A primitive variable, strongly implicit calculation procedure for two and three-dimensional unsteady viscous flows: applications to compressible and incompressible flows including flows with free surfaces

A coupled solution procedure is described for solving the time-dependent Navier-Stokes equations in body-fitted nonorthogonal curvilinear coordinates for both compressible and incompressible flows in two and three dimensions;For the two-dimensional compressible form of equations, this approach employs the strong conservation law form of the governing equations but uses primitive variables (u, v, p, T) rather than the more traditional conservative variables ([rho], [rho]u, [rho][upsilon], E[subscript]t) as unknowns. A coupled modified strongly implicit procedure (CMSIP) is used to efficiently solve the Newton-linearized algebraic equations. It appears that this procedure is effective for Mach numbers ranging from the incompressible limit (M[subscript][infinity]~ 0.01) to supersonic. Generally, smoothing was not needed to control spatial oscillations in pressure for subsonic flows despite the use of central differences. Dual time stepping was found to further accelerate convergence for steady flows. Sample calculations, including steady and unsteady low Mach number internal and external flows and a steady shock-boundary layer interaction flow, illustrate the capability of the present solution algorithm;For three-dimensional incompressible liquid flows with the presence of free surfaces, this approach, coupled with the artificial compressibility method, is used to solve the Newton-linearized algebraic equations for the primitive variables (u, [upsilon], w, p). A true unsteady three-dimensional flow simulation has been obtained for liquid sloshing flow in a partially filled spherical container undergoing a general motion characteristic of that experienced by a spin-stabilized satellite. It appears that this unified approach can handle compressible and incompressible flows very effectively

Spray combustion experiments and numerical predictions

The next generation of commercial aircraft will include turbofan engines with performance significantly better than those in the current fleet. Control of particulate and gaseous emissions will also be an integral part of the engine design criteria. These performance and emission requirements present a technical challenge for the combustor: control of the fuel and air mixing and control of the local stoichiometry will have to be maintained much more rigorously than with combustors in current production. A better understanding of the flow physics of liquid fuel spray combustion is necessary. This paper describes recent experiments on spray combustion where detailed measurements of the spray characteristics were made, including local drop-size distributions and velocities. Also, an advanced combustor CFD code has been under development and predictions from this code are compared with experimental results. Studies such as these will provide information to the advanced combustor designer on fuel spray quality and mixing effectiveness. Validation of new fast, robust, and efficient CFD codes will also enable the combustor designer to use them as additional design tools for optimization of combustor concepts for the next generation of aircraft engines

Application of Chimera Grid Scheme to Combustor Flowfields at all Speeds

A CFD method for solving combustor flowfields at all speeds on complex configurations is presented. The approach is based on the ALLSPD-3D code which uses the compressible formulation of the flow equations including real gas effects, nonequilibrium chemistry and spray combustion. To facilitate the analysis of complex geometries, the chimera grid method is utilized. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first application of the chimera scheme to reacting flows. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of this numerical approach, several benchmark calculations of subsonic flows are presented. These include steady and unsteady flows, and bluff-body stabilized spray and premixed combustion flames

Computation of Reacting Flows in Combustion Processes

The main objective of this research was to develop an efficient three-dimensional computer code for chemically reacting flows. The main computer code developed is ALLSPD-3D. The ALLSPD-3D computer program is developed for the calculation of three-dimensional, chemically reacting flows with sprays. The ALL-SPD code employs a coupled, strongly implicit solution procedure for turbulent spray combustion flows. A stochastic droplet model and an efficient method for treatment of the spray source terms in the gas-phase equations are used to calculate the evaporating liquid sprays. The chemistry treatment in the code is general enough that an arbitrary number of reaction and species can be defined by the users. Also, it is written in generalized curvilinear coordinates with both multi-block and flexible internal blockage capabilities to handle complex geometries. In addition, for general industrial combustion applications, the code provides both dilution and transpiration cooling capabilities. The ALLSPD algorithm, which employs the preconditioning and eigenvalue rescaling techniques, is capable of providing efficient solution for flows with a wide range of Mach numbers. Although written for three-dimensional flows in general, the code can be used for two-dimensional and axisymmetric flow computations as well. The code is written in such a way that it can be run in various computer platforms (supercomputers, workstations and parallel processors) and the GUI (Graphical User Interface) should provide a user-friendly tool in setting up and running the code

The Linehaul-Feeder Vehicle Routing Problem with Virtual Depots and Time Windows

This paper addresses the linehaul-feeder vehicle routing problem with virtual depots and time windows (LFVRPTW). Small and large vehicles deliver services to customers within time constraints; small vehicles en route may reload commodities from either the physical depot or from the larger vehicle at a virtual depot before continuing onward. A two-stage solution heuristic involving Tabu search is proposed to solve this problem. The test results show that the LFVRPTW performs better than the vehicle routing problem with time windows in terms of both objective value and the number of small vehicles dispatched

Spray Combustion Experiments and Numerical Predictions

The next generation of commercial aircraft will include turbofan engines with performances significantly better than those in the current fleet. Control of particulate and gaseous emissions will also be an integral part of the engine design criteria. These performance and emission requirements present a technical challenge for the combustor: control of the fuel and air mixing and control of the local stoichiometry will have to be maintained much more rigorously than combustors in current production. A better understanding of the flow physics of liquid fuel spray combustion is necessary. This presentation describes recent experiments on spray combustion where detailed measurements of the spray characteristics were made, including local drop-size distributions and velocities. In addition, an advanced combustor CFD code has been under development and predictions from this code are presented and compared with measurements. Studies such as these will provide information to the advanced combustor designer on fuel spray quality and mixing effectiveness. Validation of new fast, robust, and efficient CFD codes will also enable the combustor designer to use them as valuable design tools for optimization of combustor concepts for the next generation of aircraft engines

Real-Time Vehicle Routing for Repairing Damaged Infrastructures Due to Natural Disasters

We address the task of repairing damaged infrastructures as a series of multidepot vehicle-routing problems with time windows in a time-rolling frame. The network size of the tackled problems changes from time to time, as new disaster nodes will be added to and serviced disaster nodes will be deleted from the current network. In addition, an inaccessible disaster node would become accessible when one of its adjacent disaster nodes has been repaired. By the “take-and-conquer” strategy, the repair sequence of the disaster nodes in the affected area can be suitably scheduled. Thirteen instances were tested with our proposed heuristic, that is, Chen et al.'s approach. For comparison, Hsueh et al.'s approach (2008) with necessary modification was also tested. The results show that Chen et al.'s approach performs slightly better for larger size networks in terms of objective value