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At least 541 records · Page 30

Near-wall turbulence model and its application to fully developed turbulent channel and pipe flows

A near-wall turbulence model and its incorporation into a multiple-timescale turbulence model are presented. The near-wall turbulence model is obtained from a k-equation turbulence model and a near-wall analysis. In the method, the equations for the conservation of mass, momentum, and turbulent kinetic energy are integrated up to the wall, and the energy transfer and the dissipation rates inside the near-wall layer are obtained from algebraic equations. Fully developed turbulent channel and pipe flows are solved using a finite element method. The computational results compare favorably with experimental data. It is also shown that the turbulence model can resolve the overshoot phenomena of the turbulent kinetic energy and the dissipation rate in the region very close to the wall.

Kim, S.-W.↗

Wind tunnel wall interference investigations in NAE/NRC High Reynolds Number 2D Facility and NASA Langley 0.3m Transonic Cryogenic Tunnel

Results are reported from a NAE/NRC and NASA cooperative program on two-dimensional wind-tunnel wall-interference research, aimed at developing the technology for correcting or eliminating wall interference effects in two-dimensional transonic wind-tunnel investigations. Both NASA Langley and NAE facilities are described, along with a NASA-designed and fabricated airfoil model. It is shown that data from the NAE facility, corrected for wall interference, agree with those obtained from the NASA tunnel, which has adaptive walls; the comparison of surface pressure data shows that the flowfield conditions in which the model is investigated appear to be nearly identical under most conditions. It is concluded that both approaches, posttest correction and an adaptive wall, adequately eliminate the tunnel-wall interference effects.

Chan, Y. Y.↗

A numerical study of the effects of wind tunnel wall proximity on an airfoil model

A procedure was developed for modeling wind tunnel flows using computational fluid dynamics. Using this method, a numerical study was undertaken to explore the effects of solid wind tunnel wall proximity and Reynolds number on a two-dimensional airfoil model at low speed. Wind tunnel walls are located at varying wind tunnel height to airfoil chord ratios and the results are compared with freestream flow in the absence of wind tunnel walls. Discrepancies between the constrained and unconstrained flows can be attributed to the presence of the walls. Results are for a Mach Number of 0.25 at angles of attack through stall. A typical wind tunnel Reynolds number of 1,200,000 and full-scale flight Reynolds number of 6,000,000 were investigated. At this low Mach number, wind tunnel wall corrections to Mach number and angle of attack are supported. Reynolds number effects are seen to be a consideration in wind tunnel testing and wall interference correction methods. An unstructured grid Navier-Stokes code is used with a Baldwin-Lomax turbulence model. The numerical method is described since unstructured flow solvers present several difficulties and fundamental differences from structured grid codes, especially in the area of turbulence modeling and grid generation.

Potsdam, Mark↗

Calibration of the 13- by 13-inch adaptive wall test section for the Langley 0.3-meter transonic cryogenic tunnel

A 13 by 13 inch adaptive wall test section was installed in the 0.3 Meter Transonic Cryogenic Tunnel circuit. This new test section is configured for 2-D airfoil testing. It has four solid walls. The top and bottom walls are flexible and movable whereas the sidewalls are rigid and fixed. The wall adaptation strategy employed requires the test section wall shapes associated with uniform test section Mach number distributions. Calibration tests with the test section empty were conducted with the top and bottom walls linearly diverged to approach a uniform Mach number distribution. Pressure distributions were measured in the contraction cone, the test section, and the high speed diffuser at Mach numbers from 0.20 to 0.95 and Reynolds numbers from 10 to 100 x 10 (exp 6)/per foot.

Mineck, Raymond E.↗

Investigation of transonic flow over segmented slotted wind tunnel wall with mass transfer

The flowfield on a segmented multi-slotted wind tunnel wall was studied at transonic speeds by measurements in and near the wall layer using five port cone probes. The slotted wall flowfield was observed to be three-dimensional in nature for a relatively significant distance above the slot. The boundary layer characteristics measured on the single slotted wall were found to be very sensitive to the applied suction through the slot. The perturbation in the velocity components generated due to the flow through the slot decay rapidly in the transverse direction. A vortex-like flow existed on the single slotted wall for natural ventilation but diminished with increased suction flow rate. For flow on a segmented multi-slotted wall, the normal velocity component changes were found to be maximum for measurement points located between the segmented slots atop the active chamber. The lateral influence due to applied suction and blowing, through a compartment, exceeded only slightly that in the downstream direction. Limited upstream influence was observed. Influence coefficients were determined from the data in the least-square sense for blowing and suction applied through one and two compartments. This was found to be an adequate determination of the influence coefficients for the range of mass flows considered.

