Application of CFD analysis for static and dynamic characteristics of hydrodynamic journal bearing

International audienceJournal bearings are one of the most important mechanical elements for the stable operation of rotors. Rotational machinery is becoming larger and more complicated in recent years, so proper design of bearings is necessary to offer stable support. However, bearings with shapes and operating conditions that can not be predicted by the conventional Reynolds equation method exist. In this paper ,therefore, a prediction method of vibration characteristics of journal bearings using CFD was constructed. To calculate the dynamic characteristics, mesh morphing methods simulating two oscillating states were studied. In order to compare with the calculation results, an active oscillating rotor using magnetic bearings was constructed. As a result, the calculation results were roughly consistent with the experimental results, and a prediction method by CFD was constructed

Influence of Hydrophilic and Hydrophobic Coating on Hydrofoil Performance

International audienceTidal power turbines take advantage of tidal energy to generate renewable hydropower. Since the tidal turbines are fixed in the ocean, it is common to paint the blade and the structure of tidal energy generator with antifouling coating to prevent marine organisms from attaching to them. Therefore, it is important to predict the influence of the coatings on the tidal turbine's performance. In this paper, hydrophilic and hydrophobic coatings which are known to be useful in antifouling were studied from the perspective of flow field and cavitation. Cavitation was visualized with a high-speed video camera and the cavitation characteristics of blades painted with hydrophilic or hydrophobic coatings were compared. With this visualization, it was possible to observe that the hydrophilic foil and hydrophobic foil had distinctive characteristics in cavitation inception and growth. Moreover, the reliability of both coatings was evaluated in order to discuss whether these coatings were useful for long. Immersion tests were carried out to evaluate the deterioration of the coatings in pure water. In addition, magnetostriction vibratory tests were carried out to evaluate the resistance to cavitation erosion of both coatings. From these investigations, a chemical transformation of the hydrophilic coating was observed. Moreover, both coatings were easily removed when they were exposed to strong cavitation impacts

Report on the method for determining the location of the polar vortex boundary region

To determine the boundary region of the polar vortex objectively using the PV distribution on isentropic surfaces, the equivalent latitude(Eql) of the polar vortex boundary was calculated using a slightly modified form of the technique of E.R. Nash et al.(J. Geophys. Res., 101D, 9471, 1996). Using the NCEP/NCAR reanal- ysis data, the Eql of the polar vortex boundary region in the winter of 1999/2000 was calculated, and compared with the ozone mixing ratio in the lower stratosphere over Eureka observatory(80°N , 86°W ). The results indicate that this method determines the boundary region of the polar vortex well

Experimental and Numerical Cavitation Flow Analysis of an Industrial Inducer

In the present study, a CFD model for cavitation simulation have been investigated and compared to experimental results in the case of 3-bladed industrial inducer. The model uses a multiphase approach, based on multiphase mixture assumption. A truncated form of Rayleigh-Plesset equation is used as a source term for the inter-phase mass transfer. The model allows a good prediction of the cavitation inception as well as the main cavity dimensions. The threshold corresponding to the head drop is also well predicted by the model. It was found that the cavitation induced head drop is mainly due to an increase of energy losses and a decrease of the supplied energy. The hydrodynamic mechanism of head drop is investigated through a global and local analysis of the flow field

The whole blood transcriptional regulation landscape in 465 COVID-19 infected samples from Japan COVID-19 Task Force

「コロナ制圧タスクフォース」COVID-19患者由来の血液細胞における遺伝子発現の網羅的解析 --重症度に応じた遺伝子発現の変化には、ヒトゲノム配列の個人差が影響する--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2022-08-23.Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a recently-emerged infectious disease that has caused millions of deaths, where comprehensive understanding of disease mechanisms is still unestablished. In particular, studies of gene expression dynamics and regulation landscape in COVID-19 infected individuals are limited. Here, we report on a thorough analysis of whole blood RNA-seq data from 465 genotyped samples from the Japan COVID-19 Task Force, including 359 severe and 106 non-severe COVID-19 cases. We discover 1169 putative causal expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) including 34 possible colocalizations with biobank fine-mapping results of hematopoietic traits in a Japanese population, 1549 putative causal splice QTLs (sQTLs; e.g. two independent sQTLs at TOR1AIP1), as well as biologically interpretable trans-eQTL examples (e.g., REST and STING1), all fine-mapped at single variant resolution. We perform differential gene expression analysis to elucidate 198 genes with increased expression in severe COVID-19 cases and enriched for innate immune-related functions. Finally, we evaluate the limited but non-zero effect of COVID-19 phenotype on eQTL discovery, and highlight the presence of COVID-19 severity-interaction eQTLs (ieQTLs; e.g., CLEC4C and MYBL2). Our study provides a comprehensive catalog of whole blood regulatory variants in Japanese, as well as a reference for transcriptional landscapes in response to COVID-19 infection

