Optimal Control of Nonmodal Disturbances in Boundary Layers

The optimal control of infinitesimal flow disturbances experiencing the largest transient gain over a fixed time span, commonly termed “optimal perturbations,” is undertaken using a variational technique in two- and three-dimensional boundary layer flows. The cost function employed includes various energy metrics which can be weighted according to their perceived importance, simplifying the task of determining which terms are essential for a “good” control scheme. In the accelerated boundary layers investigated, disturbance kinetic energy can be typically reduced by about one order of magnitude. However, it seems impossible to suppress completely over the entire control interval; “good” control strategies still permit approximately an order magnitude growth over the initial energy at some point in the interval. It is shown that the control effort efficiently targets the physical mechanisms behind transient growth. Received 5 February 2001 and accepted 15 June 2001     

Fluctuating flow past a cylinder at high frequencies

The flow in a laminar boundary layer for an arbitrary periodic main stream is considered at high frequencies when the fluid is incompressible. The analysis, incorporating length scales appropriate to the thin “Stokes” layer immediately adjacent to the surface and to the outer “Prandtl” boundary layer, involves expressing the dependent variables as mean parts plus superimposed periodic parts and expanding these in inverse powers of the frequency parameter in the two layers. Thus earlier approaches based on physical arguments are placed in the context of a systematic mathematical expansion scheme which is itself formulated for more general main stream velocities than hitherto. Expressions for skin friction and heat transfer are obtained and briefly discussed.     

A rheological approach to drill-in fluids optimization

The aim of this work is to propose design criteria, based on rheological characterisation for improving drill-in fluids performance. In particular, it reports an example in which rheological approaches helped improve drill-in fluids resistance to temperature. As a starting system a commercial drill-in fluid containing xanthan gum and calcium carbonate was chosen and evaluated. Different samples were then prepared by changing the initial formulation in order to increase the system's stability to temperature. Drill-in fluids' performance have been compared by considering their “damaging potential”, filtration properties and, “cakes”. All drill-in fluids have been tested before and after aging at a given temperature with “hot rolling tests”. The systems' gel structure was characterized by measuring dynamic moduli (G′ and G′′) in the linear viscoelastic range and all samples were compared by evaluating their “melting” temperature and gel network strength during time cure tests. The results obtained from this work suggest that the rheological tests carried out on the whole drill-in fluid can provide insights into fluids' damaging potential and “cake” structure. In particular, rheology proved to be able to provide quantitative information about gel strength and temperature stability that permitted one to improve drill-in fluids' formulation in order to preclude formation damage and to meet industrial requirements. Received: 6 February 2000 Accepted: 15 November 2000     

Turbulent boundary layer velocity profiles over a smooth surface

Mean velocity measurements made for two-dimensional incompressible turbulent boundary layers, for 3 pressure gradients on a smooth wall have been used to evaluate the pressure gradient parameter, the skin-friction and the roughness function by the method of “curve-fit” to the entire profile. Local skin-friction coefficients so obtained do not agree with the experimental results but the integral parameters are well represented.     

Effect of the Source Term on Steady Free Convection Boundary Layer Flows over an Vertical Plate in a Porous Medium. Part I

The Darcy free convection boundary layer flow over a vertical flat plate is considered in the presence of volumetric heat generation/absorption. In the present first part of the paper it is assumed that the heat generation/absorption takes place in a self-consistent way, the source term q ^′′′≡ S of the energy equation being an analytical function of the local temperature difference T − T _∞. In a forthcoming second part, the case of the externally controlled source terms S = S(x,y ) will be considered. It is shown that due to the presence of S, the physical equivalence of the up- and downflows gets in general broken, in the sense that the free convection flow over the upward projecting hot plate (“upflow”) and over its downward projecting cold counterpart (“downflow”) in general become physically distinct. The consequences of this circumstance are examined for different forms of S. Several analytical solutions are given. Some of them describe algebraically decaying boundary layers which can also be recovered as limiting cases of exponentially decayingones. This asymptotic phenomenon is discussed in some detail.     

