Aerospace Engineering Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2737
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Item Heat Transfer Measurements in a Supersonic Film Flow(2016) Adamson, Colin Sawyer; Cadou, Christopher; Aerospace Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This thesis presents measurements of wall heat flux and flow structure in a canonical film cooling configuration with Mach 2.3 core flow in which the coolant is injected parallel to the wall through a two-dimensional louver. Four operating conditions are investigated: no film (i.e. flow over a rearward-facing step), subsonic film, pressure-matched film, and supersonic film. The overall objective is to provide a set of experimental data with well characterized boundary conditions that can be used for code validation. The results are compared to RANS and LES simulations which overpredict heat transfer in the subsonic film cases and underpredict heat transfer in supersonic cases after film breakdown. The thesis also describes a number of improvements that were made to the experimental facility including new Schlieren optics, a better film heater, more data at more locations, and a verification of the heat flux measurement hardware and data reduction methods.Item Slot Film Cooling: A Comprehensive Experimental Characterization(2016) Raffan Montoya, Fernando; Marshall, Andre W; Cadou, Christopher; Aerospace Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)When components of a propulsion system are exposed to elevated flow temperatures there is a risk for catastrophic failure if the components are not properly protected from the thermal loads. Among several strategies, slot film cooling is one of the most commonly used, yet poorly understood active cooling techniques. Tangential injection of a relatively cool fluid layer protects the surface(s) in question, but the turbulent mixing between the hot mainstream and cooler film along with the presence of the wall presents an inherently complex problem where kinematics, thermal transport and multimodal heat transfer are coupled. Furthermore, new propulsion designs rely heavily on CFD analysis to verify their viability. These CFD models require validation of their results, and the current literature does not provide a comprehensive data set for film cooling that meets all the demands for proper validation, namely a comprehensive (kinematic, thermal and boundary condition data) data set obtained over a wide range of conditions. This body of work aims at solving the fundamental issue of validation by providing high quality comprehensive film cooling data (kinematics, thermal mixing, heat transfer). 3 distinct velocity ratios (VR=uc/u∞) are examined corresponding to wall-wake (VR~0.5), min-shear (VR ~ 1.0), and wall-jet (VR~2.0) type flows at injection, while the temperature ratio TR= T∞/Tc is approximately 1.5 for all cases. Turbulence intensities at injection are 2-4% for the mainstream (urms/u∞, vrms/u∞,), and on the order of 8-10% for the coolant (urms/uc, vrms/uc,). A special emphasis is placed on inlet characterization, since inlet data in the literature is often incomplete or is of relatively low quality for CFD development. The data reveals that min-shear injection provides the best performance, followed by the wall-jet. The wall-wake case is comparably poor in performance. The comprehensive data suggests that this relative performance is due to the mixing strength of each case, as well as the location of regions of strong mixing with respect to the wall. Kinematic and thermal data show that strong mixing occurs in the wall-jet away from the wall (y/s>1), while strong mixing in the wall-wake occurs much closer to the wall (y/s<1). Min-shear cases exhibit noticeably weaker mixing confined to about y/s=1. Additionally to these general observations, the experimental data obtained in this work is analyzed to reveal scaling laws for the inlets, near-wall scaling, detecting and characterizing coherent structures in the flow as well as to provide data reduction strategies for comparison to CFD models (RANS and LES).Item EXPERIMENTAL AND NUMERICAL INVESTIGATION OF TANGENTIALLY-INJECTED SLOT FILM COOLING(2013) Voegele, Andrew; Trouve, Arnaud; Marshall, Andre; Aerospace Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Film cooling is a technique used in gas turbine engines, and blades and rocket nozzles to protect critical surfaces from the hot combustion gases. In film cooling applications, a relatively cool thin fluid is injected along surfaces and subsequently mix with the hot mainstream, thus leading to a reduction of protection at the wall. The breakdown of this film involves complex physics including intense turbulent mixing, heat transfer, conduction, radiation and variable density effects to name a few. In this dissertation, film cooling is both experimentally measured and numerically simulated. The experiments feature non-intrusive Particle Image Velocimetry to provide two-dimensional planes of mean and fluctuating velocity, which are critical in order to characterize and understand the turbulent flow phenomena