The effects of trailing edge flow control on the wakes of a linear cascade of idealized fan blades was investigated experiments with a view to the likely effects on broadband aircraft engine interaction noise. Single and three-component hotwire velocity measurements were made downstream of the cascade for a chord Reynolds number of 390,000 and a Mach number of 0.07. Measurements of the two-point velocity correlation were used extensively to evaluate the impact of various flow control strategies on the organization of the coherent structures of the wakes and their potential to generate noise. A baseline flow was established by measuring the wake downstream of unmodified GE-Rotor-B blades. Four sets of serrated trailing edge blades (with two different serration sizes and with two trailing edge cambers) and three sets of blades with trailing edge blowing (a simple rectangular slot, rectangular slot with Kuethe-vane vortex generators, and rectangular slot with serrated lips) were tested. The serrated trailing edges introduce corrugations into the wake, increase the wake decay and width as well as turbulence levels (possibly because of the blunt trailing edge created at the serration valley). The serrated trailing edges also increase the turbulence scales in the direction perpendicular to the plane of the wake because of the injection of streamwise vorticity. In almost all cases the serrations reduce the spanwise and streamwise turbulence scales. Serrations do not, however, affect the apparent time scale of quasi-periodic structures in the wake, and this appears to limit the potential of this trailing edge treatment to reduce broadband noise. The analysis of the characteristic eddies (obtained from proper orthogonal decomposition combined with linear estimation) revealed that the serrations do not change the qualitative form of the eddies. Trailing edge blowing was found to significantly decrease the wake deficit and width as well as the turbulence levels at all blowing rates. Blowing through the simple rectangular slot, at mass flow rates between 1.4 and 2.0% of the total passage through flow, was shown to significantly affect the size, the organization and the strength of the coherent structures. For small blowing rates the strong spanwise eddies near the trailing edge actually appear to be enhanced. For larger blowing rates, however, the turbulent scales are reduced in all directions. The addition of Kuethe vanes on the suction side of the blowing blade results in a low momentum region just downstream of the vanes that may result from flow separation there. This further enhances the shedding and increases the blowing rate needed to overcome it. The serrated blowing blades show the greatest potential to reduce broadband noise as they reduce the turbulence levels and scales without creating potentially detrimental structures. While no acoustic measurements were made, analysis of hypothetical perpendicular and parallel interactions of blades with these wakes has made possible to characterize for the first time the impact of the changes in the eddy structure of these wakes on their potential to generate broadband noise. The serrated trailing edges (especially the larger serrations) actually increase the potential of the wake to generate broadband noise (a direct consequence in the overall increase in turbulence scale and intensity). In contrast, every trailing edge blowing configuration was found to produce large reductions in the potential noise (a maximum of 6dB reduction was obtained at 2.0% blowing). The addition of Kuethe vanes on the suction side of the blowing blades significantly reduced the efficiency of the simple blowing configuration (a result of the increased coherency associated with the shedding of streamwise vorticity by the vanes). The serrated blowing configuration was found to yield reductions similar to the simple blowing configuration. / Ph. D.

Low back pain is a common medical problem around the world afflicting 80% of the population some time in their life. Low back injury can result from a loss of torso stability causing excessive strain in soft tissue. This investigation seeks to apply existing methods to new applications and to develop new methods to assess torso stability. First, the time series averaged finite time Lyapunov exponent is calculated from data obtained during seated stability experiments. The Lyapunov exponent is found to increase with increasing task difficulty. Second, a new metric for evaluating torso stability is introduced, the threshold of stability. This parameter is defined as the maximum task difficulty in which dynamic stability can be maintained for the test duration. The threshold of stability effectively differentiates torso stability at two levels of visual feedback. Third, the state space distribution of the finite time Lyapunov exponent (FTLE) field is evaluated for deterministic and stochastic systems. Two new methods are developed to generate the FTLE field from time series data. Using these methods, Lagrangian coherent structures (LCS) are found for an inverted pendulum, the Acrobot, and planar wobble chair models. The LCS are ridges in the FTLE field that separate two inherently different types of motion when applied to rigid-body dynamic systems. As a result, LCS can be used to identify the boundaries of the basin of stability. Finally, these new methods are used to find the basin of stability from time series data collected from torso stability experiments. The LCS and basins of stability provide a richer understanding into the system dynamics when compared to existing methods. By gaining a better understanding of torso stability, it is hoped this knowledge can be used to prevent low back injury and pain in the future. These new methods may also be useful in evaluating other biodynamic systems such as standing postural sway, knee stability, or hip stability as well as time series applications outside the area of biomechanics. / Ph. D.

