Experimental Analysis of the Flow Characteristics of an Adjustable Critical-Flow Venturi Nozzle

The response of an adjustable critical-flow Venturi nozzle is investigated through a set indoor experiments aimed to determine the related critical flow rate,critical pressure ratio,and discharge coefficient.The effect of a variation in the cone displacement and liquid content on the critical flow characteristics is examined in detail and it is shown that the former can be used to effectively adjust the critical flow rate.The critical pressure ratio of the considered nozzle is above 0.85,and the critical flow control deviation of the gas flow is within±3%.Liquid flow can reduce the gas critical mass flow rate accordingly,especially for the cases with larger liquid volume and lower inlet pressure.The set of results and conclusions provided are intended to support the optimization of steam injection techniques in the context of heavy oil recovery processes.

The Critical Rainfall Characteristics for Torrents and Debris Flows in the Wenchuan Earthquake Stricken Area

Critical rainfall assessment is a very important tool for hazard management of torrents and debris flows in mountainous areas. The Wenchuan Earthquake 2008 caused huge casualties and property damages in the earthquake-stricken area,which also generated large quantities of loose solid materials and increased occurrence probabilities of debris flows. There is an urgent need to quantify the critical rainfall distribution in the area so that better hazard management could be planned and if real time rainfall forecast is available,torrent and debris flow early-warning could be issued in advance. This study is based on 49-year observations (1954-2003) of up to 678 torrent and debris flow events. Detailed contour maps of 1 hour and 24 hour critical rainfalls have been generated (Due to the data limitation,there was insufficient 10 minute critical rainfall to make its contour map). Generally,the contour maps from 1 hour and 24 hours have similar patterns. Three zones with low,medium and high critical rainfalls have been identified. The characteristics of the critical rainfall zones are linked with the local vegetation cover and land forms. Further studies and observations are needed to validate the finding and improve the contour maps.

Critical Stokes Number for Gas-Solid Flow Erosion of Wind Turbine Airfoil

Wind turbine blades are inevitable to be eroded in wind-sand environment,so it is crucial to identify the flow conditions under which the erosion happens.Here,the effect of the sand diameter on wind turbine airfoil is first investigated.When the sand diameter is less than 3μm,the sands will bypass the airfoil and no erosion occurs.When the sand diameter is larger than 4μm,the sand grains collide with the airfoil and the erosion happens.Thus,there must be a critical sand diameter between 3μm and 4μm,at which the erosion is initiated on the airfoil surface.To find out this critical value,aparticle Stokes number is introduced here.According to the range of the critical sand diameter mentioned above,the critical value of particle Stokes number is reasonably assumed to be between 0.007 8and 0.014.The assumption is subsequently validated by other four factors influecing the erosion,i.e.,the angle of attack,relative thickness of the airfoil,different series airfoil,and inflow velocity.Therefore,the critical range of Stokes number has been confirmed.

Experimental study of the critical sand starting velocity of gas-watersand flow in an inclined pipe

The purpose of this paper is to study the critical sand starting velocity and transformation law of flow pattern based on gas-water-sand three-phase flow in an inclined pipe.Firstly,the indoor simulation experiment system of gas-water-sand three-phase flow was used to test the conversion law of flow pattern based upon the different gas void fraction.Secondly,the influence of slug bubbles on sand migration was investigated according to distinctive hole deviation angles,gas void fraction and sand concentration.Finally,the critical sand starting velocity was tested based on dissimilar hole deviation angles,gas void fraction,sand concentration and sand particle size,and then the influence of the abovementioned key parameters on the sand starting velocity was debated based on the force analysis of the sand particles.The experimental results illustrated that when the gas void fraction was less than 5%,it was bubbly flow.When it increased from 5%to 30%,the bubbly flow and slug flow coexisted.When it was between 30%and 50%,the slug flow and agitated flow coexisted.When it reached 50%,it was agitated flow.Providing that the hole deviation angle was 90°,the phenomenon of overall migration and wavelike migration on the surface of sand bed was observed.On the contrary,the phenomenon of rolling and jumping migration was recognized.The critical sand starting velocity was positively correlated with the hole deviation angle and sand particle size,but negatively associated with the gas void fraction and sand concentration.This research can provide a certain reference for sand-starting production in the field of petroleum engineering.

