Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “fluid flow measurement”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 145 records · Page 8
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

Velocity Profiling of a Gas–Solid Fluidized Bed Using Electrical Capacitance Volume Tomography

In this study, a method of producing velocity profile maps from electrical capacitance volume tomography (ECVT) measurements by reconstructing displacement from measured changes in capacitance is developed and applied to fluidized bed systems. The mapping of the reconstruction leverages the gradient of the sensitivity distribution of the ECVT sensor to circumvent the need for image cross correlation techniques. Experimental data of both bubbling and slugging fluidized beds are collected in a cold flow model. Adaptation of the technique is discussed in detail, and velocity profiles are obtained for a range of gas flow rates. The produced velocity maps are compared against the established methods of cross correlation and against empirical correlations from the literature and are found to agree well in tracking slug and bubble velocity. The exception is when the tracked object is large relative to the ECVT sensor dimensions, a scenario that can be avoided through proper sensor design. The quantities of average velocity, momentum, and solid and gas volume fraction are derived from the image and velocity profiles. The results demonstrate and extend the power of ECVT as a measurement tool for the study and monitoring of gas–solid fluidized beds by providing a computationally cheaper alternative to 3-D cross correlation for deriving velocity profiles.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2024

An integrated approach to derive relative permeability from capillary pressure

Surface tension affects all aspects of fluid flow in porous media. Through measurements of surface tension interaction under multiphase conditions, a relative permeability curve can be determined. Relative permeability is a numerical description of the interaction between two or more fluids and the porous media. It is a critical parameter for various tools that characterize subsurface multiphase flow systems, such as numerical simulation for carbon sequestration, oil and gas development, and groundwater contamination remediation. Therefore, it is critical to get a good statistical distribution of relative permeability in the porous media under study. Empirical formula for determining relative permeability from capillary pressure are already well established but do not provide the needed flexibility that is required to match laboratory-derived relative permeability curves. By expanding the existing methods for calculating relative permeability from capillary pressure data, it is possible to create both two and three-phase relative permeability curves. Mercury intrusion capillary pressure (MICP) data from the Morrow 'B' Sandstone coupled with interfacial tension and contact angle measurements were used to create a suite of relative permeability curves. Furthermore, these curves were then calibrated to a small sample of existing laboratory curves to elucidate common fitting parameters for the formation that were then used to create relative permeability curves from MICP data that does not have an associated laboratory-measured relative permeability curve.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

What does it take to “see” air leakage through a building envelope?

Unwanted air leakage in buildings can cause health and comfort issues for the building occupants and contribute to rot and mold growth in building materials. Leakage also contributes to unnecessary energy consumption ~4 quads (1172 TWh) per year in the buildings sector in the United States. Finding and repairing leaks through the building envelope can improve the energy efficiency, comfort, air-quality, and moisture durability of the building stock. Typical methods of locating air leakage, such as infrared imaging or smoke tracing, rely on concurrent blower door operation which also measures the total leakage rate of the building. These methods can be disruptive to occupants and can’t measure the contribution of individual leaks to prioritize sealing efforts. ORNL is working on a refraction-based fluid flow imaging technique that can measure the leakage rate of individual leaks from the outside of the building. The working principle of this device is based on the refraction of light caused by the exfiltration because there is a small difference in density between the exfiltration and ambient air. We will discuss the operation of the air leak detector and key variables that affect its performance. We will also present preliminary results showing the visualization capability of this new air leak detector under different conditions. Experiments were completed with different claddings, air temperatures, and lighting conditions.

Boudreaux, Philip↗
DOE OSTI2020

Stress effects on flow and transport in three-dimensional fracture networks

We investigate the effects of various external stress regimes on fracture apertures, fluid flow, and solute transport in three-dimensional fracture networks. We use well-established geomechanics equations coupled with discrete fracture network modeling to characterize changes in primary flow paths within a complex network as a function of stress magnitude and orientation. These changes manifest in the alterations of the fluid flow field and are measured in terms of Eulerian and Lagrangian flow observables including solute transport, which is a key problem in many hydrologic applications. Changes in primary flow paths affect the solute transport in the network by promoting anomalously early arrival or long tailing behavior. However, early time arrival is not ubiquitous in anisotropically stressed networks and in most cases there is a delayed arrival of solute, which is attributed to (i) the presence of low-velocity zones normal to the flow direction, (ii) the angle between flow direction and major compressive principal stress directions, and (iii) changes in the primary flow paths (i.e., increases in tortuosity and active network structure). Overall, flows become more channelized in anisotropically stressed fracture networks than in unstressed and isotropically stressed networks.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