Nesta tese foi estudado o transporte de partículas na borda do plasma confinado magneticamente em tokamaks a partir de um modelo para ondas de deriva proveniente de flutuaçõoes eletrostáticas geradas pela não uniformidade do plasma. Para investigar esse problema, consideramos o modelo com duas ondas de deriva, que possui uma complexa dinâmica não linear onde podemos encontrar tanto transporte anômalo quanto transporte difusivo. Para a encontras no plano de fases as Estruturas Lagrangianas Coerentes (ELCs) e os jatos, foram confeccionados mapas de Poincaré, diagramas de expoente de Lyapunov a tempo finito, diagramas de deslocamento quadrático, diagramas de autocorrelação da velocidade e o diagrama de retorno. Para avaliar o impacto dessas ELCs no transporte de partículas foram analisados a série temporal do desvio padrão médio, da dispersão relativa e dos saltos dentro do mapa de Poincar´e e também foram confeccionados histogramas com a distribuição desses saltos. Foi encontrado que, com duas ondas de deriva e para uma determinada combinação de parâmetros, surgem correntes de jato, que persistem por longos períodos, imersas na região caótica. Verificamos que, assim como nas ilhas, a região interna às correntes de jato são inacessíveis às ELCs. Também foi encontrado que, quando existe uma corrente de jato, o transporte observado na região caótica não é simétrico com uma pequena deriva na direção contraria ao jato. Esse fenômeno observado ocorre em contrapartida ao caso típico de sistemas com mistura em que as ELCs tem acesso a todo o plano de fase e o transporte é difusivo. / In this thesis we studied the particle transport in the edge of magnetically confined plasma in tokamaks using a model of drift waves due to electrostatic fluctuations generated by the non-uniformity of the plasma. To investigate this issue, we consider the model with two drift waves, which has a complex nonlinear dynamics where we can find both anomalous and diffusive transport. To find the Lagrangian Coherent Structures (LCSs) and the jets, we used Poincaré maps, Finite time Lyapunov exponent diagrams, quadratic displacement diagrams, autocorrelation velocity diagrams and return displacement diagram. To evaluate the impact of LCSs in the transport of particles, we analyzed the time series of both average standard deviation and relative dispertion and also histograms of the distribution of these jumps. It was found that, with two drift waves and for a given combination of parameters, a jet streams appear in the phase space and persist for long periods of time immersed in the chaotic region. We found that, as well as on the islands, the inner region of the jet streams are inaccessible to LCSs. It was also found that when there is a jet stream, the transport observed in the chaotic region is not symmetrical and have a small drift in the opposite direction to the jet. This phenomenon is observed in contrast to the typical case of systems with mixing in wich the LCSs have access to all the phase space and the trasnport is diffusive.

The Lagrangian dynamics of two-dimensional incompressible fluid flows is considered, with emphasis on transport processes in atmospheric and oceanic flows. The dynamical-systems-based approach is adopted; the Lagrangian motion in such systems is studied with the aid of Kolmogorov-Arnold-Moser (KAM) theory, and results relating to stable and unstable manifolds and lobe dynamics. Some nontrivial extensions of well-known results are discussed, and some extensions of the theory are developed. In problems for which the flow field consists of a steady background on which a time-dependent perturbation is superimposed, it is shown that transport barriers arise naturally and play a critical role in transport processes. Theoretical results are applied to the study of transport in measured and simulated oceanographic and atmospheric flows. Two particular problems are considered. First, we study the Lagrangian dynamics of the zonal jet at the perimeter of the Antarctic Stratospheric Polar Vortex during late winter/early spring within which lies the "ozone hole". In this system, a robust transport barrier is found near the core of a zonal jet under typical conditions, which is responsible for trapping of the ozone-depleted air within the ozone hole. The existence of such a barrier is predicted theoretically and tested numerically with use of a dynamically-motivated analytically-prescribed model. The second, oceanographic, application considered is the study of the surface transport in the Adriatic Sea. The surface flow in the Adriatic is characterized by a robust threegyre background circulation pattern. Motivated by this observation, the Lagrangian dynamics of a perturbed three-gyre system is studied, with emphasis on intergyre transport and the role of transport barriers. It is shown that a qualitative change in transport properties, accompanied by a qualitative change in the structure of stable and unstable manifolds occurs in the perturbed three-gyre system when the perturbation strength exceeds a certain threshold. This behavior is predicted theoretically, simulated numerically with use of an analytically prescribed model, and shown to be consistent with a fully observationally-based model.

