Unstable behavior of low and high speed compressors

By far the greater part of our understanding about stall and surge in axial compressors comes from work on low-speed laboratory machines. As a general rule, these machines do not model the compressibility effects present in high-speed compressors and therefore doubt has always existed about the application of low-speed results to high-speed machines. In recent years interest in active control has led to a number of studies of compressor stability in engine type compressors. This paper presents new data from an eight-stage fixed geometry engine compressor and compares this with low-speed laboratory data.

Large eddy simulation of a hot, high speed coflowing jet

Computations are made of a short cowl coflowing jet nozzle with a bypass ratio 8 : 1. The core flow is heated, making the inlet conditions reminiscent of those for a real engine. A large eddy resolving approach is used with a 12 × 106 cell mesh. Since the code being used tends towards being dissipative the sub-grid scale (SGS) model is abandoned giving what can be termed Numerical Large Eddy Simulation (NLES). To overcome near wall modelling problems a hybrid NLES-RANS (Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes) related method is used. For y+ ≤ 60 a κ-l model is used. Blending between the two regions makes use of the differential Hamilton-Jabobi (HJ) equation, an extension of the eikonal equation. Results show encouraging agreement with existing measurements of other workers. The eikonal equation is also used for acoustic ray tracing to explore the effect of the mean flow on acoustic ray trajectories, thus yielding a coherent solution strategy. Copyright © 2011 by ASME.

Large-eddy simulations and measurements of a small-scale high-speed coflowing jet

Measurements and predictions are made of a short-cowl coflowing jet with a bypass ratio of 8:1. The Reynolds number is 300,000, and the inlet Mach numbers are representative of aeroengine conditions. The low Reynolds number of the measurements makes the case well suited to the assessment of large-eddy-simulation-related strategies. The nozzle concentricity is carefully controlled to deal with the emerging metastability issues of jets with coflow. Measurements of mean quantities and turbulence statistics are made using both laser Doppler anemometry and particle image velocimetry. The simulations are completed on 6× 106, 12× 106, and 50 × 106 cell meshes. To overcome near-wall modeling problems, a hybrid large-eddy-simulation-Reynolds-averaged-Navier-Stokesrelated method is used. The near-wall Reynolds-averaged-Navier-Stokes layer is helpful in preventing nonphysical separation from the nozzle wall.Copyright © 2010 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc.

Comparison of les to LDA and PIV measurements of a small scale high speed coflowing jet

Measurements and predictions are made of a short cowl co-flowing jet with a bypass ratio of 8:1. The Reynolds number for computations and measurements are matched at 300,000 and the Mach numbers representative of realistic jet conditions with core and co flow velocities of 240m/s and 216m/s respectively. The low Reynolds number of the measurements makes the case well suited to the assessment of large eddy resolving computational strategies. Also, the nozzle concentricity was carefully controlled to deal with the emerging metastability issues of jets with coflow. Measurements of mean quantities and turbulence statistics are made using both two dimensional coincident LDA and PIV systems. The computational simulations are completed on a modest 12×106 mesh. The simulation is now being run on a 50×106 mesh using hybrid RANSNLES (Numerical Large Eddy Simulation). Close to the nozzle wall a k-l RANS model is used. For an axisymmetric jet, comparison is made between simulations which use NLES, RANSNLES and also a simple imposed velocity profile where the nozzle is not modeled. The use of a near wall RANS model is shown to be beneficial. When compared with the measurements the NLES results are encouraging. Copyright © 2008 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. All rights reserved.

