CFD simulation of flow and mixing characteristics in a stirred tank agitated by improved disc turbines

To reduce the power consumption and improve the mixing performance in stirred tanks,two improved disc turbines namely swept-back parabolic disc turbine(SPDT)and staggered fan-shaped parabolic disc turbine(SFPDT)are developed.After validation of computational fluid dynamics(CFD)model with experimental results,CFD simulations are carried out to study the flow pattern,mean velocity,power consumption,pumping capacity and mixing efficiency of the improved and traditional impellers in a dished-bottom tank under turbulent flow conditions,The results indicate that compared with the commonly used parabolic disc turbine(PDT),the power number of proposed SPDT and SFPDT impellers is reduced by 43%and 12%,and the pumping efficiency is increased by 68%and 13%,respectively.Furthermore,under the same power consumption(0-700 W·m^(-3)),the mixing performance of both SPDT and SFPDT is also superior to that of Rushton turbine and PDT.

Numerical analysis of hydroabrasion in a hydrocyclone

The velocity profiles and separation efficiency curves of a hydrocyclone were predicted by an Euler-Euler approach using a computational fluid dynamics tool ANSYS-CFX 14.5. The Euler-Euler approach is capable of considering the particle-particle interactions and is appropriate for highly laden liquid-solid mixtures. Pre- dicted results were compared and validated with experi- mental results and showed a considerably good agreement. An increase in the particle cut size with increasing solid concentration of the inlet mixture flow was observed and discussed. In addition to this, the erosion on hydrocyclone walls constructed from stainless steel 410, eroded by sand particles （mainly SiOz）, was predicted with the Euler-La- grange approach. In this approach, the abrasive solid particles were traced in a Lagrangian reference frame as discrete particles. The increases in the input flow velocity, solid concentration, and the particle size have increased the erosion at the upper part of the cylindrical body of the hydrocyclone, where the tangential inlet flow enters the hydrocyclone. The erosion density in the area between the cylindrical to conical body area, in comparison to other parts of the hydrocyclone, also increased considerably. Moreover, it was observed that an increase in the particle shape factor from 0.1 to 1.0 leads to a decrease of almost 70 % in the average erosion density of the hydrocyclone wall surfaces.

Numerical simulation and optimization of red mud separation thickener with self-dilute feed

In order to acquire the flow pattern and investigate the settling behavior of the red mud in the separation thickener,computational fluid dynamics(CFD),custom subroutines and agglomerates settling theory were employed to simulate the three-dimensional flow field in an industrial scale thickener with the introduction of a self-dilute feed system.The simulation results show good agreement with the measurement onsite and the flow patterns of the thickener are presented and discussed on both velocity and concentration field.Optimization experiments on feed well and self-dilute system were also carried out,and indicate that the optimal thickener system can dilute the solid concentration in feed well from 110 g/L to 86 g/L which would help the agglomerates' formation and improve the red mud settling speed.Furthermore,the additional power of recirculation pump can be saved and flocculants dosage was reduced from 105g/t to 85g/t in the operation.

Theoretical analysis and numerical simulation of the impulse delivering from laser-produced plasma to solid target

A plasma is produced in air by using a high-intensity Q-switch Nd：YAG pulsed laser to irradiate a solid target, and the impulses delivering from the plasma to the target are measured at different laser power densities. Analysing the formation process of laser plasma and the laser supported detonation wave （LSDW） and using fluid mechanics theory and Pirri＇s methods, an approximately theoretical solution of the impulse delivering from the plasma to the target under our experimental condition is found. Furthermore, according to the formation time of plasma and the variation of pressure in plasma in a non-equilibrium state, a physical model of the interaction between the pulse laser and the solid target is developed. The plasma evolutions with time during and after the laser pulse irradiating the target are simulated numerically by using a three-dimensional difference scheme. And the numerical solutions of the impulse delivering from the plasma to the target are obtained. A comparison among the theoretical, numerical and experimental results and their analyses are performed. The experimental results are explained reasonably. The consistency between numerical results and experimental results implies that the numerical calculation model used in this paper can well describe the mechanical action of the laser on the target.

