Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “fill fraction”

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 163 records · Page 9

SDSS-IV MaNGA: The MaNGA Dwarf Galaxy Sample Presentation

We present the MaNGA Dwarf galaxy (MaNDala) Value Added Catalog (VAC), from the final release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-IV program. MaNDala consists of 136 randomly selected bright dwarf galaxies with M * < 10 9.1 M ⊙ and M g > -18.5, making it the largest integral field spectroscopy homogeneous sample of dwarf galaxies. We release a photometric analysis of the g, r, and z broadband imaging based on the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys, as well as a spectroscopic analysis based on the Pipe3D SDSS-IV VAC. Our release includes the surface brightness (SB), geometric parameters, and color profiles, Sérsic fits as well as stellar population properties (such as stellar ages, metallicities, and star formation histories), and emission lines' fluxes within the FOV and the effective radii of the galaxies. We find that the majority of the MaNDala galaxies are star-forming late-type galaxies with $\langle$n Sersic,r $\rangle$ ~ 1.6 that are centrals (central/satellite dichotomy). MaNDala covers a large range of SB values (we find 11 candidate ultra-diffuse galaxies and three compact ones), filling the gap between classical dwarfs and low-mass galaxies in the Kormendy Diagram and in the size–mass/luminosity relation, which seems to flatten at 10 8 < M * /M ⊙ < 10 9 with $\langle$R e,r $\rangle$ ~ 2.7 kpc. A large fraction of MaNDala galaxies formed from an early low-metallicity burst of SF, but also from late SF events from more metal-enriched gas: half of the MaNDala galaxies assembled 50% of their mass at $\langle$z$\rangle$ > 2, while the last 20% was at $\langle$z$\rangle$ < 0.3. Finally, a bending of the sSFR-M * relation at M * ~ 10 9 M ⊙ for the main-sequence galaxies seems to be supported by MaNDala.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Optimizing Piezoelectric Nanocomposites by High‐Throughput Phase‐Field Simulation and Machine Learning

Abstract Piezoelectric nanocomposites with oxide fillers in a polymer matrix combine the merit of high piezoelectric response of the oxides and flexibility as well as biocompatibility of the polymers. Understanding the role of the choice of materials and the filler‐matrix architecture is critical to achieving desired functionality of a composite towards applications in flexible electronics and energy harvest devices. Herein, a high‐throughput phase‐field simulation is conducted to systematically reveal the influence of morphology and spatial orientation of an oxide filler on the piezoelectric, mechanical, and dielectric properties of the piezoelectric nanocomposites. It is discovered that with a constant filler volume fraction, a composite composed of vertical pillars exhibits superior piezoelectric response and electromechanical coupling coefficient as compared to the other geometric configurations. An analytical regression is established from a linear regression‐based machine learning model, which can be employed to predict the performance of nanocomposites filled with oxides with a given set of piezoelectric coefficient, dielectric permittivity, and stiffness. This work not only sheds light on the fundamental mechanism of piezoelectric nanocomposites, but also offers a promising material design strategy for developing high‐performance polymer/inorganic oxide composite‐based wearable electronics.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Optimizing Transmission of Acoustic Signals to Monitor Internal Conditions of Canisters for Dry Storage of Commercial Spent Nuclear Fuel

Safe storage of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) is critical to the nuclear fuel cycle and the future of nuclear energy. In the United States, SNF is stored primarily via two methods regulated by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission: wet storage in SNF pools and dry storage in dry cask storage systems (DCSSs). After about five years of cooling in spent fuel pools, the fuel assemblies are transferred into DCSSs, and the systems are filled with helium and sealed by welding. Deterioration of conditions inside of a DCSS is reflected in changes in the internal gas properties; this motivates the development of acoustic techniques to monitor internal gas properties, over extended storage periods, using sensors mounted on the exterior of the storage packages. However, a major challenge in collecting acoustic signals is the impedance mismatch between the steel canister shell and the gas. Only a small fraction of the ultrasonic signal can be transmitted through the gas medium. This paper documents experimental studies conducted on a full-scale canister mock-up to capture the gas-borne signals. Damping materials were pasted on the outside, and blocking and unblocking tests were conducted to identify the gas-borne signal. The results show that the excitation frequency plays an important role in maximizing the gas-borne signals. The gas-borne signal was successfully detected at around the theoretical time-of-flight. A high signal-to-noise ratio was achieved in the measurements. Next, the acoustic impedance matching layers were introduced, and the gas signal was drastically improved compared with that using no AIM layers.