Bhat, M. K.↗

Near-wall turbine closure for curved flows

At present, turbulence closures for curved flows only account for curvature effects in the fully turbulent region where the Reynolds number is large. The justification is that, near a wall, viscous effects dominate and curvature effects are only of secondary importance. Recent direct simulation data show that this assumption is not valid, even for simple two-dimensional fully developed turbulent curved channel flows. This paper presents an approach to develop a near-wall turbulence closure for wall-bounded curved flows. The curved channel direct simulation data is used as a guide to held develop such a closure. The proposed closure has the unique property of approaching conventional high-Reynolds-number Reynolds-stress closures far away from the wall. Hence, curvature effects in both the near-wall and the fully turbulent parts of the flow are accounted for properly. Validations of the closure are carried out with a set of low-Reynolds-number simulation data and with experimental measurements at high Reynolds number. Good agreement is obtained in both cases; in particular, the anisotropic behavior of the normal stresses and the shear stress behavior near the convex and concave walls.

So, R. M. C.↗

An improved k-epsilon model for near wall turbulence

An improved k-epsilon model for low Reynolds number turbulence near a wall is presented. In the first part of this work, the near-wall asymptotic behavior of the eddy viscosity and the pressure transport term in the turbulent kinetic energy equation are analyzed. Based on these analyses, a modified eddy viscosity model with the correct near-wall behavior is suggested, and a model for the pressure transport term in the k-equation is proposed. In addition, a modeled dissipation rate equation is reformulated, and a boundary condition for the dissipation rate is suggested. In the second part of the work, one of the deficiencies of the existing k-epsilon models, namely, the wall distance dependency of the equations and the damping functions, is examined. An improved model that does not depend on any wall distance is introduced. Fully developed turbulent channel flows and turbulent boundary layers over a flat plate are studied as validations for the proposed new models. Numerical results obtained from the present and other previous k-epsilon models are compared with data from direct numerical simulation. The results show that the present k-epsilon model, with added robustness, performs as well as or better than other existing models in predicting the behavior of near-wall turbulence.

Shih, T. H.↗

The distribution of galaxies within the 'Great Wall'

The galaxy distribution within the 'Great Wall', the most striking feature in the first three 'slices' of the CfA redshift survey extension is examined. The Great Wall is extracted from the sample and is analyzed by counting galaxies in cells. The 'local' two-point correlation function within the Great Wall is computed and the local correlation length, is estimated 15/h Mpc, about 3 times larger than the correlation length for the entire sample. The redshift distribution of galaxies in the pencil-beam survey by Broadhurst et al. (1990) shows peaks separated about by large 'voids', at least to a redshift of about 0.3. The peaks might represent the intersections of their about 5/h Mpc pencil beams with structures similar to the Great Wall. Under this hypothesis, sampling of the Great Walls shows that l approximately 12/h Mpc is the minimum projected beam size required to detect all the 'walls' at redshifts between the peak of the selection function and the effective depth of the survey.

Ramella, Massimo↗

A wall interference assessment/correction system

A Wall Signature method originally developed by Hackett has been selected to be adapted for the Ames 12-ft Wind Tunnel WIAC system in the project. This method uses limited measurements of the static pressure at the wall, in conjunction with the solid wall boundary condition, to determine the strength and distribution of singularities representing the test article. The singularities are used in turn for estimating blockage wall interference. The lifting interference will be treated separately by representing in a horseshoe vortex system for the model's lifting effects. The development and implementation of a working prototype will be completed, delivered and documented with a software manual. The WIAC code will be validated by conducting numerically simulated experiments rather than actual wind tunnel experiments. The simulations will be used to generate both free-air and confined wind-tunnel flow fields for each of the test articles over a range of test configurations. Specifically, the pressure signature at the test section wall will be computed for the tunnel case to provide the simulated 'measured' data. These data will serve as the input for the WIAC method--Wall Signature method. The performance of the WIAC method then may be evaluated by comparing the corrected data with those of the free-air simulation.

Lo, Ching F.↗

Wall interference and boundary simulation in a transonic wind tunnel with a discretely slotted test section

A computational simulation of a transonic wind tunnel test section with longitudinally slotted walls is developed and described herein. The nonlinear slot model includes dynamic pressure effects and a plenum pressure constraint, and each slot is treated individually. The solution is performed using a finite-difference method that solves an extended transonic small disturbance equation. The walls serve as the outer boundary conditions in the relaxation technique, and an interaction procedure is used at the slotted walls. Measured boundary pressures are not required to establish the wall conditions but are currently used to assess the accuracy of the simulation. This method can also calculate a free-air solution as well as solutions that employ the classical homogeneous wall conditions. The simulation is used to examine two commercial transport aircraft models at a supercritical Mach number for zero-lift and cruise conditions. Good agreement between measured and calculated wall pressures is obtained for the model geometries and flow conditions examined herein. Some localized disagreement is noted, which is attributed to improper simulation of viscous effects in the slots.

