abstract: This investigation focuses on the development of uncertainty modeling methods applicable to both the structural and thermal models of heated structures as part of an effort to enable the design under uncertainty of hypersonic vehicles. The maximum entropy-based nonparametric stochastic modeling approach is used within the context of coupled structural-thermal Reduced Order Models (ROMs). Not only does this strategy allow for a computationally efficient generation of samples of the structural and thermal responses but the maximum entropy approach allows to introduce both aleatoric and some epistemic uncertainty into the system. While the nonparametric approach has a long history of applications to structural models, the present investigation was the first one to consider it for the heat conduction problem. In this process, it was recognized that the nonparametric approach had to be modified to maintain the localization of the temperature near the heat source, which was successfully achieved. The introduction of uncertainty in coupled structural-thermal ROMs of heated structures was addressed next. It was first recognized that the structural stiffness coefficients (linear, quadratic, and cubic) and the parameters quantifying the effects of the temperature distribution on the structural response can be regrouped into a matrix that is symmetric and positive definite. The nonparametric approach was then applied to this matrix allowing the assessment of the effects of uncertainty on the resulting temperature distributions and structural response. The third part of this document focuses on introducing uncertainty using the Maximum Entropy Method at the level of finite element by randomizing elemental matrices, for instance, elemental stiffness, mass and conductance matrices. This approach brings some epistemic uncertainty not present in the parametric approach (e.g., by randomizing the elasticity tensor) while retaining more local character than the operation in ROM level. The last part of this document focuses on the development of “reduced ROMs” (RROMs) which are reduced order models with small bases constructed in a data-driven process from a “full” ROM with a much larger basis. The development of the RROM methodology is motivated by the desire to optimally reduce the computational cost especially in multi-physics situations where a lack of prior understanding/knowledge of the solution typically leads to the selection of ROM bases that are excessively broad to ensure the necessary accuracy in representing the response. It is additionally emphasized that the ROM reduction process can be carried out adaptively, i.e., differently over different ranges of loading conditions. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Mechanical Engineering 2019

Thermal textiles used in Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) are used to protect individuals from the hazards of thermal energy. An analytical model of the diffusion of thermal energy within the fabric was developed to simulate the transfer of thermal energy due to a hot liquid splash. Based on the model results, it was determined that that the use of an orthotropic material in which the thermal conductivities in the radial and axial directions are different can be used to decrease the amount of heat transferred through the fabric and thereby increase amount of protection in PPE. An orthotropic material particularly performs well under situations where splashes are small in size and short in time duration. The increased level of protection may be enough to prevent a second-degree burn as determined by the Stoll criterion for materials in which the radial thermal conductivity is much larger than the axial thermal conductivity. , However, situations with larger splashes over longer duration, the benefits are minimal and at best may reduce the amount of energy transferred over part of the splash site thereby minimizing potential size of burn areas. A semi empirical test method in which analytical results are matched to experimental results by iteratively changing the radial thermal conductivity was presented as a way to extract information about the extent that a fabric is orthotropic. Preliminary results as compared to numerical CFD experimentation show that with a calibrated model, the method has potential of giving good results. Further physical experimentation is recommended to further validate that this method could be of use in determining the extent that a fabric is orthotropic.

