Relatively few studies have been carried out on the turbulent wake structure of a finite circular cylinder and a stack partially immersed in a flat-plate turbulent boundary layer. There is a need to develop a better understanding of the wakes of these structures, since they have many important engineering applications. This thesis investigates the influence of the aspect ratio on the wake of a finite circular cylinder and the effects of the ratio of jet flow velocity to crossflow velocity (velocity ratio, R) on the wake of a stack in a cross-flow. <p>The wake characteristics of flows over a finite circular cylinder at four different aspect ratios (AR = 3, 5, 7 and 9) were investigated experimentally at a Reynolds number of ReD = 6104 using two-component thermal anemometry. Each cylinder was mounted normal to a ground plane and was either completely or partially immersed in a flat-plate turbulent boundary layer. The ratio of boundary layer thickness to the cylinder diameter was 3. <p>A similar turbulent wake structure (time-averaged velocity, turbulence intensity, and Reynolds shear stress distributions) was found for the cylinders with AR = 5, 7, and 9, while a distinctly different turbulent wake structure was found for the cylinder with AR = 3. This was consistent with the results of a previous study that focused on the time-averaged streamwise vortex structures in the wake. In addition, irrespective of the value of AR, high values were observed for the skewness and flatness factors around the free end of the cylinders, which may be attributed to the interaction of the tip vortex structures and downwash flow that dominates this region of the cylinder.<p>The wake characteristics of a stack of aspect ratio AR = 9 were investigated using both the seven-hole pressure probe and thermal anemometry. The seven-hole probe was used to measure the three components of the time-averaged velocity field, while the thermal anemometry was used to measure two components of the turbulent velocity field at various downstream locations from the stack. The stack was mounted normal to the ground plane and was partially immersed in a flat-plate turbulent boundary layer, for which the ratio of boundary layer thickness to the stack diameter was 4.5. In addition, measurements of the vortex shedding frequency were made with a single-component hot-wire probe. The cross-flow Reynolds number was ReD = 2.3 x 104, the jet Reynolds number ranged from Red = 7.6 x 103 to 4.7 x 104, and R was varied from 0 to 3. <p>In the stack study, three flow regimes were identified depending on the value of R: the downwash (R < 0.7), cross-wind-dominated (0.7 < R < 1.5), and jet-dominated (R ≥ 1.5) flow regimes. Each flow regime had a distinct structure for the time-averaged velocity and streamwise vorticity fields, and turbulence characteristics, as well as the variation of the Strouhal number and the power spectrum of the streamwise velocity fluctuations along the stack height. The turbulence structure is complex and changes in the streamwise and wall-normal directions within the near and intermediate stack and jet wakes. In the downwash and crosswind-dominated flow regimes, two pairs of counter-rotating streamwise vortex structures were identified within the stack wake. The tip-vortex pair and base-vortex pair were similar to those found in the wake of a finite circular cylinder, located close to the free end and the base of the stack (ground plane), respectively. In the jet-dominated flow regime, a third pair of streamwise vortex structures was observed, referred to as the jet-wake vortex pair, which occurred within the jet-wake region above the free end of the stack. The jet-wake vortex pair has the same orientation as the base vortex pair and is associated with the jet rise.

Combustor blowout is a very serious concern in modern land-based and aircraft engine combustors. The ability to sense blowout precursors can provide significant payoffs in engine reliability and life. The objective of this work is to characterize the blowout phenomenon and develop a sensing methodology which can detect and assess the proximity of a combustor to blowout by monitoring its acoustic signature, thus providing early warning before the actual blowout of the combustor. The first part of the work examines the blowout phenomenon in a piloted jet burner. As blowout was approached, the flame detached from one side of the burner and showed increased flame tip fluctuations, resulting in an increase in low frequency acoustics. Work was then focused on swirling combustion systems. Close to blowout, localized extinction/re-ignition events were observed, which manifested as bursts in the acoustic signal. These events increased in number and duration as the combustor approached blowout, resulting an increase in low frequency acoustics. A variety of spectral, wavelet and thresholding based approaches were developed to detect precursors to blowout. The third part of the study focused on a bluff body burner. It characterized the underlying flame dynamics near blowout in greater detail and related it to the observed acoustic emissions. Vorticity was found to play a significant role in the flame dynamics. The flame passed through two distinct stages prior to blowout. The first was associated with momentary strain levels that exceed the flames extinction strain rate, leading to flame holes. The second was due to large scale alteration of the fluid dynamics in the bluff body wake, leading to violent flapping of the flame front and even larger straining of the flame. This led to low frequency acoustic oscillations, of the order of von Karman vortex shedding. This manifested as an abrupt increase in combustion noise spectra at 40-100 Hz very close to blowout. Finally, work was also done to improve the robustness of lean blowout detection by developing integration techniques that combined data from acoustic and optical sensors.