Al-Saadi, Jassim A.↗

Computation of turbulent boundary layers employing the defect wall-function method

In order to decrease overall computational time requirements of spatially-marching parabolized Navier-Stokes finite-difference computer code when applied to turbulent fluid flow, a wall-function methodology, originally proposed by R. Barnwell, was implemented. This numerical effort increases computational speed and calculates reasonably accurate wall shear stress spatial distributions and boundary-layer profiles. Since the wall shear stress is analytically determined from the wall-function model, the computational grid near the wall is not required to spatially resolve the laminar-viscous sublayer. Consequently, a substantially increased computational integration step size is achieved resulting in a considerable decrease in net computational time. This wall-function technique is demonstrated for adiabatic flat plate test cases from Mach 2 to Mach 8. These test cases are analytically verified employing: (1) Eckert reference method solutions, (2) experimental turbulent boundary-layer data of Mabey, and (3) finite-difference computational code solutions with fully resolved laminar-viscous sublayers. Additionally, results have been obtained for two pressure-gradient cases: (1) an adiabatic expansion corner and (2) an adiabatic compression corner.

Brown, Douglas L.↗

Determination of solid/porous wall boundary conditions from wind tunnel data for computational fluid dynamics codes

A computational and experimental study has been undertaken to investigate methods of modelling solid and porous wall boundary conditions in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes. The procedure utilizes experimental measurements at the walls to develop a flow field solution based on the method of singularities. This flow field solution is then imposed as a pressure boundary condition in a CFD simulation of the internal flow field. The effectiveness of this method in describing the boundary conditions at the wind tunnel walls using only sparse experimental measurements has been investigated. Verification of the approach using computational studies has been carried out using an incompressible flow solver. The current work demonstrates this technique for low speed flows and compares the result with experimental data obtained from a heavily instrumented variable porosity test section. Position and refinement of experimental measurements required to describe porous wall boundary conditions have also been considered for application to other porous wall wind tunnels. The approach developed is simple, computationally inexpensive, and does not require extensive or intrusive measurements. It may be applied to both solid and porous wall wind tunnel tests. Some consideration is given to the extension of this method to three dimensions.

Beutner, Thomas J.↗

Modeling near wall effects in second moment closures by elliptic relaxation

The elliptic relaxation model of Durbin (1993) for modeling near-wall turbulence using second moment closures (SMC) is compared to DNS data for a channel flow at Re(sub t) = 395. The agreement for second order statistics and even the terms in their balance equation is quite satisfactory, confirming that very little viscous effects (via Kolmogoroff scales) need to be added to the high Reynolds versions of SMC for near-wall-turbulence. The essential near-wall feature is thus the kinematic blocking effect that a solid wall exerts on the turbulence through the fluctuating pressure, which is best modeled by an elliptic operator. Above the transition layer, the effect of the original elliptic operator decays rapidly, and it is suggested that the log-layer is better reproduced by adding a non-homogeneous reduction of the return to isotropy, the gradient of the turbulent length scale being used as a measure of the inhomogeneity of the log-layer. The elliptic operator was quite easily applied to the non-linear Craft & Launder pressure-strain model yielding an improved distinction between the spanwise and wall normal stresses, although at higher Reynolds number (Re) and away from the wall, the streamwise component is severely underpredicted, as well as the transition in the mean velocity from the log to the wake profiles. In this area a significant change of behavior was observed in the DNS pressure-strain term, entirely ignored in the models.

Laurence, D.↗

The wall of reconnection-driven magnetohydrodynamic turbulence in a large solar flare

LaRosa and Moore (1993) recently proposed that the bulk dissipation of magnetic field that is required for the electron energization in the explosive phase of solar flares occurs in a 'fat current sheet', a wall of cascading magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence sustained by highly disordered driven reconnection of opposing magnetic fields impacting at a turbulent boundary layer. Here, we use the well-observed great two-ribbon eruptive flare of 1984 April 24/25 to assess the feasibility of both (1) the standard model for the overall three-dimensional form and action of the magnetic field and (2) the turbulent reconnection wall within it. We find (1) that the morphology of this flare closely matched that of the standard model; (2) the preflare sheared core field had enough nonpotential magnetic energy to power the flare; (3) the model turbulent wall required to achieve the flare's peak dissipative power easily fit within the overall span of the flaring magnetic field; (4) this wall was thick enough to have turbulent eddies large enough (diameters approximately 10(exp 8 cm) to produce the approximately ergs energy release fragments typically observed in the explosive phase of flares; (5) the aspect ratio (thickness/vertical extent) of the turbulent reconnection wall was in the 0.1-1 range expected by (Parker 1973). We therefore conclude that the viability of our version of the standard model (i.e., having the magnetic field dissipation occur in our turbulent reconnection wall) is well confirmed by this typical great two-ribbon eruptive flare.