Spent nuclear fuel (SNF), Canisters, Internal cond↗

Unstable Invasion of Sedimenting Granular Suspensions

Here we investigate the development of mobility inversion and fingering when a granular suspension is injected radially between horizontal parallel plates of a cell filled with a miscible fluid. While the suspension spreads uniformly when the suspension and the displaced fluid densities are exactly matched, even a small density difference is found to result in a dense granular front which develops fingers with angular spacing that increase with granular volume fraction and decrease with injection rate. We show that the timescale over which the instability develops is given by the volume fraction dependent settling timescale of the grains in the cell. We then show that the mobility inversion and the nonequilibrium Korteweg surface tension due to granular volume fraction gradients determine the number of fingers at the onset of the instability in these miscible suspensions.

02 PETROLEUM↗

Lessons from commissioning of the cryogenic system for the Short-Baseline Neutrino Detector at Fermilab

Results from commissioning and first year of operations of the cryogenic system of the Short-Baseline Neutrino Detector (SBND) and its membrane cryostat installed at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory are described. The SBND detector is installed in a 200 m$^3$ membrane cryostat filled with liquid argon, which serves both as target and as active media. For the correct operation of the detector, the liquid argon must be kept in very stable thermal conditions while the contamination of electronegative impurities must be consistently kept at the level of small fractions of parts per billion. The detector is operated in Booster Neutrino Beams (BNB) at Fermilab for the search of sterile neutrinos and measurements of neutrino-argon cross sections. The cryostat and the cryogenic systems also serve as prototypes for the much larger equipment to be used for the LBNF/DUNE experiment. Since its installation in 2018-2023 and cooldown in spring of 2024, the cryostat and the cryogenic system have been commissioned to support the detector operations. The lessons learned through installation, testing, commissioning, cooldown, and initial operations are described.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

Lessons from commissioning of the cryogenic system for the Short-Baseline Neutrino Detector at Fermilab

Results from commissioning and first year of operations of the cryogenic system of the Short-Baseline Neutrino Detector (SBND) and its membrane cryostat installed at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory are described. The SBND detector is installed in a 200 m3 membrane cryostat filled with liquid argon, which serves both as target and as active media. For the correct operation of the detector, the liquid argon must be kept in very stable thermal conditions while the contamination of electronegative impurities must be consistently kept at the level of small fractions of parts per billion. The detector is operated in Booster Neutrino Beams (BNB) at Fermilab for the search of sterile neutrinos and measurements of neutrino-argon cross sections. The cryostat and the cryogenic systems also serve as prototypes for the much larger equipment to be used for the LBNF/DUNE experiment. Since its installation in 2018-2023 and cooldown in spring of 2024, the cryostat and the cryogenic system have been commissioned to support the detector operations. The lessons learned through installation, testing, commissioning, cooldown, and initial operations are described.

Geynisman, Michael [Fermilab]↗

Achieving 280 Gbar hot spot pressure in DT-layered CH capsule implosions at the National Ignition Facility

We are reporting on a series of indirect-drive 0.9-scale CH capsule implosions (inner radius = 840 μm) fielded in low gas-fill (0.6 mg/cm 3 ) hohlraums of 6.72 mm diameter at the National Ignition Facility. Thanks to the 11%-reduction of the capsule size at a given hohlraum diameter compared to previously tested full-scale capsules, we achieved good hot spot symmetry control near 33% cone-fraction and without the need to invoke cross beam energy transfer. As a result, we achieved a hot spot pressure of 280 ± 40 Gbar, which is the highest pressure demonstrated in layered DT implosions with CH capsules to date. Pushing this design to higher velocity resulted in a reduction of neutron yield. Highly resolved capsule simulations suggest that higher Au M-shell preheat resulted in an increase in Atwood number at the ablator–ice interface, which leads to increased fuel-ablator instability and mixing. The results reported here provide important scaling information for next-generation CH designs.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

SLOPE daily and 250 m gross primary productivity (GPP) for the CONUS, 2000-2019, Carbon Monitoring System (CMS)

