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At least 1,009 records · Page 56
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1983

Experimental and analytical studies of a true airspeed sensor

A true airspeed sensor based on the precession of a vortex whistle for sensing airspeeds up to 321.9 km/hr (200 mph). In an attempt to model the complicated fluid mechanics of the vortex precession, three dimensional, inviscid, unsteady, incompressible fluid flow was studied by using the hydrodynamical linearized stability theory. The temporal stability approach was used to derive the relationship between the true airspeed and frequency response. The results show that the frequency response is linearly proportional to the airspeed. A computer program was developed to obtain the numerical solution. Computational results for various parameters were obtained. The designed sensor basically consisted of a vortex tube, a swirler, and a transducer system. A microphone converted the audible tone to an electronic frequency signal. Measurements for both the closed conduit tests and wind tunnel tests were recorded. For a specific flow rate or airspeed, larger exit swirler angles produced higher frequencies. For a smaller cross sectional area in the precessional flow region, the frequency was higher. It was observed that as the airspeed was increased the Strouhal number remained constant.

Goglia, G. L.↗
NASA NTRS1983

Ion wind drag reduction

In order to study the effect of ion wind on viscous drag, the equations of electrogasdynamics are solved numerically assuming the flow is incompressible, the electric field is steady and that the fluid velocity is negligible compared to ion drift velocity. The results obtained to date in a continuing theoretical and experimental research program are presented.

Malik, M. R.↗
NASA NTRS1983

A note on compressibility and energy cascade in turbulent molecular clouds

Observed velocity-size correlations are reexamined in the light of an improved theory of turbulent energy cascade that is developed. It is shown that observed velocity-size correlations cannot be compared with the Kolmogorov law, which is based on incompressible turbulent flow. The fact that the log v-log(l/rho) scaling law (v the turbulent velocity, l the associated region size, and rho the fluid density) predicted for compressible energy cascade is always steeper than that observed in molecular clouds indicates the injection rather than the dissipation of mechanical energy at smaller scales of motion. It is also shown that the concept of strict energy cascade may not be generally applicable in the interstellar medium. The agreement between theory and observation turns out to be best for small cool clouds and cloud cores, suggesting that, for these regions at least, the dominant process in establishing the observed v-l-rho correlation is a turbulent energy cascade.

Fleck, R. C., Jr.↗
NASA NTRS1984

Engineering analysis of drooped leading-edge wings near stall

Numerical results obtained with a three-dimensional vortex panel computer program for the calculation of inviscid, incompressible (potential) flow over infinitely thin finite wings with camber are presented. The program, which is designed for wings with drooped leading edge discontinuities, is essentially a numerical representation of lifting surface theory, involving both spanwise and chordwise distributions of vorticity. The results also include two engineering approximations. First, the effect of the leading-edge discontinuities is modeled by assuming that the vortices emanating from the discontinuities aerodynamically divide the wing into three distinct sections of lower aspect ratio. Secondly, the effect of the separated flow at high angle of attack is modeled by applying rectangular vortex panels with a varying vortex strength over the portions of the wing with attached flow.

Anderson, J. D., Jr.↗
NASA NTRS1984

Turbulent solutions of the equations of fluid motion

Some turbulent solutions of the unaveraged Navier-Stokes equations (equations of fluid motion) are reviewed. Those equations are solved numerically in order to study the nonlinear physics of incompressible turbulent flow. Initial three-dimensional cosine velocity fluctuations and periodic boundary conditions are used in most of the work considered. The three components of the mean-square velocity fluctuations are initially equal for the conditions chosen. The resulting solutions show characteristics of turbulence such as the linear and nonlinear excitation of small-scale fluctuations. For the stronger fluctuations, the initially nonrandom flow develops into an apparently random turbulence. Thus randomness or turbulence can arise as a consequence of the structure of the Navier-Stokes equations. The cases considered include turbulence which is statistically homogeneous or inhomogeneous and isotropic or anisotropic. A mean shear is present in some cases. A statistically steady-state turbulence is obtained by using a spatially periodic body force. Various turbulence processes, including the transfer of energy between eddy sizes and between directional components, and the production, dissipation, and spatial diffusion of turbulence, are considered. It is concluded that the physical processes occurring in turbulence can be profitably studied numerically.

