<p>The intent of the work discussed in this dissertation is to apply the engineering methods of theory/modeling, numerics/computation, and experimentation to a diverse assemblage of projects. Several projects are discussed: probabilistic modeling of decompression sickness, comparative hydrodynamics of cetacean flippers, optimization of CT/MRI protocols, evaluation of modified catheters, rudder cavitation, and modeling of mass transfer in amphibian cone outer segments. </p><p>The first project discussed is the probabilistic modeling of decompression sickness (DCS). This project involved developing a system for evaluating the success of decompression models in predicting DCS probability from empirical data. Model parameters were estimated using maximum likelihood techniques, and exact integrals of risk functions and tissue kinetics transition times were derived. Agreement with previously published results was excellent including maximum likelihood values within one log-likelihood unit of previous results and improvements by re-optimization, mean predicted DCS incidents within 1.4% of observed DCS, and time of DCS occurrence prediction. Alternative optimization and homogeneous parallel processing techniques yielded faster model optimization times. The next portion of this project involved investigating the nature and utility of marginal decompression sickness (DCS) events in fitting probabilistic decompression models to experimental dive trial data. Three null models were developed and compared to a known decompression model that was optimized on dive trial data containing only marginal DCS and no-DCS events. It was found that although marginal DCS events are related to exposure to decompression, empirical dive data containing marginal and full DCS outcomes are not combinable under a single DCS model; therefore, marginal DCS should be counted as no-DCS events when optimizing probabilistic DCS models with binomial likelihood functions. The final portion of this project involved the exploration of a multinomial DCS model. Two separate models based on the exponential-exponential/linear-exponential framework were developed: a trinomial model, which is able to predict the probabilities of mild, serious and no-DCS simultaneously, and a tetranomial model, which is able to predict the probabilities of mild, serious, marginal and no-DCS simultaneously. The trinomial DCS model was found to be qualitatively better than the tetranomial model, for reasons found earlier concerning the utility of marginal DCS events in DCS modeling. </p><p>The next project discussed is comparative hydrodynamics of cetacean flippers. Cetacean flippers may be viewed as being analogous to modern engineered hydrofoils, which have hydrodynamic properties such as lift coefficient, drag coefficient and associated efficiency. The hydrodynamics of cetacean flippers have not previously been rigorously examined and thus their performance properties are unknown. By conducting water tunnel testing using scale models of cetacean flippers derived via computed tomography (CT) scans, as well as computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations, a baseline work is presented to describe the hydrodynamic properties of several cetacean flippers. It was found that flippers of similar planform shape had similar hydrodynamic performance properties. Furthermore, one group of flippers of planform shape similar to modern swept wings was found to have lift coefficients that increased with angle of attack nonlinearly, which was caused by the onset of vortex-dominated lift. Drag coefficient versus angle of attack curves were found to be less dependent on planform shape. Larger cetacean flippers were found to have degraded performance at a Re of 250,000 compared to flippers of smaller odontocetes, while performance of larger and smaller cetacean flippers was similar at a swim speed of 2 m/s. Idealization of the planforms of cetacean flippers was found to capture the relevant hydrodynamic effects of the real flippers, although unintended consequences such as the lift curve slope changing from linear to nonlinear were sometimes observed. A numerical study of an idealized model of the humpback whale flipper showed that the leading-edge tubercles delay stall compared to a baseline (no tubercle) flipper because larger portions of the flow remaining attached at higher angles of attack. </p><p>The third project discussed is optimization of CT/MRI protocols. In order to optimize contrast material administration protocols for Computed Tomography (CT) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), a custom-built physiologic flow phantom was constructed to model flow in the human body. This flow phantom was used to evaluate the effect of varying volumes, rates, and types of contrast material, use of a saline chase, and cardiac output on aortic enhancement characteristics. For CT, reducing the volume of contrast material decreased duration peak enhancement and reduced the maximum value of peak enhancement. Increasing the rate of contrast media administration increased peak enhancement and decreased duration of peak enhancement. Use of a saline chase resulted in an increase in peak enhancement. Peak aortic enhancement increased when reduced cardiac output was simulated. For MRI, when the same volume of contrast material was injected at the same rate, the type of contrast material used has a significant effect on the greatest peak signal intensity and duration peak signal intensity. A higher injection rate of saline chaser is more advantageous than a larger volume of saline chaser to increase the peak aortic signal intensity using low contrast material doses. Furthermore, for higher volumes of contrast material, the effect of increasing the volume of saline chaser makes almost no difference while increasing the rate of injection makes a significant difference. When a saline chaser with a high injection rate is used, the dose of the contrast material may be reduced by 25-50% and more than 86% of the non-reduced dose peak aortic enhancement will be attained.</p><p>The next project discussed is evaluation of modified angiocatheters. In this study, a standard peripheral end hole angiocatheter was compared to those modified with side holes or side slits by using experimental techniques to qualitatively compare the contrast material exit jets, and by using numeric techniques to provide flow visualization and quantitative comparisons. A Schlieren imaging system was used to visualize the angiocatheter exit jet fluid dynamics at two different flow rates, and a commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) package was used to calculate numeric results for various catheter orientations and vessel diameters. Experimental images showed that modifying standard peripheral intravenous angiocatheters with side holes or side slits qualitatively changed the overall flow field and caused the exiting jet to become less well-defined. Numeric calculations showed that the addition of side holes or slits resulted in a 9-30% reduction of the velocity of contrast material exiting the end hole of the angiocatheter. With the catheter tip directed obliquely to the wall, the maximum wall shear stress was always highest for the unmodified catheter and always lowest for the 4 side slit catheter. Modified angiocatheters may have the potential to reduce extravasation events in patients by reducing vessel wall shear stress. </p><p>The next project discussed involves studying the effect of leading-edge tubercles on cavitation characteristics for marine rudders. Three different rudders were constructed and tested in a water tunnel: baseline, 3-tubercle leading edge, and 5-tubercle leading edge. In the linear (non-stall) regime, tubercled rudders performed equally to the smooth rudder. Hydrodynamic stall occurred at smaller angles of attack for the tubercled rudders than for the smooth rudder. When stall did occur, it was more gradual for the tubercled rudders, whereas the smooth rudder demonstrated a more dramatic loss of lift. At lower Re, the tubercled rudders also maintained a higher value of lift post-stall than the smooth rudder. Cavitation onset for the tubercled rudders occurred at lower angles of attack and higher values of cavitation number than for the smooth rudder, but cavities on the tubercled rudders were localized in the slots as opposed to the smooth rudder where the cavity spread across the entire leading edge. </p><p>In the final project discussed, modeling of mass transfer in amphibian cone outer segments, a detailed derivation of a simplified (continuum, one-dimensional) mathematical model for the radio-labeled opsin density profile in the amphibian cone outer segment is presented. This model relies on only one free parameter, which was the mass transfer coefficient between the plasmalemma and disc region. The descriptive equations were nondimensionalized, and scale analysis showed that advective effects could be neglected as a first approximation for early times so that a simplified system could be obtained. Through numeric computation the solution behavior was found to have three distinct stages. The first stage was marked by diffusion in the plasmalemma and no mass transfer in the disc region. The second stage first involved the plasmalemma reaching a metastable state whereas the disc region density increased, then involved both the plasmalemma and disc regions increasing in density with their distributions being qualitatively the same. The final stage involved a slow relaxation to the steady-state solution.</p> / Dissertation

