Effect of an axial throughflow on buoyancy-induced flow in a rotating cavity

In this paper large-eddy simulation is used to study buoyancy-induced flow in a rotating cavity with an axial throughflow of cooling air. This configuration is relevant in the context of secondary air systems of modern gas turbines, where cooling air is used to extract heat from compressor disks. Although global flow features of these flows are well understood, other aspects such as flow statistics, especially in terms of the disk and shroud boundary layers, have not been studied. Here, previous work for a sealed rotating cavity is extended to investigate the effect of an axial throughflow on flow statistics and heat transfer. Time- and circumferentially-averaged results reveal that the thickness of the boundary layers forming near the upstream and downstream disks is consistent with that of a laminar Ekman layer, although it is shown that the boundary layer thickness distribution along the radial direction presents greater variations than in the sealed cavity case. Instantaneous profiles of the radial and azimuthal velocities near the disks show good qualitative agreement with an Ekman-type analytical solution, especially in terms of the boundary layer thickness. The shroud heat transfer is shown to be governed by the local centrifugal acceleration and by a core temperature, which has a weak dependence on the value of the axial Reynolds number. Spectral analyses of time signals obtained at selected locations indicate that, even though the disk boundary layers behave as unsteady laminar Ekman layers, the flow inside the cavity is turbulent and highly intermittent. In comparison with a sealed cavity, cases with an axial throughflow are characterised by a broader range of frequencies, which arise from the interaction between the laminar jet and the buoyant flow inside the cavity.     

MHD flow and heat transfer of micropolar fluid between two porous disks

A numerical study is carried out for the axisymmetric steady laminar incompressible flow of an electrically conducting micropolar fluid between two infinite parallel porous disks with the constant uniform injection through the surface of the disks. The fluid is subjected to an external transverse magnetic field. The governing nonlinear equations of motion are transformed into a dimensionless form through von Karman’s similarity transformation. An algorithm based on a finite difference scheme is used to solve the reduced coupled ordinary differential equations under associated boundary conditions. The effects of the Reynolds number, the magnetic parameter, the micropolar parameter, and the Prandtl number on the flow velocity and temperature distributions are discussed. The results agree well with those of the previously published work for special cases. The investigation predicts that the heat transfer rate at the surfaces of the disks increases with the increases in the Reynolds number, the magnetic parameter, and the Prandtl number. The shear stresses decrease with the increase in the injection while increase with the increase in the applied magnetic field. The shear stress factor is lower for micropolar fluids than for Newtonian fluids, which may be beneficial in the flow and thermal control in the polymeric processing.     

Transient squeeze flow of viscoplastic materials

The transient, axisymmetric squeezing of viscoplastic materials under creeping flow conditions is examined. The flow of the material even outside the disks is followed. Both cases of the disks moving with constant velocity or under constant force are studied. This time-dependent simulation of squeeze flow is performed for such materials in order to determine very accurately the evolution of the force or the velocity, respectively, and the distinct differences between these two experiments, the highly deforming shape and position of all the interfaces, the effect of possible slip on the disk surface, especially when the slip coefficient is not constant, and the effect of gravity. All these are impossible under the quasi-steady state condition used up to now. The exponential constitutive model, suggested by Papanastasiou, is employed. The governing equations are solved numerically by coupling the mixed finite element method with a quasi-elliptic mesh generation scheme in order to follow the large deformations of the free surface of the fluid. As the Bingham number increases, large departures from the corresponding Newtonian solution are found. When the disks are moving with constant velocity, unyielded material arises only around the two centers of the disks verifying previous works in which quasi-steady state conditions were assumed. The size of the unyielded region increases with the Bingham number, but decreases as time passes and the two disks approach each other. Their size also decreases as the slip velocity or the slip length along the disk wall increase. The force that must be applied on the disks in order to maintain their constant velocity increases significantly with the Bingham number and time and provides a first method to calculate the yield stress. On the other hand, when a constant force is applied on the disks, they slow down until they finally stop, because all the material between them becomes unyielded. The final location of the disk and the time when it stops provide another, probably easier, method to deduce the yield stress of the fluid.     