Deissler, R. G.↗
NASA NTRS1985

Turbulent solutions of equations of fluid motion

Some turbulent solutions of the unaveraged Navier-Stokes equations (equations of fluid motion) are reviewed. Those equations are solved numerically in order to study the nonlinear physics of incompressible turbulent flow. The three components of the mean-square velocity fluctuations are initially equal for the conditions chosen. The resulting solutions show characteristics of turbulence, such as the linear and nonlinear excitation of small-scale fluctuations. For the stronger fluctuations the initially nonrandom flow develops into an apparently random turbulence. The cases considered include turbulence that is statistically homogeneous or inhomogeneous and isotropic or anisotropic. A statistically steady-state turbulence is obtained by using a spatially periodic body force. Various turbulence processes, including the transfer of energy between eddy sizes and between directional components and the production, dissipation, and spatial diffusion of turbulence, are considered. It is concluded that the physical processes occurring in turbulence can be profitably studied numerically.

Deissler, R. G.↗
NASA NTRS1984

Approximate analysis for resonance of an incompressible shear layer plus edges

A method for approximately analyzing the feedback between downstream and upstream edges in incompressible shear flow is described. The shear flow is modeled by a vortex sheet. Equations for resonance eigenvalues are derived. After the reduction of growth rate by finite shear layer thickness is allowed for, agreement is found between calculated resonances and those that have been observed experimentally.

Durbin, P. A.↗
NASA NTRS1986

Numerical studies of the margin of vortices with decaying cores

The merging of vortices to a single one is a canonical incompressible viscous flow problem. The merging process begins when the core sizes or the vortices are comparable to their distances and ends when the contour lines of constant vorticity lines are circularized around one center. Approximate solutions to this problem are constructed by adapting the asymptotic solutions for distinct vortices. For the early stage of merging, the next-order terms in the asymptotic solutions are added to the leading term. For the later stage of merging, the vorticity distribution is reinitialized by vortices with overlapping core structures guided by the 'rule of merging' and the velocity of the 'vortex centers' are then defined by a minimum principle. To show the accuracy of the approximate solution, it is compared with the finite-difference solution.

Liu, G. C.↗
NASA NTRS1986

Boundary integral techniques for multi-connected domains

Attention is given to iterative methods applicable to such changing domain cases of elliptic problems in multiconnected domains as those of incompressible inviscid flow with free surfaces. One such formulation is developed and tested on circular and elliptic annuli, using interpolated quadrature points to maintain accuracy when annuli regions are thin. The technique is noted to be applicable to the study of accelerating thin fluid shells.

Baker, G. R.↗
NASA NTRS1987

Numerical experiments on boundary-layer receptivity

The incompressible laminar flow over an infinitely thin flat plate is obtained using a Navier-Stokes code in vorticity-velocity variables. The flow at and near the leading edge of the plate is an integral part of the solution algorithm which requires no special treatment; thus allowing for the flow field in this region to be studied in detail. An incident plane sound wave is imposed in the free-stream flow and the receptivity of the boundary layer is studied with particular emphasis to the flow near and at the leading edge.

Gatski, Thomas B.↗
NASA NTRS1987

Analysis of crossover between local and massive separation on airfoils

The occurrence of massive separation on airfoils operating at high Reynolds number poses an important problem to the aerodynamicist. In the present study, the phenomenon of crossover, induced by airfoil thickness, between local separation and massive separation is investigated for low speed (incompressible), symmetric flow past realistic airfoil geometries. This problem is studied both for the infinite Reynolds number asymptotic limit using triple-deck theory and for finite Reynolds number using interacting boundary-layer theory. Numerical results are presented which illustrate how the flow evolves from local to massive separation as the airfoil thickness is increased. The results of the triple-deck and the interacting boundary-layer analyses are found to be in qualitative agreement for the NACA four digit series and an uncambered supercritical airfoil. The effect of turbulence on the evolution of the flow is also considered. Solutions are presented for turbulent flows past a NACA 0014 airfoil and a circular cylinder. For the latter case, the calculated surface pressure distribution is found to agree well with experimental data if the proper eddy pressure level is specified.

Barnett, Mark↗
NASA NTRS1987

A panel method for counter rotating propfans

A time domain source-doublet surface paneling method is developed for analyzing the unsteady loads on counter rotating propellers in incompressible irrotational flow. A scheme for treating the blade-wake interaction problem is described. Sample results for single rotation propellers are given, with comparisons to alternate theories and experiment. Finally, some preliminary results for quasi-steady and fully unsteady loads on counter rotating systems are presented.

