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Yes / Micro-injection moulding (μIM) stands out as preferable technology to enable the mass production of polymeric components with micro- and nano-structured surfaces. One of the major challenges of these processes is related to the quality assurance of the manufactured surfaces: the time needed to perform accurate 3D surface acquisitions is typically much longer than a single moulding cycle, thus making impossible to integrate in-line measurements in the process chain. In this work, the authors proposed a novel solution to this problem by defining a process monitoring strategy aiming at linking sensitive in-line monitored process variables with the replication quality. A nano-structured surface for antibacterial applications was manufactured on a metal insert by laser structuring and replicated using two different polymers, polyoxymethylene (POM) and polycarbonate (PC). The replication accuracy was determined using a laser scanning confocal microscope and its dependence on the variation of the main μIM parameters was studied using a Design of Experiments (DoE) experimental approach. During each process cycle, the temperature distribution of the polymer inside the cavity was measured using a high-speed infrared camera by means of a sapphire window mounted in the movable plate of the mould. The temperature measurements showed a high level of correlation with the replication performance of the μIM process, thus providing a fast and effective way to control the quality of the moulded surfaces in-line. / MICROMAN project (“Process Fingerprint for Zero-defect Net-shape MICRO MANufacturing”, http://www.microman.mek.dtu.dk/) - H2020 (Project ID: 674801), H2020 agreement No. 766871 (HIMALAIA), H2020 ITN Laser4Fun (agreement No. 675063)

A review of aeroplane spin literature is presented, including early spin research history and lessons learned from spinning trials. Despite many years of experience in spinning evaluation, it is difficult to predict spin characteristics and problems have been encountered and several prototype aeroplanes have been lost. No currently published method will reliably predict an aeroplane’s spin recovery characteristics. Quantitative data is required to study the spin motion of the aeroplane in adequate detail. An alternative method, Vision Based State Estimation, has been used to capture the spin motion. This alternative method has produced unique illustrations of the spinning research aeroplane and data has been obtained that could possibly be very challenging to obtain using traditional methods. To investigate the aerodynamic flow of a spinning aeroplane, flights have been flown using wool tufts on wing, aft fuselage and empennage for flow visualization. To complement the tuft observations, the differential pressure between the upper and lower horizontal tail and wing surfaces have been measured at selected points. Tufts indicate that a large-scale Upper Surface Vortex forms on the outside wing. This USV has also been visualized using a smoke source. The flow structures on top of both wings, and on top of the horizontal tail surfaces, have also been studied on another aeroplane model. The development of these rotational flow effects has been related to the spin motion. It is hypothesized that the flow structure of the turbulent boundary layer on the outside upper wing surface is due to additional accelerations induced by the rotational motion of the aeroplane. The dynamic effects have been discussed and their importance for the development of the spin considered. In addition, it is suggested that another dynamic effect might exist due to the additional acceleration of the turbulent boundary layer due to the rotational motion of the aeroplane. It is recommended that future spin recovery prediction methods account for dynamic effects, in addition to aerodynamic control effectiveness and aeroplane inertia, since the spin entry phase is important for the subsequent development of the spin. Finally, suggestions for future research are given.

Yes / Understanding the dynamic free surface of geophysical flows has the potential to enable direct inference of the flow properties based on measurements of the free surface. An important step is to understand the inherent response of free surfaces in depth-limited flows. Here a model is presented to demonstrate that free surface oscillatory spatial correlation patterns result from individual surface features oscillating vertically as they advect over space and time. Comparison with laboratory observations shows that these oscillating surface features can be unambiguously explained by simple harmonic motion, whereby the oscillation frequency is controlled by the root-mean-square water surface fluctuation, and to a lesser extent the surface tension. This demonstrates that the observed “complex” wave pattern can be simply described as an ensemble of spatially and temporally distributed oscillons. Similarities between the oscillon frequency and estimated frequency of near-bed bursting events suggest that oscillon behaviour is linked with the creation of coherent flow structures.