Turbulent thermal boundary layer on a plate. Reynolds analogy and heat transfer law over the entire range of prandtl numbers

Arational asymptotic theory is proposed,which describes the turbulent dynamic and thermal boundary layer on a flat plate under zero pressure gradient. The fact that the flow depends on a finite number of governing parameters makes it possible to formulate algebraic closure conditions relating the turbulent shear stress and heat flux with the gradients of the averaged velocity and temperature. As a result of constructing an exact asymptotic solution of the boundary layer equations, the known laws of the wall for velocity and temperature, the velocity and temperature defect laws, and the expressions for the skin friction coefficient, Stanton number, and Reynolds analogy factor are obtained. The latter makes it possible to give two new formulations of the temperature defect law, one of which is identical to the velocity defect law and contains neither the Stanton number nor the turbulent Prandtl number, and the second formulation does not contain the skin friction coefficient. The heat transfer law is first obtained in the form of a universal functional relationship between three parameters: the Stanton number, the Reynolds number, and the molecular Prandtl number. The conclusions of the theory agree well with the known experimental data.     

Evolution of the joint motion of two viscous heat-conducting fluids in a plane layer under the action of an unsteady pressure gradient

A study is made of an invariant solution of the equations of a viscous heat-conducting fluid, which is treated as unidirectional motion of two such fluids in a plane layer with a common boundary under the action of an unsteady pressure gradient. A priori estimates of the velocity and temperature are obtained. The steady state is determined, and it is shown (under some conditions on the pressure gradient) that, at larger times, this state is the limiting one. For semiinfinite layers, a solution in closed form is obtained using the Laplace transform. __________ Translated from Prikladnaya Mekhanika i Tekhnicheskaya Fizika, Vol. 49, No. 4, pp. 94–107, July–August, 2008.     

Direct modeling of flow of FENE fluids

Direct simulations of macromolecular fluids are carried out for flows between parallel plates and in expanding and contracting channels. The macromolecules are modeled as FENE dumbbells with soft disks or Lennard-Jones dumbbell-dumbbell interactions. The results are presented in terms of profiles and contour plots of velocity, pressure, temperature, density, and flow fields. In addition the data for potential energy, shear stress, and the normal components of the stress tensor are collected. In general, an excellent agreement is found between the simulated profiles and the well-known flow structures, such as flow separation and formation of viscous eddies, indicating that micro-hydrodynamics is a viable tool in linking macroscopic phenomena with the underlying physical mechanisms. The simulations are performed in the Newtonian regime, for medium-size systems comprising up to 3888 dumbbells. This number is sufficiently large to control boundary and particle number effects. The flow is induced by gravity. The traditional stochastic (thermal) and periodic boundary conditions are employed. Also, diffusive boundary conditions, which could include a stagnant fluid layer and repulsive potential walls, are developed. The scaling problems, which are related to the application of a large external force in a microscopic system (of the size of the order 100 Å), result in extreme pressure and temperature gradients. In addition, the viscosity and thermal conductivity coefficients obtained from velocity and temperature profiles of the channel flow are presented. These results are confirmed independently from modeling of Couette flow by the SLLOD equations of motion and from the Evans algorithm for thermal conductivity.     

MHD forced convection boundary layer flow with a flat plate and porous substrate

The flow and heat transfer for an electrically conducting fluid with a porous substrate and a flat plate under the influence of magnetic field is considered. The magnetic field is assumed to be uniform and also along normal to the surface. The momentum and energy equations are transformed to ordinary differential equations by using suitable similarity transformation and are solved by standard techniques. But the energy equation is solved by considering two boundary layers, one in the porous substrate and the other above the porous substrate. Numerical results are presented through graphs with various values of magnetic parameter for both velocity and thermal boundary layers along with Nusselt number and for various values of Prandtl number and Eckert number in thermal boundary layer.     

Flow Characteristics of a “Multiconfigurational”, Shear Thinning Viscoelastic Fluid with Particular Reference to the Orthogonal Rheometer