Effect of swirling addition on the liquid mixing performance in a T-jets mixer

Swirling addition to the stream is beneficial for the fluid mixing.This work aims to study the mixing process intensification in a conventional T-jets mixer by the swirling addition.After experimental verification by the planar laser-induced fluorescence technique,large eddy simulation with the dynamic kinetic energy sub-grid stress model is used to predict how the swirling strength(in terms of swirling number,S_(w))and swirling directions affect the mixing performance,e.g.the tracer concentration distribution,mixing time,and turbulent characteristics in the T-jets mixers,Predictions show that the swirling strength is the key factor affecting the mixing efficiency of the process.The overall mixing time,τ_(90),can be significantly reduced by increasing S_(w).Vortex analysis shows that more turbulent eddies appear in the collision zone and the turbulent kinetic energy dissipation rate increases obviously with the swirling addition.When S_(w) is kept constant,the mixing process can be accelerated and intensified by adding swirling to only one stream,to both streams with the opposite swirling directions,or to both streams with the same swirling directions.Amplification of the mixing process by enlarging the mixer size or increasing the flow rates is also optimized.Thus,this work provides a new strategy to improve the mixing performance of the traditional T-jets mixers by the swirling addition.

Mixed convective heat transfer characteristics and mechanisms in structured packed beds

The structured packed bed is considered a promising reactor owing to its low pressure drop and good heat transfer performance.In the heat transfer process of thermal storage in packed beds,natural convection plays an important role.To obtain the mixed convective heat transfer characteristics and mechanisms in packed beds,numerical simulations and coupling analyses were carried out in this study on the unsteady process of fluid flow and heat transfer.A three-dimensional model of the flow channel in the packed bed was established,and the Navier–Stokes equations and Laminar model were adopted for the computations.The effects of the driving force on fluid flow around a particle were studied in detail.The differences in velocity and density distributions under different flow directions due to effect of the aiding flow or opposing flow were intuitively demonstrated and quantitatively analyzed.It was found that the driving force strengthens the fluid flow near the particle surface when aiding flow occurs and inhibits the fluid flow when opposing flow occurs.The boundary layer structure was changed by the natural convection,which in turn influences the field synergy angle.For the aiding flow,the coordination between the velocity and density fields is higher than that for the opposing flow.By analysis the effects of physical parameters on mixed convective heat transfer,it is indicated that with an increase in the fluid-solid temperature difference or the particle diameter,or a decrease in the fluid temperature,the strengthening or inhibiting effect of natural convection on the heat transfer became more significant.

Boundary-layer transition prediction using a simplified correlation-based model

This paper describes a simplified transition model based on the recently developed correlation-based γ - Reot transition model. The transport equation of transition momentum thick- ness Reynolds number is eliminated for simplicity, and new transition length function and critical Reynolds number correlation are proposed. The new model is implemented into an in-house com- putational fluid dynamics （CFD） code and validated for low and high-speed flow cases, including the zero pressure flat plate, airfoils, hypersonic flat plate and double wedge. Comparisons between the simulation results and experimental data show that the boundary-layer transition phenomena can be reasonably illustrated by the new model, which gives rise to significant improvements over the fully laminar and fully turbulent results. Moreover, the new model has comparable features of accuracy and applicability when compared with the original 3＇ - Reot model. In the meantime, the newly proposed model takes only one transport equation of intermittency factor and requires fewer correlations, which simplifies the original model greatly. Further studies, especially on separation- induced transition flows, are required for the improvement of the new model.

