Development of a computational testbed for numerical simulation of combustion instability

A synergistic hierarchy of analytical and computational fluid dynamic techniques is used to analyze three-dimensional combustion instabilities in liquid rocket engines. A mixed finite difference/spectral procedure is employed to study the effects of a distributed vaporization zone on standing and spinning instability modes within the chamber. Droplet atomization and vaporization are treated by a variety of classical models found in the literature. A multi-zone, linearized analytical solution is used to validate the accuracy of the numerical simulations at small amplitudes for a distributed vaporization region. This comparison indicates excellent amplitude and phase agreement under both stable and unstable operating conditions when amplitudes are small and proper grid resolution is used. As amplitudes get larger, expected nonlinearities are observed. The effect of liquid droplet temperature fluctuations was found to be of critical importance in driving the instabilities of the combustion chamber

Efficiency and reliability enhancements in propulsion flowfield modeling

The implementation of traditional CFD algorithms in practical propulsion related flowfields often leads to dramatic reductions in efficiency and/or robustness. The present research is directed at understanding the reasons for this deterioration and finding methods to circumvent it. Work to date has focussed on low Mach number regions, viscous dominated regions, and high grid aspect ratios. Time derivative preconditioning, improved definition of the local time stepping, and appropriate application of boundary conditions are employed to decrease the required time to obtain a solution, while maintaining accuracy. A number of cases having features typical of rocket engine flowfields are computed to demonstrate the improvement over conventional methods. These cases include laminar and turbulent high Reynolds number flat plate boundary layers, flow over a backward-facing step, a diffusion flame, and wall heat-flux calculations in a turbulent converging-diverging nozzle. Results from these cases show convergence that is virtually independent of the local Mach number and the grid aspect ratio, which translates to a convergence speed-up of up to several orders of magnitude over conventional algorithms. Current emphasis is in extending these results to three-dimensional flows with highly stretched grids

Fundamental Phenomena on Fuel Decomposition and Boundary-Layer Combustion Precesses with Applications to Hybrid Rocket Motors

This final report summarizes the major findings on the subject of 'Fundamental Phenomena on Fuel Decomposition and Boundary-Layer Combustion Processes with Applications to Hybrid Rocket Motors', performed from 1 April 1994 to 30 June 1996. Both experimental results from Task 1 and theoretical/numerical results from Task 2 are reported here in two parts. Part 1 covers the experimental work performed and describes the test facility setup, data reduction techniques employed, and results of the test firings, including effects of operating conditions and fuel additives on solid fuel regression rate and thermal profiles of the condensed phase. Part 2 concerns the theoretical/numerical work. It covers physical modeling of the combustion processes including gas/surface coupling, and radiation effect on regression rate. The numerical solution of the flowfield structure and condensed phase regression behavior are presented. Experimental data from the test firings were used for numerical model validation

Application of Preconditioned, Multiple-Species, Navier-Stokes Models to Cavitating Flows

A preconditioned, homogenous, multiphase, Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes model with mass transfer is presented. Liquid, vapor, and noncondensable gas phases are included. The model is preconditioned in order to obtain good convergence and accuracy regardless of phasic density ratio or flow velocity. Both incompressible and finite-acoustic-speed models are presented. Engineering relevant validative and demonstrative unsteady and transient two and three-dimensional results are given. Transients due to unsteady cavitating flow including shock waves are captured. In modeling axisymmetric cavitators at zero angle-of-attack with 3-D unsteady RANS, significant asymmetric flow features are obtained. In comparison with axisymmetric unsteady RANS, capture of these features leads to improved agreement with experimental data. Conditions when such modeling is not necessary are also demonstrated and identified

Algorithmic Enhancements for Unsteady Aerodynamics and Combustion Applications

Research in the FY01 focused on the analysis and development of enhanced algorithms for unsteady aerodynamics and chemically reacting flowfields. The research was performed in support of NASA Ames' efforts to improve the capabilities of the in-house computational fluid dynamics code, OVERFLOW. Specifically, the research was focused on the four areas: (1) investigation of stagnation region effects; (2) unsteady preconditioning dual-time procedures; (3) dissipation formulation for combustion; and (4) time-stepping methods for combustion

AIAA 2001-0279 Preconditioning Algorithms for the Computation of Multi-Phase Mixture Flows Preconditioning Algorithms for the Computation of Multi-Phase Mixture Flows

presence of shocks, although the bulk of the flow may remain incompressible. This situation presents a unique challenge to the design of CFD algorithms. The development of appropriate numerical schemes for such multi-phase problems is the subject of the present paper. There are many levels of modeling that may be utilized in multi-phase computations The crucial requirement of multiphase algorithms is the ability to accurately and efficiently span both incompressible and compressible flow regimes. For singlephase applications, time-marching techniques have long been established as the method of choice for high-speed compressible flows, while artificial compressibility or preconditioning techniques have enabled the extension of these methods to the incompressible and low-speed compressible regimes ABSTRACT Preconditioned time-marching algorithms are developed for a class of isothermal compressible multi-phase mixture flows, relevant to the modeling of sheet-and super-cavitating flows in hydrodynamic applications. Using the volume fraction and mass fraction forms of the multi-phase governing equations, three closely related but distinct preconditioning forms are derived. The resulting algorithm is incorporated within an existing multi-phase code and several representative solutions are obtained to demonstrate the capabilities of the method. Comparisons with measurement data suggest that the compressible formulation provides an improved description of the cavitation dynamics compared with previous incompressible computations

Unsteady Computations of a Jet in a Crossflow with Ground Effect

A numerical study of a jet in crossflow with ground effect is conducted using OVERFLOW with dual time-stepping and low Mach number preconditioning. The results of the numerical study are compared to an experiment to show that the numerical methods are capable of capturing the dominant features of the flow field as well as the unsteadiness associated with the ground vortex

Implementation of Preconditioned Dual-Time Procedures in OVERFLOW

Preconditioning methods have become the method of choice for the solution of flowfields involving the simultaneous presence of low Mach and transonic regions. It is well known that these methods are important for insuring accurate numerical discretization as well as convergence efficiency over various operating conditions such as low Mach number, low Reynolds number and high Strouhal numbers. For unsteady problems, the preconditioning is introduced within a dual-time framework wherein the physical time-derivatives are used to march the unsteady equations and the preconditioned time-derivatives are used for purposes of numerical discretization and iterative solution. In this paper, we describe the implementation of the preconditioned dual-time methodology in the OVERFLOW code. To demonstrate the performance of the method, we employ both simple and practical unsteady flowfields, including vortex propagation in a low Mach number flow, flowfield of an impulsively started plate (Stokes' first problem) arid a cylindrical jet in a low Mach number crossflow with ground effect. All the results demonstrate that the preconditioning algorithm is responsible for improvements to both numerical accuracy and convergence efficiency and, thereby, enables low Mach number unsteady computations to be performed at a fraction of the cost of traditional time-marching methods