scholarly journals A stereoscopic PIV system for the Princeton Superpipe

Author(s):  
Liuyang Ding ◽  
Eric Limacher ◽  
Ian Gunady ◽  
Alexander Piqué ◽  
Marcus Hultmark ◽  
...  

Herein, we describe the design and testing of a stereoscopic PIV system uniquely adapted for the high pressure environment of the Princeton Superpipe. The Superpipe is a recirculating pipe facility that utilizes compressed air as the working fluid to attain very high Reynolds numbers. Commercial piping is used as the pressure vessel to hold pressure up to 220 bars, and a test pipe is enclosed inside with a development length of 200 diameters that ensures a fully-developed condition at the test section. The highest achievable Reynolds number (based on the bulk velocity and the pipe diameter) is 35×106, corresponding to a maximum friction Reynolds number of 5×105. The unprecedented range of Reynolds number has enabled a number of new insights in the behavior of high Reynolds number wall-bounded turbulence (Zagarola and Smits, 1998; Hultmark et al., 2013). However, past measurements in the Superpipe have been primarily restricted to single-component, one- or two-point statistics of fully-developed pipe flows. The present work aims to expand the capability of the Superpipe to study turbulent coherent structures and multi-point statistics by means of a new stereoscopic PIV system. The high pressure environment and the confined space inside the pressure vessel pose challenges to both imaging and seeding, the solutions to which will be discussed.

2015 ◽  
Vol 779 ◽  
pp. 371-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Vallikivi ◽  
M. Hultmark ◽  
A. J. Smits

Measurements are presented in zero-pressure-gradient, flat-plate, turbulent boundary layers for Reynolds numbers ranging from $\mathit{Re}_{{\it\tau}}=2600$ to $\mathit{Re}_{{\it\tau}}=72\,500$ ($\mathit{Re}_{{\it\theta}}=8400{-}235\,000$). The wind tunnel facility uses pressurized air as the working fluid, and in combination with MEMS-based sensors to resolve the small scales of motion allows for a unique investigation of boundary layer flow at very high Reynolds numbers. The data include mean velocities, streamwise turbulence variances, and moments up to 10th order. The results are compared to previously reported high Reynolds number pipe flow data. For $\mathit{Re}_{{\it\tau}}\geqslant 20\,000$, both flows display a logarithmic region in the profiles of the mean velocity and all even moments, suggesting the emergence of a universal behaviour in the statistics at these high Reynolds numbers.


2021 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nils Paul van Hinsberg

Abstract The aerodynamics of smooth and slightly rough prisms with square cross-sections and sharp edges is investigated through wind tunnel experiments. Mean and fluctuating forces, the mean pitch moment, Strouhal numbers, the mean surface pressures and the mean wake profiles in the mid-span cross-section of the prism are recorded simultaneously for Reynolds numbers between 1$$\times$$ × 10$$^{5}$$ 5 $$\le$$ ≤ Re$$_{D}$$ D $$\le$$ ≤ 1$$\times$$ × 10$$^{7}$$ 7 . For the smooth prism with $$k_s$$ k s /D = 4$$\times$$ × 10$$^{-5}$$ - 5 , tests were performed at three angles of incidence, i.e. $$\alpha$$ α = 0$$^{\circ }$$ ∘ , −22.5$$^{\circ }$$ ∘ and −45$$^{\circ }$$ ∘ , whereas only both “symmetric” angles were studied for its slightly rough counterpart with $$k_s$$ k s /D = 1$$\times$$ × 10$$^{-3}$$ - 3 . First-time experimental proof is given that, within the accuracy of the data, no significant variation with Reynolds number occurs for all mean and fluctuating aerodynamic coefficients of smooth square prisms up to Reynolds numbers as high as $$\mathcal {O}$$ O (10$$^{7}$$ 7 ). This Reynolds-number independent behaviour applies to the Strouhal number and the wake profile as well. In contrast to what is known from square prisms with rounded edges and circular cylinders, an increase in surface roughness height by a factor 25 on the current sharp-edged square prism does not lead to any notable effects on the surface boundary layer and thus on the prism’s aerodynamics. For both prisms, distinct changes in the aerostatics between the various angles of incidence are seen to take place though. Graphic abstract


Nanomaterials ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (10) ◽  
pp. 838 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Eggers ◽  
Eckart Lange ◽  
Stephan Kabelac

Recently, several publications gave attention to nanofluid based solar absorber systems in which the solar radiation energy is directly absorbed in the volume of the fluid. This idea could provide advantages over conventionally used surface absorbers regarding the optical and thermal efficiency. For the evaluation of this concept, a numerical approach is introduced and validated in this contribution. The results show that the optical efficiency of a volumetric absorber strongly depends on the scattering behavior of the nanofluid and can reach competitive values only if the particle size distribution is narrow and small. If this is achieved, the surface temperature and therefore the heat loss can be lowered significantly. Furthermore, the surface absorber requires very high Reynolds numbers to transfer the absorbed energy into the working fluid and avoid overheating of the absorber tube. This demand of pumping power can be reduced significantly using the concept of volumetric absorption.