Development of an X-ray computed tomography (CT) system with sparse sources: application to three-phase pipe flow visualization

This paper describes the application of a two-beam X-ray computed tomography (CT) system to multiphase (gas–oil–water) flow measurement. Two high-voltage (160 keV) X-ray sources are used to penetrate a 4-in. (101.6 mm ID) pipeline. A rotating filter wheel mechanism is employed to alternately “harden” and “soften” the X-ray spectra to provide discrimination between the three phases. Because this system offers only two projections, conventional back-projection algorithms are ineffective and thus a new reconstruction technique has been developed. A matrix equation is formed, to which additional “smoothing equations” are added to compensate for the lack of projection data. The tomographic result is obtained by computing an inverse matrix. This is a one-off computation and the inverse is stored for repeated use; reconstructed images from synthesized data demonstrate the effectiveness of this technique. Three-phase tomographic images of a horizontal slug flow are presented, which clearly show the mixing of oil and water layers within the slug body. The relevance of this work to the offshore oil and gas industry is summarized.     

Vortex Shedding from a Hemisphere in a Turbulent Boundary Layer

Supercritical turbulent boundary layer flow over a hemisphere with a rough surface (Re= 150000) has been simulated using Large Eddy Simulation (LES) and analyzed using the Karhunen--Loève expansion (“Proper Orthogonal Decomposition,” POD). The time-dependent inflow condition is provided from a separate LES of a boundary layer developing behind a barrier fence and a set of vorticity generators. LES results using significantly different grid resolutions are compared with a corresponding wind tunnel experiment to demonstrate the reliability of the simulation. The separation processes are analyzed by inspecting second-order moments, time spectra, and instantaneous velocity distributions. Applying POD, a detailed study of the spatiotemporal structure of the separation processes has been carried out. From this analysis it can be concluded that the major event in the separated flow behind the obstacle is the shedding of “von Kármán”-type vortices, which can be represented by the first three energetically dominant modes. Received 23 January 1997 and accepted 19 February 1998     

Seismic propagation simulation in complex media with non-rectangular irregular-grid finite-difference

This paper presents a finite-difference (FD) method with spatially non-rectangular irregular grids to simulate the elastic wave propagation. Staggered irregular grid finite difference operators with a second-order time and spatial accuracy are used to approximate the velocity-stress elastic wave equations. This method is very simple and the cost of computing time is not much. Complicated geometries like curved thin layers, cased borehole and nonplanar interfaces may be treated with nonrectangular irregular grids in a more flexible way. Unlike the multi-grid scheme, this method requires no interpolation between the fine and coarse grids and all grids are computed at the same spatial iteration. Compared with the rectangular irregular grid FD, the spurious diffractions from “staircase” interfaces can easily be eliminated without using finer grids. Dispersion and stability conditions of the proposed method can be established in a similar form as for the rectangular irregular grid scheme. The Higdon‘s absorbing boundary condition is adopted to eliminate boundary reflections. Numerical simulations show that this method has satisfactory stability and accuracy in simulating wave propagation near rough solid-fluid interfaces. The computation costs are less than those using a regular grid and rectangular grid FD method.     

Decentralized adaptive neural control of nonlinear systems with unknown time delays

In this paper, a novel decentralized adaptive neural control scheme is proposed for a class of uncertain multi-input and multi-output (MIMO) nonlinear time-delay systems. RBF neural networks (NNs) are used to tackle unknown nonlinear functions, then the decentralized adaptive NN tracking controller is constructed by combining Lyapunov–Krasovskii functions and the dynamic surface control (DSC) technique along with the minimal-learning-parameters (MLP) algorithm. The proposed controller guarantees semi-global uniform ultimate boundedness (SGUUB) of all the signals in the closed-loop large-scale system, while the tracking errors converge to a small neighborhood of the origin. An advantage of the proposed control scheme lies in that the number of adaptive parameters for each subsystem is reduced to one, and three problems of “computational explosion,” “dimension curse” and “controller singularity” are solved, respectively. Finally, a numerical simulation is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness and performance of the proposed scheme.     

