Materials Science in Space

1981 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. Carruthers

ABSTRACTThe preparation of solid materials involves the control and manipulation of fluids in ways that are sensitive to gravitational influences. Although these effects are pervasive, surprisingly little is understood about phenomena such as natural convection and containerless processes under boundary conditions of interest to materials processing. Recent emphasis has focused on process fundamentals involving areas such as fluid dynamics, heat flow, and thermophysical property measurement as can be seen in this Symposium. Such a knowledge base is essential to any sensible evolution of the space environment as a capability for studying materials processing and preparing limited quantities of materials under quiescent or containerless conditions for subsequent assessment on earth. A brief overview of current work will be presented, together with possible future directions.

2020 ◽  
Vol 66 (4) ◽  
pp. 773-793 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arman Shojaei ◽  
Alexander Hermann ◽  
Pablo Seleson ◽  
Christian J. Cyron

Abstract Diffusion-type problems in (nearly) unbounded domains play important roles in various fields of fluid dynamics, biology, and materials science. The aim of this paper is to construct accurate absorbing boundary conditions (ABCs) suitable for classical (local) as well as nonlocal peridynamic (PD) diffusion models. The main focus of the present study is on the PD diffusion formulation. The majority of the PD diffusion models proposed so far are applied to bounded domains only. In this study, we propose an effective way to handle unbounded domains both with PD and classical diffusion models. For the former, we employ a meshfree discretization, whereas for the latter the finite element method (FEM) is employed. The proposed ABCs are time-dependent and Dirichlet-type, making the approach easy to implement in the available models. The performance of the approach, in terms of accuracy and stability, is illustrated by numerical examples in 1D, 2D, and 3D.


Dynamics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-17
Author(s):  
Andrea Natale Impiombato ◽  
Giorgio La Civita ◽  
Francesco Orlandi ◽  
Flavia Schwarz Franceschini Zinani ◽  
Luiz Alberto Oliveira Rocha ◽  
...  

As it is known, the Womersley function models velocity as a function of radius and time. It has been widely used to simulate the pulsatile blood flow through circular ducts. In this context, the present study is focused on the introduction of a simple function as an approximation of the Womersley function in order to evaluate its accuracy. This approximation consists of a simple quadratic function, suitable to be implemented in most commercial and non-commercial computational fluid dynamics codes, without the aid of external mathematical libraries. The Womersley function and the new function have been implemented here as boundary conditions in OpenFOAM ESI software (v.1906). The discrepancy between the obtained results proved to be within 0.7%, which fully validates the calculation approach implemented here. This approach is valid when a simplified analysis of the system is pointed out, in which flow reversals are not contemplated.


Acta Numerica ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 567-679 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulrik S. Fjordholm ◽  
Siddhartha Mishra ◽  
Eitan Tadmor

A standard paradigm for the existence of solutions in fluid dynamics is based on the construction of sequences of approximate solutions or approximate minimizers. This approach faces serious obstacles, most notably in multi-dimensional problems, where the persistence of oscillations at ever finer scales prevents compactness. Indeed, these oscillations are an indication, consistent with recent theoretical results, of the possible lack of existence/uniqueness of solutions within the standard framework of integrable functions. It is in this context that Young measures – parametrized probability measures which can describe the limits of such oscillatory sequences – offer the more general paradigm of measure-valued solutions for these problems.We present viable numerical algorithms to compute approximate measure-valued solutions, based on the realization of approximate measures as laws of Monte Carlo sampled random fields. We prove convergence of these algorithms to measure-valued solutions for the equations of compressible and incompressible inviscid fluid dynamics, and present a large number of numerical experiments which provide convincing evidence for the viability of the new paradigm. We also discuss the use of these algorithms, and their extensions, in uncertainty quantification and contexts other than fluid dynamics, such as non-convex variational problems in materials science.