Fluid dynamics considers the physics of liquids and gases. This is a branch of classical physics and is totally based on Newton's laws of motion. Nevertheless, the equation of fluid motion, Navier-Stokes equation, becomes very complicated to solve even for very simple configurations. This thesis treats mainly analytical vortex solutions to Navier-Stokes equations. Vorticity is usually concentrated to smaller regions of the flow, sometimes isolated objects, called vortices. If one are able to describe vortex structures exactly, important information about the flow properties are obtained. Initially, the modeling of a conical vortex geometry is considered. The results are compared with wind-tunnel measurements, which have been analyzed in detail. The conical vortex is a very interesting phenomenaon for building engineers because it is responsible for very low pressures on buildings with flat roofs. Secondly, a suggested analytical solution to Navier-Stokes equation for internal flows is presented. This is based on physical argumentation concerning the vorticity production at solid boundaries. Also, to obtain the desired result, Navier-Stokes equation is reformulated and integrated. In addition, a model for required information of vorticity production at boundaries is proposed. The last part of the thesis concerns the examples of vortex models in 2-D and 3-D. In both cases, analysis of the Navier-Stokes equation, leads to the opportunity to construct linear solutions. The 2-D studies are, by the use of diffusive elementary vortices, describing experimentally observed vortex statistics and turbulent energy spectrums in stratified systems and in soapfilms. Finally, in the 3-D analysis, three examples of recent experimentally observed vortex objects are reproduced theoretically. First, coherent structures in a pipe flow is modeled. These vortex structures in the pipe are of interest since they appear for Re in the range where transition to turbulence is expected. The second example considers the motion in a viscous vortex ring. The model, with diffusive properties, describes the experimentally measured velocity field as well as the turbulent energy spectrum. Finally, a streched spiral vortex is analysed. A rather general vortex model that has many degrees of freedom is proposed, which also may be applied in other configurations.

<p>Large-scale coherent structures are systematically investigated in terms of their geometric attributes, importance toward describing turbulent exchange of energy, momentum and mass as well as their relationship to landscape features in the context of land-atmosphere interaction. In the first chapter, we present the motivation of this work as well as a background review of large-scale coherent structures in land-atmosphere interaction. In the second chapter, the methodology of large-eddy simulation (LES) and the proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) is introduced. LES was used to serve as a virtual laboratory to simulate typical scenarios in land-atmosphere interaction and the POD was used as the major technique to educe the coherent structures from turbulent flows in land-atmosphere interaction. In the third chapter, we justify the use of the LES to simulate the realistic coherent structures in the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) by comparing results obtained from LES of the ABL and direct numerical simulation (DNS) of channel flow. In the fourth chapter, we investigate the effects of a wide range of vegetation density on the coherent structures within the air space within and just above the canopy (the so-called canopy sublayer, CSL). The fifth chapter presents an analysis of the coherent structures across a periodic forest-clearing-forest transition in the steamwise direction. The sixth chapter focuses on the role of coherent structures in explaining scalar dissimilarity in the CSL. The seventh chapter summarizes this dissertation and provides suggestions for future study.</p> / Dissertation

No description available.

abstract: The evolution of single hairpin vortices and multiple interacting hairpin vortices are studied in direct numerical simulations of channel flow at Re-tau=395. The purpose of this study is to observe the effects of increased Reynolds number and varying initial conditions on the growth of hairpins and the conditions under which single hairpins autogenerate hairpin packets. The hairpin vortices are believed to provide a unified picture of wall turbulence and play an important role in the production of Reynolds shear stress which is directly related to turbulent drag. The structures of the initial three-dimensional vortices are extracted from the two-point spatial correlation of the fully turbulent direct numerical simulation of the velocity field by linear stochastic estimation and embedded in a mean flow having the profile of the fully turbulent flow. The Reynolds number of the present simulation is more than twice that of the Re-tau=180 flow from earlier literature and the conditional events used to define the stochastically estimated single vortex initial conditions include a number of new types of events such as quasi-streamwise vorticity and Q4 events. The effects of parameters like strength, asymmetry and position are evaluated and compared with existing results in the literature. This study then attempts to answer questions concerning how vortex mergers produce larger scale structures, a process that may contribute to the growth of length scale with increasing distance from the wall in turbulent wall flows. Multiple vortex interactions are studied in detail. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Mechanical Engineering 2011