Coating onto a moving substrate several films simultaneously on top of each other is a challenging exercise. This is due to the fact, depending on operating conditions (thickness and velocity of individual layers and the physical properties of the coating fluids), flow instabilities may arise at the interfaces between the layers and on the top layer. These instabilities ruin the application of the final multi-layered coating and must be avoided. This research addresses this coating flow situation and seeks to develop guidelines to avoid these instabilities. Following a critical literature survey, this thesis presents a novel experimental method that visualises multi-layered coating flow down an inclined multi-slot die. The visualisation is obtained using a unique configuration including a high-speed camera, telecentric objective lens and illumination. The results show for a single layer, as the die angle and Reynolds number increases, the flow becomes more unstable and for a dual layer flow, as Re increases the peak to peak amplitude and the frequency decreases at the free surface and interface. The latter was unexpected and does not conform with existing literature. The triple layer results show either a monotonically increasing or increasing from first to second layer viscosity stratifications are the most stable flows along with flow heights in the first and second layers of <22% and >18% of the total thickness respectively, which concur with current literature. The visualisation additionally obtained other instabilities including single layer back-wetting and vortices, and multilayer slot invasion with the findings concurring with current literature. / EPRSC/Tata Steel Industrial CASE Studentship; EP/J501840/1

Yes / Ultrasound injection molding has emerged as an alternative production route for the manufacturing of micro-scale polymeric components, where it offers significant benefits over the conventional micro-injection molding process. In this work, the effects of ultrasound melting on the mechanical and morphological properties of micro-polypropylene parts were characterized. The ultrasound injection molding process was experimentally compared to the conventional micro-injection molding process using a novel mold, which allows mounting on both machines and visualization of the melt flow for both molding processes. Direct measurements of the flow front speed and temperature distributions were performed using both conventional and thermal high-speed imaging techniques. The manufacturing of micro-tensile specimens allowed the comparison of the mechanical properties of the parts obtained with the different processes. The results indicated that the ultrasound injection molding process could be an efficient alternative to the conventional process.

No / The effect of side stream channel height on flow stability in 30 degrees coextrusion geometries was investigated. The studies were conducted on a Dow LD150R low density polyethylene melt using a single extruder to feed a flow cell in which the delivered melt stream was split before, and rejoined after, a divider plate in a slit die. Wave type interfacial instability occurred at critical stream thickness ratios. Reducing the side stream channel height broadened the layer ratio operating range before the onset of interfacial instability, therefore improving process stability. Stress fields were quantified and used to validate principal stress differences of numerically modelled flow. Stress field features promoting interfacial instability in each of the die geometries were identified. Interfacial instability resulted when the stress gradient across the interface was asymmetric and accompanied by a non-monotonic decay in the stress along the interface from its inception.

When an aircraft is aerodynamically or structurally damaged in battle, it may not able to complete the mission and the damage may cause its loss. The subject of aircraft battle survivability is one of critical concern to many disciplines, whether military or civil. This thesis considered and focused on Computational Fluid Dynamics [CFD] predictions and experimental investigations into the effects of simulated battle damage on the low-speed aerodynamics of a fmite aspect ratio wing. Results showed that in two-dimensional [2d] and three-dimensional [3D] CFD simulations, Fluent's® models work reasonably well in predicting jets flow structures, pressure distributions, and pressure-coefficient Cp's contours but not for aerodynamic coefficients. The consequences were therefore that CFD prediction was poor on aerodynamic-coefficients increments. The prediction of Cp's achieved good agreement upstream and near the damage hole, but showed poor agreement at downstream of the hole. For the flow structure visualisation, at both weak and strong jet incidences, the solver always predicted pressure-distribution-coefficient lower at upstream and higher at downstream. The results showed relatively good agreement for the case of transitional and strong jet incidences but slightly poor for weak jet incidences. From the experimental results of Finite Wing, the increments for Aspect-ratio, AR6, AR8 and ARIO showed that as damage moves out towards the tip, aerodynamic-coefficients increments i.e. lift-loss and drag-rise decreased, and pitching-moment-coefficient increment indicated a more positive value at all incidence ranges and at all aspect ratios. Increasing the incidence resulted in greater magnitudes of lift-loss and drag-rise for all damage locations and aspect ratios. At the weak jet incidence 4° for AR8 and in all of the three damage locations, the main characteristics of the weak-jet were illustrated clearly. The increments were relatively small. Whilst at 8°, the flow structure was characterised as transitional to stronger-jet. In Finite Wing tests and for all damage locations, there was always a flow structure asymmetry. This was believed to be due to gravity, surface imperfection, and or genuine feature. An 'early strong jet' that indicated in Finite Wing-AR8 at 'transitional' incidence of 8°, also indicated in twodimensional results but at the weak-jet incidence of 4°. For the application of 2d data to AR6, AR8, and ARIO, an assessment of 2d force results led to the analysis that the tests in the AAE's Low Turbulence Tunnel for 2d were under-predicting the damage effects at low incidence, and over-predicting at high incidences. This suggested therefore that Irwin's 2d results could not be used immediately to predict three-dimensional.