On the mechanism of ionization oscillations in Hall thrusters

Low-frequency ionization oscillations involving plasma and neutral density (breathing modes) are the most violent perturbations in Hall thrusters for electric propulsion. Because of its simplicity, the zero-dimensional (0D) predator–prey model of two nonlinearly coupled ordinary differential equations for plasma and neutral density has often been used for the characterization of such oscillations and scaling estimates. In this work, we investigate the properties of its continuum analog, the one-dimensional (1D) system of two nonlinearly coupled equations in partial derivatives (PDEs) for plasma and neutral density. This is a more general model, of which the standard 0D predator–prey model is a special limit case. We show that the 1D model is stable and does not show any oscillations for the boundary conditions relevant to Hall thrusters and the uniform ion velocity. We then propose a reduced 1D model based on two coupled PDEs for plasma and neutral densities that is unstable and exhibit oscillations if the ion velocity profile with the near-the-anode back-flow (toward the anode) region is used. Comparisons of the reduced model with the predictions of the full model that takes into account the self-consistent plasma response show that the main properties of the breathing mode are well captured. In particular, it is shown that the frequency of the breathing mode oscillations is weakly dependent on the final ion velocity but shows a strong correlation with the width of the ion back-flow region.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Anomaly Detection in Liquid Sodium Cold Trap Operation with Multisensory Data Fusion Using Long Short-Term Memory Autoencoder

Sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFR), which use high temperature fluid near ambient pressure as coolant, are one of the most promising types of GEN IV reactors. One of the unique challenges of SFR operation is purification of high temperature liquid sodium with a cold trap to prevent corrosion and obstructing small orifices. We have developed a deep learning long short-term memory (LSTM) autoencoder for continuous monitoring of a cold trap and detection of operational anomaly. Transient data were obtained from the Mechanisms Engineering Test Loop (METL) liquid sodium facility at Argonne National Laboratory. The cold trap purification at METL is monitored with 31 variables, which are sensors measuring fluid temperatures, pressures and flow rates, and controller signals. Loss-of-coolant type anomaly in the cold trap operation was generated by temporarily choking one of the blowers, which resulted in temperature and flow rate spikes. The input layer of the autoencoder consisted of all the variables involved in monitoring the cold trap. The LSTM autoencoder was trained on the data corresponding to cold trap startup and normal operation regime, with the loss function calculated as the mean absolute error (MAE). The loss during training was determined to follow log-normal density distribution. During monitoring, we investigated a performance of the LSTM autoencoder for different loss threshold values, set at a progressively increasing number of standard deviations from the mean. The anomaly signal in the data was gradually attenuated, while preserving the noise of the original time series, so that the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) averaged across all sensors decreased below unity. Results demonstrate detection of anomalies with sensor-averaged SNR < 1.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
NASA NTRS1989

Diode-Laser Doppler Velocimeter

Diode-laser Doppler velocimeter measures nonintrusively flow of incompressible fluid in narrow tube. New velocimeter rugged, compact, and competitive in cost. Includes three-section optical head mounted on tube containing flow. In slightly different version, beam splitter and mirror used to split laser beam into two beams.

Getzer, Gregory J.↗
NASA NTRS2003

Predictive models for moving contact line flows

Modeling flows with moving contact lines poses the formidable challenge that the usual assumptions of Newtonian fluid and no-slip condition give rise to a well-known singularity. This singularity prevents one from satisfying the contact angle condition to compute the shape of the fluid-fluid interface, a crucial calculation without which design parameters such as the pressure drop needed to move an immiscible 2-fluid system through a solid matrix cannot be evaluated. Some progress has been made for low Capillary number spreading flows. Combining experimental measurements of fluid-fluid interfaces very near the moving contact line with an analytical expression for the interface shape, we can determine a parameter that forms a boundary condition for the macroscopic interface shape when Ca much les than l. This parameter, which plays the role of an "apparent" or macroscopic dynamic contact angle, is shown by the theory to depend on the system geometry through the macroscopic length scale. This theoretically established dependence on geometry allows this parameter to be "transferable" from the geometry of the measurement to any other geometry involving the same material system. Unfortunately this prediction of the theory cannot be tested on Earth.

Rame, Enrique↗
NASA NTRS2013

Shear Stress Sensing using Elastomer Micropillar Arrays

The measurement of shear stress developed as a fluid moves around a solid body is difficult to measure. Stresses at the fluid-solid interface are very small and the nature of the fluid flow is easily disturbed by introducing sensor components to the interface. To address these challenges, an array of direct and indirect techniques have been investigated with various advantages and challenges. Hot wire sensors and other indirect sensors all protrude significantly into the fluid flow. Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) devices, although facilitating very accurate measurements, are not durable, are prone to contamination, and are difficult to implement into existing model geometries. One promising approach is the use of engineered surfaces that interact with fluid flow in a detectable manner. To this end, standard lithographic techniques have been utilized to generate elastomeric micropillar arrays of various lengths and diameters. Micropillars of controlled length and width were generated in polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) elastomer using a soft-lithography technique. The 3D mold for micropillar replication was fabricated using laser ablative micromachining and contact lithography. Micropillar dimensions and mechanical properties were characterized and compared to shear sensing requirements. The results of this characterization as well as shear stress detection techniques will be discussed.

