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Results for “TURBULENCE EFFECT”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 37 records · Page 2
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1987

Initial turbulence effect on jet evolution with and without tonal excitation

The effect of initial turbulence level on the development of a jet and on the susceptability of the jet to discrete tone excitation was experimentally investigated. Turbulence intensity was varied, over the range 0.15 to 5 percent, by using screens and grids placed upstream of an 8.8 cm diameter nozzle. Top-hat mean velocity profiles with approximately identical initial boundary layer states were ensured in all cases; the turbulence spectra were broadband. It was found, contrary to earlier reports, that the natural jet decay remained essentially unchanged for varying initial turbulence. For a fixed amplitude of the tonal excitation, increasing the initial turbulence damped out the growth of the instability wave; as a result, the excitability, assessed from the mean velocity decay on the axis, was found to diminish. However, the degree of damping in the amplification of the instability wave was only slight compared to the large increase in the initial turbulence. The jet with 5 percent turbulence could be measurably altered by excitation with a velocity perturbation amplitude as little as 0.25 percent of the jet velocity. The amplitude effect data indicate an upper bound of the extent to which a jet could be excited, and thus its plume shortened, by the plane wave, single frequency excitation. An additional data set with no grid or trip, yielding a nominally laminar boundary layer, re-emphasizes the profound effect of initial boundary layer state on jet evolution as well as on its excitability. This jet decayed the fastest naturally, and consequently, it was the least excitable in spite of its turbulence being the least.

Raman, G.↗
NASA NTRS1987

Initial turbulence effect on jet evolution with and without tonal excitation

The effect of initial turbulence level on the development of a jet and on the susceptibility of the jet to discrete tone excitation was experimentally investigated. Turbulence intensity was varied, over the range 0.15 to 5 percent, by using screens and grids placed upstream of an 8.8 cm diameter nozzle. Top-hat mean velocity profiles with approximately identical initial boundary layer states were ensured in all cases; the turbulence spectra were broadband. It was found, contrary to earlier reports, that the natural jet decay remained essentially unchanged for varying initial turbulence. For a fixed amplitude of the tonal excitation, increasing the initial turbulence damped out the growth of the instability wave; as a result, the excitability, assessed from the mean velocity decay on the axis, was found to diminish. However, the degree of damping in the amplification of the instability wave was only slight compared to the large increase in the initial turbulence. The jet with 5 percent turbulence could be measurably altered by excitation with a velocity perturbation amplitude as little as 0.25 percent of the jet velocity. The amplitude effect data indicate an upper bound of the extent to which a jet could be excited, and thus its plume shortened, by the plane wave, single frequency excitation. An additional data set with no grid or trip, yielding a nominally laminar boundary layer, re-emphasizes the profound effect of initial boundary layer state on jet evolution as well as on its excitability. This jet decayed the fastest naturally, and consequently, it was the least excitable in spite of its turbulence being the least.

Raman, G.↗
NASA NTRS2006

Numerical Modeling of Turbulence Effects within an Evaporating Droplet in Atomizing Sprays

A new approach to account for finite thermal conductivity and turbulence effects within atomizing liquid sprays is presented in this paper. The model is an extension of the T-blob and T-TAB atomization/spray model of Trinh and Chen (2005). This finite conductivity model is based on the two-temperature film theory, where the turbulence characteristics of the droplet are used to estimate the effective thermal diffhsivity within the droplet phase. Both one-way and two-way coupled calculations were performed to investigate the performance of this model. The current evaporation model is incorporated into the T-blob atomization model of Trinh and Chen (2005) and implemented in an existing CFD Eulerian-Lagrangian two-way coupling numerical scheme. Validation studies were carried out by comparing with available evaporating atomization spray experimental data in terms of jet penetration, temperature field, and droplet SMD distribution within the spray. Validation results indicate the superiority of the finite-conductivity model in low speed parallel flow evaporating spray.

