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At least 739 records · Page 41

Velocity field of a round jet in a cross flow for various jet injection angles and velocity ratios

A subsonic round jet injected from a flat plate into a subsonic crosswind of the same temperature was investigated. Velocity and pressure measurements in planes perpendicular to the path of the jet were made for nominal jet injection angles of 45 deg, 60 deg, 75 deg, 90 deg, and 105 deg and for jet/cross flow velocity ratios of four and eight. The velocity measurements were obtained to infer the properties of the vortex pair associated with a jet in a cross flow. Jet centerline and vortex trajectories were determined and fit with an empirical equation that includes the effects of jet injection angle, jet core length, and jet/cross flow velocity ratios.

Fearn, R. L.↗

The Influence of Pressure on Flame-Flow Characteristics of a Reacting Jet in Crossflow

This work experimentally investigates the effects of elevated combustor pressures on the characteristics of a lean premixed reacting methane/air jet injected into a lean vitiated crossflow using a 12.7 mm axial jet. Experiments were conducted in an axially staged combustor, which implements a reacting jet in crossflow (RJIC) configuration and operates over a pressure range of 1–5 atmospheres. Simultaneous CH* chemiluminescence and particle image velocimetry (PIV) are used to study the flow field and flame behavior. The results show that the reacting jet trajectory exhibits greater penetration with elevated pressure, which is a novel finding compared to available data in the literature. However, the flame liftoff point and ignition delay time both decreased with elevated pressure, which was attributed to decreased vorticity along the flame boundary which corresponds to increased Damköhler numbers (Da). Emissions measurements confirm the NOx increase with pressure as reported in the literature for single-stage gas turbine combustors. Concurrently, emission measurements for the staged configuration show the strong NOx benefit of the RJIC system: the data prove a reduction of global outlet emission levels at elevated pressure with the axially staged configuration. Here, the axial emission reduction was attributed to the decreasing liftoff at elevated pressure levels. Hence, the research emphasizes that the flame and emission characteristics are coupled; they are not only dependent on the geometric parameters and momentum flux ratios but are also a function of pressure.

03 NATURAL GAS↗

An experimental investigation of mixing enhancement in a simulated scramjet combustor by use of swirling jets

It is desired to maintain supersonic flow through the combustor of supersonic airbreathing engines to reduce static temperatures and total pressure losses inherent in reducing flow to subsonic speeds. Due to the supersonic speeds through the combustor, mixing of the fuel and air must by rapid for complete combustion to occur within a reasonable streamwise distance. It was proposed that the addition of swirl to the fuel jet prior to injection might enhance the mixing of the fuel with the air. The effects of swirl on the mixing of a 30 deg wall jet into a Mach 2 flow were experimentally investigated. Swirl was introduced into the fuel stream by tangential injection into a cylindrical swirl chamber. The flow was then accelerated through a convergent-divergent nozzle with an area ratio of two, and supersonically injected into the Mach 2 flow such that the static pressure of the fuel matched the effective back pressure of the main flow. Two different cases with swirl and one without swirl were investigated, with both helium and air simulating the fuel. Rayleigh scattering was used to visualize the flow and seeding the fuel with water allowed it to be traced through the main flow. Using histograms of the pure molecular Rayleigh scattering images, the helium concentration in the jet-mixing region of the flow was monitored and found to decrease slightly with swirl, indicating better mixing. Thresholding the water-seeded images allowed the jet-mixing region to be isolated and showed a slight increase in this area with swirl. Penetration, however, was slightly less with swirl. Rescaling the data for equal mass flow rates allowed comparison for a scramjet application of a combustor with a single injector and the desire to fuel to a specified fuel-to-oxidant ratio. These results showed a substantial increase in the spreading area with swirl, an increase in the mixing occurring in this area, and slightly better penetration.

Kraus, Donna Karen↗

Hydraulics of Fuel-Injection Pumps for Compression-ignition Engines

Formulas are derived for computing the instantaneous pressures delivered by a fuel pump. The first derivation considers the compressibility of the fuel and the second, the compressibility, elasticity, and inertia of the fuel. The second derivation follows that given by Sass; it is shown to be the more accurate of the two. Additional formulas are given for determining the resistance losses in the injection tube. Experimental data are presented in support of the analyses. The report is concluded with an application of the theory to the design of fuel pump injection systems for which sample calculations are included.

