform transverse magnetic field. Evolution equation for the film thickness is derived using long-wave approximation of thin liquid film and is solved numerically by using the Newton–Kantorovich method. It is observed that all types of stretching produces film thinning, but non-monotonic stretching produces faster thinning at small distance from the origin. Effect of the transverse magnetic field is to slow down the film thinning process. Observed flow behavior is explained physically.     

A Hybrid Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm for the Redundancy Allocation Problem

The Redundancy Allocation Problem generally involves the selection of components with multiple choices and redundancy levels that produce maximum system reliability given various system level constraints as cost and weight. In this paper we investigate the series–parallel redundant reliability problems, when a mixing of components was considered. In this type of problem both the number of redundancy components and the corresponding component reliability in each subsystem are to be decided simultaneously so as to maximise the reliability of system. A hybrid algorithm is based on particle swarm optimization and local search algorithm. In addition, we propose an adaptive penalty function which encourages our algorithm to explore within the feasible region and near feasible region, and discourage search beyond that threshold. The effectiveness of our proposed hybrid PSO algorithm is proved on numerous variations of three different problems and compared to Tabu Search and Multiple Weighted Objectives solutions.