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At least 937 records · Page 52

All sources NASA NTRS DOE OSTI

DOE OSTI2014

Study of Particle Rotation Effect in Gas-Solid Flows using Direct Numerical Simulation with a Lattice Boltzmann Method

A new and efficient direct numerical method with second-order convergence accuracy was developed for fully resolved simulations of incompressible viscous flows laden with rigid particles. The method combines the state-of-the-art immersed boundary method (IBM), the multi-direct forcing method, and the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM). First, the multi-direct forcing method is adopted in the improved IBM to better approximate the no-slip/no-penetration (ns/np) condition on the surface of particles. Second, a slight retraction of the Lagrangian grid from the surface towards the interior of particles with a fraction of the Eulerian grid spacing helps increase the convergence accuracy of the method. An over-relaxation technique in the procedure of multi-direct forcing method and the classical fourth order Runge-Kutta scheme in the coupled fluid-particle interaction were applied. The use of the classical fourth order Runge-Kutta scheme helps the overall IB-LBM achieve the second order accuracy and provides more accurate predictions of the translational and rotational motion of particles. The preexistent code with the first-order convergence rate is updated so that the updated new code can resolve the translational and rotational motion of particles with the second-order convergence rate. The updated code has been validated with several benchmark applications. The efficiency of IBM and thus the efficiency of IB-LBM were improved by reducing the number of the Lagragian markers on particles by using a new formula for the number of Lagrangian markers on particle surfaces. The immersed boundary-lattice Boltzmann method (IBLBM) has been shown to predict correctly the angular velocity of a particle. Prior to examining drag force exerted on a cluster of particles, the updated IB-LBM code along with the new formula for the number of Lagrangian markers has been further validated by solving several theoretical problems. Moreover, the unsteadiness of the drag force is examined when a fluid is accelerated from rest by a constant average pressure gradient toward a steady Stokes flow. The simulation results agree well with the theories for the short- and long-time behavior of the drag force. Flows through non-rotational and rotational spheres in simple cubic arrays and random arrays are simulated over the entire range of packing fractions, and both low and moderate particle Reynolds numbers to compare the simulated results with the literature results and develop a new drag force formula, a new lift force formula, and a new torque formula. Random arrays of solid particles in fluids are generated with Monte Carlo procedure and Zinchenko's method to avoid crystallization of solid particles over high solid volume fractions. A new drag force formula was developed with extensive simulated results to be closely applicable to real processes over the entire range of packing fractions and both low and moderate particle Reynolds numbers. The simulation results indicate that the drag force is barely affected by rotational Reynolds numbers. Drag force is basically unchanged as the angle of the rotating axis varies.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

DOE OSTI2019

Nitrogen-Driven Chromatographic Separation During Gas Injection Into Hydrate-Bearing Sediments

Hydrates are solid phases composed of water cages enclosing gas molecules that may host large quantities of recoverable natural gas and may serve to sequester CO 2 on geological time scales. Most hydrate studies focus on hydrates containing a single gas component, such as CH 4 or CO 2 . Yet, there are several settings in which multiple components form hydrate mixtures, or mixed hydrates, including a subsurface injection technique that claims to simultaneously recover CH 4 and sequester CO 2 called “guest molecule exchange.” Here, we combine multicomponent phase behavior for hydrate-forming systems with a multiphase fluid flow simulator to understand the evolution of hydrate and nonhydrate phases during subsurface injection. We simulate various scenarios for systems composed of H 2 O, CH 4 , CO 2 , and N 2 . Our study probes the impact of injection composition, initial reservoir composition, and transport of each component through the model domain. We observe chromatographic separation from the combined effect of compositional partitioning in each phase, variable flow speed of each phase, and compositional dependence of phase stabilities. We show that N 2 drives chromatographic separation to create a CH 4 -free zone and a CO 2 -free zone that are connected by a continuous N 2 -dominated vapor phase. While our results are theoretical and should be validated experimentally, they imply that guest molecule exchange acts as two sequential processes rather than as a simultaneous process. Furthermore, they show that injections into reservoirs with and without free water have vastly different behaviors, which has implications for the interpretation of the guest molecule exchange field test and various laboratory studies.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

NASA NTRS2004

NRA8-21 Cycle 2 RBCC Turbopump Risk Reduction

This project was composed of three sub-tasks. The objective of the first task was to use the CFD code INS3D to generate both on- and off-design predictions for the consortium optimized impeller flowfield. The results of the flow simulations are given in the first section. The objective of the second task was to construct a turbomachinery testing database comprised of measurements made on several different impellers, an inducer and a diffuser. The data was in the form of static pressure measurements as well as laser velocimeter measurements of velocities and flow angles within the stated components. Several databases with this information were created for these components. The third subtask objective was two-fold: first, to validate the Enigma CFD code for pump diffuser analysis, and secondly, to perform steady and unsteady analyses on some wide flow range diffuser concepts using Enigma. The code was validated using the consortium optimized impeller database and then applied to two different concepts for wide flow diffusers.