Balasubramanyam, M. S.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Non-isotropic turbulence effects on spray combustion

A numerical model for the prediction of local properties of statistically stationary spray-combusting flows is evaluated by comparison with experimental data. To appraise the relative performance of turbulence models, computations were carried out by the k-epsilon model and the algebraic stress model. The present numerical results show the qualitative agreement with experimental data. In terms of overall local flow properties, the algebraic stress model improves a degree of conformity to the experimental data due to its ability to introduce the nonisotropic turbulence effects. Two swirl numbers are considered to investigate the influence of swirl on the droplet evaporation and trajectories, and the effects of droplet/turbulence interactions in flow properties. It is found that the large swirl produces a higher evaporationn rate, and more intensive turbulent mixing and burning. The discrepancies observed in the results are attributed mainly to uncertainties in the initial spray size and velocity distributions, the droplet/wall impingement interaction, the combustion model with the fast chemistry and the turbulence models dealing with the strong streamline curvature and complex interactions between the dispersed droplets and the continuous gas-phase flows.

Kim, Y. M.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Turbulence Effects on Shaped Booms: Finite Impulse Response Filter Development

Numerical simulations of propagation through turbulent atmospheres can quantify effects on ground waveforms, but such simulations are computationally expensive. To enable quick turnaround analyses as required by NASA’s Quesst Mission, updating the N-wave filtering approach developed by researchers at The Pennsylvania State University to include shaped booms is proposed as an alternative method for estimating turbulence effects on acoustic metrics more quickly. Beginning with a nearfield pressure cylinder modeled after the on-design X-59 configuration, a database of propagation results at 45 turbulence conditions was compiled using nonlinear turbulence propagation modeling code (KZKFourier) and used as input to a process for generating finite impulse response (FIR) filters. Ground waveforms distorted by turbulence were selected to represent mean and mean±standard deviation levels for six metrics, and corresponding FIR filters were generated through a matrix deconvolution process. In order to evaluate how well the FIR filters perform, additional KZKFourier verification cases were devised with different input conditions, and results used as a benchmark. Convolution of shaped boom waveforms modeled using nonturbulent propagation simulations with the new FIR filters showed better agreement on average with KZKFourier statistical results than the N-wave-based FIR filters.

turbulence↗
NASA NTRS1986

Analysis of aerodynamic coefficients using gradient data: Spanwise turbulence effects on airplane response

The influence of spanwise turbulence on airplane dynamic behavior is determined. Calculations are based on data collected from test flights with the NASA B-57 research aircraft. The approach is to first compute aerodynamic forces and moments due to a spanwise distribution of angle of attack and airspeed. Secondly, these quantities are incorporated into the equations of motion. Simulation of flights done with the effects of spanwise turbulence included are compared to simulations without any spanwise turbulence. The findings of the study are that the moments developed by turbulence along the span are significant and that more realistic flight simulation can be achieved by including the spanwise turbulence terms.

Ringnes, E. A.↗
NASA NTRS1997

Large Eddy Simulation of Aircraft Wake Vortices: Atmospheric Turbulence Effects

Crow instability can develop in most atmospheric turbulence levels, however, the ring vortices may not form in extremely strong turbulence cases due to strong dissipation of the vortices. It appears that strong turbulence tends to accelerate the occurrences of Crow instability. The wavelength of the most unstable mode is estimated to be about 5b(sub 0), which is less than the theoretical value of 8.6b(sub 0) (Crow, 1970) and may be due to limited domain size and highly nonlinear turbulent flow characteristics. Three-dimensional turbulence can decay wake vortices more rapidly. Axial velocity may be developed by vertical distortion of a vortex pair due to Crow instability or large turbulent eddy motion. More experiments with various non-dimensional turbulence levels are necessary to get useful statistics of wake vortex behavior due to turbulence. Need to investigate larger turbulence length scale effects by enlarging domain size or using grid nesting.

Han, Jongil↗
NASA NTRS1975

Turbulence effects in radio occultation studies of atmospheric scale heights

Atmospheric scale heights derived from radio occultation measurements of a turbulent planetary atmosphere would be accurate if the average angle of refraction through the turbulent atmosphere were equal to the refraction angle for the corresponding quiescent atmosphere. These two angles are not equal (although their difference may not be large enough to cause significant error). If necessary, it should be possible to correct for the systematic error introduced by this inequality by using measurements of signal spectra to determine characteristics of the turbulence. Sensitive dual-frequency measurements could help define the effects of turbulence in future radio occultation experiments. It does not appear that the angular offset due to turbulence has been important in past experiments, although it may become significant and require corrective analysis when improved equipment is used to probe deep into turbulent atmospheres with greater measurement precision.

