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At least 595 records · Page 33
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1990

Control of flow separation and mixing by aerodynamic excitation

The recent research in the control of shear flows using unsteady aerodynamic excitation conducted at the NASA Lewis Research Center is reviewed. The program is of a fundamental nature, concentrating on the physics of the unsteady aerodynamic processes. This field of research is a fairly new development with great promise in the areas of enhanced mixing and flow separation control. Enhanced mixing research includes influence of core turbulence, forced pairing of coherent structures, and saturation of mixing enhancement. Separation flow control studies included are for a two-dimensional diffuser, conical diffusers, and single airfoils. Ultimate applications include aircraft engine inlet flow control at high angle of attack, wide angle diffusers, highly loaded airfoils as in turbomachinery, and ejector/suppressor nozzles for the supersonic transport. An argument involving the Coanda Effect is made that all of the above mentioned application areas really only involve forms of shear layer mixing enhancement. The program also includes the development of practical excitation devices which might be used in aircraft applications.

Rice, Edward J.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Supersaturation, droplet spectra, and turbulent mixing in clouds

Much effort has recently gone into explaining the observed broad precoalescence size distribution of droplets in cloud and fogs, because this differs from the results of condensational growth calculations which lead to much narrower distributions. A good example of droplet size-distribution broadening was observed on flight 17 (25 July) of the NRL tethered balloon during the 1987 FIRE San Nicolas Island IFO. These observations caused the interactions between cloud microphysics and turbulent mixing to be re-examined. The findings of Broadwell and Breidenthal (1982) who conducted laboratory and theoretical studies of mixing in shear flow, and those of Baker et al. (1984) who applied the earlier work to mixing in clouds, were used. Rather than looking at the 25 July case at SNI, earlier fog observations made at SUNY (6 Oct. 1982) which also indicated that shear-induced mixing was taking place, and which had a better collection of microphysical measurements including more precise supersaturation measurements and detailed vertical profiles of meteorological parameters were chosen instead.

Gerber, H.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Stratus: An interactive steady state mixed layer model for personal computers

A steady-state, horizontally homogeneous, cloud-topped marine boundary layer model based primarily on the work of Lilly (1968) and Schubert et al., (1979) is presented. The conservative thermodynamic variables are equivalent potential temperature, theta(sub e), and total water mixing ratio, q + l. Some of the differences between this and Lilly's (1968) model are: radiation is allowed to penetrate into the boundary layer; cloud top values of longwave radiation, equivalent potential temperature, and water vapor mixing ratio are linear functions of height derived from climatological data at California coastal stations; and the closure assumption assumes a weighted average of Lilly's (1968) maximum and minimum entrainment theories. This model was programmed in FORTRAN and will run interactively on an IBM-compatible personal computer. The program allows the user to specify the geographical location, the wind speed, the sea-surface temperature, the large scale horizontal divergence, and the initial guess for cloud top height. Output includes the steady state values of cloud top and cloud base height, mixed layer equivalent potential temperature and total water mixing ratio, and the associated convective and radiative fluxes.

Guinn, Thomas A.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Turbulent mixing layers in the interstellar and intracluster medium

Cold clouds embedded in hot turbulent gas are often observed in the interstellar medium of galaxies and in the intracluster medium. Mixing layers develop around the clouds by the action of the turbulent gas. It is shown that their column density is limited by cooling and their mean temperature by the momentum flux. Provided that mixing is efficient, the mean temperature is the geometric mean of the hot and cold gas temperatures. EUV radiation from mixing layers around filaments in cluster cooling flows photoionizes the colder gas and may produce the commonly observed optical and UV emission lines. Mixing layers around cold galactic clouds can produce absorption by O VI and similar species with a column density consistent with observations.

