Momentum Exchange Research Articles

Clustering, coalescing and bursting processes in surface bubbles of surfactant water flows

Breaking waves aerate seawater surfaces and form whitecaps in the open ocean. The aerated surface area, or whitecap coverage, has been used to macroscopically parametrize air–sea momentum and gas exchange. However, the microscopic mechanisms of the generation, evolution and attenuation of surface bubbles in whitecaps remain poorly understood. In this study, we examined the size distributions and size-dependent lifetimes of surface bubbles generated by water sheet entry and air injection on a porous plate during the clustering, coalescing and bursting processes, depending on surfactant concentrations and bubble mobility. Mechanisms of coalescence through film thinning of adjacent bubble walls owing to the inter-bubble attraction and Marangoni forces experimentally described the surfactant-dependent bubble growth, finally achieving bubble bursting, which were statistically characterized in a population balance analysis. Lagrangian bubble lifetimes were described by the Weibull distribution, providing that surfactant in seawater extended the probabilistic survival periods of surface bubbles two times longer than those of clean bubbles.

Сравнительный анализ проекционного и диффузионного методов обеспечения соленоидальности расчетного магнитного поля

Numerical modeling of current-carrying plasma dynamics is based, as a rule, on multiphysics models, which include equations describing MHD waves, transport and and dissipative processes accompanying the exchange of momentum and energy with the electromagnetic field. To solve the equations describing the evolution of the magnetic field, including as a result of magnetic diffusion, the grid system of equations of the discrete MHD model is not always constructed in such a way that the magnetic field divergence constraint is satisfied “automatically”. As a result, numerical errors can accumulate, creating the effect of the appearance of non-physical “magnetic charges” and plasma flows caused by these charges that do not correspond to the true physical situation. To maintain the solenoidal condition, calibration of the calculated magnetic field is used. In this work, in computational experiments with the MHD MARPLE code (M.V. Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics RAS), the practical accuracy of calibration methods such as projection and diffusion is assessed. The magnetic field correction was calculated using a stabilized explicit scheme for solving parabolic equations. It has been shown via numerical experiments that the diffusion method is more accurate and is not inferior to the projection method in terms of efficiency.

Prediction of mean flow and over-tip shock distribution in pressure-driven tip leakage flows

The flow across the blade tip clearance in turbomachinery is simplified as pressure-driven tip leakage flow (TLF) by isolating it from the mainstream. Based on schlieren visualization and numerical simulations, several common features of TLF are achieved. Consequently, a diffusion model is proposed to evaluate the mean flow and shock motions within the clearance. It takes into consideration the effects of relative wall motion by superposing a fully developed Couette flow. In addition, the over-tip shock waves are treated as repeated sawtooth wave to model the propagation. This approach enables quick and accurate evaluations of the meanflow and shock motions under configurations of stationery and moving casing wall. Given the flow variables at boundaries of the shock region, the meanflow and the evolution of the over-tip shock waves can be achieved instantly with an error less than 2%. Another advantage of this model is it can be non-intrusive. Hence, the challenges, arising from spatial constraints in direct measuring of TLF within the clearance, are surmounted. This is beneficial for locating the tip flow loss and the shock-induced heat load. Two flow mechanisms are unveiled from the predictions: (1) The strongest shock–boundary interaction accompanied by strong momentum exchange occurs above the separation bubble. (2) The oscillation of over-tip shock waves is self-sustained by a feedback loop formed by the pressure-side vortex shedding, shock generation, and shock–boundary interactions.

