Simulation of round jets with nozzle-dependent inflow conditions using the k−ε turbulence model

In view of the “round jet initial condition anomaly”, discussed in literature, we investigate the effect of inflow conditions resulting from the use of different nozzle geometries to form the jet. RANS simulations in the framework of OpenFOAM using the k − ε turbulence model are performed. As the standard model coefficient C_ε1 = 1.44 is known to overpredict spreading rates for round jets, a value of C_ε1 = 1.6 was recommended for this case already in the 1970's. While this works well for jets issuing from long pipes, it does not give satisfactory results for other nozzle geometries. To overcome this deficiency while keeping the k − ε model, we suggest modified coefficients C_ε1 based on profiles of mean flow and turbulence at the nozzle exit. We determine optimal values of C_ε1 for three different nozzle geometries, and test them at various Reynolds numbers. Good agreement with experimental data is obtained. (© 2014 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Mathematical modelling of single and multi-strand tundish for inclusion analysis

In the present work a numerical study was carried out to investigate the inclusion behaviour in a four strand asymmetric billet caster tundish. A parameter called separation efficiency was used to compare inclusion behaviour quantitatively. An open source CFD code called OpenFOAM was used to model the inclusions through Lagrangian Particle Tracking approach. First, the Lagrangian particle class was defined in the existing simpleFoam solver of the OpenFOAM and the same customized solver was used to track particles in the already obtained velocity field. Inclusions were modelled as spheres and various forces acting were also considered. Present numerical results were validated using available experimental results and found to be in good agreement. Further, such inclusion behaviour was also extended for a real industrial case tundish. Inclusion flotation characteristics in thermally induced flow was analyzed in detail. This is, perhaps, for the first time such an exhaustive study on inclusion analysis being reported considering the forces acting on the inclusions particles and with OpenFOAM.     

Direct numerical simulation of turbulent non-Newtonian flow using OpenFOAM

Understanding transition and turbulence in the flow of shear-thinning non-Newtonian fluids remains substantially unresolved and additional research is required to develop better computational methods for wall-bounded turbulent flows of these fluids. Previous DNS studies of shear-thinning fluids mainly use purpose-built codes and simple geometries such as pipes and channels. However in practical application, the geometry of mixing vessels, pumps and other process equipment is far more complex, and more flexible computational methods are required. In this paper a general-purpose DNS approach for shear-thinning fluids is undertaken using the OpenFOAM CFD library. DNS of turbulent Newtonian and non-Newtonian flow in a pipe flow are conducted and the accuracy and efficiency of OpenFOAM are assessed against a validated high-order spectral element-Fourier DNS code – Semtex. The results show that OpenFOAM predicts the flow of shear-thinning fluids to be a little more transitional than the predictions from Semtex, with lower radial and azimuthal turbulence intensities and higher axial intensity. Despite this, the first and second order turbulence statistics differ by at most 16%, and usually much less. An assessment of the parallel scaling of OpenFOAM indicates that OpenFOAM scales very well for the CPUs from 8 to 512, but the intranode scalability is poor for less than 8CPUs. The present work shows that OpenFOAM can be used for DNS of shear-thinning fluids in the simple case of pipe flow, and suggests that more complex flows, where flow separation is often important, are likely to be simulated with accuracies that are acceptably good for engineering application.     

Simulation of wake effects of windfarms using an Actuator Disk implementation

Wind turbines extract energy from the approaching flow field resulting in reduced wind speeds, increased turbulence and a wake downstream of the wind turbine. Wakes extending up to 20 km downstream of a windfarm are reported [1]. In [2] a multi-scale numerical method is proposed that addresses length scales of the boundary layer, windfarm and meso-scale. As a step towards full realization of the multi scale approach the implementation of an Actuator Disk (AD) model into OpenFOAM including a proper atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) is presented. For a meso-scale area of open sea, the standard ABL conditions of OpenFOAM can not be used. The pre implemented ABL boundary condition for OpenFOAM is restricted to roughness lengths greater than 0.001 m. The boundary condition are modified in order to achieve adequate homogeneous flow properties throughout the considered domain enabling almost constant velocity profiles. A new AD class is implemented in OpenFOAM to establish an arbitrary number and location of windturbines. The class uses the standard k-ϵ turbulence model. The wake effect of windfarms composed of windturbines with different heights and different lateral spacing is investigated. Specifically the windfarm Trianel Borkum in the North Sea of Germany is simulated. Within this work wakes extending up to 20 km in length could be observed, suggesting to study the ABL-windfarm interaction in more detail. (© 2015 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Markovian representation of a bilinear time series model and maximum likelihood estimation of the parameters