The SatelLite Only Photosynthesis Estimation (SLOPE) GPP product is a daily, 250 m GPP dataset covering the Contiguous United States (CONUS) from 2000 to present with 1 day latency. Gross primary productivity (GPP) quantifies the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) fixed by plants through photosynthesis. Although as a key quantity of terrestrial ecosystems, there is a lack of high-spatial-and-temporal-resolution, real-time, and observation-based GPP products. This product has been developed to address this critical gap, leveraging a number of MODIS land and atmosphere products. There are three distinct features of the SLOPE GPP production algorithm. (1) SLOPE couples machine learning models with MODIS atmosphere and land products to accurately estimate PAR. (2) SLOPE couples highly efficient and pragmatic gap-filling and filtering algorithms with surface reflectance acquired by both Terra and Aqua MODIS satellites to derive a soil-adjusted NIRv (SANIRv) dataset. (3) SLOPE couples a temporal pattern recognition approach with a long-term Crop Data Layer (CDL) product to predict dynamic C4 crop fraction. PAR, SANIRv and C4 fraction are used to drive a parsimonious model with only two slope parameters to estimate GPP along with a quantitative uncertainty on a per-pixel and daily basis. The slope GPP product has a R2 = 0.84 and a root-mean-square error (RMSE) of 1.65 gC m-2 d-1, evaluated against from 50 AmeriFlux eddy covariance sites (332 site-years). Archived data from 2000 to 2019 are publicly available at the NASA's Oak Ridge National Laboratory Distributed Active Archive Center (ORNL DAAC). Data from 2020 are available from the authors upon request. All data are projected in the standard MODIS Land Integerized Sinusoidal tile map projection. Each processing tile is in size of 4800 pixels by 4800 pixels, representing approximately 1200 km by 1200 km land region. In addition to the GPP product, SLOPE PAR, SANIRV, and C4 fraction, along with their uncertainties, are also released.

Jiang, Chongya↗

A daily, 250 m and real-time gross primary productivity product (2000–present) covering the contiguous United States

Abstract. Gross primary productivity (GPP) quantifies the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) fixed by plants through photosynthesis. Although as a key quantity of terrestrial ecosystems, there is a lack of high-spatial-and-temporal-resolution, real-time and observation-based GPP products. To address this critical gap, here we leverage a state-of-the-art vegetation index, near-infrared reflectance of vegetation (NIRV), along with accurate photosynthetically active radiation (PAR), to produce a SatelLite Only Photosynthesis Estimation (SLOPE) GPP product for the contiguous United States (CONUS). Compared to existing GPP products, the proposed SLOPE product is advanced in its spatial resolution (250 m versus >500 m), temporal resolution (daily versus 8 d), instantaneity (latency of 1 d versus >2 weeks) and quantitative uncertainty (on a per-pixel and daily basis versus no uncertainty information available). These characteristics are achieved because of several technical innovations employed in this study: (1) SLOPE couples machine learning models with MODIS atmosphere and land products to accurately estimate PAR. (2) SLOPE couples highly efficient and pragmatic gap-filling and filtering algorithms with surface reflectance acquired by both Terra and Aqua MODIS satellites to derive a soil-adjusted NIRV (SANIRV) dataset. (3) SLOPE couples a temporal pattern recognition approach with a long-term Cropland Data Layer (CDL) product to predict dynamic C4 crop fraction. Through developing a parsimonious model with only two slope parameters, the proposed SLOPE product explains 85 % of the spatial and temporal variations in GPP acquired from 49 AmeriFlux eddy-covariance sites (324 site years), with a root-mean-square error (RMSE) of 1.63 gC m−2 d−1. The median R2 over C3 and C4 crop sites reaches 0.87 and 0.94, respectively, indicating great potentials for monitoring crops, in particular bioenergy crops, at the field level. With such a satisfactory performance and its distinct characteristics in spatiotemporal resolution and instantaneity, the proposed SLOPE GPP product is promising for biological and environmental research, carbon cycle research, and a broad range of real-time applications at the regional scale. The archived dataset is available at https://doi.org/10.3334/ORNLDAAC/1786 (download page: https://daac.ornl.gov/daacdata/cms/SLOPE_GPP_CONUS/data/, last access: 20 January 2021) (Jiang and Guan, 2020), and the real-time dataset is available upon request.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Microscopic diagnosis of universal geometric responses in fractional quantum Hall liquids

