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Ph. D.

Heat transfer in cylinder spaces is important to the performance of many reciprocating energy conversion machines, such as gas compressors and Stirling machines. Work over the past 10 years has shown that heat transfer driven by oscillating pressure differs from steady state heat transfer, in magnitude arid phase. In-cylinder heat transfer under this oscillating condition can be out of phase with the temperature difference. For studies with closed piston-cylinder gas springs, this heat transfer phase shift has been successfully predicted with the use of a complex Nusselt number. Since a complex,number has both a magnitude and a phase, a complex Nusselt number can describe the phase shift between temperature difference and heat transfer. Quasi - steady heat transfer models, such as Newton's Law of Cooling, do not predict this phase shift. In this project, the problem of in-cylinder heat transfer with inflow and outflow was studied. The goal was to determine what the complex heat transfer coefficients were under these conditions. Because methods which measure the heat transfer directly, such as heat flux gauges, only give local results, past work has used pressure and volume measurements to calculate surface averaged values for the heat transfer. This becomes much more difficult to do with inflow and outflow because of the difficulty in accurately determining how much mass is in the cylinder at any given time. Two approaches were used to overcome this problem. They are the main substance of the work presented here. The actual experimental pressure and volume measurements were taken by Kafka (Virginia Tech Master's Thesis, 1994). / Master of Science

The flow over a set of tandem cylinders at a moderate Reynolds numbers (Re), and with different separation lengths has been studied. Two dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) plasma actuators were used to control the flow over the leading cylinder to change the vortex shedding, and subsequently the flow on the second cylinder. The 3D plasma actuator was segmented along the length of the cylinder with a spacing of λ = 4 while the 2D actuator simply ran straight down the span of the cylinder. Particle image velocimetry (PIV) measurements were used to investigate the flow along the central plane in the wake of the cylinders. The image pairs were processed into velocity grids which were then averaged. Plots of the shear, vorticity, and turbulent kinetic energy were created. These plots are used to understand how the character of vortex shedding from the upstream cylinder changes the same from the downstream one.

The utilization of steady state flow of air over tandem circular cylinders has several applications in engineering systems. Incompressible flow over circular cylinders in tandem at different spacing with and without plasma actuation on the leading cylinder will be investigated in this paper to understand the effects of plasma actuation on flow properties and wake region of the two cylinders in cross flow. The principal focus of the research is on the use of experimental and computational methods to study and provide valid results, the research will analyze the wake region, the effect of Reynolds number and the longitudinal spacing between cylinder on vortex shedding, aerodynamic parameters i.e. lift, drag, pressure differential, etc. The research will be conducted for steady flow at Reynold number, Re = U∞ L/v between 5000 and 8000 for air. The turbulence of the wake and dynamic instability of the experimental is characterized by the Strouhal number, St = fL/U∞ frequency of the vortex shedding in the wake which is directly proportional to the spacing, λ from center to center of cylinders between 3 to 5 inches. The dependencies on critical values of Re and St in symmetric flow over cylinders to show the instability of the flow regime in previous research. At Re = 5000 the vortex co-shedding on the second cylinder would occur at critical spacing, λccharacterized by the Re - St relationship at 3 ≤ λ ≤ 5 in the flow regime. The use of plasma actuation in fluid dynamics to control flow velocity by generating momentum to force atmospheric pressure and velocity in external flow with Single- Dielectric Barrier Discharge(SDBD) for both two and three-dimensional, 2D and 3D actuator (straight and segmented actuator). The SDBD actuators are mounted spanwise on the leading cylinder for both 2D and 3D to impact momentum, therefore, forcing the wake regime. Computational Analysis is utilized for result and data pre-processing. The steady three-dimensional flow of tandem cylinders can be studied through Large Eddy Simulation (LES) using a subgrid-scale model to compare numerical and experimental results for the same setup and physical conditions. Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) is used to resolve time series images from flow visualization of the experiment, the images are processed to visualize velocity vectors of the flow regimes. The velocity profile of the flow can be averaged and plotted for all instantaneous time-series images processed in PIV by Dynamic Mode Decomposition (DMD) or Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD) to generate common eigenvalues and eigenvector of the large dimension PIV data which shows the average properties of the flow properties.

Ph.D.

