ABOUT SELECTING THE VORTEX FLOWMETER OPTIMAL BLUFF BODY SHAPE

Vortex flow meters are becoming more widespread in many industries. This is due to the simplicity and reliability of the flow transducer, the scale linearity, the frequency measuring signal presence, low requirements for alignment and ensuring the straight sections length at the installation site, etc. Among the vortex measuring instruments, the most common are instruments with a bluff body. Such flow meters operation principle is based on measuring the vortex stripping frequency behind a streamlined body installed in the flow. In this case, the metrological characteristics are determined by the bluff body shape. Therefore, the search for the optimal sensing element shape and the hydraulic channel configuration of the flow meter as a whole remains an actual issue. The paper proposes an algorithm for solving this issue according to the criteria of the measured flow rates maximum range and the interaction efficiency of the bluff body with the measured medium flow. The first criterion value is determined from the condition that the Strouhal’s number remains unchanged; the second criterion is based on the estimation of the measured medium pressure drop and the measurement error. To realize the algorithm, simulation modeling is used in the Ansys Fluent fluid simulation software, which uses computational fluid dynamics methods. Modeling carried out for three shapes of the bluff body: a cylinder, a prism with a triangular section, a prism with a trapezoidal section, which made it possible to choose a sensitive element for further solving the multi-parameter optimization problem. Geometric features of the selected sensitive element shape, the limits of their change and boundary values are grounded. The simulation made it possible to estimate the measured flow rates range and pressure losses, as well as to determine the vortex stripping frequency, measurement error and efficiency factor for the investigated geometric model. To further improve the instrument metrological parameters, the authors proposed to supplement the primary transducer geometric model with gradual contraction and diffuser sections. These sections parameters are selected from the conditions of a continuous flow and the maximum measured flow rates range with a minimum pressure loss. The obtained results confirmed the strategy proposed by the authors. The further research prospect is to carry out simulation studies of the flow meter hydraulic channel proposed configuration for different measured media.

Infrared thermography of hypersonic boundary layer transition induced by isolated roughness elements

Roughness element induced hypersonic boundary layer transition on a flat plate is investigated using infrared thermography at Ma = 5 and 6 flow condition. Surface Stanton number is acquired to analyze the effect of roughness element shape and height on the transition process. The correlation between the vortex structure induced by roughness element and the wall heat streaks is established. The results indicate that higher roughness element would induce stronger streamwise heat flux streaks, lead to transition advance in streamwise centerline and increase the width of spanwise wake. Moreover, for low roughness element, the effect of the shape is not obvious, and the height plays a leading role in the transition; for tall roughness element, the effect on accelerating transition for the diamond roughness element is the best, the square is the worst, and the shape plays a leading role in the transition.

PERIDYNAMIC UNIT CELL ENABLED FINITE ELEMENT MODELING OF FIBER STEERED COMPOSITES

This study presents an approach based on traditional finite elements and peridynamic unit cell (PDUC) to perform structural analysis of fiber steered composite laminates. Effective material property matrix for each ply in the plate element is computed by employing the PDUC based on the orientation of the fiber path and orthotropic ply properties. Each element defines the unit cell domain if the element shape is rectangular. Otherwise, the rectangle that circumscribes the element defines the domain of the unit cell. The element stiffness matrix is constructed through a traditional finite element implementation. This approach provides an accurate and simple modeling of variable angle tow laminates. It can be readily integrated in commercially available finite element programs.

A Smoothed GFEM Based on Taylor Expansion and Constrained MLS for Analysis of Reissner–Mindlin Plate

Based on the Taylor Expansion and constrained moving least square function, a smoothed GFEM (SGFEM) is proposed in this paper for static, free vibration and buckling analysis of Reissner–Mindlin plate. The displacement function based on SGFEM is composed of classical linear finite element shape function and nodal displacement function, which are obtained by introducing the gradient smoothed meshfree approximation in Taylor expansion of nodal displacement function. A constrained moving least square function is proposed for constituting meshfree nodal displacement function. The merits of the proposed SGFEM, including high accuracy, rapid error convergence, insensitive to mesh distortion, free of shear-locking problem, no extra DOFs and temporal stability, etc., are demonstrated by several typical examples and comparisons with other numerical methods.

A GFEM With Local Gradient Smoothed Approximation for 2D Solid Mechanics Problems

In this paper, a generalized finite element method (GFEM) with local gradient smoothed approximation (LGS-GFEM) using triangular meshes is proposed. The displacement field function of LGS-GFEM consists of the finite element shape function and the node displacement function. In order to obtain the nodal displacement function, the second order Taylor expansion is considered. The derivative term in Taylor expansion is obtained by using gradient smoothed technique in a smoothed domain. The displacement in smoothed operation is interpolated by polynomial basis function and radial basis function. Two kinds of integration schemes are considered, i.e. LGS-GFEM-I and LGS-GFEM-II respectively. The smoothed composite shape function of LGS-GFEM retains the ideal Kronecker property of the finite element shape function. Besides, the proposed LGS-GFEM has some other important properties such as no extra DOFs, linear independent, etc. The superiority of LGS-GFEM including high accuracy, rapid error convergence and temporal stability, is demonstrated by two representative numerical examples of static and free vibration, and compared with the classical finite element of triangular (FEM-T3) and quadrilateral (FEM-Q4) elements.

Three-dimensional image-based modeling by combining SBFEM and transfinite element shape functions

The scaled boundary finite element method (SBFEM) has recently been employed as an efficient tool to model three-dimensional structures, in particular when the geometry is provided as a voxel-based image. To this end, an octree decomposition of the computational domain is deployed, and each cubic cell is treated as an SBFE subdomain. The surfaces of each subdomain are discretized in the finite element sense. We improve on this idea by combining the semi-analytical concept of the SBFEM with a particular class of transition elements on the subdomains’ surfaces. Thus, a triangulation of these surfaces as executed in previous works is avoided, and consequently, the number of surface elements and degrees of freedom is reduced. In addition, these discretizations allow coupling elements of arbitrary order such that local p-refinement can be achieved straightforwardly.