Critical transition Reynolds number for plane channel flow

The determination of the critical transition Reynolds number is of practical importance for some engineering problems. However, it is not available with the current theoretical method, and has to rely on experiments. For supersonic/hypersonic boundary layer flows, the experimental method for determination is not feasible either. Therefore, in this paper, a numerical method for the determination of the critical transition Reynolds number for an incompressible plane channel flow is proposed. It is basically aimed to test the feasibility of the method. The proposed method is extended to determine the critical Reynolds number of the supersonic/hypersonic boundary layer flow in the subsequent papers.

A multiobjective evolutionary optimization method based critical rainfall thresholds for debris flows initiation

At present,most researches on the critical rainfall threshold of debris flow initiation use a linear model obtained through regression.With relatively weak fault tolerance,this method not only ignores nonlinear effects but also is susceptible to singular noise samples,which makes it difficult to characterize the true quantization relationship of the rainfall threshold.Besides,the early warning threshold determined by statistical parameters is susceptible to negative samples(samples where no debris flow has occurred),which leads to uncertainty in the reliability of the early warning results by the regression curve.To overcome the above limitations,this study develops a data-driven multiobjective evolutionary optimization method that combines an artificial neural network(ANN)and a multiobjective evolutionary optimization implemented by particle swarm optimization(PSO).Firstly,the Pareto optimality method is used to represent the nonlinear and conflicting critical thresholds for the rainfall intensity I and the rainfall duration D.An ANN is used to construct a dual-target(dual-task)predictive surrogate model,and then a PSO-based multiobjective evolutionary optimization algorithm is applied to train the ANN and stochastically search the trained ANN for obtaining the Pareto front of the I-D surrogate prediction model,which is intended to overcome the limitations of the existing linear regression-based threshold methods.Finally,a double early warning curve model that can effectively control the false alarm rate and negative alarm rate of hazard warnings are proposed based on the decision space and target space maps.This study provides theoretical guidance for the early warning and forecasting of debris flows and has strong applicability.

Research on Critical Flow of Water under Supercritical Pressures in Nozzles

An experiment on critical flow of water was conducted in two nozzles of 1.41 mm in diameter and 4.35 mm in length with rounded-edge and sharp-edge respectively, covering the ranges of inlet pressure of 22.1-29.1 MPa and inlet temperature of 38-474 ℃. More than 200 data points were obtained and the characteristics and parametric trends were investigated. In the region of near and beyond pseudo-critical temperature the thermal-equilibrium is dominant, and the flow rate can be estimated by the modified homogeneous equilibrium model. In the below pseudo-critical region the results exhibit scattered feature as a result of hysteresis effect in the onset of vaporization, characterizing a bifurcation behavior. This effect is more significant in the nozzle with sharp-edge, especially at higher pressure. For temperature well below the pseudo-critical point, the flow is not at critical condition and the flow rate can be represented by the Bernoulli equation reasonably.