Wohl, Christopher J.↗
NASA NTRS2001

Velocity Measurement in a Dual-Mode Supersonic Combustor using Particle Image Velocimetry

Temporally and spatially-resolved, two-component measurements of velocity in a supersonic hydrogen-air combustor are reported. The combustor had a single unswept ramp fuel injector and operated with an inlet Mach number of 2 and a flow total temperature approaching 1200 K. The experiment simulated the mixing and combustion processes of a dual-mode scramjet operating at a flight Mach number near 5. The velocity measurements were obtained by seeding the fuel with alumina particles and performing Particle Image Velocimetry on the mixing and combustion wake of the ramp injector. To assess the effects of combustion on the fuel air-mixing process, the distribution of time-averaged velocity and relative turbulence intensity was determined for the cases of fuel-air mixing and fuel-air reacting. Relative to the mixing case, the near field core velocity of the reacting fuel jet had a slower streamwise decay. In the far field, downstream of 4 to 6 ramp heights from the ramp base, the heat release of combustion resulted in decreased flow velocity and increased turbulence levels. The reacting measurements were also compared with a computational fluid dynamics solution of the flow field. Numerically predicted velocity magnitudes were higher than that measured and the jet penetration was lower.

Goyne, C. P.↗
NASA NTRS2015

Enhanced Microfluidic Electromagnetic Measurements

Techniques for enhanced microfluidic impedance spectroscopy include causing a core fluid to flow into a channel between two sheath flows of one or more sheath fluids different from the core fluid. Flow in the channel is laminar. A dielectric constant of a fluid constituting either sheath flow is much less than a dielectric constant of the core fluid. Electrical impedance is measured in the channel between at least a first pair of electrodes. In some embodiments, enhanced optical measurements include causing a core fluid to flow into a channel between two sheath flows of one or more sheath fluids different from the core fluid. An optical index of refraction of a fluid constituting either sheath flow is much less than an optical index of refraction of the core fluid. An optical property is measured in the channel.

Giovangrandi, Laurent↗
DOE OSTI2022

Monitoring of Temperature Measurements for Different Flow Regimes in Water and Galinstan with Long Short-Term Memory Networks and Transfer Learning of Sensors

Temperature sensing is one of the most common measurements of a nuclear reactor monitoring system. The coolant fluid flow in a reactor core depends on the reactor power state. We investigated the monitoring and estimation of the thermocouple time series using machine learning for a range of flow regimes. Measurement data were obtained, in two separate experiments, in a flow loop filled with water and with liquid metal Galinstan. We developed long short-term memory (LSTM) recurrent neural networks (RNNs) for sensor predictions by training on the sensor’s own prior history, and transfer learning LSTM (TL-LSTM) by training on a correlated sensor’s prior history. Sensor cross-correlations were identified by calculating the Pearson correlation coefficient of the time series. The accuracy of LSTM and TL-LSTM predictions of temperature was studied as a function of Reynolds number (Re). The root-mean-square error (RMSE) for the test segment of time series of each sensor was shown to linearly increase with Re for both water and Galinstan fluids. Using linear correlations, we estimated the range of values of Re for which RMSE is smaller than the thermocouple measurement uncertainty. For both water and Galinstan fluids, we showed that both LSTM and TL-LSTM provide reliable estimations of temperature for typical flow regimes in a nuclear reactor. The LSTM runtime was shown to be substantially smaller than the data acquisition rate, which allows for performing estimation and validation of sensor measurements in real time.

Pantopoulou, Stella↗
NASA NTRS1978

Buried wire gage for wall shear stress measurements

A buried wire gage for measuring wall shear stress in fluid flow was studied and further developed. Several methods of making this relatively new type of gage were examined to arrive at a successful technique that is well-suited for wind-tunnel testing. A series of measurements was made to demonstrate the adequacy of a two-point calibration procedure for these gages. The buried wire gage is also demonstrated to be ideally suited for quantitative measurement of wall shear stress in wind-tunnel testing.

