Fluid dynamic design of an axial rotor for hydrokinetic riverbed turbine-improvement introduced by a high lift foil profile

The main objective of this article is to achieve a very high lift rotor to take the maximum advantage of the kinetic energy of a slow velocity water flow, which belongs to a lowland river type. Low speed flux and lack of depth are the main obstacles in hydrokinetic operation. The use of a high lift aerodynamic profile and the gain of the rotor number of blades serve to accomplish the task. This work presents the fluid dynamic design for an axial hydrokinetic turbine rotor, studied in a three-dimensional (3D) numerical simulation by means of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). The use of CFD techniques avoids some physical model assays. For the hydrokinetic turbine rotor design, first a one-dimensional (1D) theoretical design was carried out, starting with the selection of a suitable airfoil profile to create the hydrofoil blade. Then, the 3D rotor geometry was defined and studied carefully by means of CFD, to check its hydrodynamic behavior, that is, lift and drag, streamline velocities and pressure fields. The CFD results were obtained using an open CFD code (Kratos) This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: [Oller, S. A., Nallim, L. G. and Oller, S. (2016), Fluid dynamic design of an axial rotor for hydrokinetic riverbed turbine-improvement introduced by a high lift foil profil

An analytical–numerical approach to simulate the dynamic behaviour of arbitrarily laminated composite plates

A general analytical–numerical approach developed for the dynamical analysis of unsymmetrically laminated plates of general quadrilateral planforms is presented in this work. An arbitrary quadrilateral thin flat laminate is mapped onto a square basic one, so that a unique macro-element is constructed for the whole plate. The Ritz method is applied to evaluate the governing equation in which the coupling effects of bending and stretching are contained. All possible transverse boundary conditions combining with the different in-plane constraints are considered in the analysis. The resulting algorithm possesses great flexibility, it is easy to program and it needs minimal input information. For these reasons, the proposed methodology results convenient for large scale structural design and analysis where repeated calculations are often required

An Integrated Procedure for the Structural Design of a Composite Rotor-Hydrofoil of a Water Current Turbine (WCT)

This paper shows an integrated structural design optimization of a composite rotor-hydrofoil of a water current turbine by means the finite elements method (FEM), using a Serial/Parallel mixing theory (Rastellini et al. Comput. Struct. 86:879–896, 2008, Martinez et al., 2007, Martinez and Oller Arch. Comput. Methods. 16(4):357–397, 2009, Martinez et al. Compos. Part B Eng. 42(2011):134–144, 2010) coupled with a fluid-dynamic formulation and multi-objective optimization algorithm (Gen and Cheng 1997, Lee et al. Compos. Struct. 99:181–192, 2013, Lee et al. Compos. Struct. 94(3):1087–1096, 2012). The composite hydrofoil of the turbine rotor has been design using a reinforced laminate composites, taking into account the optimization of the carbon fiber orientation to obtain the maximum strength and lower rotational-inertia. Also, these results have been compared with a steel hydrofoil remarking the different performance on both structures. The mechanical and geometrical parameters involved in the design of this fiber-reinforced composite material are the fiber orientation, number of layers, stacking sequence and laminate thickness. Water pressure in the rotor of the turbine is obtained from a coupled fluid-dynamic simulation (CFD), whose detail can be found in the reference Oller et al. (2012). The main purpose of this paper is to achieve a very low inertia rotor minimizing the start-stop effect, because it is applied in axial water flow turbine currently in design by the authors, in which is important to take the maximum advantage of the kinetic energy. The FEM simulation codes are engineered by CIMNE (International Center for Numerical Method in Engineering, Barcelona, Spain), COMPack for the solids problem application, KRATOS for fluid dynamic application and RMOP for the structural optimization. To validate the procedure here presented, many turbine rotors made of composite materials are analyzed and three of them are compared with the steel one

The usability of the Selig S1223 profile airfoil as a high lift hydrofoil for hydrokinetic application

