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Several flow control schemes were designed and tested to determine the most suitable method for reducing the momentum deficit in a rotor wake and thus attenuate rotor-stator interaction noise. A secondary concern of the project was to reduce the amount of blowing required air for wake filling and thus limit the efficiency penalty in an aircraft engine environment. Testing was performed in a linear blow down cascade wind tunnel, which produced an inlet Mach number of 0.345. The cascade consisted of five blades with the stagger angle, pitch, and airfoil cross-section representative of 90% span of the rotor geometry for NASA's Active Noise Control Fan (ANCF) test rig. The Reynolds number for the tests was based on inlet conditions and a chord length of 4 inches. Trailing edge jets, trailing edge slots, ejector pumps, and pressure/suction side jets were among the configurations tested for wake filling. A range of mass flow percentages were applied to each configuration and a pressure loss coefficient was determined for each. Considerable reduction in wake losses took place for discrete jet blowing techniques as well as pressure side and suction side jets. In the case of the pressure and suction side jets, near full wake filling occurred at 0.75% of the total mass flow. In terms of loss coefficients and calculated momentum coefficients, the suction/pressure surface jets were the most successful. Jets located upstream of the trailing edge helped to re-energize the momentum deficits in the wake region by using a flow pattern capable of mixing the region while also adding momentum to the wake. The slotted configuration was modeled after NASA's current blowing scheme and served as a baseline for comparison for all data. Digital particle image velocimetry was performed for flow visualizations as well as velocity analysis in the wake region. / Master of Science

An experimental investigation has been carried out into the mixing of a row of jets injected into a confined cross-flow. Measurements were made on a fully annular test facility, the geometry of the rig simulating that found in the dilution zone of a gas turbine combustion chamber. A small temperature difference of 44°C between the cross-flow and dilution fluid allowed the mixing characteristics to be assessed, with hot jets being injected into a relatively cold cross-flow at a jet to cross-flow momentum flux ratio of 4.0. The investigation concentrated on differences in the mixing of individual dilution jets, as indicated by the regularity of the temperature patterns around the cross-flow annulus. Despite the uniform conditions approaching the dilution holes there were significant differences in the temperature patterns produced by the dilution jets around the annulus.

Both the need for mixing highly viscous liquids more effectively and the advance of micro-scale applications urge the development of technologies for liquid mixing at low Reynolds numbers. However, currently engineering designs which offer effective jet mixing without structural and operational complexity are still lacking. In this project, the method of enhancing liquid mixing using active pulsation in the laminar flow regime is explored experimentally. This work started by improving the inline pulsation mechanism in an existing confined jet configuration whereby the fluid from a primary planar jet and two surrounding secondary planar jets are pulsated by active fluid injection control via solenoid valves in the out-of-phase mode. The influence of Reynolds number, pulsation modes, frequency, duty cycle on mixing is then investigated using PLIF and PIV experimental techniques. A combination of different mixing mechanisms is found to be at play, including sequential segmentation, shearing and stretching, vortex entrainment and breakup. At a given net flow Reynolds number, an optimal frequency exists which scales approximately with a Strouhal number (Str=fh/Uj) about 1. This optimal frequency reflects the compromise of the vorticity strength and segmentation length. Furthermore, a lower duty cycle is found to produce a better mixing due to a resultant higher instantaneous Reynolds number in the jet flow. Overall, the improvement of the rig has resulted in an excellent mixing being achieved at a net flow Reynolds number of 166 which is at least order of magnitude lower than in the original rig. In order to achieve fast laminar mixing at even lower Reynolds numbers, the active pulsation mechanism using lateral synthetic jet pairs is designed and tested at a net flow Reynolds number ranging from 2 to 166 at which a good mixing is achieved. The influence of actuation frequency and amplitude, and different jet configuration is evaluated using PLIF and PIV experimental techniques. At the mediate to high Reynolds numbers tested in this study, the interaction and subsequent breakup of vortices play a dominant role in provoking mixing. In contrast, at the lower end of Reynolds numbers the strength of vortex rollup is weakened significantly and as a result folding and shearing of sequential segments provide the main mechanism for mixing. Therefore it is essential to use multiple lateral synthetic jet pairs to achieve good mixing in both mixing channel and synthetic jet cavity at this Reynolds number. It is found that an increase in both the actuation magnitude and frequency improves mixing, thereby the velocity ratio represents the relative strength of the pulsation velocity to the mean flow velocity is crucial for mixing enhancement. In order to identify actuation conditions for good mixing, a regression fit is conducted for the correlation between the dimensionless parameters, net flow Reynolds number Ren, stroke length L and Strouhal number Str. Over the tested range of the net flow Reynolds number from 2 to 83, the relationship of parameters is found and the velocity ratio at least above 2.0. Suggested by the comparatively small exponent, net flow Reynolds number is less influential than stroke length and Strouhal number. The success in obtaining excellent mixing using lateral synthetic jet pairs at low Reynolds numbers in the present work has opened up a promising prospect of their applications in various scenarios, including mixing of highly viscous liquids at macro-scale and micro-mixing.