Testing the Efficacy of Minocycline Treatment in an Awake, Female Rat Model of Repetitive Mild Head Injury

Minocycline is being tested in clinical trials for the treatment of stroke and traumatic brain injury. As an antibiotic it reduces microglia activation. Can minocycline be used to treat mild repetitive head injury? To that end, minocycline was tested in a novel, closed-head, momentum exchange model of repetitive mild head injury in female rats impacted while fully awake. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed there was no brain damage or contusion attesting to the mild nature of the head impacts in this model. It was hypothesized that drug treatment would reduce edema and brain neuroinflammation. Female rats maintained on a reverse light-dark cycle were head impacted three times while fully awake with and without drug treatment. The impacts, separated by 24 hrs each, were delivered under red light illumination. Within 1-2 hrs of the last impact, rats were assessed for changes in water diffusion using diffusion weighted imaging. The data were registered to a 3D MRI rat atlas with 173 segmented brain areas providing site specific information on altered brain gray matter microarchitecture. Postmortem histology was performed 18 days post head injury. Head injury without minocycline treatment was characterized by multiple areas of increased fractional anisotropy, evidence of cytotoxic edema. Treatment with minocycline reversed these measures in many of the same areas and several others (e.g., hippocampus, basal ganglia, prefrontal cortex, sensory and motor cortices and thalamus). Histology for gliosis showed no evidence of neuroinflammation in the thalamus, hippocampus and cerebellum for control or experimental groups in this female model of mild head injury. These studies provide clear evidence that treatment with minocycline within hours after mild repetitive head injury significantly reduce measures of cytotoxic edema in a female rat model of mild repetitive head injury.

The BGOOD experiment at ELSA, exotic structures in the light quark sector?

The BGOOD photoproduction experiment accesses forward meson angles and low momentum exchange kinematics in the uds sector, which may be sensitive to molecular-like hadron structure. Recent results are presented, including strangeness photoproduction at forward meson angles, and π0π0 co herent photoproduction off the deuteron.

The BGOOD experiment at ELSA, exotic structures in the light quark sector?

The BGOOD photoproduction experiment accesses forward meson angles and low momentum exchange kinematics in the uds sector, which may be sensitive to molecular-like hadron structure. Recent results are presented, including strangeness photoproduction at forward meson angles, and π0π0 coherent photoproduction off the deuteron.

A volume of fluid based method for consistent flux computation in large-density ratio two-phase flows and its application in investigating droplet bag breakup behavior

This article introduces a novel method for computing consistent fluxes, which enables highly robust simulations of two-phase flow problems characterized by large-density ratios. The approach is based on the geometric reconstruction volume of fluid method and utilizes a staggered grid implementation. This allows for accurate and robust simulation of phenomena like droplet bag breakup in flows with intense velocity shear and significant density differences. Through numerical experiments, it has been demonstrated that this method can reliably simulate two-phase flows with large-density ratios while preserving excellent energy conservation properties. Expanding on these findings, the researchers have developed a solver that leverages block-structured adaptive mesh to perform high-fidelity simulations of droplet bag breakup scenarios. Remarkably, this solver accurately reproduces three distinct breakup patterns: bag mode, stamen mode, and sheet-stripping mode. A comprehensive analysis has also been conducted by comparing the dimensionless maximum cross-stream radius with experimental test results. Furthermore, the study investigates the kinetic energy spectrum of fully developed two-phase turbulence under different droplet generation mechanisms and examines the distribution of droplet sizes. The numerical results validate the efficacy and reliability of this method in accurately simulating two-phase flows characterized by significant density disparities and interface momentum exchange.