Topological quantum liquids contain internal degrees of freedom that are coupled to geometric response. Yet, an explicit and microscopic identification of the geometric response remains difficult. Here, taking notable fractional quantum Hall (FQH) states as typical examples, we systematically investigate a promising protocol—the Dehn-twist deformation on the torus geometry—to probe the geometric response of correlated topological states and establish the relation between such response and universal properties of pertinent states. Based on analytical derivations and numerical simulations, we find that the geometry-induced Berry phase encodes features for a broad class of FQH states at the Laughlin, hierarchy, Halperin and non-Abelian Moore-Read fillings. Our findings conclusively demonstrate that the adiabatic Dehn-twist deformation can faithfully capture rich geometric and topological information, including the Hall viscosity and topological spin of the pertinent FQH state and the chiral central charge of the underlying edge conformal field theory. Our approach provides a powerful way to reveal topological orders of generic FQH states and address previously open questions.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Accelerating the identification of novel secondary metabolites in bioenergy plant root exudates using MicroED

Small molecule metabolites drive inter- and intraspecies communication and dependencies in diverse biological systems, yet a large proportion of these important chemical compounds remain uncharacterized in plants and microbes. Approximately 90% of the metabolites in root exudate profiles are unknown compounds, despite the importance of root exudate composition in plant-microbe interactions. We need advanced analytical capabilities that will support rapid discovery and structural elucidation of metabolites from biological samples that may be limited in quantity and high in complexity. To fill this gap, this project aimed to develop an integrated workflow involving metabolite extraction, separation, and crystallization from plant root exudates followed by characterization using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, and microcrystal electron diffraction (MicroED). Using crude root exudates from sorghum, this project successfully developed higher throughput exudate fractionation strategies to obtain pure compounds for crystallization and identified crystals in multiple fractions that diffracted. Additional efforts to increase the throughput of high-quality crystal generation for MicroED, such as crystallization screening and crystallization chaperone exploration, will be needed to further advance root exudate metabolite identification. The overall optimized sample preparation process can then be integrated with the existing data collection and data analysis pipelines for MicroED at PNNL to facilitate more rapid natural product discovery.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Total X-Ray Emission from the LMC Observed with HaloSat

We constrain the global parameters of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) by modeling the first soft X-ray (0.4–6.8 keV) observations of the entire LMC produced in a single pointing with moderate spectral resolution by the HaloSat CubeSat. These data are best fit with the sum of two thermal plasma components in collisional ionization equilibrium and a power law. We find cool (0.210 ± 0.014 keV) and hot (0.89 ± 0.14 keV) components. The total X-ray luminosity of the LMC is (1.08 ± 0.14) × 10{sup 39} erg s{sup −1}. X-ray binaries make up a large fraction of the emission with a luminosity of (6.0 ± 0.8) × 10{sup 38} erg s{sup −1}, followed by cool gas from superbubbles, supernovae, and diffuse emission with a luminosity of (3.0 ± 0.3) × 10{sup 38} erg s{sup −1}. The hot gas from star formation contributes the smallest fraction, with a luminosity of (1.9 ± 0.5) × 10{sup 38} erg s{sup −1}. We estimate the total volume of the cool gas to be between (0.2–1.2) × 10{sup 10} pc{sup 3} and the hot gas to be between (1.0–5) × 10{sup 7} pc{sup 3} for filling factors of f = 1 and 0.2. These volumes result in a total thermal energy for the cool gas between (1.4–3) × 10{sup 54} erg for electron densities of 0.017–0.04 cm{sup −3}, and a thermal energy for the hot gas between (1.7–4) × 10{sup 53} erg for electron densities of 0.12–0.3 cm{sup −3}. This yields cooling timescales for the cool and hot gas of (1.5–3) × 10{sup 8} yr and (1.8–6) × 10{sup 7} yr, respectively.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Elasticity-controlled jamming criticality in soft composite solids