Rapid mixing and spreading of supersonic jets are two important characteristics in supersonic ejectors, noise reduction in jets and fuel mixing in supersonic combustion. It helps in changing the acoustic and thermal signature in supersonic exhaust. The supersonic nozzles in most cases result in compressible mixing layers. The subsonic nozzles form incompressible mixing layers but at high Mach numbers even they form compressible mixing layers. Compressible mixing layers have been found to have much lower mixing and spreading rates than incompressible mixing layer Birch & Eggers (1972). In order to enhance the spreading and mixing of mixing layers from supersonic nozzles various active and passive methods have been deviced. Active methods include fluid injection, fluid lobes and plasma actuation. Passive methods are mostly based on modifying the nozzle geometry such that the fluid expansion is ideal or the shock cell is broken. Many nozzles with exotic shapes have been developed to obtain mixing enhancements in supersonic jets Gutmark et al. (1995). To achieve enhanced mixing an innovative nozzle named as the Elliptic Sharp Tipped Shallow (ESTS) lobed nozzle has been developed in L.H.S.R., I.I.Sc., India Rao & Jagadeesh (2014). This nozzle has a unique geometry involving elliptical lobes and sharp tips. These lobes are generated using a simple manufacturing process from the throat to the exit. This lobed and sharp tipped structure introduces stream wise vortices and azimuthal velocity components which must help in enhanced mixing and spreading. The ESTS lobed nozzle has shown mixing enhancement with 4 lobes. The spreading rate was found to be double of the reference conical nozzle. This thesis is motivated by the need to investigate the flow physics involved in the ESTS lobed nozzle. The effect of varying the number of lobes and the design Mach number of the nozzle on the mixing and spreading characteristics will be further discussed. Visualisation studies have been performed. The schlieren and planar LASER Mie scattering techniques have been used to probe the flow. Instantaneous images were taken at axial planes with the reference conical and ESTS nozzles with three, four, five and six lobes. The nozzles are for design Mach number 2.0 and 2.5. The stagnation chamber pressure was maintained to obtain over expanded, ideally expanded and under expanded flows. LASER scattering was obtained by seeding the flow with water to observe the behaviour of the primary flow. The condensation of moisture due to the cold primary flow mixing with the ambient air was exploited to scatter laser and observe the flow structures in the mixing layer. A comparison of the images of the reference conical nozzle and the ESTS lobed nozzles shows changes in the mixing layers due to the ESTS lobed nozzles. The image of the reference conical nozzle shows a distinct potential core and mixing layers all along the length of the image. For the ESTS lobed nozzles this distinction becomes unclear shortly after the nozzle exit. Thus mixing of the primary flow and ambient air is seen to be enhanced in the case of all the ESTS lobed nozzles. The flow in the case of the ESTS lobed nozzles if found to be highly non axis symmetric. The starting process of the nozzles has been visualised using time resolved schlieren. Image processing was performed on the nozzles to quantify the spread rate. The shock structure of the nozzles has been studied and found to be modified due to the lobed geometry. The level of convolution of the mixing layer due to the lobed structure has been studied using fractal analysis. The four lobed nozzle was found to have the highest spread rate and th most convoluted shear layer. Hence this nozzle was further studied using background oriented schlieren and particle image velocimetry to quantify the flow field. These experimental results have been compared with CFD simulations using the commercial software CFX5. The computations and experiments don’t match accurately but the trends match. This allows for simulations to be used as a good first approximation. The acoustic properties of a jet are dependent on the flow structure behaviour. The ESTS lobes have been found to change the flow structure. Hence the ESTS lobed nozzle was predicted to change the acoustic signature of the flow. The acoustic measurements of the flow were carried out at National Aerospace Laboratories, Bengaluru. The screech of the overexpanded flow was seen to be eliminated and the overall sound levels were found to have been reduced in all cases. Thus the lobed nozzle was found to have acoustic benefits over the reference conical nozzle. Thus the ESTS lobed nozzle has been studied and compared with the conical nozzle using several methods. The changes due to the lobed structure have been studied quantitatively. Future studies would focus on the change in thrust due to the lobed structure. Also new geometries have been proposed inspired by the current design but with possible thrust benefits or manufacturing benefits.

