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This thesis investigated the heat transfer of internally oil cooled rotors in permanent magnet electric machines which are, among other things, used in hybrid vehicles or zero emission vehicles. The magnets become sensitive and can be demagnetized at high working temperatures, hence the need of cooling. The scope of this work included CFD simulations in STAR-CCM+. Three different 3D multiphase models simulating the oil propagation in the rotor were performed. A Lagrangian multiphase model combined with a fluid film model was the most suitable model for simulating the spray of the oil and the film thickness along the inner rotor wall. It was noticed that periodic boundaries caused problems for the fluid film model, therefore a complete geometry was preferred over a truncated model. The 3D solutions provided thicker film thicknesses than the analytical solutions from the fluid film thickness theory. The maximum analytical thickness was of the same order of magnitude as the surface average film thickness provided by the multiphase models. This thickness was assumed to be constant when used as the base for the fluid region in the 2D one-phase models.The study showed that aluminum was the most suitable rotor material due to its high conductive capacity, which provided a more even distribution of the temperature in the solid and hence resulted in lower overall temperatures. The cooling power increased linearly with the volumetric flow rate, however the heat transfer coefficient decreased for the higher flow rates. A volumetric flow rate of 10dl/min was recommended. A 2D model was compared to a preliminary experiment and showed that these were not correlated. The conclusion was that more experiments and simulations are needed in order to confirm the validity of the 2D model.

Sand transport in hilly terrain geometry is different and complex to understand compared to horizontal pipeline, due to the influence of the geometry that greatly affect multiphase flow and sand behaviour at the dip. The overall aim of this research work is to use experimental method to investigate the effects of multiphase flow behaviour on sand transport in a dip configuration. Experimental work was carried out to understand the complex dynamic mechanisms that exist during sand multiphase flow using 2” inch dip test facility with different inclination angles of ±24° and ±12° configurations. In order determine the multiphase flow parameters and sand flow regimes, extensive data were collected and analysed from continuous local measurement of instantaneous liquid hold up and sand hold up using conductivity rings. Significant observations were made during this study from which several conclusions were made. In the air–water test, three slug behaviours were observed at the dip: complete stratified flow downhill with slug initiation at dip; stratified flow (with energetic ripple) downhill with slug initiation and slug growth upward dip; and aerated slug downhill and slug growth at the dip. These behaviours are different from published work on this subject with low angle of inclination. The data analysis revealed that the two types of slug initiation mechanisms (wave growth and wave coalescence) observed are geometry specifics. The slug translational velocities (at the dip and uphill section) were used as criterion to determine the flow condition for each slug initiation mechanism at the dip. Significant observations were made during this study from which several conclusions were made. In the air–water test, three slug behaviours were observed at the dip: complete stratified flow downhill with slug initiation at dip; stratified flow (with energetic ripple) downhill with slug initiation and slug growth upward dip; and aerated slug downhill and slug growth at the dip. These behaviours are different from published work on this subject with low angle of inclination. The data analysis revealed that the two types of slug initiation mechanisms (wave growth and wave coalescence) observed are geometry specifics. The slug translational velocities (at the dip and uphill section) were used as criterion to determine the flow condition for each slug initiation mechanism at the dip. Five sand-water flow regimes (full suspension, streak, saltation, sand dune, and sand bed) were established by physical observation and data analysis. It was also observed that sand streaks were denser towards the central line of pipe bottom in the downhill pipe than that in uphill pipe. At downhill pipe section, there were sand gathering toward the central line of the pipe bottom. The characteristics of sand transportation at the dip section were found slightly different from downhill and uphill pipe for higher sand concentrations. When dense streak occurred at the downhill, the sand particles become dispersed at the dip. The minimum transport conditions (MTC) were determined at different sand concentration. The sand minimum transport condition in the dip section was found to be slightly lower than those in the downhill and uphill section. The minimum transport condition for a single phase water flow for the 24˚ dip. test section was slightly higher (with difference of about 0.1m/s) than that of the 12˚ at the downward and upward of the dip section at low sand concentration. In addition, local sand measurements using conductivity time series results at the downhill and uphill section showed the influence of sand concentration and flow condition on sand flow patterns. The air-water-sand results showed that sand deposits occurred in uphill section after sand transport at the downhill and dip sections. This was due to different flow regimes exhibited at the different pipe sections. The stratified (wavy) flow was the dominant flow in downhill pipe; therefore sand was observed transporting within the liquid film as thin streak for most of test conditions. The slug initiation at the dip section was observed to be a major factor that influences the sand behaviour. Sand particles in the slug unit (at the dip and uphill of the pipe) were observed to be entrained in the slug body once slug is initiated, thereby changing the force vector generating turbulence flow at the front of slug body. Once the sand particles entered the film zone of the slug unit, they immediately stopped moving forward due to the film velocity significantly lower than the slug body coupled with gravity effect. . Sand particles were found to be falling back while travelling with the water film at some conditions, until they were picked up by the next slug body. The results of this work provide a better understanding to the study of multiphase flow for pipeline design and most especially sand behaviour at the dip. The sand dune regime is identified distinctively using conductivity ring technique which would assist in determining the operating conditions that allow sand dune formation. The knowledge of flow condition at full suspension of sand is an important parameter to determine the erosion rate over the life span of the pipeline. Also, the quantity of sand bed and flow condition of sand settling at the dip is useful information for production chemist in order to determine the effectiveness of corrosion inhibitor at the bottom of the pipe. In conclusion, sand transport characteristics and MTC were strongly dependent on the gas-liquid flow regime and pipe geometry; and cannot be generalised on the superficial liquid and gas velocities of the transport fluid.