Practical gas turbine engine combustors create extremely non-uniform flowfields, which are highly stratified making it imperative that similar environments are well understood. Laser diagnostics were utilized in a variety of stratified environments, which led to temperature or chemical composition gradients, to better understand autoignition, extinction, and flame stability behavior. This work ranged from laminar and steady flames to turbulent flame studies in which time resolved measurements were used. Edge flames, formed in the presence of species stratification, were studied by first developing a simple measurement technique which is capable of estimating an important quantity for edge flames, the advective heat flux, using only velocity measurements. Both hydroxyl planar laser induced fluorescence (OH PLIF) and particle image velocimetry (PIV) were used along with numerical simulations in the development of this technique. Interacting triple flames were also created in a laboratory scale burner producing a laminar and steady flowfield with symmetric equivalence ratio gradients. Studies were conducted in order to characterize and model the propagation speed as a function of the flame base curvature and separation distance between the neighboring flames. OH PLIF, PIV and Rayleigh scattering measurements were used in order to characterize the propagation speed. A model was developed which is capable of accurately representing the propagation speed for three different fuels. Negative edge flames were first studied by developing a one-dimensional model capable of reproducing the energy equation along the stoichiometric line, which was dependent on different boundary conditions. Unsteady and laminar negative edge flames were also simulated with periodic boundary conditions in order to assess the difference between the steady and unsteady cases. The diffusive heat loss was unbalanced with the chemical heat release and advective heat flux energy gain terms which led to the flame proceeding and receding. The temporal derivative balanced the energy equation, but also aided in the understanding of negative edge flame speeds. Turbulent negative edge flame velocities were measured for extinguishing flames in a separate experiment as a function of the bulk advective heat flux through the edge and turbulence level. A burner was designed and built for this study which created statistically stationary negative edge flames. The edge velocity was dependent on both the bulk advective heat flux and turbulence levels. The negative edge flame velocities were obtained with high speed stereo-view chemiluminescence and two dimensional PIV measurements. Autoignition stabilization was studied in the presence of both temperature and species stratification, using a simple laminar flowfield. OH and CH2O PLIF measurements showed autoignition characteristics ahead of the flame base. Numerical chemical and flow simulations also revealed lower temperature chemistry characteristics ahead of the flame base leading to the conclusion of lower temperature chemistry dominating the stabilization behavior. An energy budget analysis was conducted which described the stabilization behavior.

Flame synthesis is a growing field of research aiming at forming new materials and coatings through injection of seed materials into a flame. Accurate prediction of the thermal structure of these flames requires detailed information on the radiative properties and a thorough understanding of the governing combustion processes. The objective of this work is to establish a basic optical diagnostic characterization of different methane-air diffusion flames of different complexity. The basic principles are developed and demonstrated at a rotational symmetric co-flow burner and finally applied to a burner consisting of six clustered microflames which is designed for future flame synthesis work. This work focuses on the demonstration of the optical techniques for characterizing the optical emissions from diffusion flames and of the proposed method for the determination of radiating species properties from these optical measurements. In the co-flow diffusion flame setup, the fuel of methane diluted with nitrogen is provided through an inner tube while the air is applied through an outer duct surrounding the fuel nozzle. Filtered imaging and spectrally resolved measurements of the chemiluminescence of CH* and C2* and of water emission were conducted. A procedure for using the HITRAN database to support the spectroscopic analysis of the water emission was developed. In the six clustered microflames burner setup, the burner consisted of six micro-nozzles arranged in a circle surrounding a central nozzle through which air and TaN seed particles with sizes between 0.3 and 3 μm were injected. Spectrally resolved measurements of the chemiluminescence of CH* and C2* were conducted for temperature measurements. Imaging results obtained from a spectral integration of the molecular emission were compared to results from Japanese collaborators who applied a tomographic analysis method to filtered emission measurements of CH* emission which can yield spatially resolved three dimensional mapping of the flame front. The analysis of the spatial distribution of the integrated band emission of CH* and C2* showed that the emission of both species is generated at the same locations in the flame which are the thin flame sheets shown in the tomography results of CH*. The ratio of the C2* and the CH* emission from the emission spectroscopy measurements was used to determine a local equivalence ratio through empirically derived correlations for premixed flames reported in literature. Rotational and vibrational temperature distributions of CH* and C2* radicals throughout the entire flame were determined from the spectrally resolved emission from CH* and C2*. The temperatures of TaN seed particles were characterized using VIS-NIR emission spectra while varying fuel-air flow rates. The temperature profiles of the particles at various heights above the base of the central nozzle, obtained by their VIS-NIR continuum emission, showed a well-defined constant temperature region that extended well beyond the actual flame front and changed as fuel and oxidizer flow rates were varied. The results demonstrate the ability to control the duration to which seed particles are subjected to high temperature reactions by adjusting fuel and oxidizer flow rates in the clustered microflames burner.

