Aerodynamic instabilities modeling under asymmetric boundary in a centrifugal compressor for turbocharger

The increasing demand for compression systems with high pressure ratio and wide safety margin has set new prerequisites for designers to meet the industrial needs without increasing the manufacturing costs excessively. In this work, the turbulent stability of the vaneless diffuser of the centrifugal compressor was analyzed. Unsteady Reynolds-averaged numerical simulations of the isolated diffuser and full annular diffuser with or without circumferential asymmetric boundary conditions downstream were performed. And a continuous adjoint approach was adopted, which is rarely applied in the stability analysis of compressor flow. Then, the origin of instability under different inflow and outflow conditions was sought with a sensitivity analysis. The prediction of the growth rate reveals that the flow near the shroud dominates the global stability of the diffuser. When connected with an impeller in the upstream direction, the most unstable region is localized at the backflow regions near the outlet. The wave number, however, is altered under the impact of the jet-wake flow. When connected to a circumferential asymmetric condition, the structural sensitivity of the vaneless diffuser with a radius ratio of 1.53 indicates that the interaction between the inlet reverse flow and outlet backflow is responsible for the occurrence of stall. The most unstable regions are localized at the region 90°–135° away from the volute tongue. The present work mainly contributes to the instabilities identification with novel sensitivity methods under asymmetric boundary conditions.

Nanoantennas Inversely Designed to Couple Free Space and a Metal–Insulator–Metal Waveguide

The metal–insulator–metal (MIM) waveguide, which can directly couple free space photons, acts as an important interface between conventional optics and subwavelength photoelectrons. The reason for the difficulty of this optical coupling is the mismatch between the large wave vector of the MIM plasmon mode and photons. With the increase in the wave vector, there is an increase in the field and Ohmic losses of the metal layer, and the strength of the MIM mode decreases accordingly. To solve those problems, this paper reports on inversely designed nanoantennas that can couple the free space and MIM waveguide and efficiently excite the MIM plasmon modes at multiple wavelengths and under oblique angles. This was achieved by implementing an inverse design procedure using a topology optimization approach. Simulation analysis shows that the coupling efficiency is enhanced 9.47-fold by the nanoantenna at the incident wavelength of 1338 nm. The topology optimization problem of the nanoantennas was analyzed by using a continuous adjoint method. The nanoantennas can be inversely designed with decreased dependence on the wavelength and oblique angle of the incident waves. A nanostructured interface on the subwavelength scale can be configured in order to control the refraction of a photonic wave, where the periodic unit of the interface is composed of two inversely designed nanoantennas that are decoupled and connected by an MIM waveguide.

Power-to-Syngas: A Parareal Optimal Control Approach

A chemical plant layout for the production of syngas from renewable power, H2O and biogas, is presented to ensure a steady productivity of syngas with a constant H2-to-CO ratio under time-dependent electricity provision. An electrolyzer supplies H2 to the reverse water-gas shift reactor. The system compensates for a drop in electricity supply by gradually operating a tri-reforming reactor, fed with pure O2 directly from the electrolyzer or from an intermediate generic buffering device. After the introduction of modeling assumptions and governing equations, suitable reactor parameters are identified. Finally, two optimal control problems are investigated, where computationally expensive model evaluations are lifted viaparareal and necessary objective derivatives are calculated via the continuous adjoint method. For the first time, modeling, simulation, and optimal control are applied to a combination of the reverse water-gas shift and tri-reforming reactor, exploring a promising pathway in the conversion of renewable power into chemicals.

An Adjoint Optimization Prediction Method for Partially Cavitating Hydrofoils

Much work has been done over the past years to obtain a better understanding, predict and alleviate the effects of cavitation on the performance of lifting surfaces for hydrokinetic turbines and marine propellers. Lifting-surface sheet cavitation, when addressed as a free-streamline problem, can be predicted up to a desirable degree of accuracy using numerical methods under the assumptions of ideal flow. Typically, a potential solver is used in conjunction with geometric criteria to determine the cavity shape, while an iterative scheme ensures that all boundary conditions are satisfied. In this work, we propose a new prediction model for the case of partially cavitating hydrofoils in a steady flow that treats the free-streamline problem as an inverse problem. The objective function is based on the assumption that on the cavity boundary, the pressure remains constant and is evaluated at each optimization cycle using a source-vorticity BEM solver. The attached cavity is parametrized using B-splines, and the control points are included in the design variables along with the cavitation number. The sensitivities required for the gradient-based optimization are derived using the continuous adjoint method. The proposed numerical scheme is compared against other methods for the NACA 16-series hydrofoils and is found to predict well both the cavity shape and cavitation number for a given cavity length.

A Hybrid Adjoint Network Model for Thermoacoustic Optimization

A method is proposed that allows the computation of the continuous adjoint of a thermoacoustic network model based on the discretized direct equations. This hybrid approach exploits the self-adjoint character of the duct element, which allows all jump conditions to be derived from the direct scattering matrix. In this way, the need to derive the adjoint equations for every element of the network model is eliminated. This methodology combines the advantages of the discrete and continuous adjoint, as the accuracy of the continuous adjoint is achieved whilst maintaining the flexibility of the discrete adjoint. It is demonstrated how the obtained adjoint system may be utilized to optimize a thermoacoustic configuration by determining the optimal damper setting for an annular combustor.

Continuous Adjoint-Based Optimization of an Internally Cooled Turbine Blade—Mathematical Development and Application

This paper presents an adjoint-based shape optimization framework and its demonstration in a conjugate heat transfer problem in a turbine blading. The gradient of the objective function is computed based on the continuous adjoint method, which also includes the adjoint to the turbulence model. Differences in the gradient resulting from making the frozen turbulence assumption are discussed. The developed software was used to optimize both the blade shape of the internally cooled linear C3X turbine blade and the position of cooling channels aiming at (a) minimum total pressure drop of the hot gas flow and (b) minimum highest temperature within the blade. A two-step optimization procedure was used. A free-form parameterization tool, based on volumetric NURBS, controls the blade airfoil contour, while the cooling channels are free to move following changes in the coordinates of their centers. Geometric and flow constraints are included in the performed optimizations, keeping the cooling channels away from the airfoil sides and retaining the turbine inlet capacity and flow turning.