QC 20110926

This thesis focused on investigating flow, coherent structures, and mechanisms leading to scour around a series of three submerged groynes in a high curvature (radius of curvature (R)/channel width (B)=1.5) channel bend using a Large Eddy Simulation Numerical (LES) model. Flow was investigated during both an initial and a later stage of scour. The results showed that the groynes appeared effective in keeping the main core of high streamwise velocity away from the outer bank wall in the region where they were installed, although high potential still existed for local scour around the groynes. During the initial stage of scour, horseshoe vortices (HVs) showed the greatest propensity to induce scour immediately upstream of the groyne tips. During the later stage of scour, the HV in front of the first upstream groyne (G1) induced very high mean pressure fluctuations on the outer bank wall. Scour was also of very great concern around the tip of G1 due to severe mean bed pressure fluctuations. Downstream of the groyne field, the presence of a counter-rotating outer bank cell was capable of endangering the stability of the outer bank. The second focus of this thesis was to investigate flow in a 135° channel bend using both Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) and LES numerical models. The RANS study examined the effects of curvature ratio (R/B), and aspect ratio (B/H, where H is the inlet flow depth), on secondary circulation strength, and bed shear stresses. The study revealed that a decrease in R/B was associated with an increase in secondary circulation strength and peak bed shear stress. A change in B/H also substantially affected cross stream circulation strength. The LES study was conducted in a 135° (R/B = 1.5) bend flume with a fixed bed corresponding to near equilibrium scour conditions, and the results were compared to a similar high curvature 193° bend numerical study. Inner bank vortices and shear layers were present in both cases although their characteristics were substantially different. Distributions of boundary friction velocities, and turbulence were also quite different for each case.

Hydrodynamic behavior in reactors used for water treatment, particularly in ozone contactors with serpentine flow, is known to strongly affect the process efficiency. However, exact flow characteristics inside these reactors are not well understood, as traditional approach either considers these reactors as black box or relies on less accurate Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) simulation. In order to provide a deep understanding of the hydrodynamics and solute transport phenomena in these reactors, high resolution numerical studies using the Large Eddy Simulation (LES) method are performed. The reactor geometries investigated in this research are Constant Baffle Spacing Multi-Chamber (CBSMC) ozone contactors and a Variable Baffle Spacing ozone contactor Model (VBSM). The LES results in two multi-chamber ozone contactors (CBSMC -Normal-Width and -Half-Width) suggest that the flow through these reactors is characterized by the presence of extensive short-circuiting and large internal recirculation. The results also suggest that the flow is highly three dimensional with a pair of symmetric counter-rotating secondary vortices. LES studies based on VBSM, the baffle spacing of which varies between 0.5 times to 5 times the size of the base chamber; suggest that the width of the recirculation zone grows at about the same rate as the baffle spacing. Instantaneous turbulent eddies are prevalent in the chamber and increase turbulent mixing. The elevated levels of turbulence are found in the short-circuiting flow path. The tracer is dispersed along the short-circuiting path and strongly into the recirculation zone due to turbulent diffusion. Baffle spacing greater than the entrance gate height, but also smaller baffle spacing, worsens the disinfection efficiency. Finally, the turbulent Schmidt number of RANS simulation was investigated by employing the previously validated LES simulation. Due to the presence of very strong turbulent diffusion in the reactors, the turbulent Schmidt number is found out to be much less than the values commonly used, and is also specific to the baffle spacing.