This work focuses on the simulation of fluids as they transition between a solid and a liquid state, and as they interact with rigid bodies in a realistic fashion. There is an underlying theme to my work that I did not recognize until I examined my body of research as a whole. The equations of motion that are generally considered appropriate only for liquids or gas can also be used to model solids. Without adding extra constraints, one can model a solid simply as a fluid with a high viscosity. Admittedly, this representation will only get you so far, but this simple representation can create some very nice animations of objects that start as solids, and then melt into liquid over time. Another way to represent solids with the fluid equations is to add extra constraints to the equations. I use this representation in the parts of this work that focus on the two-way coupling of liquids with rigid bodies. The coupling affects both how the liquid moves the rigid bodies, and how the rigid bodies in turn affect the motion of the fluid. There are three components that are needed to allow solids and fluids to interact: a rigid body solver, a fluid solver, and a mechanism for the coupling of the two solvers. The fluid solver used in this work was presented in [8]. This Melting and Flowing solver is a fast and stable system for animating materials that melt, flow, and solidify. Examples of realworld materials that exhibit these phenomena include melting candles, lava flow, the hardening of cement, icicle formation, and limestone deposition. Key to this fluid solver is the idea that we can plausibly simulate such phenomena by simply varying the viscosity inside a standard fluid solver, treating solid and nearly-solid materials as very high viscosity fluids. The computational method modifies the Marker-And-Cell algorithm [99] in order to rapidly simulate fluids with variable and arbitrarily high viscosity. The modifications allow the viscosity of the material to change in space and time according to variation in temperature, water content, or any other spatial variable. This in turn allows different locations in the same continuous material to exhibit states ranging from the absolute rigidity or slight bending of hardened wax to the splashing and sloshing of water. The coupling that ties together the rigid body and fluid solvers was presented in [7], and is known as the Rigid Fluid method. It is a technique for animating the interplay between rigid bodies and viscous incompressible fluid with free surfaces. Distributed Lagrange multipliers are used to ensure two-way coupling that generates realistic motion for both the solid objects and the fluid as they interact with one another. The rigid fluid method is so named because the simulator treats the rigid objects as if they were made of fluid. The rigidity of such an object is maintained by identifying the region of the velocity field that is inside the object and constraining those velocities to be rigid body motion. The rigid fluid method is straightforward to implement, incurs very little computational overhead, and can be added as a bridge between current fluid simulators and rigid body solvers. Many solid objects of different densities (e.g., wood or lead) can be combined in the same animation. The rigid body solver used in this work is the impulse based solver, with shock propagation introduced by Guendelman et al. in [36]. The rigid body solver allows for collisions ranging from completely elastic, where an object can bounce around forever without loss of energy, to completely inelastic where all energy is spent in the collision. Static and dynamic frictional forces are also incorporated. The details of this rigid body solver will not be discussed, but the small changes needed to couple this solver to interact with fluid will be. When simulating fluids, the fluid-air interface (free surface) is an important part of the simulation. In [8], the free surface is modelled by a set of marker particles, and after running a simulation we create detailed polygonal models of the fluid by splatting particles into a volumetric grid and then render these models using ray tracing with sub-surface scattering. In [7], I model the free surface with a particle level set technique [14]. The surface is then rendered by first extracting a triangulated surface from the level set and then ray tracing that surface with the Persistence of Vision Raytracer (http://povray.org).