Rothrock, A M↗

Risk-based area of review estimation in overpressured reservoirs to support injection well storage facility permit requirements for CO 2 storage projects

This paper by the Energy & Environmental Research Center presents a workflow and modeling approach for delineating a risk-based area of review (AOR) to support a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Class VI permit for a carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) storage project. The approach combines semianalytical solutions for estimating formation fluid leakage through a hypothetical leaky wellbore with the results of numerical reservoir simulations to define the AOR. The modeling utilizes 1) semianalytical solutions from the peer-reviewed literature for formation fluid leakage through abandoned wellbores by Raven (1990) and Avci (1994), 2) a FORTRAN model compiled and described in Cihan et al. (2011, 2012) called ASLMA (Analytical Solution for Leakage in Multilayered Aquifers), and 3) a computational framework for estimating a risk-based AOR first proposed by Oldenburg et al. (2014, 2016). Therefore, the approach builds upon well-established research and underlying hydrogeological principles that have been upheld for nearly three decades. Moreover, the ASLMA model has been broadly applied to an array of storage projects. The work presented herein extends these earlier works using a custom wrapper written in the software environment, R (R Core Team, 2020), which was developed to perform multiple runs of the ASLMA model using given ranges for one or more input parameters. In addition, the current work simulates the pressure buildup within the storage reservoir in response to CO 2 injection using a compositional simulator to better accommodate the temporospatial evolution of pressure buildup within the storage reservoir that is more accurately modeled using a heterogeneous geologic model and a compositional simulator that accounts for the multiphase interactions. The workflow is demonstrated using a case study for a 180,000-metric-ton-per-year storage project located in the PCOR (Plains CO 2 Reduction) Partnership region. For the storage project evaluated here, under the scenario where the leaky wellbore is open to a saline aquifer (thief zone) between the overlying seal (cap rock) and the underground sources of drinking water (USDW), the risk-based AOR essentially collapses to the areal extent of the CO 2 plume in the storage reservoir because the pressure buildup in the storage reservoir beyond the CO 2 plume is insufficient to drive formation fluids up a hypothetical leaky wellbore into the USDW. However, even under the conservative assumption that the leaky wellbore is not open to a thief zone, beyond the areal extent of the CO 2 plume, the incremental leakage is less than 400 m 3 over 20 years, which represents ~0.0001% or less of the total volume of water contained within the USDW rock volume. As discussed in the text, the threshold criterion for defining the risk-based AOR is site-specific and should be informed by the results of the sensitivity analysis and available site characterization data. The approach outlined in this paper is designed to be protective of USDWs and, therefore, comply with the Safe Drinking Water Act requirements and provisions for the U.S. EPA Class VI Underground Injection Control (UIC) Program (Class VI Rule) and North Dakota Administrative Code Chapter 43-05-01.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Operational and geological controls of coupled poroelastic stressing and pore-pressure accumulation along faults: Induced earthquakes in Pohang, South Korea

Coupled poroelastic stressing and pore-pressure accumulation along pre-existing faults in deep basement contribute to recent occurrence of seismic events at subsurface energy exploration sites. Our coupled fluid-flow and geomechanical model describes the physical processes inducing seismicity corresponding to the sequential stimulation operations in Pohang, South Korea. Simulation results show that prolonged accumulation of poroelastic energy and pore pressure along a fault can nucleate seismic events larger than M w 3 even after terminating well operations. In particular the possibility of large seismic events can be increased by multiple-well operations with alternate injection and extraction that can enhance the degree of pore-pressure diffusion and subsequent stress transfer through a rigid and low-permeability rock to the fault. This study demonstrates that the proper mechanistic model and optimal well operations need to be accounted for to mitigate unexpected seismic hazards in the presence of the site-specific uncertainty such as hidden/undetected faults and stress regime.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Using onset times from frequent seismic surveys to understand fluid flow at the Peace River Field, Canada

With our limited knowledge of the relationship between changes in the state of an aquifer or reservoir and the corresponding changes in the elastic moduli, that is the rock physics model, hampers the effective use of time-lapse seismic observations for estimating flow properties within the Earth. A central problem is the complicated dependence of the magnitude of time-lapse changes on the saturation, pressure, and temperature changes within an aquifer or reservoir. We describe an inversion methodology for reservoir characterization that uses onset times, the calendar time of the change in seismic attributes, rather than the magnitude of the changes. We find that onset times are much less sensitive than magnitudes to the rock physics model used to relate time-lapse observations to changes in saturation, temperature and fluid pressure. We apply the inversion scheme to observations from daily monitoring of enhanced oil recovery at the Peace River field in Canada. An array of 1492 buried hydrophones record seismic signals from 49 buried sources. Time-shifts for elastic waves traversing the reservoir are extracted from the daily time-lapse cubes. In our analysis 175 images of time-shifts are transformed into a single map of onset times, leading to a substantial reduction in the volume of data. These observations are used in conjunction with bottom hole pressure data to infer the initial conditions prior to the injection, and to update the reservoir permeability model. The combination of a global and local inversion scheme produces a collection of reservoir models that are best described by three clusters. The updated model leads to a nearly 70 percent reduction in seismic data misfit. The final set of solutions successfully predict the observed normalized pressure history during the soak and flow-back into the wells between 82 and 175 days into the cyclic steaming operation.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Effect of Propellant Flowrate and Purity on Carbon Deposition in LO2/Methane Gas Generators