Turbulent mixing enhancement has received a great deal of attention in the fluid mechanics community in the last few decades. Generally speaking, mixing enhancement involves the increased dispersion of the fluid that makes up a flow. The current work focuses on mixing enhancement of an axisymmetric jet via high amplitude fluidic pulses applied at the nozzle exit with high aspect ratio actuator nozzles. The work consists of small scale clean jet experiments, small scale micro-turbine engine experiments, and full scale laboratory simulated core exhaust experiments using actuators designed to fit within the engine nacelle of a full scale aircraft. The small scale clean jet experiments show that mixing enhancement compared to the unforced case is likely due to a combination of mechanisms. The first mechanism is the growth of shear layer instabilities, similar to that which occurs with an acoustically excited jet except that, in this case, the forcing is highly nonlinear. The result of the instability is a frequency bucket with an optimal forcing frequency. The second mechanism is the generation of counter rotating vortex pairs similar to those generated by mechanical tabs. The penetration depth determines the extent to which this mechanism acts. The importance of this mechanism is therefore a function of the pulsing amplitude. The key mixing parameters were found to be the actuator to jet momentum ratio (amplitude) and the pulsing frequency, where the optimal frequency depends on the amplitude. The importance of phase, offset, duty cycle, and geometric configuration were also explored. The experiments on the jet engine and full scale simulated core nozzle demonstrated that pulse fluidic mixing enhancement was effective on realistic flows. The same parameters that were important for the cleaner small scale experiments were found to be important for the more realistic cases as well. This suggests that the same mixing mechanisms are at work. Additional work was done to optimize, in real time, mixing on the small jet engine using an evolution strategy.

Polylactide homopolymers with pendent carboxylic acid functional groups have been designed and synthesized to be studied as magnetite nanoparticle dispersion stabilizers. Magnetic nanoparticles are of interest for a variety of biomedical applications including magnetic field-directed drug delivery and magnetic cell separations. Small magnetite nanoparticles are desirable due to their established biocompatibility and superparamagnetic (lack of magnetic hysteresis) behavior. For in-vivo applications, it is important that the magnetic material be coated with biocompatible organic materials to afford dispersion characteristics or to further modify the surfaces of the complexes with biospecific moieties. The acid-functionalized silane endgroup was utilized as the dispersant anchor to adsorb onto magnetite nanoparticle surfaces and allowed the polylactide to extend into various solvents to impart dispersion stability. The homopolymers were complexed with magnetite nanoparticles by electrostatic adsorption of the carboxylates onto the iron oxide surfaces, and these complexes were dispersible in dichloromethane. The polylactide tailblocks extended into the dichloromethane and provided steric repulsion between the magnetite-polymer complexes. The resultant magnetite-polymer complexes were further incorporated into controlled-size nanospheres. The complexes were blended with poly(ethylene oxide-b-D,L-lactide) diblock copolymers to introduce hydrophilicity on the surface of the nanospheres with tailored functionality. Self-assembly of the PEO block to the surface of the nanosphere was established by utilizing an amine terminus on the PEO to react with FITC and noting fluorescence. / Ph. D.

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