Murthy, V. S.↗
DOE OSTI2021

Design of Microwave Resonant Cavity Transducer. Development of sensor performance model of microwave cavity flow meter for advanced reactor high temperature fluids

High-temperature fluid reactors, such as molten salt cooled reactors (MSCR) and sodium fast reactors (SFR), are a promising advanced reactor option. Measurement of high-temperature fluid process variables, in particular the flow inside the pressure vessel, is a challenging task because of harsh environment, which includes high radiation, high temperature, and contact with highly corrosive coolant fluid. We are investigating a microwave cavity-based transducer for high-temperature fluid flow sensing. This sensor is a hollow metallic cylindrical cavity, which can be fabricated from stainless steel, and as such is expected to be resilient to radiation, high temperature and corrosive environment of MSCR and SFR. The principle of sensing consists of making one wall of the cylindrical cavity flexible enough so that dynamic pressure, which is proportional to fluid velocity, will cause membrane deflection. A cavity is characterized by its resonant frequencies. Membrane deflection causes cavity volume change, which leads to a shift in the resonant frequency. Feasibility of the flow sensor is evaluated with signal sensitivity using COMSOL computer simulations. A right cylinder geometry stainless steel cavity with dimeter of 0.8in was investigated. We choose membrane thickness of 10mil, so that corrosion anticipated to proceed at the rate of 1mil/year in liquid sodium would affect no more than 10% of the membrane. Using the properties of liquid sodium fluid, and stainless-steel material property values at 500oC, we calculate frequency shift for a range of values of fluid velocity from 0.5m/s to 2m/s. Results of computer simulations indicate measurable sensitivity to flow for this cavity design. Following these simulations, we have developed a preliminary design for fabrication of a transducer operating in microwave K-band for proof-of-principle tests.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
NASA NTRS1992

Effect of vaporization on cryogenic spray dropsize measurement

The fluid mechanics of multi-phase flow breakup of liquid nitrogen, LN2, jets injected into sonic velocity nitrogen gasflow, was experimentally investigated. A scattered-light scanning instrument was used to measure the characteristic dropsize, D(sub v.5), of LN2 sprays and to determine the effect of droplet vaporization on experimental dropsize measurements. Under sonic gas-velocity conditions, liquid-jet breakup occurred in the regime of aerodynamic stripping. As a result, the following correlation of volume-median drop diameter, D(sub v.5), with atomizing gas flowrate, W(sub g), was derived for two-fluid atomizers; with atomizing gas flowrate, W(sub g), was derived for two-fluid atomizers; (D(sub v.5))(exp -1) = k(sub c)(W(sub g))(sup n), where proportionally constant k(sub c) and exponent n are functions of droplet vaporization rate. Partially vaporized sprays were investigated and it was found that n = 1.11, which is considerably less than the value of 1.33 that is predicted by atomization theory. This was attributed to the evaporative loss of very small droplets. As a result, the following expression was obtained experimentally: (D(sub v.5e))(exp -1) = 301(W(sub g))(sup 1.11). Values of D(sub v.5), that existed prior to partial vaporization of the LN2 sprays, were calculated and the following expression was derived for originally unvaporized LN2 sprays: (D(sub v.5))(exp -1) = 285(W(sub g))(sup 1.33). This expression agrees well with atomization theory that predicts n = 1.33, for liquid jet breakup in high-velocity gasflow.

Ingebo, Robert D.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Effect of vaporization on cryogenic spray dropsize measurement

The fluid mechanics of multi-phase flow breakup of liquid nitrogen, LN2, jets injected into sonic velocity nitrogen gasflow, was experimentally investigated. A scattered-light scanning instrument was used to measure the characteristic dropsize, D(sub v.5), of LN2 sprays and to determine the effect of droplet vaporization on experimental dropsize measurements. Under sonic gas-velocity conditions, liquid-jet breakup occurred in the regime of aerodynamic stripping. As a result, the following correlation of volume-median drop diameter, D(sub v.5), with atomizing gas flowrate, W(sub g), was derived for two-fluid atomizers: (D(sub v.5)) (exp -1) = k(sub c) (W(sub g)) (sup n), where proportionally constant k(sub c) and exponent n are functions of droplet vaporization rate. Partially vaporized sprays were investigated and it was found that n = 1.11, which is considerably less than the value of 1.33 that is predicted by atomization theory. This was attributed to the evaporative loss of very small droplets. As a result, the following expression was obtained experimentally: (D(sub v.5e)) (exp -1) = 301 (W(sub g)) (sub 1.11). Values of D(sub v.5), that existed prior to partial vaporization of the LN2 sprays, were calculated and the following expression was derived for originally unvaporized LN2 sprays: (D(sub v.5)) (exp -1) = 285 (W(sub g)) (sub 1.33). This expression agrees well with atomization theory that predicts n = 1.33, for liquid jet breakup in high-velocity gasflow.

Ingebo, Robert D.↗