Vortex-motion

A swirling flow combustion system has been designed and constructed. An integral laser Doppler velocimeter is constructed for the investigations of fluid mechanics aspects of a swirling flow combustor. The combustor consists of one fuel flow and two swirled air flows. The inner air flow has a fixed swirling strength and the outer air flow has an adjustable swirler. Both counterswirl and coswirl flows with variable swirl strength can be generated. Premixed or non-premixed combustion can be investigated on this system. Evaluation of the swirling combustion system and performance check of the velocity measurement system are conducted. Detailed time mean and fluctuating flow measurements are obtained for coswirl and counterswirl conditions with the LDV system. A central recirculation zone is observed in both swirl conditions, but the size in counterswirl is much smaller. The reasons for the difference are discussed.

The discrete vortex method was applied to the calculation of separation flow past NACA 4412 airfoil: Vortex panel was used to represent the body surface and discrete vortices were used to model the wake. Generally the uniform upstream condition is used in the calculation of separation flow. But actually an airfoil could move in wake of other airfoils or disturbed fluid. In this thesis, discrete vortices were used to model the upstream disturbance to investigate the effect of upstream disturbance to the pressure, lift and drag coefficients around the airfoil. Also the animation of separation flow was made on HP workstation using "Starbase" computer graphic package to study the separation process.

Vortex methods are grid-free; therefore, their use avoids a number of shortcomings of Eulerian, grid-based numerical methods for solving high Reynolds number flow problems. These include such problems as poor resolution and numerical diffusion. In vortex methods, the continuous vorticity field is discretized into a collection of Lagrangian elements, known as vortex elements. Vortex elements are free to move in the flow field which they create. The velocity field induced by these vortex elements is a solution to the Navier-Stokes equation, and in principle the method is suitable for high Reynolds number flows. In this dissertation, viscous vortex element methods are studied. Some modifications are developed. Discrete vortex element methods have been used to solve the Navier-Stokes equations in high Reynolds number flows. Globally satisfactory results have been obtained. However, computed pressure fields are often inaccurate due to the significant errors in the surface vorticity distribution. In addition, different ad hoc assumptions are often used in different proposed algorithms. In the present study, improvements are made to better represent the near-wall vorticity when obtaining numerical solutions for the Navier-Stokes equations. In particular, we split the boundary vortex sheet into two parts at each time step. One part remains a vortex sheet lying on the boundary of the solid body, and the other enters into the flow field as a free vortex element with a uniformly distributed vorticity. A set of kinematic relationships are used to determine the two appropriate portions of the split, and the position of the vortex element to be freed at the time of release. Another improvement is to include the nonlinear acceleration terms in the governing equations near the solid boundary when evaluating the surface pressure distribution. The aerodynamic force coefficients can then be obtained by summing up the pressure forces. By comparing the computed surface vorticities, surface pressures and aerodynamics force coefficients with existing numerical/experimental data in the cases of viscous flow around a circular cylinder, an aerofoil, and a bridge deck section, it is shown that the present approach is more accurate in modelling the flow features and force coefficients without making different ad hoc assumptions for different geometries. The computation is efficient. It can be useful in the study of the unsteady fluid flow phenomenon in practical engineering problems.

The combustion process of a fuel is a challenging subject when it comes to analyze its performance and resultant emissions. The main task of this study is to optimize the selection of a hydrogen-rich fuel based on its performance and emissions. Computational Fluid Dynamics analysis is performed to test the combustion performance and emissions from the vortex trapped combustor when natural gas fuel (methane) is replaced with renewable and alternative fuels such as hydrogen and synthesis gas. Correlation graphs for the trapped vortex combustor performance and NOx, CO, and CO2 emissions for various types of fuels with different compositions and heat of combustion values were established. Methane, Hydrogen and 10 different syngas fuels were analyzed in this study using computational fluid dynamics numerical method. The trapped vortex combustor that represents an efficient and compact combustor for flame stability was investigated. The TVC consists of a fore body and two after body disks . These components are all encircled with a Pyrex tube. The purpose of the after body disks is to create the vortex wakes that will enhance the combustion process and minimize the NOx emissions. The TVC CFD model was validated by comparing the CFD model results using propane fuel with existing experimental results that were established in Rome, Italy. The static temperature distribution and NOx, CO emissions, combustor efficiency and total pressure drop results of the three dimensional CFD model were similar to the experimental data. Effects of H2/CO and H2/CH4 ratios and the mass fraction of each constituent of syngas fuels and Hydrogen-Methane fuel mixture on the TVC performance and emissions were investigated.