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No description available.

Performance when gliding in the streamlined position depends on a swimmer’s morphological characteristics, body orientation and water characteristics. The purpose of this thesis was twofold. First to identify and assess the effect of controllable factors that contribute to glide performance and second to form the foundations of an improved approach of simulating the fluid flow around the swimmers’ body. To address the purposes of the thesis four investigations were conducted. Study 1. The effect of the head position on glide performance was investigated. When the high, medium and low head positions were compared, it was found that swimmers experience significantly greater resistance and decelerate faster when they adopt a high head position. It was also found that there is no significant difference between the medium and low head position indicating for the first time that swimmers can choose any of the positions according to their natural tendency. Study 2. The second study examined the effect of gliding depth on gliding performance. A range of depths was investigated ranging from 0.8 m to 0.2 m from the water surface. The results demonstrated significantly higher glide factor values for glides at a greater depth when compared to glides closer to the water surface highlighting the retarding effect of wave drag when gliding close to the surface. The optimum gliding performance was reported for glides at 0.8 m from the surface. Study 3. The third study investigated the effect of full body swimsuits on glide performance. According to the findings, it is demonstrated for the first time that the improved gliding performance when wearing full body swimsuits is linked to changes in swimmers’ morphology due to compression. Study 4. In the fourth study the magnitude of resistive forces applied on a swimmer’s body when gliding underwater was assessed with the use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and the LES approach. The results showed a close match between the glide factor values of the experimental and the computational findings demonstrating the effectiveness of the CFD method when the LES approach is employed.

The dynamic motion of floating wind turbines is studied using numerical simulations. Floating wind turbines in the deep ocean avoid many of the concerns with land-based wind turbines while allowing access to strong stable winds. The full three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations are solved on a regular structured grid, using a level set method for the free surface and an immersed boundary method for the turbine platform. The tethers, the tower, the nacelle and the rotor weight are included using reduced order dynamic models, resulting in an efficient numerical approach which can handle nearly all the nonlinear wave forces on the platform, while imposing no limitation on the platform motion. Wind is modeled as a constant thrust force and rotor gyroscopic effects are accounted for. Other aerodynamic loadings and aero-elastic effects are not considered. Several tests, including comparison with other numerical, experimental and grid study tests, have been done to validate and verify the numerical approach. Also for further validation, a 100:1 scale model Tension Leg Platform (TLP) floating wind turbine has been simulated and the results are compared with water flume experiments conducted by our research group. The model has been extended to full scale systems and the response of the tension leg and spar buoy floating wind turbines has been studied. The tension leg platform response to different amplitude waves is examined and for large waves a nonlinear trend is seen. The nonlinearity limits the motion and shows that the linear assumption will lead to over prediction of the TLP response. Studying the flow field behind the TLP for moderate amplitude waves shows vortices during the transient response of the platform but not at the steady state, probably due to the small Keulegan-Carpenter number. The effects of changing the platform shape are considered and finally the nonlinear response of the platform to a large amplitude wave leading to slacking of the tethers is simulated. For the spar buoy floating wind turbine, the response to regular periodic waves is studied first. Then, the model is extended to irregular waves to study the interaction of the buoy with more realistic sea state. The results are presented for a harsh condition, in which waves over 17 m are generated, and linear models might not be accurate enough. The results are studied in both time and frequency domain without relying on any experimental data or linear assumption. Finally a design study has been conducted on the spar buoy platform to study the effects of tethers position, tethers stiffness, and platform aspect ratio, on the response of the floating wind turbine. It is shown that higher aspect ratio platforms generally lead to lower mean pitch and surge responses, but it may also lead to nonlinear trend in standard deviation in pitch and heave, and that the tether attachment points design near the platform center of gravity generally leads to a more stable platform in comparison with attachment points near the tank top or bottom of the platform.

A sharp interface cavitation model has been developed for computational fluid dynamics. A phase change model based on a simplification of the Rayleigh-Plesset equation is combined with a second-order volume-of-fluid method with a constructed level set function in an incompressible fluid dynamics model. The semi-implicit phase change model predicts the mass flux between liquid and vapor phases based on the difference between the local pressure at the interface and the vapor pressure at the ambient conditions. The mass flux between phases determines the volume source strength and jump velocities at the interface. To prevent difficulties computing derivatives near the interface, two separate velocity fields from the momentum equation are solved considering the interface velocity jump. The interface velocity jump is extended into the liquid and vapor domains using a fast marching method. A description of the mathematical and numerical models is included, as well as an explanation and derivation of the phase change model. Hypothetical vapor bubble problems are demonstrated to test the components of the model. Finally, cavity evolution on a hydrofoil is computed for a range of parameters.