Soft composite solids are made of inclusions dispersed within soft matrices. They are ubiquitous in nature and form the basis of many biological tissues. In the field of materials science, synthetic soft composites are promising candidates for building various engineering devices due to their highly programmable features. However, when the volume fraction of the inclusions increases, predicting the mechanical properties of these materials poses a significant challenge for the classical theories of composite mechanics. The difficulty arises from the inherently disordered, multi-scale interactions between the inclusions and the matrix. To address this challenge, we systematically investigated the mechanics of densely filled soft elastomers containing stiff microspheres. We experimentally demonstrate how the strain-stiffening response of the soft composites is governed by the critical scalings in the vicinity of a shear-jamming transition of the included particles. The proposed criticality framework quantitatively connects the overall mechanics of a soft composite with the elasticity of the matrix and the particles, and captures the diverse mechanical responses observed across a wide range of material parameters. The findings uncover a novel design paradigm of composite mechanics that relies on engineering the jamming properties of the embedded inclusions.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

The Physical Properties of Low-redshift FeLoBAL Quasars. III. The Location and Geometry of the Outflows

We present continued analysis of a sample of low-redshift iron low-ionization broad-absorption-line quasars (FeLoBALQs). Choi et al. presented SimBAL spectral analysis of broad-absorption-line (BAL) outflows in 50 objects. Leighly et al. analyzed the optical emission lines of 30 of those 50 objects and found that they are characterized by either a high accretion rate (L Bol /L Edd > 0.3) or low accretion rate (0.03 < L Bol /L Edd < 0.3). We report that the outflow velocity is inversely correlated with the BAL location among the high-accretion-rate objects, with the highest velocities observed in parsec-scale outflows. In contrast, the low-Eddington-ratio objects showed the opposite trend. We confirmed the known relationship between the outflow velocity and L Bol /L Edd and found that the scatter plausibly originates in the force multiplier (launch radius) in the low(high)-accretion-rate objects. A log volume filling factor between –6 and –4 was found in most outflows but was as high as –1 for low-velocity compact outflows. We investigated the relationship between the observed [O III ] emission and that predicted from the BAL gas. We found that these could be reconciled if the emission-line covering fraction depends on the Seyfert type and BAL location. The difference between the predicted and observed [O III ] luminosity is correlated with the outflow velocity, suggesting that [O III ] emission in high-Eddington-ratio objects may be broad and hidden under Fe ii emission. We suggest that the physical differences in the outflow properties as a function of location in the quasar and accretion rate point to different formation, acceleration, and confinement mechanisms for the two FeLoBALQ types.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

A novel methodology for assessing the hygroscopicity of aerosol filter samples

Abstract. Due to US regulations, concentrations of hygroscopic inorganic sulfate and nitrate have declined in recent years, leading to an increased importance of the hygroscopic nature of organic matter (OM). The hygroscopicity of OM is poorly characterized because only a fraction of the multitude of organic compounds in the atmosphere is readily measured, and there is limited information on their hygroscopic behaviors. Hygroscopicity of aerosol is traditionally measured using a humidified tandem differential mobility analyzer (HTDMA) or electrodynamic balance (EDB). EDB measures water uptake by a single particle. For ambient and chamber studies, HTDMA measurements provide water uptake and particle size information but not chemical composition. To fill this information gap, we developed a novel methodology to assess the water uptake by particles collected on Teflon filters. This method uses the same filter sample for both hygroscopicity measurements and chemical characterization, thereby providing an opportunity to link the measured hygroscopicity with ambient particle composition. To test the method, hygroscopic measurements were conducted in the laboratory for ammonium sulfate, sodium chloride, glucose, and malonic acid, which were collected on 25 mm Teflon filters using an aerosol generator and sampler. Constant-humidity solutions (CHSs), including potassium chloride, barium chloride dihydrate, and potassium sulfate, were employed in a saturated form to maintain the relative humidity (RH) at approximately 84 %, 90 %, and 97 % in small chambers. Our preliminary experiments revealed that, without the pouch, water uptake measurements were not feasible due to rapid water loss during weighing. Additionally, we observed some absorption by the aluminum pouch itself. To account for this, concurrent measurements were conducted for both the loaded and the blank filters at each RH level. Thus, the dry loaded and blank Teflon filters were placed in aluminum pouches with one side open and in RH-controlled chambers for more than 24 h. The wet loaded samples and wet blanks were then weighed using an ultramicrobalance to determine the water uptake by the respective compound and the blank Teflon filter. The net amount of water absorbed by each compound was calculated by subtracting the water uptake of the blank filter from that of the wet loaded filter. Hygroscopic parameters, including the water-to-solute (W / S) ratio, molality, mass fraction solute (mfs), and growth factors (GFs), were calculated from the measurements. The results obtained are consistent with those reported by the Extended Aerosol Inorganics Model (E-AIM) and previous studies utilizing HTDMA and EDB for these compounds, highlighting the accuracy of this new methodology. This new approach enables the hygroscopicity and chemical composition of individual filter samples to be assessed so that in complex mixtures, such as chamber and ambient samples, the total water uptake can be parsed between the inorganic and organic components of the aerosol.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Internal Standard Triggered-Parallel Reaction Monitoring Mass Spectrometry Enables Multiplexed Quantification of Candidate Biomarkers in Plasma

