Occurrence of Bubbles in a Thin Wire at Low Reynolds Number

1992 ◽  
Vol 114 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Sato

Thin wires of various diameters from 0.07 to 0.7 mm are examined about appearances and characteristics of bubble occurrence behind them in the range of low Reynolds numbers. The appearance of bubbles is very dependent on diameters of wires. Two different types of bubbles can be observed in the present experiment. One is a streamer-type bubble for smaller wires and the other is a small unspherical bubble for larger wires. The incipient and the desinent values of cavitation number also change greatly with the bubble types. The streamer-type bubble is related to the presence of laminar separation zone and the growth due to air diffusion. The small unspherical bubble can be mainly attributed to the motion of rolled-up vortices and the growth due to vaporization.

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (6) ◽  
pp. 621
Author(s):  
Veerapathiran Thangaraj Gopinathan ◽  
John Bruce Ralphin Rose ◽  
Mohanram Surya

Aerodynamic efficiency of an airplane wing can be improved either by increasing its lift generation tendency or by reducing the drag. Recently, Bio-inspired designs have been received greater attention for the geometric modifications of airplane wings. One of the bio-inspired designs contains sinusoidal Humpback Whale (HW) tubercles, i.e., protuberances exist at the wing leading edge (LE). The tubercles have excellent flow control characteristics at low Reynolds numbers. The present work describes about the effect of tubercles on swept back wing performance at various Angle of Attack (AoA). NACA 0015 and NACA 4415 airfoils are used for swept back wing design with sweep angle about 30°. The modified wings (HUMP 0015 A, HUMP 0015 B, HUMP 4415 A, HUMP 4415 B) are designed with two amplitude to wavelength ratios (η) of 0.1 & 0.24 for the performance analysis. It is a novel effort to analyze the tubercle vortices along the span that induce additional flow energy especially, behind the tubercles peak and trough region. Subsequently, Co-efficient of Lift (CL), Co-efficient of Drag (CD) and boundary layer pressure gradients also predicted for modified and baseline (smooth LE) models in the pre & post-stall regimes. It was observed that the tubercles increase the performance of swept back wings by the enhanced CL/CD ratio in the pre-stall AoA region. Interestingly, the flow separation region behind the centerline of tubercles and formation of Laminar Separation Bubbles (LSB) were asymmetric because of the sweep.


Author(s):  
Jenny Baumann ◽  
Ulrich Rist ◽  
Martin Rose ◽  
Tobias Ries ◽  
Stephan Staudacher

The reduction of blade counts in the LP turbine is one possibility to cut down weight and therewith costs. At low Reynolds numbers the suction side laminar boundary layer of high lift LP turbine blades tends to separate and hence cause losses in turbine performance. To limit these losses, the control of laminar separation bubbles has been the subject of many studies in recent years. A project is underway at the University of Stuttgart that aims to suppress laminar separation at low Reynolds numbers (60,000) by means of actuated transition. In an experiment a separating flow is influenced by disturbances, small in amplitude and of a certain frequency, which are introduced upstream of the separation point. Small existing disturbances are therewith amplified, leading to earlier transition and a more stable boundary layer. The separation bubble thus gets smaller without need of a high air mass flow as for steady blowing or pulsed vortex generating jets. Frequency and amplitude are the parameters of actuation. The non-dimensional actuation frequency is varied from 0.2 to 0.5, whereas the normalized amplitude is altered between 5, 10 and 25% of the free stream velocity. Experimental investigations are made by means of PIV and hot wire measurements. Disturbed flow fields will be compared to an undisturbed one. The effectiveness of the presented boundary layer control will be compared to those of conventional ones. Phase-logged data will give an impression of the physical processes in the actuated flow.


Author(s):  
Dongli Ma ◽  
Guanxiong Li ◽  
Muqing Yang ◽  
Shaoqi Wang

Laminar separation and transition have significant effects on aerodynamic characteristics of the wing under the condition of low Reynolds numbers. Using the flow control methods to delay and eliminate laminar separation has great significance. This study uses the method combined with water tunnel test and numerical calculation to research the effects of suction flow control on the flow state and aerodynamic force of the wing at low Reynolds numbers. The effects of suction flow rate and suction location on laminar separation, transition and aerodynamic performance of the wing are further researched. The results of the research show that, the suction can control laminar separation and transition effectively, when the suction holes are in the interior of the separation bubble, and close to the separation point, the suction has the best control effect. When the Reynolds number is Re = 3.0 × 105, the suction flow control can make the lift-to-drag ratio of the wing increase by 8.62%, and the aerodynamic characteristics of the wing are improved effectively.


2018 ◽  
Vol 851 ◽  
pp. 715-738 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mehdi Jabbarzadeh ◽  
Henry Chien Fu

Microorganisms must approach other suspended organisms or particles in order to interact with them during a host of life processes including feeding and mating. Microorganisms live at low Reynolds number where viscosity dominates and strongly affects the hydrodynamics of swimmer and nearby cells and objects. Viscous hydrodynamics makes it difficult for two surfaces to approach closely at low Reynolds numbers. Nonetheless, it is observed that microorganisms in fluid are still able to approach closely enough to interact with each other or suspended particles. Here, we study how the physical constraints provided by viscous hydrodynamics affects the feasibility of direct approach of flagellated and ciliated microorganisms to targets of different sizes. We find that it is feasible for singly flagellated swimmers to approach targets that are the same size or bigger. On the other hand, for squirmers, the feasibility of approach depends on near-field flows that can be controlled by the details of their swimming strokes.


Author(s):  
Takayuki Matsunuma ◽  
Hiroyuki Abe ◽  
Yasukata Tsutsui

The aerodynamic characteristics of turbine cascades are thought to be relatively satisfactory due to the favorable pressure of the accelerating flow. But within the low Reynolds number region of 6×104 where the 300kW ceramic gas turbines which are being developed under the New Sunshine project of Japan operate, the characteristics such as boundary layer separation, reattachment and secondary flow which lead to prominent power losses can not be easily predicted. In this research, experiments have been conducted to evaluate the performance of an annular turbine stator cascade, especially focused on the influence of inlet turbulence intensity at low Reynolds numbers. The Reynolds number, based on inlet condition, was varied from 2×104 to 12×104. The turbulence intensity was changed between 0.5% and 8.9% by setting turbulence generation sheets. The wake of the cascade was measured using a 5-hole pressure probe and a single element hot-wire anemometry. The Reynolds number was a determinative important parameter, while the turbulence intensity was found to have an insignificant effect on the overall total pressure loss of annular turbine stator at low Reynolds numbers. However, the increase in separation zone on suction surface and the decrease of passage vortices near the endwalls were observed locally with the increase in the inlet turbulence intensity. Instantaneous velocity signals proved the transformation of the flow structure in separation zone. The increase in profile loss (separation) and the decrease in net secondary loss (passage vonices) offset each other. Therefore, the net overall loss remains almost constant.


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