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Limitations in space and city planning constraints have led to the search for alternative shock mitigation devices that are architecturally appealing. The purpose of this paper is to consider a compromise solution which consists of partially open, thick, bending-resistant shapes made of acrylic material that may be Kevlar- or steel-reinforced. Seven different configurations were analyzed numerically.

For the flow solver, the FEM-FCT scheme as implemented in FEFLO is used. The flowfields are initialized from the output of highly detailed 1-D (spherically symmetric) runs. Peak pressure and impulse are stored and compared. In total, seven different configurations were analyzed numerically.

It is found that for some of these, the maximum pressure is comparable to usual, closed walls, and the maximum impulse approximately 50 percent higher. This would indicate that such designs offer a blast mitigation device eminently suitable for built-up city environments.

Future work will consider fully coupled fluid-structure runs for the more appealing designs, in order to assess whether such devices can be manufactured from commonly available materials such as acrylics or other poly-carbonates.

This would indicate that such designs offer a blast mitigation device eminently suitable for built-up city environments.

This is the first time such a semi-open blastwall approach has been tried and analyzed.

This paper aims to understand the aerodynamic blockage related to near casing flow in a transonic axial compressor using numerical simulations and to design an optimum casing groove for stall margin improvement using a surrogate optimisation technique.

A blockage parameter (Ψ) is introduced to quantify blockage across the blade domain. A surrogate optimisation technique is then used to find the optimum casing groove design that minimises blockage at an axial location where the blockage is maximum at near stall conditions.

An optimised casing groove that improves the stall margin by about 1% can be found through optimisation of the blockage parameter (Ψ).

Optimising for stall margin is rather lengthy and computationally expensive, as the stall margin of a compressor will only be known once a complete compressor map is constructed. This study shows that the cost of the optimisation can be reduced by using a suitably defined blockage parameter as the optimising parameter.

The purpose of this paper is to conduct an experimental investigation on the shock cell structure of jets emanating from a four-lobed corrugated nozzle using Schlieren imaging technique.

The Schlieren images were captured for seven different nozzle pressure ratios (NPR = 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8) and compared with the shock cell structure of a round nozzle with an identical exit area. The variation in the length of the shock cell, width of boundary interaction between adjacent shock cells, maximum width of first shock cell, Mach disk position and diameter for different NPR was measured from the Schlieren images and analysed.

A three-layer shock net observed in the jet emanating from the four-lobed corrugated nozzle is a novel concept in the field of under-expanded jet flows. A shock net represents interconnected layers of shock cells developed because of the interaction between the core and peripheral shock waves in a jet emanating from a corrugated lobed nozzle. Also, the pattern of shock net is different while taking Schlieren images across the groove and lobe sections. Thus, the shock net emerging from a corrugated lobed nozzle varies azimuthally and primarily depends on the nozzle exit cross section. The length of the shock cell, width of boundary interaction between adjacent shock cells, maximum width of first cell, Mach disk position and diameter were found to exhibit increasing trend with NPR.

A novel concept of interconnected layers of shock waves defined as “shock net” developed from a single jet emanating from a four-lobed corrugated nozzle was observed.

For an axial-flow compressor rotor, the upstream inflow conditions will vary as the aircraft faces harsh flight conditions (such as taking off, landing or maneuvering) or the whole compressor operates at off-design conditions. With the increase of upstream boundary layer thickness, the rotor blade tip will be loaded and the increased blade load will deteriorate the shock/boundary layer interaction and tip leakage flows, resulting in high aerodynamic losses in the tip region. The purpose of this paper is to achieve a better flow control for tip secondary flows and provide a probable design strategy for high-load compressors to tolerate complex upstream inflow conditions.

This paper presents an analysis and application of shroud wall optimization to a typical transonic axial-flow compressor rotor by considering the inlet boundary layer (IBL). The design variables are selected to shape the shroud wall profile at the tip region with the purpose of controlling the tip leakage loss and the shock/boundary layer interaction loss. The objectives are to improve the compressor efficiency at the inlet-boundary-layer condition while keeping its aerodynamic performance at the uniform condition.

After the optimization of shroud wall contour, aerodynamic benefits are achieved mainly on two aspects. On the one hand, the shroud wall optimization has reduced the intensity of the tip leakage flow and the interaction between the leakage and main flows, thereby decreasing the leakage loss. On the other hand, the optimized shroud design changes the shock structure and redistributes the shock intensity in the spanwise direction, especially weakening the shock near the tip. In this situation, the shock/boundary layer interaction and the associated flow separations and wakes are also eliminated. On the whole, at the inlet-boundary-layer condition, the compressor with optimized shroud design has achieved a 0.8 per cent improvement of peak efficiency over that with baseline shroud design without sacrificing the total pressure ratio. Moreover, the re-designed compressor also maintains the aerodynamic performance at the uniform condition. The results indicate that the shroud wall profile has significant influences on the rotor tip losses and could be properly designed to enhance the compressor aerodynamic performance against the negative impacts of the IBL.

