Computation of incompressible viscous flows through turbopump components

Flow through pump components, such as an inducer and an impeller, is efficiently simulated by solving the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations. The solution method is based on the pseudocompressibility approach and uses an implicit-upwind differencing scheme together with the Gauss-Seidel line relaxation method. the equations are solved in steadily rotating reference frames and the centrifugal force and the Coriolis force are added to the equation of motion. Current computations use a one-equation Baldwin-Barth turbulence model which is derived from a simplified form of the standard k-epsilon model equations. The resulting computer code is applied to the flow analysis inside a generic rocket engine pump inducer, a fuel pump impeller, and SSME high pressure fuel turbopump impeller. Numerical results of inducer flow are compared with experimental measurements. In the fuel pump impeller, the effect of downstream boundary conditions is investigated. Flow analyses at 80 percent, 100 percent, and 120 percent of design conditions are presented

Predicting Jet Noise for Full-Scale Low-Boom Aircraft

Supersonic vehicle research addresses the development of tools, technologies, and knowledge to help eliminate technical barriers to practical commercial supersonic flight. While the major focus of this research has been on reducing the ground signature at supersonic cruise, airplanes must also satisfy noise constraints during takeoff and landing at subsonic speeds, and jet noise is the main sound source. We use computational aeroacoustic sim- ulation tools to assess new designs at these lower speeds. We are further scrutinizing both modeling and simulation practices and the use of hybrid Reynolds-averaged Navier Stokes/Large- Eddy Simulations methods and developing new methods to predict jet noise on a full flight configuration

Computation of incompressible viscous flows through turbopump components

A finite-difference, three-dimensional, incompressible Navier-Stokes formulation for calculating the flow through turbopump components is presented. The solution method is based on the pseudocompressibility approach and uses an implicit-upwind differencing scheme together with the Gauss-Seidel line-relaxation method. Both steady and unsteady flow calculations can be performed using the presented algorithm. In this paper, the equations are solved in steadily rotating reference frames by using the steady-state formulation in order to simulate the flow through a turbopump inducer. Eddy viscosity is computed by using the Baldwin-Lomax model. Numerical results are compared with experimental measurements and good agreement is found between the two. Time-accurate calculations will be reported in future publications

Computational Fluid Dynamics Analysis for the Orbiter LH2 Feedline Flowliner

In phase II, additional inducer rotations are simulated in order to understand the root cause of the flowliner crack problem. CFD results confirmed that there is a strong unsteady interaction between the backflow regions caused by the LPFTP inducer and secondary flow regions in the bellows cavity through the flowliner slots. It is observed that the swirl on the duct side of the downstream flowliner is stronger than on the duct side of the upstream flowliner. Due to this swirl, there are more significant unsteady flow interactions through the downstream slots than those observed in the upstream slots. Averaged values of the local velocity at the slots were provided to the NESC-ITA flow physics acoustics team to guide them in designing the acoustics experiment. A parametric study was performed to compare the flow field in the flowliner area when one upstream slot and one corresponding downstream slot were enlarged. No significant differences were observed between the flow field obtained from the enlarged slot configuration when compared with the original configuration. More cases must be analyzed with various enlarged slot configurations to generalize this observation. The flow through the A1 test stand and the flow through the orbiter fuel feedline manifold were simulated without the LPFTP. It was observed that incoming flow to the flowliner and inducer was more uniform in the A1 test stand then in the orbiter manifold. Additionally, each engine LPFTP in the orbiter receives significantly different velocity distributions. Because of the differences observed in the computed results, it is not possible for the A1 test stand to represent the three different engine feedlines simultaneously

Computation of incompressible viscous flows through artificial heart devices with moving boundaries

The extension of computational fluid dynamics techniques to artificial heart flow simulations is illustrated. Unsteady incompressible Navier-Stokes equations written in 3-D generalized curvilinear coordinates are solved iteratively at each physical time step until the incompressibility condition is satisfied. The solution method is based on the pseudo compressibility approach and uses an implicit upwind differencing scheme together with the Gauss-Seidel line relaxation method. The efficiency and robustness of the time accurate formulation of the algorithm are tested by computing the flow through model geometries. A channel flow with a moving indentation is computed and validated with experimental measurements and other numerical solutions. In order to handle the geometric complexity and the moving boundary problems, a zonal method and an overlapping grid embedding scheme are used, respectively. Steady state solutions for the flow through a tilting disk heart valve was compared against experimental measurements. Good agreement was obtained. The flow computation during the valve opening and closing is carried out to illustrate the moving boundary capability

Can SMEs in developing countries resist crisis? An analysis on Turkish and Albanian cases

SMEs have an important role in terms of their economic share in developedand developing economies, though there are different definitions of SMEamong various organizations and countries. Today, instead of giantindustries, SMEs having gained importance in the developing economies,become advantageous being economic enterprises having the capability ofquick adjudication, working with less capital but more intense labor andhaving low cost of management and thus having cheap production. In short,the concept of small is beautiful becomes important in the current economic conjuncture with giant firms.In this context, SME definition and SME's role in Turkish and Albanianeconomies will be dealt with. It will be also questioned whether SMEs indeveloping countries resist crisis or not

Simulation of blood flow through an artificial heart

A numerical simulation of the incompressible viscous flow through a prosthetic tilting disk heart valve is presented in order to demonstrate the current capability to model unsteady flows with moving boundaries. Both steady state and unsteady flow calculations are done by solving the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations in 3-D generalized curvilinear coordinates. In order to handle the moving boundary problems, the chimera grid embedding scheme which decomposes a complex computational domain into several simple subdomains is used. An algebraic turbulence model for internal flows is incorporated to reach the physiological values of Reynolds number. Good agreement is obtained between the numerical results and experimental measurements. It is found that the tilting disk valve causes large regions of separated flow, and regions of high shear

Predicting Quadcopter Drone Noise Using the Lattice Boltzmann Method

The market for new vertical takeoff and landing vehicles, including autonomous urban air taxis and drones for applications such as package delivery, imaging, and surveillance, is growing rapidly. However, aerodynamic noise continues to be the biggest roadblock to community acceptance and adoption. To predict the aerodynamic noise generated by an isolated quadcopter drone, derived from from first principles, we used the Lattice Boltzmann flow solver within NASAs Launch Ascent and Vehicle Aerodynamics (LAVA) solver framework. The solvers computational efficiency, and the complete absence of labor-intensive manual volume mesh generation in the workflow, are key to making routine aeroacoustic analysis of urban air taxis and drones from first principles possible