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At least 109 records · Page 6

Nonequilibrium radiative heating prediction method for aeroassist flowfields with coupling to flowfield solvers

A method for predicting radiation adsorption and emission coefficients in thermochemical nonequilibrium flows is developed. The method is called the Langley optimized radiative nonequilibrium code (LORAN). It applies the smeared band approximation for molecular radiation to produce moderately detailed results and is intended to fill the gap between detailed but costly prediction methods and very fast but highly approximate methods. The optimization of the method to provide efficient solutions allowing coupling to flowfield solvers is discussed. Representative results are obtained and compared to previous nonequilibrium radiation methods, as well as to ground- and flight-measured data. Reasonable agreement is found in all cases. A multidimensional radiative transport method is also developed for axisymmetric flows. Its predictions for wall radiative flux are 20 to 25 percent lower than those of the tangent slab transport method, as expected, though additional investigation of the symmetry and outflow boundary conditions is indicated. The method was applied to the peak heating condition of the aeroassist flight experiment (AFE) trajectory, with results comparable to predictions from other methods. The LORAN method was also applied in conjunction with the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code LAURA to study the sensitivity of the radiative heating prediction to various models used in nonequilibrium CFD. This study suggests that radiation measurements can provide diagnostic information about the detailed processes occurring in a nonequilibrium flowfield because radiation phenomena are very sensitive to these processes.

Hartung, Lin C.↗

Examination of nonequilibrium effects in an ionized nitrogen flow

A thermo-chemical nonequilibrium ionized nitrogen flow in a shock tube is examined. A one-dimensional computational fluid dynamics code has been developed to study the flowfield incorporating a novel treatment of the electron energy equation. In the present approach, the electron pressure is included in the electron energy flux. In contrast, previous work has removed this term from the flux to facilitate the flux splitting. The code uses a five-species gas model for ionized nitrogen characterized by translational-rotational, vibrational, and electron-electronic temperatures. The results give good agreement with experimental data except for an inadequacy in the electronic source terms. A small difference is observed between the new and old splittings which increases with higher levels of ionization.

Hatfield, John A.↗

CFD Simulations of the IHF Arc-Jet Flow: Compression-Pad/Separation Bolt Wedge Tests

This paper reports computational analyses in support of two wedge tests in a high enthalpy arc-jet facility at NASA Ames Research Center. These tests were conducted using two different wedge models, each placed in a free jet downstream of a corresponding different conical nozzle in the Ames 60-MW Interaction Heating Facility. Each panel test article included a metallic separation bolt imbedded in Orion compression-pad and heatshield materials, resulting in a circular protuberance over a flat plate. The protuberances produce complex model flowfields, containing shock-shock and shock-boundary layer interactions, and multiple augmented heating regions on the test plate. As part of the test calibration runs, surface pressure and heat flux measurements on water-cooled calibration plates integrated with the wedge models were also obtained. Surface heating distributions on the test articles as well as arc-jet test environment parameters for each test configuration are obtained through computational fluid dynamics simulations, consistent with the facility and calibration measurements. The present analysis comprises simulations of the nonequilibrium flowfield in the facility nozzle, test box, and flowfield over test articles, and comparisons with the measured calibration data.

CFD↗

Full Facility Shock Frame Simulations of the Electric Arc Shock Tube

Radiative heating computations are performed for high speed lunar return experiments conducted in the Electric Arc Shock Tube (EAST) facility at NASA Ames Research Center. The nonequilibrium radiative transport equations are solved via NASA's in-house radiation code NEQAIR using flow field input from US3D flow solver. The post-shock flow properties for the 10 km/s Earth entry conditions are computed using the stagnation line of a blunt-body and a full facility CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) simulation of the EAST shock tube. The shocked gas in the blunt-body flow achieves a thermochemical equilibrium away from the shock front whereas EAST flow exhibits a nonequilibrium behavior due to strong viscous dissipation of the shock by boundary layer. The full-tube flow calculations capture the influence of the boundary layer on the shocked gas state and provide a realistic fluid dynamic input for the radiative predictions. The integrated radiance behind the shock is calculated in NEQAIR for wavelength regimes from Vacuum-UltraViolet (VUV) to InfraRed (IR), which are pertinent to the emission characteristics of high enthalpy shock waves in air. These radiance profiles are validated against corresponding EAST shots. The full-tube simulations successfully predict a sharp radiance peak at the shock front which gets smeared in the test data due to the spatial resolution in the measurements. The full facility based radiance behind the shock shows a slightly better match with the test data in the VUV and Red spectral regions, as compared to that from a blunt-body based predictions. The UV radiance is very similar for both geometries and under-predicts the test behavior. The IR test data matches better with the blunt-body based predictions where the full-tube simulations show a significant over-prediction.