Numerical Two-Phase Simulations of Alkaline Water Electrolyzers

Alkaline water electrolyzers (AWE) have several advantages over other types of electrolyzers, including their high efficiency and especially their relatively low cost due to the usage of non-precious metal catalysts, such as nickel and iron, for the electrodes. Information about local quantities and physical phenomena such as the formation of gas bubbles, current densities, temperatures or local species concentrations within a running cell are important for their improvement. Multiphysical computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations of electrochemical components using detailed three-dimensional models can provide valuable insight on local behaviors and characteristics that are difficult or impossible to measure experimentally.This work extends the CFD library openFuelCell2 1, which has been implemented using the open-source platform OpenFOAM®, to simulate AWE cells. The model considers the major transport phenomena, including two-phase fluid flow, heat and mass transfer, electrochemical reactions, species transfer and charge transfer in the various functional regions of the cell. It employs an Eulerian-Eulerian approach to characterize the behavior of each phase comprising interphase mass transport, momentum exchange and heat transfer. Appropriate mapping functions are used to couple the physically distinct regions together. A Butler-Volmer equation characterizes the electrochemical reactions that are assumed to occur in electrodes of finite thickness.This model is used to simulate a single zero-gap AWE cell, depicted in Fig. 1, for different operating conditions such as varying temperatures and volumetric flow rates. The conducted studies provide insight into the local formation of the created gas phase (bubbles), the distribution of species within the gas and electrolyte and their impact towards the performance of the running cell. These numerically obtained results are compared to in-house available and gathered experimental data. Figure 1 demonstrates that the polarization curves obtained at various temperatures are in good agreement with the experimental data. Figure 1

PIV experimental analysis of the escape phenomenon of air spraying jet in factories

Inefficient air spraying can release a large amount of paint particles from a spraying jet, which can seriously endanger the health of operators. The flow field characteristics of air atomizing spray guns have a significant influence on spraying efficiency. To investigate the reasons for the escape of paint particles during air spraying, improve efficiency at the source and curb the escape of pollutants into a factory building, this study measured the whole flow field of an air spray gun via a 2D particle image velocimetry (PIV) system. The results showed that the spraying jet velocity reached a maximum of 28 m/s near the spray nozzle with a Reynolds number of 3000 and subsequently decayed rapidly due to the strong momentum exchange with the surrounding air. The radial velocity at the junction of paint mist and air first increases and then decreases (maximum 0.5 m/s). The turbulence intensity was relatively high at the spraying jet boundary. In addition, the spay flow at the nozzle and the jet boundary showed high intermittency. The turbulence structures were studied by proper orthogonal decomposition (POD). The results indicated that the radial velocity of spray was the major source underlying the development of spraying jet radial diffusion. Finally, the spraying efficiency was calculated to be between 53 % and 58 %. For air spraying, suppressing radial movement can improve spraying efficiency by up to 40 %, which is essential to controlling the escape of paint mist and improving the working environment in spray booths.

Local entrainment across a TNTI and a TTI in a turbulent forced fountain

Local instantaneous exchanges of volume, momentum and buoyancy across turbulent/non-turbulent interfaces (TNTIs) and turbulent/turbulent interfaces (TTIs) are studied using data from direct numerical simulations of a turbulent forced fountain. We apply a novel algorithm that enables independent calculation of the instantaneous local entrainment and detrainment fluxes, and therefore, for the first time, the entrainment and detrainment coefficients according to the fountain model (Bloomfield & Kerr, J. Fluid Mech., vol. 424, 2000, pp. 197–216) are determined explicitly. Across the interface between the fountain and the ambient fluid, which is a TNTI, only volume entrainment occurs, and it is well predicted by the fountain model. Across the interface between the rising upflow and falling downflow within the fountain, which is a TTI, both entrainment and detrainment of volume, momentum and buoyancy occur – with the magnitude of both entrainment and detrainment typically being large compared with the net for all exchanges. However, the model seems to be unable to capture the momentum exchanges due to its ignorance of the pressure. We find that each conditional entrainment and detrainment rate, of volume, momentum and buoyancy, can be described accurately by Gaussian profiles, while the net exchange that is the superposition of the entrainment and detrainment cannot. Moreover, the entrainment exchange rate has its maximum closer to the fountain centreline than that of detrainment, explaining the tendency for net entrainment closer to the fountain centreline and net detrainment further away.

