Computational fluid dynamics modelling of gas jets impinging onto liquid pools

Gas jets impinging onto a gas–liquid interface of a liquid pool are studied using computational fluid dynamics modelling, which aims to obtain a better understanding of the behaviour of the gas jets used metallurgical engineering industry. The gas and liquid flows are modelled using the volume of fluid technique. The governing equations are formulated using the density and viscosity of the “gas–liquid mixture”, which are described in terms of the phase volume fraction. Reynolds averaging is applied to yield a set of Reynolds-averaged conservation equations for the mass and momentum, and the k–ε turbulence model. The deformation of the gas–liquid interface is modelled by the pressure jump across the interface via the Young–Laplace equation. The governing equations in the axisymmetric cylindrical coordinates are solved using the commercial CFD code, FLUENT. The computed results are compared with experimental and theoretical data reported in the literature. The CFD modelling allows the simultaneous evaluation of the gas flow field, the free liquid surface and the bulk liquid flow, and provides useful insight to the highly complex, and industrially significant flows in the jetting system.     

CFD simulation of methane dispersion and innovative methane management in underground mining faces

This study addresses methane dispersion in a mine tunnel with discrete methane sources and various methods to handle it. Air flow behavior and methane dispersion in the tunnel are simulated utilizing the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach. Various possible conditions which may occur in a mine tunnel are investigated. Simulation results indicate that methane dispersion inside the mine tunnel is influenced significantly by the number as well as location of the sources and quantity of methane released from each source. Furthermore, application of an innovative flow divider which comprises volumetric flow control and flow director, is investigated. It is found that by properly directing the ventilation flow to the location where methane is accumulating can reduce methane concentration below the safe level. In addition, it is noted that focusing the ventilation flow at a point is more effective as compared to dispersing it at several points. This study provides some new ideas for designing an “intelligent” underground mine ventilation system which can cost-effectively maintain methane concentration below the critical value.     

Large Eddy Simulation of the vortex end in reverse-flow centrifugal separators

The present work is a study of the gas-flow phenomenon known as the “end of the vortex” (EoV), which spontaneously occurs at the lower end, or under, reverse-flow centrifugal separators such as cyclones or swirl tubes. Different CFD models of swirl tubes have been built to study and analyse this phenomenon in detail. The present numerical work is based on—and compared with—previous experimental observations of this phenomenon. The numerical models were built in complete agreement with the geometrical configurations and operating conditions used in these earlier experimental studies [1]. Two different configurations of swirl tubes were analyzed. One configuration was an in principle long tube with variable length in which the dependence on the vessel length of the behaviour of the vortex core in a simple, well-defined geometry was studied. The other configuration was equipped with a wide “dust collection vessel” at the bottom, the depth of which was varied, to study the behaviour of the vortex core in a widely-used geometry. 3-D LES simulations were carried out using the commercial CFD package Star-CD. The bending of the vortex core to the wall of the vessel and its precessional motion, constituting the phenomenon of the EoV, was seen in both configurations, and the obtained results are in very good agreement, both qualitatively and to an extent quantitatively, with previous experimental results [1].     

How strange can an attractor for a dynamical system in a 3-manifold look?

The aim of this paper is to characterise those compact subsets K of 3-manifolds M that are (stable and not necessarily global) attractors for some flow on M. We will show that it is the topology of M−K, rather than that of K, the one that plays a relevant role in this problem.A necessary and sufficient condition for a set K to be an attractor is that it must be an “almost tame” subset of M in a sense made precise under the equivalent notions of “weakly tame” and “tamely embedded up to shape”, defined in the paper. These are complemented by a further equivalent condition, “algebraic tameness”, which has the advantage of being checkable by explicit computation.A final section of the paper is devoted to a partial analysis of the same question when one replaces flows by discrete dynamical systems.     