This research presents an analytical investigation of the buckling of eccentrically stiffened orthotropic cylinders and includes the influence of prebuckling deformations. Nonlinear equilibrium equations and boundary conditions are derived by using energy principles. The stiffened cylinder consists of a cylindrical shell made of a homogeneous orthotropic material with eccentric stiffeners on its surface. The rings, or circumferential stiffeners, are considered to be located discretely on circumferential lines along the length of the cylinder and the stringers, or longitudinal stiffeners, are considered to be closely spaced so that their properties can be averaged (smeared out) over the stringer spacing. The stiffeners are considered to be beam elements, to be equally spaced, and to have the stiffener twisting accounted for in an approximate manner. Non-linear Donnell type strain-displacement relations for the shell and the stiffeners are defined and the strain energy of the stiffener-cylinder system is formulated. The governing nonlinear equilibrium equations and boundary conditions are then obtained by the principle of minimum potential energy and the fundamental lemma of calculus of variations. The discrete ring terms are included in the nonlinear equilibrium equations by use of a Dirac delta function. By a perturbation of the nonlinear equilibrium equations and boundary conditions, a set of nonlinear prebuckling equations and boundary conditions and linear buckling equations and boundary conditions are obtained which govern the prebuckling deformations and stresses and buckling of a stiffened orthotropic cylinder with discrete rings. Solutions of the prebuckling and buckling equations are obtained for classical simple support boundary conditions and for loadings of axial compression, lateral pressure, and combinations of axial compression and external or internal pressure. The solutions are obtained by the method of finite differences in which the governing equations and boundary conditions are changed to a system of second order differential equations which are then written in terms of finite differences at stations along the length of the cylinder. The difference equations are formulated in terms of a matrix equation which is solved by a modified G~ussian elimination technique. Solutions of the prebuckling and buckling equations for the case where the rings are considered to be smeared out are presented for comparison with the discrete case. A Galerkin solution of the buckling equations for discrete rings assuming classical prebuckling deformations is also presented in the Appendix. Computed results for two types of contemporary stiffened cylinders are presented in order to study and illustrate the importance of prebuckling deformations, discrete rings, and eccentrically applied compressive loads. The results show that the predicted buckling loads for stiffened cylinders may be substantially affected by using an analysis which takes into account prebuckling deformations. / Doctor of Philosophy

M. S.

The influence of layer waviness in thick cross-ply composite cylinders subjected to hydrostatic pressure is investigated. The cylinders considered are graphite-epoxy with a 2: 1 ratio of circumferential to axial layers. All cylinders considered contain 104 total layers with a layup of [90/(90/0/90h71s, where a '0° 1 layer is taken to be in the axial direction. The influence of a single isolated group of wavy layers in an otherwise perfect cylinder is evaluated. Layer waviness in only the circumferential direction is considered, and the analysis is assumed to be valid only away from the cylinder ends. A parametric investigation is performed to determine the combined influence of wave location, wave amplitude, and cylinder geometry on hydrostatic response of the cylinder, particularly the stresses generated in and around the wave. The wave is assumed to be located either at the inner or the outer radius of the cylinder. Three wave amplitudes, 0, are considered: 1/2, 1, and 2 layer thicknesses. Only waves with a half wave length of 10 layer thicknesses are considered. Three cylinder geometries are considered, specifically ones with radius to thickness ratios of 5, 10, and 20. Finite element analysis is used to determine the stress state within the imperfect, i.e., wave included, cylinders. Based on a maximum stress failure criterion, failure pressures are determined for each of the various wave and cylinder geometries. Failure pressures for the imperfect cylinders are compared with those for a perfect cylinder to determine the failure pressure reduction ratios due to fiber waviness. It is shown that pressure capacity reductions of approximately 50% are possible for the range of parameters studied. Failure is primarily due to fiber compression, though interlaminar shear and interlaminar tension are a factor. Finite element analysis is also used to deter ine the failure pressure of the perfect cylinder due to buckling. This is done to determine whether failure due to buckling may overshadow material failure due to fiber waviness. It is shown that buckling is a factor in only one of the cylinder geometries considered, and only in the cases of mild layer waviness. In addition to results, details about the finite element model are presented. These details include geometry of the wave, changes in material properties due to local fiber rotation and local volume fraction changes, boundary conditions, and justifications for modeling simplifications that were made in an effort to reduce computational costs and analysis times. / Master of Science

Active control is applied to reduce noise emission from a vibrating elastic cylinder by exerting forces on the cylinder that cancel the noise-generating vibration. This technique is called Active Structural Acoustic Control (ASAC) (Fuller, 1987). Sensors are implemented using piezoelectric film, and actuators are implemented using piezoceramic material. Both analog and digital noise cancellation control algorithms are used to reduce the noise emission from the cylinder. Two-cylinder boundary conditions are taken as case studies. The first boundary condition is the open cylinder case. The second boundary condition is where the cylinder has an end plate bolted to each end. Actuator placement and the sensor design are done by first obtaining the natural frequencies and mode shapes of the cylinder using both analytical and experimental methods. Modal sensors developed and tested in previous work (Lee, 1989) are applied. After preliminary control experiments with analog feedback loop show that control can be done with the sensors and the actuators, digital signal processing hardware programmed with the filtered-x Least-Mean-Square adaptive control algorithm is used to control the vibration of the cylinder. The excitation is single-tone on-resonance. Acoustic - testing demonstrates that ASAC reduces the sound pressure level generated by the vibrating cylinder by up to 29 dB in the reverberant field. Vibration measurement reveals that the reduction in sound emission from the cylinder is a result of reduction in vibration. The adaptive controller reduces the vibration level by up to 68 dB. / Master of Science