A bilinear time series (BLTS) model is expressed in the form of Akaike's Markovian representation in order to use the Kalman recursive estimation approach. It is shown that Akaike's Markovian representation of autoregressive moving average models of orderp and q (ARMA(p,q)) and that of the bilinear model are equivalent. This equivalence facilitates the maximum likelihood estimation of the parameters involved in the bilinear model, which otherwise is an unwieldy problem. The present approach can easily be extended to take into account missing observations     

Spherical Radon Transform and Wavelets

In this paper we shall approach the problem of localization and inversion of spherical Radon transform. This motivates the construction of particular wavelets, based on a suitable representation of the unitary group via Gel'fand's projective model Pℝ³     

Kirillov's Orbit Method for p-Groups and Pro-p Groups

In this text, we study Kirillov's orbit method in the context of Lazard's p-saturable groups when p is an odd prime. Using this approach we prove that the orbit method works in the following cases: torsion free p-adic analytic pro-p groups of dimension smaller than p, pro-p Sylow subgroups of classical groups over ? _p of small dimension and for certain families of finite p-groups.     

Pointwise Green's function approach to stability for scalar conservation laws

We study the pointwise behavior of perturbations from a viscous shock solution to a scalar conservation law, obtaining an estimate independent of shock strength. We find that for a perturbation with initial data decaying algebraically or slower, the perturbation decays in time at the rate of decay of the integrated initial data in any L^p norm, p ≥ 1. Stability in any L^p norm is a direct consequence. The approach taken is that of obtaining pointwise estimates on the perturbation through a Duhamel's principle argument that employs recently developed pointwise estimates on the Green's function for the linearized equation. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Nondegeneracy,from the prospect of wave-wave regular interactions of a gasdynamic type

A parallel is considered between Burnat's “algebraic” approach [restricted to a genuine nonlinearity] and Martin's “differential” approach regarding their contribution to describing some nondegenerate one-dimensional gasdynamic regular interaction solutions. (© 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Using the Knowledge Quartet to quantify mathematical knowledge in teaching: the development of a protocol for Initial Teacher Education

This study examined trainee teachers' mathematical knowledge in teaching (MKiT) over their final year in a US Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programme. This paper reports on an exploratory methodological approach taken to use the Knowledge Quartet to quantify MKiT through the development of a new protocol to code trainees' teaching of mathematics lessons. This approach extends Rowland's et al. work on the Knowledge Quartet (KQ). Justification for using the KQ to quantify MKiT, and the potential benefits such an attempt might provide those involved with ITE, are discussed. It is suggested that quantified MKiT data based on the Knowledge Quartet can be used to consider MKiT development in novice teachers in order to inform ITE programmes and form new theoretical loops between theory and practice in teacher education.     

Renormalization group second‐order approximation for singularly perturbed nonlinear ordinary differential equations

We consider a 2 time scale nonlinear system of ordinary differential equations. The small parameter of the system is the ratio ϵ of the time scales. We search for an approximation involving only the slow time unknowns and valid uniformly for all times at order O(ϵ²). A classical approach to study these problems is Tikhonov's singular perturbation theorem. We develop an approach leading to a higher order approximation using the renormalization group (RG) method. We apply it in 2 steps. In the first step, we show that the RG method allows for approximation of the fast time variables by their RG expansion taken at the slow time unknowns. Next, we study the slow time equations, where the fast time unknowns are replaced by their RG expansion. This allows to rigorously show the second order uniform error estimate. Our result is a higher order extension of Hoppensteadt's work on the Tikhonov singular perturbation theorem for infinite times. The proposed procedure is suitable for problems from applications, and it is computationally less demanding than the classical Vasil'eva‐O'Malley expansion. We apply the developed method to a mathematical model of stem cell dynamics.     

The analysis of structured qualitative data

The aim of this paper is to give an overview of the methodological contribution given by Italian researchers in introducing a priori information into multidimensional data analysis techniques, paying special attention to categorical variables. The basic method is Non‐Symmetrical Correspondence Analysis, which enables the analysis of a contingency table when the behaviour of one variable is supposed to be dependent on the other cross‐classified variable. As usual correspondence analysis decomposes an association index (Pearson's Φ²), in a principal component sense, the proposed method is based on a decomposition of a predictability index (Goodman and Kruskal's τ_b). Non‐symmetrical correspondence analysis has been extended to more than one dependent/explanatory variable(s), by means of proper flattening procedures, i.e. by the use of multiple tables, and the decomposition of Gray and Williams' multiple and partial τ_b's. In doing so multiple and partial versions have been proposed. A forward selection procedure for choosing the variables with higher predictive power is presented. After a brief review of non‐symmetrical correspondence analysis confirmatory approach, the problem of validating results in terms of analytical stability and replication stability is faced by means of influence functions and resampling techniques. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Quadratic variation of a càdlàg semimartingale as a.s. limit of the normalized truncated variations

For a real càdlàg path x, we define sequence of semi-explicit quantities, which do not depend on any partitions and such that whenever x is a path of a càdlàg semimartingale then these quantities tend a.s. to the continuous part of the quadratic variation of the semimartingale. Next, we derive several consequences of this result and propose a new approach to define Föllmer's pathwise integral.     