Computational study of decaying annular vortex flow using the Rε/k − ε turbulence model

In this article, we present three dimensional CFD study of turbulent vortex flow in an annular passage using OpenFOAM 1.6. The vortex flow is generated by introducing the flow through a tangential entry to the passage. For the analysis presented in this article, turbulence was modeled using the R_ε/k − ε model, in addition, a comparison between such model with the standard k − ε model was conducted and discussed. The main characteristics of the flow such as vortex structure and recirculation zone were investigated. It was found that flow is subjected to Rankine vortex structure with three forced vortex regimes and a free vortex region near to the outer wall. The phenomenon of vortex decay was investigated by depicting the swirl number trend along the axial direction of the flow domain. It was found that the vortex decay is subjected to an exponential decay behavior. New coefficients for the exponential decay correlation were derived based on local values of velocity components in different radial planes.     

The “Essential Tension” at Work in Qualitative Analysis: A Case Study of the Opposite Points of View of Poincaré and Enriques on the Relationships between Analysis and Geometry

An analysis of the different philosophic and scientific visions of Henri Poincaré and Federigo Enriques relative to qualitative analysis provides us with a complex and interesting image of the “essential tension” between “tradition” and “innovation” within the history of science. In accordance with his scientific paradigm, Poincaré viewed qualitative analysis as a means for preserving the nucleus of the classical reductionist program, even though it meant “bending the rules” somewhat. To Enriques's mind, qualitative analysis represented the affirmation of a synthetic, geometrical vision that would supplant the analytical/quantitative conception characteristic of 19th-century mathematics and mathematical physics. Here, we examine the two different answers given at the turn of the century to the question of the relationship between geometry and analysis and between mathematics, on the one hand, and mechanics and physics, on the other.Copyright 1998 Academic Press.Un'analisi delle diverse posizioni filosofiche e scientifiche di Henri Poincaré e Federigo Enriques nei riguardi dell'analisi qualitativa fornisce un'immagine complessa e interessante della “tensione essenziale” tra “tradizione” e “innovazione” nell'ambito della storia della scienza. In linea con il proprio paradigma scientifico, Poincaré vedeva nell'analisi qualitativa un mezzo per preservare il nucleo del programma riduzionista calssico, anche se cio comportava una lieve “distorsione delle regole”. Nella mente di Enriques, l'analisi qualitativa rappresentava l'affermazione di un punto di vista sintetico e geometrico che avrebbe soppiantato la concezione analitico-quantitativa caratteristica della matematica e della fisica matematica del 19° secolo. Il nostro scopo principale è di esaminare due diverse risposte date a cavallo del secolo alla questione dei rapporti tra geometria e analisi e tra matematica da un lato e meccanica e fisica dall'altro.Copyright 1998 Academic Press.AMS subject classification: 01A55     

CFD studies on burner secondary airflow

In many fossil power plants operating today, there is insufficient means to assure the proper balancing of the secondary airflows between the individual burners of wall-fired units. This mismatch leads to decreased boiler efficiency and increased emissions. In this study, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling of a fossil power plant wind box was performed. The model solved the three-dimensional Reynolds averaged Navier–Stokes equations with the k–ε turbulence model. The CFD results were validated by the experimental data taken from a 1/8th scale model of a wall-fired fossil unit. Simulations under various mass flow rates specified at inlet, various baffle positions and two opening conditions of the burners were obtained to identify the optimum design in terms of the equalization of the secondary airflow through the burners. This study demonstrated that the combination of experimental and CFD approach can be an effective tool in the research of burner secondary airflow balancing.     

Reducing belief simpliciter to degrees of belief

Is it possible to give an explicit definition of belief (simpliciter) in terms of subjective probability, such that believed propositions are guaranteed to have a sufficiently high probability, and yet it is neither the case that belief is stripped of any of its usual logical properties, nor is it the case that believed propositions are bound to have probability 1? We prove the answer is ‘yes’, and that given some plausible logical postulates on belief that involve a contextual “cautiousness” threshold, there is but one way of determining the extension of the concept of belief that does the job. The qualitative concept of belief is not to be eliminated from scientific or philosophical discourse, rather, by reducing qualitative belief to assignments of resiliently high degrees of belief and a “cautiousness” threshold, qualitative and quantitative belief turn out to be governed by one unified theory that offers the prospects of a huge range of applications. Within that theory, logic and probability theory are not opposed to each other but go hand in hand.     