Eshleman, V. R.↗
NASA NTRS1987

Multiscale turbulence effects in underexpanded supersonic jets

A modified version of the multiscale turbulence model of Hanjalic has been applied to the problem of underexpanded supersonic jets. In particular, the shock-cell decay resulting from shock-mixing layer interactions has been studied for both mildly interacting and strongly resonant jet conditions. A version of the Hanjalic model which accounts for nonequilibrium energy transfer between two spectral scales of turbulence was incorporated into an existing shock-capturing, parabolized Navier-Stokes computational model in order to perform numerical experiments. Results are presented for nominal initial jet Mach numbers of 2.0, 1.4, and 1.0 and are compared to experiments and to predictions made using single-scale models. The results show significant effects of multi-spectral turbulent energy transfer on the predicted shock-cell decay particularly for the lower jet Mach numbers.

Abdol-Hamid, Khaled S.↗
NASA NTRS1984

Refractive turbulence effects on truncated Gaussian beam heterodyne lidar

A monostatic heterodyne lidar performance model is formulated to study the combined effects of beam truncation and refractive turbulence in the weak scintillation regime. The results show that there is a loss of signal power due to beam truncation and coherence loss, but there is also an enhancement of signal power due to log-amplitude covariance in suitable conditions of long paths with weak turbulence.

Murty, R.↗
NASA NTRS1993

High Reynolds number and turbulence effects on aerodynamics and heat transfer in a turbine cascade

Experimental data on pressure distribution and heat transfer on a turbine airfoil were obtained over a range of Reynolds numbers from 0.75 to 7.5 x 10 exp 6 and a range of turbulence intensities from 1.8 to about 15 percent. The purpose of this study was to obtain fundamental heat transfer and pressure distribution data over a wide range of high Reynolds numbers and to extend the heat transfer data base to include the range of Reynolds numbers encountered in the Space Shuttle main engine (SSME) turbopump turbines. Specifically, the study aimed to determine (1) the effect of Reynolds number on heat transfer, (2) the effect of upstream turbulence on heat transfer and pressure distribution, and (3) the relationship between heat transfer at high Reynolds numbers and the current data base. The results of this study indicated that Reynolds number and turbulence intensity have a large effect on both the transition from laminar to turbulent flow and the resulting heat transfer. For a given turbulence intensity, heat transfer for all Reynolds numbers at the leading edge can be correlated with the Frossling number developed for lower Reynolds numbers. For a given turbulence intensity, heat transfer for the airfoil surfaces downstream of the leading edge can be approximately correlated with a dimensionless parameter. Comparison of the experimental results were also made with a numerical solution from a two-dimensional Navier-Stokes code.

Yeh, Frederick C.↗
DOE OSTI2024

Are turbulence effects on droplet collision–coalescence a key to understanding observed rain formation in clouds?

Rain formation is a critical factor governing the lifecycle and radiative forcing of clouds and therefore it is a key element of weather and climate. Cloud microphysics–turbulence interactions occur across a wide range of scales and are challenging to represent in atmospheric models with limited resolution. Based on past experiments and idealized numerical simulations, it has been postulated that cloud turbulence accelerates rain formation by enhancing drop collision–coalescence. We provide substantial evidence for significant impacts of turbulence on the evolution of cloud droplet size distributions and rain formation by comparing high-resolution observations of cumulus congestus clouds with state-of-the-art large-eddy simulations coupled with a Lagrangian particle-based microphysics scheme. Turbulent coalescence must be included in the model to accurately represent the observed drop size distributions, especially for drizzle drop sizes at lower heights in the cloud. Turbulence causes earlier rain formation and greater rain accumulation compared to simulations with gravitational coalescence only. The observed rain size distribution tail just above cloud base follows a power law scaling that deviates from theoretical scalings considering either a purely gravitation collision kernel or a turbulent kernel neglecting droplet inertial effects, providing additional evidence for turbulent coalescence in clouds. In contrast, large aerosols acting as cloud condensation nuclei (“giant CCN”) do not significantly impact rain formation owing to their long timescale to reach equilibrium wet size relative to the lifetime of rising cumulus thermals. Overall, turbulent drop coalescence exerts a dominant influence on rain initiation in warm cumulus clouds, with limited impacts of giant CCN.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS1994