Despite advances in proteomic technologies, clinical translation of plasma biomarkers remains low, partly due to a major bottleneck between the discovery of candidate biomarkers and costly clinical validation studies. Due to a dearth of multiplexable assays, generally only a few candidate biomarkers are tested, and the validation success rate is accordingly low. Previously, mass spectrometry-based approaches have been used to fill this gap but feature poor quantitative performance and were generally limited to hundreds of proteins. Here, we demonstrate the capability of an internal standard triggered-parallel reaction monitoring (IS-PRM) assay to greatly expand the numbers of candidates that can be tested with improved quantitative performance. The assay couples immunodepletion and fractionation with IS-PRM and was developed and implemented in human plasma to quantify 5176 peptides representing 1314 breast cancer biomarker candidates. Characterization of the IS-PRM assay demonstrated the precision (median % CV of 7.7%), linearity (median R 2 > 0.999 over 4 orders of magnitude), and sensitivity (median LLOQ < 1 fmol, approximately) to enable rank-ordering of candidate biomarkers for validation studies. Using three plasma pools from breast cancer patients and three control pools, 893 proteins were quantified, of which 162 candidate biomarkers were verified in at least one of the cancer pools and 22 were verified in all three cancer pools. The assay greatly expands capabilities for quantification of large numbers of proteins and is well suited for prioritization of viable candidate biomarkers.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Unconventional Z n parton states at ν=7/3: Role of finite width

A recent work [Balram, Jain, and Barkeshli, Phys. Rev. Res. 2, 013349 (2020)] has suggested that an unconventional state describing Zn superconductivity of composite bosons, which supports excitations with charge 1/(3n) of the electron charge, is energetically better than the Laughlin wave function at \nu=7/3 in GaAs systems. All experiments to date, however, are consistent with the latter. To address this discrepancy, we study the effect of finite width on the ground state and predict a phase transition from an unconventional Zn state at small widths to the Laughlin state for widths exceeding ~1.5 magnetic lengths. Here, we also determine the parameter region where an unconventional state is stabilized in the one-third filled zeroth Landau level in bilayer graphene. The roles of Landau level mixing and spin are also considered.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Numerical Analysis of Combustion Dynamics in a Full-Scale Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine using Large Eddy Simulations

Large eddy simulations (LES) using detailed chemistry and leveraging adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) are performed to gain insights into the combustion dynamics within a full-scale methane-oxygen non-premixed rotating detonation rocket engine (RDRE) employing impinging discrete injection schemes. In particular, a comparative analysis of two operating conditions corresponding to the same global equivalence ratio but different mass flow rates is carried out to investigate the resultant impact on detonation wave characteristics and RDRE global performance. Multiple co-rotating detonation waves with spatially-distributed wave structure and preferential alignment with the inner wall of the annulus (due to asymmetry in fuel distribution) are encountered under both conditions. Both cases exhibit pre-detonation deflagrative burning in the fill region, while one of the cases shows higher susceptibility to backflow into the feed plenums due to lower plenum pressures. Furthermore, heat release analysis shows that the thrust obtained from the RDRE is closely linked to the distribution of total heat release between detonative and deflagrative combustion. On the other hand, combustion efficiency is associated with the fraction of heat release occurring in fuel-rich versus fuel-lean regions within the RDRE.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