Ferguson, Thomas V.↗

DOE OSTI2025

Challenge Problem 1: Preliminary Results of the Direct Numerical Simulation of Transient Flows

This report presents the first direct numerical simulations (DNS) of transient mixed convection in an idealized downcomer-like channel (Challenge Problem 1, Phase II). Using the GPU-accelerated NekRS solver, we modeled a sudden decay in driving pressure, mimicking loss-of-flow events, and tracked the resulting evolution of Reynolds number, boundary-layer structure, turbulence statistics, and heat-transfer metrics. Key findings include the systematic thickening and eventual asymmetry of velocity and thermal boundary layers under buoyant deceleration; minimal “memory” lag in Reynolds shear stress and TKE profiles when sampled at matching Re, yet clear shifts of peak locations toward the cooled wall; overshoots in transient eddy-viscosity and eddy-diffusivity (and corresponding sub-unity turbulent Prandtl numbers) on the cooled side; and a pronounced transient Nusselt-number enhancement driven by wall-temperature inertia and residual eddy mixing. These effects combined to offer a temporary cooling margin above steady-state predictions during reactor LOF transients. Future work will extend this work to a more complex “Case II” geometry (90° turn + lower plenum) and generate multi-Re/Pr datasets for data-driven turbulence closures.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

NASA NTRS1993

On the large eddy simulation of turbulent flows in complex geometry

Application of the method of Large Eddy Simulation (LES) to a turbulent flow consists of three separate steps. First, a filtering operation is performed on the Navier-Stokes equations to remove the small spatial scales. The resulting equations that describe the space time evolution of the 'large eddies' contain the subgrid-scale (sgs) stress tensor that describes the effect of the unresolved small scales on the resolved scales. The second step is the replacement of the sgs stress tensor by some expression involving the large scales - this is the problem of 'subgrid-scale modeling'. The final step is the numerical simulation of the resulting 'closed' equations for the large scale fields on a grid small enough to resolve the smallest of the large eddies, but still much larger than the fine scale structures at the Kolmogorov length. In dividing a turbulent flow field into 'large' and 'small' eddies, one presumes that a cut-off length delta can be sensibly chosen such that all fluctuations on a scale larger than delta are 'large eddies' and the remainder constitute the 'small scale' fluctuations. Typically, delta would be a length scale characterizing the smallest structures of interest in the flow. In an inhomogeneous flow, the 'sensible choice' for delta may vary significantly over the flow domain. For example, in a wall bounded turbulent flow, most statistical averages of interest vary much more rapidly with position near the wall than far away from it. Further, there are dynamically important organized structures near the wall on a scale much smaller than the boundary layer thickness. Therefore, the minimum size of eddies that need to be resolved is smaller near the wall. In general, for the LES of inhomogeneous flows, the width of the filtering kernel delta must be considered to be a function of position. If a filtering operation with a nonuniform filter width is performed on the Navier-Stokes equations, one does not in general get the standard large eddy equations. The complication is caused by the fact that a filtering operation with a nonuniform filter width in general does not commute with the operation of differentiation. This is one of the issues that we have looked at in detail as it is basic to any attempt at applying LES to complex geometry flows. Our principal findings are summarized.

Ghosal, Sandip↗

DOE OSTI2018

Perennial biomass production from marginal land in the Upper Mississippi River Basin

Not provided.

Agriculture↗

NASA NTRS1995

Effects of cavity dimensions, boundary layer, and temperature on cavity noise with emphasis on benchmark data to validate computational aeroacoustic codes

This report documents the results of an experimental investigation on the response of a cavity to external flowfields. The primary objective of this research was to acquire benchmark of data on the effects of cavity length, width, depth, upstream boundary layer, and flow temperature on cavity noise. These data were to be used for validation of computational aeroacoustic (CAA) codes on cavity noise. To achieve this objective, a systematic set of acoustic and flow measurements were made for subsonic turbulent flows approaching a cavity. These measurements were conducted in the research facilities of the Georgia Tech research institute. Two cavity models were designed, one for heated flow and another for unheated flow studies. Both models were designed such that the cavity length (L) could easily be varied while holding fixed the depth (D) and width (W) dimensions of the cavity. Depth and width blocks were manufactured so that these dimensions could be varied as well. A wall jet issuing from a rectangular nozzle was used to simulate flows over the cavity.