This work presents a numerical analysis of the ability of the high lift airfoil profile Selig S1223 for working as hydrofoil under water conditions. The geometry of the hydrofoil blade is designed through a suitable airfoil profile and then studied carefully by means of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) in order to check its hydrodynamic behavior, i.e., including lift and drag analysis, and determinations of streamlines velocities and pressures fields. Finally conclusions on the use of this profile in a possible application for hydrokinetic turbine blades are detailed

Considerations on the application of the Ritz Method in the Anisotropic Plates Theory

En este trabajo se realizan ciertas consideraciones sobre las integrales curvilíneas que intervienen en el planteamiento de los problemas de contorno y autovalores que describen el comportamiento estatice y dinamice de placas anisótropas con contornos elásticamente restringidos. También se realizan consideraciones sobre las condiciones de contorno en la aplicación del método de Ritz.In this work they are carried out certain considerations on the curvilinear integrals which intervene in the set up of boundary and eigenvalue problems which describe the static and dynamic behavior of anisotropic plates with elastically restrained boundaries. Relating questions to the boundary conditions in the application of the Ritz method are also analyzed.Fil: Nallim, Liz. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Salta. Instituto de Investigaciones para la Industria Química. Universidad Nacional de Salta. Facultad de Ingeniería. Instituto de Investigaciones para la Industria Química; ArgentinaFil: Grossi, Ricardo Oscar. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Salta. Instituto de Investigaciones para la Industria Química. Universidad Nacional de Salta. Facultad de Ingeniería. Instituto de Investigaciones para la Industria Química; Argentin

Nonlinear homogenization techniques to solve masonry structures problems

The behaviour of masonry material subjected to different in-plane loading combination is studied in this work. The masonry is considered as a periodic composite material composed by a regular distribution of brick and mortar and it is analyzed using a homogenization technique. The mechanical properties of the masonry, as an orthotropic homogeneous material, depend on the geometrical and mechanical properties of the components based on the study of the equilibrium and compatibility of a basic cell. The masonry is a frictional material and its behaviour depends on the loading direction, for these reasons, a unilateral damage model is chosen for the analysis. This model describes the behaviour of brittle materials subjected to tension–compression cyclic loads based on the introduction of two damage variables and it assumes that the damage is due to the beginning and growth of cracks only in the mortar joints. It is considered that the bricks have a linear elastic constitutive relationship. Numerical applications are performed with a nonlinear finite element code in order to test the proposed procedure by comparing the results with those available in the literature and also with experimental data

Análisis del comportamiento de placas rectangulares ortotrópicas y anisotrópicas

En este trabajo se usan el método de Ritz con polinomios ortogonales como funciones aproximantes y el método de Rayleigh-Schmidt para generar valores de coeficientes de frecuencias de placas ortotrópicas y anisotrópicas con efectos complicantes. Se presentan valores correspondientes a las primeras cinco frecuencias y se realizan comparaciones de valores para el caso de la frecuencia fundamental con resultados que figuran en la literatura.Peer Reviewe

Formulation of solid-shell finite elements with large displacements considering different transverse shear strains approximations

This work presents a general formulation and implementation in solid-shell elements of the refined zigzag theory and the trigonometric shear deformation theory in an unified way. The model thus conceived is aimed for use in the analysis, design and verification of structures made of composite materials, in which shear strains have a significant prevalence. The refined zigzag theory can deal with composite laminates economically, adding only two nodal degrees of freedom, with very good accuracy. It assumes that the in-plane displacements have a piece-wise linear shape across the thickness depending on the shear stiffness of each composite layer. The trigonometric theory assumes a cosine variation of the transverse shear strain. A modification of this theory is presented in this paper allowing its implementation with C0 approximation functions. Two existing elements are considered, an eight-node tri-linear hexahedron and a six-node triangular prism. Both elements use a modified right Cauchy-Green deformation tensor View the MathML source where five of its six components are linearly interpolated from values computed at the top and bottom surfaces of the element. The sixth component is computed at the element center and it is enhanced with an additional degree of freedom. This basic kinematic is improved with a hierarchical field of in-plane displacements expressed in convective coordinates. The objective of this approach is to have a simple and efficient finite element formulation to analyze composite laminates under large displacements and rotations but small elastic strains. The assumed natural strain technique is used to prevent transverse shear locking. An analytic through-the-thickness integration and one point integration on the shell plane is used requiring hourglass stabilization for the hexahedral element. Several examples are considered on the one hand to compare with analytical static solutions of plates, and on the other hand to observe natural frequencies, buckling loads and the non-linear large displacement behavior in double curved shells. The results obtained are in a very good agreement with the targets used