This paper deals with the flow characteristics of a class of nonsimple viscoelastic fluid models developed by Rajagopal and Srinivasa (1999). The central feature of these models is that the stress response is lastic from a changing natural configuration with the viscous dissipation occurring due to changes in the natural state. The class of models considered are characterized by three independent parameters that represent respectively the elasticity, the viscosity and the shear thinning index. The stress relaxation response of the material is compared with experimental data reported by Bower et al. (1987) for polyisobutelene in cetane, and parameters that fit the data are calculated. The flow of such a fluid between parallel disks rotating about noncoincident axes (the orthogonal rheometer) is then studied. It is shown that the assumed velocity field leads to a system of second-order nonlinear ordinary differential equations (Rajagopal, 1982). A parametric study is then undertaken to see the effect of the various material, geometrical, and flow parameters on the flow characteristics. It is observed that inertial effects and shear thinning effects are roughly complementary in the range of parameters considered. While it is well known that boundary layers occur in these flows due to inertial effects, it is demonstrated that these boundary effects are insensitive to the Reynolds number but rather are determined by the absorption number. Finally, in the range of parameters that are commonly observed in such rheometers, it is shown that neglect of inertia causes significant discrepancies in the calculation of the boundary shear rates. Received 3 June 1999 and accepted 2 October 1999     

EFFECT OF WALL SLIP ON SQUEEZE FLOW OF RIGID-PLASTIC MEDIA BETWEEN PARALLEL DISK

The squeeze flow of a rigid-plastic medium between parallel disks is considered for small gaps with partial wall slip. The stress distribution and the squeeze force between parallel disks of a rigid-plastic medium with the following four different slip boundary conditions are obtained. (1) The Coulombic friction condition is applied, and the stress distribution on the wall is derived, which is linear or exponential distribution in the no-slip area or slip area. (2) It is assumed that the slip velocity at the disks increases linearly with the radius up to the rim slip velocity, with the stress distribution and the squeeze force gained. (3) The assumption that the slip velocity at the disks is related to the shear stress component is used, with the stress distribution and the squeeze force obtained, which is equivalent to the result given in (2). (4) Rational velocity components are introduced, and the stress distribution is satisfied.     

Prediction of resolvent mode shapes in supersonic turbulent boundary layers

This work applies resolvent analysis to compressible zero-pressure-gradient turbulent boundary layers with freestream Mach numbers between 2 and 4, focusing exclusively on large scale motions in the outer region of the boundary layer. We investigate the effects of Mach number on predicted flow structures, and in particular, look at how such effects may be attributed to changes in mean properties. By leveraging the similarity between the compressible and incompressible resolvent operators, we show that the shape of the streamwise velocity and temperature components of resolvent response modes in the compressible regime can be approximated by applying ideas from wavepacket pseudospectral theory to a simple scalar operator. This gives a means of predicting the shape of resolvent mode components for compressible flows without requiring the singular value decompositions of discretized operators. At a Mach number of 2, we find that accurate results are obtained from this approximation when using the compressible mean velocity profile. At Mach numbers of 3 and 4, the quantitative accuracy of these predictions is improved by also considering a local effective Reynolds number based on the local mean density and viscosity.     

Die turbulente Grenzschicht an einer stark geheizten ebenen Platte bei Unterschallströmung

Experiments for air flowing over a flat plate heated up to 250°C with velocities of 10 to 30 m/s, which have been made at the DFVLR-AVA, are briefly reviewed and a new analysis of the data is given. The analysis is based on an analytical representation of the velocity and temperature profiles. Close to the wall, a law of the wall approximation is used, which includes the effect of density and viscosity variation. The whole velocity profile is constructed by adding Coles' law of the wake to the law of the wall. In a similar way, the temperature profile is obtained from the law of the wall and an auxiliary distribution. The integrals of momentum and heat flux for two-dimensional flow are used in conjunction with a similarity assumption, to derive a relation between rate of heat transfer from the plate and skin friction. A maximum likelihood procedure has been applied to determine skin friction and rate of heat transfer from the measured dynamic pressure profiles.—The analytical velocity and temperature profiles are found in good agreement with the experimental data, except for the stations near the leading edge of plate. The skin friction coefficients and the Stanton numbers decrease slightly in downstream direction as a consequence of growing local Reynolds number, and decrease with increasing ratio of plate to free stream temperature. The latter fact is in qualitative agreement with the behavior of turbulent boundary layers in supersonic flow. The ratio of Stanton number to half of skin friction coefficient (Reynolds analogy factor) varies with increasing local boundary layer Reynolds number from 1.23 to 1.16.     