La simulation numérique fiable des performances de turbines hydrauliques suppose : i) de pouvoir inclure dans les calculs RANS (Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes) traditionnellement mis en œuvre l'effet des incertitudes qui existent en pratique sur les conditions d'entrée de l'écoulement; ii) de pouvoir faire appel à une stratégie de type SGE (Simulation des Grandes Echelles) pour améliorer la description des effets de la turbulence lorsque des écarts subsistent entre calculs RANS et résultats d'essai de référence même après prise en compte des incertitudes. Les présents travaux mettent en oeuvre une démarche non intrusive de quantification d'incertitude (NISP pour Non-Intrusive Spectral Projection) pour deux configurations d'intérêt pratique : un distributeur de turbine Francis avec débit et angle d'entrée incertains et un aspirateur de turbine bulbe avec conditions d'entrée (profils de vitesse,en particulier en proche paroi, et grandeurs turbulentes) incertaines. L'approche NISP est utilisée non seulement pour estimer la valeur moyenne et la variance de quantités d'intérêt mais également pour disposer d'une analyse de la variance qui permet d'identifier les incertitudes les plus influentes. Les simulations RANS, vérifiées par une démarche de convergence en maillage, ne permettent pas pour la plupart des configurations analysées d'expliquer les écarts calcul / expérience grâce à la prise en compte des incertitudes d'entrée.Nous mettons donc également en ouvre des simulations SGE en faisant appel à une stratégie originale d'évaluation de la qualité des maillages utilisés dans le cadre d'une démarche de vérification des calculs SGE. Pour une majorité des configurations analysées, la combinaison d'une stratégie SGE et d'une démarche de quantification des incertitudes permet de produire des résultats numériques fiables. La prise en compte des incertitudes d'entrée permet également de proposer une démarche d'optimisation robuste du distributeur de turbine Francis étudié. / The reliable numerical simulation of hydraulic turbines performance requires : i) to includeinto the conventional RANS computations the effect of the uncertainties existing in practiceon the inflow conditions; ii) to rely on a LES (Large Eddy Simulation) strategy to improve thedescription of turbulence effects when discrepancies between RANS computations and experimentskeep arising even though uncertainties are taken into account. The present workapplies a non-intrusive Uncertainty Quantification strategy (NISP for Non-Intrusive SpectralProjection) to two configurations of practical interest : a Francis turbine distributor, with uncertaininlet flow rate and angle, and a draft-tube of a bulb-type turbine with uncertain inflowconditions (velocity distributions, in particular close to the wall boundaries, and turbulentquantities). The NISP method is not only used to compute the mean value and variance ofquantities of interest, it is also applied to perform an analysis of the variance and identify inthis way the most influential uncertainties. The RANS simulations, verified through a gridconvergence approach, are such the discrepancies between computation and experimentcannot be explained by taking into account the inflow uncertainties for most of the configurationsunder study. Therefore, LES simulations are also performed and these simulations areverified using an original methodology for assessing the quality of the computational grids(since the grid-convergence concept is not relevant for LES). For most of the flows understudy, combining a SGE strategy with a UQ approach yields reliable numerical results. Takinginto account inflow uncertainties also allows to propose a robust optimization strategy forthe Francis turbine distributor under study.

Among the different types of flows encountered in practical applications, the physics of turbulent separated flows and turbulence induced secondary motion are not fully understood despite the large amount of previous experimental and numerical work. The objectives of this work are to study theoretically and computationally the conditions at the separation and reattachment point, the numerical simulation of turbulence induced secondary motion in non-circular ducts, and to provide a comprehensive test of different RANS models of these types of flow. In a theoretical study of flow separation, a Lagrangian approach was first used to derive an Eulerian criterion, which associates separation and reattachment points to a critical point in the eigenvalues of the Cauchy-Green tensor. A turbulent separated boundary layer under the influence of an adverse pressure gradient was simulated using DNS and LES techniques. A bootstrapping method was used to obtain high fidelity results at a relatively high Reynolds number with which the performance of some of the most commonly used eddy-viscosity turbulence models was evaluated. The DNS and LES results were used to assess the consistency of the different terms in the k−e , ζ −f , k −ω and Spalart-Allmaras models. Different wall-modelling techniques were employed for the calculation of separated boundary layers. The exact values of the modelled terms were calculated using the reference DNS and LES dataset. These results were used for both a priori and a posteriori tests. It was determined that the eddy-viscosity assumption works well, and that anisotropic effects are not significant in separated boundary layer. For the secondary flow calculation in non-circular ducts, direct numerical simulations of turbulent flow in square and skewed ducts were carried out to determine the effect of the duct (rhombus) included angle on both the mean and turbulence energy budgets. Two skewed ducts, with included angles of 30 and 60 degrees, were simulated. The capability of different turbulence models to predict the secondary velocity field was investigated. Results obtained from a non-linear stress-strain constitutive relation was found to be fairly accurate for the flows at the range of Reynolds number considered in this study. / Thesis (Ph.D, Mechanical and Materials Engineering) -- Queen's University, 2010-11-26 13:52:18.361