abstract: The tools developed for the use of investigating dynamical systems have provided critical understanding to a wide range of physical phenomena. Here these tools are used to gain further insight into scalar transport, and how it is affected by mixing. The aim of this research is to investigate the efficiency of several different partitioning methods which demarcate flow fields into dynamically distinct regions, and the correlation of finite-time statistics from the advection-diffusion equation to these regions. For autonomous systems, invariant manifold theory can be used to separate the system into dynamically distinct regions. Despite there being no equivalent method for nonautonomous systems, a similar analysis can be done. Systems with general time dependencies must resort to using finite-time transport barriers for partitioning; these barriers are the edges of Lagrangian coherent structures (LCS), the analog to the stable and unstable manifolds of invariant manifold theory. Using the coherent structures of a flow to analyze the statistics of trapping, flight, and residence times, the signature of anomalous diffusion are obtained. This research also investigates the use of linear models for approximating the elements of the covariance matrix of nonlinear flows, and then applying the covariance matrix approximation over coherent regions. The first and second-order moments can be used to fully describe an ensemble evolution in linear systems, however there is no direct method for nonlinear systems. The problem is only compounded by the fact that the moments for nonlinear flows typically don't have analytic representations, therefore direct numerical simulations would be needed to obtain the moments throughout the domain. To circumvent these many computations, the nonlinear system is approximated as many linear systems for which analytic expressions for the moments exist. The parameters introduced in the linear models are obtained locally from the nonlinear deformation tensor. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Applied Mathematics 2018

Nesta tese foi estudado o transporte de partículas na borda do plasma confinado magneticamente em tokamaks a partir de um modelo para ondas de deriva proveniente de flutuaçõoes eletrostáticas geradas pela não uniformidade do plasma. Para investigar esse problema, consideramos o modelo com duas ondas de deriva, que possui uma complexa dinâmica não linear onde podemos encontrar tanto transporte anômalo quanto transporte difusivo. Para a encontras no plano de fases as Estruturas Lagrangianas Coerentes (ELCs) e os jatos, foram confeccionados mapas de Poincaré, diagramas de expoente de Lyapunov a tempo finito, diagramas de deslocamento quadrático, diagramas de autocorrelação da velocidade e o diagrama de retorno. Para avaliar o impacto dessas ELCs no transporte de partículas foram analisados a série temporal do desvio padrão médio, da dispersão relativa e dos saltos dentro do mapa de Poincar´e e também foram confeccionados histogramas com a distribuição desses saltos. Foi encontrado que, com duas ondas de deriva e para uma determinada combinação de parâmetros, surgem correntes de jato, que persistem por longos períodos, imersas na região caótica. Verificamos que, assim como nas ilhas, a região interna às correntes de jato são inacessíveis às ELCs. Também foi encontrado que, quando existe uma corrente de jato, o transporte observado na região caótica não é simétrico com uma pequena deriva na direção contraria ao jato. Esse fenômeno observado ocorre em contrapartida ao caso típico de sistemas com mistura em que as ELCs tem acesso a todo o plano de fase e o transporte é difusivo. / In this thesis we studied the particle transport in the edge of magnetically confined plasma in tokamaks using a model of drift waves due to electrostatic fluctuations generated by the non-uniformity of the plasma. To investigate this issue, we consider the model with two drift waves, which has a complex nonlinear dynamics where we can find both anomalous and diffusive transport. To find the Lagrangian Coherent Structures (LCSs) and the jets, we used Poincaré maps, Finite time Lyapunov exponent diagrams, quadratic displacement diagrams, autocorrelation velocity diagrams and return displacement diagram. To evaluate the impact of LCSs in the transport of particles, we analyzed the time series of both average standard deviation and relative dispertion and also histograms of the distribution of these jumps. It was found that, with two drift waves and for a given combination of parameters, a jet streams appear in the phase space and persist for long periods of time immersed in the chaotic region. We found that, as well as on the islands, the inner region of the jet streams are inaccessible to LCSs. It was also found that when there is a jet stream, the transport observed in the chaotic region is not symmetrical and have a small drift in the opposite direction to the jet. This phenomenon is observed in contrast to the typical case of systems with mixing in wich the LCSs have access to all the phase space and the trasnport is diffusive.