Aerodynamic shape optimization for alleviating dynamic stall characteristics of helicopter rotor airfoil

In order to alleviate the dynamic stall effects in helicopter rotor, the sequential quadratic programming （SQP） method is employed to optimize the characteristics of airfoil under dynamic stall conditions based on the SC1095 airfoil. The geometry of airfoil is parameterized by the class-shape-transformation （CST） method, and the C-topology body-fitted mesh is then automati- cally generated around the airfoil by solving the Poisson equations. Based on the grid generation technology, the unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes （RANS） equations are chosen as the governing equations for predicting airfoil flow field and the highly-efficient implicit scheme of lower-upper symmetric Gauss-Seidel （LU-SGS） is adopted for temporal discretization. To capture the dynamic stall phenomenon of the rotor more accurately, the Spalart-Allmaras turbulence model is employed to close the RANS equations. The optimized airfoil with a larger leading edge radius and camber is obtained. The leading edge vortex and trailing edge separation of the opti- mized airfoil under unsteady conditions are obviously weakened, and the dynamic stall character- istics of optimized airfoil at different Mach numbers, reduced frequencies and angles of attack are also obviously improved compared with the baseline SC1095 airfoil. It is demonstrated that the optimized method is effective and the optimized airfoil is suitable as the helicopter rotor airfoil.

Development process of muzzle flows including a gun-launched missile

Numerical investigations on the launch process of a gun-launched missile from the muz- zle of a cannon to the free-flight stage have been performed in this paper. The dynamic overlapped grids approach are applied to dealing with the problems of a moving gun-launched missile. The high-resolution upwind scheme （AUSMPW ＋） and the detailed reaction kinetics model are adopted to solve the chemical non-equilibrium Euler equations for dynamic grids. The development process and flow field structure of muzzle flows including a gun-launched missile are discussed in detail. This present numerical study confirms that complicated transient phenomena exist in the shortly launching stages when the gun-launched missile moves from the muzzle of a cannon to the free- flight stage. The propellant gas flows, the initial environmental ambient air flows and the moving missile mutually couple and interact. A complete structure of flow field is formed at the launching stages, including the blast wave, base shock, reflected shock, incident shock, shear layer, primary vortex ring and triple point.

Urban Physics： Effect of the micro-climate on comfort, health and energy demand

The global trend towards urbanisation explains the growing interest in the study of the modification of the urban climate due to the heat island effect and global warming, and its impact on enersy use of buildings. Also urban comfort, health and durability, referring respectively to pedestrian wind/ thermal comfort, pollutant dispersion and wind-driven rain are of interest. Urban Physics is a well- established discipline, incorporating relevant branches of physics, environmental chemistry, aerodynamics, meteorolosy and statistics. Therefore, Urban Physics is well positioned to provide keycontributions to the current urban problems and challenges. The present paper addresses the role of Urban Physics in the study of wind comfort, thermal comfort, energy demand, pollutant dispersion and wind-driven rain. Furthermore, the three major research methods applied in Urban Physics, namely field experiments, wind tunnel experiments and numerical simulations are discussed. Case studies illustrate the current challenges and the relevant contributions of Urban Physics.

Some studies on mechanics of continuous mediums viewed as differential manifolds

The continuous mediums are divided into two kinds according to their geometrical configurations,the first one is related to Euclidian manifolds and the other one to Riemannian manifolds/surfaces in the point of view of the modern geometry.Two kinds of finite deformation theories with respect to Euclidian and Riemannian manifolds have been developed in the present paper.Both kinds of theories include the definitions of initial and current physical and parametric configurations,deformation gradient tensors with properties,deformation descriptions,transport theories and governing equations of nature conservation laws.The essential property of the theory with respect to Euclidian manifolds is that the curvilinear coordinates corresponding to the current physical configurations include time explicitly through which the geometrically irregular and time varying physical configurations can be mapped in the diffeomorphism manner to the regular and fixed domains in the parametric space.It is quite essential to the study of the relationships between geometries and mechanics.The theory with respect to Riemannian manifolds provides the systemic ideas and methods to study the deformations of continuous mediums whose geometrical configurations can be considered as general surfaces.The essential property of the theory with respect to Riemannian manifolds is that the thickness variation of a patch of continuous medium is represented by the surface density and its governing equation is rigorously deduced.As some applications,wakes of cylinders with deformable boundaries on the plane,incompressible wakes of a circular cylinder on fixed surfaces and axisymmetric finite deformations of an elastic membrane are numerically studied.