The increased fatigue loads and decreased power output of a wind turbine placed in the wake of another turbine is a well-known problem when building new wind-power farms and a subject of intensive research. These problems are caused by the velocity gradients and high turbulence levels present in the wake of a turbine. In order to better estimate the total power output and life time of a wind-power farm, knowledge about the development and stability of wind-turbine wakes is crucial. In the present thesis, the flow field around small-scale model wind turbines has been investigated experimentally in two wind tunnels. The flow velocity was measured with both hot-wire anemometry and particle image velocimetry. To monitor the turbine performance, the rotational frequency, the power output and the total drag force on the turbine were also measured. The power and thrust coefficients for different tip-speed ratios were calculated and compared to the blade element momentum method, with a reasonable agreement. The same method was also used to design and manufacture new turbine blades, which gave an estimate of the distribution of the lift and drag forces along the blades. The influence of the inlet conditions on the turbine and the wake properties was studied by subjecting the turbine to both uniform in flow and different types of boundary layer in flows. In order to study the stability and development of the tip vortices shed from the turbine blades, a new experimental setup for phase-locked measurements was constructed. The setup made it possible to introduce perturbations of different frequencies and amplitudes, located in the rear part of the nacelle. With a newly developed method, it was possible to characterize the vortices and follow their development downstream, using only the streamwise velocity component. Measurements were also performed on porous discs placed in different configurations. The results highlighted the importance of turbine spacings. Both the measurements on the turbine and the discs were also used to compare with large eddy simulations using the actuator disc method. The simulations managed to predict the mean velocity fairly well in both cases, while larger discrepancies were seen in the turbulence intensity. / <p>QC 20140424</p>

A new hybrid approach to model high Reynolds number wall-bounded turbulent flows is developed based on coupling the two-level simulation (TLS) approach in the inner region with conventional large eddy simulation (LES) away from the wall. This new approach is significantly different from previous near-wall approaches for LES. In this hybrid TLS-LES approach, a very fine small-scale (SS) mesh is embedded inside the coarse LES mesh in the near-wall region. The SS equations capture fine-scale temporal and spatial variations in all three cartesian directions for all three velocity components near the wall. The TLS-LES equations are derived based on defining a new scale separation operator. The TLS-LES equations in the transition region are obtained by blending the TLS large-scale and LES equations. A new incompressible parallel flow solver is developed that accurately and reliably predicts turbulent flows using TLS-LES. The solver uses a primitive variable formulation based on an artificial compressibility approach and a dual time stepping method. The advective terms are discretized using fourth-order energy conservative finite differences. The SS equations are also integrated in parallel, which reduces the overall cost of the TLS-LES approach. The TLS-LES approach is validated and investigated for canonical channel flows, channel flow with adverse pressure gradient and asymmetric plane diffuser flow. The results suggest that the TLS-LES approach yields very reasonable predictions of most of the crucial flow features in spite of using relatively coarse grids.

Cette thèse se concentre sur le développement d'une méthode précise et efficace pour la simulation des grandes échelles (LES) des écoulements turbulents. Une approche de la LES basée sur la méthode variationnelle multi-échelles (VMS) est considérée. La VMS applique aux équations de la dynamique des fluides une séparation d'échelles a priori sans recours à des hypothèses sur les conditions aux limites ou sur l'uniformité du maillage. Afin d'assurer effectivement une séparation d'échelles dans l'espace des nombres d'onde associé, nous choisissons d'utiliser les ondelettes de deuxième génération (SGW), une base polynomiale qui présente des propriétés de localisation spatiale-fréquence optimales. A partir de la séparation d'échelles ainsi réalisée, l'action du modèle sous-maille est limitée à un intervalle de nombres d'onde proche de la coupure spectrale. Cette approche VMS-LES basée sur les ondelettes est désignée par WAVVMS-LES. Elle est incorporée dans un solveur d'ordre élevé pour la simulation des écoulements incompressibles sur la base d'une méthode de Galerkin discontinue (DG-FEM) stabilisée pour la pression. La méthode est évaluée par réalisation de LES sur des maillages fortement sous-résolus pour le cas test du tourbillon de Taylor-Green 3D à deux nombres de Reynolds différents. / This thesis focuses on the development of an accurate and efficient method for performing Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) of turbulent flows. An LES approach based upon the Variational Multiscale (VMS) method is considered. VMS produces an a priori scale-separation of the governing equations, in a manner which makes no assumptions on the boundary conditions and mesh uniformity. In order to ensure that scale-separation in wavenumber is achieved, we have chosen to make use of the Second Generation Wavelets (SGW), a polynomial basis which exhibits optimal space-frequency localisation properties. Once scale-separation has been achieved, the action of the subgrid model is restricted to the wavenumber band closest to the cutoff. We call this approach wavelet-based VMS-LES (WAV-VMS-LES). This approach has been incorporated within the framework of a high-order incompressible flow solver based upon pressure-stabilised discontinuous Galerkin FEM (DG-FEM). The method has been assessed by performing highly under-resolved LES upon the 3D Taylor-Green Vortex test case at two different Reynolds numbers.