一类含有参数和有理奇性哈密顿系统的同宿与异宿轨道

研究一类含有两个参数和有理奇性平面哈密顿系统的同宿与异宿轨道,该问题来源于一个关于聚合物流体剪切流动特性的研究．借助常微定性理论和不变流形分析的方法,文中给出了系统存在同宿与异宿轨道的条件,并通过数值计算检验了所得理论结果。     

Lorentz space estimates for the Ginzburg-Landau energy

In this paper we prove novel lower bounds for the Ginzburg-Landau energy with or without magnetic field. These bounds rely on an improvement of the “vortex-balls construction” estimates by extracting a new positive term in the energy lower bounds. This extra term can be conveniently estimated through a Lorentz space norm, on which it thus provides an upper bound. The Lorentz space L2,∞ we use is critical with respect to the expected vortex profiles and can serve to estimate the total number of vortices and get improved convergence results.     

Pricing and volume discounting for a dominant retailer with uncertain manufacturing cost information

A product costs the manufacturer c/unit to produce; the retailer sells it at p/unit to the consumers. The retail-market demand volume V varies with p according to a given demand curve D_p. How would or should the “players” (i.e., the manufacturer and the retailer) set their prices? In contrast to many studies that assume a dominant manufacturer implementing the “manufacturer-Stackelberg” (“[mS]”) game, this paper examines how a dominant retailer should operate when his knowledge of c is imperfect. We first derive optimal decisions (some of them counter-intuitive) for the dominant retailer when he is restricted to choosing between [rS] (retailer-Stackelberg) and [mS]. Second, we propose a “reverse quantity discount” scheme that the dominant retailer (i.e., the downstream player) can offer to the manufacturer (note that the standard discount scheme is offered by the upstream player). We show that this discounting scheme is quite effective compared to the considerably more complicated though nevertheless theoretically optimal “menu of contracts.” We also reveal a largely overlooked function of discounting; i.e., discounting enables an “ignorant” but dominant player to usurp the earnings attributable to the knowledge of the dominated player. Finally, we also show that discounting works well when the demand curve is linear, but becomes ineffective when the demand curve is iso-elastic – a result echoing the conclusions of some earlier related works.     

A constrained variational problem for an existence theorem of a steady vortex pair in two-phase shear flow

We prove an existence theorem for a steady vortex pair in two-phase shear flow in a planar domain. The method used is a variational principle in which the kinetic energy is maximised subject to the vorticity belonging to the weak closure of the set of rearrangements of a prescribed function, and subject to another functional representing the “generalised impulse” having a prescribed value. We prove also that when the prescribed value of the “generalised impulse” is large enough, the constrained maximiser of the kinetic energy is in fact a rearrangement of the prescribed function.     

Tau-functions,Grassmannians and rank one conditions

In integrable systems, specifically the KP hierarchy, there are functions known as “tau-functions”, closely related to the Schur polynomials in terms of which they are often written. Although they are generally viewed as the solutions to a collection of nonlinear PDEs, in this note they will equivalently be characterized by a quadratic difference equation. Sato's theorem associates tau-functions to the points of a Grassmann manifold. To make that amazing theorem clear to non-experts, we will first show an analogous (but easily understood) example of a linear ODE and its solution from a flow on the xy-plane. In each case the solution is created via a flow generated by a certain linear operator. The question we pose is this: “What other operators could have been used to generate solutions in the same way?” Although the answer is well known in the ODE case, the question in the nonlinear case is the main result of our new paper. We will state the result and discuss its relationship to the “trend” of writing tau-functions in terms of matrices satisfying certain rank one conditions. The elucidation of a geometric interpretation of the Hirota bilinear difference equation (HBDE) is a key feature of the proof and will be briefly described.     

Shear layer solutions of incompressible MHD and dynamo effect

This paper is devoted to the equations of incompressible magnetohydrodynamics (MHD). Its general concern is the “dynamo effect”, i.e. the growth of magnetic field through the movement of a conducting fluid. Motivated by the so-called “stretch-diffuse mechanism”, we study the nonlinear stability of solutions (u,b=0)$(u,b=0)$ where the velocity u is a regularized vortex sheet, and the magnetic component b is zero. We prove that dynamo effect is possible when both curvature of the sheet and magnetic diffusion are non-zero, and impossible otherwise.     