Begelman, Mitchell C.↗
NASA NTRS1989

Mixing and combustion enhancement in supersonic reacting flows

Research has been conducted for a number of years at the NASA Langley Research Center to develop a supersonic combustion ramjet (scramjet) capable of propelling a vehicle at hypersonic speeds in the atmosphere or beyond. Recently, that research has been directed toward the optimization of the scramjet combustor, and in particular the efficiency of fuel-air mixing and reaction in the engine. This paper describes a study of fuel-air mixing and reaction in a supersonic flow field, and discusses several techniques that were applied for enhancing the mixing processes and overal combustion efficiency in the flow. Based on the results of the study, an alternate fuel injector configuration was computationally designed, and that configuration significantly increased the amount of fuel-air mixing and combustion over a given combustor length that was achieved.

Drummond, J. Philip↗
NASA NTRS1990

Tank Pressure Control Experiment - A low-g mixing investigation

The Tank Pressure Control Experiment (TPCE) was conceived to meet the need for an aspect of cryogenic fluid management technology that is critical to several future national space missions: control of cryogenic storage tank pressures by active mixing. In-space testing is the only means of obtaining the fluid dynamic data necessary to develop and test predictive models of mixing. These models, when validated, will allow future cryogenic systems to be designed with more efficient and reliable pressure control systems. The objectives of the TPCE project are to characterize the fluid dynamics of jet-induced mixing in low gravity, evaluate the validity of empirical models and correlations, and provide data for use in developing and validating computational fluid dynamic models. This paper discusses prior studies of low-g mixing, the objectives and benefits of TPCE, the design and status of the payload, and preliminary results obtained from low-g aircraft testing.

Bentz, M. D.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Rapid mix concepts for low emission combustors in gas turbine engines

NASA LeRC has identified the Rich burn/Quick mix/Lean burn (RQL) combustor as a potential gas turbine combustor concept to reduce NOx emissions in High Speed Civil Transport (HSCT) aircraft. To demonstrate reduced NOx levels, NASA LeRC soon will test a flametube version of an RQL combustor. The critical technology needed for the RQL combustor is a method of quickly mixing combustion air with rich burn gases. Two concepts were proposed to enhance jet mixing in a circular cross-section: the Asymmetric Jet Penetration (AJP) concept; and the Lobed Mixer (LM) concept. In Phase 1, two preliminary configurations of the AJP concept were compared with a conventional 12-jet radial-inflow slot design. The configurations were screened using an advanced 3-D Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code named REFLEQS. Both non-reacting and reacting analyses were performed. For an objective comparison, the conventional design was optimized by parametric variation of the jet-to-mainstream momentum flux (J) ratio. The optimum J was then employed in the AJP simulations. Results showed that the three-jet AJP configuration was superior in overall mixedness compared to the conventional design. However, in regards to NOx emissions, the AJP configuration was inferior. The higher emission level for AJP was caused by a single hot spot located in the wake of the central jet as it entered the combustor. Ways of maintaining good mixedness while eliminating the hot spot were identified for Phase 2 study. Overall, Phase 1 showed the viability of using CFD analyses to evaluate quick-mix concepts. A high probability exists that advancing mixing concepts will reduce NOx emissions in RQL combustors, and should be explored in Phase 2, by parallel numerical and experimental work.

Talpallikar, Milind V.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Application of mixing-controlled combustion models to gas turbine combustors

Gas emissions were studied from a staged Rich Burn/Quick-Quench Mix/Lean Burn combustor were studied under test conditions encountered in High Speed Research engines. The combustor was modeled at conditions corresponding to different engine power settings, and the effect of primary dilution airflow split on emissions, flow field, flame size and shape, and combustion intensity, as well as mixing, was investigated. A mathematical model was developed from a two-equation model of turbulence, a quasi-global kinetics mechanism for the oxidation of propane, and the Zeldovich mechanism for nitric oxide formation. A mixing-controlled combustion model was used to account for turbulent mixing effects on the chemical reaction rate. This model assumes that the chemical reaction rate is much faster than the turbulent mixing rate.