A numerical study of flow of power law fluid in an elbow bend has been carried out. The motivation behind this study is to analyze the velocity profiles, especially the pattern of the secondary flow of power law fluid in a bend as there are several important technological applications to which such a problem has relevance. This problem especially finds applications in the polymer processing industries and food industries where the fluid needs to be pumped through bent pipes. Hence, it is very important to study the secondary flow to determine the amount of power required to pump the fluid. This problem also finds application in heat exchangers.

Dans cette dissertation, nous considérons l’écoulement des liquides conducteurs d’électricité dans un champ magnétique externe. De tels écoulements sont décrits par les équations de la magnétohydrodynamique (MHD) quasi-statique, et sont fréquemment rencontrés dans des applications pratiques. Il suit qu’il y a un intérêt fort pour des outils numérques qui peuvent simuler ces écoulements dans des géometries complexes. La première partie de cette thèse (chapitres 2 et 3) est dédiée à la présentation de la machinerie numérique qui a été utilisée et implémentée afin de résoudre les équations de la MHD quasi-statistique (incompressible). Plus précisément, nous avons contribué au développement d’un solveur volumes finis non-structuré parallèle. La discussion sur ces méthodes est accompagnée d’une analyse numérique qui est aussi valable pour des mailles non-structurées. Dans le chapitre 3, nous vérifions notre implémentation par la simulation d’un certain nombre de cas tests avec un accent sur des écoulements dans un champ magnétique intense. Dans la deuxième partie de cette thèse (chapitres 4-6), nous avons utilsé ce solveur pour étudier des écoulements MHD de proche paroi . La première géometrie considérée (chapitre 4) est celle d’une conduite circulaire infini d’axe à haut nombre de Hartmann. Nous avons investitgué la sensitivité des résultats numériques au schéma de discrétisation et à la topologie de la maille. Nos résultats permettent de caractériser in extenso l’écoulement MHD dans une conduite avec des bords bien conducteurs par moyen des lois d’échelle. Le sujet du cinquième chapitre est l’écoulement dans une conduite toroïdale à section carée. Une étude du régime laminaire confirme une analyse asymptotique pour ce qui concerne les couches de cisaillement. Nous avons aussi effectué des simulations des écoulements turbulents afin d’évaluer l’effet d’un champ magnétique externe sur l’état des couches limites limites. Finalement, dans le chapitre 6, nous investiguons l’écoulement MHD et dans un U-bend et dans un coude arrière. Nous expliquons comment générer une maille qui permet de toutes les couches de cisaillement à un coût computationelle acceptable. Nous comparons nos résultats aux solutions asymptotiques.

This thesis evaluates performance of a non-mechanical conduit valve that was designed for the purpose of this research. The motivation came from the need for a cooling system of portable computers (e.g. laptops and netbooks). As the technology of micro-processors in portable computers advances, they will generate more heat, requiring a more effective and efficient way to cool the system. Based on this fact, a new method of heat dissipation using a single-phase liquid (i.e. water) instead of air was examined. This potentially allowed 80 times more heat dissipation, which translates to better and faster computers for the near future. In designing a single-phase-liquid micro-scale cooling system, various pump mechanisms and their functionalities were considered. It was concluded that a diaphragm pump design is the most effective candidate for this cooling system. The essential component when designing a diaphragm pump is a valve; however, the main issues in selecting a valve are its mechanics and required maintenance. Thus, the non-mechanical valvular conduit, which uses no moving mechanism, was studied through a combination of numerical/computational and experimental methods. The non-mechanical valvular conduit is a micro-channel with a complex geometry; hence, this conduit uses the principle of pressure resistance in the channel flow such that the flow is uni-directional. Through the numerical study, the valvular conduit design’s geometric dimensions were optimized. Then numerical simulations of the pumping/oscillating sequence of the valvular conduit were conducted to examine the effectiveness of the valve when placed in use for a diaphragm pump. It was found that the non-mechanical valve was 38 % more effective in the favorable direction than the opposite direction. As for the necessary heat dissipation, this conduit design demonstrates a great potential to dissipate the thermal design power (TDP) of Intel Pentium D processor (i.e. 130 [W]). During the experiments, the non-mechanical valve confirmed the numerical results. The experimental results also demonstrated that the favorable direction flow produced 244 % less pressure resistance than the opposite direction flow. It was concluded that the non-mechanical valvular conduit can be an effective application for diaphragm pumps in macro and micro-scale without any possibility of obstructing a mechanism.