Native heart valves with limited functionality are commonly replaced by a bileaflet mechanical heart valve (BMHV). However, despite their widespread use, BMHVs still cause major complications, including hemolysis, platelet activation, and thromboembolic events. These complications are believed to be due to the non-physiologic hemodynamic stresses imposed on blood elements by the hinge flows. Three-dimensional characterization of the hinge flows is therefore crucial to ultimately design BMHVs with lower complication rates. This study aims at simulating the pulsatile 3D hinge flows of various BMHVs placed and estimating the thromboembolic potential associated with each hinge. The hinge and leaflet geometries of clinical BMHVs are reconstructed from micro-computed tomography scans. Simulations are conducted using a Cartesian sharp-interface immersed-boundary methodology combined with a second-order accurate fractional-step method. Physiologic flow boundary conditions and leaflet motion are extracted from the Fluid-Structure-Interaction simulations of the BMHV bulk flow. The accuracy of the solver is assessed by comparing the results with experimental data. The numerical results are analyzed using a particle tracking approach coupled with existing blood damage models to relate the flow structures to the risk for blood damage. Calculations reveal complex, unsteady, and highly 3D flow fields. Zones of flow stagnation and recirculation, favorable to thrombosis and regions of elevated shear stresses, which may induce platelet activation, are identified throughout the hinge and cardiac cycle. The hinge gap width and, more importantly, the shape of the hinge recess and leaflet are found to impact the flow distribution. Avoiding sharp corners or sudden shape transitions appear as key geometrical design parameters to minimize flow disturbances and thromboembolic potential. The computed flows underscore the need to perform full 3D pulsatile simulations throughout the cardiac cycle to fully capture the complexity and unsteadiness of the hinge flows. Though based only on three different designs, this study provides general guidelines to optimize the hinge design based on hemodynamic performance and thromboembolic potential. The developed framework enables rapid and cost-efficient pre-clinical evaluation of prototype BMHV designs prior to valve manufacturing. Application to a wide range of hinges with varying design parameters will eventually help in determining the optimal hinge design.

Helicopter performance is greatly influenced by its drag. Pylons, fuselage, landing gear, and especially the rotor hub of a helicopter experience large separated flow regions, even under steady level flight conditions the vehicle has been designed for, contributing to the helicopter drag. Several passive and active flow control concepts have been studied for reducing helicopter drag. While passive flow control methods reduce drag, they do so at one optimized design condition. Therefore, passive drag reduction methods may not work for helicopters that operate under widely varying flight conditions. Active flow control (AFC) methods overcome this disadvantage and consequently are widely being pursued. The present investigator has studied some of these AFC methods using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) techniques and has found synthetic (or pulsed) jets as one of the more effective drag reduction devices. Two bluff bodies, representative of helicopter components, have been studied and the mechanism behind drag reduction has been analyzed. It was found that the increase in momentum due to the jet, and a resultant reduction in the separated flow region, is the main reason for drag reduction in these configurations. In comparison with steady jets, synthetic jets were found to use less power for a greater drag reduction. The flow inside these synthetic jet devices is incompressible. It is computationally inefficient to use compressible flow solvers in incompressible regions. In such regions, using Lattice Boltzmann equations (LBE) is more suitable compared to solving the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations. The length scales close to the synthetic jet devices are very small. LBE may be used to better resolve these small length scale regions. However, using LBE throughout the whole domain would be computationally expensive since the grid spacing in the LBE solver has to be of the order of the mean free path. To address this need, a coupled Lattice Boltzmann-Navier-Stokes (LB-NS) methodology has been developed. The LBE solver has been successfully validated in a standalone manner for several benchmark cases. The solver has also been shown to be of second order accuracy. This LBE solver has been subsequently coupled with an existing Navier-Stokes (NS) solver. Validation of the coupled methodology has been done for analytical problems with known closed form solution. This LB-NS methodology is further used to simulate the flow past a cylinder where synthetic jet devices have been used to reduce drag. The LBE solver is used in the cavity of the synthetic jet nozzle while the NS solver is employed in the rest of the domain. The cylinder configuration was chosen to demonstrate drag reduction on helicopter hub shape geometries. Significant drag reduction is observed when synthetic jets are used, compared to the baseline no flow control 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.

Thesis (M.S.) -- Mississippi State University. Department of Computational Engineering. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

The research area of current PhD thesis is the analysis of time periodic Navier-Stokes equations in domains with cylindrical outlets to infinity. The objects of investigation is so called non-statonary Poiseuille solution in the straight cylinder and Navier-Stokes equations in system of cylinders. / Disertacijoje nagrinėjami Navjė-Stokso lygčių periodiniai laiko atžvilgiu uždaviniai srityse su cilindriniais išėjimais į begalybę. Pagrindiniai tyrimo objektai yra taip vadinami Puazelio sprendiniai tiesiame cilindre ir Stokso, bei Navjė-Stokso lygčių sistemos cilindrų sistemoje.

In order to handle turbulent flow problems, one equation turbulence models are implemented in to a previously developed explicit, Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes solver. Discretization of Navier-Stokes solver is based on cell-vertex finite volume formulation combined with single step Lax-Wendroff numerical method which is second order accurate in space. Turbulent viscosity is calculated by using one equation Spalart-Allmaras and Baldwin-Barth turbulence transport equations. For the discretization of Spalart-Allmaras and Baldwin-Barth equations, both finite volume scheme which is used for Navier-Stokes equation in this work and explicit finite difference discretization method are used. In order to increase the convergence rate of the solver, local time stepping technique is applied. Stabilization of non-physical oscillations resulting from the numerical scheme is maintained by adding second and fourth order artificial smoothing terms. Three test cases are considered. In order to validate the accuracy of the Navier-Stokes solver, solver is tested over a laminar flat plate. The results are compared with analytical solutions. Later, in order to check the performance of the turbulence models, turbulent flow over flat plate and turbulent transonic flow over NACA-0012 airfoil are handled. For turbulent flow over flat plate obtained results are compared with analytical and empirical solutions, whereas for transonic turbulent flow obtained results are compared with numerical and experimental solutions.

A method to solve the Navier-Stokes equations for incompressible viscous flows is proposed. This method is SIMPLE (Semi-Implicit Method for Pressure Linked Equations) algorithm to iteratively solve the two-dimensional laminar steady momentum equations and based upon finite volume method on staggered grids. Numerical tests are performed on several cases of the flow in the lid-driven cavity, as well as of the flow after a backward-facing step with SIMPLE and SIMPLER (SIMPLE Revised) methods. Finally, results are compared qualitatively and quantitatively with numerical and experimental results available in the literature for different Reynolds numbers to validate the methods.

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.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 135-144).