Combustion instability plagues the combustion community in a wide range of applications. This un-solved problem is especially prevalent and expensive in aerospace propulsion and ground power generation. The challenges associated with understanding and predicting combustion instability lie in the flame response to the acoustic field. One of the more complicated flame response mechanisms is the velocity coupled flame response, where the flame responds dynamically to the acoustic velocity as well as the vortically induced velocity field excited by the acoustics. This vortically induced, or hydrodynamic, velocity field holds critical importance to the flame response but is computationally expensive to predict, often requiring high fidelity CFD computations. Furthermore, its behavior can be a strong function of the numerous flow parameters that change over the operability map of a combustor. This research focuses on a nominally two dimensional bluff body combustor, which has rich hydrodynamic stability behavior with a manageable number of stability parameters. The work focuses first on experimentally characterizing the dynamical flow and flame behavior. Next, the research shifts focus toward hydrodynamic stability theory, using it to explain the physical phenomena observed in the experimental work. Additionally, the hydrodynamic stability work shows how the use of simple, model analysis can identify the important stability parameters and elucidate their governing physical roles. Finally, the research explores the forced response of the flow and flame while systematically varying the underlying hydrodynamic stability characteristics. In the case of longitudinal combustion instability of highly preheated bluff body combustors, it shows that conditions where an acoustic mode frequency equals the hydrodynamic global mode frequency are not especially dangerous from a combustion instability standpoint, and may actually have a reduced heat release response. This demonstrates the very non-intuitive role that the natural hydrodynamic flow stability plays in the forced heat release response of the flame. For the fluid mechanics community, this work contributes to the detailed understanding of both unforced and forced bluff body combustor dynamics, and shows how each is influenced by the underlying hydrodynamics. In particular, it emphasizes the role of the density-shear layer offset, and shows how its extreme sensitivity leads to complicated flow dynamics. For the flow-combustor community as a whole, the work reviews a pre-existing method to obtain the important flow stability parameters, and demonstrates a novel way to link those parameters to the governing flow physics. For the combustion instability community, this thesis emphasizes the importance of the hydrodynamic stability characteristics of the flow, and concludes by offering a paradigm for consideration of the hydrodynamics in a combustion instability problem.

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The remarkable efficacy with which normal surface mass transpiration (blowing and suction) alters a given base flow to achieve a desired predefined objective has motivated several investigations on drag reduction, self-propulsion and suppression of separation and wake unsteadiness in bluff body flows. However, the energetic efficiency, a critical parameter that determines the true efficacy and in particular practical feasibility of this control strategy, has received significantly less attention. In this work, we determine the optimal zero net mass transpiration blowing and suction profiles that minimize net power consumption while reducing drag or enabling self-propulsion in typical bluff body flows. We establish the influence of prescribed blowing and suction profiles on the hydrodynamic loads and net power consumption for a representative bluff body flow involving flow past a stationary two-dimensional circular cylinder. Using analysis based on Oseen’s equations, we find that all the symmetric modes, except the first one, lead to an increase in the net power consumption without affecting hydrodynamic drag. The optimal blowing and suction profile that yields minimum power consumption is such that the normal stress acting on the cylinder surface vanishes identically. Furthermore, we show that a self-propelling state corresponding to zero net drag force is attained when the first mode of blowing and suction profile is such that the flow field be-comes irrigational. Based on these findings we employ direct numerical simulation tools to decipher the Reynolds number dependence of the optimal profiles and the associated power consumption for both drag reduction and self-propulsion. For a typical Reynolds number, the time-averaged drag coefficient first decreases due to vortex shedding suppression, then increases and eventually decreases again after attaining a local maximum as the strength of the first mode is increased. The net power consumption continues to decrease with an increase in the strength of the first mode before reaching a minima after which it rises continuously. For a Reynolds number of 1000 over fifteen fold reduction in drag is achieved for an optimal blowing and suction profile with a maximum radial surface velocity that is nearly 1.97 times the free stream velocity. Next, to establish whether or not higher modes play a role in decreasing net power consumption at finite Reynolds number, we perform theoretical analysis of a configuration similar to the one described above for a spherical body. At zero Reynolds number, as a result of mode independence, we show that surface blow-ing and suction of any form that involves second or higher order axisymmetric or non-axisymmetric modes does not contribute to drag and only leads to an increase in total power consumption. However, at finite Reynolds number, using analysis based on Oseen’s equations, we find that the second and higher modes contribute substantially to the optimal profiles. Finally to understand the effects of a change in shape we consider generalization of the above analysis to axisymmetric prolate and oblate spheroidal bodies. We find that for a general axisymmetric body with non-constant curvature, the optimal drag reducing and self-propelling blowing and suction profiles for minimum power consumption contain second and higher-order modes along with the first mode even when the Reynolds number is zero. The net decrease in power consumption with the use of second and higher order modes exceeds 33% for a disk-like low aspect ratio self-propelling oblate spheroid. Moreover, we perform comparisons between blowing and suction and tangential surface velocity based boundary deformation propulsion mechanisms. Below an aspect ratio of 0.56 we find blowing and suction mechanism to be more efficient for self-propulsion of an oblate spheroid. In contrast, for a self-propelling pro-late spherical micro-swimmer, we show that the tangential surface tread milling consumes less power irrespective of the aspect ratio.

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This thesis presents an experimental investigation of drag reduction devices on a bluff body in ground effect. It has previously been shown that the addition of end-plate tabs to a rectangular based bluff body with an aspect ratio of 4 is effective in eliminating vortex shedding and reducing drag for low Reynolds number flows. In the present study a square based bluff body, both with and without tabs, will be tested under the same conditions, except this time operating within proximity to a ground plane in order to mimic the properties of bounded aerodynamics that would be present for a body in ground effect.

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