The generation and deposition of carbon was studied in the Carbon Deposition Program using subscale hardware with LO2/Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) and LO2/Methane propellants at low mixture ratios. The purpose of the testing was to evaluate the effect of methane purity and full scale injection density on carbon deposition. The LO2/LNG gas generator/preburner testing was performed at mixture ratios between 0.24 and 0.58 and chamber pressures from 5.8 to 9.4 MPa (840 to 1370 psia). A total of seven 200 second duration tests were performed. The LNG testing occurred at low injection densities, similar to the previous LO2/RP-1, LO2/propane, and LO2/methane testing performed on the carbon deposition program. The current LO2/methane test series occurred at an injection density factor of approximately 10 times higher than the previous testing. The high injection density LO2/methane testing was performed at mixture ratios between from 0.23 to 0.81 and chamber pressures from 6.4 to 15.2 MPa (925 to 2210 psia). A total of nine high injection density tests were performed. The testing performed demonstrated that low purity methane (LNG) did not produce any detectable change in carbon deposition when compared to pure methane. In addition, the C* performance and the combustion gas temperatures measured were similar to those obtained for pure methane. Similar results were obtained testing pure methane at higher propellant injection densities with coarse injector elements.

Bossard, J. A.↗

A Novel Workflow for Coupled Simulation of Hydraulic Stimulation with Simultaneous Injection of Proppant

Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) are located in impermeable host rock. Therefore, to achieve promising circulation, hydraulic stimulation is a key factor. Stimulation involves injecting a combination of fluids and proppant particles into existing fractures under high pressure. The effectiveness of stimulation depends on a variety of different factors, including the pressurization scheme and the optimal choice of carrying fluid and proppant particles to be used. For example, high-density particles can settle out of the injected slurry quickly, whereas lighter particles as well as a dense carrying fluid allow for a long transport into the reservoir. A numerical tool is therefore essential to take all these factors into account and to make robust predictions about the performance of the hydraulic stimulation. We present a novel computational application for coupled numerical simulation of hydraulic stimulation with concurrent injection of proppant in a fractured geothermal reservoir. This application is based on the open-source MOOSE framework that has been enriched with a set of equations to account for the circulation of proppant-laden slurries. It accounts for both the fluid and proppant components of the mixture, as well as particle-driven processes that include gravity settling, particle-particle interactions, and strong density and viscosity contrasts. A particular challenge is the mutual coupling with fracture mechanical processes in a propagating fracture using the FE code Defmod. Aperture and fluid pressure on one side and slurry density and viscosity changes on the other side interact and affect each other. Their basic understanding is therefore essential for the success of the stimulation. We compare our application to common numerical benchmark problems for both slurry flow and hydraulic stimulation.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗

Controlling pollutant emissions in a high-pressure combustor with fuel-diluent blending

This paper investigates the formation of nitric oxide (NO) and carbon monoxide (CO) emissions as a function of nitrogen (N 2 ) or carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) diluent content, added to a premixed reacting jet in crossflow. Here, reaction characteristics of a rich methane-air jet injected into a lean vitiated crossflow were analyzed at an elevated pressure of 5 atm. The jet was pre-heated and enriched with 0%, 15%, 30%, and 50% mass fraction to quantify the effect on pollutant emissions. Simulated results of the full chemistry Star-CCM+CFD model were verified with data taken in the experimental high-pressure combustion facility, which provides pressure, temperature and velocity profiles, as well as line-of-sight chemiluminescence and exit emission measurements. The analysis revealed the significant influence of the diluent to delay axial combustion; this mixing delay increased the axial flame lift-off and controlled any thermal ignition limitations. Increasing the diluent content increased the timescale for the flame to stabilize, which allowed for greater entrainment of crossflow oxidizer into the axial jet stream, and led to decreased pollutant emissions. Hence, crossflow entrainment is a critical driving force at high diluent content. Local nitric oxide (NO) emission formation in the axial stage was predicted numerically, showing the correlation between diluent addition, axial heat release, and the formation of nitric oxide pollution. The high diluent levels leaned out the jet mixture and delayed axial combustion, while reducing prompt and thermal NOx by mitigating flame hotspots and minimizing the timescale that the products remain at high temperatures.