A series of local and bench scale laboratory experiments and bench and field scale numerical simulations were conducted to develop a better understanding of the interrelationship between nonwetting phase (NWP) source zones and downgradient aqueous phase concentrations in saturated porous media contaminated by immiscible organic liquids. Specific emphasis was placed on the factors governing the rate of NWP source zone evolution and the factors governing the rate of mass transfer from the NWP to the aqueous phase. Hysteretic NWP relative permeability-saturation (krN-SW) relationships were measured at the local scale for six sands to examine the relationship between krN-SW functions and porous media type. Parameterization of the measured constitutive relationships revealed a strong correlation between mean grain diameter and the maximum value of NWP relative permeability. The measured krN-SW relationships, were validated through a bench scale experiment involving the infiltration, redistribution, and immobilisation of NWP in an initially water saturated heterogeneous porous medium. This match of simulation to experiment represents the first validation of a multiphase flow model for transient, fixed volume NWP releases. Multiphase flow simulations of the bench scale experiment were only able to reproduce the experimental observations, in both time and space, when the measured krN-SW relationships were employed. Two-dimensional field scale simulations of a fixed volume NWP release into a heterogeneous aquifer demonstrate the influence of spatially variable krN-S relationships correlated to porous media type. Both the volume of the NWP invaded porous media, and the length of time during which NWP is migrating, will be under predicted if variable (correlated) kr,N is not accounted for in the numerical model iv formulation. This under prediction is exacerbated as the mean intrinsic permeability of the release location decreases. A new, thermodynamically-based interfacial area (IFA) model was developed for use in the single-boundary layer expression of mass transfer as an alternative to existing empirical correlation expressions. The IFA model considers consistency and continuity of constitutive relationships, energy losses, effective specific interfacial area for mass transfer, and dissolution of residual NWP. A bench scale experiment involving the release and dissolution of a transient NWP source zone in heterogeneous porous media was conducted to evaluate the appropriateness of the developed IFA model when utilised to predict NWP dissolution rates. Comparison of measured downgradient dissolved phase concentrations and source zone NWP saturations in time and space with those from numerical simulations of the experiment reveal that the proposed IFA model is superior to both a local equilibrium assumption and existing empirical correlation expressions. This represents the first mass transfer model validated for the dissolution of a complex NWP source zone. Twodimensional simulations at the field scale of multiphase flow and dissolution suggest that employing existing mass transfer expressions instead of the IFA model lead to incorrect predictions of the life spans of NWP source zones, downgradient dissolved phase concentrations, and the rate of mass flux through a downgradient boundary. The practical implication of this research is that accurate numerical predictions of the evolution of a transient NWP source in porous media require consideration of krN-S relationships and NWP / aqueous phase IFA, as these factors dictate the rates of the key subsurface contaminant processes of migration and dissolution, respectively.

