Heat and Mass Transfer Technological Center

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A level-set method for thermal motion of bubbles and droplets

Published under licence in Journal of Physics: Conference Series by IOP Publishing Ltd. Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.A conservative level-set model for direct simulation of two-phase flows with thermocapillary effects at dynamically deformable interface is presented. The Navier-Stokes equations coupled with the energy conservation equation are solved by means of a finite-volume/level-set method. Some numerical examples including thermocapillary motion of single and multiple fluid particles are computed by means of the present method. The results are compared with analytical solutions and numerical results from the literature as validations of the proposed model.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

An efficient Two-Layer wall model for accurate numerical simulations of aeronautical applications

Two-Layer wall models have been widely studied since they allow wall modeled Large Eddy Simulationsof general non-equilibrium flows. However, they are plagued by two persistent problems, the "log-layermismatch" and the resolved Reynolds stresses inflow. Several methodologies have been proposed so far todeal with these problems separately. In this work, a time-filtering methodology is used to tackle both issuesat once with a single and low-computational-cost step, easily applicable to complex three-dimensionalgeometries. Additionally, it is shown that the techniques intended to suppress the Reynolds stresses inflowproposed so far, were not sufficient to completely mitigate their detrimental effects.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Direct numerical simulation of multiphase flows with unstable interfaces

Published under licence in Journal of Physics: Conference Series by IOP Publishing Ltd. Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.This paper presents a numerical model that intends to simulate efficiently the surface instability that arise in multiphase flows, typically liquid-gas, both for laminar or turbulent regimes. The model is developed on the in-house computing platform TermoFluids , and operates the finite-volume, direct numerical simulation (DNS) of multiphase flows by means of a conservative level-set method for the interface-capturing. The mesh size is optimized by means of an adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) strategy, that allows the dynamic re-concentration of the mesh in the vicinity of the interfaces between fluids, in order to correctly represent the diverse structures (as ligaments and droplets) that may rise from unstable phenomena. In addition, special attention is given to the discretization of the various terms of the momentum equations, to ensure stability of the flow and correct representation of turbulent vortices. As shown, the method is capable of truthfully simulate the interface phenomena as the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability and the Plateau-Rayleigh instability, both in the case of 2-D and 3-D configurations. Therefore it is suitable for the simulation of complex phenomena such as simulation of air-blast atomization, with several important application in the field of automotive and aerospace engines. A prove is given by our preliminary study of the 3-D coaxial liquid-gas jet.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Partitioned semi-implicit methods for simulation of biomechanical fluid-structure interaction problems

This article is published under a CC BY licence. The Version of Record is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/745/3/032020.This paper represents numerical simulation of fluid-structure interaction (FSI) system involving an incompressible viscous fluid and a lightweight elastic structure. We follow a semi-implicit approach in which we implicitly couple the added-mass term (pressure stress) of the fluid to the structure, while other terms are coupled explicitly. This significantly reduces the computational cost of the simulations while showing adequate stability. Several coupling schemes are tested including fixed-point method with different static and dynamic relaxation, as well as Newton-Krylov method with approximated Jacobian. Numerical tests are conducted in the context of a biomechanical problem. Results indicate that the Newton-Krylov solver outperforms fixed point ones while introducing more complexity to the problem due to the evaluation of the Jacobian. Fixed-point solver with Aitken's relaxation method also proved to be a simple, yet efficient method for FSI simulations.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Parallel load balancing strategy for Volume-of-Fluid methods on 3-D unstructured meshes

© 2016. This version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/l Volume-of-Fluid (VOF) is one of the methods of choice to reproduce the interface motion in the simulation of multi-fluid flows. One of its main strengths is its accuracy in capturing sharp interface geometries, although requiring for it a number of geometric calculations. Under these circumstances, achieving parallel performance on current supercomputers is a must. The main obstacle for the parallelization is that the computing costs are concentrated only in the discrete elements that lie on the interface between fluids. Consequently, if the interface is not homogeneously distributed throughout the domain, standard domain decomposition (DD) strategies lead to imbalanced workload distributions. In this paper, we present a new parallelization strategy for general unstructured VOF solvers, based on a dynamic load balancing process complementary to the underlying DD. Its parallel efficiency has been analyzed and compared to the DD one using up to 1024 CPU-cores on an Intel SandyBridge based supercomputer. The results obtained on the solution of several artificially generated test cases show a speedup of up to similar to 12x with respect to the standard DD, depending on the interface size, the initial distribution and the number of parallel processes engaged. Moreover, the new parallelization strategy presented is of general purpose, therefore, it could be used to parallelize any VOF solver without requiring changes on the coupled flow solver. Finally, note that although designed for the VOF method, our approach could be easily adapted to other interface-capturing methods, such as the Level-Set, which may present similar workload imbalances. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. Allrights reserved.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Numerical Investigation on fluid flow of protruding branching duct in a dividing junction of a minichannel heat exchanger