03 NATURAL GAS↗

Alternative, Less Water-Intensive, Fracturing Fluids for Enhanced Geothermal Systems

Four fracturing fluids; water, CO2, CO2 with water, and CO2 with an aqueous solution of a CO2-reactive polymer, poly(allylamine) (PAA, 1wt%) were evaluated using a high-temperature true-triaxial fracturing apparatus and ½ foot side granite cubic samples. All three CO2-based fracturing fluids, CO2, CO2 with water, and CO2 with aqueous PAA fractured granite at higher breakdown pressures, high transient flow rates, and produce higher-conductivity fractures as compared to water. Additionally, faster pressurization rates with CO2-based fracturing fluids (obtained when fracturing at constant flow rate mode) are found to be associated with higher fracture conductivities. When partially saturating the rock sample with PAA solution followed by fracturing with CO2, the volume expansion caused by CO2-induced cross-linking of PAA leads to a faster pressure increase due to the associated stress generated and increase in viscosity. It was also found that CO2 as a fracturing fluid injected in hot dry rock (HDR) attain the highest fracture conductivity only when injected at very high flow rates, followed very closely by the CO2/PAA fracturing fluid system that generates fractures with, on average, similarly high conductivity values though independently of injection flow rate and using 1/6 of the mass of CO2 as compared to CO2 in HDR. Breakdown pressures were also similar for CO2 stimulation in HDR and CO2/PAA fluid system under identical injection flow rates. It is concluded that CO2 (when injected in HDR) and CO2/PAA are the fluids of choice for stimulation of granitic rock samples under the studied geothermal P/T conditions. CO2/PAA, however, offer the following three additional advantages; 1) it requires significantly lower volumes of CO2, 2) fracture permeability is independent of injection flow rate, and 3) the reversible (previously reported) viscosity increase is beneficial to transport proppants if they are ever developed enhanced geothermal systems.

Jian, Guoqing↗

Piston manometer as an absolute standard for vacuum-gauge calibration.

Determination of the total pressure in a calibration volume by measuring the force on a thin circular disk, of accurately known area, that is freely suspended in a hole in the container wall, so that the disk is substantially flush with the wall. The disk almost fills the hole, so that there is a narrow annular gap. A continuous flow of calibrating gas, injected into the container in order to maintain a desired pressure, passes through the annular gap to a diffusion pump. The ratio of pressures on the two faces of the disk is of the order of 100:1, so that downstream pressure need be known only nominally in order to deduce the upstream surface. Force on the disk is measured by a balance that is calibrated in situ with dead weights. In one arrangement, pressures in the range from 10 to 500 microtorr were measured with an estimated probable error of (1 microtorr + 1%).

Warshawsky, I.↗

Piston manometer as an absolute standard for vacuum-gauge calibration.

Determination of total pressure in a calibration volume by measuring the force on a thin circular disk, of accurately-known area, that is freely suspended in a hole in the container wall, so that the disk is substantially flush with the wall. The disk almost fills the hole, so that there is a narrow annular gap. A continuous flow of calibrating gas, injected into the container in order to maintain a desired pressure, passes through the annular gap to a diffusion pump. The ratio of pressures on the two faces of the disk is on the order of 100:1, so that downstream pressure need be known only nominally in order to deduce the upstream pressure. Force on the disk is measured by a balance that is calibrated in situ with dead weights. In one arrangement, pressures in the range from 10 to 500 microtorr were measured with an estimated probable error of (1 microtorr + 1%).

Warshawsky, I.↗

Powder fed sheared dispersal particle generator

A particle generating system is described which is capable of breaking up agglomerations of particles and producing a cloud of uniform, submicron-sized particles at high pressure and high flow rates. This is achieved by utilizing a tubular structure which has injection microslits on is periphery to accept and disperse the desired particle feed. By suppling a carrying fluid at a pressure, of approximately twice the ambient pressure of the velocimeter's settling chamber, the microslits operate at choked flow conditions. The shearing action of this choked flow is sufficient to overcome interparticle bonding forces, thereby breaking up the agglomerates of the particles feed into individual particles.

