The XDEM Multi-physics and Multi-scale Simulation Technology: Review on DEM-CFD Coupling, Methodology and Engineering Applications

The XDEM multi-physics and multi-scale simulation platform roots in the Ex- tended Discrete Element Method (XDEM) and is being developed at the In- stitute of Computational Engineering at the University of Luxembourg. The platform is an advanced multi- physics simulation technology that combines flexibility and versatility to establish the next generation of multi-physics and multi-scale simulation tools. For this purpose the simulation framework relies on coupling various predictive tools based on both an Eulerian and Lagrangian approach. Eulerian approaches represent the wide field of continuum models while the Lagrange approach is perfectly suited to characterise discrete phases. Thus, continuum models include classical simulation tools such as Computa- tional Fluid Dynamics (CFD) or Finite Element Analysis (FEA) while an ex- tended configuration of the classical Discrete Element Method (DEM) addresses the discrete e.g. particulate phase. Apart from predicting the trajectories of individual particles, XDEM extends the application to estimating the thermo- dynamic state of each particle by advanced and optimised algorithms. The thermodynamic state may include temperature and species distributions due to chemical reaction and external heat sources. Hence, coupling these extended features with either CFD or FEA opens up a wide range of applications as diverse as pharmaceutical industry e.g. drug production, agriculture food and processing industry, mining, construction and agricultural machinery, metals manufacturing, energy production and systems biology

Kinetic Intersections as a Source of Information on Rate Coefficients

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Numerical study of acoustic oscillations and combustion instabilities in solid propellant rocket

A numerical analysis of unsteady motions in solid rocket motors has been conducted. A fully coupled implicit scheme based on a dual time-stepping integration algorithm has been adopted to solve the governing equations and associated boundary conditions. A narrow pressure pulse is imposed at the head end to simulate unsteady acoustic oscillations in the combustion chamber. Pressure increases when the front of the pulse reaches near the nozzle area. Self-generated oscillations with frequency of standing wave propagates upstream in the combustion chamber. Investigation of transient response of gas-phase dynamics to traveling pressure wave and its effects on propellant combustion reveals several aspects: Combustion responses have a strong relationship with vorticity fluctuations in case of high turbulent intensity on the propellant surface. Temperature fluctuations of the propellant surface in the head end region seem to be very unstable and independent of the pressure wave. Surface temperature without turbulence effect looks more sensitive to temperature fluctuations in the primary flame zone. Stability of surface temperature is strongly related to turbulent intensity on the propellant surface

A review of wildland fire spread modelling, 1990-present, 1: Physical and quasi-physical models

In recent years, advances in computational power and spatial data analysis (GIS, remote sensing, etc) have led to an increase in attempts to model the spread and behaviour of wildland fires across the landscape. This series of review papers endeavours to critically and comprehensively review all types of surface fire spread models developed since 1990. This paper reviews models of a physical or quasi-physical nature. These models are based on the fundamental chemistry and/or physics of combustion and fire spread. Other papers in the series review models of an empirical or quasi-empirical nature, and mathematical analogues and simulation models. Many models are extensions or refinements of models developed before 1990. Where this is the case, these models are also discussed but much less comprehensively.Comment: 31 pages + 8 pages references + 2 figures + 5 tables. Submitted to International Journal of Wildland Fir

Investigation of the transient fuel preburner manifold and combustor

A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model with finite rate reactions, FDNS, was developed to study the start transient of the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) fuel preburner (FPB). FDNS is a time accurate, pressure based CFD code. An upwind scheme was employed for spatial discretization. The upwind scheme was based on second and fourth order central differencing with adaptive artificial dissipation. A state of the art two-equation k-epsilon (T) turbulence model was employed for the turbulence calculation. A Pade' Rational Solution (PARASOL) chemistry algorithm was coupled with the point implicit procedure. FDNS was benchmarked with three well documented experiments: a confined swirling coaxial jet, a non-reactive ramjet dump combustor, and a reactive ramjet dump combustor. Excellent comparisons were obtained for the benchmark cases. The code was then used to study the start transient of an axisymmetric SSME fuel preburner. Predicted transient operation of the preburner agrees well with experiment. Furthermore, it was also found that an appreciable amount of unburned oxygen entered the turbine stages