La simulation numérique fiable des performances de turbines hydrauliques suppose : i) de pouvoir inclure dans les calculs RANS (Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes) traditionnellement mis en œuvre l'effet des incertitudes qui existent en pratique sur les conditions d'entrée de l'écoulement; ii) de pouvoir faire appel à une stratégie de type SGE (Simulation des Grandes Echelles) pour améliorer la description des effets de la turbulence lorsque des écarts subsistent entre calculs RANS et résultats d'essai de référence même après prise en compte des incertitudes. Les présents travaux mettent en oeuvre une démarche non intrusive de quantification d'incertitude (NISP pour Non-Intrusive Spectral Projection) pour deux configurations d'intérêt pratique : un distributeur de turbine Francis avec débit et angle d'entrée incertains et un aspirateur de turbine bulbe avec conditions d'entrée (profils de vitesse,en particulier en proche paroi, et grandeurs turbulentes) incertaines. L'approche NISP est utilisée non seulement pour estimer la valeur moyenne et la variance de quantités d'intérêt mais également pour disposer d'une analyse de la variance qui permet d'identifier les incertitudes les plus influentes. Les simulations RANS, vérifiées par une démarche de convergence en maillage, ne permettent pas pour la plupart des configurations analysées d'expliquer les écarts calcul / expérience grâce à la prise en compte des incertitudes d'entrée.Nous mettons donc également en ouvre des simulations SGE en faisant appel à une stratégie originale d'évaluation de la qualité des maillages utilisés dans le cadre d'une démarche de vérification des calculs SGE. Pour une majorité des configurations analysées, la combinaison d'une stratégie SGE et d'une démarche de quantification des incertitudes permet de produire des résultats numériques fiables. La prise en compte des incertitudes d'entrée permet également de proposer une démarche d'optimisation robuste du distributeur de turbine Francis étudié. / The reliable numerical simulation of hydraulic turbines performance requires : i) to includeinto the conventional RANS computations the effect of the uncertainties existing in practiceon the inflow conditions; ii) to rely on a LES (Large Eddy Simulation) strategy to improve thedescription of turbulence effects when discrepancies between RANS computations and experimentskeep arising even though uncertainties are taken into account. The present workapplies a non-intrusive Uncertainty Quantification strategy (NISP for Non-Intrusive SpectralProjection) to two configurations of practical interest : a Francis turbine distributor, with uncertaininlet flow rate and angle, and a draft-tube of a bulb-type turbine with uncertain inflowconditions (velocity distributions, in particular close to the wall boundaries, and turbulentquantities). The NISP method is not only used to compute the mean value and variance ofquantities of interest, it is also applied to perform an analysis of the variance and identify inthis way the most influential uncertainties. The RANS simulations, verified through a gridconvergence approach, are such the discrepancies between computation and experimentcannot be explained by taking into account the inflow uncertainties for most of the configurationsunder study. Therefore, LES simulations are also performed and these simulations areverified using an original methodology for assessing the quality of the computational grids(since the grid-convergence concept is not relevant for LES). For most of the flows understudy, combining a SGE strategy with a UQ approach yields reliable numerical results. Takinginto account inflow uncertainties also allows to propose a robust optimization strategy forthe Francis turbine distributor under study.