Flow and heat transfer of an electrically conducting third grade fluid past an infinite plate with partial slip

The effects of partial slip on the steady flow and heat transfer of an electrically conducting, incompressible, third grade fluid past a horizontal plate subject to uniform suction and blowing is investigated. Two distinct heat transfer problems are studied. In the first case, the plate is assumed to be at a higher temperature than the fluid; and in the second case, the plate is assumed to be insulated. The momentum equation is characterized by a highly nonlinear boundary value problem in which the order of the differential equation exceeds the number of available boundary conditions. Numerical solutions for the governing nonlinear equations are obtained over the entire range of physical parameters. The effects of slip, magnetic parameter, non-Newtonian fluid characteristics on the velocity and temperature fields are discussed in detail and shown graphically. It is interesting to find that the velocity and the thermal boundary layers decrease with an increase in the slip, and as the slip increases to infinity, the flow behaves as though it were inviscid.     

Momentum and heat transfer of a special case of the unsteady stagnation-point flow

This paper investigates the unsteady stagnation-point flow and heat transfer over a moving plate with mass transfer, which is also an exact solution to the unsteady Navier-Stokes(NS) equations. The boundary layer energy equation is solved with the closed form solutions for prescribed wall temperature and prescribed wall heat flux conditions. The wall temperature and heat flux have power dependence on both time and spatial distance. The solution domain, the velocity distribution, the flow field, ...     

Solution of the heat-transfer equation for equilibrium turbulent boundary layers when the temperature distribution of the streamlined surface is arbitrary

We give an approximate solution of the heat-transfer equation for equilibrium turbulent boundary layers for which the velocity distribution and the coefficient of turbulent viscosity can be described by functions of two parameters. In [1–4] equilibrium turbulent boundary layers characterized by a constant dimensionless pressure gradient were investigated. The $$\beta = \frac{{\delta ^{* \circ } }}{{\tau _w ^ \circ }}\left( {\frac{{dP}}{{dx^ \circ }}} \right)$$ profile of the velocity defect was calculated in [4] for such layers throughout the whole range ?0.5≤β≤∞, while a method was indicated in [5] for combining the defect velocity profiles with the universal profiles of the wall law, and a composite function defining the coefficient of turbulent viscosity was proposed. In this paper we construct the solution of the heat-transfer equation for equilibrium boundary layers under the assumption that the velocity distribution in the layer and the coefficient of turbulent viscosity are described by functions, obtained in [4, 5], of the dimensionless coordinateη=y/Δ, depending on two parametersβ and Re_*, while the turbulent Prandtl number Pr_t is either constant or is also a known function of η and the parametersβ and Re_*. The temperature of the surface T_w(x) is assumed to be an arbitrary function of the longitudinal coordinate and the solution is constructed in the form of series in the form parameters containing the derivatives of T_w(x). These form parameters are similar to those used in [6–9] to construct exact solutions of the equations of the laminar boundary layer.     

Analytical study of heat transfer from circular cylinder in liquid metals

In this study the influence of a thin hydrodynamic boundary layer on the heat transfer from a single circular cylinder in liquid metals having low Prandtl number (0.004–0.03) is investigated under isothermal and isoflux boundary conditions. Two separate analytical heat transfer models, viscous and inviscid, are developed to clarify the discrepancy between previous results. For both models, integral approach of the boundary layer analysis is employed to derive closed form expressions for the calculation of the average heat transfer coefficients. For an inviscid model, the energy equation is solved using potential flow velocity only whereas for a viscous model, a fourth-order velocity profile is used in the hydrodynamic boundary layer and potential flow velocity is used outside the boundary layer. The third-order temperature profile is used inside the thermal boundary layer for both models. It is shown that the inviscid model gives higher heat transfer coefficients whereas viscous flow model gives heat transfer results in a fairly good agreement with the previous experimental/numerical results.     

A rigorous analysis of simultaneous heat and mass transfer in the pasta drying process

This study presents a two dimensional analysis of coupled heat and mass transfer during the process of pasta drying. Velocity and temperature distributions of air flowing around the pasta are predicted in steady state condition. Using these profiles and the similarity between heat and mass boundary layers, local convective heat and mass transfer coefficients were determined on different points of pasta surface. By employing these values, the solution of coupled heat and mass transfer equations within the pasta object in unsteady state condition was obtained. Furthermore the effects of operating conditions such as velocity, temperature and relative humidity of air flow on drying rate of pasta were studied. Sensitivity analysis results show that the effects of air temperature and relative humidity on the rate of drying are more important than the effect of air velocity. Finally, the results obtained from this analysis were compared with the experimental data reported in the literatures and a good agreement was observed while, no adjustable parameter is used in the presented model.     