involved in film cooling. Additionally, through the use of micro-thermocouples, the thermal flow fields and wall temperatures are non-intrusively measured, with very small radiative errors. The film cooling flows are experimentally varied to cover a variety of breakdown regimes for both adiabatic (or idealized walls with no heat loss) and on-adiabatic walls (or walls with a carefully controlled heat loss through them). The subsequent experimental dataset is a unique and comprehensive set of turbulent measurements characterizing and demonstrating the film breakdown and the turbulent flow physics. The experiments are then numerically simulated using an in-house variable density, Large Eddy Simulation (LES) Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code developed as part of this dissertation. In addition to accurately predicting important turbulent kinematic and thermal flow phenomena, the key wall parameters were predicted to within 3% for the adiabatic cases and to within 6% for the non-adiabatic cases, with a few exceptions. Turbulent inflow techniques, crucial for the success of LES of film cooling, are examined. In addition to the turbulent flow physics, radiation and conduction physics at the wall were also simulated with good fidelity. The combined experimental and numerical approach was used to uniquely form a comprehensive study, examining many aspects of film cooling phenomena relevant for engineering applications.Item UNDERSTANDING THE ROLE OF HEAT RECIRCULATION IN ENHANCING THE SPEED OF PREMIXED LAMINAR FLAMES IN A PARALLEL PLATE MICRO-COMBUSTOR(2009) Veeraragavan, Ananthanarayanan; Cadou, Christopher P; Aerospace Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation investigates the role of heat recirculation in enhancing the flame speeds of laminar flames stabilized in a parallel plate reactor by: 1) developing analytical models that account for conjugate heat transfer with the wall and 2) making measurements of temperature profiles in a simulated microcombustor using non-intrusive FTIR spectroscopy from which heat recirculation is inferred. The analytical models have varying degrees of complexity. A simple heat transfer model simulates the flame by incorporating a concentrated heat release function along with constant temperature wall model. The next level model accommodates conjugate heat transfer with the wall along with a built in heat loss model to the environment. The heat transfer models identify the thermal design parameters influencing the temperature profiles and the Nusselt number. The conjugate heat transfer model is coupled with a species transport equation to develop a 2-D model that predicts the flame speed as an eigenvalue of the problem. The flame speed model shows that there are three design parameters (wall thermal conductivity ratio ( &kappa ), wall thickness ratio ( &tau ) and external heat loss parameter ( NuE )) that influence the flame speed. Finally, it is shown that all these three parameters really control the total heat recirculation which is a single valued function of the flame speed and independent of the velocity profile (Plug or Poiseuille flow). On the experimental side, a previously developed non-intrusive diagnostic technique based on FTIR spectroscopy of CO2 absorbance is improved by identifying the various limitations (interferences from other species, temperature profile fitting, ... etc) and suggesting improvements to each limitation to make measurements in a silicon walled, simulated microcombustor. Methane/Air and Propane/Air flames were studied for different equivalence ratios and burning velocities. From the temperature profiles it can be seen that increasing the flame speed pushes the flames further up the channel and increases the combustors inner gas and outer wall temperatures (measured using IR thermography). The temperature profiles measured are used to make a 2-D heat recirculation map for the burner as a function of the equivalence ratio and burning velocity. The experimental results are compared to the analytical models predictions which show a linear trend between flame speed and heat recirculation.Item Experimental Characterization of Slot Film Cooling Flows With Minimally Intrusive Diagnostics(2008) Raffan, Fernando; Marshall, Andre; Aerospace Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The performance of a propulsion system is directly proportional to its operating temperature; therefore, an optimum operation regime will undoubtedly generate intense thermal loads on system components. If the system is designed for reusability and/or long range missions, it may be necessary to perform active cooling of critical components to prevent premature failure of the system. One such method is film cooling, in which a layer of relatively cool gas is injected near the surface to be protected. This work describes the use of minimally intrusive diagnostics to characterize the kinematics, thermal dynamics and heat transfer of slot film cooling flows over a wide range of blowing ratios, generating a comprehensive database for detailed analysis, as well as for further use by model developers.