Spray combustion experiments and numerical predictions

The next generation of commercial aircraft will include turbofan engines with performance significantly better than those in the current fleet. Control of particulate and gaseous emissions will also be an integral part of the engine design criteria. These performance and emission requirements present a technical challenge for the combustor: control of the fuel and air mixing and control of the local stoichiometry will have to be maintained much more rigorously than with combustors in current production. A better understanding of the flow physics of liquid fuel spray combustion is necessary. This paper describes recent experiments on spray combustion where detailed measurements of the spray characteristics were made, including local drop-size distributions and velocities. Also, an advanced combustor CFD code has been under development and predictions from this code are compared with experimental results. Studies such as these will provide information to the advanced combustor designer on fuel spray quality and mixing effectiveness. Validation of new fast, robust, and efficient CFD codes will also enable the combustor designer to use them as additional design tools for optimization of combustor concepts for the next generation of aircraft engines

Center for low-gravity fluid mechanics and transport phenomena

Research projects in several areas are discussed. Mass transport in vapor phase systems, droplet collisions and coalescence in microgravity, and rapid solidification of undercooled melts are discussed

A new lattice Boltzmann model for interface reactions between immiscible fluids

In this paper, we describe a lattice Boltzmann model to simulate chemical reactions taking place at the interface between two immiscible fluids. The phase-field approach is used to identify the interface and its orientation, the concentration of reactant at the interface is then calculated iteratively to impose the correct reactive flux condition. The main advantages of the model is that interfaces are considered part of the bulk dynamics with the corrective reactive flux introduced as a source/sink term in the collision step, and, as a consequence, the model’s implementation and performance is independent of the interface geometry and orientation. Results obtained with the proposed model are compared to analytical solution for three different benchmark tests (stationary flat boundary, moving flat boundary and dissolving droplet). We find an excellent agreement between analytical and numerical solutions in all cases. Finally, we present a simulation coupling the Shan Chen multiphase model and the interface reactive model to simulate the dissolution of a collection of immiscible droplets with different sizes rising by buoyancy in a stagnant fluid

The Astrochemical Evolution of Turbulent Giant Molecular Clouds : I - Physical Processes and Method of Solution for Hydrodynamic, Embedded Starless Clouds

Contemporary galactic star formation occurs predominantly within gravitationally unstable, cold, dense molecular gas within supersonic, turbulent, magnetized giant molecular clouds (GMCs). Significantly, because the chemical evolution timescale and the turbulent eddy-turnover timescale are comparable at typical GMC conditions, molecules evolve via inherently non-equilibrium chemistry which is strongly coupled to the dynamical evolution of the cloud. Current numerical simulation techniques, which include at most three decades in length scale, can just begin to bridge the divide between the global dynamical time of supersonic turbulent GMCs, and the thermal and chemical evolution within the thin post-shock cooling layers of their background turbulence. We address this GMC astrochemical scales problem using a solution methodology, which permits both complex three-dimensional turbulent dynamics as well as accurate treatment of non-equilibrium post-shock thermodynamics and chemistry. We present the current methodology in the context of the larger scope of physical processes important in understanding the chemical evolution of GMCs, including gas-phase chemistry, dust grains and surface chemistry, and turbulent heating. We present results of a new Lagrangian verification test for supersonic turbulence. We characterize the evolution of these species according to the dimensionless local post-shock Damk\"{o}hler number, which quantifies the ratio of the dynamical time in the post-shock cooling flow to the chemical reaction time of a given species. Lastly, we discuss implications of this work to the selection of GMC molecular tracers, and the zeroing of chemical clocks of GMC cores.Comment: 35 pages, 7 figures, 16 tables. Accepted to MNRAS. Revised to correct some typographic error