This project is intended to demonstrate the current state of knowledge in the prediction of the tonal and broadband noise radiation from a Sevik rotor. The rotor measurements were made at the Virginia Tech Stability Wind Tunnel. Details of the rotor noise and flow measurements were presented by Wisda et al(2014) and Murray et al(2015) respectively. This study presents predictions based on an approach detailed by Glegg et al(2015) for the broadband noise generated by a rotor in an inhomogeneous flow, and compares them to measured noise radiated from the rotor at prescribed observer locations. Discrepancies between the measurements and predictions led to comprehensive study of the flow in the wind tunnel and the discovery of a vortex upstream of the rotor at low advance ratios. The study presents results of RANS simulations. The static pressure and velocity profile in the domain near the rotor's tip gap region were compared to measurements obtained from a pressure port array and a PIV visualization of the rotor in the wind tunnel. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Dois dos principais objetivos no estudo da aerodinâmica de veículos comerciais são a redução no consumo de combustível e o aumento na eficiência da refrigeração do motor. Esses objetivos podem ser alcançados através do desenvolvimento de dispositivos que modifiquem o escoamento do ar ao redor do veículo e também através da alteração da forma das superfícies externas. A inclinação das superfícies da parte traseira de um ônibus, por exemplo, tem grande influência sobre a esteira turbulenta que se forma atrás do veículo. O uso de ferramentas computacionais permite uma redução de custo e maior flexibilidade na análise aerodinâmica de autoveículos. Ainda é preciso, no entanto, que o resultado dessas ferramentas computacionais seja verificado com o maior número possível de casos para que se possa escolher e ajustar o modelo matemático de forma adequada. O objetivo do presente trabalho é a verificação dos resultados computacionais e experimentais no desenvolvimento de metodologias que visem à redução no consumo de combustível e aumento na eficiência da refrigeração do motor. Foram comparados resultados experimentais e computacionais do escoamento sobre um modelo de um ônibus comercial em escala 1:17,5. Para a realização do experimento foi utilizado um túnel de vento de seção aberta, onde foram analisadas as distribuições de pressão nas superfícies da carroceria e o arrasto aerodinâmico. Para o teste computacional, foi utilizado um software de dinâmica dos fluidos computacional em que as equações de Navier-Stokes com média de Reynolds são resolvidas pelo método dos volumes finitos usando um modelo de turbulência RNG 'capa' - 'épsilon' / Two main objectives in the study of commercial vehicle aerodynamics are the reduction in fuel consumption and the improvement in engine refrigeration efficiency. These objectives can be achieved through development of devices which vary the flow characteristics around the vehicle and also through modification of the shape of external surfaces. The slope of rear surfaces, for instance, has large influence over the wake turbulence which forms behind the vehicle. The use of computational tools yields cost reduction and greater flexibility in automotive aerodynamic analysis. There is still a need, however, for verification of results, generated by these computational tools, with the largest possible number of test cases so that the mathematical model is adequately chosen and adjusted. The objective of the present work is the verification of experimental and computational results in the development of methodologies aiming at reduction of fuel consumption and improvement in engine refrigeration efficiency. Experimental and computational aerodynamic results were compared for a commercial bus model with a 1:17.5 scale. The experiments were conducted in an open section wind tunnel where pressure distribution and aerodynamic drag were analyzed. The numerical analysis was conducted using computational fluid dynamics software which solves the Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes equations using the finite volume method with a RNG 'capa' - 'épsilon' turbulence model

Forced convective drying using a wind turbine mechanically connected to a ventilation fan was hypothesized for low cost and rapid grain drying in developing countries. The idea was tested using an expandable wind turbine blade system with variable pitch, at low wind speeds in a wind tunnel. The design was based on empirical and theoretical models embedded in a graphical user interface (GUI) created to estimate airflow-power requirements for drying ear corn. Output airflow (0.0016 - 0.0052 m3kg-1s-1) increased within the study wind speed range (2.0 - 5.5 m/s). System efficiency peak (8.6%) was observed at 3.5 m/s wind speed. Flow resistance was overcome up to 1m fill depth in 0.5 m x 0.5 m wide drying bin. Drying study at different airflow rates (no forced convection, 0.002 m3kg-1s-1 and 0.008 m3kg-1s-1) were conducted in a controlled environment at 35oC and 45% relative humidity with mean drying time; 40.3, 37.9 and 22.9 h respectively, that reduced with increasing airflow while drying the ear corn from 22% to 15% moisture content. The overall result supports the hypothesis that the wind convection system increased grain drying rates and should be further developed.