Shock control bump optimization for a low sweep supercritical wing

Shock control bumps are a promising technique in reducing wave drag of civil transport aircraft flying at transonic speeds.This paper investigates the optimization of 3D shock control bumps on a supercritical wing with a sweep angle of 16°at the1/4 chord.A similar supercritical wing with a higher sweep angle of 24.5°at the 1/4 chord has been adopted as a baseline for the study.Numerical results show that the drag coefficient of the low sweep wing with the optimized 3D shock control bumps is reduced below that for the high sweep wing,indicating shock control bumps can be used as an effective means to reduce the wave drag caused by reducing the wing sweep angle.From the point of view of the wing structure design,lower sweep angle will also bring the benefits of weight reduction,resulting in further fuel reduction.

Breathing architecture： Conceptual architectural design based on the investigation into the natural ventilation of buildings

This study explores architectural design by examining air, fluid mechanics, and the natural ventilation of buildings. In this context, this research introduces a new way of dealing with the process of architectural synthesis. The proposed way can be used either to create new architectural projects or to rethink existing ones. This study is supported by previous investigation into the natural ventilation of buildings via computational and laboratory simulation （Stavddou, 2011; Stavridou and Prinos, 2013）. The investigation into the natural ventilation of buildings provides information and data that affect architectural design through various parameters. The parameters of architectural synthesis that are influenced and discussed in this paper are the following： （i） inspiration and analogical transfer, （ii） initial conception of the main idea using computationat fluid dynamics （digital design）, （iii） development of the main idea through an investigatory process toward building form optimization, and （iv） form configuration, shape investigation, and other morphogenetic prospects. This study illustrates the effect of natural ventitation research on architectural design and thus produces a new approach to the architectural design process. This approach leads to an innovative kind of architecture called ＂breathing architecture.＂

An approach to calculating allowable watershed pollutant loads

To improve the management of discharge pollutants loads in the reservoirs＇ watershed, an approach of the allowable pollutants loads calculation and its allocation, based on the water environment model, was proposed. Establishment of the approach framework was described at first. Under the guidance of this framework, two major steps were as follows： modeling and scenario analysis were involved and should be applied to support the decision of discharge loads management; Environ- mental Fluid Dynamic Code （EFDC） model was selected as the kernel model in this framework. In modeling step, spatial discretization for establishing cell map in model, data preprocessing, parameter calibration and uncertainty analysis （which is considered as the significantly relevant factor of the margin of safety （MOS））, were conducted. As a result of the research, the model-based approach presented as a combination of estimation and precise calculation, which contributed to scenario analysis step. Some integrated modules, such as scenario simulation, result analysis and plan optimization were implemented as cycles in the scenario analysis. Finally, allowable pollutant loads under various conditions were calculated. The Chaihe Reservoir in Liaoning Province, China was used as a case study for an application of the approach described above. Results of the Chaihe reservoir water quality simulation, show good agreement with field data and demonstrated that the approach used in the present study provide an efficient and appropriate methodology for pollutant load allocation.

Effect of Coriolis and centrifugal forces on flow and heat transfer at high rotation number and high density ratio in non orthogonally internal cooling channel

Numerical predictions of three-dimensional flow and heat transfer are performed for a two-pass square channel with 45° staggered ribs in non-orthogonally mode-rotation using the second moment closure model. At Reynolds number of 25,000, the rotation numbers studied were 0,0.24, 0.35 and 1.00. The density ratios were 0.13, 0.23 and 0.50. The results show that at high buoyancy parameter and high rotation number with a low density ratio, the flow in the first passage is governed by the secondary flow induced by the rotation whereas the secondary flow induced by the skewed ribs was almost distorted. As a result the heat transfer rate is enhanced on both co-trailing and co-leading sides compared to low and medium rotation number. In contrast, for the second passage, the rotation slightly reduces the heat transfer rate on co-leading side at high rotation number with a low density ratio and degrades it significantly on both co-trailing and co-leading sides at high buoyancy parameter compared to the stationary, low and medium rotation numbers. The numerical results are in fair agreement with available experimental data in the bend region and the second passage, while in the first passage were overestimated at low and medium rotation numbers.