This study explores the reactions and related species of NOx pollutants in methane flames in order to understand their production and consumption during the combustion process. To do this, several analytical simulations were run to explore the behavior of nitrogen species in the pre-flame, post- flame, and reaction layer regions. The results were then analyzed in order to identify all "steady-state" species in the flame as well as the determine all the unnecessary reactions and species that are not required to meet a defined accuracy. The reductions were then applied and proven to be viable.

Combustion has been used for a long time as a means of energy extraction. However, in the recent years there has been further increase in air pollution, through pollutants such as nitrogen oxides, acid rain etc. To solve this problem, there is a need to reduce carbon and nitrogen oxides through lean burning, fuel dilution and usage of bi-product fuel gases. A numerical analysis has been carried out to investigate the effectiveness of several reduced mechanisms, in terms of computational time and accuracy. The cases were tested for the combustion of hydrocarbons diluted with hydrogen, syngas, and bi-product fuel in a cylindrical combustor. The simulations were carried out using the ANSYS Fluent 19.1. By solving the conservations equations, several global reduced mechanisms (2-5-10 steps) were obtained. The reduced mechanisms were used in the simulations for a 2D cylindrical tube with dimensions of 40 cm in length and 2.0 cm diameter. The mesh of the model included a proper fine quad mesh, within the first 7 cm of the tube and around the walls. By developing a proper boundary layer, several simulations were performed on hydrocarbon/air and syngas blends to visualize the flame characteristics. To validate the results “PREMIX and CHEMKIN” codes were used to calculate 1D premixed flame based on the temperature, composition of burned and unburned gas mixtures. Numerical calculations were carried for several hydrocarbons by changing the equivalence ratios (lean to rich) and adding small amounts of hydrogen into the fuel blends. The changes in temperature, radical formation, burning velocities and the reduction in NOx and CO2 emissions were observed. The results compared to experimental data to study the changes. Once the results were within acceptable range, different fuels compositions were used for the premixed combustion through adding H2/CO/CO2 by volume and changing the equivalence ratios and preheat temperatures, in the fuel blends. The results on flame temperature, shape, burning velocity and concentrations of radicals and emissions were observed. The flame speed was calculated by finding the surface area of the flame, through the mass fractions of fuel components and products conversions that were simulated through the tube. The area method was applied to determine the flame speed. It was determined that the reduced mechanisms provided results within an acceptable range. The variation of the inlet velocity had neglectable effects on the burning velocity. The highest temperatures were obtained in lean conditions (0.5-0.9) equivalence ratio and highest flame speed was obtained for Blast Furnace Gas (BFG) at elevated preheat temperature and methane-hydrogen fuels blends in the combustor. The results included; reduction in CO2 and NOx emissions, expansion of the flammable limit, under the condition of having the same laminar flow. The usage of diluted natural gases, syngas and bi-product gases provides a step in solving environmental problems and providing efficient energy.

Structural fire protection is an integral component of shipboard fire safety. There are national and international regulations that delineate requirements for the insulation placed throughout ships. The attachments that penetrate the insulation for hanging wires and pipes can disrupt the integrity of the division, and cause a failure to adhere to the regulations. This problem will be analyzed by using a simplified lumped capacitance model and ANSYS FLUENT CFD. A standard time-temperature fire curve is applied to the fire side of the enclosure. The thermal conductivity of the insulation and steel are made to be temperature dependent. The density of the air of the non-fire side is then approximated using the Boussinesq approximation for lower temperature differences and the incompressible ideal gas law for higher temperature differences. Different attachments of varying surface areas and volumes are exposed to the standard time-temperature fire curve and their heat transfer capabilities are analyzed.