Dans l’environnement concurrentiel d’aujourd’hui, la mondialisation des marchés et les enjeux socio-écologiques du développement durable représentent des défis majeurs pour l’industrie automobile. Afin de relever ces défis, les entreprises doivent investir dans des outils de développent plus performants. Pour améliorer la performance d’un moteur thermique en termes de consommation et d’émissions une compréhension enrichie de la boucle d’air autour du moteur et de l’interaction entre ses composants est indispensable Cette thèse suit deux axes de recherche dans ce contexte. Dans un premier temps, les problèmes liés à la modélisation d’une boucle d’air globale sont traités. En particulier, sont modélisés le débit d’air entre les différents sous-systèmes, la combustion en fonction du degré vilebrequin, la pulsation du débit et de la pression et l’estimation de la force aérodynamique sur les vannes des turbocompresseurs à géométrie variable (TGV). Cette étude de modélisation détaillée à été utilisée pour mettre en place un simulateur de la boucle d’air, qui prend en compte ces interactions et qui peut prédire l’influence des sous-systèmes sur la boucle globale. En suite, l’effort de notre recherche a été consacré à la modélisation des actionneurs mécatroniques de la boucle d’air et de leur comportement non linéaire dû au frottement, aux variations de la température, etc. Un modèle dynamique non linéaire à été développé et intégré dans le simulateur. Ce modèle peut être adapté aux plusieurs types d’actionneurs commerciaux. Le simulateur complet à été implémenté sous AMESim pour les modèles du moteur et de la boucle d’air, et sous Simulink pour le contrôle. Les modèles ont été paramétrées selon les spécifications d’un moteur commercial et le simulateur à été validé expérimentalement. Finalement, des lois de commande robustes ont été étudiées pour le contrôle en position (contrôle locale) des actionneurs. Un contrôleur adaptatif à été développé pour garantir la performance des actionneurs malgré des changements dans le frottement, ainsi que dans la charge externe. La performance de toutes les méthodes étudiées, a été validée expérimentalement. / Today’s globally competitive market and its associated environmental and social issues of sustainable development are major challenges for the automobile industry. To meet them, the industry needs to invest in high performance development tools. For improving engine performance in terms of consumption and emission, the interactions between the subsystems of the engine air-path need to be understood. This thesis followed two major axes of research in this context. First, the problems related to the modeling of the global air-path system were studied, which include the airflow characteristics between the different subsystems of the air-path, high frequency combustion modeling and pulsating airflow, and estimation of the exhaust aerodynamic force on the vanes of variable geometry turbochargers (VGT). The detailed modeling study was used for developing an engine air-path simulator, which takes into account these interactions and predicts the influence of subsystems on the global air-path. The second axis of research was focused on modeling of mechatronic actuators of the air-path, taking into account their nonlinear behavior due to friction and changes in operating conditions. A generic nonlinear dynamic model was developed and included in the simulator. This model can be adapted to most commercial actuators. The complete simulator has been implemented using AMESim for engine and air-path modeling, and Simulink for control. It has been parameterized according to the specifications of a commercial diesel engine and validated against experimental data. Finally, robust local controllers were studied for actuator position control, aimed at guaranteeing the performance of the actuators under parametric uncertainty and external disturbances. An advanced controller was developed, which adapts to changes in friction characteristics of the actuator and external load changes. The performance of all controllers has been demonstrated experimentally.