1956 ◽  
Vol 60 (541) ◽  
pp. 67-70
Author(s):  
T. A. Thomson

The blow-down type of intermittent, supersonic tunnel is attractive because of its simplicity and because relatively high Reynolds numbers can be obtained for a given size of test section. An adverse characteristic, however, is the fall of stagnation temperature during runs, which can affect experiments in several ways. The Reynolds number varies and the absolute velocity is not constant, even if the Mach number and pressure are; heat-transfer cannot be studied under controlled conditions and the experimental errors arising from the effect of heat-transfer on the boundary layer vary in time. These effects can become significant in quantitative experiments if the tunnel is large and the variation of temperature very rapid; the expense required to eliminate them might then be justified.


Author(s):  
Amir Hossein Birjandi ◽  
Eric Bibeau

A four-bladed, squirrel-cage, and scaled vertical kinetic turbine was designed, instrumented and tested in the water tunnel facilities at the University of Manitoba. With a solidity of 1.3 and NACA0021 blade profile, the turbine is classified as a high solidity model. Results were obtained for conditions during freewheeling at various Reynolds numbers. In this study, the freewheeling tip speed ratio, which relates the ratio of maximum blade speed to the free stream velocity at no load, was divided into three regions based on the Reynolds number. At low Reynolds numbers, the tip speed ratio was lower than unity and blades were in a stall condition. At the end of the first region, there was a sharp increase of the tip speed ratio so the second region has a tip speed ratio significantly higher than unity. In this region, the tip speed ratio increases almost linearly with Reynolds number. At high Reynolds numbers, the tip speed ratio is almost independent of Reynolds number in the third region. It should be noted that the transition between these three regions is a function of the blade profile and solidity. However, the three-region behavior is applicable to turbines with different profiles and solidities.


1999 ◽  
Vol 395 ◽  
pp. 211-236 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. SHANKAR ◽  
V. KUMARAN

Flows with velocity profiles very different from the parabolic velocity profile can occur in the entrance region of a tube as well as in tubes with converging/diverging cross-sections. In this paper, asymptotic and numerical studies are undertaken to analyse the temporal stability of such ‘non-parabolic’ flows in a flexible tube in the limit of high Reynolds numbers. Two specific cases are considered: (i) developing flow in a flexible tube; (ii) flow in a slightly converging flexible tube. Though the mean velocity profile contains both axial and radial components, the flow is assumed to be locally parallel in the stability analysis. The fluid is Newtonian and incompressible, while the flexible wall is modelled as a viscoelastic solid. A high Reynolds number asymptotic analysis shows that the non-parabolic velocity profiles can become unstable in the inviscid limit. This inviscid instability is qualitatively different from that observed in previous studies on the stability of parabolic flow in a flexible tube, and from the instability of developing flow in a rigid tube. The results of the asymptotic analysis are extended numerically to the moderate Reynolds number regime. The numerical results reveal that the developing flow could be unstable at much lower Reynolds numbers than the parabolic flow, and hence this instability can be important in destabilizing the fluid flow through flexible tubes at moderate and high Reynolds number. For flow in a slightly converging tube, even small deviations from the parabolic profile are found to be sufficient for the present instability mechanism to be operative. The dominant non-parallel effects are incorporated using an asymptotic analysis, and this indicates that non-parallel effects do not significantly affect the neutral stability curves. The viscosity of the wall medium is found to have a stabilizing effect on this instability.


Author(s):  
Takahiro Ishida ◽  
Takahiro Tsukahara

We performed direct numerical simulations of annular Poiseuille flow (APF) with a radius ratio of η (= rin/rout) = 0.8, in order to investigate the subcritical transition scenario from the developed turbulent state to the laminar state. In previous studies on annular Poiseuille flow, the flows at high Reynolds numbers were well examined and various turbulence statistics were obtained for several η, because of their dependence on η. Since the transitional APF is still unclear, we investigate annular Poiseuille flows in the transitional regime through the large-domain simulations in a range of the friction Reynolds number from Reτ = 150 down to 56. At a transitional Reynolds number, weak-fluctuation regions occur intermittently and regularly in the flow field, and the localized turbulence appears in the form of banded patterns same as in plane Poiseuille flow (PPF). The flow system of APF with a high radius ratio η ≈ 1 can be regarded as PPF and, hence, the transition regime in high radius-ratio of APF and in PPF should be analogous. However, in APF, the banded structure takes on helical shape around the inner cylinder, since APF is a closed system in the spanwise (azimuthal) direction. In this paper, the (dis-)similarity between APF and PPF is discussed.


