Experimental Investigation of the Transient Flow in Roots Blower

Rotary positive displacement machines are common method to pump flow in various process industries. Their performance highly depends on the operational clearances. It is widely believed that computational fluid dynamics (CFD) can help understanding and reducing internal leakage flows. However, Developments of grid generating tools for use of CFD in rotary positive displacement machines have not yet been fully validated. Thereby arising a need to validate these models that help in better understanding of the leakage flows. Roots blower is a good representative of positive displacement machines and as such is convenient for optical access to analyse flows in in such machines. This paper describes the setup of the experimental test rig with the optical Roots blower in the Centre for Compressor Technology at City, University of London and the first results obtained using three different flow visualization methods. These are namely i) the high-speed camera (HC), ii) the continuous time resolved PIV (CPIV) and iii) the instantaneous PIV obtained with double pulse PIV laser and double shutter camera (IPIV). Test results from these three tests are compared and discussed in the paper. The CPIV test shows the movement of the vortex and the general shape of the flow field clearly but is not sufficient to calculate velocity vectors of high-velocity particles due to the limitation of the laser and camera. The IPIV test can produce quantitative velocity vector images of the internal flow but needs improvement to look into the leakage flow. The work described in this paper is a part of the large project set to evaluate characteristics of the internal flow in rotary positive displacement machines and to characterize leakage flows. The objective is to enable further improvements in 3D CFD analysis of leakage flows in rotary positive displacement machines and ultimately lead to the improvement in the performance of rotary positive displacement machines

Normal Rack Grid Generation Method for Screw Machines with Large Helix Angles

Improving the efficiency of the screw machine is highly significant for industry. Numerical simulation is an important tool in developing these machines. The 3D computational fluid dynamic simulation can give a valuable insight into the flow parameters of screw machines. However, it is currently difficult to generate high quality computational grids required for screw rotors with large helix angle. This is mainly due to the excessively high cell skewness of the rotors with large helix angel, which would introduce errors in numerical simulation. This paper presents a novel grid generation algorithm used for the screw rotors with large helix angel. This method is based on the principles developed for the grid generation in transverse cross-section. Such mesh is generated by SCORGTM using normal rack grid generation method which means numerical meshes are generated in a plane normal to the pitch helix line. The mesh lines are then parallel to the helix line and thus an orthogonal mesh will be produced. The main flow and leakage flow directions are orthogonal to the mesh, potentially reducing numerical diffusion. This developed algorithm could also be employed for single screw machines

A search for rotating radio transients and fast radio bursts in the Parkes high-latitude pulsar survey

Discoveries of rotating radio transients and fast radio bursts (FRBs) in pulsar surveys suggest that more of such transient sources await discovery in archival data sets. Here we report on a single-pulse search for dispersed radio bursts over a wide range of Galactic latitudes (|b| < $60^{\circ}$) in data previously searched for periodic sources by Burgay et al. We re-detected 20 of the 42 pulsars reported by Burgay et al. and one rotating radio transient reported by Burke-Spolaor. No FRBs were discovered in this survey. Taking into account this result, and other recent surveys at Parkes, we corrected for detection sensitivities based on the search software used in the analyses and the different backends used in these surveys and find that the all-sky FRB event rate for sources with a fluence above 4.0 Jy ms at 1.4 GHz to be ${\cal R} = 4.4^{+5.2}_{-3.1} \times 10^3$ FRBs day$^{-1}$ sky$^{-1}$, where the uncertainties represent a $99\%$ confidence interval. While this rate is lower than inferred from previous studies, as we demonstrate, this combined event rate is consistent with the results of all systematic FRB searches at Parkes to date and does not require the need to postulate a dearth of FRBs at intermediate latitudes.Comment: Accepted, 10 pages, 6 figure

Application of numerical grid generation for improved CFD analysis of multiphase screw machines

Algebraic grid generation is widely used for discretization of the working domain of twin screw machines. Algebraic grid generation is fast and has good control over the placement of grid nodes. However, the desired qualities of grid which should be able to handle multiphase flows such as oil injection, may be difficult to achieve at times. In order to obtain fast solution of multiphase screw machines, it is important to further improve the quality and robustness of the computational grid. In this paper, a deforming grid of a twin screw machine is generated using algebraic transfinite interpolation to produce initial mesh upon which an elliptic partial differential equations (PDE) of the Poisson's form is solved numerically to produce smooth final computational mesh. The quality of numerical cells and their distribution obtained by the differential method is greatly improved. In addition, a similar procedure was introduced to fully smoothen the transition of the partitioning rack curve between the rotors thus improving continuous movement of grid nodes and in turn improve robustness and speed of the Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) solver. Analysis of an oil injected twin screw compressor is presented to compare the improvements in grid quality factors in the regions of importance such as interlobe space, radial tip and the core of the rotor. The proposed method that combines algebraic and differential grid generation offer significant improvement in grid quality and robustness of numerical solution