A nonlinear parabolic problem from combustion theory: attractors and stability

A parabolic (convection-diffusion) problem in a half-line, arising when modeling the temperature profile of an adiabatic solid in radiation-driven combustion, is considered. Both the coefficient in the “convective” term (the velocity of the burning front) and the Neumann datum (the prescribed heat influx into the burning body) are nonlinearly related to the proper value of the solution at the boundary. In addition, the velocity is allowed to vanish below some threshold value. Under the main assumptions of “intensely irradiated boundary” and initial data that behave suitably as x→-∞, it is proven that there exists a global attractor for the evolution semigroup associated with the problem. Furthermore, the stabilization of all solutions towards the equilibrium solution (a uniformly propagating front) is derived for a class of Neumann data, which are of some interest for applications.     

Numerical study of helicopter blade–vortex mechanism of interaction using the potential flow theory

The blade–vortex interaction (BVI) phenomenon plays a key role in the rotorcraft aerodynamics. Numerical investigations of BVI using classical CFD approaches are computationally expensive. In the present research we propose a numerical approach, based on the potential flow theory, for the numerical investigation of helicopter blade–vortex mechanism of interaction. This approach overcomes the computational expenses posed by the CFD techniques. The influence of vertical miss distance, angle of attack, airfoil camber, and vortex strength on the helicopter blade–vortex mechanism of interaction is subject of investigation. The study reveals that the magnitude of the aerodynamic coefficients decreases with the increase of vertical miss distance and angle of attack, and the decrease of vortex strength and core size.     

Accelerated algorithm for pattern detection in logical analysis of data

Sets of “positive” and “negative” points (observations) in n-dimensional discrete space given along with their non-negative integer multiplicities are analyzed from the perspective of the Logical Analysis of Data (LAD). A set of observations satisfying upper and/or lower bounds imposed on certain components is called a positive pattern if it contains some positive observations and no negative one. The number of variables on which such restrictions are imposed is called the degree of the pattern. A total polynomial algorithm is proposed for the enumeration of all patterns of limited degree, and special efficient variants of it for the enumeration of all patterns with certain “sign” and “coverage” requirements are presented and evaluated on a publicly available collection of benchmark datasets.     

RBF Neural Network Based Prediction on Blade Surface Pressure Fields in Compressors北大核心CSCD

The airflow characteristics of the internal flow path of an aero-engine compressor are complex, and the vortex flow field around the blade is characterized by high pressure, high speed, rotation, and unsteadiness. Therefore, there is an urgent need to calculate and predict the aerodynamic characteristics of the complex flow field around the compressor blade efficiently and accurately. The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method was used to generate the aerodynamic load distribution on the blade surface under different operating conditions for the study of the complex flow fields around aero-engine blades. The radial based function (RBF) neural network was applied to establish the pressure surface aerodynamic load prediction model, and the neural network modeling method was combined with the flow field calculation. The neural network method can learn and train the CFD-based data set to properly compensate the errors from the CFD, which provides a reference for the effective prediction of the complex flow fields around aero-engine compressor blades. © 2023 Editorial Office of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics. All rights reserved.     

Feedback flow control employing local dynamical modelling with wavelets

In this paper, we utilize wavelet transform to obtain dynamical models describing the behaviour of fluid flow in a local spatial region of interest. First, snapshots of the flow are obtained from experiments or from computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations of the governing equations. A wavelet family and decomposition level is selected by assessing the reconstruction success under the resulting inverse transform. The flow is then expanded onto a set of basis vectors that are constructed from the wavelet function. The wavelet coefficients associated with the basis vectors capture the time variation of the flow within the spatial region covered by the support of the basis vectors. A dynamical model is established for these coefficients by using subspace identification methods. The approach developed is applied to a sample flow configuration on a square domain where the input affects the system through the boundary conditions. It is observed that there is good agreement between CFD simulation results and the predictions of the dynamical model. A controller is designed based on the dynamical model and is seen to be successful in regulating the velocity of a given point within the region of interest.