Author(s):  
Sunita Kruger ◽  
Leon Pretorius

In this paper, the use of computational fluid dynamics is evaluated as a design tool to investigate the indoor climate of a confined greenhouse. The finite volume method using polyhedral cells is used to solve the governing mass, momentum and energy equations. Natural convection in a cavity corresponding to a mono-span venlo-type greenhouse is numerically investigated using Computational Fluid Dynamics. The CFD model is designed so as to simulate the climate above a plant canopy in an actual multi-span greenhouse heated by solar radiation. The aim of this paper is to investigate the influence of various design parameters such as pitch angle and roof asymmetry and on the velocity and temperature patterns inside a confined single span greenhouse heated from below. In the study reported in this paper a two-dimensional CFD model was generated for the mono-span venlo-type greenhouse, and a mesh sensitivity analysis was conducted to determine the mesh independence of the solution. Similar two-dimensional flow patterns were observed in the obtained CFD results as the experimental results reported by Lamrani et al [2]. The CFD model was then modified and used to explore the effect of roof pitch angle and roof asymmetry at floor level on the development of the flow and temperature patterns inside the cavity for various Rayleigh numbers. Results are presented in the form of vector and contour plots. It was found that considerable temperature and velocity gradients were observed in the centre of the greenhouse for each case in the first 40mm above the ground, as well as in the last 24mm close to the roof. Results also indicated that the Rayleigh number did not have a significant impact on the flow and temperature patterns inside the greenhouse, although roof angle and asymmetry did. The current results demonstrate the importance of CFD as a design tool in the case of greenhouse design.


2016 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roushanara Begum ◽  
MZI Bangalee

Effects of different boundary conditions at the surfaces of the extended computational domain on buoyancy driven natural convection flow in a three dimensional open cavity are studied numerically. This study is carried out for turbulent flow where Rayleigh number is greater than 108. Air is used as working fluid having properties at 25°C temperature and 1atm pressure. To capture the turbulent nature of the flow k - ? model is used. ANSYS CFX software is used to solve the governing equations subject to the corresponding boundary conditions. The methodology is verified through a satisfactory comparison with some published results. Average mass flow, temperature, stream line, contour velocity and velocity profile are studied at different height. An extended computational domain around the physical domain of the cavity at different surrounding conditions is considered to investigate the effect of its existence on the computation. Effects of different surrounding boundary conditions on the physical domain of the cavity are studied and reported.A relation among non-dimensional parameters such as Nusselt number, Rayleigh number, Prandlt number and Reynolds number is also reported.Dhaka Univ. J. Sci. 64(1): 31-37, 2016 (January)


Author(s):  
Thomas B. Gradinger ◽  
T. Laneryd

Natural-convection cooling with oil or other fluids of high Prandtl number plays an important role in many technical applications such as transformers or other electric equipment. For design and optimization, one-dimensional (1D) flow models are of great value. A standard configuration in such models is flow between vertical parallel plates. Accurate modeling of heat transfer, buoyancy, and pressure drop for this configuration is therefore of high importance but gets challenging as the influence of buoyancy rises. For increasing ratio of Grashof to Reynolds number, the accuracy of one-dimensional models based on the locally forced-flow assumption drops. In the present work, buoyancy corrections for use in one-dimensional models are developed and verified. Based on two-dimensional (2D) simulations of buoyant flow using finite-element solver COMSOL Multiphysics, corrections are derived for the local Nusselt number, the local friction coefficient, and a parameter relating velocity-weighted and volumetric mean temperature. The corrections are expressed in terms of the ratio of local Grashof to Reynolds number and a normalized distance from the channel inlet, both readily available in a one-dimensional model. The corrections universally apply to constant wall temperature, constant wall heat flux, and mixed boundary conditions. The developed correlations are tested against two-dimensional simulations for a case of mixed boundary conditions and are found to yield high accuracy in temperature, wall heat flux, and wall shear stress. An application example of a natural-convection loop with two finned heat exchangers shows the influence on mass-flow rate and top-to-bottom temperature difference.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document