Articular cartilage has a limited ability to heal due to its avascular, aneural, and alymphatic nature. Currently, there is a need for alternative therapies for diseases that affect articular cartilage such as osteoarthritis. Recently, it has been shown that tissue constructs, which resemble cartilage in structure and function, can be cultured in vitro in a cell-polymer bioreactor system. Bioreactors provide a three dimensional environment that promotes cell proliferation and matrix production. The primary objective of this study is to accurately simulate fluid mechanics using the lattice Boltzmann method for application to a cell-polymer bioreactor system. Lattice Boltzmann (LB) is a flexible computation technique that will allow for the simulation of a moving construct under various bioreactor conditions. The method predicts macroscopic hydrodynamics by considering virtual particle interactions. Derived from the Lattice Gas Automata, lattice Boltzmann allows for mass transfer, complex geometries, and particle dynamics. A primary goal is to characterize the accuracy of the LB implementation and eventually the shear stresses felt by a tissue construct in this dynamic environment. This information is important since recent studies show that chondrocytic function may depend on the mechanical stimuli produced by fluid flow. Hence, shear stress may affect the final mechanical properties of tissue constructs. In this study, numerical simulations are done first in 2D and then extended to 3D to test the LB implementation. Simulations of the rotating wall vessel (RWV) bioreactor are then undertaken. The results are benchmarked against computations done with a commercial CFD package, FLUENT, and compared with analytic solutions and experimental data.