The Mechanical Engineering Department at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo currently maintains a lab-scale hybrid rocket motor for which nitrous oxide is utilized as the oxidizer in the combustion system. Because of its availability, the same two-phase (gas and liquid) nitrous oxide that is used in the combustion system is also routed around the throat of the hybrid rocket’s converging-diverging nozzle as a coolant. While this coolant system has proven effective empirically in previous tests, the physics behind the flow of the two-phase mixture is largely unexplained. This thesis provides a method for predicting some of its behavior by modeling it using the classic gas dynamics scenarios of Rayleigh and Fanno flows which refer to one-dimensional, compressible, inviscid flow in a constant area duct with heat addition and friction. The two-phase model produced utilizes a separated phase with interface exchange model for predicting whether or not dryout occurs. The Shah correlation is used to predict heat transfer coefficients in the nucleate boiling regime. The homogeneous flow model is utilized to predict pressure drop. It is proposed that a Dittus-Boelter based correlation much like that of Groeneveld be developed for modeling heat transfer coefficients upon the collection of sufficient data. Data was collected from a series of tests on the hybrid rocket nozzle to validate this model. The tests were first run for the simplified case of an ideal gas (helium) coolant to verify the experimental setup and promote confidence in subsequent two-phase experimental results. The results of these tests showed good agreement with a combined Rayleigh-Fanno model with a few exceptions including: (1) reduced experimental gas pressure and temperature in the annulus entrance and exit regions compared to the model and (2) reduced experimentally measured copper temperatures uniformly through the annulus. These discrepancies are likely explained by the geometry of the flowpath and location of the copper thermocouples respectively. Next, a series of two-phase cooled experiments were run. Similar trends were seen to the helium experiment with regards to entrance and exit regions. The two-phase Rayleigh homogeneous flow model underpredicted pressure drop presumably due to the inviscid assumption. Ambiguity was observed in the fluid temperature measurements but the trend seemed to suggest that mild thermal non-equilibrium existed. In both cases, the dryout model predicted that mist flow (a post-CHF regime) occurred over most of the annulus. Several modifications should be implemented in future endeavors. These include: (1) collecting more data to produce a heat transfer coefficient correlation specific to the nitrous oxide system of interest, (2) accounting for thermal non-equilibrium, (3) accounting for entrance and exit effects, and (4) developing a two-phase Fanno model.

A Thermal Energy Storage (TES) system is meant for holding thermal energy in the form of hot or cold materials for later utilization. A TES system is an important technological system in providing energy savings as well as efficient and optimum energy use. The main types of a TES system are sensible heat and latent heat. A latent heat storage is a very efficient method for storing or releasing thermal energy due to its high energy storage density at constant temperatures, and a latent heat storage material can store 5-14 times more heat per unit volume than a sensible heat storage material can. Phase Change Materials (PCMs) are called latent heat storage materials. PCMs can save thermal energy, and use energy efficiently because PCMs can absorb thermal energy in the solid state, and the thermal energy can be released in the liquid state. Therefore, PCMs as new materials for saving energy can be applied into building applications. PCMs have been widely researched, but the current issues are lack of accurate and detailed information about thermophysical properties of PCMs to apply to buildings and inaccurate materials properties measured by existing methodology. The objective of this study is to develop a methodology and procedure to accurately determine the thermophysical properties of PCMs based on salt hydrates. TES systems of PCMs are measured and analyzed by various methods, such as DSC method and heat flow method. In addition, this study demonstrates to design a building roof with PCMs to save energy using Finite Element Analysis (FEA). The developed methodology is designed based on ASTM C1784-14, Standard Test Method for Using a Heat Flow Meter Apparatus for Measuring Thermal Storage Properties of Phase Change Materials and Products, for measuring the thermal energy storage properties of PCMs. The thermophysical properties and thermal stabilities are evaluated by using a Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), which is made with DSC Q 200 equipment from TA Instruments and DSC STA 8000 equipment from Perkin Elmer Company. The thermal conductivities are assessed by heat flow meter, which is FOX 314 equipment from TA Instruments, and the enthalpy changes of the PCMs are determined by DSC method and heat flow method. Numerical FEA to evaluate potential energy savings is conducted using ABAQUS software. Four types of Phase Change Materials (PCMs), which have phase changes at 21ºC, 23ºC, 26ºC, and 30ºC, respectively, are used for measuring the thermophysical properties. The onset/peak temperature, the enthalpy, the heat flow, and the heat capacity of the PCMs are measured to assess the thermal energy storage system under the dynamic DSC mode. The results obtained using DSC equipment have a higher melting temperature than their own temperatures, which are known theoretically. The freezing temperatures of the PCMs are decreased by about 30ºC ~ 40ºC compare to their theoretical freezing temperatures. It is speculated that supercooling happens during the solidification. The enthalpy change curves as a function of temperature, which are determined by DSC method and heat flow method, are indicated to assess thermal energy storage system of the PCMs. During the phase change, the energy is increased. This is the reason why the energy is utilized to loosen or break apart the molecular or atomic bond structures of the PCMs by the latent heat. Moreover, the enthalpy change curves determined by heat flow method show more precise results than the curves by DSC method, because various factors lead to a temperature gradient in the PCM and the heat flux signal peak being shifted toward high temperatures. Regarding the thermal conductivities results of the PCMs, the thermal conductivities of the PCMs in the solid state are higher than those of the PCMs in the liquid state. This phenomenon happens due to the effect of the microstructure changing from the orderly solid structure in the solid state to the disorderly liquid structure in the liquid state. The numerical Finite Element Analysis (FEA) is conducted to evaluate potential energy savings of a roof. The results, such as the temperature variations from the outdoor to indoor measured under step 1 (the daytime) condition, show that the outdoor temperatures are higher than the indoor temperatures. This is due to the low thermal conductivity of the PCM in the liquid state. The low thermal conductivity of the PCM reduces the heat transmission to the indoor that in turn increases the outdoor temperature. This study shows the developed methodology and procedure, the accurate material information for the newly developed PCM, and the numerical FEA to analyze the TES systems with much more precision in the area of the PCMs.