Membrane filtration is used in a variety of industries, including water treatment and the food industry. Membrane systems include microfiltration and reverse osmosis processes. Membranes used in reverse osmosis are nonporous or pores at 0.2-2 A. This work will focus on mechanical microfiltration. These filtration systems suffer from an accumulation of the rejected material near the membrane surface. This causes additional resistance to the flow through the membrane (flux), resulting in a decline in the performance of the system. Sparging gas bubbles into the mixture has been shown to improve performance. The flow field promotes the transport of material away from the membrane surface and into the bulk. The goal is to predict the sparging that will achieve the maximum flux. Existing flux prediction models often assume steady shear at the membrane surface but in bubbling regimes the shear stresses are unsteady. In this thesis a model is developed to calculate the flux based not solely on shear but on the behaviour and resistance of suspended particles in a gas-liquid flow field. The bubble shape and flow field is calculated using computation fluid dynamics (CFD). The flow around a bubble in gap between two parallel flat sheet membranes is investigated. The calculated bubble shape correlates well with the results seen in experiments. The bubble rise velocity with respect to gap width is shown to transition between that expected in the literature for extended flow for large gap widths and that for a two dimensional case for smaller gap widths. The transitional region however, does not behave as may be expected. The rise velocity does not monotonically decrease as the gap width is reduced. The particle concentration is found by the solution of the convection-diffusion equation, where the convection velocity terms are given by the results of the CFD calculation. The permeate flux is then calculated using a resistance model giving the enhancement due to the bubble. The model is also applied to single phase crossflow. As the shear stresses are steady in this single-phase flow regime, established membrane shear linked mass-transfer coefficient methods can be employed. Good agreement is found between the model and theory. The flux results obtained when the model is applied to the flow around the bubble show a peak in performance with respect to the gap between the membranes for a given bubble volume. The optimal flux enhancement is found to correlate well with the bubble size compared to the flow area. The results show a bubble width of around 60% of the flow width provides the best flux performance.

<div> Underlying physics in bubble coalescence is critical for understanding bubble transportation. It is one of the major mechanisms of microfluidics. Understanding the mechanism has benefits in the design, development, and optimization of microfluidics for various applications. The underlying physics in bubble coalescence is investigated numerically using the free energy-based lattice Boltzmann method by massive parametrization and classification.</div><div><br></div><div> Firstly, comprehensive GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) parallelization, convergence check, and validation are carried out to ensure the computational efficiency and physical accuracy for the numerical simulations.</div><div><br></div><div> Then, the liquid-gas system is characterized by an Ohnesorge number (Oh). Two distinct coalescence phenomena with and without oscillation, are separated by a critical Oh (~0.477)number. For the oscillation cases(Oh<0.477), the mechanism of damped oscillation in microbubble coalescence is explored in terms of the competition between driving and resisting forces. Through an analogy to the conventional damped harmonic oscillator, the saddle-point trajectory over the entire oscillation can be well predicted analytically. Without oscillation in the range of 0.50r^-n </div><div><br></div><div> After that, the liquid-gas-solid interface is taken into consideration in the liquid-gas system. Six cases based on the experiment set-ups are simulated first for validation of the computational results. Based on these, a hypothesis is established about critical factors to determine if coalescence-induced microbubble detachment (CIMD) will occur. From the eighteen experimental and computational cases, we conclude that when the radius ratio is close to 1 and the father bubble is larger, then it will lead to CIMD.</div><div><br></div><div> Lastly, the effects of initial conditions on the coalescence of two equal-sized air microbubbles (R₀) in water are investigated. In both initial scenarios, the neck bridge evolution exhibits a half power-law scaling, r/R₀=A₀(t/t_i)^1/2 after development time. The development time is caused by the significant bias between the capillary forces contributed by the meniscus curvature and the neck bridge curvature. Meanwhile, the physical mechanism behind each behavior has been explored.</div>