In recent years, with advances in medical treatment, the demand of medical beauty market has increased year by year. With the continuous innovation of nanotechnology, medical technology with nanometer level is becoming the one of the most important issue of the development of medical biotechnology in recent years. In order to make the products effective, the products have to be transported into the human skin. In traditional medical treatments, the devices of contacting type or invading type were adopted, and might cause some infected problems. To avoid these situations, some medical companies have developing the non-contact type device¡Ð gene gun. This device use nitrogen as motive force to atomize the thin film of the injection products, then delivering these products to derma. This research utilizes computational fluid dynamics software to build the FEM simulation model of Venturi tube inside of a gene gun. Then, analyzing the speed and atomization of fluid which inside or outside of Venturi tube. A FEM simulated mechanism for the atomization of multiphase flow was constructed in this research successfully. The effects of variations of some geometric parameters of Venturi tube on the atomization of thin film were studied also. The obtained results can shorten cost and time in relevant development.

Understanding how swirl flows can be applied to processes in the oil and gas industry and how problems might hinder them, are the focus of this thesis. Three application areas were identified: wet gas metering, liquid loading in gas wells and erosion at pipe bends due to sand transport. For all three areas, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations were performed. Where available, experimental data were used to validate the CFD results. As a part of this project, a new test loop was conceived for the investigation of sand erosion in pipes. The results obtained from CFD simulations of two-phase (air-water) flow through a pipe with a swirl-inducing device show that generating swirl flow leads to separation of the phases and creates distinct flow patterns within the pipe. This effect can be used in each of the three application areas of interest. For the wet gas metering application, a chart was generated, which suggests the location of maximum liquid deposition downstream of the swirling device used in the ANUMET meter. This will allow taking pressure and phase fraction measurements (from which the liquid flow rate can be determined) where they are most representative of the flow pattern assumed for the ANUMET calculation algorithms. For the liquid loading application, which was taken as an upscaling of the dimensions investigated for the wet gas metering application, the main focus was on the liquid hold-up. This parameter is defined as the ratio of the flowing area occupied by liquid to the total area. Results obtained with CFD simulations showed that as the water rate increases, the liquid hold-up increases, implying a more effective liquid removal. Thus, it was concluded that the introduction of a swirler can help unload liquid from a gas well, although no investigation was carried out on the persistance of the swirl motion downstream of the device. For the third and final application, the erosion at pipe bends due to sand transport, the main focus was to check the erosion rate on the pipe wall with and without the introduction of a swirler. The erosion rate was predicted by CFD simulations. The flow that was investigated consisted of a liquid phase with solid particles suspended in it. The CFD results showed a significant reduction in erosion rate at the pipe walls when the swirler was introduced, which could translate into an extended working life for the pipe. An extensive literature review performed on this topic, complemented by the CFD simulations, showed the need for a dedicated multiphase test loop for the investigation of sand erosion in horizontal pipes and at bends. The design of a facility of this type is included in this thesis. The results obtained with this work are very encouraging and provide a broad perspective of applications of swirl flows and CFD for the oil and gas industry.

To quantify primary side aerosol retention, an Eulerian/Lagrangian approach was used to investigate aerosol transport in a compressible, turbulent, adiabatic, internal, wall-bounded flow. The ARTIST experimental project (Phase I) served as the physical model replicated for numerical simulation. Realizable k-ε and standard k-ω turbulence models were selected from the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code, FLUENT, to provide the Eulerian description of the gaseous phase. Flow field simulation results exhibited: a) onset of weak secondary flow accelerated at bend entrance towards the inner wall; b) flow separation zone development on the convex wall that persisted from the point of onset; c) centrifugal force concentrated high velocity flow in the direction of the concave wall; d) formation of vortices throughout the flow domain resulted from rotational (Dean-type) flow; e) weakened secondary flow assisted the formation of twin vortices in the outflow cross section; and f) perturbations induced by the bend influenced flow recovery several pipe diameters upstream of the bend. These observations were consistent with those of previous investigators. The Lagrangian discrete random walk model, with and without turbulent dispersion, simulated the dispersed phase behavior, incorrectly. Accurate deposition predictions in wall-bounded flow require modification of the Eddy Impaction Model (EIM). Thus, to circumvent shortcomings of the EIM, the Lagrangian time scale was changed to a wall function and the root-mean-square (RMS) fluctuating velocities were modified to account for the strong anisotropic nature of flow in the immediate vicinity of the wall (boundary layer). Subsequent computed trajectories suggest a precision that ranges from 0.1% to 0.7%, statistical sampling error. The aerodynamic mass median diameter (AMMD) at the inlet (5.5 μm) was consistent with the ARTIST experimental findings. The geometric standard deviation (GSD) varied depending on the scenario evaluated but ranged from 1.61 to 3.2. At the outlet, the computed AMMD (1.9 μm) had GSD between 1.12 and 2.76. Decontamination factors (DF), computed based on deposition from trajectory calculations, were just over 3.5 for the bend and 4.4 at the outlet. Computed DFs were consistent with expert elicitation cited in NUREG-1150 for aerosol retention in steam generators.