Transport Membrane Condenser (TMC) is an innovative technology based on the property of a nano-scale porous material which can extract both waste heat and water from exhaust gases. This technology tremendously improves the efficiency of boilers and gas/coal combustors by lowering waste heat and increasing water recovery. Contaminants in the flue gases, such as CO2, O2, NOx, and SO2 are inhibited from passing through the membrane by the membrane’s high selectivity. The condensed water through these tubes is highly pure and can be used as the makeup water for many industrial applications. The goal of this research is to investigate the heat transfer, condensation rate, pressure drop and overall performance of crossflow heat exchangers. In this research, a numerical model has been developed to predict condensation of water vapor over and inside of nano-porous layers. Both capillary condensation inside the nanoscale porous structure of the TMC and the surface condensation were considered in the proposed method using a semi-empirical model. The transport of the water vapor and the latent heat of condensation were applied in the numerical model using the pertinent mass, momentum, turbulence and energy equations. By using the proposed model and simulation procedure, the effect of various inlet parameters such as inlet mass flow rate, inlet temperature, and water vapor content of the inlet flow on the performance of the cross-flow TMC heat exchanger was studied to obtain the optimum performance of the heat exchangers at different working conditions. The performance of the TMC heat exchangers for inlet flue gas rate 40 to 120 kg/h, inlet water rate 60 to 140 kg/h, inlet flue gas relative humidity 20 to 90%, and tube pitch ratio 0.25 to 2.25 has been studied. The obtained results show that the water condensation flux continuously increases with the increase of the inlet flue-gas flow rate, water flow rate, and the flue-gas humidity. The total heat flux also follows the same trend due to the pronounced effect of the latent heat transfer from the condensation process. The water condensation flux and the overall heat transfer increase at the beginning for small values of the tube pitches and then decreases as the tube pitch increases furthermore. In addition to the cross-flow TMC heat exchangers, the performance of a shell and tube TMC heat exchanger for high pressure and temperature oxy-combustion applications has been investigated. The performance analysis for a 6-heat exchanger TMC unit shows that heat transfer of the 2-stage TMC unit is higher than the 2-stage with the same number of the heat exchanger in each unit.