Experimental Study: Effects of the Annulus’ Center Body End Shape on the Performance of Low Mach Number Air-Air Ejector With Entraining Diffuser

Author(s):  
A. Namet-Allah ◽  
A. M. Birk

In the present paper, an experimental investigation of the performance of a low mach number round straight air-air ejector with a 4-ring entraining diffuser is reported. The ejector system was mounted on an annular flow wind tunnel. Based on the hydraulic diameter and average velocity and temperature at the nozzle exit, the tunnel provides cold flow at Mach 0.2 with a Reynolds number of 5.2×105 and hot flow at Mach 0.27 with a Reynolds number of 2.6×105. The end shape of the annulus’ center body has major effects on the core separation size and shape that strongly affects the ejector performance. The effects of the annulus’ center body with elliptical and square ends on the ejector pumping, wall static pressure distribution and back pressure were investigated under different flow temperatures and swirl angles: 0°, 10°, 20°, and 30°. These measurements were conducted at 129 mm standoff distance using two different nozzle exit diameters. It was found that for both nozzle exit diameters, using the annulus’ center body with a square end improved the total pumping ratio over its ratio with an elliptical end due to the flatness of the core separation at the nozzle exits. For all configurations tested, the maximum entrainment ratio was observed with 20° swirl angle and the back pressure coefficient decreased as swirl angle increased. Removing the elliptical end, creating the square shape, the flow has more space to spread after the annulus’ center body to give the higher centerline velocity which enhances the flow uniformity at the nozzle and diffuser exits.

Author(s):  
A. Namet-Allah ◽  
A. M. Birk

The core flow separation in air-air ejectors is significantly affected by the length of the exhaust nozzle. This length was changed by moving the annulus’ center body end 4, 7, and 12 cm upstream and 1 cm downstream of the nozzle inlet. The velocity profiles at the nozzle exit were measured at different mass flow rates and at 10, 20 and 30 degree swirl angles. These measurements were also conducted at two annulus’ center body end positions with elliptical and square shapes, 12 and 7 cm upstream of the nozzle inlet, using two nozzle exit diameters. At 4, 7, and 12 cm upstream and 1 cm downstream of the nozzle inlet, the ejector performance was also measured at ambient temperature and at different flow swirl angles. It was found that the square shape of the annulus’ center body decreased the size of the core flow separation behind the annulus center body compared with the elliptical shape by improving the flatness of the flow velocity at the nozzle exit under different mass flow rates, swirl angles, positions of the annulus’ center body, and nozzle exit diameters. It was seen that moving the end of the annular center body upstream has considerable effects on the size and nature of the core separation behind the annulus’ center body and consequently on the ejector performance. At a zero swirl angle, the ejector pumping ratio slightly increased, decreased, and then increased again by moving the annulus’ center body from 12 cm to 7 cm upstream, from 7 cm to 4 cm upstream, and from 4 cm upstream to 1 cm downstream of the nozzle inlet respectively. These changes in the annulus’ center body position caused the back pressure coefficient to decrease, increase, and then increase again. The same trend in pumping ratio and back pressure was observed for both 10 and 20 degree flow swirl angle conditions when the annulus’ center body was moved as described.