DOCK2 is involved in the host genetics and biology of severe COVID-19

「コロナ制圧タスクフォース」COVID-19疾患感受性遺伝子DOCK2の重症化機序を解明 --アジア最大のバイオレポジトリーでCOVID-19の治療標的を発見--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2022-08-10.Identifying the host genetic factors underlying severe COVID-19 is an emerging challenge. Here we conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) involving 2, 393 cases of COVID-19 in a cohort of Japanese individuals collected during the initial waves of the pandemic, with 3, 289 unaffected controls. We identified a variant on chromosome 5 at 5q35 (rs60200309-A), close to the dedicator of cytokinesis 2 gene (DOCK2), which was associated with severe COVID-19 in patients less than 65 years of age. This risk allele was prevalent in East Asian individuals but rare in Europeans, highlighting the value of genome-wide association studies in non-European populations. RNA-sequencing analysis of 473 bulk peripheral blood samples identified decreased expression of DOCK2 associated with the risk allele in these younger patients. DOCK2 expression was suppressed in patients with severe cases of COVID-19. Single-cell RNA-sequencing analysis (n = 61 individuals) identified cell-type-specific downregulation of DOCK2 and a COVID-19-specific decreasing effect of the risk allele on DOCK2 expression in non-classical monocytes. Immunohistochemistry of lung specimens from patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia showed suppressed DOCK2 expression. Moreover, inhibition of DOCK2 function with CPYPP increased the severity of pneumonia in a Syrian hamster model of SARS-CoV-2 infection, characterized by weight loss, lung oedema, enhanced viral loads, impaired macrophage recruitment and dysregulated type I interferon responses. We conclude that DOCK2 has an important role in the host immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection and the development of severe COVID-19, and could be further explored as a potential biomarker and/or therapeutic target

FEDSM2003-45306 DEVELOPMENT OF A LOW NOISE PUMP BY NEW DESIGN CONCEPT

ABSTRACT The Japan Defense Agency is conducting a project to develop a cavitation tunnel , called the FNS (Flow Noise Simulator project)(1). The FNS was designed as a large cavitation tunnel with low background noise level to measure the noise of an object. In order to satisfy the low noise level for the FNS, it is important to develop a low noise pump. In the present study, several new design concepts were developed using CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) and these concepts and the pump performance were verified by model test. In developing low noise pump, it is important to avoid cavitation generation in all operating conditions. It is also important to reduce blade-passing influence due to blade row interaction between impeller and diffuser. To control unsteadiness by interaction, the axial gap between two blade rows was widened and viscous wake from the impeller was decreased. Many extensive parametric studies (e.g. blade sweep, number of blades) were conducted using three-dimensional CFD computations. The impeller developed for the FNS pump has seven blades, 4.3 m diameter and the stator downstream has nine blades. Several model tests were carried out to verify the design concept of the pump. I t was confirmed that the noise level of the new design pump was decreased compared to a conventional industrial pump and efficiency was also improved

On the Development of Viscous Solvers for Computation of Transient Flows in Turbomachines

This paper focuses on development and validation of a viscous solver for the computation of unsteady flows in turbomachinery blade rows and stages consisting of rotors and stators. The code has been evolved from steady-state single flow solvers developed by Wiedermann based on time-marching finite difference schemes. A two-equation eddy viscosity model is applied, and the wall boundary conditions are determined by the y+-distance of the first grid line away from the wall. For the solution of transient flow fields the original time-stepping algorithm is replaced by a time-accurate scheme

Internal Flow and Stability of Balance Piston for a Rocket Pump

International audienceIn centrifugal pumps, axial thrust balancing is an important factor for stable operation. In particular, in rocket pumps, the stability of rotor assembly is very important to realize reliable high-pressure fluid delivery. Although balance piston, which is one of the self-compensating axial thrust balancing systems, was often used, there are sometimes axial vibration problems on the rotor. In this study, we examine static and dynamic characteristics of balance piston by performing experiments, computational fluid dynamics (CFD), and one-dimensional (1D) simulations, and we calculate parameters such as the static pressure in balance piston chamber and flowrate, orifice flow coefficient, phase difference from the rotor axial displacement to the static pressure fluctuation in the balance piston chamber. The results confirm that the experimental results can be predicted to some degree by performing simulations. Especially, it is found that the CFD simulation can be used to effectively predict the stability of balance piston

Design of Experiments Applied to Francis Turbine Draft Tube to Minimize Pressure Pulsations and Energy Losses in Off-Design Conditions

This paper proposes an original approach to investigate the influence of the geometry of Francis turbines draft tube on pressure fluctuations and energy losses in off-design conditions. It is based on Design of Experiments (DOE) of the draft tube geometry and steady/unsteady Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations of the draft tube internal flow. The test case is a Francis turbine unit of specific speed Ns=120 m-kW which is required to operate continuously in off-design conditions, either with 45% (part-load) or 110% (full-load) of the design flow rate. Nine different draft tube geometries featuring a different set of geometrical parameters are first defined by an orthogonal array-based DOE approach. For each of them, unsteady and steady CFD simulations of the internal flow from guide vane to draft tube outlet are performed at part-load and full-load conditions, respectively. The influence of each geometrical parameter on both the flow instability and resulting pressure pulsations, as well as on energy losses in the draft tube, are investigated by applying an Analysis of Means (ANOM) to the numerical results. The whole methodology enables the identification of a set of geometrical parameters minimizing the pressure fluctuations occurring in part-load conditions as well as the energy losses in both full-load and part-load conditions while maintaining the requested pressure recovery. Finally, the results of the CFD simulations with the final draft tube geometry are compared with the results estimated by the ANOM, which demonstrates that the proposed methodology also enables a rough preliminary estimation of the draft tube losses and pressure fluctuations amplitude