Effect of Pressure Gradients on Plate Response and Radiation in a Supersonic Turbulent Boundary Layer

Using the model developed by the author for zero-pressure gradient turbulent boundary layers, results are obtained for adverse and favorable pressure gradients. It is shown that when a flexible plate is located in an adverse pressure gradient area, it vibrates more than if it were in a favorable pressure gradient one. Therefore the noise generated by the plate in an adverse pressure gradient is much greater than that due to the plate in a favorable pressure gradient. The effects of Reynolds number and boundary layer thickness are also analyzed and found to have the same effect in both adverse and favorable pressure gradient cases. Increasing the Reynolds number is found to increase the loading on the plate and therefore acoustic radiation. An increase in boundary layer thickness is found to decrease the level of the high frequencies and therefore the response and radiation at these frequencies. The results are in good qualitative agreement with experimental measurements

On the Coupling Between a Supersonic Turbulent Boundary Layer and a Flexible Structure

A mathematical model and a computer code have been developed to fully couple the vibration of an aircraft fuselage panel to the surrounding flow field, turbulent boundary layer and acoustic fluid. The turbulent boundary layer model is derived using a triple decomposition of the flow variables and applying a conditional averaging to the resulting equations. Linearized panel and acoustic equations are used. Results from this model are in good agreement with existing experimental and numerical data. It is shown that in the supersonic regime, full coupling of the flexible panel leads to lower response and radiation from the panel. This is believed to be due to an increase in acoustic damping on the panel in this regime. Increasing the Mach number increases the acoustic damping, which is in agreement with earlier work

On the coupling between a supersonic boundary layer and a flexible surface

The coupling between a two-dimensional, supersonic, laminar boundary layer and a flexible surface is studied using direct numerical computations of the Navier-Stokes equations coupled with the plate equation. The flexible surface is forced to vibrate by plane acoustic waves at normal incidence emanated by a sound source located on the side of the flexible surface opposite to the boundary layer. The effect of the source excitation frequency on the surface vibration and boundary layer stability is analyzed. We find that, for frequencies near the fifth natural frequency of the surface or lower, large disturbances are introduced in the boundary layer which may alter its stability characteristics. The interaction between a stable two-dimensional disturbance of Tollmien-Schlichting (TS) type with the vibrating surface is also studied. We find that the disturbance level is higher over the vibrating flexible surface than that obtained when the surface is rigid, which indicates a strong coupling between flow and structure. However, in the absence of the sound source the disturbance level over the rigid and flexible surfaces are identical. This result is due to the high frequency of the TS disturbance which does not couple with the flexible surface

On the Interaction of a Premixed Flame with an Acoustic Disturbance

The main objective of this research is to analyze the effect of acoustic disturbances on a premixed flame and determine their role in the onset of combustion instabilities. Computations for the one-dimensional, unsteady combustion of a lean premixed methane-air mixture are performed. An acoustic excitation is introduced in the chamber and interacts with the flame front. Our results indicate that as the amplitude of the acoustic excitation is increased, the flame front position fluctuates rapidly. This phenomenon is even more intense when the frequency of the acoustic disturbance matches the fundamental frequency of the chamber. Our results suggest that the interactions between the flame and the acoustic excitation may result in flame extinguishment. In addition various passive control devices are tested and we found that the Helmholtz resonator with rounded inlet corners is the most efficient

Coupling between plate vibration and acoustic radiation

A detailed numerical investigation of the coupling between the vibration of a flexible plate and the acoustic radiation is performed. The nonlinear Euler equations are used to describe the acoustic fluid while the nonlinear plate equation is used to describe the plate vibration. Linear, nonlinear, and quasi-periodic or chaotic vibrations and the resultant acoustic radiation are analyzed. We find that for the linear plate response, acoustic coupling is negligible. However, for the nonlinear and chaotic responses, acoustic coupling has a significant effect on the vibration level as the loading increases. The radiated pressure from a plate undergoing nonlinear or chaotic vibrations is found to propagate nonlinearly into the far-field. However, the nonlinearity due to wave propagation is much weaker than that due to the plate vibrations. As the acoustic wave propagates into the far-field, the relative difference in level between the fundamental and its harmonics and subharmonics decreases with distance

A Two-dimensional Cartesian and Axisymmetric Study of Combustion-acoustic Interaction

