MANAGING INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH BETWEEN ACADEMICS, INDUSTRIES, AND POLICY MAKERS IN UNDERSTANDING THE EFFECTS OF BIOFOULING IN SHIP HULL TURBULENT BOUNDARY LAYERS

This report documents a large scale joint research project with the aim of improving the efficiency of ship operations and management by providing a methodology and technology that can quantify the emission and fuel usage penalty due to bio-fouling on ship hull. This can be obtained through better understanding of turbulent boundary layer flows over rough surfaces that cause skin friction drag. Here six different institutions from four countries (Australia, Denmark, Indonesia, and UK) that consist of universities, a passenger ship company, a manufacturer of anti-fouling coatings, and the Indonesian Classification Society are formed. They represent three fields, namely: academic, industrial, and an independent party that supports policy makers. Each of them has different objectives and interests that are interconnected. The research collaboration uses an in-situ laser-based measurement technique of the water flow over the hull of an operating ship combined with under-water image-based surface scanning techniques. The shipboard experiments are accompanied by detailed laboratory experiments to provide further validation. This paper will discuss the importance and challenges of managing such collaboration and the significance of satisfying individual objectives from each three fields in order to achieve the overarching aim.

A CFD Tutorial in Julia: Introduction to Compressible Laminar Boundary-Layer Flows

A boundary-layer is a thin fluid layer near a solid surface, and viscous effects dominate it. The laminar boundary-layer calculations appear in many aerodynamics problems, including skin friction drag, flow separation, and aerodynamic heating. A student must understand the flow physics and the numerical implementation to conduct successful simulations in advanced undergraduate- and graduate-level fluid dynamics/aerodynamics courses. Numerical simulations require writing computer codes. Therefore, choosing a fast and user-friendly programming language is essential to reduce code development and simulation times. Julia is a new programming language that combines performance and productivity. The present study derived the compressible Blasius equations from Navier–Stokes equations and numerically solved the resulting equations using the Julia programming language. The fourth-order Runge–Kutta method is used for the numerical discretization, and Newton’s iteration method is employed to calculate the missing boundary condition. In addition, Burgers’, heat, and compressible Blasius equations are solved both in Julia and MATLAB. The runtime comparison showed that Julia with for loops is 2.5 to 120 times faster than MATLAB. We also released the Julia codes on our GitHub page to shorten the learning curve for interested readers.

Experimental study of a natural convection flow in a cubic enclosure with a partially heated inner block

In many industrial contexts, buoyancy driven flows are the only cooling strategy in case of breakdown of the forced convection cooling system. In order to study those flows in a simplified configuration, a buoyancy-driven flow is generated inside a cubic enclosure by a partially heated block (Ra = 1.4 × 109). The flow is studied experimentally in the vertical median plane, in the part of the enclosure where the flow is generated i.e. close to the heated side of the block. Velocity fields, mean profiles and RMS statistics are analyzed. The results show the presence of boundary layer flows with a central zone nearly at rest and stratified. RMS velocities are intensified with elevation.

Driving Mechanisms of Double-Nosed Low-Level Jets during MATERHORN Experiment

In the realm of boundary-layer flows in complex terrain, low-level jets (LLJs) have received considerable attention, although little literature is available for double-nosed LLJs that remain not well understood. To this end, we use the MATERHORN dataset to demonstrate that double-nosed LLJs developing within the planetary boundary layer (PBL) are common during stable nocturnal conditions and present two possible mechanisms responsible for their formation. It is observed that the onset of a double-nosed LLJ is associated with a temporary shape modification of an already-established LLJ. The characteristics of these double-nosed LLJs are described using a refined version of identification criteria proposed in the literature, and their formation is classified in terms of two driving mechanisms. The wind-driven mechanism encompasses cases where the two noses are associated with different air masses flowing one on top of the other. The wave-driven mechanism involves the vertical momentum transport by an inertial-gravity wave to generate the second nose. The wave-driven mechanism is corroborated by the analysis of nocturnal double-nosed LLJs, where inertial-gravity waves are generated close to the ground by a sudden flow perturbation.

Origin of the Turbulence Structure in Wall-Bounded Flows, and Implications toward Computability

Coordinate-transformed analysis of turbulence transport is developed, which leads to a symmetric set of gradient expressions for the Reynolds stress tensor components. In this perspective, the turbulence structure in wall-bounded flows is seen to arise from an interaction of a small number of intuitive dynamical terms: transport, pressure and viscous. Main features of the turbulent flow can be theoretically prescribed in this way and reconstructed for channel and boundary layer flows, with and without pressure gradients, as validated in comparison with available direct numerical simulation data. A succinct picture of turbulence structure and its origins emerges, reflective of the basic physics of momentum and energy balance if placed in a specific moving coordinate frame. An iterative algorithm produces an approximate solution for the mean velocity, and its implications toward computability of turbulent flows is discussed.

Reynolds stress scaling in the near-wall region of wall-bounded flows

A new scaling is derived that yields a Reynolds-number-independent profile for all components of the Reynolds stress in the near-wall region of wall-bounded flows, including channel, pipe and boundary layer flows. The scaling demonstrates the important role played by the wall shear stress fluctuations and how the large eddies determine the Reynolds number dependence of the near-wall turbulence behaviour.