Moore, R. L.↗

Near-Wall Models in Large Eddy Simulations of Flow Behind a Backward-Facing Step

Accurate large eddy simulation (LES) of a wall-bounded flow generally requires a near-wall resolution comparable to that in direct numerical simulation (DNS). As much as 50% of the total grid points and computational costs are expended in the near-wall regions in a typical simulation. This limits LES to fairly low Reynolds numbers on current computers. To perform practical flow applications at realistically high Reynolds numbers, such as flow over an airfoil, it is desirable to replace very thin, near-wall regions in the LES with easily and inexpensively computed wall models to specify the near-wall boundary conditions.

Cabot, W.↗

Calculations of Supersonic and Hypersonic Flows using Compressible Wall Functions

The present paper presents a numerical procedure to calculate supersonic and hypersonic flows using the compressible law of the wall. The turbulence models under consideration include the Launder-Reece-Rodi-Gibson Reynolds-stress model and the k-epsilon model. The models coupled with the proposed wall function technique have been tested in both separated and unseparated flows. The flows include (1) an insulated flat plate flow over a range of Mach numbers, (2) a Mach 5 flat plate flow with cold wall conditions, (3) a two dimensional supersonic compression corner flow, (4) a hypersonic flow over an axisymmetric flare, and (5) a hypersonic flow over a 2-D compression corner. Results indicate that the wall function technique gives improved predictions of skin friction and heat transfer in separated flows compared with models using wall dampers. Predictions of the extent of separation are not improved over the wall damper models except with the Reynolds-stress model for the supersonic compression corner flow case.

Huang, P. G.↗

The Real-Time Wall Interference Correction System of the NASA Ames 12-Foot Pressure Wind Tunnel

An improved version of the Wall Signature Method was developed to compute wall interference effects in three-dimensional subsonic wind tunnel testing of aircraft models in real-time. The method may be applied to a full-span or a semispan model. A simplified singularity representation of the aircraft model is used. Fuselage, support system, propulsion simulator, and separation wake volume blockage effects are represented by point sources and sinks. Lifting effects are represented by semi-infinite line doublets. The singularity representation of the test article is combined with the measurement of wind tunnel test reference conditions, wall pressure, lift force, thrust force, pitching moment, rolling moment, and pre-computed solutions of the subsonic potential equation to determine first order wall interference corrections. Second order wall interference corrections for pitching and rolling moment coefficient are also determined. A new procedure is presented that estimates a rolling moment coefficient correction for wings with non-symmetric lift distribution. Experimental data obtained during the calibration of the Ames Bipod model support system and during tests of two semispan models mounted on an image plane in the NASA Ames 12 ft. Pressure Wind Tunnel are used to demonstrate the application of the wall interference correction method.

Ulbrich, Norbert↗

Study of Unsteady Flows with Concave Wall Effect

This paper presents computational fluid dynamic studies of the inlet turbulence and wall curvature effects on the flow steadiness at near wall surface locations in boundary layer flows. The time-stepping RANS numerical solver of the NASA Glenn-HT RANS code and a one-equation turbulence model, with a uniform inlet turbulence modeling level of the order of 10 percent of molecular viscosity, were used to perform the numerical computations. The approach was first calibrated for its predictabilities of friction factor, velocity, and temperature at near surface locations within a transitional boundary layer over concave wall. The approach was then used to predict the velocity and friction factor variations in a boundary layer recovering from concave curvature. As time iteration proceeded in the computations, the computed friction factors converged to their values from existing experiments. The computed friction factors, velocity, and static temperatures at near wall surface locations oscillated periodically in terms of time iteration steps and physical locations along the span-wise direction. At the upstream stations, the relationship among the normal and tangential velocities showed vortices effects on the velocity variations. Coherent vortices effect on the velocity components broke down at downstream stations. The computations also predicted the vortices effects on the velocity variations within a boundary layer flow developed along a concave wall surface with a downstream recovery flat wall surface. It was concluded that the computational approach might have the potential to analyze the flow steadiness in a turbine blade flow.

Wang, Chi R.↗