Effect of movability of water on the low-velocity pre-Darcy flow in clay soil

Water seepage in soil is a fundamental problem involving various scientific and engineering fields.According to the literature,low-velocity water seepage in low-permeability porous media,such as clay,does not follow Darcy's law,also known as pre-Darcy flow.The formation of immovable water due to water adsorption on the pore wall is believed to be responsible for the formation of pre-Darcy flow.However,this view lacks direct solid evidence.To investigate the pre-Darcy water flow in clay,head permeability experiments are conducted on six clay samples with different densities.The results indicate that water seepage in clay at low hydraulic gradients does not follow Darcy's law.A clear nonlinear relationship between flow velocity and hydraulic gradient is observed.Water flow in clay can be divided into the pre-Darcy flow and Darcy flow regions by the critical hydraulic gradient,which is 10-12 for the Albic soil with dry density between 1.3 g/cm^(3)and 1.8 g/cm^(3).According to the disjoining pressure theory,immovable water due to water adsorption on the pore wall is the primary reason for water flow deviating from Darcy's law in clay.The results indicate that the percentage of movable water ranges from 39.7%to 59.3%for the six samples at a hydraulic gradient of 1.As the hydraulic gradient increases,the percentage of moveable water also increases.Additionally,there is a strong correlation between the percentage of movable water and the variation in hydraulic conductivity with the hydraulic gradient.Furthermore,a quantitative relationship between the percentage of movable water and the hydraulic conductivity has been established.The results of this study suggest that water adsorption on the pore wall not only affects the water movability,but is also closely related to the pre-Darcy flow phenomenon in clay.

Flow patterns and critical criteria of thermally stratified shear flow in braided rivers

Flow characteristics of thermally stratified shear flow in braided rivers are particularly complicated and poorly understood. In this study, a series of typical flow patterns was examined and their critical criteria were determined. Four flow patterns were identified: mixed, locally unstable, continuously stratified, and two-layer flow. Temperature distributions of the four types of flow patterns were analyzed and compared.The critical Froude numbers for unstable flow, FDcr1, and stable flow, FDcr2, were determined to be 6 and 1, respectively, and comparison of FDcr1 and FDcr2 to the peak Froude numbers, FD1 at the outer bank and FD2 at the inner bank along the anabranch, allowed the flow patterns to be assessed. Then, a discriminant based on initial Jeffreys-Keulegan stability parameters was established to distinguish the flow stages from twolayer flow to completely mixed flow. It is indicated that the three critical Jeffreys-Keulegan parameters increased with the diversion angle of braided rivers. Results also show that, compared to the stratified flow in straight and curved channels, it was more difficult for braided stratified flow to maintain as two-layer flow, and it more easily became mixed flow. Consequently, empirical expressions for stability criteria of the thermally stratified shear flow in braided rivers are presented.

An investigation of flow characteristics and critical heat flux in vertical upward round tube

Prediction of critical heat flux (CHF) in annular flow is important for the safety of once - through steam generator and the reactor core under accident conditions. The dryout in annular flow occurs at the point where the film is depleted due to entrainment, deposition, and evaporation. The film thickness, film mass flow rate along axial distribution, and CHF are calculated in vertical upward round tube on the basis of a separated flow model of annular flow. The theoretical CHF values are higher than those derived from experimental data, with error being within 30%.

Research on the Critical Speed of a Mixed-Flow Turbocharger with Hybrid Ceramic Ball Bearing

The critical speeds for a vehicle turbocharger with hybrid ceramic ball bearing are researched. The ball bearing-rotor system produces resonance when it working in critical speed and that makes the turbocharger injury working for a long time. The calculation and analysis methods of the critical speed for the vehicle turbocharger are described. The critical speed is computed by two methods including Riccati transfer matrix and DyRoBeS finite element method for a vehicle turbocharger with hybrid ceramic ball bearing. The vibration experiment had been taken to validate the calculating result, Comparison between the results by two calculation methods and the test results show that the first critical speed differences are 6.47 % and 5.66 %, the second critical speed differences are 2.87 % and 2.94 % respectively. And then, the primary factors which influence the critical speed are analyzed, the conclusions will be helpful for the vehicle turbocharger bearing-rotor system design.