Experimental investigation on a novel external-mixing prefilming atomizer for advanced aircraft engines

As a crucial component of aircraft engine combustors, the external-mixing prefilming atomizer exhibits significant advantages in enhancing combustion efficiency and reducing pollutant emissions. However, the intricate relationship between spray characteristics, droplet breakup mechanisms, flow fields, and geometric parameters of the external-mixing prefilming atomizer remains poorly understood. This paper presents a novel external-mixing prefilming atomizer, aiming to address this knowledge gap. Additionally, particle image velocimetry (PIV), high-speed Schlieren photography, and particle image analysis (PIA) measuring systems were employed to gain insights into the spray characteristics and droplet breakup mechanism of the external-mixing prefilming atomizer under various swirl flow fields. The obtained results reveal the formation of two distinct regions, namely a low-density area and a high-density area. Notably, the number of droplets in the low-density area, located within 0–2 cm from the central axis, is significantly lower compared to the high-density area situated further away from the central axis. The breakup of droplets in the low-density region is primarily attributed to the inner swirl airflow, while the outer swirl airflow induces droplet breakup in the high-density region. As the Reynolds number of the incoming flow increases, the air-liquid ratio (ALR) and Weber number also increase, thereby enhancing the fuel breakup effect. The Schlieren results reveal a two-stage spray development process. The initial stage is characterized by the dominant momentum of the dense spray, with the spray tip penetration (STP) exhibiting a relatively slow increase. The aerodynamic force of airflow plays a crucial role in governing the breakup and transport of droplets, leading to a linear variation of STP over time. As the swirl number increases, there is an enhanced momentum exchange between droplets and airflow, resulting in accelerated spray penetration and droplet breakup.

Quokka-based understanding of outflows (QED) – I. Metal loading, phase structure, and convergence testing for solar neighbourhood conditions

ABSTRACT Multiphase galactic outflows, generated by supernova (SN) feedback, are likely to be more metal rich than the interstellar media from which they are driven due to incomplete mixing between SN ejecta and the ambient interstellar medium. This enrichment is important for shaping galactic metallicities and metallicity gradients, but measuring it quantitatively from simulations requires resolution high enough to resolve mass, momentum and energy exchanges between the different phases of the outflows. In this context, we present QED, which are simulations of outflows, driven by SN feedback, conducted using Quokka, a new GPU-optimized adaptive mesh refinement radiation-hydrodynamics code. This code allows us to reach combinations of resolution, simulation volume, and simulation duration larger than those that have previously been possible, and to resolve all gas phases from cold neutral medium, T ∼ 100 K, to hot ionized gas, T ≳ 107 K. In this, a first of a series of papers exploring generation and evolution of multiphase outflows from a wide range of galactic environments and star formation rates, we quantify the extent of selective metal loading in solar neighbourhood-like environments. We explain the selective metal loading, we find as a result of the transport of metals within and between phases, a phenomenon we can study owing to the parsec-scale resolution that our simulations achieve. We also quantify the sensitivity of metal loading studies to numerical resolution, and present convergence criteria for future studies.

Scale‐Dependent Air‐Sea Exchange in the Polar Oceans: Floe‐Floe and Floe‐Flow Coupling in the Generation of Ice‐Ocean Boundary Layer Turbulence

AbstractSea ice is a heterogeneous, evolving mosaic of individual floes, varying in spatial scales from meters to tens of kilometers. Both the internal dynamics of the floe mosaic (floe‐floe interactions), and the evolution of floes under ocean and atmospheric forcing (floe‐flow interactions), determine the exchange of heat, momentum, and tracers between the lower atmosphere and upper ocean. Climate models do not represent either of these highly variable interactions. We use a novel, high‐resolution, discrete element modeling framework to examine ice‐ocean boundary layer (IOBL) turbulence within a domain approximately the size of a climate model grid. We show floe‐scale effects could cause a marked increase in the production of fine‐scale three‐dimensional turbulence in the IOBL relative to continuum model approaches, and provide a method of representing that turbulence using bulk parameters related to the spatial variance of the ice and ocean: the floe size distribution and the ocean kinetic energy spectrum.