Continuous-Time Markov Decision Processes with Unbounded Transition and Discounted-Reward Rates

Abstract

In this article, we study continuous-time Markov decision processes in Polish spaces. The optimality criterion to be maximized is the expected discounted criterion. The transition rates may be unbounded, and the reward rates may have neither upper nor lower bounds. We provide conditions on the controlled system's primitive data under which we prove that the transition functions of possibly non-homogeneous continuous-time Markov processes are regular by using Feller's construction approach to such transition functions. Then, under continuity and compactness conditions we prove the existence of optimal stationary policies by using the technique of extended infinitesimal operators associated with the transition functions of possibly non-homogeneous continuous-time Markov processes, and also provide a recursive way to compute (or at least to approximate) the optimal reward values. The conditions provided in this paper are different from those used in the previous literature, and they are illustrated with an example.     

About weak‐strong uniqueness for the 3D incompressible Navier‐Stokes system

This article studies the problem of L² stability and weak‐strong uniqueness of solutions of the incompressible Navier‐Stokes on the whole space \input amssym ${\Bbb S}^3$ constructed by Kato's approach in spaces coming from Littlewood‐Paley theory and using the L¹ smoothing effect for the heat flow. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Transient cavitating flow structure and acoustic analysis of a hydrofoil with whalelike wavy leading edge

In this paper, the open source software OpenFOAM is used to perform a numerical investigation of the cavitating flow around a modified NACA63₄-021 hydrofoil with bioinspired, wavy leading edge, with particular emphasis on study of the interactions between the cavitation and the streamwise vortices and the far-field radiation noise. A modified k-ω shear-stress transport (SST) model coupled with the Schnerr-Sauer cavitation model and the Ffowcs Williams-Hawkings (FW-H) acoustic analogy approach are introduced to the simulation. The transient cavitation structure and the streamwise vortices are captured well and the results show significant interactions between the cavitation and the streamwise vortices. Cavitation can promote fragmentation of the streamwise vortices, while the streamwise vortices cause cavitation inception to occur earlier and bind the cavitation within the trough region by changing the pressure distribution on the hydrofoil. The transformation of the FW-H equation's solution indicates that the monopole noise is directly related to the cavitation volume acceleration and the dipole noise is related to the mechanical force of the hydrofoil on fluids and the rate at which this force changes. The collapse of cavitation cloud and the collision of the re-entrant jet and main flow will cause violent fluctuation of the mechanical force thus produce instantaneous extreme dipole noise values, while the monopole noise is relatively strong in the cavitation collapse stage due to significant cavitation volume acceleration. The time domain hydroacoustic characteristics are similar for the modified hydrofoil and the baseline hydrofoil.     

Expectation transfer between branching processes and random trees

An approach for translating results on expected parameter values from subcritical Galton–Watson branching processes to simply generated random trees under the uniform model is outlined. As an auxiliary technique for asymptotic evaluations, we use Flajolet's and Odlyzko's transfer theorems. Some classical results on random trees are re-derived by the mentioned approach, and some new results are presented. For example, the asymptotic behavior of linearly recursive tree parameters is described and the asymptotic probability of level k to contain exactly one node is determined. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Existence and multiplicity of the solutions of the p(x)–Kirchhoff type equation via genus theory

In this paper, by using variational approach and Krasnoselskii's genus theory, we show the existence and multiplicity of the solutions of the p(x)‐Kirchhoff type equation. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Continuity between Cauchy and Bolzano: issues of antecedents and priority

In a paper published in 1970, Grattan-Guinness argued that Cauchy, in his 1821 Cours d'Analyse, may have plagiarized Bolzano's Rein analytischer Beweis (RB), first published in 1817. That paper was subsequently discredited in several works, but some of its assumptions still prevail today. In particular, it is usually considered that Cauchy did not develop his notion of the continuity of a function before Bolzano developed his in RB and that both notions are essentially the same. We argue that both assumptions are incorrect, and that it is implausible that Cauchy's initial insight into that notion, which eventually evolved to an approach using infinitesimals, could have been borrowed from Bolzano's work. Furthermore, we account for Bolzano's interest in that notion and focus on his discussion of a definition by Kästner (in Section 183 of his 1766 book), which the former seems to have misrepresented at least partially.