Author(s):  
A. Namet-Allah ◽  
A. M. Birk

The current paper presents a cold flow simulation study of a low Mach number air-air ejector with a four ring entraining diffuser that is used in a variety of applications including infrared (IR) suppression of exhaust from helicopters and fixed wing aircraft. The main objectives of this investigation were to identify key issues that must be addressed in successful CFD modelling of such devices, and recognize opportunities to improve the performance of these devices. Two-dimensional CFD simulations were carried out using commercial software, Ansys14. Studies of mesh and domain size sensitivity were made to ensure the CFD results were independent of both factors. A turbulence model independence study using k-ε, k-ω and RSM turbulence models was performed to figure out the appropriate turbulence model that produced the best agreement with the experimental data for several of ejector performance criteria. The measured flow properties in the annulus were used as input boundary conditions for the CFD simulations. However, in the comprehensive turbulence model study, the measured flow parameters at the nozzle exit were also applied as inlet boundary conditions for the CFD simulations. The measured flow velocity at the nozzle exit, at one centerline section inside the mixing tube and at the diffuser exit and the system pressure recovery were compared with the CFD predictions. The ejector pumping ratios, back pressure coefficient and diffuser gap velocities were also compared. It was found that the RANS-based CFD predictions were sensitive to the changes in the ejector domain size, mesh refinement and inlet boundary condition locations. With the annulus inlet boundary conditions, the tested turbulence models under predicted the size of the core separation downstream of the system, back pressure, pumping ratio and pressure recovery in the mixing tube and diffuser. However, the ability of the RNG turbulence model to predict the ejector performance parameters was better than that of the other turbulence models at all inlet flow conditions. Nevertheless, applying the inlet boundary conditions at the nozzle exit enhanced the capability of the RANS-based turbulence model particularly in predicting the ejector pumping ratios, pressure recovery and the size of the core separation. Finally, the acceptable agreement between the experimental data and the CFD predictions provides a valid tool to continue improving these devices using CFD techniques.


Author(s):  
Tianlai Gu ◽  
Shuai Zhang ◽  
Yao Zheng

Numerical analysis was conducted of a jaws inlet under different working conditions, including angles of attack of 0° and 3°, varying Mach number, and varying back pressure with a constant-area isolator, to investigate its performance and flow fields of starting and unstarting states. Results reveal that the jaws inlet has an enhanced flow capture capability in starting states, with the mass capture ratio higher than 0.96, but relatively reduced working range of inflow Mach numbers. Its performance at a low Mach number is better than that at a high Mach number. Non-uniform flow fields are observed in unstarting cases at low Mach numbers and high back pressures, while separation structures are confined in the pitching compression section. Further increase in Mach number or decrease in back pressure does not result in significant changes in the separation structures. In the unstarting case under a high back pressure, it is hard to achieve restarting through reductions in the back pressure.


1963 ◽  
Vol 67 (628) ◽  
pp. 227-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. L. Bore ◽  
A. T. Boyd

Summary:A semi-empirical method is given, together with systematic data sufficient for estimating the maximum lift characteristics of wings at Mach numbers below 0·6. The method gives the effect of sweep, aspect ratio, taper ratio, camber, leading-edge radius, maximum-thickness position and Reynolds number. The accuracy is good for most wings at full-scale Reynolds numbers, but deteriorates for wings with trailing-edge angles greater than about 12° (which for conventional sections correspond with thickness/chord ratios about 0·140), and for heavily cambered sections.


Author(s):  
K. Kusano ◽  
K. Yamada ◽  
M. Furukawa

Lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) has a potential to simulate airfoil self-noise with low Mach number flow including turbulent flow and aerodynamic feedback loops. In this study, the computational techniques concerning LBM were developed toward direct numerical simulation of aeroacoustic fields with low Mach number. For applications of multi-scale phenomena such as flow and acoustic fields, multi-scale model was introduced, which enables to use locally refined grids. The grids were efficiently arranged using the Building-Cube Method (BCM) by dividing the computational domain into multiple blocks with various grid sizes. Furthermore, the zonal DNS and LES approach was adopted to suppress the numerical instability in the region of coarse grids. The grid dependency of the results provided by the present numerical method was investigated by two-dimensional simulations of flow fields around a NACA0012 airfoil using four different grids. Furthermore, a three-dimensional simulation of flow around a NACA0018 airfoil with moderate Reynolds number was conducted. The computational results were compared and have a good agreement with the experimental ones. The present method can simulate flow around airfoil with moderate Reynolds number involving the laminar-to-turbulent transition.