Detailed simulations of one-dimensional detonation propagation in dilute n-heptane spray and air mixtures

One-dimensional numerical simulations based on the hybrid Eulerian–Lagrangian approach are performed to investigate detonation dynamics in two-phase gas-droplet n-heptane/air mixtures with and without liquid fuel pre-vaporization. The reactive Navier–Stokes equations considering the two-way coupling for interphase exchanges of mass, momentum, energy, and species are solved with a skeletal mechanism consisting of 44 species and 112 reactions. The effects of n-heptane droplet diameter and equivalence ratio (ER) on average detonation speed and mode are studied. For pre-vaporization cases, the average detonation speed first decreases and then increases with droplet diameter ranging from 2.5 to 40 μm, which is minimum at 7.5–10 μm due to the competition between fuel vapor addition and droplet evaporative heat absorption. However, the average speed increases monotonically as the droplet ER increases from 0.2 to 1.2. A further increase in the droplet ER (e.g., 2.4) would lead to detonation suppression in the presence of large droplets (e.g., above 30 μm). The detonation is fully quenched when the droplet ER is 3.2. Similar observations are also made for the pure sprayed cases without n-heptane pre-vaporization, where the average speed increases rapidly for droplet ER of 0.2–0.8 and slowly for ER of 0.8–1.6. Various detonation modes are observed with respect to droplet diameter and equivalence ratio, either with or without fuel pre-vaporization. Generally, the pure sprayed cases show more irregular behaviors in detonation propagation. The laden droplets provide a new approach to control the intrinsically unstable or highly irregular behaviors of pure gas or pure sprayed detonations. The finite, small disturbances from the spatially non-uniform droplets, and enrichment from the droplet evaporative mass addition, are two essential mechanisms for the mitigation of the pulsating detonation.

Drag reduction using riblets downstream of a high Reynolds number inclined forward step flow

Micro-riblet is an efficient passive method for controlling turbulent boundary layers, with the potential to reduce frictional drag. In various applications within the transportation industry, flow separation is a prevalent flow phenomenon. However, the precise drag reduction performance of riblets in the presence of flow separation remains unclear. To address this, an inclined forward step model is proposed to investigate the interaction between riblet and upstream flow separation. The large eddy simulation (LES) method is applied to simulate the flow over geometries with different step angles and riblet positions. The results show riblets still reduce wall frictional resistance when subjected to the upstream flow separation. Remarkably, as the angle of the step increases from 0° to 30°, the drag reduction experiences an increment from 9.5% to 12.6%. From a turbulence statistics standpoint, riblets act to suppress the Reynold stress in the near-wall region and dampen ejection motions, thus weakening momentum exchange. Quadrant analysis reveals that with the augmentation of flow separation, the Q2 motion within the flow field intensifies, subsequently enhancing the riblet-induced drag reduction. Moreover, the position of the riblets has a significant impact on the pressure drag. Riblets close to the point of separation enhance flow separation, altering the surface pressure distribution and thus increasing the resistance. The results reveal that when the riblets are positioned approximately 160 riblet heights away from the step, their effect on the upstream flow separation becomes negligible. The precise performance of riblets under complex flow conditions is important for their practical engineering application.

Attitude optimization by extremum seeking for rigid bodies actuated by internal rotors only

SummaryIn this paper, we investigate the stabilizing effect of an extremum seeking control law on a class of underactuated Lagrangian control systems with symmetry. Our study is motivated by the problem of attitude optimization for satellites with reaction wheels. The goal is to minimize the value of an analytically unknown configuration‐dependent objective function without being reliant on measurements of the current configuration and velocity. This work extends our previous work on extremum seeking control for fully actuated mechanical systems on Lie groups in the absence of dissipation. We show that the earlier method for fully actuated systems can also be successfully applied to a certain class of underactuated systems, which are controlled by internal momentum exchange devices (reaction wheels) so that the total momentum is conserved. Conservation of momentum allows us to reduce the control system to a system on a smaller state manifold. The reduced control system is not of Lagrangian form but fully actuated. For the reduced control system we prove that the extremum seeking method leads to practical uniform asymptotic stability. We illustrate our findings by the example of a rigid body with internal rotors.