Williams, M. H.↗
NASA NTRS1987

Application of a panel code to unsteady wing-propeller interference

Attention is given to the predictions of unsteady, incompressible, potential flow, on the basis of an extension of Maskew's (1982) low-order paneling method. This approach, which is a nonlinear one in that the small-perturbation approximation is not made, is able to arrive at solutions for such general problems as that of the interference between a two-bladed propeller and a wing. Due to the geometry and flow field in question, a wake-snipping procedure is introduced.

Rangwalla, A. A.↗
NASA NTRS1987

On helicity fluctuations and the energy cascade in turbulence

Recent conjectures concerning the correlation between regions of high local helicity and low dissipation are examined from a rigorous theoretical standpoint based on the Navier-Stokes equations. It is proven that only the solenoidal part of the Lamb vector omega x u (which is directly tied to the nonlocal convection and stretching of vortex lines) contributes to the energy cascade in turbulence. Consequently, it is shown that regions of low dissipation can be associated with either low or high helicity, a result which disproves earlier speculations concerning this direct connection between helicity and the energy cascade. Some brief examples are given along with a discussion of the consistency of these results with the most recent computations of helicity fluctuations in incompressible turbulent flows.

Speziale, Charles G.↗
NASA NTRS1986

Analysis of crack closure under plane strain conditions

The phenomenon of plasticity-induced crack closure is associated with the development of residual material on the flanks of an advancing fatigue crack. While it is easy to see that this residual material can come from the side faces of a specimen under plane stress conditions, it is difficult to discover the origin of this extra volume of material on the crack flanks when it is assumed that plane deformations occur and plastic flow is incompressible. The purpose of this paper is to determine whether plasticity-induced fatigue crack closure occurs in an elastic-perfectly plastic body under plane strain conditions.

Fleck, N. A.↗
NASA NTRS1988

An analytical method for ditching analysis of an airborne vehicle

A simple analytical method has been introduced for aerohydrodynamic load analysis of an airborne configuration during water ditching. The method employs an aerodynamic panel code, based on linear potential flow theory, to simulate the flow of air and water around an aircraft configuration. The free surface separating the air and water region is represented by doublet sheet singularities. Although all the theoretical load distributions are computed for air, provisions are made to correct the pressure coefficients obtained on the configuration wetted surfaces to account for the water density. As an analytical tool, the Vortex Separation Aerodynamic (VSAERO) code is chosen to carry out the present investigation. After assessing the validity of the method, its first application is to analyze the water ditching of the Space Shuttle configuration at a 12 degree attitude.

Linear potential flow↗
NASA NTRS1988

Spectral element methods: Algorithms and architectures

Spectral element methods are high-order weighted residual techniques for partial differential equations that combine the geometric flexibility of finite element methods with the rapid convergence of spectral techniques. Spectral element methods are described for the simulation of incompressible fluid flows, with special emphasis on implementation of spectral element techniques on medium-grained parallel processors. Two parallel architectures are considered: the first, a commercially available message-passing hypercube system; the second, a developmental reconfigurable architecture based on Geometry-Defining Processors. High parallel efficiency is obtained in hypercube spectral element computations, indicating that load balancing and communication issues can be successfully addressed by a high-order technique/medium-grained processor algorithm-architecture coupling.

Fischer, Paul↗
NASA NTRS1988

A multi-element vortex lattice method for calculating the geometry and effects of a helicopter rotor wake in forward flight

A method is described for the analysis of the unsteady, incompressible potential flow associated with a helicopter rotor and it's wake in forward flight. This method is particularly useful in low advance ratio flight due to the major contribution, in the near field, of the deformed wake. The rotor geometry is prescribed and the unsteady wake geometry is computed from the local flow perturbation velocities. The wake is modeled as a full vortex lattice. The rotor geometry is arbitrary and several rotor blades can be represented. The unsteady airloads on the rotor blades are computed in the presence of the deformed rotor wake by a time-stepping technique. Solution for the load distribution on the blade surfaces is found by prescribing boundary conditions in a reference system which rotates with the blade tips. Transformation tensors are used to describe the contribution of the wake in the inertial system to the rotor in the rotating reference system. The effects of blade cyclic pitch variation are computed using a rotation tensor. The deformation of the wake is computed in the inertial frame. The wake is started impulsively from rest, allowing a natural convection of the wake with time.

Berry, John D.↗