2009 ◽  
Vol 131 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Young T. Shen ◽  
Scott Gowing ◽  
Stuart Jessup

Tip vortices generated by marine lifting surfaces such as propeller blades, ship rudders, hydrofoil wings, and antiroll fins can lead to cavitation. Prediction of the onset of this cavitation depends on model tests at Reynolds numbers much lower than those for the corresponding full-scale flows. The effect of Reynolds number variations on the scaling of tip vortex cavitation inception is investigated using a theoretical flow similarity approach. The ratio of the circulations in the full-scale and model-scale trailing vortices is obtained by assuming that the spanwise distributions of the section lift coefficients are the same between the model-scale and the full-scale. The vortex pressure distributions and core sizes are derived using the Rankine vortex model and McCormick’s assumption about the dependence of the vortex core size on the boundary layer thickness at the tip region. Using a logarithmic law to describe the velocity profile in the boundary layer over a large range of Reynolds number, the boundary layer thickness becomes dependent on the Reynolds number to a varying power. In deriving the scaling of the cavitation inception index as the ratio of Reynolds numbers to an exponent m, the values of m are not constant and are dependent on the values of the model- and full-scale Reynolds numbers themselves. This contrasts traditional scaling for which m is treated as a fixed value that is independent of Reynolds numbers. At very high Reynolds numbers, the present theory predicts the value of m to approach zero, consistent with the trend of these flows to become inviscid. Comparison of the present theory with available experimental data shows promising results, especially with recent results from high Reynolds number tests. Numerical examples of the values of m are given for different model- to full-scale sizes and Reynolds numbers.


1964 ◽  
Vol 86 (3) ◽  
pp. 257-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Neustein

The performance of a single-stage, axial-flow turbomachine was studied experimentally at low Reynolds numbers. The study was made with a turbomachine modeled from a large jet-engine type of axial-flow compressor. Low Reynolds numbers were obtained by using a mixture of glycerine and water as the working fluid. The overall performance was determined over a range of Reynolds numbers RT (based on rotor-tip speed and rotor chord) from 2000 to 150,000. The flow rate at each Reynolds number was varied from near shutoff to the maximum permitted by the turbomachine-tunnel systems. Blade-row characteristics were studied by means of quantitative flow surveys before and after each blade row, and by means of extensive flow-visualization experiments within each blade row. The investigation established that sudden or critical changes in performance do not occur in the type of machine tested, between RT of 150,000 and 20,000. Below 20,000 the performance deteriorated more rapidly. A relatively sharp change in performance occurred between RT of 20,000 and 10,000. The results clarified many of the viscous flow details in each blade row which are associated with the deterioration of performance. These effects were very pronounced at RT of 4000 and below. Consequently, a considerable part of the paper is concerned with results obtained at these lower Reynolds numbers. From the point of view of a designer, information is presented in regard to overall performance, guide-vane turning, and guide-vane and stator total-pressure losses, all as functions of Reynolds number. These results are expected to be indicative of performance in turbomachines similar to the one tested here. Other details are concerned with problems such as wall boundary layers, flow reversal at low flow coefficients, lip-clearance flow, flow patterns near shutoff, and flow comparisons in stators with rotating and stationary hubs.


1977 ◽  
Vol 79 (2) ◽  
pp. 337-359 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. N. Helland ◽  
C. W. Van Atta ◽  
G. R. Stegen

The spectral energy transfer of turbulent velocity fields has been examined over a wide range of Reynolds numbers by experimental and empirical methods. Measurements in a high Reynolds number grid flow were used to calculate the energy transfer by the direct Fourier-transform method of Yeh & Van Atta. Measurements in a free jet were used to calculate energy transfer for a still higher Reynolds number. An empirical energy spectrum was used in conjunction with a local self-preservation approximation to estimate the energy transfer at Reynolds numbers beyond presently achievable experimental conditions.Second-order spectra of the grid measurements are in excellent agreement with local isotropy down to low wavenumbers. For the first time, one-dimensional third-order spectra were used to test for local isotropy, and modest agreement with the theoretical conditions was observed over the range of wavenumbers which appear isotropic according to second-order criteria. Three-dimensional forms of the measured spectra were calculated, and the directly measured energy transfer was compared with the indirectly measured transfer using a local self-preservation model for energy decay. The good agreement between the direct and indirect measurements of energy transfer provides additional support for both the assumption of local isotropy and the assumption of self-preservation in high Reynolds number grid turbulence.An empirical spectrum was constructed from analytical spectral forms of von Kármán and Pao and used to extrapolate energy transfer measurements at lower Reynolds number to Rλ = 105 with the assumption of local self preservation. The transfer spectrum at this Reynolds number has no wavenumber region of zero net spectral transfer despite three decades of $k^{-\frac{5}{3}}$. behaviour in the empirical energy spectrum. A criterion for the inertial subrange suggested by Lumley applied to the empirical transfer spectrum is in good agreement with the $k^{-\frac{5}{3}}$ range of the empirical energy spectrum.


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