Grid generation methodology and CFD simulations in sliding vane compressors and expanders

The limiting factor for the employment of advanced 3D CFD tools in the analysis and design of rotary vane machines is the unavailability of methods for generation of computational grids suitable for fast and reliable numerical analysis. The paper addresses this challenge presenting the development of an analytical grid generation for vane machines that is based on the user defined nodal displacement. In particular, mesh boundaries are defined as parametric curves generated using trigonometrical modelling of the axial cross section of the machine while the distribution of computational nodes is performed using algebraic algorithms with transfinite interpolation, post orthogonalisation and smoothing. Algebraic control functions are introduced for distribution of nodes on the rotor and casing boundaries in order to achieve good grid quality in terms of cell size and expansion. In this way, the moving and deforming fluid domain of the sliding vane machine is discretized and the conservation of intrinsic quantities in ensured by maintaining the cell connectivity and structure. For validation of generated grids, a mid-size air compressor and a small-scale expander for Organic Rankine Cycle applications have been investigated in this paper. Remarks on implementation of the mesh motion algorithm, stability and robustness experienced with the ANSYS CFX solver as well as the obtained flow results are presente

Esterification of Glycerol with Acetic Acid over Highly Active and Stable Alumina-based Catalysts: A Reaction Kinetics Study

The catalytic activity of Cu- or Ni monometallic and Cu-Ni bimetallic (Cu/Ni ratio = 3, 1, 0.33) catalysts supported on γ-Al2O3 and SO42–/γ-Al2O3 catalysts were evaluated for esterification of glycerol. The reactions were performed in a batch reactor under reflux at standard reaction conditions: temperature 110 °C, atmospheric pressure, glycerol to acetic acid molar ratio 1:9, and catalyst loading 0.25 g. The best catalytic activity was observed over 2 M SO42–/γ-Al2O3 catalyst, which showed the glycerol conversion of 97 % within 2 hours of reaction. At this condition, the selectivity to glyceryl monoacetate (MAG), glyceryl diacetate (DAG), and glyceryl triacetate (TAG) were 27.0 %, 49.9 % and 23.1 %, respectively, after 5 h of reaction. After three consecutive runs, the 2 M SO42–/γ-Al2O3 catalysts showed superior performance and no loss in activity was observed. The reaction kinetics results over 2 M SO42–/γ-Al2O3 catalyst showed that the dependence on the reaction rate to glycerol concentration was of pseudo-second order, while the activation energy was found to be 106 kJ mol–1

Grid deformation strategies for CFD analysis of screw compressors

Customized grid generation of twin screw machines for CFD analysis is widely used by the refrigeration and air-conditioning industry today, but is currently not suitable for topologies such as those of single screw, variable pitch or tri screw rotors. This paper investigates a technique called key-frame re-meshing that supplies pre-generated unstructured grids to the CFD solver at different time steps. To evaluate its accuracy, the results of an isentropic compression-expansion process in a reciprocating piston cylinder arrangement have been compared. Three strategies of grid deformation; diffusion equation mesh smoothing, user defined nodal displacement and key-frame remeshing have been assessed. There are many limitations to key-frame re-meshing. It requires time consuming pre-processing, has limited applicability to complex meshes and leads to inaccuracies in conservation of calculated variables. It was concluded that customized tools for generation of CFD grids are required for complex screw machines

Numerical investigation of flow characteristics in twin-screw pump under cavitating conditions

In order to investigate the flow characteristics and the formation process of cavitation in twin-screw pumps, three-dimensional CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) numerical analysis has been carried out. A conformal structured moving mesh generated by an in-house code SCORG was applied for the rotor domain. The VOF (Volume of Fluid) Method has been adopted for dealing with the liquid-gas two-phase flow, while the bubble dynamics was handled by a homogenous cavitation model. By changing the rotation speed and discharge pressure, the intensity, distribution area and variation of cavitation at different rotor angle were obtained. The effects of rotation speed and discharge pressure on cavitation characteristics have been analysed. Calculation results with cavitation model are compared with the results without cavitation and the experimentally obtained values. The influence of cavitation on the performance of a screw pump in terms of the mass flow rate, pressure distribution, rotor torque and the shaft power have been analysed and discussed

Electrical & Catalytic Properties of Lithium Doped Molybdenum Trioxide

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