The originality of this paper lies in developing a shroud wall contour optimization design strategy to control the tip leakage loss and the shock/boundary layer interaction loss in a transonic compressor rotor. The obtained results could be beneficial for transonic compressors to tolerate the complex upstream inflow conditions.

This study aims to study the interaction effects between a rectangular supersonic jet with a flat wall computationally using wall length as a parameter. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of change in wall length on supersonic core length (SCL) reduction, jet deflection and jet decay behavior.

The design Mach number and aspect ratio at the rectangular exit were 1.8 and 2, respectively. To study the wall length effects on jet-wall interactions, wall length (L_w) was varied as 0.5D_h, 1D_h, 2D_h, 4D_h and 8D_h, where D_h was the hydraulic diameter of the nozzle exit. The flat wall with the matching width of the rectangular exit section of a supersonic nozzle was placed at the nozzle exit such that the supersonic jet grazed past the wall. The studies were carried out at over-expansion [nozzle pressure ratio (NPR) = 4], near optimum expansion (NPR = 6) and under-expansion (NPR = 8) levels.

Results indicated that significant reduction in wall-bounded SCL was noticed in the range of 0.5D_h  ≤  L_w ≤ 1D_h for both over-expansion and under-expansion conditions. At L_w ≥ 4D_h, SCL got enhanced at NPR = 4 and 6 but had a negligible effect at NPR = 8.

Thrust vector control, noise reduction and easy take-off for high-speed aircraft.

The effect of change in flat wall length on interaction characteristics of a rectangular supersonic jet was not studied before in terms of SCL reduction and jet decay behavior.

Prompted by the empirical evidence that achievable flow solver speeds for large problems are limited by what appears to be a time of the order of O(0.1) sec/timestep regardless of the number of cores used, the purpose of this paper is to identify why this phenomenon occurs.

A series of timing studies, as well as in-depth analysis of memory and inter-processors transfer requirements were carried out for a typical field solver. The results were analyzed and compared to the expected performance.

The analysis shows that at present flow speeds per core are already limited by the achievable transfer rate to RAM. For smaller domains/larger number of processors, the limiting speed of CFD solvers is given by the MPI communication network.

This implies that at present, there is a “limiting useful size” for domains, and that there is a lower limit for the time it takes to update a flowfield.

For practical calculations this implies that the time required for running large-scale problems will not decrease markedly once these applications migrate to machines with hundreds of thousands of cores.

This is the first time such a finding has been reported in this context.

This paper aims to present the results of a design optimization study for the impeller of a small mixed‐flow compressor. The objective of the optimization is to obtain an impeller geometry that could minimize a cost function based on the specific thrust and the thrust specific fuel consumption of a small turbojet engine.

The design methodology is based on an optimization process that uses a configurational database for various compressor geometries. The database is constructed using design of experiments and the compressor configurations are generated using one‐dimensional in‐house design codes, as well as various tools and programs of the Agile Engineering Design System^®, which is a commercially available turbomachinery design system developed at Concepts NREC. The cost function variations within the design space are represented through a neural network. The optimum configuration that minimizes the cost function is obtained using a direct search optimization procedure.

The optimization study generated a small 86 mm diameter mixed‐flow impeller with a 50° meridional exit angle. The optimized compressor, as well as the engine that it is designed for, were shown to have improved performance characteristics.

Preliminary performance and flow analysis of the optimized impeller show shock structures and possible shock‐boundary layer interactions within the blade passages indicating further geometrical fine tuning may be required based on more detailed computational studies or experimental tests.

A further study including the effect of diffuser is required to carry the results to a more practical level.

The originality and the value of the paper comes mainly from two different aspects: combining various in‐house and commercial turbomachinery design codes in one robust methodology to obtain an optimum mixed‐flow compressor impeller that will maximize the performance requirements of a small unmanned air vehicle (UAV) turbojet engine under restricted size and power conditions; and investigation of the design optimization and analysis of a mixed‐flow compressor that could have potential applications in small jet engines to be used in high‐performance UAV applications. Design optimization studies on this type of compressor are very limited in the open literature. For many years, these compressors have been disregarded because of their bulky design in large‐scale engines. However, as mentioned above, they present a great potential for small‐scale jet engines by supplying enough pressure rise, as well as high mass flow rate compared to their centrifugal counterparts.