This study focuses on investigating the effect of protruding branching duct on laminar fluid field in 90¿ dividing pipe junction of mini heat exchanger. The ducts under study, main and branch side, are of minichannel scale where the corresponding diameters are 3.96 and 1.6 mm respectively. First, numerical validations are given based on the experimental measurements of Cho et al. [1] for the case of non-protruding branching duct (h=0, ß ¿0) and also comparing with Poiseuille flow for nonprotruding case with no flow in the branch side (h=0, ß=0) where good agreements were found in each case. Second, the degree of protrusion in pipe branching duct is characterized studying and analyzing two cases of protrusions (h = D1/4 and h = D1/2). The effects of branching flow rate ratio ß on local pressure changes and the velocity profile are presented and examined in both main and branching ducts. Finally, the influence of the extent of protruded branch on velocity field and the local pressure drop are documented as expected. The results shown a strong effect of protrusion on hydrodynamic flow.Postprint (published version

Direct numerical simulation of backward-facing step flow at Ret = 395 and expansion ratio 2

Backward-facing step (BFS) constitutes a canonical configuration to study wallbounded flows subject to massive expansions produced by abrupt changes in geometry. Recirculation flow regions are common in this type of flow, driving the separated flow to its downstream reattachment. Consequently, strong adverse pressure gradients arise through this process, feeding flow instabilities. Therefore, both phenomena are strongly correlated as the recirculation bubble shape defines how the flow is expanded, and how the pressure rises. In an incompressible flow, this shape depends on the Reynolds value and the expansion ratio. The influence of these two variables on the bubble length is widely studied, presenting an asymptotic behaviour when both parameters are beyond a certain threshold. This is the usual operating point of many practical applications, such as in aeronautical and environmental engineering. Several numerical and experimental studies have been carried out regarding this topic. The existing simulations considering cases beyond the above-mentioned threshold have only been achieved through turbulence modelling, whereas direct numerical simulations (DNS) have been performed only at low Reynolds numbers. Hence, despite the great importance of achieving this threshold, there is a lack of reliable numerical data to assess the accuracy of turbulence models. In this context, a DNS of an incompressible flow over a BFS is presented in this paper, considering a friction Reynolds number (Reτ) of 395 at the inflow and an expansion ratio 2. Finally, the elongation of the Kelvin–Helmholtz instabilities along the shear layer is also studied.Postprint (published version

Numerical and experimental investigation of a vertical LiBr falling film absorber considering wave regimes and in presence of mist flow

The absorber represents the most critical component in absorption systems and one of the key issues. In this component complex heat and mass transfer phenomena during the absorption process takes place simultaneously. For this reason the development of mathematical models validated against experimental data always constitutes useful tools for the design and improvement of falling film absorbers. A testing device has been designed and built to reproduce absorption phenomena in vertical LiBr-H2O falling film absorbers with the primary objective to obtain experimental data. On the other hand, a mathematical model of falling film absorption of H2O vapour in LiBr aqueous solutions has been implemented. Wave regime is considered by including and solving the Free Surface Deflection Equation. The numerical results are validated using the experimental data. During the development of this work, the authors have paid careful attention to the verification of experimental data. Such verification consists of performing energy and mass balances in the fluid film side. Important discrepancies were found in our experimental data. Therefore, an extensive study was carried out in order to find the source of such errors. The conclusion is that there is a drag of LiBr solution in the water vapour which increases with the Re number. This mist flow cannot be measured experimentally, but can be evaluated in an indirect way. The mathematical models have been adapted in order to consider the influence of mist flow. On the other hand, in the literature there are not many experimental works related to falling film absorbers which expose enough information to verify the reliability of their experimental data.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

A level-set model for thermocapillary motion of deformable fluid particles

A new level-set model is proposed for simulating immiscible thermocapillary flows with variable fluid-property ratios at dynamically deformable interfaces. The Navier–Stokes equations coupled with the energy conservation equation are solved by means of a finite-volume/level-set approach, adapted to a multiple marker methodology in order to avoid the numerical coalescence of the fluid particles. The temperature field is coupled to the surface tension through an equation of state. Some numerical examples including thermocapillary driven convection in two superimposed fluid layers, and thermocapillary motion of single and multiple fluid particles are computed using the present method. These results are compared against analytical solutions and numerical results from the literature as validations of the proposed model.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft