Analysis of Additive Alignment in a 90∘ Elbow Channel

Short-fiber reinforced polymer composites have been widely used in industrial applications due to high strength-to-weight ratio, versatile manufacturing process, and etc. The alignment of fiber type additives plays an important role in the mechanical properties of a composite material. In this paper, an injection molding process was imitated with a liquid polymer composite flow inside a [Formula: see text] elbow channel. We performed a flow visualization experiment and analyzed the additive alignment of carbon fiber flowing in the polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) medium. By analyzing the flow visualization images, the angle changes at the corner region of the elbow channel were calculated. At the corner region, the change of passage direction leads to the change of fiber orientation. It was observed that near to the convex region, fibers have angle change values larger than the fibers traveling near to the concave region.

Study on Optimization Design and Flow Control Mechanism of Little Blades in a Compressor Cascade

In view of the characteristics of flow separation in the compressor cascade corner region, a new flow control method for installing little blades in the front of the cascade passage was proposed, which took into account the flow control advantages of end wall fences and vortex generators. Firstly, the little blades could hinder the cross flow on the end wall and the development of the horseshoe vortex pressure surface branch. Secondly, the little blades could generate induced vortices to take away the low-energy fluid near the end wall and the corner region. Based on numerical simulations, the effects of different pitchwise positions, stagger angles and heights of the little blades on the aerodynamic performance of the cascade were studied, and the optimal little blades were obtained by NSGA-II using EBF neural network as the agent model. The results show that the little blades have the optimal pitchwise position, stagger angle and height range for improving the aerodynamic performance of the cascade. When the optimized little blades are introduced in the baseline cascade, the stable working range of the cascade is expanded, and the stall type of the cascade changes from the hub-corner stall to the overload of flow separation near the mid-span. At the near stall attack angle of the baseline, the total pressure loss coefficient is reduced by about 10.38% and the static pressure coefficient is increased by about 4.31%. Meanwhile, the loss of the lower span is decreased and the diffuser capacity of the whole span is improved. The passage secondary loss and wake loss are reduced because of the delay of corner separation. Moreover, the strength of the end wall vortex is weakened and the end wall vortex no longer develops as part of the passage vortex. The induced vortex, horseshoe vortex pressure surface branch and initial passage vortex develop into new passage vortex.

Investigation on True Stress-Strain Curves of Flat and Corner Regions of Cold-Formed Section Using 3D Digital Image Correlation Method

The true stress-strain curve is the critical method to describe the practical material mechanical performance and the essential precondition to develop the advanced numerical simulation. Experimental, analytical, and numerical procedures were performed in present research to investigate the true stress-strain curves of flat and corner regions of the cold-formed channel section. The coupon tests with the 3D digital image correlation system were conducted on flat and corner specimens to directly obtain the true stress-strain curves. The experimental results indicate that the tensile secondary-hardening phenomenon at the plastic strain stage was observed in the true stress-strain curves of flat coupons, and initial strain hardening behavior was produced in that of corner coupons. Flat region exhibits a significant improvement of true ultimate strength compared to the engineering value. The stress status of the corner region is developed to ultimate strength at the early strain phase and exhibits a slight increase compared with the nominal values at the plastic phase. Cold-rolling action limits the ductility performance of the corner region, which highly restrains the tensile strain hardening at the plastic condition. Thus, the true yielding strength of the corner region is obviously higher, but the true ultimate strength is significantly lower than that of the flat region. Together with the optical measuring results, a trilinear model with two-stage strain hardening and a simplified trilinear models were established for describing the true stress-strain curves of flat and corner regions, respectively. The load-displacement curves from numerical simulations fit very well with those of coupon tests, which validate the reliability of the optic measurement and the dependability of the simplified constitutive models.

Behaviour of curved reinforcement bars

Bended or curved reinforcement bars are often met in assessment of existing reinforced concrete structures and are used in design of nodal regions such as frame corners. Although being present in many tested reinforced concrete structures, only little experimental work has been devoted specifically to the behaviour of curved bars and its interaction with the surrounding concrete. To contribute to a better understanding of this behaviour and functioning of curved reinforcement bars, a preliminary experimental programme has been conducted, the results of which are presented in this paper. The tested specimens were all 90-degree V-shaped beams subjected to constant bending, with the frame corner representing the region of interest. The varied parameter was the statical-height of the adjoining beam segments. The application of optical fibres, mounted on the curved reinforcement, allowed for assessment of the interaction between the curved bars and the concrete. This includes strain/stress variations from which the corresponding tension forces are estimated. The bar/concrete-interaction is qualitatively assessed based upon the gradient of the tension force. Photogrammetric measurements allowed for a detailed study of the accompanying crack development, which showed an area with few cracks at the corner region and a change in inclination of cracks near the corner region.