Ahuja, K. K.↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

High-Order Shock Fitting with Finite Element Methods

A moving-grid, shock-tracking, finite element method has been implemented that can achieve high-order accuracy for flow simulations with shocks. In this approach, element edges in the computational mesh are fitted to the shock front and moved with the shock throughout the simulation. The Euler equations are solved on the moving mesh in an arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian framework. Three different methods for specifying the shock motion have been tested,and the order of accuracy of the resulting solutions was verified. It was found that one of the methods is applicable only for problems with a constant upstream flow state, whereas the other two methods converge to the expected solution for general shock problems. When using a finite element method with polynomial degree p, the two general shock motion methods converged with the expected order of accuracy of (p+1). Finally, accurate solutions are obtained for supersonic nozzle and blunt body bow shock problems. Based on the results, it is concluded that the shock tracking method can preserve high-order solution accuracy in the vicinity of a shock wave.

Luke D'Aquila↗

DOE OSTI2026

A fourth order sharp immersed method for the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations with stationary and moving boundaries and interfaces

We propose a fourth order Navier-Stokes solver based on the immersed interface method (IIM), for flow problems with stationary and one-way coupled moving boundaries and interfaces. Our algorithm employs a Runge-Kutta-based projection method that maintains high-order temporal accuracy in both velocity and pressure for steady and unsteady velocity boundary conditions. Fourth order spatial accuracy is achieved through a novel fifth order IIM discretization scheme for the advection term, as well as existing high-order interface-corrected finite difference schemes for the other differential operators. Using a set of manufactured flow problems with stationary and moving boundaries, we demonstrate fourth order convergence of velocity and pressure in the infinity norm, both inside the domain and on the immersed boundaries. The solver’s performance is further validated through a range of practical flow simulations, highlighting its efficiency over a second order scheme. Finally, we showcase the ability of our immersed discretization scheme to handle interface-coupled multiphysics problems by solving a conjugate heat transfer problem with multiple immersed solids. Overall, the proposed approach robustly combines the efficiency of high order discretization schemes with the flexibility of immersed discretizations for flow problems with complex, moving boundaries and interfaces.

42 ENGINEERING↗

DOE OSTI2017

Hiearchical Engine for Large Scale Infrastructure Simulation

HELICS ls a new open-source, cyber-physlcal-energy co-simulation framework for electric power systems. HELICS Is designed to support very-large-scale (100,000+ federates) cosimulations with off-the-shelf power-system, communication, market, and end-use tools. Other key features Include cross platform operating system support, the integration of both eventdrlven (e.g., packetlzed communication) and time-series (e.g.,power flow) simulations, and the ability to co-Iterate among federates to ensure physical model convergence at each time step.

Top, Philip↗

NASA NTRS1984

Energy Efficient Engine high pressure turbine component test performance report

The high pressure turbine for the General Electric Energy Efficient Engine is a two stage design of moderate loading. Results of detailed system studies led to selection of this configuration as the most appropriate in meeting the efficiency goals of the component development program. To verify the design features of the high pressure turbine, a full scale warm air turbine test rig with cooling flows simulated was run. Prior to this testing, an annular cascade test was run to select vane unguided turn for the first stage nozzle. Results of this test showed that the base configuration exceeded the lower unguided turning configuration by 0.48 percent in vane kinetic energy efficiency. The air turbine test program, consisting of extensive mapping and cooling flow variation as well as design point evaluation, demonstrated a design point efficiency level of 90.0 percent based on the thermodynamic definition. In terms of General Electric cycle definition, this efficiency was 92.5 percent. Based on this test, it is concluded that efficiency goals for the Flight Propulsion System were met.

Timko, L. P.↗

DOE OSTI2017

Hiearchical Engine for Large Scale Infrastructure Simulation

Top, Philip↗

DOE OSTI2017

Continuation Power Flow Analysis for PV Integration Studies at Distribution Feeders

This paper presents a method for conducting continuation power flow simulation on high-solar penetration distribution feeders. A load disaggregation method is developed to disaggregate the daily feeder load profiles collected in substations down to each load node, where the electricity consumption of residential houses and commercial buildings are modeled using actual data collected from single family houses and commercial buildings. This allows the modeling of power flow and voltage profile along a distribution feeder on a continuing fashion for a 24- hour period at minute-by-minute resolution. By separating the feeder into load zones based on the distance between the load node and the feeder head, we studied the impact of PV penetration on distribution grid operation in different seasons and under different weather conditions for different PV placements.

AC Chronological Power Flow↗

NASA NTRS2002

An Evaluation of Parameters Influencing Jet Mixing Using the WIND Navier-stokes Code

The WIND code, a Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes solver used for a variety of aerospace flow simulations, was investigated for a Mach 2 nozzle at a series of nozzle stagnation temperatures. Comparisons of WIND calculations are made to experimental measurements of axial velocity, Mach number, and stagnation temperature along the jet centerline. The primary objective was to investigate the capabilities of the two-equation turbulence models available in WIND, version 4.0, for the analysis of heated supersonic nozzle flows. The models examined were the Menter Shear Stress Transport (SST) model and the Chien k-epsilon model, with and without the compressibility correction due to Sarkar. It was observed that all of the turbulence models investigated produced solutions that did not agree well with the experimental measurements. The effects of freestream Mach number and turbulent Prandtl number specifications were also investigated.