A new digital communication scheme based on chaotic modulation

Based on parameter identification, a parameter observer is designed for a class of chaotic systems. The digital signals modulated in the parameter will be recovered by the observer. By choosing different frequency signals as “0” and “1,” a practical digital secure communication scheme is proposed by this parameter modulation method. Numerical simulations show the effectiveness of this communication scheme.     

The Probability Density Functions of Velocity Fluctuations Inside Steady Pressure-Driven Three-Dimensional Turbulent Boundary Layers

One-point time-averaged velocity correlations and joint probability density functions (p.d.f.s) are analyzed with a multi-step method for steady three-dimensional turbulent boundary layers (3DTBLs). The data are derived from a time series of velocity fluctuations measured along the measurement axes ( ₁, ₂, ₃). The method includes a Monte Carlo (MC) technique in which, firstly, the 3×3 Reynolds stress tensors are diagonalized locally in order to obtain the experimental eigenvalues or principal values and the experimental eigenvectors or principal axes ( ₁, ₂, ₃). Secondly, trial independent p.d.f.s are MC-generated along these are projected from system into and the built-in hypotheses are tested for validity, using stringent self-consistency tests. All p.d.f. investigations are made with “perturbed centered-Gaussians” hypotheses, in which the “centered-Gaussians” are experimentally defined and the “perturbations” are trial drift velocities. Our MC-analysis method [1-3] is applied to the first [4] and second [5] generation “S-duct” experiments performed at the école Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). Additionally, two complementary algebraic self-consistency tests are developed for the double and the triple correlations separately. New results in the p.d.f. properties of 3DTBLs are presented, using Kinetic Theory as background. Received 6 November 2001 and accepted 27 August 2002 Published online 28 February 2003 Communicated by J.R. Blake     

The rheological behaviour of Ca(OH)2 suspensions

The rheological behaviour of Ca(OH)₂ suspensions is investigated, predominantly at a solid volume fraction of 0.25. The influence of standing without being subject to shear (“contact time”) is distinguished from that of being sheared (“shearing time”). The results are interpreted on the basis of the “elastic floc” model of energy dissipation during flow, with a view to the problem whether, in addition to an energy dissipation term related to the viscous drag experienced by particles moving within flocs, there should be an independent energy dissipation term related to fluid movement in the flocs when they change volume or shape. It appears that this additional energy dissipation term is not necessary, if the increase in viscous friction, experienced by two particles which are close together, is taken into account. Paper, presented at the First Conference of European Rheologists at Graz, April 14–16, 1982. A short version has been published in [18].     

Amorphous and crystalline states of ultrasoft colloids: a molecular dynamics study

In this work, we study the temperature-induced development of “dynamically arrested” states in dense suspensions of “soft colloids” (multi-arm star polymers and/or block-copolymers micelles) by means of molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Temperature increase in marginal solvents results in “soft sphere” swelling, dynamical arrest, and eventually crystallization. However, two distinct “dynamically arrested” states were found, one almost amorphous (“glassy”) and one with a considerable degree of crystallinity, yet lower than that of the fully equilibrated crystal. It is remarkable that even that latter state permitted self-diffusion in the timescale of the simulations, an effect that underlies the importance of the “ultra-soft” nature of inter-particle potential. The “number of connections” criterion for crystallinity proved to be very successful in identifying the ultimate thermodynamic trend from the very early stages of the α-relaxation. This paper was presented at the Third Annual Rheology Conference, AERC 2006, April 27–29, 2006, Crete, Greece.     

Stability of equilibrium for an inverted two-link mathematical pendulum with critical tracking forces

We investigate nonlinear stability for equilibrium of a pendulum with viscoelastic components. The tracking force is chosen so that the matrix of the linearized part of the perturbed motion has two purely imaginary roots or one zero and one negative root. The other two roots are complex with negative real part. The boundary of the domain of stability is divided into “dangerous” and “safe” (in the sense of Bautin) zones. Translated from Prikladnaya Mekhanika, Vol. 35, No. 9, pp. 100–105, September, 1999.     