High Reynolds Number and Turbulence Effects on Turbine Heat Transfer

Experimental data on pressure distribution and heat transfer on a turbine airfoil were obtained over a range of Reynolds numbers from 0.75 to 7.0 x 10(exp 6) and a range of turbulence intensities from 1.8 to about 15%. The purpose of this study was to obtain fundamental heat transfer and pressure distribution data over a wide range of high Reynolds numbers and to extend the heat transfer data base to include the range or Reynolds numbers encountered in the Space Shuttle main engine turbopump turbines. The results of this study indicated that Reynolds number and turbulence intensity have a large effect on both the transition from laminar to turbulent flow and the resulting heat transfer. For a given turbulence intensity, heat transfer for all Reynolds numbers at the leading edge can generally be correlated with the Frossling number developed for lower Reynolds numbers. For a given turbulence intensity, heat transfer for the airfoil surfaces downstream of the leading edge can be approximately correlated with a dimensionless parameter. Comparisons of the experimental results were also made with a numerical solution from a two-dimensional Navier-Stokes code.

Yeh, Frederick C.↗
NASA NTRS1993

High Reynolds number and turbulence effects on aerodynamics and heat transfer in a turbine cascade

Experimental data on pressure distribution and heat transfer on a turbine airfoil were obtained over a range of Reynolds numbers from 0.75 to 7.5 million and a range of turbulence intensities from 1.8 to about 15 percent. Fundamental heat transfer and pressure distribution data are obtained over a wide range of high Reynolds numbers and to extend the heat transfer data base to include the range of Reynolds numbers encountered in the SSME turbopump turbines. The results obtained indicated that Reynolds number and turbulence intensity have a large effect on both the transition from laminar to turbulent flow and the resulting heat transfer. For a given turbulence intensity, heat transfer for all Reynolds numbers at the leading edge can be correlated with the Frossling number developed for lower Reynolds numbers. For a given turbulence intensity, heat transfer for the airfoil surfaces downstream of the leading edge can be approximately correlated with a dimensionless parameter. Comparison of the experimental results were also made with a numerical solution from a 2D Navier-Stokes code.

Yeh, Frederick C.↗
NASA NTRS1987

Multiscale turbulence effects in supersonic jets exhausting into still air

A modified version of the multiscale turbulence model of Hanjalic has been applied to the problem of supersonic jets exhausting into still air. In particular, the problem of shock-cell decay through turbulent interaction with the mixing layer has been studied for both mildly interacting and strongly resonant jet conditions. The modified Hanjalic model takes into account the nonequilibrium energy transfer between two different turbulent spectral scales. The turbulence model was incorporated into an existing shock-capturing, parabolized Navier-Stokes computational model in order to perform numerical experiments. The results show that the two-scale turbulence model provides significant improvement over one-scale models in the prediction of plume shock structure for underexpanded supersonic (Mach 2) and sonic (Mach 1) jets. For the supersonic jet, excellent agreement with experiment was obtained for the centerline shock-cell pressure decay up to 40 jet radii. For the sonic jet, the agreement with experiment was not so good, but the two-scale model still showed significant improvement over the one-scale model. It is shown that by relating some of the coefficients in the turbulent-transport equations to the relative time scale for transfer of energy between scales the two-scale model can provide predictions that bound the measured shock-cell decay rate for the sonic jet.

Abdol-Hamid, Khaled S.↗
NASA NTRS1977

Experimental investigation of flow turbulence effects on premixed methane-air flames

An experimental assessment of a novel technique for measuring turbulent flame speeds was conducted. Unconfined, V-shaped, methane-air flames stabilized in grid turbulence were investigated. Local flame speeds were measured employing hot film and laser anemometry and fine wire thermocouples. The measurement instrumentation was extended to provide mean and fluctuating temperature information about turbulent flames. The flames in grid turbulence exhibited an increase in flame speed with increased length scale and velocity fluctuations. At high combustor velocities, stabilizer wake turbulence dominated the flame properties.

Smith, K. O.↗