Numerical Study on the Effect of Unsteady Downstream Conditions on Hydrogen Gas Flow through a Critical Nozzle

A critical nozzle (sonic nozzle) is used to measure the mass flow rate of gas. It is well known that the coefficient of discharge of the flow in the nozzle is a single function of Reynolds number. The purpose of the present study is to investigate the effect of unsteady downstream condition on hydrogen gas flow through a sonic nozzle, numerically. Navier-Stokes equations were solved numerically using 3rd-order MUSCL type TVD finite-difference scheme with a second-order fractional-step for time integration. A standard k-ε model was used as a turbulence model. The computational results showed that the discharge coefficients in case without pressure fluctuations were in good agreement with experimental results. Further, it was found that the pressure fluctuations tended to propagate upstream of nozzle throat with the decrease of Reynolds number and an increase of amplitude of pressure fluctuations.

Investigation on two－phase critical flow for loss－of－coolant accident of pressurized water reactor

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图论在网络的可靠性分析中的应用—对基于1-critical-pathsubset网络的性能分析

本文对一种网络流模型的可靠性进行分析 .在这个模型中 ,我们考虑一对源节点和汇节点的图 ,它的弧是随机失效的 .当网络最大流大于正常工作流 ,我们就说系统是正常工作的 .考虑正常工作流的一种特殊情况 ,这里 ,所有的弧都具有相同的容量 .在这种特殊的情况中 ,潜在的系统是 1- critical的 ,也就是说 ,所有的弧的最小截大小为 2 .此时 ,问题转化为在有向图中 ,求所有的失效弧都在同一条路径上的概率 。

Numerical study on critical flow velocity of ice slurry in the pipe of ice source heat pump system

The traditional evaporator of water source heat pump system is easy to freeze when the water source temperature is too low in winter.A novel ice source heat pump system is proposed,which can use low temperature surface water to supply heat to buildings.One of the key problems for safe transportation is velocity range of ice slurry in ice outlet pipeline.In order to study the critical flow velocity of ice slurry in the pipe,an Euler model of horizontal straight pipe and 90°elbow pipe were established by Fluent software.The influence of five factors on the critical flow velocity of two kinds of pipes,including initial ice packing fraction,ice particle size,pipe diameter,length of straight pipe and radius curvature of elbow was studied.It found that the initial ice content should be controlled from 10%to 15%.The inlet flow rate was 20%higher than the critical flow rate under the most unfavorable condition.Ice particle size was less than 0.2 mm.The total length of ice discharge pipeline was less than 50 m.Curvature radius of the bend should be met the minimum requirements of the specification of the pipe used.

Research on the Critical Conditions for Clay Particle Release During Saline Aquifer Freshening Process

Water sensitivity phenomenon occurs during saline aquifer freshening process in seawater intrusion area, and clay particles released in the phenomenon can damage the infiltration capacity of the aquifer. In order to find out the factors and mechanisms for clay particle release, laboratory column infiltration experiments simulating saline aquifer freshening process were designed to measure the critical conditions(critical flow velocity, critical salt concentration and critical ionic strength) and force analysis for clay particle according to DLVO electric double layer theory was employed to illustrate the mechanisms for particle release. The research results showed that critical flow velocity for clay particle release is influenced by salt concentration of injecting solution. When salt concentration of injecting solution is very high, clay particles are not released, indicating that there does not exist a critical flow velocity in this situation. As salt concentration of injecting solution decreases, particles start to be released. The critical salt concentration for clay particle release is 0.052 mol L-1 in our work, which was determined by a constant-flux experiment for stepwise displacement of high concentration Na Cl solution. The critical ionic strength for clay particle release decreases as Ca2+ molar content percentage of the mixed solution of Na Cl and Ca Cl2 increases following the first-order exponential decay equation y = 0.0391e-0.266 x + 0.0015.