Nguyen, Hung Lee↗
NASA NTRS1991

Effect of convective Mach number on mixing of coaxial circular and rectangular jets

Rectangular supersonic free and coaxial jets were used to enhance mixing relative to a circular jet in a convective Mach number range of 0.5 to 2.2. The different convective Mach numbers were obtained by changing the central jet gas composition, the temperatures of the inner and outer flows, and the velocity of the coaxial flow. The experimental techniques used were schlieren photography, total pressure, and gas-sampling measurements. For all test conditions the rectangular jets showed substantial improved mixing relative to a circular jet. The free jets showed high mixing in the circumferential region of the jet while the coaxial jet had a high mixing rate inside the central jet.

Gutmark, E.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Control of flow separation and mixing by aerodynamic excitation

The recent research progress in the control of shear flows using unsteady aerodynamic excitation conducted at the NASA Lewis Research Center is reviewed. The program is of fundamental nature concentrating on the physics of the unsteady aerodynamic processes. This field of research is a fairly new development with great promise in the areas of enhanced mixing and flow separation control. Enhanced mixing research reported in this paper include influence of core turbulence, forced pairing of coherent structures, and saturation of mixing enhancement. Separation flow control studies included are for a two-dimensional diffuser, conical diffusers, and single airfoils. Ultimate applications of this research include aircraft engine inlet flow control at high angle of attack, wide angle diffusers, highly loaded airfoils as in turbomachinery, and ejector/suppressor nozzles for the supersonic transport. An argument involving the Coanda Effect is made here that all of the above mentioned application areas really only involve forms of shear layer mixing enhancement. The program also includes the development of practical excitation devices which might be used in aircraft applications.

Rice, Edward J.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Mixing enhancement of reacting parallel fuel jets in a supersonic combustor

Pursuant to a NASA-Langley development program for a scramjet HST propulsion system entailing the optimization of the scramjet combustor's fuel-air mixing and reaction characteristics, a numerical study has been conducted of the candidate parallel fuel injectors. Attention is given to a method for flow mixing-process and combustion-efficiency enhancement in which a supersonic circular hydrogen jet coflows with a supersonic air stream. When enhanced by a planar oblique shock, the injector configuration exhibited a substantial degree of induced vorticity in the fuel stream which increased mixing and chemical reaction rates, relative to the unshocked configuration. The resulting heat release was effective in breaking down the stable hydrogen vortex pair that had inhibited more extensive fuel-air mixing.

Drummond, J. P.↗
NASA NTRS1989

An experimental study of forced streamwise vortical structures in a plane mixing layer

Streamwise structures have been shown to ride among the primary spanwise vortices in past flow visualization investigations of plane mixing layers. More recently, quantitative measurements were obtained which showed the origin and evolution of streamwise vortices within a mixing layer. In the present study, the effects of perturbing the mixing layer using two different mechanisms are investigated. A serration on the splitter plate trailing edge was found to have a relatively small effect, confined to the near-field development of the streamwise structures. The installation of cylindrical pegs in the high-speed side boundary layer, however, not only generated a regular array of vortex pairs, but also affected the mean development of the mixing layer far downstream. In both cases, the mean streamwise vorticity was found to decay rapidly with increasing downstream distance.

Mehta, Rabindra D.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Jet mixing into a heated cross flow in a cylindrical duct: Influence of geometry and flow variations

To examine the mixing characteristics of jets in an axi-symmetric can geometry, temperature measurements were obtained downstream of a row of cold jets injected into a heated cross stream. Parametric, non-reacting experiments were conducted to determine the influence of geometry and flow variations on mixing patterns in a cylindrical configuration. Results show that jet to mainstream momentum flux ratio and orifice geometry significantly impact the mixing characteristics of jets in a can geometry. For a fixed number of orifices, the coupling between momentum flux ratio and injector determines (1) the degree of jet penetration at the injection plane, and (2) the extent of circumferential mixing downstream of the injection plane. The results also show that, at a fixed momentum flux ratio, jet penetration decreases with (1) an increase in slanted slot aspect ratio, and (2) an increase in the angle of the slots with respect to the mainstream direction.