Exact analytic solutions for free convection boundary layers on a heated vertical plate with lateral mass flux embedded in a saturated porous medium

 The problem of the self-similar boundary flow of a “Darcy-Boussinesq fluid” on a vertical plate with temperature distribution T _w(x) = T _∞+A·x ^λ and lateral mass flux v _w(x) = a·x ^(λ−1)/2, embedded in a saturated porous medium is revisited. For the parameter values λ = 1,−1/3 and −1/2 exact analytic solutions are written down and the characteristics of the corresponding boundary layers are discussed as functions of the suction/ injection parameter in detail. The results are compared with the numerical findings of previous authors. Received on 8 March 1999     

Piezocomposite with reciprocal polarization of oriented ellipsoidal inclusions and the matrix

We consider statistically homogeneous two-phase random piezoactive structures with deterministic properties of inclusions and the matrix and with random mutual location of inclusions. We present the solution of a coupled stochastic boundary value problem of electroelasticity for the representative domain of a matrix piezocomposite with a random structure in the generalized singular approximation of the method of periodic components; the singular approximation is based on taking into account only the singular component of the second derivative of the Green function for the comparison media. We obtain an analytic solution for the tensor of effective properties of the piezocomposite in terms of the solution for the tensors of effective properties of a composite with an ideal periodic structure or with the “statistical mixture” structure and with the periodicity coefficient calculated for a given random structure with its specific characteristics taken into account. The effective properties of composites with auxiliary structures (periodic and “statistical mixture”) are also determined in the generalized singular approximation by varying the properties of the comparisonmedium. We perform numerical computations and analyze the effective properties of a quasiperiodic piezocomposite with reciprocal polarization of oriented ellipsoidal inclusions and the matrix, the layered structures with reciprocal polarization of the layers [1] of a polymer piezoelectric PVF, and find their unique properties such as a significant increase in the Young modulus along the normal to the layers and in dielectric permittivities, the appearance of negative values of the Poisson ratio under extension along the normal, and an increase in the absolute values of the basic piezomoduli.     

The “Butterfly Effect” in a Porous Slab

It is shown that the governing equation for the stream function of the Darcy free convection boundary layer flows past a vertical surface is invariant under arbitrary translations of the transverse coordinate y. The consequences of this basic symmetry property on the solutions corresponding to a prescribed surface temperature distribution T _w (x) are investigated. It is found that starting with a “primary solution” which describes the temperature boundary layer on an impermeable surface, infinitely many “translated solutions” can be generated which form a continuous group, the “translation group” of the given primary solution. The elements of this group describe free convection boundary layer flows from permeable counterparts of the original surface with a transformed temperature distribution [(T)\tilde]_w ( x ){\tilde {T}_w \left( x \right)}, when simultaneously a suitable lateral suction/injection of the fluid is applied. It turns out in this way that several exact solutions discovered during the latter few decades are in fact not basically new solutions, but translated counterparts of some formerly reported primary solutions. A few specific examples are discussed in detail.     

Measurements of mean and fluctuating wall shear stress beneath spanwise-invariant separation bubbles

 Pulsed-wire measurements of wall shear stress have been made beneath two separation bubbles. In one a cross flow was generated by means of a (25°) swept separation line. Fluctuating stresses in orthogonal “streamwise” and cross-flow directions are very nearly equal and independent of at least moderate cross flow velocity. These fluctuations are largely determined by large-scale motions in the outer flow, whereas the mean shear stresses are not. The pdf of the “streamwise” fluctuations is unchanged by the cross flow. When a cross flow is present the pdf of the cross-flow stresses is similar to the “streamwise” pdf. Dependence on Reynolds number is the same in both flows. Received: 10 April 1998/Accepted: 17 July 1998     

Edge effects in the stress state of a thin elastic interlayer

The edge effects in the stress state of an interlayer in stretching and shearing by rigid slabs are studied. On the basis of the equations of momentless and moment elastic layers, we solve problems modeling qualitatively the stress-strain state in the “soft” layer between two “rigid” layers. Lavrent’ev Institute of Hydrodynamics, Siberian Division, Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk 630090. Translated from Prikladnaya Mekhanika i Tekhnicheskaya Fizika, Vol. 40, No. 2, pp. 189–195, March–April, 1999.