Dembowski, Mary Ann↗

NASA NTRS2021

Coupling of the FUN3D Unstructured Flow Solver and the LASTRAC Stability Code to Model Transition

We develop an iterative automated method to predict transition locations in boundary-layer flows by using the FUN3D solver to perform flow simulations and the LASTRAC code for linear stability computations. The coupling of FUN3D and LASTRAC allows for a robust physics-based approach to model boundary-layer transition by analyzing the growth of different instability waves and then using that information to iteratively update the resulting transition location. There is no user involvement during the iterative computations. We apply this automated method to subsonic flow over a flat plate with a sharp leading edge. The final solution has regions of laminar and turbulent flow with a transition onset location that agrees with experiments and stability-based correlations. This iterative automated method is also applied to an NLF(1)-0416 airfoil for conditions with and without a separation bubble. Along with predicting transition locations, we compare the streamwise distributions of surface-pressure and skin-friction coefficients to a transport-equation-based model. We consider a 6:1 prolate spheroid at three angles of attack, namely, five, ten, and fifteen degrees, where mixed-mode transition occurs due to both Tollmien-Schlichting and crossflow instabilities. The skin-friction contours and transition fronts at every angle of attack from our iterative automated method show good agreement with past experimental and computational results in the literature for the 6:1 prolate spheroid.

Transition↗

NASA NTRS1990

Unsteady viscous flow around a circular cylinder found by the hopscotch scheme on a vector processing machine

The hopscotch scheme is examined to see whether it can compete effectively with implicit schemes for the integration of the Navier-Stokes equations on a vector processing machine. This scheme is stable as long as the Courant number is less than or equal to one and it does not underestimate viscous effects. The accuracy of the scheme is tested on one- and two-dimensional problems whose exact solutions are known. The scheme is then used to simulate flows around a circular cylinder with Reynolds numbers 200, 500 and 1000.

Duffy, Dean G.↗

DOE OSTI2025

Mesh-based super-resolution of fluid flows with multiscale graph neural networks

A graph neural network (GNN) approach is introduced in this work which enables mesh-based three-dimensional super-resolution of fluid flows. In this framework, the GNN is designed to operate not on the full mesh-based field at once, but on localized meshes of elements (or cells) directly. To facilitate mesh-based GNN representations in a manner similar to spectral (or finite) element discretizations, a baseline GNN layer (termed a message passing layer, which updates local node properties) is modified to account for synchronization of coincident graph nodes, rendering compatibility with commonly used element-based mesh connectivities. Furthermore, the architecture is multiscale in nature, and is comprised of a combination of coarse-scale and fine-scale message passing layer sequences (termed processors) separated by a graph unpooling layer. The coarse-scale processor embeds a query element (alongside a set number of neighboring coarse elements) into a single latent graph representation using coarse-scale synchronized message passing over the element neighborhood, and the fine-scale processor leverages additional message passing operations on this latent graph to correct for interpolation errors. Demonstration studies are performed using hexahedral mesh-based data from Taylor–Green Vortex and backward-facing step flow simulations at Reynolds numbers of 1600 and 3200. Through analysis of both global and local errors, the results ultimately show how the GNN is able to produce accurate super-resolved fields compared to targets in both coarse-scale and multiscale model configurations. Reconstruction errors for fixed architectures were found to increase in proportion to the Reynolds number. Geometry extrapolation studies on a separate cavity flow configuration show promising cross-mesh capabilities of the super-resolution strategy.

Backward-facing step↗

DOE OSTI2025

Advancing material modeling in hydrocodes using a concurrent finite-element and molecular dynamics multiscale framework

We present a multiscale simulation framework that couples the finite-element method with molecular dynamics. Bypassing traditional equations of state (EOS) by using in-line atomistic simulations, the method offers the advantage of incorporating detailed microscale physics not easily represented with coarse-grained models. Coupling consistency with the continuum code is ensured through the use of lifting and restriction operators, in line with heterogeneous multiscale methods. The concurrent continuum-atomistic framework is validated through comparison with experimental results and conventional EOS models, and demonstrated in a shock-driven hydrodynamic flow simulation under extreme conditions. We further evaluate the framework's usability by comparing it to state-of-the-art EOS models of deuterium. A computational performance study reveals that the atomistic EOS evaluation is a feasible alternative to conventional approaches, and demonstrates a weak scaling of 99% efficiency. These results highlight the framework's potential for large-scale multiscale modeling across a broad range of materials and conditions.

Computer science↗