This paper describes a study of a lean premixed (LP) methane-air combustion wave in a two-dimensional Cartesian and axisymmetric coordinate system. Lean premixed combustors provide low emission and high efficiency; however, they are susceptible to combustion instabilities. The present study focuses on the behavior of the flame as it interacts with an external acoustic disturbance. It was found that the flame oscillations increase as the disturbance amplitude is increased. Furthermore, when the frequency of the disturbance is at resonance with a chamber frequency, the instabilities increase. For the axisymmetric geometry, the flame is found to be more unstable compared to the Cartesian case. In some cases, these instabilities were severe and led to flame extinction. In the axisymmetric case, several passive control devices were tested to assess their effectiveness. It is found that an acoustic cavity is better able at controlling the pressure fluctuations in the chamber

Control of Combustion-Instabilities Through Various Passive Devices

Results of a computational study on the effectiveness of various passive devices for the control of combustion instabilities are presented. An axi-symmetric combustion chamber is considered. The passive control devices investigated are, baffles, Helmholtz resonators and quarter-waves. The results show that a Helmholtz resonator with a smooth orifice achieves the best control results, while a baffle is the least effective for the frequency tested. At high sound pressure levels, the Helmholtz resonator is less effective. It is also found that for a quarter wave, the smoothness of the orifice has the opposite effect than the Helmholtz resonator, i.e. results in less control

Design of a Uranium Dioxide Spheroidization System

The plasma spheroidization system (PSS) is the first process in the development of tungsten-uranium dioxide (W-UO2) fuel cermets. The PSS process improves particle spherocity and surface morphology for coating by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process. Angular fully dense particles melt in an argon-hydrogen plasma jet at between 32-36 kW, and become spherical due to surface tension. Surrogate CeO2 powder was used in place of UO2 for system and process parameter development. Particles range in size from 100 - 50 microns in diameter. Student s t-test and hypothesis testing of two proportions statistical methods were applied to characterize and compare the spherocity of pre and post process powders. Particle spherocity was determined by irregularity parameter. Processed powders show great than 800% increase in the number of spherical particles over the stock powder with the mean spherocity only mildly improved. It is recommended that powders be processed two-three times in order to reach the desired spherocity, and that process parameters be optimized for a more narrow particles size range. Keywords: spherocity, spheroidization, plasma, uranium-dioxide, cermet, nuclear, propulsio

Towards the Understanding of Humpback Whale Tubercles: Linear Stability Analysis of a Wavy Flat Plate

The results from a temporal linear stability analysis of a subsonic boundary layer over a flat plate with a straight and wavy leading edge are presented in this paper for a swept and un-swept plate. For the wavy leading-edge case, an extensive study on the effects of the amplitude and wavelength of the waviness was performed. Our results show that the wavy leading edge increases the critical Reynolds number for both swept and un-swept plates. For the un-swept plate, increasing the leading-edge amplitude increased the critical Reynolds number, while changing the leading-edge wavelength had no effect on the mean flow and hence the flow stability. For the swept plate, a local analysis at the leading-edge peak showed that increasing the leading-edge amplitude increased the critical Reynolds number asymptotically, while the leading-edge wavelength required optimization. A global analysis was subsequently performed across the span of the swept plate, where smaller leading-edge wavelengths produced relatively constant critical Reynolds number profiles that were larger than those of the straight leading edge, while larger leading-edge wavelengths produced oscillating critical Reynolds number profiles. It was also found that the most amplified wavenumber was not affected by the wavy leading-edge geometry and hence independent of the waviness

An Investigation of Scale-Resolving Turbulence Models for Supersonic Retropropulsion Flows

Characterization of unsteady loads is critical for the development of control systems for next-generation air vehicles. Both Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) and Large Eddy Simulation (LES) methods are prohibitively expensive, and existing Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) approaches have been shown to be inadequate in predicting both mean and unsteady loads. In recent years, scale-resolving methods, such as Partially Averaged Navier-Stokes (PANS) and Detached Eddy Simulation (DES), have been gaining acceptance and filling the gap between RANS and LES. In this study, we focus on a new variant of the PANS method, namely blended PANS or BPANS, which was shown to perform well in the incompressible regime for both wall-bounded and free shear flows. In this paper, we extend BPANS to compressible supersonic flows by adding a compressibility correction, leading to a new model called BPANS CC. The new model is tested using a well-known supersonic mixing layer case, and the results show good agreement with experimental data. The model is then used on a complex supersonic retropropulsion case and the results are in good agreement with experimental data