Les paliers à feuilles sont des organes de guidage en rotation adaptés pour des rotors légers fonctionnant à des grandes vitesses de rotation. Leur fonctionnement ne nécessite aucun apport d’huile ni de graisse. Ces paliers sont réalisés avec une structure compliante. La présence de frottements dans la structure apporte l’amortissement nécessaire au système rotor-palier.Après une présentation de la technologie, un tour d’horizon des modèles existants et des limitations de chacun d’eux est exposé. Par la suite, un modèle non-linéaire du coussinet compliant est introduit. Dans ce modèle les feuilles sont considérées comme des solides élastiques. Les forces de frottement et les jeux entre les feuilles sont pris en compte par l’utilisation de la condition de non-interférence de Moreau-Signorini. Les efforts normaux et les forces de frottement sont calculés respectivement par la méthode des multiplicateurs de Lagrange augmentés et la méthode des pénalités. Ensuite, cette structure compliante est couplée au film fluide, traité par la résolution de l’équation de Reynolds en conditions de lubrification mixte.L’intérêt est ensuite accordé au palier dans sa globalité : structure déformable, film fluide, rotor. En régime statique, cette étude passe par l’analyse des démarrages du rotor puis de son fonctionnement à des hautes vitesses de rotation et sous de très fortes charges statiques. L’effet des erreurs d’usinage est mis en évidence. En régime dynamique, l’étude se fait par l’analyse non-linéaire d’un rotor de Jeffcott supporté par des paliers à feuilles. Les résultats montrent les limites de stabilité du système rotor-paliers et l’influence du balourd. / The foil bearings are used for guiding and supporting small rotors with high rotational speeds. Their operating functioning does not require any oil or grease. These bearings have a compliant structure. The presence of friction in the compliant structure brings damping, which is necessary for the rotor-bearing system operating at high speeds.After a presentation of the technology, an overview of the existing models and the limitations of each of them is exposed. Subsequently, a nonlinear model of the compliant structure is introduced. In this model, foils are considered as elastic solids. The friction forces and the gaps between the foils are taken into account by using the Moreau-Signorini non-interference condition. Normal forces and friction forces are calculated by using the augmented Lagrange multiplier method and the penalty method. Then, the compliant structure is coupled to the fluid film, dealt with the Reynolds equation for mixed lubrication conditions.The study is then focused on the bearing as a whole : compliant structure, fluid film, rotor. The start-up torque, the lift-off speed as well as operating conditions at high speeds and important static loads are part of the steady regime analyses. The effect of machining errors is highlighted. For the dynamic regime, the study consists of the non-linear analysis of a Jeffcott rotor supported by foil bearings. The results show the stability limits of the rotor-bearing system and the influence of unbalance.

An artificial Neural Network (ANN) system has been developed that can analyse aircraft flight data to provide a reconstruction of the aerodynamic loads experienced by the aircraft during flight, including manoeuvre, buffet and distributed loading. For this research data was taken from the International Follow-On Structural Test Project (IFOSTP) F/A-18 fatigue test conducted by the Royal Australian Air Force and Canadian Forces. This fatigue test involved the simultaneous application of both manouevre and buffet loads using airbag actuators and shakers. The applied loads were representative of the actual loads experienced by an FA/18 during flight tests. Following an evaluation of different ANN types an Ellman network with three linear layers was selected. The Elman back-propagation network was tested with various parameters and structures. The network was trained using the MATLAB 'traingdx' function with is a gradient descent with momentum and adaptive learning rate back-propagation algorithm. The ANN was able to provide a good approximation of the actual manoeuvre or buffet loads at the location where the training loads data were recorded even for input values which differ from the training input values. In further tests the ability to estimate distributed loading at locations not included in the training data was also demonstrated. The ANN was then modified to incorporate various methods for the calculation and prediction of output error and reliability Used in combination and in appropriate circumstances, the addition of these capabilities significantly increase the reliability, accuracy and therefore usefulness of the ANN system's ability to estimate aircraft loading.To demonstrate the ANN system's usefulness as a fatigue monitoring tool it was combined with a formulae for crack growth analysis. Results inficate the ANN system may be a useful fatigue monitoring tool enabling real time monitoring of aircraft critical components using existing strain gauge sensors.

<p>External stores mounted on aircraft generate loads which need to be estimated before first takeoff. These loads can be measured in a wind tunnel but since the possible store configurations are basically endless, testing them all is neither economically feasible nor time efficient. Thus, scaling based on geometrical similarity is used. This can, however, be a crude method. Stores with similar geometrical properties can still behave in different ways due to aerodynamic interference caused by adjacent surfaces.</p><p>To improve the scaling performance, this work focuses on investigating two CFD codes, ADAPDT and Edge. The CFD simulations are used to derive the difference in aerodynamic coefficients, or the Δ-effect, between a reference store and the new untested store. The Δ-effect is then applied to an existing wind tunnel measurement of the reference store, yielding an estimation of the aerodynamic properties for the new store.</p><p>The results show that ADAPDT, using a coarse geometry representation, has large difficulties predicting the new store properties, even for a very simple store configuration on the aircraft. Therefore it is not suited to use as a scaling tool in its present condition. Edge on the other hand uses a more precise geometry representation and proves to deliver good estimations of the new store load behavior. Results are well balanced and mainly conservative. Some further work is needed to verify the performance but Edge is the recommended tool for scaling.</p><p> </p>