Squeeze Film Dampers (SFDs) are employed in high-speed Turbomachinery, particularly aircraft jet engines, to provide external damping. Despite numerous successful applications, it is widely acknowledged that the theoretical models used for SFD design are either overly simplified or incapable of taking into account all the features such as cavitation, air entrainment etc., affecting the performance of a SFD. On the other hand, experimental investigation of flow field and dynamic performance of SFDs can be expensive and time consuming. The current work simulates the flow field inside the dynamically deforming annular gap of a SFD using the commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code Fluent and compares the results to the experimental data of San Andrés and Delgado. The dynamic mesh capability of Fluent and a User Defined Function (UDF) was used to replicate the deforming gap and motion of the rotor respectively. Two dimensional simulations were first performed with different combinations of rotor whirl speed, operating pressures and with and without incorporating the cavitation model. The fluid used in the simulations was ISO VG 2 Mobil Velocite no. 3. After the successful use of the cavitation model in the 2D case, a 3D model with the same dimensions as the experimental setup was built and meshed. The simulations were run for a whirl speed of 50 Hz and an orbit amplitude of 74 μm with no through flow and an inlet pressure of 31kPa (gauge). The resulting pressures at the mid-span of the SFD land were obtained. They closely agreed with those obtained experimentally by San Andrés and Delgado.

This study proposed a novel design of the passive micromixer which employed several quadrilateral shaped blocks in the micro channel to enhance mixing. Both numerical and experimental investigations have been carry out. Commercial software CFD-ACE was used to simulate the flows. The simulation results showed great agreement with the measured results, implying that Navier¡VStokes¡¦ equations still effectively governs the micro-scope flows in this scale. It is effective to enhance mixing efficiency over wide flow rate ranges. Mixing performance was characterized by Laser-induced-fluorescence system (LIF system) to quantity the concentration distribution in the micro channel . In addition, Microscopic flow visualization was also setup to visualize the flow field in the micro mixer. Micro-particle image velocimetry (Micro-PIV) was used to measure the flow fields in microchannel filled with deionized water (DI water) . The system utilizes an epifluorescent microscope, 3.3 £gm diameter seed particles, and an high speed CCD camera to record particle-image fields. The vector fields are analyzed using a double-frame cross-correlation algorithm. The stochastic influence of Brownian motion plays a significant role in the accuracy of instantaneous velocity measurements.

Cavitating venturies are one of the simplest devices to use on a flow line to control the flow rate without using complex valve and measuring systems. It has no moving parts and complex electronic systems. This simplicity increases the reliability of the venturi and makes it a superior element for the military and critical industrial applications. Although cavitating venturis have many advantages and many areas of use, due to the complexity of the physics behind venturi flows, the characteristics of the venturies are mostly investigated experimentally. In addition, due to their military applications, resources on venturi flows are quite limited in the literature. In this thesis, venturi flows are investigated numerically and experimentally. Two dimensional, two-dimensional axisymmetric and three dimensional cavitating venturi flows are computed using a commercial flow solver FLUENT. An experimental study is then performed to assess the numerical solutions. The effect of the inlet angle, outlet angle, ratio of throat length to inlet diameter and ratio of throat diameter to inlet diameter on the discharge coefficient, and the oscillation behavior of the cavitating bubble are investigated in details.

In this study, cooling of small form factor computer is numerically investigated. The numerical model is analyzed using a commercial computational fluid dynamics software Icepak&trade / . The effects of grid selection, discretization schemes and turbulence models are discussed and presented. In addition, physical phenomena like recirculation and relaminarization are addressed briefly. For a comparison with the computational fluid dynamics results, an experiment is conducted and some temperature measurements are obtained from critical locations inside the chassis.The computational results were found to be in good agreement with the experimental ones.