Radiation↗

Implicit Thermochemical Nonequilibrium Flow Simulations on Unstructured Grids using GPUs

Thermochemical nonequilibrium flow simulation capabilities have been previously implemented, verified, and validated for central processing unit (CPU) systems in NASA’s unstructured-grid computational fluid dynamics solver FUN3D. Many exascale-class high-performance computing systems will rely on graphics processing unit (GPU) architectures for high throughput and energy efficiency; thus, CPU-based scientific computing software unable to effectively utilize these systems must be updated. In this work, we present a CUDA C++ implementation of FUN3D’s thermochemical nonequilibrium flow simulation capabilities targeting NVIDIA Tesla GPUs. An overview of the porting and optimization strategy is described and performance comparisons with other recent architectures are presented. Scaling to thousands of GPUs is demonstrated, yielding computational performance equivalent to that of several million CPU cores. The implementation enables efficient, high-fidelity, scale-resolving simulations of thermochemical nonequilibrium flows for many applications including atmospheric entry, hypersonics, and combustion.

GPU↗

Analysis of thermo-chemical nonequilibrium models for carbon dioxide flows

The aerothermodynamics of thermochemical nonequilibrium carbon dioxide flows is studied. The chemical kinetics models of McKenzie and Park are implemented in separate three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics codes. The codes incorporate a five-species gas model characterized by a translational-rotational and a vibrational temperature. Solutions are obtained for flow over finite length elliptical and circular cylinders. The computed flowfields are then employed to calculate Mach-Zehnder interferograms for comparison with experimental data. The accuracy of the chemical kinetics models is determined through this comparison. Also, the methodology of the three-dimensional thermochemical nonequilibrium code is verified by the reproduction of the experiments.

Rock, Stacey G.↗

The transient performance of a two-phase fluid reservoir

Thermal control of future large, high power spacecraft will require a two-phase fluid central bus. The two-phase fluid reservoir is a critical component in the two-phase fluid bus. It both controls the saturation temperature and provides a space for volumetric changes. A dynamic reservoir simulation model does not currently exist, but it is needed to expedite efforts and reduce risk. During 1989 an effort was made to develop a simulation model of the transient performance of a two-phase fluid reservoir. As a beginning, a preliminary model was developed. It is based upon component mathematical models in lumped parametric form and build upon five component mathematical models for calculating dynamic responses of two-phase fluid reservoirs, primary feedback elements, controller commands, heater actuators, and reservoir heaters. As much as possible, the model took advantage of the available SINDA'85/FLUINT thermal/fluid integrator. Additional calculation logic and computer subroutines were developed to complete implementation of the model. The model is capable of simulating dynamic response of an equilibrium two-phase fluid reservoir. Modification of the model to include the liquid/vapor nonequilibrium is required for applications of the model to simulate performance of reservoir in which the liquid and vapor phases of the reservoir fluid are not in equilibrium. In addition, the model in its present form, needs to be refined in several respects. More empirical data are needed to guide the model development. The model may then be used to conduct a full parametric study of two-phase fluid reservoirs. More complexities in two-phaes flow regions in laboratory and flight conditions may have to be considered eventually if empirical data cannot be simulated satisfactorily. System with other components arrangement also need to be simulated if optimization is ever to be attained. The present model does, however, preliminarily demonstrates that such analyses are quite possible and offers a far less expensive method to understand the transient of a two-phase fluid reservoir system than a totally headware approach.