The mixing of fuel and air plays a pivotal role in enhancing combustion in supersonic regime. Proper mixing stabilizes the flame and prevents blow-off. Blow-off is due to the shorter residence time of fuel and air in the combustor, as the flow is in supersonic regime. The flame is initiated in the local subsonic region created using a flameholder within the supersonic combustor. This study aims to design an effective flameholder which increases the residence time of fuel in the combustor allowing proper combustion preventing blow-off and other instabilities.

The geometry of the strut-based flameholder is altered in the present study to induce a streamwise motion of the fluid downstream of the strut. The streamwise motion of the fluid is initiated by the ramps and grooves of the strut geometry. The numerical simulations were carried out using ANSYS Fluent and are validated against the available experimental and numerical results of cold flow with hydrogen injection using plain strut as the flameholder. In the present study, numerical investigations are performed to analyse the effect on hydrogen injection in strut-based flameholders with ramps and converging grooves using Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equation coupled with Menter’s shear stress transport k-ω turbulence model. The analysis is done to determine the effect of geometrical parameters and flow parameter on the flow structures near the base of the strut where thorough mixing takes place. The geometrical parameters under consideration include the ramp length, groove convergence angle, depth of the groove, groove compression angle and the Mach number. Two different strut configurations, namely, symmetric and asymmetric struts were also studied.

Higher turbulence and complex flow structures are visible in asymmetric strut configuration which develops better mixing of hydrogen and air compared to symmetric strut configuration. The variation in the geometric parameters develop changes in the fluid motion downstream of the strut. The fluid passing through the converging grooves gets decelerated thereby reducing the Mach number by 20% near the base of the strut compared to the straight grooved strut. The shorter ramps are found to be more effective, as the pressure variation in lateral direction is carried along the strut walls downstream of the strut increasing the streamwise motion of the fluid. The decrease in the depth of the groove increases the recirculation zone downstream of the strut. Moreover, the increase in the groove compression angle also increases the turbulence near the base of the strut where the fuel is injected. Variation in the injection port location increases the mixing performance of the combustor by 25%. The turbulence of the fuel jet stream is considerably changed by the increase in the injection velocity. However, the change in the flow field properties within the flow domain is marginal. The increase in fuel mass flow rate brings about considerable change in the flow field inducing stronger shock structures.

The present study identifies the optimum geometry of the strut-based flameholder with ramps and converging grooves. The reaction flow modelling may be performed on the strut geometry incorporating the design features obtained in the present study.

An axisymmetric shock-tube model of the high-pressure shock-tube facility at the Texas A&M University has been developed. The shock tube is non-conventional with a non-uniform cross-section and features a driver section with a smaller diameter than the driven section. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Computations were carried out based on the finite volume approach and the AUSM+ flux-differencing scheme. The adaptive mesh refinement algorithm was applied to the time-dependent flow fields to accurately capture and resolve the shock and contact discontinuities as well as the very fine scales associated with the viscous effects. The incorporation of a conjugate heat transfer model enhanced the credibility of the results.

The shock-tube model is validated with simulation of the bifurcation phenomenon and with experimental data. The model is shown to be capable of accurately simulating the shock and expansion wave propagations and reflections as well as the flow non-uniformities behind the reflected shock wave as a result of reflected shock/boundary layer interaction or bifurcation. The pressure profiles behind the reflected shock wave agree with the experimental results.

This paper presents one of the first studies to model the entire flow field history of a non-uniform diameter shock tube with a conjugate heat transfer model beginning from the bursting of the diaphragm while simultaneously resolving the fine features of the reflected shock-boundary layer interaction and the post-shock region near the end-wall, at conditions useful for chemical kinetics experiments. An important discovery from this study is the possible existence of hot spots in the end-wall region that could lead to early non-homogeneous ignition events. More experimental and numerical work is needed to quantify the hot spots.

The purpose of this paper is to establish a freestream computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of a three-dimensional non-spinning semi-cylindrical missile model with a single wrap around fin in Mach 2.70-3.00M range and 0° angle of attack, and ultimately establishing itself for future research study.

In this study, the behaviour of flow around the fin was investigated using a κ-ϵ turbulence model of second-order of discretization. This was done using a highly structured mesh. Additionally, an inviscid CFD simulation involving the same boundary conditions have also been carried out for comparison.

The obtained values of aerodynamic coefficients and pressure contours visualizations are compared against their experimental and computational counterparts. A typical missile aerodynamic characteristic trend can be seen in the current CFD.

The predicted values of the aerodynamic coefficients of this single fin model have also been compared to those of the full missile body comprising of four fins from the previous research studies, and a similar aerodynamic trend can be seen.

This study explores the possibility of the use of turbulence modelling in a single fin model of a missile and provides a basic computational model for further understanding the flow behaviour near the fin.