2005 ◽  
Vol 4 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 21-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Young J. Moon ◽  
J. H. Seo

A set of perturbed compressible equations(PCE), based on a hydrodynamic/acoustic splitting method, is proposed for aeroacoustic noise prediction of low Mach number viscous flows. The present formulation corrects the deficiency of previous splitting methods that have no control over the coupling effects between the incompressible vorticity and the perturbed velocities. The validation test shows that the present PCE solution is in excellent agreement with those of direct acoustic numerical simulation(DaNS) and Curle's acoustic analogy for a laminar dipole tone from a 2D circular cylinder at Reynolds number based on the cylinder diameter, ReD=200 and free stream Mach number, M∞ = 0.3. Computational efficiency and accuracy requirements for PCE are also investigated for a vortex scattering noise from the trailing-edge of a thin plate at Reynolds number based on the plate thickness, Reh= 2000 and M∞ = 0.3. The test results indicate that the computational efficiency can be achieved with an acoustic grid at lower resolution, as long as the projection quality of the total derivative of the incompressible pressure, DP/Dt field is retained.


2006 ◽  
Vol 129 (1) ◽  
pp. 100-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali M. Jawarneh ◽  
P. Sakaris ◽  
Georgios H. Vatistas

This paper presents experimental and analytical results concerning the pressure drop and the core size in vortex chambers. The new formulation is based on the conservation of mass and energy integral equations and takes into account the presence of two outlet ports. The diminishing vortex strength is introduced through the vortex decay factor. The influence of vortex chamber geometry, such as diameter ratio, aspect ratio, and Reynolds number, on the flow field have been examined and compared with the present experimental data. It is shown that the presence of the swirl velocity component makes the pressure drop across a vortex chamber significantly different than the familiar unidirectional pipe flow. When the chamber length is increased, the vortex diminishes under the action of friction, producing a weaker centrifugal force which leads to a further pressure drop. It is revealed that by increasing the Reynolds number, the cores expand resulting into a larger pressure coefficient. For a double-outlet chamber where the flow is divided into two streams, the last parameter is found to be less than that of a single-outlet.


2015 ◽  
Vol 137 (9) ◽  
Author(s):  
D. J. Cerantola ◽  
A. M. Birk

Square tabs were placed on the base of an ellipsoidal center-body (CB) in short annular diffusers. Tests were conducted in subsonic swirling flow with an inlet Reynolds number of 1 × 105. The tabs, with a projected height equivalent to the boundary layer thickness, reduced the outlet distortion and incurred a pressure penalty in the three smaller diffusers whose designs were not expected to stall. The largest area ratio (AR = 6.18) diffuser improved back pressure coefficient 4.6% with four tabs that blocked 4.7% of the inlet cross section over its bare diffuser but was 42% lower than that obtained by the AR = 2.73 diffuser with no tabs. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was useful for capturing relevant flow features that corroborated with experimental data and literature. Tabs oriented normal to the diffuser axis were less effective at influencing the flow as swirl angle increased but similar elongated wakes oriented with the flow direction were observed at all simulated swirl angles. The CFD either predicted equivalent performance due to the over-prediction associated with diffusion equaling the under-prediction associated with vorticity or over-predicted performance.


Author(s):  
D. J. Cerantola ◽  
A. M. Birk

Square tabs were placed on the base of an ellipsoidal centre body in annular diffusers with length to inlet height of 12. Tests were completed with an inlet Reynolds number of 1 × 105, swirl number of 0.71, and inlet flow blockage of 0.02–0.04. Four outer walls were manufactured with area ratios of 1.61, 1.91, 2.73, and 6.18. The tabs with a projected height equivalent to the boundary layer thickness were effective at reducing the outlet distortion but at a pressure penalty for the three smaller diffusers. The largest diffuser improved back pressure coefficient 4.6% with four tabs providing a blockage of 4.7% over its bare diffuser but was 42% lower than that obtained by the AR = 2.73 diffuser with no tabs.


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