This paper will analyze the effects of using hybrid optimization methods for optimizing objective functions that are determined by computational fluid dynamics solvers for compressible viscous flow for optimal design of airfoils. Previous studies on this topic by the authors had examined the application of deterministic optimization methods and stochastic optimization methods such as Simulated Annealing and Simultaneous Perturbation Stochastic Analysis (SPSA). The studies indicated that SPSA method has a greater or equal efficiency as compared with SA method in reaching optimal airfoil designs for the design problem in question. However, in some situations SPSA method has a tendency to demonstrate an oscillatory behavior in the vicinity of a local optima. To overcome this tendency, a hybrid method designed to take full advantage of SPSA’s high rate of reduction of the objective function at the inception of the design process to drive the design cycles towards the optimal zone at first, and then combining with other methods to perform the final stages of the convergence towards the optimal solutions is considered. SPSA method has been combined with the gradient-based Broydon-Fletcher-Goldfarb-Shanno (BFGS) method as well as Simulated Annealing method for the transonic inverse airfoil design problem that is concerned with the specification of a target airfoil surface pressure distribution and starting from an initial guess of an airfoil shape, the target airfoil shape is reached by way of minimization of a quantity that depends on the difference between the target and current airfoil surface pressure distribution. For a typical transonic flow test case, the effects of using hybrid optimization techniques such as SPSA+BFGS and SPSA+SA as opposed to using SPSA alone can be seen in Figure 1. After 800 design cycles using SPSA, the hybrid SPSA+SA method took 2521 function evaluations of SA while the SPSA+BFGS method took 271 function evaluations to reach similar values which are much better than that reached by using SPSA alone in the entire minimization process. Results indicate that both of the two hybrid methods have capability to find a global optimum more efficiently than the SPSA method. The paper will address issues related to hybridization and its impact on the optimal airfoil shape designs in various contexts. / Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA)

The continuous trend in gas turbine design towards lighter, more powerful and more reliable engines on one side and use of alternative fuels on the other side renders flutter problems as one of the paramount challenges in engine design. Flutter denotes a self-excited and self-sustained aeroelastic instability phenomenon that can lead to material fatigue and eventually damage of structure in a short period of time unless properly damped. The design for flutter safety involves the prediction of unsteady aerodynamics as well as structural dynamics that is mostly based on in-house developed numerical tools. While high confidence has been gained on the structural side unanticipated flutter occurrences during engine design, testing and operation evidence a need for enhanced validation of aerodynamic models despite the degree of sophistication attained. The continuous development of these models can only be based on the deepened understanding of underlying physical mechanisms from test data. As a matter of fact most flutter test cases treat the turbomachine flow in two-dimensional manner indicating that the problem is solved as plane representation at a certain radius rather than representing the complex annular geometry of a real engine. Such considerations do consequently not capture effects that are due to variations in the third dimension, i.e. in radial direction. In this light the present thesis has been formulated to study three-dimensional effects during flutter in the annular environment of a low-pressure turbine blade row and to describe the importance on prediction of flutter stability. The work has been conceived as compound experimental and computational work employing a new annular sector cascade test facility. The aeroelastic response phenomenon is studied in the influence coefficient domain having one blade oscillating in various three-dimensional rigid-body modes and measuring the unsteady response on several blades and at various radial positions. On the computational side a state-of-the-art industrial numerical prediction tool has been used that allowed for two-dimensional and three-dimensional linearized unsteady Euler analyses. The results suggest that considerable three-dimensional effects are present, which are harming prediction accuracy for flutter stability when employing a two-dimensional plane model. These effects are mainly apparent as radial gradient in unsteady response magnitude from tip to hub indicating that the sections closer to the hub experience higher aeroelastic response than their equivalent plane representatives. Other effects are due to turbomachinery-typical three-dimensional flow features such as hub endwall and tip leakage vortices, which considerably affect aeroelastic prediction accuracy. Both effects are of the same order of magnitude as effects of design parameters such as reduced frequency, flow velocity level and incidence. Although the overall behavior is captured fairly well when using two-dimensional simulations notable improvement has been demonstrated when modeling fully three-dimensional and including tip clearance.

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.