Investigation of the Dihedral Angle Effect on the Boundary Layer Development Using Special-Shaped Expansion Pipes

The corners between the blades and end walls are common geometric structures in turbomachinery, where boundary layers on the blade and end wall surface interact with each other. This boundary layer interaction enlarges the region of low momentum fluid which leads to the boundary layers grow thicker at the corner region. Then the corner separation is likely to occur, and even worse by the adverse pressure gradient along the streamwise as well as secondary flows along the pitchwise. The key issue to design the geometric structures of the corner region is to control the dihedral angle between the blade and end wall surface. However, from the current published literature, few researchers have studied the influence of dihedral angle on the flow structures at the corner region in detail. In this paper, a series of expansion pipes with different cross sections which represent different dihedral angles are simulated. Then, some useful conclusions about how the dihedral angle affects the flow structures at the corner region are drawn. Moreover, a new method to predict the boundary layer thickness at the corner region is introduced, and the predicted results are in good agreement with simulation results.

Experimental investigation on the performance of compressor cascade using blended-blade-end-wall contouring technology

Three-dimensional flow separations commonly occur in the corner region formed by the blade suction surface and end wall in compressors. How to control or reduce these separations is a vital problem for aerodynamic designers all the time. Blended blade and end wall contouring technology has been proposed to control flow separation for several years and validated in many cases using the numerical method, but experimental data was not obtained so far. So in this paper, the baseline cascade scaling from the NACA65 airfoil with 42° turning angle is designed, tested, and analyzed firstly. Then, based on the experimental results of the baseline cascade, blended blade and end wall contouring is applied to the suction surface and hub corner region of the baseline cascade and the detailed experiment is carried out. The results show that the blended blade and end wall contouring technology can decrease the total pressure loss by 8% and 7% at 0° and +10° incidence angles separately. The improved span range mainly focuses on the 10–25% span height. The rolling change of the passage vortex influenced by the accumulation of low energy fluid driven by cross flow in the hub corner should be the main reason for the performance improvement.

Investigation of Vortical Structures and Turbulence Characteristics in Corner Separation in a Linear Compressor Cascade Using DDES

Three-dimensional (3D) corner separation in a linear highly loaded compressor cascade is studied by using delayed detached-eddy simulation (DDES) method. This paper studies the flow mechanism of corner separation, including vortical structures and turbulence characteristics. The vortical structures are analyzed and the distributions of Reynolds stresses and turbulent anisotropy are also discussed in detail. The results show that there exist different kinds of vortical structures, such as horseshoe vortex, passage vortex, wake shedding vortex, and “corner vortex.” Before the corner separation forms, the passage vortex becomes the main secondary vortex and obviously enhances the corner separation. At approximate 35% chord position, the corner vortex begins to form, enlarges rapidly, and dominates the secondary flow in the cascade. The corner vortex is a compound vortex with its vortex core composed of multiple vortices. Streamwise normal Reynolds stress contributes greatest to the turbulence fluctuation in the corner region. The turbulence develops from two-dimensional (2D) turbulence in the near-wall region to one-component type turbulence in the corner region. The turbulence tends to be more anisotropic when the flow is close to the endwall within the corner separation region.

Understanding of Secondary Loss Structures in a Multi-Stage Transonic Compressor Using DES

In the present study, a multi-stage transonic compressor has been analyzed to investigate secondary loss structures and flow interactions in the corner region where the hub endwall and blade suction surface meet. The Detached Eddy Simulation (DES) approach is used successfully with the Shear Stress Transport (SST) turbulence model to directly resolve the eddy structure in the separated region. The SST-DES results for a transonic three stage axial compressor are compared with a RANS analysis obtained using ANSYS CFX. The present analysis indicates that the DES is better in simulating secondary losses and vortex structures than the RANS. With the DES, a large three-dimensional separation is predicted in the stator suction surface and hub endwall compared to the RANS prediction. The flow separation affects adversely the loss characteristics such as increases in the entropy and total pressure loss. The DES analysis indicates that the secondary flow phenomenon of the stator rows is apparent in all stages. It is observed to predict two distinct vortices induced by a three dimensional flow separation in the region adjacent to the suction surface and trailing edge of the last stage stator near the hub endwall. For the front two stages, the DES also predicts strong vortices and flow separation in the same corner region while the RANS analysis fails to predict them clearly. The total pressure loss prediction is concerned, the DES analysis predicts significantly larger than the RANS analysis in the region where the hub corner separation occurs. The DES is also found to predict a periodic fluctuations in the entropy, leading to the instantaneous efficiency variations with maximum differences of about 10% compared with the RANS solutions.