Numerical simulation of cell motility is one of the difficult problems in computational science. It belongs to a class of problems which involve moving interfaces between flowing or deforming media. Different numerical techniques are being developed for different application areas and in this work an attempt is made to apply two popular numerical techniques used in the field of computational multiphase flows to a cell motility problem. An unsteady cell motility problem is considered to simulate numerically based on a two-dimensional mathematical model. Two important numerical methods, the Level set method and the Front tracking methods are applied to the cell motility problem to study several cases and to verify the convergence of the solution. With the assumption of no mechanical or physical obstructions to the cell, the results of the numerical simulations show that the domain shapes converge to a circular shape as they reach the steady state condition. The final steady state velocities with which the domains move and the final steady state area to which they converge are observed to be independent of domain shapes. Moreover all shapes converge to exactly same radius of circle and move with same velocity after reaching steady state condition.

Physics of immiscible two-phase flow in porous media is relevant for various industrial and environmental applications. Wettability defined as the relative affinity of fluids with the solid surface has a significant impact on the dynamics of immiscible displacement. Although wettability effects on the macroscopic fluid flow behaviour are well known, there is a lack of pore-scale understanding. Considering the crucial role of wettability in a diverse range of applications; this research aims to provide a pore-scale picture of interface configuration induced by variations in the wetting characteristics of porous media. Besides, this study also relates the pore-scale interfacial phenomena with the macroscopic response of fluids. High-resolution direct numerical simulations (DNS) at multiscale (single capillary and a highly heterogeneous porous media) were performed using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach in which the Navier-Stokes equation coupled with the volume of fluid method is solved to represent immiscible displacement. Numerical results demonstrate that at pore scale as the wettability of porous media changes from strong to intermediate wet the effects of pore geometry (that includes corner angle and orientation angle) on the interfacial dynamics also enhances. This was demonstrated by the non-monotonic behaviour of entry capillary pressure at the junction of pore, curvature reversal in the converging-diverging capillary and the co-existence of concave and convex interfaces in heterogeneous porous media with uniform contact angle distribution. In addition to simulations, theoretical argument is also presented that rationalize the underlying physics of complex, yet intriguing interfacial phenomena shown by DNS. Overall this research extends the fundamental understanding of multiphase flow in porous media and paves the way for future studies on porous media.

The effects of bubbles on a jet issued below and parallel to a free surface are experimentally studied. The jet under study is isothermal and in fresh water, with air injectors that allow variation of the inlet air volume fraction for 0% to 13%. Measurements of the jet exit conditions, water velocity, water entrainment, Reynolds stresses and surface currents have been performed using LDV, PIV and surface PIV. Air volume fraction, bubble velocity, chord length and free surface elevation and RMS have been obtained using local phase detection probes. Visualization was performed using laser-induced fluorescence. Measurements show that water entrainment decreases up to 22% with the presence of bubbles, but surface current strength increases up to 60% with 0.4 l/min of air injection. The mean free surface elevation and turbulent fluctuation significantly increase with the injection of air. The water normal Reynolds stresses are damped by the presence of bubbles in the bulk of the liquid, but very close to the free surface the effect is reversed and the normal Reynolds stresses increase slightly for the bubbly flow. Flow visualizations show that the two-phase jet is lifted with the presence of bubbles and attaches to the free surface sooner. Significant bubble coalescence is observed, leading to an increase of 20% in mean bubble size as the jet develops. The coalescence near the free surface is particularly strong, due to the time it takes the bubbles to pierce the free surface, resulting in a considerable increase in the local air volume fraction.