Turbine blade tip heat transfer in low speed and high speed flows

In this paper, high and low speed tip flows are investigated for a high-pressure turbine blade. Previous experimental data are used to validate a CFD code, which is then used to study the tip heat transfer in high and low speed cascades. The results show that at engine representative Mach numbers the tip flow is predominantly transonic. Thus, compared to the low speed tip flow, the heat transfer is affected by reductions in both the heat transfer coefficient and the recovery temperature. The high Mach numbers in the tip region (M>1.5) lead to large local variations in recovery temperature. Significant changes in the heat transfer coefficient are also observed. These are due to changes in the structure of the tip flow at high speed. At high speeds, the pressure side corner separation bubble reattachment occurs through supersonic acceleration which halves the length of the bubble when the tip gap exit Mach number is increased from 0.1 to 1.0. In addition, shock/boundary-layer interactions within the tip gap lead to large changes in the tip boundary-layer thickness. These effects give rise to significant differences in the heat-transfer coefficient within the tip region compared to the low-speed tip flow. Compared to the low speed tip flow, the high speed tip flow is much less dominated by turbulent dissipation and is thus less sensitive to the choice of turbulence model. These results clearly demonstrate that blade tip heat transfer is a strong function of Mach number, an important implication when considering the use of low speed experimental testing and associated CFD validation in engine blade tip design. Copyright © 2009 by ASME.

Response of clamped sandwich beams subjected to high-velocity impact by sand slugs

The dynamic response of end-clamped sandwich and monolithic beams of equal areal mass subjected to loading via high-velocity slugs of dry and water-saturated sand is measured using a novel laboratory-based method. The sandwich beams comprise aluminium face sheets and an aluminium honeycomb core: the effect of sandwich core strength and beam thickness on the dynamic beam deflection is investigated by varying the orientation and height of the anisotropic aluminium honeycomb core material. High-speed imaging is used to measure the transient transverse deflection of the beams and to record the dynamic modes of deformation. The measurements show that sandwich beams with thick, strong cores are optimal and that these beams significantly outperform monolithic beams of equal mass. The water-saturated sand slugs cause significantly higher deflections compared to the dry sand slugs having the same mean slug velocity and we demonstrate that this enhanced deflection is due to the larger mass of the water-saturated slugs. Finally, we show that the impact of sand slugs is equivalent to the impact of a crushable foam projectile. The experiments using foam projectiles are significantly simpler to perform and thus represent a more convenient laboratory technique. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Low loss and low crosstalk multimode polymer waveguide crossings for high-speed optical interconnects

Multimode polymer waveguide crossings exhibiting the lowest reported excess loss of 0.006dB/crossing and crosstalk values as low as -30dB are presented. Their potential for use in high-speed dense optical interconnection architectures is demonstrated. © 2007 Optical Society of America.

Self-similar breakup of near-inviscid liquids

The final stages of pinchoff and breakup of dripping droplets of near-inviscid Newtonian fluids are studied experimentally for pure water and ethanol. High-speed imaging and image analysis are used to determine the angle and the minimum neck size of the cone-shaped extrema of the ligaments attached to dripping droplets in the final microseconds before pinchoff. The angle is shown to steadily approach the value of 18.0 ±0.4, independently of the initial flow conditions or the type of breakup. The filament thins and necks following a τ2 /3 law in terms of the time remaining until pinchoff, regardless of the initial conditions. The observed behavior confirms theoretical predictions. © 2012 American Physical Society.

Structure of igniting ethanol and n-heptane spray flames with and without swirl

This paper explores the ignition and subsequent evolution of spray flames in a bluff-body configuration with and without swirl. Ethanol and n-heptane are used to compare the effects of volatility. Ignition is performed by a laser spark. High speed imaging of OH *-chemiluminescence and OH-PLIF collected at 5kHz are used to investigate the behaviour of the flames during the first stages of ignition and the stable flame structure following ignition. Swirl induces a wider and shorter flame, precession, and multiple reaction zones, while the non-swirling flames have a simpler structure. The reaction fronts seem thinner with ethanol than with heptane. The dataset can be used for model validation. © 2012 Elsevier Inc.

Self-similar breakup of near-inviscid liquids.

The final stages of pinchoff and breakup of dripping droplets of near-inviscid Newtonian fluids are studied experimentally for pure water and ethanol. High-speed imaging and image analysis are used to determine the angle and the minimum neck size of the cone-shaped extrema of the ligaments attached to dripping droplets in the final microseconds before pinchoff. The angle is shown to steadily approach the value of 18.0 ± 0.4°, independently of the initial flow conditions or the type of breakup. The filament thins and necks following a τ(2/3) law in terms of the time remaining until pinchoff, regardless of the initial conditions. The observed behavior confirms theoretical predictions.