Flow Structures in Open Channels with Emergent Rigid Vegetation: A Review

On the edges of rivers where the flow velocity is low, aquatic plants flourish, with emergent rigid herbs being the most common. Since the flow structures of vegetated flow are strongly influenced by vegetation distribution patterns, homogeneous and heterogeneous canopies are defined based on the characteristics of vegetation distribution. A review summarizing recent advances in flow structures under the influence of different types of canopy arrangements, including ribbon-like homogeneous canopies, ribbon-like heterogeneous canopies, and patched heterogeneous canopies, is needed. Their flow development process, shear layer properties, coherent structure features, and momentum exchange characteristics are summarized, and a future research agenda for an in-depth understanding of the interactions between vegetation and flow is also highlighted.

A five-level cold atomic system for the orbital angular momentum exchange based on a four-wave mixing setup

In this paper, we suggest a theoretical model for the exchange of the orbital angular momentum (OAM) state of laser fields in a real cold atomic system for realization in an experimental setup. By using four-wave mixing (FWM) processes, we study the spatial dependence of the new weak generated signal light under electromagnetically induced transparency conditions when one of the laser lights becomes an optical vortex. We discuss the spatial dependence of FWM processes via experimental parameters for different conditions of the OAM of vortex light. We have found that the intensity and phase distributions of the new generated light depends strongly on the OAM number of the optical vortex light. Moreover, we investigate the absorption spectrum of the new generated signal light for different OAM of the optical vortex light. Our obtained results may have potential applications in quantum information science.

The vortex light induced electric dipole and electric quadru-pole transition in Ca atom

The Laguerre–Gaussian beam induced electric transition model is presented. The major mechanism of angular momentum exchange between the light and the atomic system is discussed. The influence of the topological charge on the transition probability and selection rules is obtained. Our results show that the Ca(4s2 1S0–4s3d 1D2) electric quadrupole transition selection rules are sensitive to the sign of l, and the center of mass transition selection rules are governed by the topological charge l of the light. The electric dipole transition is possible in a field with topological charge l > 0, and the quadrupole transition is no longer forbidden. The overall transition probability difference between dipole transition and quadrupole transition can be decreased by the joint action of the light angular momentum exchange with the external and the internal motion.

Experimental investigation on droplet evolutions in co-flow around the bluff body

Annular mist flow widely exists in natural gas and other engineering fields. Vortex flowmeter has gradually become an effective means of wet gas measurement. However, the droplets in the flow field will influence the stability of the vortex. In this paper, the interaction between droplets and vortex was studied by experiments. A novel in-focus criterion was proposed to improve the accuracy of droplet measurement. Simultaneous acquisition of droplet size, velocity, and concentration was achieved. The spatial evolution of droplet parameters was obtained to determine the position where the droplets were evenly distributed. The bidirectional coupling mechanism between droplets and vortex was studied. Firstly, the influence of the vortex flow field on droplets was reflected by the characteristics of droplet distribution around the bluff body. Secondly, the effect of droplets on the vortex signal in the flow field was analyzed based on Stokes number Stp and liquid-phase load φl. When φl < 0.03, the probability distribution of droplet velocity downstream of the bluff body presents double peaks. The exchange momentum between the small droplets and the vortex is stronger, and vice versa for the larger droplets. Finally, the quality factor of vortex signals decreases from -2.09 to -2.18 with the increase in the volume concentration of droplets. It is further demonstrated that the increase in volume concentration of droplets will destroy the vortex structure and degrade the quality of the vortex signal.