Statical and dynamical behaviour of thin fibre reinforced composite laminates with different shapes

Based on the classical laminated plate theory, a variational approach for the study of the statical and dynamical behaviour of arbitrary quadrilateral anisotropic plates with various boundary conditions is developed. The analytical formulation uses the Ritz method in conjunction with natural coordinates to express the geometry of general plates in a simple form. The deflection of the plate is approximated by a set of beam characteristic orthogonal polynomials generated using the Gram–Schmidt procedure. The algorithm developed is quite general and can be used to study fibre reinforced composite laminates with symmetric lay-ups, which may have general anisotropy and any combinations of clamped, simply supported and free edge support conditions. Various numerical applications are presented and some results are compared with existing values in the literature to demonstrate the accuracy and flexibility of the present method. New results were also determined for plates with different geometrical shapes, combinations of boundary conditions, several stacking sequences and various angles of fibre orientation

Control del proceso de deshumidificación de muros con georradar. Un edificio patrimonial como caso de estudio

En edificios históricos son conocidos los efectos nocivos de la presencia de humedad en muros, que deteriora detalles de ornamentación, conjuntamente con los componentes de la mampostería que conforma su propia estructura. Es el caso de la Iglesia Nuestra Señora de la Viña (Salta, Argentina), edificio del s. XIX que presentaba manifestaciones patológicas características de las producidas por la presencia de humedad ascendente. Las tareas de recuperación de las superficies exteriores fueron realizadas una vez que el sistema instalado (por electrólisis) deshumidificó los muros. La elevada inversión realizada requiere de un control periódico de la eficacia del sistema. En este trabajo se presentan los fundamentos y los resultados obtenidos con el empleo de georradar como recurso no destructivo para controlar el sistema de deshumidifación, cuya principal ventaja es la de poder detectar en forma precoz a lo largo del tiempo alguna falla en el sistema, evitando en forma indefinida la aparición de nuevas manifestaciones patológicas por humedad ascendente.In historical buildings the harmful effects in masonry due to moisture are well known, as it affects ornamentation and the components of the masonry which is also the building's structure. That is the case of the church Nuestra Señora de la Viña (Salta, Argentina), a XIX cent. building which presented typical pathological symptoms caused by rising damp. An electro physical system was installed in order to dehumidificate the masonry and external surfaces were subsequently recovered. This high investment requires a periodical control of the system's efficiency. This article presents the foundations of and the results obtained by using an impulse radar as a non-destructive resource to control the dehumidification system. Its main advantage is the early detecting of a failure in the system and so avoiding new pathological symptoms caused by rising damp.Fil: Gea, S.. Universidad Nacional de Salta. Facultad de Ingenieria; ArgentinaFil: Quinteros, Ricardo Daniel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Salta. Instituto de Investigaciones Para la Industria Química. Universidad Nacional de Salta. Facultad de Ingeniería. Instituto de Investigaciones Para la Industria Química; ArgentinaFil: Nallim, Liz. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Salta. Instituto de Investigaciones Para la Industria Química. Universidad Nacional de Salta. Facultad de Ingeniería. Instituto de Investigaciones Para la Industria Química; Argentin