Disturbance propagation in two-dimensional boundary layers over a movable surface in the strong interaction regime

The dependence of the eigenvalues characterizing the disturbance propagation in hypersonic boundary layers on the temperature factor and the surface motion velocity is investigated. The eigenvalues are shown to decrease with an increase in the wall enthalpy. The results of the study are important for formulating well-posed problems for the time-dependent two-dimensional boundary layer equations and for developing adequate computational models.     

Effect of fluid temperature and uniformly accelerated rotation of the inner sphere on the selection of the flow pattern in a spherical layer

The process of the selection of one of the two flow patterns possible in the hysteresis region, when the Reynolds number is varied in different directions, and differing with respect to the azimuthal wavenumber, 3 or 4, is experimentally investigated. The flow pattern selection proceeds under the influence of an increase in the rotation velocity of the inner sphere at a constant acceleration, the post-acceleration velocity remaining constant. The spherical layer thickness is equal to the inner sphere radius and the outer boundary is fixed. It is established that there is a time lag between the beginning (end) of the sphere acceleration and the beginning (end) of the variation in the measured azimuthal velocity component. It is found that the acceleration necessary for one flow pattern to be replaced by the other significantly depends not only on the Reynolds numbers at which the acceleration begins and ends but also on the fluid temperature in the layer. It is shown that the temperature dependence can be attributed to the variation in the Reynolds number corresponding to the position of the hysteresis boundary when the working fluid viscosity is varied in the layer.     

Higher-order and length-scale statistics of velocity and temperature fluctuations in turbulent boundary layer along a heated vertical flat plate

Time-developing direct numerical simulation (DNS) was performed to clarify the higher-order turbulent behaviors in the thermally-driven boundary layers both in air and water along a heated vertical flat plate. The predicted statistics of the heat transfer rates and the higher-order turbulent behaviors such as skewness factors, flatness factors and spatial correlation coefficients of the velocity and temperature fluctuations in the natural-convection boundary layer correspond well with those obtained from experiments for space-developing flows. The numerical results reveal that the turbulent structures of the buoyancy-driven boundary layers are mainly controlled by the fluid motions in the outer region of the boundary layer, and these large-scale structures are strongly connected with the generation of turbulence in the thermally-driven boundary layers, in accordance with the actual observations for space-developing flows. Moreover, to specify the turbulence structures of the boundary layers, the cross-correlation coefficients and the characteristic length scales are examined for the velocity and thermal fields. Consequently, it is found that with a slight increase in freestream velocity, the cross-correlation coefficient for the Reynolds shear stress and turbulent heat flux increases for opposing flow and decreases for aiding flow, and the integral scales for the velocity and temperature fields become larger for opposing flow and smaller for aiding flow compared with those for the pure natural-convection boundary layer.     

Highly spatially resolving laser Doppler velocity measurements of the tip clearance flow inside a hard disk drive model

The flow in the tip clearance of a hard disk drive model has been investigated with laser Doppler techniques. The flow was driven by co-rotating disks inside a cylindrical enclosure in order to simulate a hard disk drive used for data storage devices. The main focus of the investigation was on the understanding of complex flow behavior in the narrow gap region between the disk tip and the outer shroud wall, which is supposed to be one of the causes of flow induced vibration of the disks. Experiments in the past have never been able to examine this region because of the lack of the spatial resolution of sensors in the highly three-dimensional flow in the region. In the present investigation, the flow velocity in the tip clearance region was measured with optical measurement techniques for the first time. The flow behaviors are investigated for four different conditions with two different gap widths and two different shapes of the shroud walls with and without ribs. The velocity measurements were taken both with conventional laser Doppler velocimetry and using a laser Doppler velocity profile sensor with a spatial resolution in the micrometer range. The circumferential velocity component was measured along the axial and radial directions. The steep gradients of the circumferential mean velocity in both directions were successfully captured with a high spatial resolution, which was achieved by the velocity profile sensor. From the supplementary investigations, the existence of vortex structures in the tip clearance region was confirmed with a dependence on the shroud gap width and the shroud shape. The interactions of the two boundary layers seem to be the source of the complex three-dimensional behaviors of the flow in this region.