Morrisette, E. L.↗

Droplet Core Nuclear Rocket (DCNR)

The most basic design feature of the droplet core nuclear reactor is to spray liquid uranium into the core in the form of droplets on the order of five to ten microns in size, to bring the reactor to critical conditions. The liquid uranium fuel ejector is driven by hydrogen, and more hydrogen is injected from the side of the reactor to about one and a half meters from the top. High temperature hydrogen is expanded through a nozzle to produce thrust. The hydrogen pressure in the system can be somewhere between 50 and 500 atmospheres; the higher pressure is more desirable. In the lower core region, hydrogen is tangentially injected to serve two purposes: (1) to provide a swirling flow to protect the wall from impingement of hot uranium droplets: (2) to generate a vortex flow that can be used for fuel separation. The reactor is designed to maximize the energy generation in the upper region of the core. The system can result in and Isp of 2000 per second, and a thrust-to-weight ratio of 1.6 for the shielded reactor. The nuclear engine system can reduce the Mars mission duration to less than 200 days. It can reduce the hydrogen consumption by a factor of 2 to 3, which reduces the hydrogen load by about 130 to 150 metric tons.

Anghaie, Samim↗

Comparing Global Spray Combustion Characteristics and Local Shot-to-Shot Variations in a Reacting n -Heptane Spray

In support of efforts to develop improved models of turbulent spray behavior and combustion in diesel engines, experimental data and analysis must be obtained for guidance and validation. For Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS)-based Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling approaches, representative ensemble average experimental results are important. For high-fidelity models such as large eddy simulations (LES)-based CFD, precise individual experimental results are desirable. However, making comparisons between a given experiment and LES is a challenge since local parameters cannot be directly compared. In this work, an optically accessible constant pressure flow rig (CPFR) is utilized to acquire diesel-like fuel injection and reaction behavior simultaneously with three optical diagnostic techniques: rainbow Schlieren deflectometry (RSD), OH* chemiluminescence (OH*), and two-color pyrometry (2CP). The CPFR allows a large number of repeated injection experiments to be performed for statistical analysis and convergence using ensemble-averaging techniques, while maintaining highly repeatable test conditions. Even for stable test conditions, variations in local turbulent fuel–air mixing introduce variability, which manifests as significant differences in OH* and 2CP results. Experimental measurements of characteristic parameters including liquid and vapor jet penetration, liftoff length, soot temperature and concentration, and turbulent flame speed, along with the shot-to-shot variability of each dataset, are presented and discussed. Finally, a statistical method is utilized to analyze the extent of this variability, and to identify superlative injections within the dataset for discussion and analysis of shot-to-shot variations.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Measurement of Turbulent Pressure and Temperature Fluctuations in a Gas Turbine Combustor

The present research concerns the development of high-frequency pressure and temperature probes and related instrumentation capable of performing spectral characterization of unsteady pressure and temperature fluctuations over the 0.05 20 kHz range, at the exit of a gas turbine combustor operating at conditions close to nominal ones for large power generation turbomachinery. The probes used a transient technique pioneered at Oxford University; in order to withstand exposure to the harsh environment the probes were fitted on a rapid injection and cooling system jointly developed by Centrospazio CPR and Syracuse University. The experimental runs were performed on a large industrial test rig being operated by ENEL Produzione. The achieved results clearly show the satisfactory performance provided by this diagnostic tool, even though the poor location of the injection port prevented the tests from yielding more insight of the core flow turbulence characteristics. The pressure and temperature probes survived several dozen injections in the combustor hot jet, while consistently providing the intended high frequency performance. The apparatus was kept connected to the combustor during long duration firings, operating as an unobtrusive, self contained, piggy-back experiment: high frequency flow samplings were remotely recorded at selected moments corresponding to different combustor operating conditions.

Passaro, Andrea↗

Refueling water storage tank (RWST) with tailored passive emergency core cooling (ECC) flow

A nuclear reactor comprises a pressure vessel containing a nuclear reactor core. A reactor core cooling system comprises a standpipe including a plurality of orifices in fluid communication with a refueling water storage tank (RWST) to drain water from the RWST into the standpipe, and an injection line configured to drain water from the standpipe to the pressure vessel. In some embodiments the standpipe is disposed in the RWST, while in other embodiments the standpipe is disposed outside of the RWST and cross-connection pipes connect the plurality of orifices with the RWST. The reactor core cooling system may further comprise a valve configured to control flow through one orifice of the plurality of orifices in fluid communication with the RWST based on water level in the standpipe. The valve may comprise a float valve having its float disposed in the standpipe.

Watson, Ronald C.↗