A body exposed to hypersonic flow is subjected to extremely high wall heating rates, owing to the conversion of the kinetic energy of the oncoming flow into heat through the formation of shock waves and viscous dissipation in the boundary layer and this is one of the main concerns in the design of any hypersonic vehicle. The conventional way of tackling this problem is to use a blunt fore-body, but it also results in an increase in wave drag and puts the penalty of excessive load on the propulsion system. An alternative approach is to alter the flow field using external means without changing the shape of the body; and several such methods are reported in the literature. The superiority of such methods lie in the fact that the effective shape of the body can be altered to meet the requirements of low wave drag, without having to pay the penalty of an increased wall heat transfer rate. Among these techniques, the use of local energy addition in the freestream to alter the flow field is particularly promising due to the flexibility it offers. By the suitable placement of the energy source relative to the body, this method can be effectively used to reduce the wave drag, to generate control forces and to optimise the performance of inlets. Although substantial number of numerical investigations on this topic is reported in the literature, there is no experimental evidence available, especially under hypersonic flow conditions, to support the feasibility of this concept. The purpose of this thesis is to experimentally investigate the effect of energy deposition on the flow-field of a 120� apex angle blunt cone in a hypersonic shock tunnel. Energy deposition is done using an electric arc discharge generated between two electrodes placed in the free stream and various parameters influencing the effectiveness of this technique are studied. The effect of energy deposition on aerodynamic parameters such as the drag force acting on the model and the wall heat flux has been investigated. In addition, the unsteady flow field is visualised using a standard Z-type schlieren flow visualisation setup. The experimental studies have shown a maximum reduction in drag of 50% and a reduction in stagnation point heating rate of 84% with the deposition of 0.3 kW of energy. The investigations also show that the location of energy deposition has a vital role in determining the flow structure; with no noticeable effects being produced in the flow field when the discharge source is located close to the body (0.416 times body diameter). In addition, the type of the test gas used is also found to have a major influence on the effectiveness of energy deposition, suggesting that thermal effects of energy deposition govern the flow field alteration mechanism. The freestream mass flux is also identified as an important parameter. These findings were also confirmed by surface pressure measurements. The experimental evidence also indicates that relaxation of the internal degrees of freedom play a major role in the determination of the flow structure. For the present experimental conditions, it has been observed that the flow field alteration is a result of the interaction of the heated region behind the energy spot with the blunt body shock wave. In addition to the experimental studies, numerical simulations of the flow field with energy deposition are also carried out and the experimentally measured aerodynamic drag with energy deposition is found to match reasonably well with the computed values.

Wind turbines installed in the open atmosphere experience much more complex and highly-varying flow than their counterparts in wind tunnels or numerical simulations. In particular, aerodynamic stall—which occurs often on stall-regulated wind turbines in such variable flow conditions—can affect both wind turbine blade lifespan and noise generation. A field test site was therefore installed at the outer limits of the city of Waterloo, Ontario to study a small-scale 30 kW stall-regulated wind turbine. Experimental equipment was installed to monitor parameters such as wind speed and direction, electrical power output, blade pitch angle, rotor rotational speed, and wind turbine yaw orientation. Extensive hardware and software was developed and installed to wirelessly collect data from all instrumentation. Tufts and a remote-operated camera were also installed on one of the two blades of the 10 m diameter horizontal-axis turbine. In a variation on the tuft flow visualisation technique, video files were analysed using a novel digital image processing code. The code was developed in MATLAB to calculate the fraction of the blade which was stalled by determining the position and angle of each tuft in every video frame. The algorithm was able to locate on average 85% of the visible tufts and correctly tagged those which were stalled with a bias of only −5% compared to the typical manual method. When the algorithm was applied to 7 h of tuft video at the outboard 40% of the blade, the total average fraction of stalled tufts varied from 5% at 5 m/s to 40% at 21 m/s. This trend was expected for the stall-regulated design since, as the wind speed is increased, the stall progresses from inboard to outboard regions and from trailing edge to leading edge. The 7 h time period represents at least a two order-of-magnitude increase compared with time periods analysed using previous manual methods. This work has demonstrated a digital implementation of tuft flow visualisation which lends statistical validity (through long-time-period averaging) to a common tool for researching wind turbine stall. The speed and ease with which the tuft method can be implemented, combined with the high cost per energy of small-scale wind turbines, suggest that this digital algorithm is a highly beneficial tool for future studies.