Hatch, M. S.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Towards understanding turbulent scalar mixing

In an effort towards understanding turbulent scalar mixing, we study the effect of molecular mixing, first in isolation and then by accounting for the effects of the velocity field. The chief motivation for this approach stems from the strong resemblance of the scalar probability density function (PDF) obtained from the scalar field evolving from the heat conduction equation that arises in a turbulent velocity field. However, the evolution of the scalar dissipation is different for the two cases. We attempt to account for these differences, which are due to the velocity field, using a Lagrangian frame analysis. After establishing the usefulness of this approach, we use the heat-conduction simulations (HCS), in lieu of the more expensive direct numerical simulations (DNS), to study many of the less understood aspects of turbulent mixing. Comparison between the HCS data and available models are made whenever possible. It is established that the beta PDF characterizes the evolution of the scalar PDF during mixing from all types of non-premixed initial conditions.

Girimaji, Sharath S.↗
NASA NTRS1992

A computational investigation of mixing and reacting flows in supersonic combustors

Results of the numerical simulation of 15 degree downstream helium injection into a unconfined Mach 6 airstream are presented. Both details of downstream mixing and mean flow are in good agreement with experimental data. Results of the numerical simulation of similar hydrogen injection into a high enthalpy (Mach 17) confined Mach 6 airstream are presented with favorable comparison to experimental plume structure and wall data. The low enthalpy inflow from the unconfined case was then provided to the high enthalpy geometry in order to study the feasibility of using low enthalpy simulations of mixing for scramjet flight performance estimation. Results indicate that the mixing is substantially lower for the high enthalpy case but can be shown to appropriately scale using the inflow velocity. Production and decay of axial vorticity, cross-flow velocities, and the mean-flow velocities of these confined flows are then related and discussed to illustrate the effect of residence time on jet mixing.

Riggins, D. W.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Jet mixing into a heated cross flow in a cylindrical duct - Influence of geometry and flow variations

To examine the mixing characteristics of jets in an axi-symmetric can geometry, temperature measurements were obtained downstream of a row of cold jets injected into a heated cross stream. Parametric, non-reacting experiments were conducted to determine the influence of geometry and flow variations on mixing patterns in a cylindrical configuration. Results show that jet to mainstream momentum flux ratio and orifice geometry significantly impact the mixing characteristics of jets in a can geometry. For a fixed number of orifices, the coupling between momentum flux ratio and injector determines (1) the degree of jet penetration at the injection plane, and (2) the extent of circumferential mixing downstream of the injection plane. The results also show that, at a fixed momentum flux ratio, jet penetration decreases with (1) an increase in slanted slot aspect ratio, and (2) an increase in the angle of the slots with respect to the mainstream direction.

Hatch, M. S.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Anomalous ion mixing within a Kelvin-Helmholtz vortex in a collisionless plasma

Anomalously fast ion mixing is observed in a hybrid code simulation (particle ions and a massless electron fluid) of the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability in a collisionless plasma. While the traditional view predicts that the ion mixing occurs on a time scale longer than the roll-up time T(v) of the Kelvin-Helmholtz vortex by a factor of (velocity shear scale length)/(ion Larmor radius), the simulation results show that the mixing occurs within a time scale comparable to T(v). It is shown that this fast mixing is due to the scattering of ions by unsteady electromagnetic fields.

Terasawa, T.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Mixing in the dome region of a staged gas turbine combustor

To lower NO(x) emissions from gas-turbine engines the effect of dome design and operational changes on the mixing quality in the fuel-rich region is studied. A statistical analysis is employed to establish the parametric sensitivity in this complex flow. A mixing-effectiveness index is defined and used to optimize the gas-species uniformity and the extent of reaction at the exit plane of the dome. Mixing effectiveness is tied to the fuel and air injection locations, the macroscale structure of the dome aerodynamics, and the level of turbulence. Increases in nozzle/air to fuel ratio, reference velocities, and the dome expansion angle increased the level of turbulence. The optimum configuration featured counter-swirling fuel and air streams and produced a strong torroidal recirculation zone, an effective spray angle of 45 degrees, and azimuthal velocities that decayed to zero inside of two duct diameters. The results underscore the system specific nature of mixing optimization.

Sowa, W. A.↗