Chi, Joseph↗

A Multi-Architecture Approach for Implicit Computational Fluid Dynamics on Unstructured Grids

High-performance computing (HPC) architectures are trending toward manycore paradigms such as graphics processing units (GPUs). Approximately half of the top 100 publicly disclosed supercomputers in the world utilize GPU accelerators for performance. This is in contrast to a decade ago, where there were only a few such machines in the top 100. It is not currently possible to compile and run legacy central processing unit (CPU) software efficiently on GPUs without significant refactoring. Though a number of frameworks offering performance portability exist, none offer a standardized specification that is supported by all major hardware vendors. Additionally, experiences show that obtaining a high percentage of peak performance often requires architecture-specific code. This work details a pragmatic multi-architecture computational fluid dynamics library focused on aerospace problems across the speed range from low subsonic to hypersonic flows involving thermochemical nonequilibrium. A thin abstraction layer above NVIDIA CUDA C++ is utilized, which enables primarily single-source software currently capable of running efficiently on multicore CPUs, NVIDIA GPUs, AMD GPUs, and Intel GPUs. Results on various problems of interest across the speed range are presented and performance is compared between various architectures.

GPU↗

A Multi-Architecture Approach for Implicit Computational Fluid Dynamics on Unstructured Grids

High-performance computing (HPC) architectures are trending toward manycore paradigms such as graphics processing units (GPUs). Approximately half of the top 100 publicly disclosed supercomputers in the world utilize GPU accelerators for performance. This is in contrast to a decade ago, where there were only a few such machines in the top 100. It is not currently possible to compile and run legacy central processing unit (CPU) software efficiently on GPUs without significant refactoring. Though a number of frameworks offering performance portability exist, none offer a standardized specification that is supported by all major hardware vendors. Additionally, experiences show that obtaining a high percentage of peak performance often requires architecture-specific code. This work details a pragmatic multi-architecture computational fluid dynamics library focused on aerospace problems across the speed range from low subsonic to hypersonic flows involving thermochemical nonequilibrium. A thin abstraction layer above NVIDIA CUDA C++ is utilized, which enables primarily single-source software currently capable of running efficiently on multicore CPUs, NVIDIA GPUs, AMD GPUs, and Intel GPUs. Results on various problems of interest across the speed range are presented and performance is compared between various architectures.

GPU↗

Application of a flux-split algorithm to chemically relaxing, hypervelocity blunt-body flows

Viscous, nonequilibrium, hypervelocity flow fields over two axisymmetric configurations are numerically simulated using a factored, implicit, flux-split algorithm. The governing gas-dynamic and species-continuity equations for laminar flow are presented. The gas-dynamics/nonequilibrium-chemistry coupling procedure is developed as part of the solution procedure and is described in detail. Numerical solutions are presented for hypervelocity flows over a hemisphere and over an axisymmetric aeroassisted orbital transfer vehicle using three different chemistry models. The gas models considered are those for an ideal gas, for a frozen gas, and for chemically relaxing air consisting of five species. The calculated results are compared with existing numerical solutions in the literature along the stagnation line of the hemisphere. The effects of free-stream Reynolds number on the nonequilibrium flow field are discussed.

Balakrishnan, A.↗

Validation of the Hypersolve CFD Solver for Entry Descent and Landing Applications

The functional equivalence of the HyperSolve unstructured edge-based, finite-volume computational fluid dynamics code to the Langley Aerothermodynamic Upwind Relaxation Algorithm multiblock structured grid code is documented for applications of interest to the Entry, Descent, and Landing community. A suite of cases using a range of thermochemical gas models on relevant vehicle configurations were analyzed with both codes and the results compared. A tolerance of ±4% difference in surface pressure and surface heat flux from a benchmark LAURA solution was used as the criterion for functional equivalence, and comparisons of flowfield quantities are also included to verify that the thermochemical nonequilibrium capabilities in HyperSolve match those of the LAURA code. The functional equivalence of the HyperSolve unstructured edge-based finite-volume computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code to the Langley Aerothermodynamic Upwind Relaxation Algorithm (LAURA) multiblock structured grid code is documented for applications of interest to the Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) community. A suite of cases using a range of thermochemical gas models on EDL-relevant vehicle configurations were analyzed with both codes and the results compared. A tolerance of ±4% difference in surface pressure and surface heat flux from a benchmark LAURA solution was used as the criterion for functional equivalence, and comparisons of flow field quantities are also included to verify that the thermochemical nonequilibrium capabilities in HyperSolve match those of the LAURA code. In general, HyperSolve predictions for surface pressure and surface heat flux are in close agreement with those predicted by LAURA.

hypersolve↗

Validation of the HyperSolve CFD Solver for Entry Descent and Landing Applications