Dans ce travail, des méthodes de diagnostics et des techniques de développement de modèles sous-maille sont proposées pour la simulation des grandes échelles (SGE) du mélange turbulent. Plusieurs modèles sous-maille issus de ces stratégies sont ainsi présentés pour illustrer ces méthodes.Le principe de la SGE est de résoudre les grandes échelles de l'écoulement responsables des transferts principaux et de modéliser l'action des petites échelles de l'écoulement sur les échelles résolues. Au cours de ce travail, nous nous sommes appuyés sur le classement des modèles sous-maille en deux catégories. Les modèles "fonctionnels" qui s'attachent à reproduire les transferts énergétiques entre les échelles résolues et les échelles modélisées et les modèles "structurels" qui cherchent à bien reproduire le terme sous-maille. Le premier enjeu important a été d'évaluer la performance des modèles sous-maille en prenant en compte leur comportement à la fois fonctionnel (capacité à reproduire les transferts d'énergie) et structurel (capacité à reproduire le terme sous-maille exact). Des diagnosctics des modèles sous-maille ont pu être conduits avec l'utilisation de la notion d'estimateur optimal ce qui permet de connaitre le potentiel d'amélioration structurelle des modèles. Ces principes ont dans un premier temps servi au développement d'une première famille de modèles sous-maille algébrique appelée DRGM pour "Dynamic Regularized Gradient Model". Cette famille de modèles s'appuie sur le diagnostic structurel des termes issus de la régularisation des modèles de la famille du gradient. D'après les tests menés, cette nouvelle famille de modèle structurel a de meilleures performances fonctionnelles et structurelles que les modèles de la famille du gradient. L'amélioration des performances fonctionnelles consiste à supprimer la prédiction excessive de transferts inverses d'énergie (backscatter) observés dans les modèles de la famille du gradient. Cela permet ainsi de supprimer le comportement instable classiquement observé pour cette famille de modèles. La suite de ce travail propose ensuite d'utiliser l'estimateur optimal directement comme modèle sous-maille. Comme l'estimateur optimal fournit le modèle ayant la meilleure performance structurelle pour un jeu de variables donné, nous avons recherché le jeu de variable optimisant cette performance. Puisque ce jeu comporte un nombre élevé de variables, nous avons utilisé les fonctions d'approximation de type réseaux de neurones pour estimer cet estimateur optimal. Ce travail a mené au nouveau modèle substitut ANNM pour "Artificial Neural Network Model". Ces fonctions de substitution se construisent à partir de bases de données servant à émuler les termes exacts nécessaire à la détermination de l'estimateur optimal. Les tests de ce modèle ont montré qu'il avait de très bonnes perfomances pour des configurations de simulation peu éloignées de la base de données servant à son apprentissage, mais qu'il pouvait manquer d'universalité. Pour lever ce dernier verrou, nous avons proposé une utilisation hybride des modèles algébriques et des modèles de substitution à base de réseaux de neurones. La base de cette nouvelle famille de modèles ACM pour "Adaptative Coefficient Model" s'appuie sur les décompositions vectorielles et tensorielles des termes sous-maille exacts. Ces décompositions nécessitent le calcul de coefficients dynamiques qui sont modélisés par les réseaux de neurones. Ces réseaux bénéficient d'une méthode d'apprentissage permettant d'optimiser directement les performances structurelles et fonctionnelles des modèles ACM. Ces modèles hybrides allient l'universalité des modèles algébriques avec la performance élevée mais spécialisée des fonctions de substitution. Le résultat conduit à des modèles plus universels que l'ANNM. / This work develops subgrid model techniques and proposes methods of diagnosis for Large Eddy Simulation (LES) of turbulent mixing.Several models from these strategies are thus presented to illustrate these methods.The principle of LES is to solve the largest scales of the turbulent flow responsible for major transfers and to model the action of small scales of flowon the resolved scales. Formally, this operation leads to filter equations describing turbulent mixing. Subgrid terms then appear and must bemodeled to close the equations. In this work, we rely on the classification of subgrid models into two categories. "Functional" models whichreproduces the energy transfers between the resolved scales and modeled scales and "Structural" models that seek to reproduce the exact subgrid termitself. The first major challenge is to evaluate the performance of subgrid models taking into account their functional behavior (ability to reproduce theenergy transfers) and structural behaviour (ability to reproduce the term subgrid exactly). Diagnostics of subgrid models have been enabled with theuse of the optimal estimator theory which allows the potential of structural improvement of the model to be evaluated.These methods were initially involved for the development of a first family of models called algebraic subgrid $DRGM$ for "Dynamic Regularized GradientModel". This family of models is based on the structural diagnostic of terms given by the regularization of the gradient model family.According to the tests performed, this new structural model's family has better functional and structural performance than original model's family of thegradient. The improved functional performance is due to the vanishing of inverse energy transfer (backscatter) observed in models of thegradient family. This allows the removal of the unstable behavior typically observed for this family of models.In this work, we then propose the use of the optimal estimator directly as a subgrid scale model. Since the optimal estimator provides the modelwith the best structural performance for a given set of variables, we looked for the set of variables which optimize that performance. Since this set of variablesis large, we use surrogate functions of artificial neural networks type to estimate the optimal estimator. This leads to the "Artificial Neural Network Model"(ANNM). These alternative functions are built from databases in order to emulate the exact terms needed to determine the optimal estimator. The tests of this modelshow that he it has very good performance for simulation configurations not very far from its database used for learning, so these findings may fail thetest of universality.To overcome this difficulty, we propose a hybrid method using an algebraic model and a surrogate model based on artificial neural networks. Thebasis of this new model family $ACM$ for "Adaptive Coefficient Model" is based on vector and tensor decomposition of the exact subgrid terms. Thesedecompositions require the calculation of dynamic coefficients which are modeled by artificial neural networks. These networks have a learning method designedto directlyoptimize the structural and functional performances of $ACM$. These hybrids models combine the universality of algebraic model with high performance butvery specialized performance of surrogate models. The result give models which are more universal than ANNM.