NON-LINEAR CRITICAL LAYER IN EL NINO AND LA NINA YEARS AND FORMATION, MAINTENTENANCE AND OSCILLATION OF THE SUBTROPICAL HIGH

Monthly mean zonal wind data from the European Center for Medium-range Weather Forecasting(ECMWF) t'or December 1982, April 1983, October 1984 and ApriI 1985 are used in numerical integration as thebasic flow in a non-linear critical-layer model. The subtropical high is extensive and limited in number if simulated with the basic now in December 1982 and April 1983. It consists of 2 to 3 cells that move westward at alloscillatory periods of 1~ 2 months. The subtropical high, simulated with the basic flow in October 1984 and April1 985. is weak and small in coverage, or distributed in strips that contain up to 4 cells. The high. merged or spillover a short time. is moving westward. The years 1982 ~ 1983 are a process of EI Nino while the years 1984- 1985one of La Nina. lt is known from the chart of energy flux that it oscillates by a much larger amplitude and longerperiod in the El Nino year than in the La Nina year. All the results above have indicated that the basic now' in theEl Nino year is enhancing the subtropical high lagging by about 4 months and that in the La Nina year is decay'ing it. It is consiStent with the well-known observational fact that the SSTA in the equatorial eastern Pacitlc ispositively correlated with the extent and intensity of the subtropical high in west Pacific lagging by 1 ~2 seasons.The result is also important for further study of the formation, maintenance and oscillation of the subtropicalhigh.

Improvement of Critical Heat Flux Performance by Wire Spacer

In order to investigate the coolability of a tight lattice core in BWR （boiling water reactors）, an experiment of CHF （critical heat flux） was conducted using a single heater pin flow channel with and without a wire spacer with the mass flux ranged from 200 kg/（m2.s） to 600 kg/（m2·s）, the inlet temperature from 50 ℃ to 90 ℃ at the pressure of 0.1 MPa. The results of CHF values were compared between two different types of heater pin with and without the wire spacer. The heat removability of flow channel was improved by the wire spacer in comparison with the heater pin flow channel without the wire spacer. The CHF value was higher in the heater pin channel with the wire spacer than in that without the wire spacer.

Landslide and Basin Self-organized Criticality in the Lushan Hot Spring Area

Defining a basin under a critical state （or a self-organized criticality） that has the potential to initiate landslides, debris flows, and subsequent sediment disasters, is a key issue for disaster prevention. The Lushan Hot Spring area in Nantou County, Taiwan, suffered serious sediment disasters after typhoons Sinlaku and Jangmi in aoo8, and following Typhoon Morakot in 2009. The basin＇s internal slope instability after the typhoons brought rain was examined using the landslide frequency-area distribution. The critical state indices attributed to landslide frequency-area distribution are discussed and the marginally unstable characteristics of the study area indicated. The landslides were interpreted from Spot 5 images before and after disastrous events. The results of the analysis show that the power-law landslide frequency-area curves in the basin for different rainfall-induced events tend to coincide with a single line. The temporal trend of the rainfall- induced landslide frequency-area distribution shows 1If noise and scale invariance. A trend exists for landslide frequency-area distribution in log-log space for larger landslides controlled by the historical maximum accumulated rainfall brought by typhoons. The unstable state of the basin, including landslides, breached dams, and debris flows, are parts of the basin＇s self-organizing processes. The critical state of landslide frequency-area distribution could be estimated by a critical exponent of 1.0. The distribution could be used for future estimation of the potential landslide magnitude for disaster mitigation and to identify the current state of a basin for management.

A Critical Eigenvalues Tracing Method for the Small Signal Stability Analysis of Power Systems

The continuation power flow method combined with the Jacobi-Davidson method is presented to trace the critical eigenvalues for power system small signal stability analysis. The continuation power flow based on a predictor- corrector technique is applied to evaluate a continuum of steady state power flow solutions as system parameters change;meanwhile, the critical eigenvalues are found by the Jacobi-Davidson method, and thereby the trajectories of the critical eigenvalues, Hopf bifurcation and saddle node bifurcation points can also be found by the proposed method. The numerical simulations are studied in the IEEE 30-bus test system.