The functional equivalence of the HyperSolve unstructured edge-based, finite-volume computational fluid dynamics code to the Langley Aerothermodynamic Upwind Relaxation Algorithm multiblock structured grid code is documented for applications of interest to the Entry, Descent, and Landing community. A suite of cases using a range of thermochemical gas models on relevant vehicle configurations were analyzed with both codes and the results compared. A tolerance of ±4% difference in surface pressure and surface heat flux from a benchmark LAURA solution was used as the criterion for functional equivalence, and comparisons of flowfield quantities are also included to verify that the thermochemical nonequilibrium capabilities in HyperSolve match those of the LAURA code. The functional equivalence of the HyperSolve unstructured edge-based finite-volume computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code to the Langley Aerothermodynamic Upwind Relaxation Algorithm (LAURA) multiblock structured grid code is documented for applications of interest to the Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) community. A suite of cases using a range of thermochemical gas models on EDL-relevant vehicle configurations were analyzed with both codes and the results compared. A tolerance of ±4% difference in surface pressure and surface heat flux from a benchmark LAURA solution was used as the criterion for functional equivalence, and comparisons of flow field quantities are also included to verify that the thermochemical nonequilibrium capabilities in HyperSolve match those of the LAURA code. In general, HyperSolve predictions for surface pressure and surface heat flux are in close agreement with those predicted by LAURA.

hypersolve↗

Statistical mechanics of neocortical interactions - Dynamics of synaptic modification

A recent study has demonstrated that several scales of neocortical interactions can be consistently analyzed with the use of methods of modern nonlinear nonequilibrium statistical mechanics. The formation, stability, and interaction of spatial-temporal patterns of columnar firings are explicitly calculated, to test hypothesized mechanisms relating to information processing. In this context, most probable patterns of columnar firings are associated with chemical and electrical synaptic modifications. It is stressed that synaptic modifications and shifts in most-probable firing patterns are highly nonlinear and interactive sets of phenomena. A detailed scenario of information processing is calculated of columnar coding of external stimuli, short-term storage via hysteresis, and long-term storage via synaptic modification.

Ingber, L.↗

Collapse of the soap-film bridge - Quasistatic description

Observations of the collapse of a soap-film bridge from a connected to a disconnected state are recorded. The equilibrium framework for this nonequilibrium event is classical. Experiments confirm predictions of stable and unstable equilibria. A quasistatic description is introduced for the dynamic states to extend the static theory. It is found to adequately describe the collapse trajectory while the bridge is still connected.

Cryer, Steven A.↗

Gasdynamic models of the solar wind/interstellar medium interaction

The interaction between the solar wind and the interstellar medium is modeled self-consistently using numerical solutions of the time-dependent gasdynamic equations in spherical and cylindrical coordinates. For the results presented here it is assumed that the solar system moves through the surrounding medium with a supersonic velocity. After an initial (nonequilibrium) state has been specified, the numerical solution follows the evolution in time until the interaction relaxes to a dynamic equilibrium. As would be expected, the solutions show the formation of a bow shock upstream of the traveling solar system to deflect the interstellar plasma around the cavity created by the solar wind. A terminiation shock also forms to slow and compress the solar wind plasma. For the simulation in spherical coordinates, the downstream portion of the termination shock reaches equilibrium more than three times further from the Sun than the equilibrium distance to the termination shock on the upstream side.

Steinolfson, R. S.↗

Cloud fluid models of gas dynamics and star formation in galaxies

The large dynamic range of star formation in galaxies, and the apparently complex environmental influences involved in triggering or suppressing star formation, challenges the understanding. The key to this understanding may be the detailed study of simple physical models for the dominant nonlinear interactions in interstellar cloud systems. One such model is described, a generalized Oort model cloud fluid, and two simple applications of it are explored. The first of these is the relaxation of an isolated volume of cloud fluid following a disturbance. Though very idealized, this closed box study suggests a physical mechanism for starbursts, which is based on the approximate commensurability of massive cloud lifetimes and cloud collisional growth times. The second application is to the modeling of colliding ring galaxies. In this case, the driving processes operating on a dynamical timescale interact with the local cloud processes operating on the above timescale. The results is a variety of interesting nonequilibrium behaviors, including spatial variations of star formation that do not depend monotonically on gas density.

Struck-Marcell, Curtis↗